Acid is insane... why did you think this was a good idea?

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
41

acquired some acid weapons and tried the players side of things:

Acid is a LOT more powerful then before, eating through armor much faster but… I never end up using it as its slower then standard shredding. the downside from the players side is that you have to wait for acid to do its thing…and you can set up and overwatch after unloading a sanctifier in an armored enemies face but you can’t really get the overwatch to target the affected zone. so that strategy only really works of you bathed the enemy in acid and all its armor is going to fall off…

definitely possible, but with standard shredding weapons a single hole would be enough to then just kill it.

for the player, its also not that useful to rely on the follow up damage, even though you can add a significant amount of it (sanctifier can add a 200 point DoT very quickly)…again its delayed a turn…it starts dealing damage the turn after you stripped it. so apply>pass turn…enemy get stripped>pass turn>enemy takes DoT damage.

I have yet to try it on a big bag of unarmored HP, as acid stacks really quickly (player acid weapons add insane amounts per AP), I’m going to build jogh…the advanced acid gun…to see how that one works. it may be able to deal a lot of damage fast. (note to self…point blank a chiron and literally melt his face to see how that works)

now I don’t have the DLC, so I have no idea if its actually worth it to melt robots with it.

42

Just let use manufacture “Buffer”

43

Holy s***. I don’t think Ill bother playing with new patch after all. BS like this pizzes me off, why oh why do they do this sort of BS? It’s suppose to be a fun game for crying out loud.
I really wish I had not wasted my money on this game. They patch it and it get’s a little better, then they patch it again and it gets a lot worse.

44

Let’s say, since it does happen, that your unit(s) get 250 - 300 units of acid. Dead next turn, done deal.

45

I was able to complete my new playthrough. Basically, I stayed sane by convincing myself that the acid arthron and acid mortar chiron are cheating. I know its just bad balancing and game mechanics. But I decided that an acid arthron appearing out of nowhere and nailing several squad members, or an acid chiron painting my team with acid from across the map, was a valid excuse to restart the match without feeling like I am dirty, even though I arguably am.

But if a mechanic is so broken that it wipes out your entire team in one hit, and with minimal ability for you to predict and avoid it happening - all in a game where losing an entire squad could easily be the end of your playthrough - well I consider that extremely broken and a valid reason to restart.

And a team of 8 level 7 soldiers is not going to survive being hit with 200+ acid much longer than a team of all level 1’s. That makes it particularly cheap as a mechanic. And I basically avoid using the cybernetics since you are doubly affected by acid. The whole point of the new DLC was to add Cybernetics and The Pure. But their own change to acid mechanics makes using the new DLC a nightmare.

46

This seems to be case with updates… 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I think the poster that commented on Snapshot have broken scales is correct. Which weighs more? A pound of feathers, or a pound of acid? I would rather get lobbed by a pound of feathers than a pound of acid.

47

tested the advanced acid gun:
-it melts chiron face and deals insane HP damage. it works the exact same way as it works on a player…the first tick…no matter how hard will never hit HP if there is armor on the parts affected. once armor is gone acid damage numbers from different limbs stack.

note:
-when hit by arthron acid grenades a direct hit can occasionally double the acid damage. noticed this as a trooper was attacked by an acid grenade launcher stating it would deal 30 acid damage (a survivable number) but was instead hit for 60. (60X4 zones =240 acid damage) requiring copious amounts of healing ( as the initial 240 ate away his armor, the next hit was 200…the trooper had 217 HP, so was kept alive by double medkitting and running for the evac)

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48

Were the hits on normal body parts?
I only had this double acid damage on augmented body parts and because these are prone to acid, supposed that would be normal.

BTW:
Thank you for these tests and sharing the results.

49

no it was on a normal full-human trooper…I don’t have the DLC so I don’t have acces to robotic limbs.

I like fiddling with these mechanics, and try to use them. and acid has proven to be somewhat useful if you don’t have to alpha strike it down…it also combines relatively well with battlefield control like daze (kymion grenades where fixed…at least for me they actually did what they where supposed to do) and panic.

