I don´t know if this is the right place for this comment. I agree with a lot of mentioned details/ideas, but to me the most important thing is to REMOVE DASH (or at least concequtive uses of dash) in its current state and also make a strong adjustment of WP-harvesting. Turn the game into at Tactical Squard Based game instead of this abstract puzzle of Magic the Gathering with units “teleporting” around the battlefield. And then balance the enemy around these more “realistic”-player options.
Get those basics down. Then I will try to play the game again.
In the current state I am not recomending the game to anybody. Just too crazy all over.
Really hope Snapshot/you guys can turn this back around!
7 Likes
Frankly, after all the threads during development where players unanimously said that they didn’t want super soldiers and magic skills, and that Firaxcom suffered from useless rookie, godly colonedl syndrome, some of these threads including a reply from JG, I’m baffled that they managed to come up with 
- A game where lvl.7 troopers are even more mandatory than Firaxcom
- Abilities that make FiraXcom soldiers look like untrained possums
- A dual classing that encourage 2 or 3 cookie cutter builds that are outright OP and pretty much required to clear the game.
The problem with OP troopers and OP enemies is that it completely overshadows the balanced content and you play using 20% of the toys given to you to defeat 20% of the challenging enemies and roflstomping the rest.
Speaking of toys, for a tactical game, your soldiers really lack fun stuff (ie. support items such as flashbangs, smoke grenades)
3 Likes
And as I said in the second part of my ‘Rebalance Training Centres’ post, I refer you to the earlier sections of my priority list. FIRST you have to fix the DDA so that casualties aren’t so punishing, THEN you fix the training centres so that going on a mission actually has some value.
But saying that we should’t fix some ludicrously unbalanced and unrealistic system because it currently papers over an even more unbalanced system in the game doesn’t do anyone any good.
2 Likes
This is not my point at all, and whenever I consider this or any other game mechanic I never take into account the difficulty.
I say tolerating casualties would be much harder because of the grind involved, which I very much dislike: I already have to go through the grind with at least one squad, why do I have to do it with every other, or every soldier that’s KIA and I have to replace?
It’s only grind in the first place because of the disparity in ability between level 1 and level 7 soldiers. If/when that aspect of balance is fixed, then you’d be able to take out level 1 soldiers and have them perform to a functional standard without a need for training.
But I like the skills and that they are important, so I also like the disparity in ability between level 1 and 7.
What I don’t like is endlessly repeating the process of turning a rookie into elite. It’s interesting to do it a few times during the course of a single game, but not 30-40 times.
And part of my point is if they fix the damn DDA (or whatever is causing the ‘Spike’), you won’t be tolerating quite as many casualties. People are currently using Training Centres and Superpowers as a crutch for a wildly unbalanced difficulty curve that suddenly dumps a whole heap of pain on their heads and never seems to let up in their experience (not mine).
But I’m not saying ‘get rid of training centres.’ I’m saying ‘make having 1 or 2 training centres less attractive than taking your troops on a mission.’
At the moment, I have 1 TC in my main base and 2 in what I think of as my Boot Camp. Even at that modest level, it is still more cost-effective for me to leave Squaddies in Boot Camp and not take them out on any missions whatsoever until I have got them to Lvl 5 (though it might as well be Lvl 7), than it is to risk them in the field for virtually little gain. That’s just stupid!
If the devs halved the amount of XP TCs gave you, my way of doing things would make taking them out into the field worthwhile, as it would double the amount of time it takes to get them to Lvl 5. You don’t want to do that grind - fine: invest in 4 TCs in your Boot Camp. You want them to train faster, make the srategic choice to dismantle everything else in, say, Camp Foxtrot and turn it into a dedikcated Training Camp with 6 or 8 TCs. I’m not taking that ability away from you, I’m just turning it into a calculated strategic choice that you have to make, instead of the boring no-brainer of completely avoiding, say Scavenging Missions cos they’re dangerous and don’t get you anything at the moment (neither Resources nor more XP than staying at home), and wattching your B&C Team advance faster than your A Team which is taking all the risks.
2 Likes
I haven’t experienced any spike (probably because I’m tolerating many casualties). Come on, let’s not go in circles over this - it’s not a difficulty thing.
I agree that investing in training should be a strategic decision - I have 5TCs running at my main base, they train pretty fast, especially after the NJ upgrade. Is it too fast for their strategic cost? Maybe, but I disagree that taking soldiers to the field should necessarily train them faster than at the TCs. That shouldn’t be the benchmark.
