Dev feedback..To balance or not to balance?

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

Just curious on peoples thoughts about what needs balanced, I found the difficulty curve to be quite extreme and sorry to admit but had to choice but to save scum and let lairs become a citadel.

However now I have a fully loaded squad I find things much better (sometimes) and have to say outside the issues I have with loading some save files and occasional bugs like enemy’s taking cover in walls or dropping through floors (nothing a big blast doesn’t fix from the hell cannon) I find the core game and mechanics to be excellent.

I really like the way you can cross class skills and how different combinations of soldiers can turn a battle and hope they keep this and expand on it for deeper customisations. What I would like is to be able to assign a custom loadout as I find the constant swapping of armour and weapons unnecessary. I don’t mind a little micromanagement early game but once you have a large squad it would be better to have the ability for applying custom loadouts or even some type of research project that unlocks this.

Perhaps when doing this it looks at stores first then takes from other soldiers to save having to scroll through them all. Also when on a base mission you have no option to equip soldiers, if this is intended as you have notifications (sometimes) that a base attack is happening would it be a good trade to allow access to your stores from a crate on the base? This could just be for a single solider who can then take what they need…

Also perhaps a limit on the shots for each rage burst and drop the will required would be a nice trade off. This skill is vital late game but I think 3 hell cannon bursts or 4 sniper shots would be fine although I do like when taking down 2 or 3 using this

Overall though I think the core is really good but just wondered if there was 2 things you could change or balance for the next patch what that would be?

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As to balance, what needs fixing IMO is

BTW, though I am all for improving the game, I do think it is very special and more often than not it has turned me towards its way of thinking. I find myself loving certain things that I hated on first sight.

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All level 7 skills are OP, the problem with RB is only eventually with sniper rifles, but SR can get some nerf.

For me it’s totally wrong to argue in details on balance until dev have cleaned the auto scaling system.

EDIT: As Voland on some points I was complaining and with playing more I changed totally my opinion. It’s a little bit agressive but currently I read many topics complaining on elements that aren’t troubles for me and even more that add fun to combats. That said the forum seems full of Legendary players when I am a Normal player that switched to Easy difficulty, it can changes the perspective.

But again, for me, first the auto scaling neeed be tuned a lot, and if possible UI bugs clean and UI cleaned, then the situation will be more clear to argue more on details, and understand better the dev goals.

4

Well there is one thing that’s still bothering me. Return fire using no AP :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. Also painful when you get a New Jericho assault down to 1HP (indicator showed he would die) and get RFed.

Red fog ? Aim depends on your HP ratio, or arms/head HP ratio.
Following a log curve: effective range = weapon effective range * sqrt(Remaining_HP / Full_Health_HP)
Losing a few points of HP doesn’t do much, but when at 1HP your aim is extremely bad.

1 Like
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Glad some people feel the same I really enjoy the game and the way skills work, sure it can be exploited but half the fun is finding these things and taking advantage of them when facing massive odds. sure some need to be dialled back but I have sunk in a ton of hours so far and will probably put in a lot more.

I have to admit to building a heavy priest with a ton of will points which made my base defense much easier by drawing them into the front door then hitting them with 3 or 4 mind crushes, althought I found that quite satisfying given I had been getting my ass kicked up to that point.

I am liking my technician crossed with the synedrion infiltrator and synedrion infiltrator crossed with a technicain for decoys and and army of spiders and laser turrets .

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The PP injury system during combats is no match on many aspect with Jagged Alliance system, but JA system has fundamental flaws. In my opinion those flaws could be targeted with a systems with multiple action types, for example a pool for shoot a pool for move and a pool for both. And the fatigue system need be kept.

Anyway, PP injury system problem is feel quite RNG on player point of view, it is powerful on enemy point of view but still doesn’t target all points.

For example, in JA an enemy with 1HP left wouldn’t be able to interupt and counter.

But for me, clearly not for all players, RF is just an uncommon element of difficulty to manage, and there’s many way to manage it. Moreover I suspect many players build many glass cannon soldiers, this can only increase troubles with RF.

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And I don’t like that single soldiers can turn the tide of battle so easily. This should be toned down. The same with enemies.

1 Like
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Single soldier is crap in any single combat I do. I don’t see at all what you mean, there’s no superman that can do all the job, not in the game I play.

