Community: You need to do something about Return Fire!
Snapshot games: Really? Thanks for the feedback! Buff Return Fire with 2x damage. There I fixed it, you’re welcome!
It buffs your soldiers too and now only the targeted enemy will return fire which means no more getting shot in the head by your own mind controlled sniper when you shoot a fire worm.
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Totally understood what the change was. Also saw 100% mortality rate from my soldiers whenever the ability triggered even once from arthron machine gun from short range. If they ever get close, the first shot at these must cripple an arm or the gun. Head shots are so 80s. Can’t really give them a turn either.
I think the change is decent, the skill is nowhere near the powerhouse it was but still worth having on your troops and still have to be taken into account when facing the crabs. That it stops triggering when dazed even makes melee against them viable, although a bit risky since daze is not a sure thing against a full health crab, so that’s the only further change I would like to see (that it doesn’t trigger against melee).
Sorry, but I disagree completely. Return-fire was heavily nerfed this patch on the alien’s side as well as the soldiers side. It’s arguably a bad ability now, at best a niche ability, where before it was one of the most cost-effective traits in the game.
For example:
A sniper (or one with sniping proficiency) with the perceptive trait and a perception mutation (the cheapest price for a mutation) would return fire on any enemy attacking your forces. If you fielded two, any trash that attacked would die after doing so (as long as you had decent sniper rifles). You could easily get 30+ worth of action points in a single turn eliminating most trash taking bad shots at heavies, or your vehicle. It was actually more cost-effective than shotguns with dash, or rage burst in a lot of ways if you used it correctly.
A heavy using the most aggressive enema delivery system (or the starting phoenix heavy weapon), could use the weapon as a melee tool, and then would fire upon any enemy in range attacking it or someone near you, effectively locking down mobs.
Viral weapons and Bio-chemists are far worse now, since they cannot fire upon enemies reliably anymore on the enemy turn so that the will power sap occurs immediately.
As for the aliens, the machine-gun return fire ability was the only thing that defended them reliably from the Iconoblast murdering them. If a nest fielded these enemies, you would need some kind of prep to destroy the machine guns of every crab in range before getting up close and personal for a kill.
The fact that the crabs empty a whole round instead of half a round means absolutely nothing, since if your first shot wont kill, you should be targeting the machine gun anyway to destroy it.
The real danger was when multiple crabs would return fire, which often ended up being more than one clip of the machine gun in total anyways.
So, no, not double damage.
This is not a buff.
At least the name of the ability makes sense now.
Still doesn’t make sense that someone can be in the matrix shooting back at everybody, even coming from behind.
But at least, when you have three guys with three crabs in the same room when starting a base defense, you don’t have to flee.
It’s a step in the right direction.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. I’m guess that it also still triggers before the person firing has had time to move back behind cover.
Well yes the skill is heavily nerfed, both for the Aliens and for your own soldiers. I regard your examples as typical cases of WHY it needed to be toned down, so while everything you say is absolutely true I disagree on the conclusion that it made the game worse.
I never said it made the game worse. I think its a good change, but I don’t think the ability was buffed, which is what the original post claimed.
My apologies, I thought you were replying to my post that was right before yours. My bad.
It’s nice nobody seems to be disagreeing with the crabmen being absolutely murderous with the ability. The thing with mind controller soldiers - or basically whatever - shooting back equilibrium style at everything at all directions every time was equally silly alright.
I may have replied wrong, its cool.
I like them murderous, they’re the only enemies you have to consider if it’s worth it before attacking. The fact they don’t shoot at me for attacking their friends anymore is pretty neat though.