I’ve seen them in overgrown rescue soldier missions.
1 Like
Great comparrison and analogy this is. 
However, I see X-COM as a simplistic version of Phoenix Point. 
During what stage of gameplay did this happen?
Excellent description of what is known as A Parity of Forces. 
Or a Balance of Power like Side A has Nukes, and Side B has Neutron Bombs. Both cause horrendous damage, and require upgraded defenses.
If I recall correctly, about mid-campaign. I think I’ve seen Lvl 6&7 at havens late in the campaign.
1 Like
I was going to reply saying that your example relied on a broken AND lvl7 skill (being an assault first would take a long time to reach this) from infiltrators but you already touched on that.
I tried to make a point with a single class because of this. It’s so difficult to balance things with a dual-class system PLUS OP skills that you’ll always be able to come with ONE example that justifies not having something, because there’s always an OP option that enables something bad to become usable. However I would like to consider 2 things:
- OP skills are bad and should not be taken into account in these discussions
- Any single class should be doable like that, using its main weapon
So I won’t repeat myself but take these 2 points into account and you’ll see that clearly some class weapons didn’t get enough love, like AR’s and MG’s. Why do some classes have upgrades and others do not? Why do some sidegrades have upgrades and others do not? It seems that this is only a product of lack of time and not a design choice, but I may be wrong. Another very real possibility is that most OP skills were taken into account when balancing things, which may’ve lead to conclusions equivalent of your infiltrator example.
Finally, about:
This already happens, you just don’t have the means to counter it with some weapons, unless you go to exploitable routes… just like the strategy layer resource problem.
1 Like
I’ve recruited a lvl5 soldier from a haven in patch 1.7.1, near the end of february.
Not sure from what point you started to play PP. I can’t remember a single ability that wasn’t OP when mixed with something else, most of it got nerfed. Like this is why MGs are crap, this is why GLs are pretty much just shred utility. What you see right now is a result of nerfing individual things because their combinations where OP. Like I have no idea why MG is still such a crap shoot taking into account that other nerfs where already done.
I agree … almost 
The point is that all the things that you and others see as “exploits” are simply game mechanics that are in the game (like cross classing to Infiltrator to get a damage boost or find an Infiltrator with AR perk without any cross classing) and for this have of course always taken into account when balancing anything.
That said and again, if you introduce new tiers for what ever weapon than these have to be balanced with taking all of these possibilities into account.
And this, I think, leads to an buff on the enemies because otherwise they will have no chance against an up tiered AR with any of the buffs.
BTW, the problem with the AR without any damage boost also relies IMO on their pretty low bullet damage and I think it is only that low to get a higher burst out of them. The raw damage of ARs are already pretty high (higher than any SR), but get also really fast obsolete by the growing armor of the enemies … because of their low damage per bullet.
One solution could be to increase their damage per bullet and decrease their burst. Simplified for the Daimos, instead of 30x6 why not 60x3? This would counter many of the armor related problems that the actual ARs have and make them more reliable throughout the whole game without introducing any upgrades. Also it is somewhat balanced with all the skill buffs, because the overall raw damage doesn’t change (slightly, 120x3 is then also probably too much, but again, IMO that is a problem of the skills and not the weapon damage).
The only ‘upgrade’ cases I can think of (besides LOTA) is when you gain access to technologies from 2 different factions, which is the case with the advanced lasers, advanced melee weapons and advanced shredding tech. Though strictly speaking only the shock lance is a clear upgrade over the Marduk’s Fist.
Not for the infiltrator and AR example, but yes for the Strongman (+ Adrenaline Rush and Rapid Clearance) and Deceptor example. IMO, the Deceptor damage got nerfed because of how brutal it was with Strongman, and absolutely devastating with a Berserker meta build.
Nerd bragging time - I got to be one of the first thousand to support PP in the fig campaign, I ate every lore text and news, and played since the BB’s. I didn’t come to the forums because of time constraints. Cthulhu came and I gave in to this, now this forum consumes a lot of my time 
Yes game was mostly broken on release. I guess a lot of us play with self restrictions and forget about this.
Devs seem to have resorted to patching the game with nerfs because it’s the least time-consuming way. There’s still much to develop. We’re seeing bigger changes to what’s already implemented (like the pandoran evolution system) in drops, let’s hope the game continues to get all the changes it needs and not only more content.
NJ piercing weapons, Bulldog → Piranha, Cyclops → Raven, VDM Defender → VDM Enforcer. All of them clear upgrades.
Gorgon EYE-A and Scorcher AT?
1 Like
The exploit part is about mechanics that can be abused forever (like raiding and trading) with no consequences. The infiltrator bonus damage part is just OP - the mechanic is good, 100% to any weapon is just too much.
“Finding a soldier with X class and Y perk” - this is RNG-dependent. It’s not the way to balance things. There needs to be a solid base with what’s always achievable, and then you get bonuses that come with luck / good RNG.
