I am currently playing on Hard (or whatever is before Legend), and after some initial struggle with difficulty in early to mid game I finally managed to get my Infiltrator to level 7. Sneak Attack is OP. Period. Nothing beats it. It doubles your damage so problems with armor just disappear.
When combined with Assault dash and Rapid Clearance, sprinkled with Thief (+25% Stealth - at 100% you are literally undetectable outside of mist), I manage to wipe entire map of everything that is not Scylla, usually with just one guy, on turn 1 (Scyllas die on turn 1 from Rage Burst anyway). Yup Iconoclast does up to 800dmg per shot. Mere 400 if you aim at 40 armor body part.
Even If I am not blessed with Thief perk, I just use whatever other perks soldier have. Like a combination of Infiltrator with Sniper who can master in PDW (with +20% dmg to be combined with 100% from SA). Just stand in the middle of a map and pick everyone with Quick Aim (so 0 AP cost for 4x66-88 dmg). WP reward from kills may even allow you to keep on firing till you empty your magazine. Not to mention 2 shots for 260+ dmg with AP sniper if you really have to pick something from afar.
Your Berserker have Thief perk? Well you got an unstoppable ninja. Just keep him at ~20% hp. Hammer (Marduks Fist) will deal close to 400 dmg. Oh your soldier have a reckless perk? Yay thatās another 30% to stack on top of the pile. I managed to find a guy with Reckless and Sniperist. Thatās 331 dmg per shot.
So yeah another way to cheese through this game. Since I defend every haven and destroy every lair my ODI is constantly in low teens. Even all out war between factions ended after Synedrion managed to wipe 3-4 New Jericho havens. They are still at war but are doing nothing. I just sit, wait and research towards endgame.
I understand that when you design game to be increasingly difficult you place some mechanics to power through said difficulty. But this is just too much. Game just asks me not to use itās mechanics or it will stop being challenging. I just plow through every battle literally without a single scratch. Oh. Right I also have to try Infiltrator+Priest. See if Mind Crush will get bonus from Sneak Attack.
I donāt know ā¦
Even without the perk, stealth barely breaksā¦ only when they are right on top of you. You can pretty much do whatever you want without ever losing stealth as long as you stay like 10 tiles away from the enemy. Not all that difficult. Then there is also vanish ability.
Yup, thatās the point. Thief perk is OP on top of OP. It allows you to come to the enemy on melee range and just unload full shotgun shot to the weakest part without risking retaliation and doing double damage. But even without it you can keep yourself at safe range and dish out ludicrous amounts of damage. Rage Bust is OP in of itself but imagine it doing double damageā¦
I suspect they will add an enemy or a mutation that punishes stealth, I hope.
And yes, the damage modification from the infiltrator is absurd. Donāt forget if it doesnāt kill it will stun, for some reason.
There are so many of these abusive things in the game, which is why iām confused when forums complain about difficulty, or when a single mob is too strong, when you can just kill everything on the map nearly immediately. And there are plenty of combos to do it. (which is part of the fun).
I am waiting on different scaling for a continued challenge, at least the ODI should advance differently, because as you said, if you play correctly, it will never even get close. The game has the same problem as Totalwarhammer 2. The difficulty modifier only makes it harder at the start, and then once you break through, its about the same as every other difficulty.
I would also like to see some mutations gated by difficulty. Instead of having a harder start, I would like more powerful aliens. It would also be cool if there were like elite nests, that spawned stacked versions of certain enemies. Or at least give us the ability to augment to campaign for our own challenge.
I could assume developers just decided that this game will be based on cheese. They made enemies scale in difficulty so much that they had to balance it out other way around with enough cheese on players side. Admittedly it can be satisfying at times. Blasting an impossible threat with single strike is awesome, but only if this threat remains impossible next time and not just a nuisance. I would love to see a complete re-balance/redesign of Perks and skills on both sides. Take away Sneak attack dmg bonus. Itās OP enough to be undetectable. Put limiters on skills like Dash, Rapid Clearance or Rage Burst. Maybe put limit on how many soldiers a siren can Mind Control. Make blaster chirons shoot only one projectile. Basically adjust difficulty to be less based on either side being OP.
As the game difficulty management is currently unclear, itās perhaps debatable, but still arguing about cheese would mean itās an easy repetitive game with combats quickly played eyes blinded.
This game is no way that, when I see players complaining about 6*50 damages crabs, itās clear thereās confusion around difficulty in the game. So itās difficult to argue about cheese, but anyway thereās too many whining on this or that to evoke cheese.
I want see the cheese letās play, not just one map but the campaign.
Actually, I think there are valid points on both sides of this argument.
It is clear that some missions can be cleared very quickly by applying cheese - Sniper Rage Burst in Citadels; Serial jumping Heavies in Lairs; 100% Stealth Infiltrators with Backstab (or whatever itās called) in almost anything.
