Personally, i think Assault Rifles in Phoenix Point have absolutely no sense… They require 2 AP, where PDW only 1 and has same DMG potential, which means you can shoot PDW with Quick Aim for 0AP as long as you have Willpoints, which combined with Rapid Clearance means you can easily shoot everything on map with single guy - in my recent Haven Defense, my Sniper shot Scylla and removed armor from her, then my single Assault/Sniper armed with PDW dashed once in the center of group of Pandorians and started killing them one after another… long story short, i have wiped out all Pandorians in my turn, Scylla included (8 Arthrons,4 Tritons, 2 Chirons, and 4 Sirens) and still have 2 AP left…
From realism perspective - Assault Rifle is superior weapon to Pistols or PDW due to longer barrel, therefore higher velocity given to bullet and therefore higher penetration… In PP, even ordinary pistol does more damage per shot (50 vs 30)… Most powerful handgun can deal around 1200 joules (50cal version of Desert Eagle) while typical 9mm can get up to 600J, where standard 14" barrel M4A1 deals around 1500 joules, 16" Carbines get up to 1800 joules and 20" Rifles are 2000-2200 Joules of energy for 5.56 ammo… with 7.62x51 you can get to 3500 joules, while currently developed 6.8mm Assault Rifles will have kinetic potential around 3000 joules (they are supposed to penetrate Level IV protection at combat ranges)
For comparation, PDWs usually use either special ammo or rifle ammo, but due to much shorter barrel, their kinetic energy is far below Assault Rifle of same caliber (for 5.56, they can get up to 1000 joules)
I don’t think the problem is rapid clearance alone. The soldier is an Assault/Sniper.
It has:
multiclass
Dash
rapid clearance
quick aim
probably mark for death
armor break when body part diseabled
probably the proficiency with pwd that add +20% aim and +20% to damage
probably a laser PWD 4*48 damage with the +20%
all the aim bonus from the class and armor
Again 20 armor that is 112 damage for 1 or 0 action point with quickaim (-3 will)
192 with 0 armor (body part diseabled)
A total of 304 damage + max health reduction from the destroyed body. This is enough to kill an arthron or triton (+2-3 will) => 0 action point and -1 or 0 will with a quick aim
Mark for death is 4 will (again Chiron, syren and scyla) you gain 5 will per kill (except scyla). Even with a quick aim you have 3 shots with +50% damage. => 0 action point and -1 or 0 will
With enough will (to get a few more quick aim) and speed to move around a bit, it might be possible to kill that mayn ennemies. But you need a lot of skill points.
multiclass 50
Dash 10
rapid clearance 50
quick aim 15
mark for death 50
armor break when body part diseabled 20
proficiency with pwd 25
220 skill points in total
On legendary you start with 14 strengh, 6 will and 14 speed. To have +4 on each you need 98 skill points
I may be wrong but this soldier have probably used a lot of skill points coming from the common pool. That is all but a standard soldier using PWD and rapid clearance.
Nerfing rapid clearance becasue of that is wrong. You might make it useless in normal situation. Quick aim should not reduce action point below 1. That modifies nothing with most weapons.
I like to reduce the use of the common pool of skill points. For exemple a soldier should have an hidden stat that starts at 2000 points. Each XP gained in battle is added to this stat even when level 7 is reached. Each time you use a point from the common pool it reduce the stat by 100. The number of skill points from the common pool would be 20 + the skill points gained. You need 2350 Xp to get to level 7 if I am not mistaken. If you use the training centre to get to level 3 you need 2000 more Xp. So up to 40 skill points coming from the common pool when your soldier hits level 7. But it will gain more later.
This would reduce abuse.
It would be possible to give more skill points to some soldiers than other. (purpose of teh common pool)
You can give points to low level soldiers. (they start with 20 free points from pool)
XP from battle when your soldier have reach level 7 is not a total waste.
This nerf the training center.
Concerning PWd ans assault rifle. The damage diference is not enough to justify the action cost difference. I would prefer the assault rifle to get better effective range than damage increase. This would help Assault to be better at medium range trying to hit weak points.
You don’t do the perf describe with that low attributes, 10 will, never ever, or you have a dam great trick I never quoted.
I’m shared on that, I mean it would require a huge amount of balances and tuning to redo. Or it would restrict hugely. I think a more reasonable nerf is limit effective attributes to a lower max:
Effective max is maximum value providing bonus, above is pointless if there isn’t something else lowering it. For example Max effective Speed 22, is same than 24 with armor -2, and same than Speed 24.
It would be something like STR 30, Will 18, Speed 22.
