Nerf everything

I would say HEAVY, comparable with RB and in some cases even more OP (i.e. you can combine it with RB!)

Edit: One very OP example, please only read if you are aware of the risk of exploitation: :stuck_out_tongue:

Infiltrator / sniper with assault rifle skill, called “MrScyllaKilla”, can really handle Citadels alone.
4 Klicks:
1st Mark for Death
2nd Quickaim shot with Pythagoras at the thick armored part with the low HP (almost arround 250), deals 360 damage - 60 armor = 300 damage, bodypart disabled, armor away
3rd Quickaim Daimos shot on the same bodypart, 6 x 99 = 594 damage
4th see 3rd
=> together 1488 damage, almost any Scylla is dead in one turn with only one soldier that is not revealed, so in no danger. There are only few Scyllas with a bit more HP and yeah, then i need a second turn

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Multiple Rally - this is the one Skill I do abuse, since survival is currently impossible without it. But 4 Squaddies with Rally effectively gives every Squaddie in the team 2 turns for every 1 turn of the Pandas.

Spot a Siren? Jet-Jump your Heavy next to her, fire off 2 Rallies, and your Heavy can either blow off her head or RB her into the ground in the same turn. Third Rally then lets them Dash for cover - assuming you didn’t stack RB with Rapid Clearance.

Very definitely HEAVY OP

Strong argument

I’ve editet my last post above to add an example …

Impressive …:wink: For that you might have to introduce Extreme “OP”?
People, if someone needs the GOD MODE, just click the hidden text from @MadSkunky.

Agreed. For me, a clear example of that is alpha striking - killing, or crippling most of the opponents in the first turn before they can even go on overwatch. It’s something that only the player can do and it has a tremendous impact on balancing both ways, because it “hides” the real difficulty of many encounters. As long as alpha striking is generally possible it is very hard to evaluate the real difficulty of any mission.

I don’t see a problem with sniper, as LOS is needed and the damage is comparatively low (usually not enough to one shot kill). I see some situational problems, a lot of them to do with accuracy buffs, quickaim, rage burst, and hellcannons and Scyllas, because their size makes them vulnerable.

OK… I’m going to start a separate topic on Scyllas before I go off topic :wink:

Sirens have the same capabilities as the priests, I believe. In fact, previously I had assumed that priests couldn’t mind control more than one enemy at the same time, but I was wrong - they can.

There are methods of preventing mind control, including not depleting your WPs. In fact, that is kinda the role the sirens have - they punish spending WPs carelessly, because the reason they can mind control 2 soldiers at the same time is because they have low WPs.

The devs have said that the sirens will be capped to 2 per mission, and I think that is all the nerfing they need.

One huge problem is that there is a bug that has always been there that results in sometimes double (if not more) damage being dealt from explosions, and it affects all explosives, those of the player and of the Pandas. This is why sometimes an acid nade from an Arthron is just annoying, and sometimes it’s death in 2 turns. The worst I have had recently is an acid worm that dealt 400+ acid damage (yes, it spread over different body parts, but it killed the guy with 180HPs on the next turn anyway).

Once (if? the devs are aware of it from release…:stuck_out_tongue:) it is fixed I would suggest capping Chirons per mission and reducing the damage (in the case of acid, probably something else also needs to be done). My reasoning: what is happening currently is that bombard/acid Chirons are the scariest enemies on the battlefield, and we deal with them with extreme prejudice, alpha striking at all costs, or using electric reinforcement to completely negate damage. We are not seriously attempting to deal with them tactically and don’t know if it’s actually possible. Make them a little less scary and see if they are manageable.

Agree on the skills, though as I said before most of it is contextual/due to other OP holes (like accuracy/mobility/damage buffs) and skill spamming.

One important caveat for all balancing that involves nerfing player’s capabilities, and particularly skills: I think they are fine as they are now for a casual difficulty level.

In this regard, I really liked @Wenlock post,

I recommend reading the whole thing, I’m just making a random quote to point to it.

PP can be played in many different ways, almost as different games, and it is being played that way right now. Different difficulty levels should be used to allow for that, to avoid balancing necessary for some “game modes” cutting into other players’ fun.

2 Likes

Also agree: And it is precisely this fact that makes this game either terribly easy (no tactics necessary, because it always works) or frustratingly impossible.

