That’s absolutely not true at all, are we playing the same game ? Armour is pretty powerful in this game because it is not ablative but reduces damage per hit/bullet. A lot of Assault Rifles and Shotguns don’t do any damage at all to heavy armour, and those Weapons are pretty common. Now with the nerf to shred armor is even more useful. If you position yourself in front of Heavy Weapons expecting your Armour to hold then that’s on you.
However, I do kinda wish there was some sort of tier 2 armour for the late game, shifting some power progression away from soldiers into gear.
Being able to situationally chain a few kills is one thing, map clearing in one turn, or First Turn Striking (where you don’t clear the map, but the encounter is completely decided) is another… The former, imo, has a place in the game, but the latter has to go because it destroys any chance for the player to experience a reasonable challenge.
At this point I think everybody understands that the issue is Rapid Clearance. Yes, Adrenaline Rush plays a role, but it’s just one of the ways of increasing damage per AP (or reducing AP cost, same thing). The problem is the net generation of APs through RC.
(And jury is still out on the new Onslaught, because though it doesn’t generate APs as Rally did, that transfer can be too good at restoring broken kill chains).
Don’t get more AP back than spend for the kill, this is the most ridiculous and fantasy time machine part in my opinion … we talked about it … again and again
There’s two choices for Rapid Clearance. My favorite is a limited AP output (say, you can’t get more than 6 AP out of it a turn), that way it puts a hard cap on how good it can be.
The other is having it only give back as much AP as it expends, but then it starts feeling inconsistent with snipers/heavies and loses ability synergy while still permitting wide cleanup maneuvers.
Admittedly it’s a bit of a complex ability because of what it enables. It’s main task really has to be “clean up a bunch of weakened enemies with your rifleman”, but it interacts weirdly with things with shotguns (whose role is short-range annihilation) and explosives (with wide area damage that can deal multiple kills). It’d be interesting if it worked differently depending on the weapon you scored kills with.
Oh, we’re definitely playing the same game. That’s why heavy armor only gives you one more hit you can take, after that it’s been shredded down to zero.
Admittedly, i’ve been playing for a long time and it’s quite possible the fact I haven’t allowed myself to take a hit like that again because I don’t trust the game to do that might have colored my views. But as long as enemies have shredding ammo, yeah, it will never be appreciably better than lighter armor. Only big value lies on the heavy torso with jump-jets and rocket launchers.
The problem with this solution (give back only the APs spent on the kill) is that there is a concern that it will be difficult to explain. “Give back 2 APs for each kill” is easy to understand, “give back the APs spent on the kill” can be confusing, particularly for new players.
(Personally, I’m not sure how much of a problem this could really be, because as a new player I expected RC to give back only the APs spent on the attack - what was confusing to me is how it generated net APs).
My concern with this approach - somehow limiting the number of APs that can be obtained through the skill - is that it puts too much of a premium on Adrenaline Rush, and to a lesser degree on other abilities skills that reduce AP cost of using a weapon.
For example, with Adrenaline Rush the 10 APs (4 + 6) can be used to fire 10 times a weapon that normally costs 3AP (a grenade launcher, a HMG, a SR… ) while a pure Assault could not get more than 5 AR bursts.
Another option is to have Rapid Clearance work like Adrenaline Rush - once activated no skills that cost WPs may be used.
Too large?
Ever played one of the legacy X-Com games? The map size, movement speed and moving/hiding aliens was absolutely perfect. Okay, you had more Units so it was easier to swarm over the map but there were no movement skills like dash.
I agree that the main problem is how Rapid Clearance and Adrenaline Rush interact, the best solution would be to simply have both work as you say. After they are activated you can’t use any abilities that require WP.
This would solve most issues.
The idea that you MUST use those skills to be competitive in late game is not really true. It will definitely be harder for sure but that is the point, making more tactics relevant. If any one combination is a must that good indication it is OP.
As you can play without this combination and still win it is a bad argument that it is needed. I have not played the game as long as most people here but I have stayed away from the most devastating combination as that give a more interesting game forcing me to use more innovative strategies and actually using the map layout as much to my benefit as I can.
I will continue to refuse to use the most OP combinations as that makes the game more interesting and challenging. The current situation is a bit ridiculous with some skills and this is why I like the nerf to Dash as this skill comes quite early. I hope they have the courage to do the same with some of the other in my opinion damaging combinations.
Yes!
The legacy X-Com games are the epitome of “Map is too large”!
There’s a reason why all the most famous mods for Open XCOM come with a bughunt feature!
