Nah, the classes work. So long as they don’t make an absurdly OP Psi op class its all good. KISS method boii, worked for xcom and if its not broke don’t fix it. 
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I like the basic idea of having the option to define the team but have the computer pick the soldiers based on certain criteria.
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Not to say that you couldn’t have characterization of soldiers…Stuff like traits that characters pick up throughout missions or even off mission depending on what the strategic layer entails could add alot of character to the game in a way that playing dress up with them couldn’t. Units could also start with traits…something to give a minor perk/negative to their stats/rolls/etc. without bogging down the player with customization.
Was playing the board game eldritch horror, and felt that the conditions that characters pick up throughout the game do a pretty good job of giving a sense of progression with the character, in a way that is completely out of the player’s control at times. Something similar could possibly apply here. I wouldn’t copy+paste it, but it might provide some good inspiration.
I’m leaning more and more towards very vulnerable soldiers, being a little more expendable as the cost for making larger 16 unit teams more wieldy. I guess toning down the individual combat perks/abilities in favor of making the use of larger teams as part of the puzzle might be what i’m leaning towards. I’d switch out the individual ‘super powers’ out for options like stance (prone,crouch,standing), facing, inventory, etc. in a heartbeat seeing that I don’t feel the xcom 2ish template (cover mechanics, ability mechanics mainly) really gel well with the free aiming bullet simulation stuffs.
This is all based off of speculation of course, I’ve no idea what the developers have planned for what’s in place. That said…I wonder if the concept of OG Xcom, but more wieldy/featureful (jagged alliance 2 comes to mind) would be a good representation of my personal tastes regarding it.
I don’t want to put too much emphasis on 16 man squads as i know you won’t be doing that all game, but even given a smaller squad (the 4 in the available build) I feel with the right options to replace the abilities as well as features, you could make something very neat.
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After reading all the post I’m more and more in favor of the perks being rewarded for what the soldier is doing.
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Hmm… A similarly themed Darkest Dungeon also comes to mind. While the level of it’s “generosity” with(mostly negative) traits is a bit over the top, how about having something similar for PP as well? After all, body horror is quite a thing when it comes to enemies in PP…
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Actually a Darkest Dungeon theme in PP is an exellent idea. I mean about those traits. Your soldier cant hit a thing all the time? okey here you go trait - ointment… Your soldier allways panics? okey - here you go trait - weakminded. Your soldier is allways winning and killing all alone? - okey here you go - trait Killing machine. and etc etc… On factions bases and your own we can have some sort of pubs, clinics etc to remove such effects… Specialy like religion is mosly for Disciple of anu… Its actually pretty good on paper and at the same time its cherry on the cake making game unique.
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I believe traumas were planned, which can be removed (after the required tech/building/whatever is available), and those were afai-remember not “lost limb”-only traumas but mental too, so the intention/background-tech could be there for more “traits”.
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I certainly prefer the classless system. You can then make skills so that they branch out, where some are more suited to be support, some more suited to be snipers, etc. I liked the original X-Com system where you had different abilities for each soldier, and they got better as they leveled up.
If its a problem selecting which soldiers to bring with you, maybe add a tagging system or something, so that you can make notes for each soldier what your plan with each one of them were. Maybe one would become a mix of healer and sniper, another a mix of soldier, tank, close combat, a third one being one with medium range weapons, good at scanning, scouting and fast.
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I’d say that that’s worth suggesting in its own thread Anjovi, it’s likely to get lost in this one.
Much as I prefer the idea of a classless system over a class based one, I do like the idea of soldiers picking up tags based on how they perform on the battlefield.
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Do you see it as a more descriptive thing(i.e. a way to easily identify a soldier who is particularly prone to panicking by checking his traits) or as a way to further developing soldier’s traits(i.e .panicky soldier being even more prone to will check failures, killing machine tag giving greater melee damage etc)?
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I think it’s a cool idea to have a possibility to tag soldiers instead of using weird names or nicknames to do that (Sniping Eddie “the Healer” or Tanky Samurai Marcy). But these notes should be visible right away on a soldier roster screen to be practical 
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Either or, I’d personally enjoy the system more if it were pure tagging, but I’m also not against slight changes to perks on the basis of those tags. Regards panicking in particular I liked in Jagged Alliance, how certain soldiers could fumble their weapon, or have it jam on them… I like the idea that new recruits especially, might not be the perfect all action hero.
A slight % increase to something like melee, or aimed shots doesn’t overly bother me (I’m talking in the 5% range)
What I really don’t like with perks is when you have a soldier who can ‘run and gun’, ‘double tap’ ‘magically dodge bullets’ or be the only one who can use x, y, or z equipment because they choose a perk that allows them to do so.
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Just saying, six more posts 'till reader badge.
Achievement-hunter detected!