It is obvious that this problem affects many players.

Devs @UnstableVoltage @Valygar, I know you are still working on balance. But what specific measures are planned?

  • Minimal rebalancing?
  • Total rebalancing?
  • Rebalancing based on the level of difficulty or advanced settings?
  • Everything still open?
1 Like

This is one very long way of saying “I like it as it is.” :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: Bad joke. I dont want to pick another fight.

But I don’t agree with @Wenlock. His post is high quality and explains a lot about why & what he considers fun. But I don’t agree about different playstyles as everything is bound to PP being a very boardgame-ish experience. Every strategy he described focus on different specialization of the very same mechanic, just differs in skill set. None of them brings game closer to tactical battlescape. So sure, if you like the core mechanic you’ll have plenty of options to choose. If you don’t, well… you’re screwed. My problem is game wasn’t advertised as what it become, and I feel like we’ve backed completely different game. BB1 was a nice teaser of what we can get but we didn’t.

I’m not sure if what he wrote there are really differnet ways. Those are just more or less optimized playthoughs and they mostly depict what you can do on strategic level, which is still quite shallow. On the missions you just try different tactic based on skills you already have there. Also read what SpiceAndMalice replied to it.

Nevertheless I like your previous part of that post. :slight_smile: If Snapshot did introduce what you are writing then skills would be not so overpowered, just a bit of magical.

These are fair points, and I didn’t suggest reading Wenlock’s post with the idea of convincing anybody about PP’s merits.

It struck a cord with me because I realized that I approach regular difficulty missions as if PP was a quick, but classical tactical TB game, but when it comes to very hard missions I switch into something not entirely unlike “Into the Breach” thinking mode. I imagine other players can approach the game differently too, for example as a fantasy tactics game, with skills doing the part of spells and WPs being the mana. And a casual player will not think about any of it all.

Doesn’t mean that you can play PP as you want to play it, I’m not saying that. My point is that when proposing changes to balance it is important to consider how other players are playing it, because Snapshot is more likely to make those changes to balance that are more likely to be accepted by all the players.

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I wanted to throw out basically a whole list of (mostly) simple changes and I was about to make a whole new post, then remembered that this one already exists both here and on canny and pretty much fits as the same subject I had. I will apologize to @SpiteAndMalice because this feels almost like hijacking the post he started and I don’t want to earn his…Spite and Malice (Badum Tiss)(It’s late for me right now and I’m kind of tired…). I will not be copying this over to canny (because I’m lazy and don’t wanna…), but I will say thanks to @MichaelIgnotus for convincing me to put this somewhere and I will be addressing some of what @walan listed on the canny side.

Things I will NOT address:
-Acid: There are already so many posts, complaints, etc…I’m assuming it will be fixed and just moving on from there.
-Scylla difficulty issues: not only is there at least 1 post wholly dedicated to this, there are also some dev proposed changes in the works…so same with acid…I’m just moving on
-Recruitment availability and geoscape in general: Similar to the scylla, we all know there are some issues here…devs have ideas in the works
-Nest/Lair/Citadel layout/difficulty: Obvious issue, multiple solutions…devs already said they are working on it and how…