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yeah it is more the combination of a few I like playing off each other - the only soldier that can be superman is the heavy priest with a ton of will points. It wont win on its own but it will take out 5 or 6 no problem

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On its own he may be a “crap”, but you don’t send single soldiers to combats. In one turn he can thin enemy lines so badly, that it already turn the tide of battle. Use second such soldier and you have almost win. Now think of 6 such soldiers and that you end combat in single turn. That is nonsense in this genre.

EDIT. And compare soldier of level 1 or 2 vs soldier on level 7. It’s like they were transformed into super soldiers. Captain America merged with Iron Man (well almost). I would gladly see this game to be completely different in terms of mood and unit capabilities.

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Its the things like an assault mixed with heavy… get a map filled with 20 arthrons and a pair of assault/heavies can clear the map in one turn (though it may require specific talents), dashing about one shotting enemies while refilling eachothers will in the process. There is a video someone posted on these forums of that being done… Title of the thread was something along the lines of “just for laughs” if i recall correctly.

As for the game balance, yes it definitely needs some tweaking. Though what needs tweaked seems to vary for everyone, as well as how to do the tweaking.

To me the difficulty scaling is rather absurd, you do well in missions and get brutalized for it, even on easy. Add to that how random, and awful, some of the enemy force setups can be (looking at you Synedrion mission with 17 infiltrators on turn 1!) and you can really get into a point where you jus run into a brick wall, sometimes with no way around it. Short of using the extreme powered class combos like the assault/heavy mentioned above…

You get bugs like the return fire icon not always showing and that leads to doubts about the balance of the issue. Sometimes i wing an arthrons foot with no return fire icon, but on taking damage he flinches and i’d swear that’s what gives him the line of sight to fire back…

Right now the launched says i have 6 days of playtime in the game, though i have yet to finish a campaign. I usually manage to hit a wall right after my squad hits level 4-5 and it becomes fun… then the next mission it’s some extreme battle that i had no chance at, or if i pull off a win there the other factions suddenly start wiping eachother out. Seeing one faction lose 8 havens in 5 minutes sucks, especially when they are your recruit centers. Intervene and it helps momentarily, but suddenly the pandorans are making a comeback…

In the end i’ve found some mods to help with some of the major issues i have, such as what’s left of humanity hating itself so much they’d rather die fighting eachother than the pandorans. In my current game i just started building a sixth six man squad, have had the entire map revealed for a few hours, most of my guys are single class and level 6-7 with fairly high stats and decent gear… With mods it’s finally looking good for humanity. Though from what i read the end boss isn’t doable without abusing things like rage burst snipers. I’m hoping when i get to that point that info is false, as i don’t have a single soldier on my roster built to be that level of power, nor do i really want a single soldier rage bursting things down from across the map with a sniper rifle. I’m going to hope the game isn’t in the end about finding and abusing a few specific builds to actually complete it.

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I think the basic design is that you have skills that allow for massive damage at a single target. You might find that you can easy kill a Crab Queen but unloading that much damage is not useful against most targets. So, I want to make a point of saying that I think RB is not a exploit - it’s a tool that you can use. It’s basically useless if you’re facing lots of, for instance, highly armoured crabmen.

I also would like to say that DASH and RAPID CLEARANCE combination doesn’t work against the top-level enemies. So again, I don’t think this is an exploit. If I were to suggest anything, it would the same suggestion that made during BB5, DASH should cost more (or be limited to 6 tiles - which was my very specific suggestion).

The main problem with the game is that all of the complicated AI directed simulation difficulty amounts to a single aspect of the arms race Armour vs. Armour Piercing (AP). I would like to see the mutants mutate along different paths, instead of just beefing up the armour. A good option would be for them to accumulate HP instead of armour, which would make weapons with a higher base damage viable in the late game.

And, as I said Armour Piercing, ACID doesn’t work quickly enough to be competitive, it’s something that you can use if you haven’t found the good tech yet (which is my case in the current playthrough). And SHREDDING just doesn’t work as well as AP.

STEALTH - I’ve had crabmen run right by my Infiltrator and he still doesn’t get detected. I’m sure this is some kind of bug. Even so, there isn’t much game to if the Infiltrator never gets discovered. I’ve seen it suggested, and I like the idea, of a cap on STEALTH that would allow even low perception enemies to detect if they are very close.

