Yes, generally speaking, I like the extra bite it gives the enemy and RF definitely has its place 
Iâm simply concerned about the occasional odd situation that can occur, as I mentioned above, along with the idea of deciding NOT to shoot an enemy out in the open because itâs better to leave them be and OW.
Like I said, not a deal-breaker 
Hope you enjoy the upcoming hours in your campaign as I have!
I agree with @MichaelIgnotus on charging in. There are many styles of game play, and each style and strategy can be utilized differently depending on what hostiles you encounter. Charging in certainly has pros and cons, but like any other play style, there are consequences.
Itâs kind of hard to tell with so much feedback on this topic what the real ârootâ problem is of Return Fire. I, and some others, can manage it well, versus others who have troubles.
Again, I havenât had troublesâŚyet, so I would like to hold out on a potential nerf if possible. I think by adding more descriptors to what Return Fire actually does, may help immensely in its own way for many users (even for me itâs trial and error based on what I see). I think if this is out, then itâs easier to assess what users bring to the table next in managing Enemy RF.
RF seems to work well in my favor, at least when it triggers for my squad.
Another point about the constant OW though, what about losing all that stamina every encounter because then you drag the fights out longer just spamming OW every turn. That really hampers what you can do as the campaign goes on I feel.
The first problem is that it is not linked to AP. It is there to compensate for AI incapable of finding cover or being reckless (it feels like this to me).
The second one is that it is 360° reaction with seemingly no accuracy penalty.
I donât think many have problems dealing with it as you learn quickly what can be done to avoid triggering it. It is just that it is a broken mechanic.
The problem is that more than 1-2 return fire per turn is just not logical. Since you can usually only fire twice per turn (without perks). How can you manage more after you already spent all your action points. Yes, I know return fire is more a snapshot (there should be an accuracy penalty) vs an aimed shot but it would still take time. I donât know what the proper solution is but being able to return fire 4 times against different attacker just does not seem right.
@pantolomin
But I think you also prove part of my point. If you, me and others are describing different things on how Return Fire works, itâs hard to identify what is really broken. Without descriptors on the Ability, it is even hard for me to say with 100% confidence what is broken, or working as intended.
But the one thing I can agree on is âdealing with itâ quickly haha!
Any game mechanic that leads to players having to adapt to a single tactic in order to overcome that mechanic is OP IMHO. Without return fire, players would be able to play on the front or back foot, use different weapon types, split up troops or keep them together, and take different unit compositions. With return fire, if the only way to counter it is to hang back with overwatch, then that mechanic is making the game a poor experience for any player who doesnât have a natural preference to use that strategy.
Itâs not about whether return fire has an effective counter or not, itâs that that counter is so specific, and the player is funnelled into using it because every other tactic is made ineffective by the way that return fire work.
Itâs not even as if the AI is developing return fire as a response to player tactics, itâs using it from the start.
For me return fire usage should at the very most be limited to the number of bullets in a given characterâs current magazine clip, you shouldnât be able to continue return fire once youâve stopped to reload.
It shouldnât be 360 degree - Overwatch is limited by sight cone, and thatâs when youâre watching for an enemy, why wouldnât you be limited by sight cone when your return fire is a reaction to something that you werenât watching for?
And it shouldnât be possible for a character that has been shot to then return fire at all. Fine if their companion reacts to it, but come on, youâve just been shot in the leg and your first response is to shoot back? I think more likely youâre writhing about on the ground at the point, someone else might shoot back, but you wouldnât be - This takes care of the single solider going all Matrix when rushing into a room and being surrounded by 4.
Why are there always people who are proud about obscure, hated game mechanics theyâve âmasteredâ where everyone else just needs to âgit gudâ like them?
No kidding. Someone suggested in another thread that you bring in a HEAVY WEAPONS SPECIALIST, to deal with ONE GUY. So, apparently, one enemy assault trooper with Return Fire is equal to an IFV, an MG emplacement, or an entire squad, which are the typical targets for heavy weapons.
Normally, my heavy weapons guy is there to destroy hulking monsters which are large targets⌠but itâs these super speed ninjas who get 32 free Action Points who we really need to be worrying about, here.
That, or you could be super duper clever, and work out that snipers can shoot at enemies from long way away, and just fill your team with snipers. And if you donât spend 20 turns working out elaborate ambushes to deal with one guy, then apparently you need to be playing on Easy mode.
Consider the difficulty of the three âintroductoryâ missions you get when you first encounter the three factions:
And then:
And all that because of a single ability: Return fire. This single ability increased the difficulty of this introductory mission by an order of magnitude compared to the synedrion thieves (nevermind the worms).
If that does not tell you the ability is broken, i donât know what will.
Just adding +1 to f*ck RF, at least in itâs current state with how cover works in this gameâŚ
Iâm not opposed to tuning RF but a lot of the stories in here are inconsistent with the gameâs numbers. Which begs the question on if it needs to be balanced or bug fixed.
Enemies have the same HP and limb HP regardless of difficulty short of higher difficulties probably having certain evolutions (and enemy loadouts) earlier. The mission in the OP will always have a guy like that from Easiest to Hardest difficulty with the same armor on the same 60 HP arms.
Return Fire with any weapon that bursts uses a half burst in Return Fire. The Bulldog does 40 with 4 shots in a burst: that is, it can return two shots for 80 total damage (again, split into two shots) - before armor mitigation. Even naked your soldiers shouldnât have taken that much damage but they were probably wearing armor. Even allowing for an already wounded part to break and lower max HP the values donât quite add up.