But it is also clear from the experience of the likes of you and I, who refuse to use these broken mechanics, that every mission we have encountered so far can be accomplished without using Cheese, regardless of what the haters might say. And, in my opinion, not using cheese makes the game infinitely more enjoyable - after all, isnāt the point of a game like this figuring out ways to beat impossible odds while bringing a cheeseknife to a gunfight
So I donāt disbelieve those who say they can end a mission in 1 turn using cheese, I just donāt see the point in it. Iām having a lot more fun trying to make the non-broken skillsets work, and I havenāt got bored yet.
Exactly that. You can find some new ways of going through. Went through my first play-through with rage burst and it was cake (didnāt even use a 100% stealth infiltrator). Seemed difficult to do without this.
In my new play-through, I have banned use of sniper rage burst (and added the mod to have rage burst be 4 shots only) and itās perfectly doable this way (also better at the game obviously). I limit max stealth at 75% so my infiltrators canāt feel all that safe and still need to be careful. And some other stuff (priest mind crush spam), I need to make a list. Still dashing a lot though ā¦ for next play-through 1 dash only.
I have more and more ideas of soldier builds that come to my mind I canāt even sleep at night. Things I want to try.
I confess that during play-through I added some mods though. I now have quicker airships with more space and no limit on soldier deployment for missions.
I have doubts seeing the number of complain on difficulty, common some people here arguing no rage burst, complain of 6x50 AR. I donāt complain at all on 6x50 AR, but I donāt see Rage Burst removed.
It makes no sense to remove Rage Burst before the number of complain on difficulty havenāt decrease a lot. At least thatās how I feel it.
For Stealth even at 75% itās very powerful the counter part is a chance to get discover and if it happens soon during enemy turn this is probably a dead soldier. But I donāt expect much better, stealth doesnāt merge well, itās either gambling play, either you give too much control and information to player and impossible to balance.
Exactly, so it forces you to still stay on the safe side. Whereas with 100%, there is no sweat. The infiltrators are really here to daze enemies so still keep their distance.
That is the whole point of all these complaints including mine. Itās Ok to try to challenge yourself by refraining use of specific tactics or mechanics. But it shouldnāt be the default in the game.
Some people play it like old-Com or Xenonauts and find themselves in impossible situations and ridiculous difficulty. But once you start figuring out these broken Combos and OP mechanics the scales tip all the way to the other side. Baseline challenge should be set already in game. If you want it easy you play on Easy, if you want it super hard you play it on Legend. Those mechanics throw that balance out the window and there is too many of them.
Thatās why we need some serious balance patch. Phoenix Point as a game is too good on base level to be thrown down the āmod-it-to-be-enjoyableā path.
Or I will just learn to modā¦ That may solve some problems at least for me. But as I said itās not something that should be a default in a game.
Ok so 75% if this is a solution for you, not for me, it is just gambling, that is as much OP than 100% with a small chance to get a death. But yeah you can stop use Inflitrator to scout, and keep them in back line, low interest then, in my point of view.
EDIT: On start stealth should be broken when a non silent weapon is used. And this is far to target the problem of Stealth in such shooter combat game.
The question is if it is reasonable to make two different games, one for some players (Easy/Normal) another for some other players (Higher difficulties). For example No Rage Burst and Rage Burst allowed.
But I have clear evidence from two plays that the difficulty auto scaling needs to be tuned a lot. This need be fixed first. And then tune a bit difficulty and procedural generation. And then only look at OP holes as Stealth.
To avoid the excessive gambling aspect OP or death, perhaps a toggle Feign Death skill, no cost. if discovered the soldier fall in catalepsy, enemies ignore the soldier but it last 3 (or 2?) turns, and eventually apply penalty to Will/HP. But itās still not targeting the OP aspect inherent to Stealth.
I am not thinking of changing mechanics in different difficulties. I would rather like to see the game that relies less on overpowering mechanics. And there are those on both sides of the conflict. I am aware that is a huge undertaking to do such deep re-balance so that more casual players do not feel overwhelmed on lower difficulties while allowing those who love challenge to use all available tactics and still feel the thrill of the fight.
Mmm if you except some JA (or perhaps original XCOM I never played much) thatās a lot too late for that. This game is and will be a lot skills based.
The point is myself I donāt see how it makes so basic the game. Except perhaps Stealth i only tried a bit for now. So I canāt agree to remove those āOPā holes.
And I understand even less when the same people want remove 6*50 AR to enemies, when I donāt see the problem here, just a difficulty to manage.
Thereās a lot of arguing on OP holes that people arguing never used. An OP hole is working constantly and thatās why it becomes a boredom. The only one very clear and easy to use is Rage Burst, Iād say eventually limit the number of use per turn for a team, like to 2, but remove it, no way, this will be a different game.