I think MELEE Beserkers could be made viable by simply dropping the AP cost to 1 on the sword and pick, just as it was in BB5 for the sword. Unless, they always want me to use the giant cartoon hammer. My level 7 Beserker (heavy cross) doesn’t carry a melee weapon, he carries a handgun and minigun. If I want melee, the BASH ability works well enough in the few situations where it isn’t better to shoot at something.

You mention saved loadouts, which is something this game really needs. It would really simplify managing a huge roster, if there was such an option.

PERSONAL CLASS skills - would be nice to see these expanded to include resistances or defencive options. Offense in this game is the only defence once you hit the top level enemies because without the Tech ability that buff armour our equipment doesn’t have a high enough armour value to hold off a crabman machine gun blast.

MUTATION slots restricted to 2 is a pain. There doesn’t appear to be a narrative or gameplay reason for this restriction. I don’t believe that full mutation slots would be unbalancing.

IND faction and cheaper lower tier gear. You cannot recruit from IND havens or reverse engineer their gear and weapons. While it basically isn’t strong gear, if you have it in your inventory and it was cheaper than other gear equipment to manufacture and fill with ammo, I can’t see why it’s restricted arbitrarily. In my last playthough, I had a IND minigun early on. It had 3 clips. Once those were spent, that was the end of it. The minigun also works pretty good in a pinch. This is a bit niche compared to some of the other issues but near the start of a playthough, this equipment is viable.

And this game is full of great content but is clearly still a work in progress. Overall, very fun and very flexible.

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Yea Dorrin… i posted the video… after having a rave about things I wanted balancing… lol

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Pretty sure I agreed with almost everything you put there…

I agree rage burst is not an exploit… but I’m not sure that its right to be able to do it with a sniper with no accuracy penalty…? stick a penalty in there and I think its fine personally.

Now DASH and RAPID CLEARANCE if you pair up with the ability that gives will points to other members when you kill… pair that up with beserkers that have damage buffs from being low on hp… and it can still be abused quite heavily… though I do see your point towards the end game.

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That’s words, video please. Looks like you want nerf Assault, it’s an option, give more AP to another soldier is no way a new design perhaps it should be limited to that, to one soldier not a team.

Second point no Assault can do that without a full team coop and a team designed for that.

Do that with RB and you just killed 6 enemies at best and used 6 full clips, lame result.

That in some special context some amazing chain are possible is totally different to argue it’s repeated combats after combats, I don’t believe it one second.

Then Stealth needs a cap, that’s the only point that seems almost obvious, but let see what dev will do.

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Many points showing firstly that it’s sniper the problem, secondly that sniper need serious nerf. I was looking at genetic modification, and you can even improve precision better than with specialized armors, or at least with a mix. So even if I’m shared on that, for me use RB with a sniper is such a waste and only for some rare case, I’m anyway ok for sniper nerf.

A quote Adrenalin rush allows 4 actions but also allows 3 actions and you end with a will restore for 1AP. Is Rage Burst really superior to that, not obvious for me.

EDIT: One balance of sniping should have been Rapid Aim, because of the increase precision, alas it’s too easy to build a sniper that can totally ignore it. Curently RB and it seems AR has an aim penalty, but a sniper build can laugh at the penalty this is what is wrong.

I think both RB and AR should have a significant distance penalty, hurting abuse of SR, and not touching closer range weapons.

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The silly perk system needs scaling well back. To many superhuman powers that make no sense in a combat situation. - I hope that eventually that PP becomes a proper turn based strategy title, and not the crazy tactics game that it is currently as soon as perks start coming in.

Alongside that the number/type of enemies being faced need to tailored to match.

And then finally, I think the training system need to be sorted out. Soldiers hit level 7 far too easily, and those that go into a training centre gain XP far too easily/rapidly.

4 Likes
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an example :wink:
https://www.facebook.com/livarg/videos/10162603506275591/

1 Like
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I won’t even watch, aliens are packed, irrelevant, you won’t get me that easily.

I’ll repeat, on base of one mission ok, but it’s no way on base of all/most missions. The chains are dead when you don’t know where and when it’s spread, noeed any video to know the obvious, the request was a sarcasm. The video not of an example but of a let’s play.

OP in one mission, ok and what? Means nothing.

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Different mission type, 58 seconds.