  1. Dash is usable only once per turn: First off, mobility is important in pretty much any game that has it…so having the ability to cross a map of any size and position however you want almost instantaneously is obviously a problem. Just fixing Dash like this doesn’t solve everything, but I feel like it’s the best place to start.
  2. Rage Burst is buffed to only -30% accuracy, can not be buffed by Quick Aim, is usable only once per turn, and now provides a stacking debuff AP debuff each turn after: I’ll explain the debuff part first with example then explain my reasoning. So on turn 1 Soldier McSoldierson uses RB with whatever weapon…meaning what AP he ahs left he can do anything with except use another RB. On turn 2 McSoldierson now has the tired debuff giving him only 3 AP the rest of that fight, and he uses RB again. On turn 3 he is now exhausted leaving him with only 2 AP the rest of the fight, and should he use RB any more he will be Dazed the turn after. This (in my mental trials at least) alters not only how often RB can be used, but also provides a tactical necessity as using it against anything and everything you come across could result in not being able to use it when needed while making players really consider if they should use it in any given situation or not. At the same time, the ability is still extremely powerful, being able to produce 5 times the normal damage of a single shot in that particualr turn. The minor accuracy buff from the current debuff is there to help ensure that more rounds land on target and make the ability still useful, while not providing so much as to be able to thread a needle 5 times in a row at max range.
  3. Rally the troops now only affects a 10 tile radius and cannot be used on the same soldier more than once per turn: This may not seem like a huge nerf at first to some while it may seem like it’s now unusable to others. This change still has plenty of workarounds with these changes, and in conjunction with other changes will make it feel more like a level 6 skill (which it technically is) and less like a level 8 skill (which it acts like). In the right (or wrong depending on viewpoint/context) situations it will still provide that last little bit of damage you need to not get wiped out by pressing “End Turn”, but it removes the “group of buffing across the map yolo” plays that are part of the various discussed problems.
  4. Adrenaline Rush now provides a 10% damage buff to bash and melee, but while under the effects that soldier can no longer be buffed/debuffed: Yes…this has more of a buff on it than a debuff, but when added in with the other change ideas here it already takes quite a beating and that one buff/debuff change will hurt it more than it may seem. This means that Frenzy, for instance, could be applied beforehand to help McSoldierson the Berserker to get in/out of position but once AR is going Rally the Troops, which is now essentially and invisible buff/debuff, will not affect him. This is mostly done to help be more in line with the Berserker idea of get in close and beat someone down, keep a lot of usefulness for other weapons and situations, while still bringing it down just a notch and keeping it different from Rapid Clearance.
  5. Armor Break destroys 30 armor: This may not seem like something that needed to really even be touched on to most people, but keeping in mind all of the changes I’m putting down, being able to almost completely strip off every bit of armor instantaneously at the cost of attacking something (which you were going to do anyways) and a few WPs would not only become stronger but be avoiding how it’s part of the problem as it is. This ability is part of the reason acid pre-leviathan was rarely if ever used, and why leviathan buffed acid so (IMO at least). Dropping this a couple notches to 30 will not affect it’s usefulness in the early game where you need something to help deal with armor to to anything major, but at the same time will leave those enemies that are supposed to be really tanky, armored, hard-to-kill opponents as still harder to kill than other enemies. In the late game, where you can easily see armor of 60 or so, this will still strip enough off to make your damage be damage, but not so much that you can just melt everything like microwaved butter.
  6. Rapid Clearance reduces MAXIMUM CURRENT movement by 50%, with a maximum of 4 AP earned: This is by far one of the worst (as in most powerful) abilities in the game to date. Even with every other change(nerf) I’m suggesting AND the 50% movement speed debuff, this ability on one soldier can single-handedly win most engagements. The 50% reduction, as I worded it above, is applied after all other calculations, meaning a buff (like frenzy with +50%) is not just negated but added in before handed in a cumulative manner (not -50%=0, but x50%=75%). This ensures you still get a bonus from any bonuses now or later to be added, but you still feel the sacrifice of gaining such immeasurable power. The maximum AP gain further ensures you can still get use out of the ability and the ability itself stays (relatively) powerful, but that even when taking that 1 extra turn to get set up and positioned correctly McSoldierson won’t become a 1 man army super soldier wiping all enemies off the map instantly.
