Dual classes Overpower

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
102

Sort of necroing here a bit I guess, but I think this is an interesting discussion.

I like the idea of Second Wave options, but I don’t like the idea of wasting development resources unnecessarily.

I know it’s not your intent, but your proposal - to me - translates into “Go in and spend limited resources and effort on adjusting the game so that by default these skills are only usable to a lesser (yet still fairly arbitrarily determined) level of viability, and then spend more limited resources and effort creating an option where people can disable the new limit you created and still have it this way.”

Isn’t the more reasonable response, at least from making best use of resources, “if you don’t like exploiting skill combinations, then don’t exploit skill combinations”

Doesn’t that give an identical end result, but without investing the devs resources to do it?

103

what do you think many of us are doing right now?

But this is my question, why I have to restrict a LOT of skills in my campaigns just because balance is not right? Examples coming to my mind, Sneak Attack, Adrenaline using Armored Head but there are plenty

Of course I chose to not using turrets now, at all, but I would again, with proper balance,

and mechanics? the same, stamina, healing on tactical full HP…

that is the reason asking better balance and as an option, SWO

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104

I fully agree with @etermes !!! Is not the player who must have severe restrictions in gameplay and avoid using lots of game features to have a competitive game, but the DEVS who must properly balance the game to everyone have a good experience.

Phoenix Point, using all the game features is a very easy game in Legendary, after midgame is almost impossible to lose a single soldier if player don´t do suicide attacks, and even so, they can survive :smile: … it was not chearching for a children superhero arcade game that i buy Phoenix Point, but to have a challenge and a fair tactical game in line with game advertsiments publicited.

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105

It doesn’t because you’re losing players. It’s not about choosing one group of players or other group. Is about making game good for as much people as possible. Why have different difficulty levels - It’s waste of resources? Why adress bugs? It’s waste of resources. Like it should be: let’s make as good game as possible, with given resources, for casual players as well for those who want game without massively weird OP mechanics. And most people understand that making something costs money. But believe most people who bought the game already would want rather adressing current problems than making new unbalanced DLCs before they buy anything more. Maybe you can get more new casual players and sell more copies based on that but long term you’re not going succeed in strategy game world with that mentality. This is not a RPG game. Without long-term players who care about balance you will fail.

And it’s not about resources, it’s about priorities. Like how much time and effort was put to balancing this game vs. “who cares players will do what they want”. Whatever it was, the ratio was not appropriate for a strategy game clearly, which is not hard to see if you play the game more than 30 hours. Either there was nobody there, or the person who was responsible for balance didn’t do their job. Like it was like someone thought idea of balancing a strategy game laughable. Laughable is that there was someone like this working on a strategy game, at least in balance department.

And it’s not to say to scold someone, rather to give you an understanding why you can’t count on long-term players with this apporach. Like certain strategy games you can play fo 7,8 years, even more on poor graphics with plenty of DLCs. This games doesn’t aim to be such a game? Devs wants only one time RPG type of players who forget about it in 4 weeks? I don’t understand.

Like if someone belives something that doesn’t exist, it’s later hard for them to fathom why there was a flop at release. They scratching their heads why streamers don’t want to play their game. It’s because they believe balance is not important. And it’s simply not true. It’s not an identical end result.

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106

In fact someone reported here about a year ago that his (as far as I can remember) 10 or 11 year old son gets along pretty well on “hero”. And the game was even a little harder back then :wink:

But then I have to say (I think) adults reported here that they had no chance on easy difficulty. In the early game they simply cannot survive because the pandas run to their soldiers and perform 3 melee attacks. They themself shoot these armored crabs over and over again with AR, but no effect. This is just not fair and only feasible for dark soul players … and so on …

107

I’m sorry, but believe that says far more about those players than the developer, “This particular combination of skills, that I’m in no way required to get nor obligated to use in any specific combination, makes me too strong, and being able to have that voluntary option and/or other isolated players being able to make that choice separate from my own experience upsets me to the point I need to not play the game.”
I’m honestly not even trying to be that sarcastic or funny - that’s literally the conclusion I’ve drawn from this.

To answer your more specific questions

Because I can’t simply choose to make enemies have higher life and/or more tactical AI. Player has no say in that.
And I can’t simply choose to make the game not crash, or make save files corrupt or make things freeze. Player has no say in that.
I can however simply choose to not utilize optional skills that I believe are detrimental to my experience. Player does have say in that.

In this case, considering it’s our (players’) choice how to develop our characters/soldiers, I don’t see this as an actual issue.

To use a hypothetical example: Three skills each give a 100% damage bonus. Individually, those are feasible skills. They provide a boost that makes them worth the investment.