I think it is safe to say that most oldschool x-com players find the original map sizes just large enough. That bughunt feature is just a bandaid for aliens not roaming enough / not actively seeking your soldiers / no fleeing mechanic.
That being said, the map size of PP does not even come close, so I don’t really understand the problem here.
Well, we’re all entitled to our own opinions.
The engagement distance in Phoenix Point only rears it’s ugly head before you get 20 Speed on your characters, but it’s there.
Example of the situation: During a nest mission I destroyed one of the spawning sentinels, then locates the other across the map. I decided that i’d go ahead and move with my heavy in the vanguard and have everyone else follow. It took five turns of moving, at full speed, to go from one engagement area to the next. That’s not movement limiting my tactical options, that’s five turns of waiting just to get to where I make choices to begin with.
Never said we weren’t. I just think that yours is a minority right now. I am sorry. There is also an objective gameplay reason for larger maps, it can be easily argued as part of the tactical gameplay. You play differently on larger maps when it comes to how you chose to advance and how to position your soldiers for example. They are also harder to rush and are simply more intense and immersive.
5 turns OhMyGod … sigh
That’s not the standard situation, though. I do them systematically clockwise and pretty much never have that situation you describe. That said, I’m not overly fond of nests either, but that’s mainly due to persisting lighting/fow bugs and too narrow corridors where only one soldier fits.
Rapid Clearance (5WP, 1-2AP cost): The action cost of proficient weapons use is reduced by 1(can not be 0). Gain 1 action point when killing enemy. Lasts for one turn
Simple to understand. It synergises better with Onslaught, but cant be abused in an indefinite loop
Rapid Clearance (5WP): The action point cost of using proficient weapons is reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1) till the end of the turn. Gain 1 action point when killing enemy.
BTW, how would it work with Quick Aim and Boom Blast?
EDIT: on the refined text not sure if it’s better, I just found the 1-2 AP cost confusing and I tried to mirror the description for Boom Blast.
There are 2 different canny topics for RC. Maybe they should be consolidated into one listing all proposals so that game design can decide on which one fits best.
Don’t touch that 1-2 AP . It’s proposed action point cost to activate the skill (depending on how you want to balance it).
For 5WP, 2AP cost skill’s a little more restrictive with movement, than with 1AP cost. I find 2AP better option though
Boom blast/quick aim does not change much here. Assuming RC activation cost is 2AP, you could perform 2 attacks for 1AP (same as currently: 2 attacks for 2AP, since you have 4AP)
Not sure about this… Kinda confusing that you spend APs without doing any action… With similar abilities - where the character goes into a “mode” - there is no AP cost.
But let’s come back to it after dealing with Quick Aim and Boom Blast, because I do see a couple of problems in the following scenarios:
I cast Quick Aim before casting Rapid Clearance and I’m wielding a pistol or a PDW, so I can use them for 0 AP. After I cast Rapid Clearance, does the cost go back to 1 AP?
I cast Rapid Clearance and then I cast Quick Aim. Is the cost of using the pistol/PDW reduced to 0?
Same thing but with Boom Blast and mounted weapons.
This updated RC would set cost to 1.
Then, any -cost ability would reduce the cost by 1.
I think it’s not a bad scenario because Quick Aim only works for one action, so while it can generate AP it’s also a vast amount of Will. And mounted weapons are 1/turn so you’re getting, at best, 1 free AP from them.
The problem gets with Boom Blast and Grenade/Rocket Launcher, though. Is it worth adding a Special Exception in that case?
Your changes to Rapid Clearance are weird, it becomes even less of a ‘clean up wounded enemies’ ability and even more of a ‘fire off all your ammo’ ability that directly competes with Adrenaline Rush, which I don’t really like.
Though it does bring to mind that Rapid Clearance COULD instead give you a big mobility penalty when active instead. So you still can do some crazy rapid-fire killing, but you can’t rely on the immense damage potential of shotguns, and even explosives are limited if you can’t reposition.
For balancing purpose, with reducing AP cost starting AP pool needs to be reduced too, so that character won’t get too many shoots (so default in both cases is 2 missed shots).
Assumption is, RC reduces action cost by 1AP, but only if result will be >0. So if cost is already 1 or 0, RC would simply not reduce it further. It wouldn’t interfere with QuickAim as far as pistols/pdws are concerned.
It’s worth noting, that QuickAim’s reduction does not stack. Therefore RC’s shouldn’t stack either. Same would apply to Boom Blast. So in the end no matter how many skills you pop you won’t reduce skill cost by more than by 1AP
. It’s proposed action point cost to activate the skill (depending on how you want to balance it).