  7. Quick Aim is usable once per turn: Many players who have already learned the ins and outs of the game self-impose this limit to create a more challenging experience. For other players this may seem like a game-breaking nerf, especially early game, but I feel as if it does more of a push in the tactical direction. Before even gaining access to this ability you have access to Extreme Focus, which is essentially the same thing with an exchange of will point usage for direct body part accuracy and tactical planning of enemy movement. In other words, this doesn’t stop the usage of 2 shots from a 3 AP weapon, it just makes some planning required and removes that extra pistol shot that rarely hits anyways.
  8. Marked for Death…stays the same: I have this feeling that a lot of people would have been demanding to know why this wasn’t included if I didn’t list it since this is another of those abilities that seems ridiculously strong. That said, spoiling the rest of this, I will list a lot of other various changes as this goes on (yes, mostly nerfs) that changing Marked for Death without me actually being able to fully test it all out (or have better players than I do so) might actually break the game in the opposite direction.
  9. Remote Deployment costs 2 AP: why am I changing this when it’s not really ever mentioned as a strong ability, but even when mentioned it’s as a necessary ability to make a technician worthwhile? Again, there are more changes yet to be mentioned, and this ability as well as the next will become much stronger if not taken into account. Technicians, as more tactics become available and things stop ending in the first 2 turns of every fight, become/are an incredibly reliable support/healer. This costing only 1 AP would also make them a reliable damage dealer after turn 2 or 3 while still giving them the mobility they need to be a proper support for your team. The skill itself already helps massively by giving the turrets that extra range, and making it cost the same as before this skill was picked up is honestly less of a “nerf” and more of “less of a buff”.
  10. Electric Reinforcement is usable once per turn: I’m suggesting a lot of damage, health, and armor changes throughout this, making armor all the more valuable by the end. Being completely honest, I’m not even sure if this alone would be enough, but then again I have not played a game where all these changes are incorporated, so it’s hard for me to say for sure.
  11. Infiltrators: Okay…I’ll be completely honest here…you already have to pick up a mod at the moment for this class to even work as intended and in a balanced manner…and I don’t even like to use them in the game’s current iteration, so I won’t even pretend like I have any ideas to make anything these guys have/do be better balanced.
  12. Vehicles take only 2 crew slots, can be reloaded in combat, and take only 1 AP to get out of: I’m going to make this an exception to the rule I placed for myself before I started writing all this out about not beating any dead horse listed elsewhere. Problems with vehicles are written all over the place. I like them (for their coolness factor), and I REALLY want them to be balanced out and usable throughout the game. Upgrading them in some way to stay in line with your soldiers is an idea I’ve thought of, but when really contemplating it I realized that at 2 crew slots it would make sense in a lore perspective for amount of room on an airship, at 1 AP to get out they work as a decent troop transport on a map through danger zones, and with the ability to have them reload they can actually be useful for more of the combat that these poor things might not need much more (once again, not that I can figure out without testing). Mutogs, on the other hand are a different story…and as much as I like them for their coolness factor as well, these poor pets need additional love in some direction that my mind just won’t go at the moment.
  13. Weapons: I’m listing all this under the same number because I’m willing to admit that my ideal changes may not be the best ones, some people may not even think they need to be changed, and others may even think I have it all backwards. Keep in mind that I want it all to make sense from a lore perspective while being balanced as my definition of balanced is. I’m aiming to have Phoenix gear be a middle of the road equip with no perfect hierarchy in weapons except under circumstance. I already know that thought is outrageous (and literally causes outrage) to some people, as they think balance is having phoenix gear be starting gear only with things gained through research gaining superiority and power. The ideas I’m listing are here to balance EVERYTHING as much as I’m able to in my mind, meaning if you didn’t want to ally with a faction or use their stuff then you would have that option…not advisable or necessarily prudent maybe, but at least there as a possibility. All this while making each factions stuff equal, but not the same.
    A) Ares Assault Rifle: 32 damage, 2 shred
    B) Bulldog Assault Rifle: 2 shred
    C) Firebird Sniper: 115 damage
    D) Pythagoras Sniper: 110 damage
    E) Raven Sniper: 110 damage, 30 pierce
    F) Shotguns: 38 damage
    G) Hephaestus Pistol: 47 damage
    H) Kydoimos Grenade: Either added “sonic” as a damage type in the game or call it what is!
    I) PDWs: [This area left blank for editing] (I rightly can’t remember at this second all the PDWs much less their stats, but I do remember that when I last glanced at them I had some balance ideas)
    I’m sure I’ve left out some weapons throughout all this, and even saying that I would like to see more added…but in a balanced manner. These changes I listed so far are all under the idea of making each weapon unique, still relative to their faction (Synedrion for accuracy, NJ for firepower, etc), and complete with usability, if not viability, throughout the game.