Now, if I, as the player in complete control of what skills I get, don’t want a 300% damage bonus, I make the choice to not click those very specific buttons together in a very deliberate pattern that I know would give me a 300% bonus and develop my character/soldier in a different direction. I may take the 100% bonus or the 200% bonus, but I will not take the known, optional action to activate all three of those skills. What I, myself, don’t do, is petition the developers to remove that option from those who do want a 300% damage bonus.

Don’t really want to just blanket nerf any/all of those combinations because it does take away from their individual viability - and we don’t want to individually destroy the skills.

The other option is simply coding in “can’t use these together”. Problem is, that doesn’t provide you any experience that you don’t already have (by simply chooseing not to use them together), but it’s at the cost of keeping those who want the stacked bonus from having the option to have it. It didn’t really “boost” your experience and it likely negatively impacted others’ experiences. If the change to the game is a net-loss for player experience, that’s rarely ever a wise change to make.

108

Yeah. You see this as a development sort of thing. People coming for strategy doesn’t care about that. Devs losing those kind of players. Which is their choice to make what game they want to have and to what audience. Doesn’t change the fact that if I’m coming for startegy I’ll be disappointed.

109

I see it as “a player choice” sort of thing. I see it, in its current state, as giving all players additional options versus eliminating options from other players’ experiences.

110

Look I agree with this approach and I’m not saying one approach iss better or worse. What I’m saying is that there are a lot of players who play strategy to find optimal way. Others don’t care about that.

Like these are separate groups who’re intretested because they think this is a specific game for them. If the game isn’t made with this in mind they will lose interest. It doesn’t mean game is good or bad itself. It just mean that those players will be put off and leave. And strategy needs long-time players. Development kind of people tend to go to RPGs more. Build your characters and such. More story than strategy oriented games. From development of the strategy game this is huge mistake to put off your core target group. These are not one-time sort try everything for fun who cares what is better strategically kind of players. So either dev don’t want make really strategy here and trying to lure players for money or they kind of learing how strategy games work because it’s a new learning studio.

111

Look I agree with this approach and I’m not saying one is better or worse. What I’m saying is that there are a lot of players who play strategy to find optimal way. Others don’t care about that.

Like these are separate groups who’re intretested because they think this is a specific game made for them. If the game isn’t made with this in mind they will lose interest. It doesn’t mean game is good or bad itself. Because this is subjective. It’s good for one type of players but worse for other type. It means that those players who care about balance will be put off and leave. And strategy needs long-time players. Development kind of people tend to go to RPGs more. Build your characters and such. More story than strategy oriented games.

From development of the strategy game this is huge mistake to put off your core target group. These are not one-time, sort try everything for fun who cares what is better strategically, kind of players. So either dev don’t really want to make a strategy here and trying to lure players for money or they’re kind of learing how strategy games work because it’s a new studio.

112

And then there are those who come for tactical, that are also disappointed.

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113

Yeap. It’s just a fact that it works that way. It seems some people are oblivious to this. Like it doesn’t matter if you like one type of player more than the others. People who play strategy or tactical play RPGs poradically. Making game for both group would end up as a parody of both genres.

114

Depending what player experience do you want. Do you want to click more buttons and see more animations and build your character to your liking? If yes then it is net-loss. But what about those who expect balanced game where interesting game-play choices are presented that are not repetitive and actually have real consequences. Like it’s net-gain to remove something then. I don’t want more unbalanced stuff. This is a net-loss for me.

115

How is it not? You are subjecting yourself to the imbalance through your player choice.
“Devs, please implement a change that would urge every player to play my way… even though I have absolute, full control of my ability to play that way without changing anything for anyone else”. That’s not what you’re specifically asking, but that’s literally the unintended consequence for what you’re asking.

I’m a fan of both RPGs & Strategic/Tactical games. Let’s look at Starcraft - a game that’s often hailed as a posterchild of balanced strategy gaming… yet at the same time birthed the phrase “zerg-rush”. Players didn’t grab pitchforks and torches and bemoan that zerg rushing broke the game… If they didn’t like it, they just. didn’t. do. it. Command & Conquer had the Recon Rush. C&C3 has a Venom Rush. Even the most meticulously built game, built solely with strategic players in mind, have strategies and approaches that break the intended balance. Players historically have had enough self-control of their experience that, those who want to use them, do, while those who don’t want to, don’t. Especially in a game like Phoenix Point, where it’s exclusively single-player and each player’s experiences exist in a complete vacuum from everyone else.

