As the title says. The game’s difficulty in the tactical battles and the way the strategic layer works just don’t seem to mesh at all. It’s pretty clear the idea is to go with the Xcom style “a mission going wrong can wipe your whole squad” level of difficulty from the Xcom games. Now, I have no problem with that, it’s what I expect- hell, what I want- from this kind of game.
The thing is, that worked in Xcom because I had 12-20 soldiers and could replace casualties as needed. Here, if I lose a soldier, recruits cost so much (I’ve literally been asked to pay six hundred materials and three hundred food for a single recruit!) you just can’t replace serious numbers of casualties, so you either have to play perfectly optimally to never lose more than one or maybe two soldiers at a time, or be ready to savescum every time a mission goes bad, because losing 4 of your team of six basically puts you in “Dead man walking” territory where your game is effectively over even if it hasn’t actually ended yet.
I agree with that, also my ally doesn´t trade food for tech, he wants materials. I have restarted a lot of times to difficulty spikes just killing my team outright, maybe I am not a mastermind and don´t min/max effectively, I play to have fun on lowest difficulty setting.
I am at the point where I need two Manticores and I am trying to stay friends with everyone, never had problems with resources in the other games but in this one where things actually are going well I simply can´t find the resources needed to recruit and build what I need.
Just lost two soldiers on a 6 man mission due to my own stupidity and my Scarab blew up on a different side mission. Now I just fly around tediously looking to trade where I can but have nowhere near the amount of “currency” required to keep things going, also using a lot of explosives in missions, those actually cost a lot to produce.
This is on newbie mode but I don´t think difficulty has an impact on the economy.
the game is easy if you know some of the basics. Something to learn is that assault rifles are TRASH. Also that heavies are good to dual class with sniper for accuracy.
RPG division does some nice builds. His videos teach you a little of WHY certain builds are good.
Why bother abusing a broken system to get drips of enjoyment? If you want to win via effective builds, this has everything else beat:
I have little hope it even can be fixed, considering the Devs got into this mess after 3 versions of broken design.
Assault rifles are trash, by themselves. But if used wisely they are effective in most parts in legendary setting granted that you have the chops to use them with everything you got. I have to admit though as far as balance goes, Snipers are just too good in general. That PX Scarab though feels like real trash IMO, can’t even run over the small stuff you fight -ridicules-.
Perhaps some buff to heavy weapons and assault rifles and a nerf to sniper rifles is in order? Raven sniper rifle does 130 dmg with 50 armor penetration for 3 AP, with good accuracy at any range. Pirannha assault rifle does 5x30 dmg with 20 armor penetration for 2 AP with short-medium effective range. Lategame enemies gonna have an average of 30 armor, in my experience, meaning a single shot from raven will actually do more damage than a full burst from an assault rifle of the same tier, not to mention all the other advantages.
+1 - There needs to be either a balance shift to allow for cheaper recruitment as a whole, or at the very least an option to bring in cheaper, maybe unequipped, recruits for the early parts of the game before you’re flush with resources.
But you shouldn’t need to watch a video, read posts, or search the web to find the BEST way or a SPECIFIC build to progress. Each player should be able to enjoy and play with a style they like. Sure, there are tactics to learn with trial and error to eliminate enemies on the field, but I shouldn’t be constrained to certain classes to progress all the way. I should be able to enjoy the classes I like to play, and use them to the best of their ability to eliminate the threat.
I keep reading Heavy/Sniper is the way to go…and that shouldn’t be the case. The balance shouldn’t favor a class hybrid so strongly. There are so many classes out there, but they just don’t work so well for progression. This isn’t about basics in my opinion.
Why should Assault Rifles be trash? This makes me sad, because I actually love them 
Exactly, cheap recruitment without gear should be an option. Lorewise, there should be still enough rabble able to fight for survival after WW3.
I haven’t played much and only found a single exploration site (In the Ruins) in my first session so far where you can get a new recruit for free. He had slightly lower attribute stats but was otherwise a typical assault guy. He came with a rubbish Praetorian 2-piece armor set that was even inferior to PP gear. Nonetheless, still a welcome addition to the team.
If a player loses dangerously many soldiers, an event to give a volunteer could be helpful too.
the only way to truly balance classes is to not offer any customisation, or limited.
PP tries to offer more choice and that creates of course better and worse builds.
I played the game without dual classing and mainly assault rifles and got annihilated when enemies had 30-40 armour. Then I replayed and took assault/snipers with shotguns and now I have a chance.
The game has a few difficulty spikes that can kill a campaign. For AR you need penetration or shredding and that is looked behind faction progression.
And add to that the fact that you can’t “manufacture” tech and materials yourself, just food, it’s like you’re supposed to be the food provider of factions! you build thousands of food, and trade it everywhere you can to get that one soldier, then do it again…
the point of having multiple bases to defend, is to have many transport ships, to do more than one thing at a time. but having empty ships… not really usefull! Add to that the fact that if you somehow manage to have enough soldiers to fill 2 or 3 aircrafts, you will not have the resources to equip them properly.
Exemple, in my current game I just filled my 3rd squad, savescumming like hell to avoid a single loss (almost, still had a dozen of dead so far), but they are all rookies, equiped with whatever the heavens provided them… One ambush and the squad is done. 5 men in a Synedrion ship, with basic equipements… They are dead, I won’t even try to play the mission. Enemies are comming from everywhere, no way to hunker down till the 3 turns are done, it’s 100% sure that in the best case scenario, I’ll get away with 2 soldiers alive and wounded, and 3 dead. Here goes all the time saving for that new squad.
Maybe I should have spend some more hours leaving them iddle, in a phoenix base, training, till I get them proper equipement… but if most of the game comes to gently waiting till things are smooth enough… and not to forget the dead man clock ticking at the top of the screen!
So I get that the game is all about difficulty, but it’s fun when you TRY to save your experienced soldiers because they are OP and feel like when you loose them, game will be even harder… but its NOT fun when once you loose a full squad, game is over simply because you loose the only way you had to replace them… No soldier, no missions. No missions, no income. No income… No soldiers. GAME OVER.