  14. Armor: I ran weapons into a quick category, so I’ll do the same with armor here.
    A) Reduce all speed buffs on any armor by 1: Speed too high is a current problem, this doesn’t address it by itself, but it helps while still making the armor relevant. For those that lose all speed entirely from this, bring it back up to +1 or add 2 armor depending on what makes sense in a lore perspective as either would (hopefully) balance out. This is not a perfect explanation, I grant you, but I’ve also already been typing for awhile now and am getting tired.
    B) Remove Synedrion Speed buffs and add +2%-+5% stealth and/or accuracy: Synedrion is supposed to be about stealth and accuracy…
    C) Remove stat changed on phoenix assault armor and add +1 or +2 to armor value: this will put it back in line (middle of the road) with other armors
    That’s about it for armor, actually. Augments are a different story, and I have neither the mental power nor the complete knowledge to make sound judgments on them at this time.
  15. Carriers/Airships/[Insert whatever you want to call them here]: I actually want to have some changes done, and I do have ideas for those changes. That said, it would all be more of “how to make them feel more like part of the game and make ALL of the stats they have more meaningful” versus “how to make them more balanced”, so I will not be putting any of it here.
  16. Non-Class Skills and Passive Buffs: I included passive buffs because that’s what the character skills pretty much are, but some of the others like armor or Marksman may need a second look after a rebalance. For the character skills themselves, cut every number in half, and adjust reckless to match cautious. Minor tweaks may still need to be made afterwards and attention may need to be paid on not falling into the “pretty round numbers” trap that seems to fill most of the stats in the game at the moment, but this is the best start I can think of. Also notice I didn’t label this section as Character Skills. Right now there’s a kind of lack of emotion that we were looking for towards each individual soldier. When I lose a soldier in a skirmish, my first thought is “oh no”, followed by “well, guess I gotta grab a replacement after this fight”. The character skills idea, although a tad too strong, was a good idea and great step in the right direction for making each soldier feel more like a unique individual, but I’m going to say it was only 1 step in the right direction, and at LEAST 2 steps not enough. There are a variety of ideas, many pulled from other games or mods of other games, that could push it those few more steps, but I wanted to try and stay on the same path the devs were starting to walk on and provide my own solution: Personality Traits and Faction Skills. We already have something of a personality in each individual, for those who ever notice, by how our soldiers talk during combat…none of which is reflected in any other way or at any other time. Granted, with this some more customization options (and more voice acting) would likely need to be added…eventually at least…but having some kind of very minor stat alterations based on personality would make each soldier feel a little more unique…especially with it adding more possible combinations to everything else. When I say minor, I do minor…i.e. Timid: -2% accuracy, +3% accuracy in overwatch. This makes me feel a little bit more like this soldier has a personality that affects hime in a way to be more useful on some situations versus others, but at the same time doesn’t provide or detract anything that breaks the game. Along with that would be a random faction bonus, giving them one out of…let’s say…3 possible minor bonuses based on where they originally came from. Nothing over 5% increase, and no 2 alike…except maybe recruitment of independent/phoenix depending on how that proposed idea plays out.
  17. General Stats: What I’m about to put here, if done carefully and correctly, could actually be applied to the pandorans as well, but I’m just going to mention it for humans right now as it’s only a change to the current system and not a new system instated. Give each soldier a base stat to start with…not a starting line on the slider. Going down the 3 stats let’s say (for Legend with a bonus for each difficulty decrease) 10 Stength, 5 Will, 5 Speed. Now we put on the slider for each…maxxed out at 15. Make the cost start at 5 and increase by 1 for each point invested. Depending on class add 2 points starting into the corresponding stat(s). I’ve already suggested damage nerfs, and propose damage and health nerfs for pandorans, so having slightly less health is offset by armor also having more meaning. Willpower isn’t really affected too much in any way. The largest problem here, Speed, many will probably argue over. Yes, this is a severe nerf compared to all the other, more minor, nerfs I’ve mentioned, but the 2 greatest problems at the moment are being able to instantly obliterate practically every enemy in 1 turn and being able to run around the whole map to do it…in that same 1 turn. Yes, I admit that skills play a part in that, and armor as well albeit less so…but even with all the nerfs I’ve suggested, a person could still move with an effective speed of 45-50 per turn. This drops that further in the late game, making positioning and tactical movement more prevalent, while making it only 1 or 2 less at most in early game, still enough for soldiers to get where they need to be.