As an aside, the idea that RPG players abandon games after a few weeks or a single playthrough - to this day Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights, Elder Scrolls, original Fallouts, Baldur’s Gate, etc., have playerbases - and those games have been out for decades, plural. People play Dungeons & Dragons (the epitome of RPG), with the same character for months or years at a time, only to then play with different characters, different builds, different skills, different backstories, etc., for more months and years at a time. Point being that the idea that catering to an RPG crowd somehow correlates with “short-term retention” while largely only strategy players play for the long haul is absurd.

116

They will abandon poor RPG games, like Phoenix Point. Which is the point why you can’t target strategy at them.

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117

To bring that back on the topic of Phoenix Point, my current playthrough, I’m RPing a very “xenophobic” and militant playthrough, allied solely w/ New Jericho - and making every other decision in alignment with that overall ideology. I’ve got at least one more playthrough from the opposite perspective (where I’ll align solely w/ Anu) and a third playthrough w/ Synedrion.

Once I’ve got those three out of the way, I’ll probably move into less archetypal approaches.

AAAAND it appears with this post I’ve reached “the maximum amount of posts a new user can make on their first day”. Will be at least 13 hours before I can replay to anything else lmao

118

I love concept of this game, climate but also know that it can be much better as a strategy, coz the campaign side of things + cohesion between recources and abilities is very poorly done right now. It’s enough if you play like you from role-playing perspective. You just don’t expect campaign cohesion. You are glad probabaly it’s like free world. You do and attack what you want. Use what you want. Every fight is sort of separate thing. These are characteristic of RPGs. And it’s not again to say it’s wrong or bad. It’s just what it is.

If you have massively unbalanced stuff on character building / mechanic side then this makes the campaign plane complely neglegible and not worth replaying from strategic angle. Because you either end up playing it more like RPG to discover a story behind the game, have fun discovering abilities after which you’re done, or you’re trying to survive and beat the enemy playing by the rules (more strategic approach). But what if rules are skewed? You are forced to do these OP move to achieve your campaing goal (beating the game). You can say: You’re not forced. But then you end up self-consciously playing worse trying to not beat the game where your first goal was to beat it. You see confusion in this? And first easiest example is teleportation. You start playing and you’re thinking: I’m supposed to teleport? But if I do that why do we have these fabrication plants, finite equipment and stuff. Doesn’t make any sense. So should I teleport only when I’m losing or all the time or some? But you can’t no teleport coz game isn’t balance for that. So you teleport some, but then if you teleport you know that you have stuff that you wouldn’t have otherwise. So why do we have these resources points if you can gain them by teleporting etc and who chooses how many we can get that way. It’s just a mess. And I don’t want eliminating teleporting. It just design flaw that makes campaign side poor because you kind of decide how much recources you have. And if you all teleport you have basically all. This is only an exaple. If you look closey this game has these all over the place.

This side is good for RPG style play right now but if you’re coming from different angle we would need some rebalance mod or something. And that’s why people were/are furious. Like they expected this cohesion not some slogan: make your own RPG rules and playthroughs. But again it depends where you’re coming from. It doesn’t meant that this is bad. It’s just a subjective expierience. If you wonder why people are mad. That’s why.

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119

The thing with dual classes being overpowerd and the skill system as whole is a fact that the main thing that is supposed to restrict player from OP buiilds is SP. Okay on Veteran you can have all points so it’s not a thing. But on Legendary you have points shortage which supposed to lead to less OP builds and more difficult gameplay.

Unfortunately this is not the case when one or two skills are OP on their own. Because even if you have less SP you just use those couple points you have on OP builds. You don’t need those other ones. This exact thing is a core problem of that design. Difficulty levels that supposed adress that aren’t doing their job properly for decreasing SP doesn’t change the fact that you don’t need all those SP to create OP builds.

So instead of tinkering only with SP you would need adress those inbalances in skills themselves so they actually would look differently across difficuties. It’s like someone thought it will do itself by only changing SP count. It was the easiest route. Shortcuts.

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120

I don’t think that’s a holistic look.
I don’t believe SP is to prevent OP builds… it’s to pace your build. For evidence, I point to the fact that there is no limit on the amount of SP you can put in a character - simply a limit on how fast you can obtain SP to inject into them.

In Veteran, you get SP quicker, so you can develop a character quicker.
In Legendary, you get SP slower, so you have to develop your character slower.

As such, I don’t think SP was ever intended to function as a prevention to OP skill combinations.

121

I really hope the developers implement their ideas rather than all the players who just want to make the game worse. The game is designed for dual skills, why do you want to change it? For whom and what is the point? Play the game instead of criticising! I can’t read it anymore.