Reading patch notes I noticed repeating phrase “according to statistics”. That made me think that developers are more inclined to base their balancing decisions on abstract faceless statistics rather than discussions and complains on forums. This is shown on the way they approached to the problem of overusing armour piercing AR and SR. I will ignore the fact that SR damage reduction is basically cosmetic as it is still plenty enough damage. But AR was changed in a way that suggests that Devs don’t understand why players overuse Piranha (AP AR) compared to other ARs. Piranha was the only effective AR after enemies hit the minimum 20 armour. This nerf will only lead to players simply no longer using ARs.
Other than that thank god for Dash nerf. And look at Stealth for f… sake. It’s still untouched and OP.
The developers read a wide range of feedback. The forums, the Discord, the subreddit, Facebook comments and emails, along with in-game reports and anonymous statistics.
We’re also implementing soon a new way for players to submit feedback and vote on priority.
The issue with balance is that feedback can be very subjective where one group of people is complaining that something is too easy, while another group complains that the exact same thing is too difficult. This is where statistics become useful.
I understand why would you use statistics. It can be very useful source of information. But what train of thought was behind the decision to change Piranha to just slightly better Bulldog?
I appreciate the balancing and the bugfixes.
On the other hand I am sad to see no love for melee weapons balancing (probably in next patches).
Anyways, it is good to hear from you! I hope all is going well for Snapshot Games studio and wish you a productive and financially successful year!
Bioware did use statistic to tune design, until they gave up and admitted it was a wrong approach.
The right approach is just considering the feedback and testing the variations, and then decide, dev job and choices, not statistic jobs. My opinion, but where go Bioware.
I read an article on that use of players statistic, it collected a lot of team feedback, I don’t think any single was positive that it was a good approach.
I’m quite happy with the patch, which for me is a no-spamables patch.
I just started a thread on Piranha because it was the least expected nerf from my point of view. It’s already so useless if not wielded by a level 7 infiltrator.
Yesterday, I needed 4 over-watch, less than 5 tiles for each one, on a single crab before it went down (Deimos 30 x 6).
Oh I very much like the “less skill spam” fixes I am just concerned about the way Devs approach some of the issues. Statistics are great tool to find problems bit alone are by far not enough to find correct solutions.
I am really happy that you respond so quick and adress player questions. But your response was mainly to that part of my issue which is in the title of this thread, but not my concern that some of the fixes really seem like there were little thought put into them. AP weapon nerf are my main focus here but they are not the only ones.
Personally i believe that the addition of AP cost to abilities was rather a difficulty increase accross the board.
Yes Willpower skills are rather overpowered, but they already use a very finite, and hard to generate during combat.
Yes, a high speed, high willpower Soldier, with a Harrower, encountering mobs all cumpled up, could safely kill as many enemies as they had bullets, given they have Reckless + CQB (making Harrower be a 52 ~ 58 dmg per pellet) … but what i described is a best case scenario, which rarely happens, and will never happen again, now a Soldier alone can kill maybe 3, possibly depending on positioning and Armor value of enemies.
I have not played the game yet with these changes, but just from reading it, i think you guys balanced the wrong side of this scale.
UnstableVoltage said in another thread that a change was made on alien progression. The dev are making good changes imo.
Before patch :
Overpowered Aliens and to survive you have to use overpowered tactics. It lead to rapid combat high burst low tactics.
After patch: less alien progression and nerf to the more abused player abilities. Should bring a slower combat.
However the patch notes lacks of the alien progression change… it lead to a false impression that only player side was nerfed. Nerf to aliens seems to be mainly a variable tweak. This kinds of changes can have huge global effects, are fast to make and can be missed on patch notes.
However this change for aliens was said to not be retroactive for already started campaigns. This is very bad code design and will make game much harder if you don’t restart.
Yeah i read that none retroactive alien nerf in relation to weapon nerf and dread the conqsquences in my current playthrough.
I have a save waiting with 18 crabmen on my 6 man squad. I’m early-mid game and have switched to AR-51 on assaults mainly.
I can’t see myself ever completing this haven defense with the damage output neutering.
But even if i, by some miracle can defend this haven i have to contend with normal evolving pandorans (difficulty spike) and dailed back abilities to deal with it.
Looks like built-in imbalance for current/continued games.
Lol, but they did nothing against the most powerful combo, Rapid Clearance plus Adrenalin Burst, nor anything for 100% stealth.
The key point is still around the auto scaling, I was looking at a video to see the final, I’m in last part, saved before. And I notice my “Easy” enemies was no way less numerous and had higher armor and health than legendary enemies, facepalm.