The acid pistol (sanctifier) is actually not a bad investment, especially against scylla that tend to have boatloads of armor but dawdle a lot (shoot mist, scream…charge a gun) it only costs 1 AP to fire and applies 50 acid (in 10 point “pellets” acts much like a shotgun) this is often enough to completely strip a section in 1 turn, worm chirons… chosen. same deal. the advantage here is that you can move in, apply the acid and get out…unlike cannons that are much more AP intensive to use…and often leave you standing in front of the enemy. (meaning its either dead or crowd controlled) or acid grenades that have a relatively weak strip of 20 (this is trash tier strip…and acid is too slow to apply to tritons and arthrons effectively, standard explosives are generally better)

the acid cannon on the other hand…well is better to compare with a massive poison injection. 500 acid is overkill for armor…but its devastating on enemy HP. apply it…then panic or daze the chiron and its dead (apply>pass turn 500 damage on start of turn, panic/daze/warcry to prevent enemy attack> next turn >490 on turn 2 before it can act…most chirons I face have less then 1000 HP…)

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50

So here’s some major problems with acid:
Grenades, if they hit somebody directly, deal double damage. I’ve let myself be hit by multiple grenades and used them myself just to double check. So an Arthron with a 30 acid damage grenade arm will hit a soldier for 60 across most if not all body parts when hitting a soldier directly. Then, due to however they have their evolution mechanic setup going it is not only possible but very likely to encounter acid grenade arms at beginning of game in first encounter, even at low difficulties. Grenade arms are 2 AP, and at level 1 variant will do 20 damage.
This means that in your very first battle against pandorans you can have an arthron randomly decide to show up from around a corner, hit at least half your team coating 1 guy who was hit directly in 40 acid per body part, making him take 180 damage on the second turn after. If it’s a scavenge mission and there’s a mindfragger hiding in the corner somewhere then that guy is dead.
Acid lobbing chirons hit for at least 60…let that soak in. Turn 1 = 0. Turn 2 = 300. Thats on all personnel hit. Anyone hit directly takes double. DLC Augments double that again.
As for any counters? I have found 1…if you play absolutely no missions with pandorans as enemies until you grab a technician and level it up…you can spam electric armor across your team…but it feels to me like thats a terrible counter for something you can find in your first fight.

Hopefully a patch comes out soon that fixes this. Having it do damage to armor like it does I feel fine with, but the cumulative damage across all body parts makes acid just broken against humans, but still surviveable against pandorans. I understand that they wanted DoTs to feel more impactful, but changing it so that it’s only the max damage on any given body part wouldn’t affect how anyone uses it against enemies that much since the heavily armored enemies, like a Scylla, you would only ever be hitting in one spot anyways.

3 Likes
51

So it’s been a few hours and I’ve been thinking about this problem the whole time. Then I thought of a possible solution and realized that I could throw it out there and the devs might never see it or care, but if I don’t throw it out there they definitely won’t see it or care…so let me take you on a quick little journey through my thought process just to clear up any questions about why I think my solution might actually be reasonable.

Why was acid buffed to such incredible lengths that it makes the game almost unplayable at times? DoT was too weak? To an extent, yes, that is ONE answer…but it’s because the devs put in the time to make acid a thing and they want it to actually BE a thing and not just something that’s there. But why was acid buffed so hard over everything else? Fire is kind of weak, only useable in niche plays. Poison is ok, but takes a little bit to make work, isn’t particularly better than most other options, and is therefore used in niche situations and plays. Virus…well…is unique I suppose since it affects willpower and has synergy with priests and anti-siren maneuvers…and it’s so easy to pick up. Acid, however, has had no real place. Sure it’s the only one that really destroys armor…but so does a regular grenade, or assault rifle, or…well…the list goes on. So now we have our problem…acid was neither scary nor particularly useful which made it underpowered.

Still with me?

The real problem to solve is therefore: How to make acid fit in at least niche situations when used by players, be a scary thing when used against players, be different from other types of DoT, but still have at least some semblance of balance.

My Solution and reasoning: acid stripping your armor practically immediately is annoying, but armor itself plays less and less of a role as time goes on anyways so it’s not a huge deal…for the humans. Acid against pandorans is now ok in usefulness, but still isn’t used to actually deal killing blows, just to remove armor and get some nice damage in. So what if acid just didn’t do damage anymore?

