Right so what if we only destroy the enemy on Turn 2? Or Turn 3? What if we don’t make the battle a turn 1 victory but still make it trivial? What if we don’t make it trivial but just make it quite easy?
You see how hard it is to actually define what we are talking about?
Now we have some people saying these builds are playing the game correctly, some are saying they are not, we don’t even know whether we agree with each other about what level this occurs.
Just because the dev’s have said they are aware with unintended combinations, doesn’t mean they have said what they are or what they intend to fix.
I think Terminator Build is not only specific weapons, or their use in combination with one ability
Is a set of abilities, plus 3rd row skills and Multiclass soldiers(most of the time) that being used repeatedly also with powerful weapons are recovering AP through attacks again and again
One easy example is Rapid Clearance, another is Adrenaline Rush with Heavy weapons, Rally the Troops direct access to AP, also I would include technician Electric reinforcement (enemies losing their turn) , even lot of Turrets through remote deployment is OP
If you build a team with soldiers like these, and you want to exploit recovering(or reducing required) AP then you have a TB
Oh come on! Let’s not start getting pointlessly pedantic about this.
It’s quite clear that the ability to clear the entire map in 1 turn, whether you opt to do it in Turn 1, Turn 2 or turn 20 is still game-breaking and something needs to be done about it.
Also, if you read the thread Icemann directed you to, you will see that it often involves not completely wiping out the enemy in 1 turn, but destroying its Will to such an extent that it ceases to be a tactical threat any more and just needs mopping up.
The devs are well aware of what these builds are, because they took the time and effort to ask the Council to describe them to them in extreme detail - which is the kind of thing the CC is there for by the way. You’re right: there are dozens of them, because this is such an open skills sandbox that the only limit is the imagination of the players. Which in one respect is a very good thing - but there has to be some limit on that imagination otherwise it completely breaks the game.
But it only takes 1 Terminator to do that - so it doesn’t matter if other people don’t agree with me about which one that should be.
Which is why I come back to my usual hobby horse of Second Wave Options. If someone wants to bore themselves rigid building a Terminator and then mindlessly clickfesting for the rest of the game, let them. Just give me an option to turn the clickfest off without having to willfully tie my hands behind my back, so that I can enjoy the tactical challenge of beating the Pandas without effectively nuking them from orbit on Turn 1.
It’s not pointlessly pedantic though is it? It’s the whole crux of the question.
And I don’t mean if you wait to do it in turn 2. I mean if you spend two turns doing it. Which is still very easy. Taking three turns to do it will still be easy. Are these unintended combos as well?
I already read it. If icemann had bothered to have a debate rather than crying in a hysterical fashion about me not digging out his own evidence we would see this argument doesn’t stand up either. What if use the same build but let the enemy have enough will for 1 turn? Still very easy. At what point does it tip from being a legitimate combination into an exploit?
I want to get rid of them. I just take exception to needlessly condescending comments like “you aren’t playing the game properly if you use them”. The reason these exist is the dev’s problem to fix, not the player’s.
Actually, the devs already took a small step to address this. The recent speed reduction and increased SP for each increment. I’m confident that the next major update will include bigger steps to address what they now see as an oversight in their design.
It’s already been said that the next update will focus on bugs and the next update after that will focus on the strategic layer. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
I participate on this forum to have constructive debates about ways of improving the game, which I hope will help the devs in their decision making; not to have pointless arguments about how big the pin has to be for a Terminator to sit on it.
It is plainly obvious that Terminators are broken. It is also equally clear that some people actually like them (who left that stable door open? )
So the best solution for everyone is to find a way to fix the Terminators - either by limiting the number of times an OP skill can be used each turn, or limiting Lvl 7 skills to single class soldiers only (or some other way I haven’t thought of) - and then to give returning players the option to turn these limits on or off as they desire. Then everyone gets the type of game they want and PP has lots of happy customers.
I agree with what you say, though perhaps not with the way you say it…
Icemann is right in that the devs did not intend the game to be played like that, but then you are right that that’s what the game currently is.
I will say even more - the game as it currently is encourages the players to stack multiple buffs and combine skills in a way that allows the player to completely own the tactical map (which is why they are called Terminator Builds, because it’s an Arnie vs the cops in the police station situation…). It’s not an obscure exploit, something the player clearly opts in, like, I don’t know, moving to a specific kind of tile and dropping down the gun suddenly makes all the enemies do the same (made up example).
This is something that just happens when you play the game as it tells you how to play it.
Now, the devs have acknowledged that this is an issue, so it isn’t the way they want the game to be, and it’s up to them to fix it, not the players to step around it.
That’s on the intended vs unintended issue.
As to definitions, of course there is no precise definition, nor a list of ‘forbidden’ builds. And you are right that the line between ‘powerful’ and ‘over powering’ is blurry at best. But it’s not that important, tbh. The devs do have a lot of data on how the game is played and what the players think of their gaming experience, so it’s not so much about precisely defining what a Terminator Build is and neatly excising it from the game, as improving the game experience until where it has to be.
Which is basically what you see happening right now, via gradual changes.
I completely understand where you are coming from. But I wonder if you have tried out a Terminator build using a heavy weapon? Then Adrenaline Rush, coupled with Rapid Clearance? I tried it out of curiosity and after several uses, I discovered that it starts to skew the game.
Firstly, it seemed ridiculously easy and unfair. But then the DDA kicked in and presented too many Pandorans on a small Anu map, but my Terminator wasn’t with me. So we got slaughter. Now that was my own fault, but I understood how this situation came about.
For these ‘many players’, they may not recognise this situation/exploit. I don’t want the game to be altered, so the game becames too hard. These lvl 7 features are there for a reason. But I imagine that these scenarios were never envisioned by the development team.
I’d argue for doing that on Legendary, though I wouldn’t play it.
I like being able to mix & match Lvl 7 skills - I just think their number or uses per turn should be limited, depending on the Difficulty you’ve chosen.
Reduce the amount of times you can Rally, and the amount of times RC can recycle your APs etc, and suddenly you can build a brilliant alpha-striker, who can take out that dangerous Siren or Chiron (or whatever) in 1 Turn, but he can’t then rampage right across the map killing everything in his path - and you have to think about how you’re going to keep him alive once he’s done his thing.
That’s how I play with my own personal self-limitations, and within those limits it makes the game a really enjoyable challenge for me.
I posted many weeks ago that cooldown for LV 6 and 7 abilities would fix part of TB problem,
but I don’t think is happening in this game
and just limiting amount of times for 1 turn is not enough, imo . One turret , Scorcher AT or one Sniper using RB will kill a siren without problems in one turn, Chiron, maybe two soldiers
I would prefer cooldown feature for 2nd class , if your soldier is Sniper and you want RB for SR, selecting heavy for 2nd class, then you can’t use RB every turn, an example, I think @mcarver2000 will not like it
However, I don’t think it’s about how long the cooldowns ought to be.
Not necessarily…
If you are thinking about a lone Terminator who clears a map by himself in the first turn, then yes, Rapid Clearance is a must. But you can have a whole squad to toy around with that can easily clickfest through a map without using Rapid Clearance.
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, or Ironman, whatever the name