As the title really, like a lot of new players I started playing PP like the old XCom titles, this had the effect of me getting absolutely pounded into the floor.
So I realised I’d have to play differently - once I started to get the hang of using zoom to shoot out arms and using my weapons tactically it was a whole different ball game. It took a while, but I did start to learn PP’s gameplay - rather than use the old tried and tested methods of the old games, I found it quite rewarding to seeing it pay off.
My concern is that Snapshot will take a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to the screams of difficulty and destroy what makes this game unique, thus turning this into another xcom copy.
Don’t get me wrong though - there are a lot of bugs and some balancing issues - but unlike a lot of others I don’t think the whole game needs a rewrite.
I’m not that worried about them making the game easier. They’ve been making the game harder since BB3. The game was laughably easy in BB3. Technicians had “Rally the Troops” which recovered 5-6 WP. Assaults had “Exertion” - the predecessor to “Dash” - which recovered 2 AP, for 2-3 WP. the WP numbers escape me. Either way, First Turn win to most maps
I want to love this game and I do in many parts.
But god damn this feels so much like a beta.
So many bugs and the balancing is non existant.
The game is hard if you are a newbie and super easy if you know the basics. Too easy if you cheese it. And with cheese it I am not even talking exploits, but just using normal game mechanics.
I think they should work on the difficulty levels, easy should be ‘easy’ and so on. I’m more concerned about them changing how the game works to simplify the overall difficulty.
I personally like the way it’s designed to be different.
Yeah, and that’s what worries me. I love Firaxis Xcom 2 WotC. It is without a doubt (for me) one of the best in it genre, but PP wants to be its own game - not another clone.
Is no one else disturbed that it’s far more effective to take out an enemy’s arm, than it is to take out their HEAD?
Clearly, these are not well-balanced individuals capable of making abilities for a game. No wonder the abilities feel like horrible FiraXCOM rip offs, they were very obviously bad from inception.
Was there some kind of turn around, where they suddenly decided to make this a FiraXCOM knock off, from BB3, or something?
Well, not all existing creatures have brains in their heads (or not only in their heads). That would be lovely if they explained in such a way, that as basic aliens are humanoid, more complex ones evolved to protect the most fragile elements of their body, like brain, eyes, etc.
But they didn’t and currently shooting off Chiron’s head is insanely easy, but doesn’t bring expected results - that Chiron will be killed or at least stripped of logical reactions (like chicken with chopped off head).
The way i justify it for myself: Head “disabled” does not necessarily equal “blown off”. The “hitpoints” of the head only represent the threshold at which it becomes disabled(as opposed to destroyed) - representing blindness, concussion, things like that. Actual destruction only happens later (when the target runs out of general hitpoint pool and thus dying, as it should without a head).
I was going to post in this thread, but I figured that it’s worth discussing in its own right, and I didn’t want it to get lost in amongst other discussion that could relate to this topic.
The thing is though, if you shoot something in the head with pretty much any gun, let alone something like a shotgun or an assault rifle, you’re going to do some pretty nasty damage that goes way beyond the point of a concussion.
I hear what you are saying, Kodos88. Even though it can be really hard at times its so rewarding when you change up your tactics and end up dominating. I went into this thinking “Xcom 3” and was severely punished, switched up my mojo and am having a blast.
Just as you said, I hope they dont take away what makes this unique.
It would be cool if they played with the difficulty settings a bit, im 99% sure the pandorans always and forever hitting my guys is tied to their stealth rating but my game might be bugged, I would enjoy seeing the enemys miss once in a while. Im only on the second difficulty and it feels like the first time I played Dark Souls hahah
I also wouldnt mind it that when you hit “Restart” it also switched up the map. If im about to fail a mission its a guaranteed win when I hit Restart because I know where the enemys are coming from.
Other than those minor issues and bugfixes I really hope they leave it as is. Hell, I sorta hope they only put in bug fixes. Ive learned to deal with the 100% enemy accuracy and its not always bad having advanced knowledge of enemy positions
And this is where gameplay separates from reality. They made a design decision to have different body parts equal different effects so they could mutate the body parts to hopefully require us to change tactics. As soon as that happened they needed to make sure that there wasn’t an instant kill head shot otherwise it doesn’t make sense to shoot at other body parts. So say goodbye to reality and hello video game development where reality takes a back seat to gameplay.
I like the mutation mechanic and so I can accept not having a head shot being a kill shot even if it means the game isn’t realistic.
If separating itself from reality were an aim, then PP has certainly succeeded in that respect.
Shooting something in the weapon arm might as well be a kill shot, because it allows you to stop that thing from being able to do any damage to you. It’s the same effect, but with an added sense of ridiculousness whilst doing so.
I feel like the “Realistic Ballistic Model” thing is pretty innovative and unique. I don’t think the game needs a rebalance so much as players just need time to learn the game. Sure, some things are over-tuned at the moment, but I agree with OP. This game is rad and unique.
But it isn’t. Many of the enemies have attacks that are on other body parts. So it requires tactics to determine whether it is best to focus on killing the enemy (removing all attacks) or removing the biggest threats on multiple enemies.
If they could find their brains, this’d be a very different game.
I could accept the weirdo mutants not dying from headshots. In fact, I assumed that’s exactly what it was, at first. That seemed cool at the time. When I realized that humans also can have their heads and torso disabled, but still be alive… it was clear the body part targeting was pointless, used to barely disguise the bullet sponge aspect that ruins tactics.
I figure there’s no point in trying to justify it. That explanation would make sense, if any shot to the head could cause disability. Instead, you take out about a 3rd of the pandoran HP bar shooting them in the head, and they’re just fine and dandy.
