Do missions scale to the level of your team?

Precisely :blush:

No they don’t. They are listening.
Whether they agree with everything that we’re saying is another matter, but my experience is that persistent, patient feedback on these forums is gradually getting results.

Go and say it to critics in Steam and fans who are already tired of waiting. They are not even promised Moding.

Tell that to the designers of WOTC :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Which has fixed more and loves(Value time) active fans.

(Separately tested hard difficulty)

Firaxis lovely benefactors? :innocent: vs :money_mouth_face:

What are these critics on Steam? There is no PP store page.

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one, as my experience of feeding back to the devs has been pretty positive - albeit a long, patient, persisitent process.

Sorry @MichaelIgnotus, if someone argues “for” super skills, because someone else does not survive their “hero” level of difficulty, the first thing to do is switch back one level and try again. You yourself have always preached this and I thought it was very, very correct.

I deliberately write “someone” because I don’t mean you directly. I know that you apply restrictions yourself. And you have just downgraded the level of difficulty yourself and thus applied your statement to yourself.

The motto is: If the game is balanced for a beginner who wants to win on Legend to feel great, you get a completely broken balance!

Couldn’t agree more, but I’m not arguing for super-skills.

To be clear: I have never had a problem with Skills per se. Nor do I have a problem with the Squad chaining a combo of Skills to achieve a specific alpha-strike in mcarver2000’s terms of ‘disable the most dangerous target as soon as possible’ (usually a Siren, Chiron or Acid-lobbing Arthron). In fact, I think that is a very interesting and absorbing exercise.

What I think breaks the game is its failure to apply any limits whatsoever to the number of times you can re-use such skills in any given turn. By not applying limits, the devs have left the game wide open to game-breaking exploits, of which the most obvious and egregious are:

  • Infinite Rapid Clearance loops.
  • Endless Rallies.
  • Adrenaline Rush permitting a 'Zerker to do anything for 1 AP, combined with either of the above.
  • Double Electric Reinforcement every-single-turn.

I also don’t like Rage Bursting Snipers, but that’s a different matter :smirk:

Now, to me, the simple solution is to limit any and all of these to 1 use/turn. But I take the point made most coherently by @mcarver2000 on many occasions that as the game currently stands that makes it very difficult for your average player to survive once the Pandas have ‘evolved’ into 1-shot killers with 300HP. I personally find I need to use Rally more than once/turn to cope with the most dangerous enemies as they are currently presented to me.

The obvious solution to that is to rebalance the Pandas so that they are not as murderously deadly, but until that happens, I need a couple of Rallies to help get me out of danger every now and again :flushed:

So I have spent the last 6 months patiently repeating and explaining this to anyone who’ll sit still long enough to listen on these forums. And I’m not the only one.

The good thing is, the message appears to have got through. The devs do realise that it’s a problem - albeit for a very small number of players - and have committed to doing something about it.

BUT - and I think this is a very good thing - they learned from their experience with Acid. They’re not going to do the first thing we ask for, or the first thing they think of. They’re going to go away, think about it, test it, run it past the CC, and figure out how those fixes will integrate with all the other changes they have planned.

I’m hoping that what will result is a solution that works for everyone - not just you, me and Voland. But we’ll just have to wait and see.

3 Likes

Yes, I think 30 hours is the mark that perhaps the devs should be looking at. The reason it took me 60 hours and not less is because I kept restarting the game with each new patch, so I wasn’t getting past the mid-point of the game.

Also, I have to say that I find it very odd to be apparently in the top percintile of Phoenix Point players (i.e. among the relatively small number of players who have an issue with Terminator Builds) given that I’m not that good at TBS in general, or XCom, or X-Com at all. I have never beat the Firaxis games on the highest difficulty. I don’t player the Long War mods. I can’t beat X-Com games even on normal difficulty without a lot of saving and reloading. I’m not even that good at maths (as anyone who has seen my clumsy attempts at probability calculations on the forum can attest).

I can agree on the above without any qualms. So Adrenaline Rush is okay on it’s own?

I was going to ask (and you kinda begged the question), why not for snipers, but it’s okay with a heavy using a Deceptor? So a sniper with a Deceptor would be okay? Just not with a sniper rifle or any other weapon? Or a heavy with anything other than a Deceptor?

Rage Burst carries a 50% accuracy penalty. Depending on the range, accuracy of the unit (and there are ways to up the accuracy for heavies), and size of target; the Deceptor can dish out a ton more damage than a sniper rifle. Deceptor 40 x 12 x 5 = 2400 (along with 3 shred). Where as the best sniper rifle is 130 x 5 = 650. I assume all weapons are semi-automatic, so why do you wish to limit Rage Burst to only machine guns? Just curious…

BTW: We have totally hijacked this thread and perhaps derailed it in the process. :wink:

Probably, but at least the thread is still open - that’s an improvement on recent days. :joy:

If you can do it in the game it is ok.

The problem now is that the onus is on the player to guess how the devs intended the game to be played. That’s not how it should be. This should be the devs fixing it, not the other way around.