All of this added together makes some of the less used skills more viable, fixes the abuse and power spikes of unbalanced skills, and alters stats and stat gain more so for higher difficulties so that everyone who plays on Legend will actually have a more legendary experience…minus those few who feel that Legend is already too hard and refuse to play on easier difficulties because they want to feel like they’re better at the game than they are…

Now we get to the other side of the equation…the enemies you face throughout the game that we all enjoy fighting…the other factions! Oh, wait…I meant the Pandor(i?)ans!

  1. Health Scaling dropped by 10%-20%: Notice I said scaling and not health itself. In the early game these guys have either too little or just enough health for your team to fight. This fits both from a lore perspective (as they haven’t begun to adapt to you killing them and are just starting to emerge) as well as a game perspective (it’s the beginning…), but as time goes on they start gaining so much health that all of the ridiculous and strong abilities have to be constantly spammed out to stand a chance. The devs have already set a kind of basic timeline (difficulty dependent) on the game. Where their max health is I believe is actually balanced, but not on how quickly they gain it. Even on Legend difficulty, their health scaling should not be so quick that you have to follow one set strategy as quickly as possible…that strategy being get the strongest abilities as quickly as possible and nuke them from orbit. On the other hand, if you prolong the game too much just to play around with them then they should continue getting stronger to try and counteract that.
  2. Arthron Weapons Mutations start small, get more varied and dangerous, but stay away from instant death, as well as have dual mutations and more variety as time goes on: I will admit some of this has been briefly touched on to some extent in other places, but I want to go a little further. First off, starting Arthrons should NOT have launcher arms. These guys are basically newly born (made), just came out of the sea/mist, have had no time to mutate and adapt to their circumstances, and IT’S THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME! Let them mutate to fight the phoenix teams, not start off with most of the ways they can fight from the get go. During these mutations and adaptations, additionally, give them a chance to try their equipment in the other hands. A right arm shield user suddenly appearing alongside a left arm user (maybe from different structures) could give some pause as to what kind of angle to take to shoot the appropriate arms. An Arthron with 2 Machine guns, or a Viral gun and a Machine gun would make for some better tactical planning and more difficult choices. Having some extra variety there wouldn’t hurt either, like some different melee weapons that apply various status effects. Different grenade arms should also come AFTER the basic type. Lastly, and this has been hit on before, adjust how new mutations affect them in general and don’t just make it a pure power-up. Extra armor on legs should drop speed, on arms accuracy, etc. Wielding a heavy machine gun or cannon (should be option) should make them drastically less accurate, and should stay more in line with human weapons which is where it seems they draw their inspiration from anyways. If they have a ranged weapon that deals 50 damage per “bullet”, it should fire less often and accurately than one that deals 10 (the previous numbers have been made up and are used as an example and not an accurate representation of current game statistics).
  3. Tritons scaled back and use fitting armaments: Arthrons are (without extra mutations and carapace) these skinny awkward guys that look like they might fall apart any second…with scary looking big things attached to their arms, yet even in the late game I feel more worried about an early game version of a triton over an arthron (minus current iteration of acid launcher). These guys can spawn mist, go invisible when a shot veers off just a tad too far, and generally wreck your face if you don’t deal with them quickly…all while looking relatively innocent and screaming obscenities at whatever they attack. Because of that we all know how to deal with them, even the newest of players after maybe their second triton scuffle, making them feel like more of a meaty nuisance most of the time compared to anything else. I’ve already said scale back the health scaling across the board, but also drop these guys initial and max health by around 5%-10%, same as arthrons with making mutations into armor drop other stats somewhat, then give them some more stealth mutations and melee mutations along with better AI that corresponds to not just those mutations but their wielded weapons, which should also be corresponding to whatever havens and such are near their spawning structure. If the closest NJ haven is on the other side of the world, I haven’t lost a soldier using any NJ stuff, and I come across a triton with Bulldog rifle, mist arms, double perception head, and pain chameleon…I get confused on multiple points…this is a dude adapted to being stealthy and staying at range, using a weapon meant for mid-close range fire that he somehow picked up from the other side of the world, even though the nest he’s coming from just came into existence hours ago…
  4. Sirens are too strong physically but not strong enough psychically: I still remember my first siren…as I would bet many do…I opened the door and there she was, looking like she was ready to chop my guys to pieces if they weren’t willing to convert to her religion. Her dissection and vivisection tell us all about how she’s basically a psychic BAMF who acts like a sub-queen. Everything about her is supposed to be about messing with your mind, yet when the fight actually gets underway it feels more like she’s just a warrior princess who happens to have mind control on the side. Don’t mistake me, mind control is scary…and if she had abilities like a Forsaken Priest I would likely run in terror when I can’t focus her down. But that’s the comparison I want to make here: she’s armored and has a lot of health with strong melee, but fighting her feels just like fighting an armored melee arthron with a lot of health who sometimes disables a soldier for a round. Where’s the Induce Panic attacks, where are all the other psychic abilities she supposedly has to make me getting Psychic Ward actually some meaning in most of the game, and why don’t I see any indication of her “controlling lesser pandorans” as her autopsy reports told me? These are things that she needs to gain so that I can (happily) have nightmares about fighting her, but at the same time it should balance out with her health and armor. This mind manipulating terror should feel like one, and not like a front line scout/tank spotting for her allies and absorbing bullets like a sponge. Half the time her AI even suggests that she play her pschic terror role correctly, as she pokes out from cover only long enough to take over someone’s mind before retreating into a hidey hole somewhere. The rest of the time she just flies in like a banshee on drugs, shrugging off the stray rounds and sticking her bladed scythe arms into places they shouldn’t be stuck. The former way of fighting is how I feel she should be all the time, using her more physical capabilities when trapped or when able to single out a soldier, but her armor or health or both should be dropped considerably and she should be given more abilities with her staying at minimal range to be an effective psychic nightmare, as well as making it actually feel like the arthrons, tritons, and even chirons and worms are being controlled or at least directed by her.
  5. Chirons and scyllas…will not be mentioned: The devs have already explained several proposed ideas that will balance them out more along with a multitude of people supplying their own comments and ideas as supplement…
  6. The Forsaken, The Pure, and more Pandorans: The Forsaken and The Pure, for the most part, seem to scale decently with the player as the game progresses, and the changes I’ve mentioned here so far hopefully counteract the points where it just becomes a 1 turn boredom dance enough that no real changes need to be made on their encounters…but what SHOULD be changed is their encounters themselves. I have refused to pick up the DLC yet for 2 major reasons, the first of which is the balance which I’m trying to address here and the second is that instead of feeling like I’m getting additional enemies in exchange for additional toys, the current enemies are being replaced. I get plenty of enjoyment from breaking the monotony of fighting pandorans for fighting Independents and The Forsaken, so why would I want to scale how much I fight them back just to fight another group? The Geoscape has plenty of room, and ambushes are already a tedious and boring experience, so scale some of that back a bit, add some more dots, and let me fight more enemies in exchange for getting more toys. (This last bit may be a bit more of a rant, but I still consider it to a balance issue to an extent)

