I thought brawler increased melee damage, not ballistics.
Neither did I, actually, because I try to avoid these builds, and there is nothing in the game that requires this kind of numbers.
But damage of >150-200%? That happens all the time, without any effort. And when combined with AP refunds, extreme mobility and accuracy⌠It stops being turn based tactics, it becomes a clickfest.
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Mardukâs Fist is a hammer.
And when I tried to throw it (ala Thor) to make it a âballisticâ weapon, I couldnât find a way to make that happen. 
Do we know that the damage buffs stack? If so, then I agree this should not be happening. The highest percentage damage buff should negate any lesser buffs.
they stack additively
IMO, this is the biggest problem with the game. Everything stacks!
Damage buffs stack onto buffs from Armour stack onto Skill buffs stack onto other Skills stack onto AP buffs that enable semi-infinite re-uses, if you are inclined to play that way.
Clearly, the JG &/or the devs are ideologically opposed to Cooldowns. So all they have left is turn limits, which they apply to the most OP Skill abuses when they are brought to their attention.
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With exception of Mark for Death, this buff applied on the result after all other buffs are added.
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I donât understand the whole asymmetrical balance design!
Stack everything (buffs)
Max everything (SP)
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It doesnât help beginners because the chirons and sirens have frustrated them before.
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Most of the players who have played until mid-late game can partially do without tactics. Tactics Veterans can completely forget about tactics. The only thing they can do is to find out the most powerful âallowedâ cheats or to impose rules yourself until it becomes endless boredom.
Seriously, what type of player is the design aimed at?
Even if it sounds bad now, Iâm just trying to understand the idea behind it.
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Yes, we do.
Welcome to the club!.. or the chorus, or whatever 
⌠And if you think about it, buffs to mobility (and, in minor degree, to accuracy) are like an infallible delivery system for this stacked damage. Because doing 3x points of damage per projectile/strike might not be too much if itâs something situational, requires some tactical planning, is uncertain, unreliable, etc. But with extreme mobility delivering this kind of damage to the target (any target, actually) is trivial.
And to top it off you can do it in a way that doesnât consume any APs. So you hit something for 3x points of damage, it dies, you get back the APs to do it again!
Thatâs probably the biggest nerf that can be done.
And this is where the âchorusâ stops singing with one voice: we all realize there is a problem, but there are many different solutions. IMO thatâs OK, the development of the game is not a democratic process, itâs not up to the players to decide. As long as the devs are aware and really address the issue, itâs fine by me.
For my two cents, itâs a bunch of things
- the stacking of buffs to mobility/damage/accuracy,
- reductions to AP cost (Quick Aim, Biggest Booms, Adrenaline Rush) coupled with the AP refunds, and
- enemy deployment (the initial topic of this thread).
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Itâs so stupid I canât believe it can be by design. I donât think it is, really. I think things are generally what they appear to be, and this looks like a balance issue, not a design a choice.
Because as you very well put it, if this is by design, who on Earth is the target?
My two pennâorth? I think they were aiming at 2 mutually exclusive markets, which is why they missed the target.
On the one hand, their marketing was clearly appealing to Old School X-Commers, who thought the Firaxis XCOM was too shallow and were hankering for the âgood old daysâ of proper ballistics and base defences.
But they realised - probably from the success of XCOM - that the market had evolved. The New School donât want hard choices and permadeath. They seem to want to breeze through a game like this on Heroic, feeling like supermen and not taking a single casualty on the way. And the way you achieve that is by giving them Super-Soldiers with endless skill buffs.
But to keep the Old School happy, they invented the DDA - and then f!*%ÂŁd it up completely by not taking into account the way the New School plays. So then they were faced with a dogâs breakfast which didnât seem to please anyone - too easy for the Old School; too punishing for the New.
And thatâs the point where they panicked. The first patch was a complete knee-jerk in reaction to the howls of anguish about Return Fire and the DDA Difficulty Spike. The second was a knee-jerk in the other direction, to stop Acid being too weak etc - doubly damaged by the off-the-cuff decision to include this spiffy-looking new acid in a new set of Panda weaponry.
Now theyâve realised that they need to slow down and take stock, which is what they started doing with Derleth and are continuing to do (I hope) with the CC. Whether that will result in something that can keep both the Old and New School happy remains to be seen.