You yourself gave the answer to this problem - remove OPness from skills and perks, so everything becomes manageable 
I don’t know the devs reasons, but I think @drages modded something like that in and liked the results.
2 Likes
This has been suggested a number of times, but the counter argument goes that ARs are meant to be used at short range to disable limbs with lower armor (even the heavier armored Arthrons and Tritons have 20 armor on some limbs), because they have decent accuracy.
Personally, I’m fine with the ARs as they are now and I don’t find them underpowered at all, even without any buffs to damage.
It trades shred for piercing - in some situations I find the Bulldog a better option.
You are right, for some reason I thought that Raven did less damage 
There is some shred for piercieng trade but, yeah, you are probably right…
OK, I give up 
1 Like
I was referring to the piranha as an upgrade to the bulldog for dealing with armor - it’s in the same league, same number of shots per burst, higher damage than ARs from other factions, and exchanges the low shred value of the bulldog for armor penetration, which to me is a clear upgrade when most of your enemies are armored.
Perfect, and that’s a clear mistake to me, perks like strongman make no sense and make balance very difficult. They should either give only weapon proficiency or give bonuses to a soldier only if it already has the proficiency. In my personal opinion, they should only give proficiency, maybe with maluses instead of bonuses.
3 Likes
He goes another way, he reduces the AP cost to 1 AP per burst with 3 bullets per burst and only slightly buffs the damage. Also maybe a way to go, but I think that with such a change you come into trouble with another skill, RC. And you have to balance it against PDW, that already do exactly this (and more).
2 shred / bullet against 15 piercing. Only on low armored targets (<20) the Bulldog would be a real alternative. On higher armored targets you need a lot of Bulldog bursts to overcome the Piranha’s damage.
But I agree, it has at least a bit of a trade off.
…
2 Likes
Man… I don’t see the logic in this. Why are AR’s supposed to be used up close as their main purpose?
- I know real world examples don’t apply much but… REALLY??? Do they expect most players to see this way as the “right” way of using them?
- It’s way better to use a sniper rifle for this… no real risk.
- If you’re close to a lower-armored or unarmored part… it’s just better to use the shotgun and probably kill the bastard.
- If you dismember an enemy in the first shots, the next shots will probably miss because the limb falls.
- It’s not really feasible to do this tactic with armored enemies, only weaker / mid arthrons and maybe armored tritons. By the time you get them you have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better options than this.
And I could go on with more reasons as to why this doesn’t make any sense. This may have made sense in the BBs or the release version where we had a lot of weaker enemies. Now it doesn’t!!! Any!!!
THIS IS MADNESS!!!1!!!11111111!!!1
Well, it kinda goes thusly:
-
You have SRs that have low DPS, high ER and high damage per projectile
-
You have ARs that have high DPS, medium ER and low damage per projectile
-
You have SGs that have highest DPS, very short ER and low damage per projectile
Any Pandoran except for Scylla has a body part with 20 armor or lower. How big this body part is and how many of them the enemy has varies a lot, but let’s say that you have to be at around 25% of the weapon’s ER to hit it reliably. That means 2 tiles or less with an SG, somewhere around 15-20 tiles with an SR, and somewhere around 5-10 tiles with an AR.
Little funfact about this “upgrade”. When you take all damage buffs into account then the Defender is still better than the Enforcer because of its higher base damage.
VDM Defender: 30 + 1 shred x 4 goes up to 72 + 1 shred x 4
VDM Enforcer: 20 + 20 percing x 4 goes up to 48 + 20 piercing x 4
@sectoid_br: The balancing madness is real
2 Likes
I killed many enemies with low armor limbs when I try to disable the limb itself. If the enemy got enough armor, it’s already AR immune. As the game progress way faster as you get armored enemies very early stage and you don’t get any better AR, your AR’s are already useless.
About destroying limbs,
- Arthrons got shield and mostly got weapon at each arms and head. If it’s weak, you already kill it in limb disable. If shieded, you need to change your position to able to hit it. If it’s strong enough, it has 3 body parts to damage you already so you already need to kill it if you want to disable them.
- Triton got heal ability and many arms so killing a limb is not a solution to disable them. You need to destroy the weapon and you need a good aim weapon to do that.
- Siren, you first kill the head, always… it’s enough armored and you should kill it at least at mid range so little target, medium range, tough part so you need a good weapon with good aim with good damage.
At this game as it is today, limb destroying is not a solution for eliminating the thread mostly. You mostly use it at Sirens for MC and bleed for other big creatures. Why did I explain this? Because AR weapons can’t do what @VOLAND told now.
Game becomes from tactical to bullet-sponges so any old tactical options are leaving the game one by one. The solution is just kill the enemy on sight or it will hurt you so bad next turn. As the non-heavy armor does not save you from any kind of damage, you don’t have chance for another turn. You need to kill the enemy or you die.