The issue I have always consistently had with Rage Burst is that - as the name implies - it was always intended to represent that moment in any Arnie film when the machine-gunner completely loses it and empties his gatling gun at the enemy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-EOg38t1o

That’s fine with a Deceptor for several reasons:

  1. It fits the theme.
  2. It fits the weapon.
    and 3. In general (unless you’ve specifically built a Terminator to use it), it is limited by the inherent inaccuracy of the weapon. @Voland once spelt out in detail somewhere exactly how you could craft a character with so many accuracy buffs that he can shoot the head off a pin with a Deceptor, but that is a very specific build and in general a Deceptor+RB = Barn Door - great against Scyllas, but you need to be damn close to most anything else to make it worth your while.

On the other hand, IMO, Rage Burst with a sniper rifle is patently ludicrous!

  1. It doesn’t fit the theme - in what film have you ever seen a Sniper suddenly lose it and empty his entire weapon into the jungle whilst screaming his head off?
  2. It doesn’t fit the weapon. A Sniper Rifle is designed to deliver a single, well-aimed shot from a stone-cold killer with ice in his veins. It is not designed for automatic fire. Now I’m sure there’s a weapons buff out there who will take great pleasure in proving this statement wrong, but in general this holds true.
  3. It is ludicrously OP. Remember the early days, when you could empty the entire SR’s clip into a Scylla at long range? There’s a reason they nerfed it to 5 rounds - it was never intended to be used with a Sniper Rifle, it was always intended to be used with a Deceptor! But once the genie was out of the bottle, the devs didn’t feel they could put it back in again without provoking howls of outrage.

So I simply refuse to use Rage Burst with sniper rifles - always have. I personally limit RB to HMGs, as the skill was originally demonstrated in the BBs and intended, though I have no objection to extending it to any other auto-fire weapon.

But RB for me is - and always should have been - something you can only do with a machine-gun.

1 Like

Fair enough. However, I always perceived Rage Burst to be akin to Cú Chulainn’s warp spasm or the Vikings’ berserker rage and bloodlust. Since all non-melee weapons are semi-automatic, I don’t have an issue with a unit filled with bloodlust letting loose a salvo. The sniper rifles in PP are semi-automatic and not bolt-action weapons. Again, there is a 50% accuracy penalty with Rage Burst.

I have more of an issue with Quick Aim not getting an accuracy penalty. It’s a “quick” aim and therefore shouldn’t be as accurate as a “normal” aim.

1 Like

Heh :joy:
I’m with you there.
I simply can’t survive the early game of any XCOM or LW on anything higher than Veteran (ie. Normal) - and I usually start the LWs on Rookie. But by the mid-game, it gets so ludicrously easy that I have to up the Difficulty Level just to keep it interesting. So every time I hit the key Story Mission that starts a new Act, I ramp up the Difficulty one level, until I am fighting the Final Mission on Legendary.

It’s kinda my own personal DDA, but after you’ve done it once the best route to victory is kinda mapped out and you’re just re-treading old steps - which is why I eventually switched to the Long Wars to get a fresh experience. And that’s also why I got so excited when Phoenix Point advertised Alien Evolution as a Thing - especially since the way it was described made it sound so much more than simply giving them more HP, Armour and bigger guns.

So I’m hoping that the new Pandoran Research Tree will go some way towards providing the ever-changing tactical experience that I’m looking for - one that says: “OK, he’s taking the Mind Control/Sniper/Explosive route [delete as appropriate]. Let’s evolve to counter it.”

That should be the definition of a “hardcore” player :thinking: :sweat_smile:

Fun on the side: One of the biggest criticisms of Firaxis was exactly that: too difficult at the beginning, too easy in the end. PP should try to do better.

The Siren Nerf and the upcoming updates (easier recruitment, Panda Research Tree) are already heading in a good direction for early game.

The reason for my question on whether missions scale is because I often see the level of the enemy.

I’m doing the “Over run” mission against the Forsaken and they are level 3 and 1.

My squad is level 1 to 5.

I understand about working new squaddies in with experienced members.

But just wondering if one were to experience a team wipe and needed to field a new squad of level 1’s or some combination of lobbies, if the missions scaled to your squad.

I agree with you walan, this game has so much potential to be what TBS is meant to be. That being said big fan of XCOM 2, and the videos you have posted is from really the only you tuber I watch. He was the person who turned me on to this genre never knew it would be so cerebral. FPS is fun but at this time in my life I like the agony of defeat when I make a wrong decision and the thrill of winning the war after all the work I put in.

Simple answer to that is ‘no’. The more complex answer is ‘yes, but only over time’.

As things currently stand, the game’s Dynamic Difficulty Algorithm scales gradually in line with the success or failure of your Squad(s). So if you don’t continually Save Scum or Restart, it will adjust itself to what it believes will fit your level of play.

S&R fritzes this, because by continually replaying until you get it right, you convince the system that you are a gaming god and it adjusts accordingly.

But if you suffer a TPW, the game will register this and adjust the Difficulty of your next mission downwards - but only incrementally. So the next mission won’t be scaled for a brand new Lvl1 Squad, it’ll be scaled for your old LvlX Squad, based on the assumption that it’s not doing very well and therefore the next mission needs to be easier.

My understanding is that this is likely to change with the next big patch, but I can’t give you any details.