So I may come back and add more details (especially in pandoran sections) as well as try to explain some things better, but as I’ve said several times throughout this I’m tired and it’s late…and this took me a few hours to write up and edit into a (reasonably) readable state. Plus, for all I know, I’m the only one who thinks even half of this is a good idea and everyone else will completely hate/disregard everything here, so I’m willing to wait and see before I try to add anything more to all this.

6 Likes

Very unpopular idea incoming: After overall nerf, make free aim shot cost +1AP, and Quick Aim remove this penalty. Right now with direct targeting all the time:

  • normal “hipshot” make absolutely no sense (there is literally no situation when non-free-aim shot would be preferred over direct targeting) and is just finish-off button for lazy people,
  • disabling certain body part will be more strategic/tactical decision instead of always available nobrainer.
2 Likes

Agree …

Maybe 1 WP instead of 1 AP, since the free aim is the business card of the game and should therefore be used as often as possible.
I would also like 1 WP for Overwatch (of course for both sides).

This “minimal” use of WP would also reduce the constant repetition of skills, since WP pool always shrinks somewhat.

A lot of good ideas! You can see that the game is close to your heart.

That is soooooo true :clap:

I would nerf it hard as it is overused to the point there’s no sense of not using it and minor WP cost won’t change anything. AP cost with skill to reduce it is what I would call a good start.

  • It will nerf sniper rifles hard (1 shot per turn),
  • Can be a good opening for making some of the body parts disablement lethal, like head for humans,
  • Will reduce overall mobility and alpha striking (move a lot and don’t aim vs move a little and aim, it is large nerf to alpha striking damage per turn),
  • Will make cover more relevant (you’re less likely to damage a covered enemy by shooting center of mass, aim to make a difference),
  • Shooting off body parts will be more tactical option than guaranteed action (Arthron shield for example wouldn’t be minor annoyance anymore),
  • Will focus more on getting close quarter combat if you want to shoot multiple times per turn instead of taking out everything from safe distance.

