I’m somewhat surprised by this as well, even though reading the patch notes tell me the nerf isn’t that extreme ( provided the patch notes are complete on the weapon changes, only the piranha was affected in the assault rifle group, and that one went from 30X5 to 40X4, so a net damage increase…but at the cost of 10 armor penetration the latter being what people would call the actual “nerf”, as you get 10 raw damage but lose 40 from armor penetration on a target with 20 armor)
I too felt assault rifles could use some love in their damage per hit department, (I suggested doubling it, but cutting busts count in half) in order to make them more self-sufficient against the ever increasing armor numbers on the smaller pandorans (in my oppinion, the main targets for assault rifles at medium range)
piranha:
damage X shots 30X5 to 40X4 great.
magsize 40 to 32 okay…
armor penetration 20 to 10, why…this almost completely invalidates the damage boost. and pretty much forces the player to strip the target first.
If we have to strip the target first, the deimos AR-L wins from the piranha, as its burst damage against unarmored targets is still higher and the weapon is more accurate.
overall though its only a really minor tap for the assault rifle group as a whole, it was struggling…and is still struggling.
Since I only ever use AR with soldiers who have damage boosting perks, the Pirhana nerf is a bit of a wash. On the one hand, I’m getting perk bonus on a higher damage base, which I like — damage per shot matters a lot. I use AR to mop up damaged pandas, and never expect every shot to hit, so want maximum bang for my buck. On the other hand, the AP nerf is annoying; 10 piercing is one sad-sack piercing weapon when crab tanks regularly sport 30 armor everywhere.
I’m curious: why is everything with damage a multiple of 10? Multiples of 5 are a thing, you know…
Perhaps because relatively recently the heath and damage was scaled into 100 range. Previously it was more discrete, almost like in XCom by comparison.
I read an article about that, big number stop say anything to most players. 78, 87, looks the same. First absurd conclusion, remove the numbers, big fail. Second approach use very small numbers, very hard. Third approach is what PP switched for, small number or higher number rounded when player usage pr psychology request it.
10Hp 1 damage, this doesn’t work. 10 STR 28 STR it’s borederline but it works and also because it translates in direct HP and carrying capacity.
100HP 10 damages that is starting makes more sense. 107HP 9 damages is less clear, the game couldn’t solve the problem for HP but targeted it for damages, more meaningful numbers matching traditions and not too precise to increase readability for many players. Same reason for percentage choices.
EDIT: About the article a solution was show numbers as bars, I practiced it, I’d say big fail but I admit PP did a good job on that approach with aiming scope (colors, bar, stripes) but the min/max base numbers are shown too.
Well I don’t know about you but this effect has a HUGE impact on my campaigns. It forces me to choose where to recruit from, and when to recruit. Do I have an aircraft available to ferry people currently? No, well let’s use that food for trading instead then. Maybe construct my next Manticore at Base 5 to pick up the 5 recruits around it, then it can head back to base 1 for Training and pick up 3 trained soldiers and a scarab before moving onto other things. Do I path through these Faction Havens to trade on my way to this mission, or those despite them being about 4hrs more? What do I want base 6 to be, based on it’s proximity to other things? Etc.
Makes every decision I make in the Geoscape a little bit more interesting so I’m just saying I have the exact opposite opinion of you and like it just the way it is. I’m actually surprised that we don’t have to ferry around the equipment as well or store them in specific bases. I’m personally not a fan of that but if that were to suddenly change then the game would become more difficult and need to be balanced accordingly.
I think the problem with the AR is that it specifically said that it was based off of “statistics”. What I find worrying now is what sort of statistics have been used because they have obviously nothing to do with reality - and will the source of those statistics be used again for other things.
Players lie and they love and use a lot AR before pre patch, particularly piercing one.
There’s a bug in report tool, giving wrong stats, for example it’s per bullet that weapons are evaluated.
Dev don’t care or didn’t notice balance between weapons which I admit is a complicated aspect, but only balances about choices in a same category and tier for weapons. Frankly from player comments in posts, I’m surprised the piercing shotgun didn’t get boost, or all other shotgun nerfed. For me it is great with the shredding (much less now with Dash nerf) but I didn’t felt be in a large category of players on that point.
The statistic may not say players use a lot of AR but player use piercing AR a lot more than the laser AR. When you look at the patch, The say the armor piercing weapons are used more than the same level weapons (so laser weapons).
The patch want to balance piercing AR with laser AR. But it is done at the cost of the balance between AR and other weapons.
Of course. I like having to think about which Haven to recruit from, and when. I don’t like the idea of it being as simple as “Click here to Recruit” at any time I want and get the exact results I want, as that to me sounds absolutely horrendous. I only see that as an “I win button”. Just to be clear.
It’s not that simple or you also gave up use training centers, lol. Level 1 recruits is no way a perfect solution for a big roster. The problem is despite PP has the potential for a big roster, it gives nothing to do it, but at least a big roster is possible without an insane grinding, I’m looking at you Long War 2.
I prefer it like in xcom apocalypse. When you recruit someone he came to your Base in a slow vehicle which takes time. If you want to have him fast fly yourself and carry him. Otherwise it takes time. By the way. Would do the same with res. Slow Ships which bring them to you if you dont wanna fly
The idea looks great, with choice of destination, really great, and would tune down the micro management except that recruit is very very rare so it’s minor.
Ha, I don’t even remember that. Okay this doesn’t sound too bad I’ll admit. Slower, and with an extra cost tacked on is something I could see being balanced in a way that I could still appreciate.
That way they could also remove the instant-teleport to the nearest PP base thing, which is currently it’s own weird strategy game. As it is, if I want soldiers in training bases and not just the nearest base, I still end up having to move them - otherwise feeling restricted to only recruiting from nearby a training base, which is its own strategic decision as it makes me think “which base do I want to be a training base?” based on two factors: proximity to recruitment havens, and proximity to everything else (ie, not in Antarctica). I like it, but now I’m beginning to think a more straightforward time/cost appraisal thing might be better, with longer distances costing more. Still requiring you to consider base position, but not forcing you to ferry it yourself as an only option.
On lower difficulties the added cost could be lowered or just be out-right removed because that’s just more of a Legend only thing probably.
Or this hiring process can be completely removed and replaces with a button in a base interface, then you know exactly into which base you are hiring and can see a full list of candidates (from the heavens that you know). If you want to spice it up, you can add an arrival timer that is based on distance from base to heaven.
When we are at it, the same could be done with trade.
Yeah. They took the one assult rifle people used the most- because it was basically the only one worth using at all, as far as I could see- and made it worse, so now there is no reason to use an assault rifle once you actually have other options.
Seriously, if they’re going to go this direction, they may as well just start the assault soldiers with shotguns and remove the whole bloody useless weapon class from the game.
And fun part is now PDW is more effective than Assault Rifle… Laser PDW does same damage as AR-50, but you can fire it 4 times… Overall, weapon design is one big mess which forces player into using certain weapons because others are absolutely worthless…
Its beyond me why Assault Rifles couldnt have 2x higher damage than they have, but 1/2 of shots fired (so Ares would fire 3 round burst with 60DMG each, AR-50 would fire 2round burst with 80 damage)… This way, per bullet, they would be more effective than pistols, as in reality… and would be relevant till the end of game… Plus, this change would not even change that much, because Aliens still tend to get uparmored quickly, and against 40 armor these weapons would not have enough of damage potential to one shot these anyway… and with large number of pandorans present in late game, it would be at least fun to play instead of trying to abuse certain mechanics to win…
I know exactly what you mean. That’s my opinion of a lot of the skill exploits, which is why I don’t use them.