But yeah it means you could still put a huge amount of will point in one soldier.
To define a max of global skill points used by soldiers, classes need a total re design, they are too much unbalanced on that.
The proficiency give +20% damage with PWD and pistol. I fought it also give +20% aim. I was mistaken but that damage is the important part. The aim is not very importatnt for a sniper. He has enough aim.
Concerning the stat I agree that soldier has used way more skill points. I was just doing that exemple to show the cost of a small increase. I didn’t mean it was enough. 220 + 98 is already more that 6 level. And you probably have to add 100-200 skill points in top of that.
Rereading my post I see two other mistakes that do not change much the conclusion.
Chiron and syren: 3 shots at 50% for either
1 action cost and 1 will gain
2 will cost
Arthorn and triton 2 shots for either
2-3 will gain
0-1 will cost and 1 action point gain
Edit: corrected the mistake reported by YetAnotherGuy
Well I don’t see attributes level, I don’t see what explain Scylla, 8 Arthrons,4 Tritons, 2 Chirons, and 4 Sirens killed in one turn by a soldier mainly. Again what you quote for skills involve huge WP costs, and as far I could have quote there’s diminishing returns for WP gain from kills. I have hard time to imagine how it can work without perhaps very high attributes, mainly Will, but Speed in part too.
Again I’m not inexperienced in soldier using mainly PWD, and it’s no way huge. Armor Break is limited because of Will cost. And it’s far behind the Rapid Clearance + Adrenalin Rush for which PWD is crap.
I could not see well a point but in your example I don’t understand fully yet, I see no decisive arguing proving that no matter the soldier PWD is better than AR. Nope.
once again, If you have Rapid Clearance, Assault/Sniper combo and Laser PDW you can easily chain kills, gain APs an WPs which allow you to progress to another kill etc etc… after all, you can shoot for 0AP if you have 3 willpoints, and you get 2 for every Arthron killed, 5 for Chiron, 10 for Scylla and 4 for Siren… plus you can recharge WPs by moving to chests or spots on the map which give you back WP you can use to kill enemies and recharge APs… I told you I had 20 Strength, and 18Will on that character, he had 22 mobility with Synedrion Assault armor and Sniper helmet… I had another three snipers taking out heavy armor from some enemies for him, so he could chain his kills… Shame this game doesnt have turn counter, i would do some screenshots…
For custom perks, he had Reckless, self defense specialist and Farsighted. He had Dash, Quick Aim, Ready for Action, Weakspot, and Rapid Clearance.
Laser PDW does 40 damage per bullet… for 1 AP… with Quick Aim its 0AP… Its literally same damage as AR-50 does, but cost 1AP less… and its more accurate
Dream, you won’t spite many Armor Break in a turn. Still waiting attributes levels, and armors are involved too.
EDIT: For laser PDW there’s perhaps a balance screw up, I had troubles with NJ because of a bug during previous campaign. And in current I still haven’t managed well NJ.
And it won’t change that you won’t make a team of PDW I don’t ever see any good team if it uses mainly PDW. At reverse never use AR is non sense, as I already explained it depend a lot of soldier context, it’s not just a blind direct comparison.
why dont you read my posts??? I wrote exactly what i had. 20 STR, 18 WILL and 22 SPD
Reckless, self defense specialist and Farsighted. Dash, Quick Aim, Ready for Action, Weakspot, and Rapid Clearance.
And you are mistaken… you dont need to break the most armored part… but worst armored… and Arthrons dont have heavy armor over entire body… there is always a spot left you can aim for… and Laser PDW is quite accurate for that, when you combine it with a Sniper/Assault combo and Synedrion Assault armor with Synedrion Sniper helmet…
but of course, I guess you need to be lucky to have Self Defense Specialist as random perk… preferably with Reckless… for extra damage… but any other ability that gives you Will bonus would suffice as well… i had Farsighted which gives +2 Will as well
its not a point i was making with this. All im saying Laser PDW is better than any other Assault Rifle… Because it deals same damage for 1 less AP, and is more accurate due to being Laser weapon… no its not more accurate than Deimos, but has more damage per bullet, and less AP requirement… Its a perfect combination of all important things in single weapon that with certain multiclass soldier creates such synergy… (but i admit Sniper/Assault is not the only one who can use it, Sniper/Infiltrator would probably do even better due to 100% damage boost when vanished…)
20% penalty when you have 20% bonus due to Synedrion SNiper Helmet? with LAser PDW which has decent accuracy to begin with? when you can literally move next to enemy and still shoot multiple times because all you need is enough of Willpoints to do that??? Yes, i wonder if we are playing the same game…