Follow me on this before you go crazy in outrage…

Every body part on everyone and everything has certain stats and abilities connected to it. Ignoring the abilities part, the stats are willpower and…HEALTH. Instead of just dumping all that damage onto someone’s health pool let’s look at it as if it were just pumped into body parts. Turn 1 is armor loss, turn 2 suddenly everything hurts and a few body parts are disabled, turn 3 you now have bleed as well as acid and while your body is melting into a bloody mess you have less max health, willpower, move speed, etc and the bleed will now chip away at what little health you have left. Seems pretty scary to me…especially if we buff all the initial acid damage by 5-10 and make it only reduce by 5 each turn. Now it’s a completely different DoT from the others, scary as all get out to get hit by, but can still be countered with medkits and healing.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Pandorans also have various stats and abilities linked to their body parts, and if you start tallying up all the health each limb loss subtracts from their max health pool you will notice that often it can equal more health than they have. Easy early example is hatching sentinels: which has both body parts equal their total health. What if there were acid using my solution on one of those parts? The part dies, and it lose a max health equal to it’s total health…and therefore dies. What about something like a scylla? Get current solution or past solution on 1 or 2 parts and in a turn or 2 shoot it til it dies. My solution: no difference…except that the body parts themselves would be melting faster, meaning it would have less max health to burn through sooner, meaning it takes less shots to kill, meaning…yes…in niche situations acid is useful…

Long winded, I know…but I wanted to make sure I was fully understood how my idea could still work, still be scary to be against, still be useful (at least in the right situations), but now be at the point (like it is now) where it makes so many people just not want to even play.

1 Like
52

Excuse me if I’m being dumb, but isn’t that what everyone’s complaining about?

  1. Acid used to be useless, because in an alpha-strike game, where if you don’t kill IT in 1 turn, IT will kill you, having a weapon that deals damage slowly over several turns was not worth the APs.

  2. So they buffed Acid. Now it deals damage to every body part it hits, and once it’s eaten through the armour, that damage is applied through every body part that’s affected - so if you are splashed over 4 locations, you are taking (Remaining Acid Damage x 4).

That’s precisely what this whole thread is screaming about, and I don’t see how what you’re saying solves that.

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53

What if we tone down Acid strength potential back to where it was, but give it Shred ability against covered body part with the value of remaining Acid strength? So Acid on its own wouldn’t be that useful and deadly, still minor DoT that eats some armor and sometimes some health, but shooting acid covered body part would strip it from armor super-fast. Would be more of a utility than damage per turn.

54

Not sure that would solve the main issue people had with acid in the first place, but then I’m not sure anything will.

Making Acid a quick and effective way of stripping Armour from a Nasty, without making it an insanely incurable damage dump, does feel like you’re taking it in the right direction though.

55

I don’t think that should be solved at all. In my opinion alpha-strike is the issue, not acid grenade not fitting alpha-strike.

56

Absolutely agree :+1:

57

This is a bug, it has been mentioned since release and the devs are aware of it, but for some reason it doesn’t get fixed. There is a even a ticket on Canny started by Snapshot Grenades Double Exploding on Direct Hit | Voters | Phoenix Point

58

for me solution would be eliminating that bug and lowering damage on some acid weapons. Those values work fine on armor, but when it comes to health then it is quite insane.

1 Like
59

I understand correctly that acid in contact with the body reduces max. XP body parts?
I imagine this as -20% (% is considered from the strongest attack) max. XP of each body part and -40% max. general XP, naturally after destroying armor. When decreasing max. HP current HP value is adjusted according to the new limit.

60

I wonder if Snapshot will only do what I has written in last post or they will nerf everything at some point.

Because if enemies would be slower and using more cover then using acid would have potential, even if previous mechanic would be in place (max 10 damage per turn per each affected body part). That would require changing few stats (easy) and enemy AI (harder).

When you could apply long lasting acid on enemy which is hiding behind walls, tries to avoid you and plays some support role for enemies, or simply vanishes as Tritons, then you wouldn’t be able to directly fire on them, and in such situaltion damage over time mechanic from acid could have more potential than burst from assault rifle or shotgun carnage.

Of course additional condition for above state would be slowing down soldiers to not let them run on the whole map like some supersonic maniacs. Otherwise “dash, shotgun to the face and sprint back” would still be valid tactic and acid would not be used.