As I have already said, going on the geoscape is the only way of getting common pool skill points, most of them through missions, not to mention resources (yes, scavenging missions have to be fixed, but that’s a different issue, same as difficulty).
So it’s not true that currently the no-brainer optimal choice is to completely avoid certain missions because of TCs. Currently the optimal choice with enough TCs is to send out as many Level 7 teams as possible to do as many things as possible while keeping a stable of recruits training to be level 7. I don’t see anything wrong with that, especially in the mid to end game.
It’s a no-brainer to put soliders in training until they hit level 7 - It’s also a no brainer to only ever take level 7 soldiers on missions, as lower levels are levelling up quicker by not taking part.
All in all level 1-6 soldiers are currently redundant the way the XP system works right now.
To which if you dislike grind, you’d be better off just being able to recruit soldiers at level 7 and not having to wait. - I’d prefer the other option that the training centre doesn’t advance soldiers so quickly, and that its viable to be able to take lower level soldiers into missions without them being hopelessly outclassed by both their colleagues and the opposition. But I enjoy that levelling up aspect of a game.
3 Likes
'Fraid I’m with Spite on this. I don’t even bother to send a soldier out the door any more until they’ve reached Lvl 5, because the risk/reward ratio is too great.
I’m all for being able to train up new recruits and not having to start everyone on Lvl 1 as in XCOM, I just think the balance is unrealistically out of whack, is all. I know of no military organisation in history that would substitute training for combat experience once you’re out of boot camp; but in the current situation, it is simply not worth my while to send them out the door until they’ve been magically turned into the equivalent of the SAS.
As I say, I’m not stopping you investing in 5 Training Centres if that’s the way you want to go. I just think 1 or 2 Training Centres shouldn’t be an automatic substitution for in-field experience, which they are at the moment.
1 Like
To be clear, I don’t have a problem with marginal adjustments to the XP gain rate from TCs or to their cost. What I don’t agree with is forcing a grind on the player as a penalty for accepting losses because it’s an xcom staple.
I agree.
I don’t agree, because at least your first squad has to through it.
Well there the strategic choice to invest in the TCs, and I do agree with @MichaelIgnotus that it has to be a strategic choice with an opportunity cost.
1 Like
Yeah, I think that’s the solution overall too. - You’ve got different players who want opposite things, there ideally needs to be a system in place that can suit each preference.
But that is why I’m proposing being able to recruit soldiers at different levels. If you don’t like ‘grind’, bring them in level 7 in the first place. If you do like to progress your solider personally out on the field, make that option viable too (which to me means sorting out the OP perks and enemies).
1 Like
Yeah, I can see that if there is a substantial mark up on the price of the level 7 recruit. Though that also gets us into the whole economy thing…
EDIT: what I mean is that you could invest in dedicated training facilities or buy a level 7 at a very high price. But the problem is that then perhaps you will just build food production instead of TCs to generate income.
most of the problems with super soldiers came from too many will points, Just double the cost of every addictional will point: 1 2 4 8 16 32 and so on… and halve the available points for priest, the already have the extra ability.
Then I think we are on the same page 
I proposed that elsewhere, and it ran into a surprising amount of resistance. Seems like a perfectly sensible solution to me.
1 Like
Might as well remove the priest class if that’s how things will go. Right now they can do fun things like mind control. You cut their potential will pool and suddenly you see missions where they can’t even mind control a triton. Why? I’ve seen tritons with 32 will. The pandorans already come ahead of us in stats, cutting our stats on specific classes just throws things further out of balance.
And I repeat myself yet again. All of these proposed solutions assume that the FIRST thing Snapshot has to do is balance out the difficulty curve.
Stop using an unbalanced difficulty curve as an excuse to retain OP Squad skills. BOTH things have to happen side-by-side - OP Squad skills should be toned down to a sensible level AND OP Crabbie force parameters have to be toned down at the same time. They’re part of the same problem, and solving one without solving the other is clearly unproductive.
3 Likes
Resources are scarce but if the economy is adapted for sure Fireaxis XCOM approach is acceptable, now it is not perfect, like soldier you level up slower than new recruits, late game it takes an eternity to do the last level up as recruits don’t reach max level.
There’s one squad with XCOM1&2 plus injuries backup, in pp there could be more, it’s perhaps pointless but late game I defend the whole world, and unlike in XCOM1&2 there’s no point in campaign where your soldiers are like invincible. The game would need a serious economy review to include high level recruits instead of training center solution.
Currently in PP rather soon the point is to play only with soldiers level 7, it’s not about leveling up soldiers but in a short phase. It’s not a bad system at all.