I think the problem is less with Return Fire than it is that youâre facing New Jericho soldiers: their main focus of âmore armor, bigger damage numbersâ means theyâre always going to be tankier and do more even if they didnât have return fire. A sniper can still disable an arm and a Heavy can outright demolish one of these guys.
My main concern with Return Fire is that the Arthronâs main weapon with Return Fire is a shredding gun that ends up in itâs evolved state doing 50, shred 2, burst 6! Thatâs 50x3 damage with shredding coming at you if you donât disable it. Per Arthron in range. Even the tankiest armor will just melt because of the shred. May the Dead God help you if you side with Anu or Synedrion and have anything less than the toughest stuff. If enemy numbers get to Backer Build count later on it will be utterly insane.
The things I think Return Fire really needs is easier and clearer recognition of ranging on it. Being able to know, before you step into a tile, whether youâre in range of an opponentâs return fire would be a great way to make countering it by range less annoying. Might be good to make it have a will point cost, like Pain Chameleon - a soldier or Arthron being unable to utilize it when theyâre out of will (even before panic also disabling it).
âŚHow is an enemy being able to quadruple his damage output NOT a problem?
Certainly, if the Jericho soldiers were little girls with teddy bears, then it wouldnât matter much if they got off ten attacks, as 10 x 0 damage = aww thatâs adorable. Likely wouldnât survive to perform even one counter attack, of course.
And to hell with magical fields of death from every single RF soldier. Youâll end up placing your soldiers in weird formations, many of them standing out in the open, since standing in cover in an RF soldierâs radius is asking for it.
Respectfully, the return fire ability absolutely is the problem.
Tough guys or not, if you took the return fire ability from jericho soldiers and gave it to synedrion thieves, it would now be the synedrion mission that would be off the scale difficulty wise, compared to the other two factions.
Thatâs the thing, though: if an enemy is quadrupling his damage output compared to firing even once, by using Return Fire, then heâs either using a single shot weapon and youâre letting him Return Fire three to four times (depending on if heâs even fired once) or they have a burst weapon (the more common scenario) and youâre letting him Return Fire six to eight times. At that point itâs hard to put the blame on the ability since itâs the player simply NOT dealing with a very clear threat put in their face.
I doubt itâd be off the scale difficulty wise, but you do have a point: you would almost definitely take more damage in that mission. Another 16-36 per thief on the field if you donât deal with them appropriately. This would definitely make that mission much harder than it is.
??? What kind of math is THAT?
No, the enemies who can normally shoot once or twice, are able to shoot as many times as you shoot at them. So if you try to take one out with a pistol build, they can shoot four times at you easy. Even if their weapon normally took 3 AP to use, theyâll use 12 points of AP.
Who is paying these people to endlessly defend this broken feature?
In BB5 I had ambush with about 30 machinegun crabs. Iâve pulled my guys to one side of the map as fast as possible, by abusing Dash, without killing anyone on the first turn. On next turn Iâm taking a shot with a sniper⌠proceed to watch mini-custscense of about 20 crabs individually doing their Return Fire. At this point it doesnât matter if they hit or not, it just looks stupid, you sit there waiting for about 5 minutes straight and it makes no sense⌠Letâs take another shot with another guy, what do you think happens again? 
Why bother with a turn based gameplay then? Just make it real-time with a pause and 20 guys shooting at you at the same time will make sense, but I would probably have an option to fire from cover or put some smoke, or call artillery or what ever would be a freaking obvious game features which is unnecessary to solve such tactical situation.
Yeah RF still has limitations, it only reacts to all shots at anyone from the team and all melee attacks to anyone from the team. At the very least it should react to return fire at anyone from the team aswell.
That way you dont have to react with the game every few minutes
Thanks for the info, I have only played Heroic so far and am still on the same campaign so I have no idea about what the difficulty changes.
My point to the person I was replying to was that disabling arms or weapons isnât as straight forward as tossing a single grenade because I got RFâed after I did, though that was the NJ and not a crabbie.
As for the damage, youâre right, thatâs my error. Those numbers I mentioned were my best guess based from memory of my squads HP values and how much their blue bar diminished so Iâm not surprised Iâm off.
I have to say though, I am wondering if there is the occasional bug, as you suggested, because before I read your comment, I had thought to myself a couple of times, âWhy are there so few shots in my reaction fire compared to NJâs?â I might be mis-remembering it though.
However, 3 soldiers getting a decent chunk of damage is fairly accurate by my recollection and even if Iâm out a bit, it doesnât change the general âcan shoot far more times than in their own turnâ oddness or the idea that once youâre in close range youâre actually safer NOT shooting enemies and instead overwatching - in certain circumstances at least.
Funny thing is, Iâm not having any real problems with RF. At least for now. Iâm keeping my distance and using return fire snipers and spamming quick aim from long range at peopleâs arms. If I end up closer to the enemy than Iâd like, especially human enemies, then I donât shoot them on my turn, even if theâre out in the open. Instead I retreat and use lots of overwatch. It feels weird but it works so far.
Finally, on a funny side note, has anyone had this? One of my soldiers was burst firing on a little slug thing at his feet. He killed it in the first couple of bursts and blew its body away onto his squad-mateâs boots but his aim followed it and he then proceeded to shoot said soldier in the feet with the last burst 
Hah, I hadnât thought of pistols 8 soldiers firing 4 times, thatâs 32 lots of return fire and between 32-96 APs. Itâs Christian Bale from Equilibrium all over again 
That would also be one long turnâŚhehe.
Agreed, +1000.
This mechanism is absolute and complete nonsense.