It would still be a great asset and game seller, but building a whole balance around it isn’t a way to go in my opinion.

So I realized I left out several things I intended to add to all that…but right now let I’m still feeling too tired and lazy to try and edit through that more…however…

True…this would be and doubtless is a very unpopular idea…because, as @walan mentioned, this is kind of the theme of the game. I would like to make one correction about your first point, though. Granted it’s due to some glitchiness/bugginess that’s still in the game, but there are times when trying to use free aim will actually force your barrel into a wall while hip firing lands rounds on target…and these times are less rare than many might think, but most people just move the soldier over a space and shoot from there instead.

That being said, I can understand how (assuming the game were in perfect condition) hip firing would normally be completely useless. Making it cost 1 AP would definitely be too costly and make it rarely used, thereby destroying the whole main game mechanic. I also can’t fully agree with the WP usage, since not only is it supposed to be a basic game mechanic…from a lore perspective these are essentially military personnel…and as former military I can attest that although we might not always carefully aim down and try to land precise shots, neither do we just randomly hipfire like an action movie star. Now all of what I proposed in my novel up there are things that I think would actually have a chance with the dev team…so I want you to fully understand that I, for approximately 0.00 seconds, believe that the following statement will ever have any chance for the devs to take seriously, but I do think it’s a fair solution to what you feel is a problem:
Free aim has -5% accuracy and overwatch has +5% accuracy: this would give people better reason to try and predict the enemies movements versus taking them out instantly while helping to fix the current issue, at least a little, of McSoldierson shooting that wall right next the guy moving through the overwatch cone, and based on how the current hipfire works would make those shots still land moderately well, all while imposing some, albeit minor, penalty for taking matters into your own hands.

I call it “hipfire” because I have no idea how to call, hence the quotation marks, a quick burst in direction of an enemy. I assume precision shooting isn’t as fast as just getting enemy somewhere in crosshair/ironsight and pulling trigger. And that is what I think PP soldier is doing when not precision aiming (just targets center of mass and shots).

Edit: Funny thing is, that heavy weapons in PP are hipfired weapons and can’t be shot over low cover, yet still you can aim like a sniper rifle if there’s no obstacle on the height of barrel.

TBH, this post was too long and I stopped reading and started skimming about 1/3 of the way through. If you want a lot of people to seriously engage with these ideas, I’d suggest you split them up into individually separate posts.

I’m absolutely with you on RB and Rally. In fact, I seriously think you should post your RB suggestion on Canny.

I’m starting to think that Rally, while having a radius limit as you suggest, should also be linked to some sort of promotion system. I haven’t thought this through yet, which is why I haven’t posted anything, but Rally simply feels like something the officer in the Squad does (to the extent that when I give my guys Rally, I change their name to give them an NCO/Officer rank). This might also help to limit Rally to a certain extent, if Officers were only able to Rally someone who had a lower rank than them.

TBH, I’m not as bothered as you are about Sirens - and I think if the devs took up your suggestion(s), there would be a minor rebellion from the casual gamer section of this forum, who are terrified enough of Sirens as it is. I think the erosion of WP means that she is not unstoppable, which is necessary, and while she does have a lot of HP, being able to focus on her head effectively neutralises her. In fact, I think I’m on the side of the casual gamer with this one - the BIG change I’d like to see with Sirens is removing her ability to MC from behind a wall. Our Priests need LoS to MC, so why doesn’t she?

Still, a very good, well thought out and interesting post. Break it down into its constituent parts and post some of these ideas on Canny with backup threads here, and you might get some traction.

I think new business card could be: “Phoenix Point, a first Turn Based Strategy where you can actually headshot a guy.” and game will be much more recognizable for it. :slight_smile:

Right now, you can put tons of bullets in a head, disable it and enemy still be in more-less good condition. And thats the fault of precision aim being so common and obvious solution to everything.

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And people drawn in by that tagline would immediately complain that headshotting a guy doesn’t instantly take him down.