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I second this. However let it be not random, but according to what the player does with the soldier. Let there be, say, 5 positive perks with minor and major variant and 5 quirks on a soldier. Limiting the number of perks a character can have at the same time will ensure specialization and provide a classless approach. If you want to give a machine gun to sniper he will still manage, just not as good as a soldier who’s got machine gun related perks.
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My take on ideias from coming after playing the demo:
I LOVE the ideia of classless system, specially from Xenonauts 1(wich just refines a little more from the original X-Com). To me, only melee weapons, and melee balance, are missing from Xenonauts to make it a “perfect” game.
That said, my ideia to “expand” uppon:
Considering that the soldier stats will be as following:
Health, Time Units, Ranged Accuracy, Reflex, Melee Accuracy, Strength, Willpower
All this ranging from 1-100 (actually 30-100 for most humans and aliens).
The abilities develops by using, but on a system a little diferent: As you use a stat, you gain stat XP on that Stat, when your Stat XP increases above the current Stat value, it raises by +1 and the XP resets. You can cap the gain per mission or even you can cap a stat from a “fake level” (not necessary military rank, but overall soldier experience)
As your soldier progress he earn Experience Points (probably a function of overall stat xp gain), he starts as a rookie and progress trough experience until something like Elite. This is not tied to military rank, so you dont have problem with “an army of coronels”,
At each rank he gains a Perk Slot, and not defined yet you can make rookie starts with 1 perk slot, 2, or nothing, depending on balancing on the system. If you make he starts with 2 slots, perks are weaker and you dont have “big jumps” in power as the level increases… if it starts with none, the oposite, each level will mean a significant increase in overall power.
Perks are earned from various trees. And each one has specific Attribute requeriments and must have soldier XP invested on it. Another possibility is making each perk being unlocked by training in a specific facility or even better, by specific archievments on the battlefield.
The main goal of a perk is to reduce penalties, not increase bonuses, that means that stats are always the relevant bonus givers, and perks make some actions better cause they reduce some penalties related.
Perks can be equiped before each mission as equipement, and cant be switched during mission, as a soldier can have more perks than perk slots. Perks granted by bonus reseachs dont have a limit nor need to be equiped as long as the soldier have the minimum stat requeriment.
Let me give some examples: (this examples are just examples of the system, they are not related with anything in the game right now)
Rocket Launcher Master (Awarded after gaining ranged accuracy experience 10 times with a rocket launcher)
Requeriments to equip: Ranged Accuracy 50+, Strength 70+
Bonus: Reduce the scatter range of rockets by 50%
Iron Will (Awarded after surviving 10 missions)
Requeriments to equip: Health 60+, Willpower 80+
Bonus: Reduce the wounds penalties to stats by 50%
Autofire Speciallist (Awarded after gaining ranged accuracy experience 10 times with an autofire)
Requeriments to equip: Ranged Accuracy: 60+, Strength 50+
Bonus: The autofire hitchance is 20% higher (multiplicative)
Theese are just a very small list of examles…they can even come in trees of their own, with a soldier only being capable of equipping one of each tree, Like Iron Will I, Iron Will II, Iron Will III… starting with low bonus and increasing as the soldier unlocks higher tier and increasing his stats so he can equip the more advanced ones.
I can expand A LOT on this ideia, but to not make a imense text, i would like to hear what people think before.
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penalty driven design is not perceived well by the players. As well as small %increases. Two digit % bonuses, or 1 digit flat bonuses are best processed by the brain.
Small percentages are actually super annoying. Unless there is a multiplicative synergy nested somewhere in the formulas where they’re used, their impact is often minimal, but yet some skills come to flaunt them as lifesavers.
Of course, 71% damage is better than 70%, but when you have to figure if +1% damage is better than +0.7% attack speed, it becomes a pain 
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The system i showed always result in usually higher increases than 10% to a specific given action.
The idea is to make stats MATTER and not be dominated by perks, perks are just to specify what your soldier do BETTER… you are, in some way, creating a “class” of your own.
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Right now what I know about PP’s class system is that there are 3 “base” classes and some (5?) specialist classes, every base-class can train in any specialist class (and will gain “unique stuff” too based on base-class).
I consider this a compromise between a classless system where everything goes and a strict class system (similar to FiraXCOM) where your choices are limited.
The developers need “restrictions” for easier balancing, otherwise the players can (and will) complain about OP combos and underwhelming “everything else”. I rather have balanced classes (with balanced choices in them, which is already not that easy) than absolute freedom (which leads lots of time to a set of classes you consider the “best” anyway).
Second wave could unlock a “do whatever you want” class-system (every perk/random number of them is available to every “base class” [which at that point is mostly cosmetic?]), with a warning that it’s not balanced. ToME did that with adventurer (a class which can use any other class’ talent-trees, unlocked after winning once) and while it has OP combos, due to it having “not balanced” written on it, players have no problem with that.
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