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I think they aimed at the whole audience, not some specific one while thinking that what they design will be interesting for everyone. They just didnât test it all for exploits and bugs.
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And incremental (linear in general) difficulty wonât solve this at all. If it was like youâve said: idea to make a game that will please both markets, all the
devs needed was to add Classic Mode switch that would act regardless of difficulty level and alter some aspects in a more agressive manner. Sure, it would require some things to be balanced twice, but it is still easier than balancing it once for both, mutualy exclusive, playstyles.
But writing this Iâve realised I still tend to lean into very negative attitude. Because of how I feel about the direction of the game I am not the most objective person to argue with. 
See you next month or so!
Which is what Iâve been saying for ages. At its most basic, give us 2 Difficulty Modes:
- Superman: no Skill limits on Squaddies and numbers of Sirens/Chirons per mission nerfed.
- Tactical: Squad Terminator skill re-uses limited and numbers of Sirens/Chirons not nerfed.
You donât even need to balance it twice. Just balance for Tactical - because if you opt for Superman, the fact that you can wipe the map in 1 or 2 turns with a Terminator Build makes all Panda strengths irrelevant.
Personally, Iâd tweak that basic differential so that there were a couple of shades in between - something that the mcarverâs (and me), who need the ability to alpha-strike occasionally to keep our squad alive but despise the use of Terminator Builds, can enjoy. But youâre right: giving the player the option to decide what type of game (s)he wants at Setup is clearly the way to go.
Yes, I agree.
Unlock all skills from level 2, then we have a real Superman mode, right from early game
But that would only be Superman LIGHT. Why? Max Everything soldiers and a few details.
Anyway, before investing a lot of time and thought, the devs should also show an interest in making the game tactical (1 DLC has shown the opposite).
Why would it be Superman Light? If Skill uses per turn are limited, you are immediately thrown into a more tactical style of play - as the self-limiting of all of us who do so has repeatedly demonstrated. The only problem with that style of play atmo is the Pandas arenât balanced for it - theyâre supposedly balanced to deal with Terminators (even though they canât).
So you balance the game for a style of play where Rally/RC and any other Terminator Skill is restricted in whatever way makes most sense. And you do it in such a way that playing with these restrictions doesnât overwhelm you with OP Pandas coming out of the woodwork, but where Sirens & Chirons confront you with the kind of tactical conundrums that they do atmo.
Then you scale that for other Difficulty settings - Iâm not going to bother repeating the list as Iâve given it so many times in so many other posts: but basically, the easier it gets, the fewer Sirens/Chirons turn up on the map.
Then all Superman/Easy Mode does is take off the limit on Skill uses, so that if you want to build Terminators and click them all over the map, you can do so to your heartâs content.
At one end of the scale you get a Terminator clickfest; at the other you get a tactical team game, with the Pandas balanced to make that a challenge but not impossible. In the middle, you get a balance of the two.
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Itâs very stupid to make different game modes. Can you imagine how many new bugs it bring to game and how many months it will take to clear those bugs? Itâs maybe be nice idea if we have normal, finished game with good balance for hardcore gameplay, so casual players can enjoy this game too. Right now it wonât change a lot, but bring only new troubles.
Main problem in basic game mechanics which confront with each other or just unbalanced.
For example. New recruits must âcostâ only food. On easy you have fully equipped soldier, at legend - naked for same price. No doubt on which difficulty you gain advantages. Right now, on easy you need to pay tones of all resources for soldier with equipment, on legend just few food. And for me, recruitment on legend much easier. This situation was before B&T, with B&T it changes, but now, if Iâm right, it back in game.
In Legend after researching bionics , Elite units have augmentations and you pay for them, tech and mat too
According to what I read from you here, you no longer play the game. At least you (I definitely) wait until the game becomes tactical. Have you ever run through the new âmax everythingâ skill system (+ 10SP / mission)?
For me this is another step to make the superheroes even more effective!
My first run was on Legend with âeverything is allowedâ. I got frustrated because of the superhero mechanics, so I started to comment here.
My second run was on Hero, but completely without Lvl 7 skills and Rally the Troops. Anything else is allowed. The âMax Everythingâ system and good equipment alone were enough to win everything. I wasnât even in real danger. Who knows, maybe over 50-60 missions it was just luck, but I didnât have a single soldier loss.
Edit: The DLC supports the superhero mechanics or the ârewardâ system even more. Is it all coincidence or design?
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