You dont need to look for many topics on these forums to find issues beeing brought up about some serious class imbalances, in particular in the manner in how some classes mix. Because of that and because I find that some classes are all over the place I would like to suggest some class rebalancing. Il take the time to explain my reasoning so il make a few replies to reserve those for space.
One thing that I would like to start with is this: please swap the Heavy’s and Beserker’s lvl 2 skill. The Beserker is supposed to be a melee beast yet the Heavy has a perk that gives him more melee damage? Likewise the Heavy is supposed to be the heavy gunner and (heavy) support for the class yet the Beserker has a skill to shred armor…
Also the ‘Armor break’ class could be nerfed abit I feel and il explain why. On a beserk with a pistol or melee weapon its not that great. But since cross classing is a thing…Or heck even without cross classing. Pop armor break, toss a grenade or fire a Goliath grenade. Boom. Most of that armor is now gone. Everything hit will be shredded for 30 ontop of what the weapon already does. Even if you are fighting a Scylla, it doesent have much armor left after that 1 single shot… Please make the ability shred 30 in total for the next attack. Still very stong, alot less OP. I dont know how viable that is to code but it would be alot more balanced.
Some generic things that id like to see added/changed:
-Give all soldiers profiency with pistols. One of the tooltip is even that its a good idea to take a sidearm incase a disabled limb happens but aside from beserkers and snipers noone has proficiency in it? Give it to everyone. Give Beserker shotgun prof instead to counteract the fact it would otherwise only have 1 reanged weapon prof. Shotguns seem to be a very big focus of Anu as well so it would fit in the faction to boot!
-Add armor profeciency in the game.
The Heavy is the only one who has it and its also tied to his mounted weapons and the jumppack. But aside from the torso you have no reason to take heavy armor, which I find kinda odd. To give people a reason to pack ‘full’ suits you could add perks/abilities that you only get if you have a full suit of that class armor. I have some suggestions for that:
-For heavy maybe a ‘lock armor’ ability that locks him in place yet gives him an accuracy bonus. Heavy weapons are already horribly inaccurate and the suit gives him a penalty ontop of that to boot! This ability would stay in the ‘heavy fire support’ feel that the class has and be a worthwhile reason to have a matching suit (imho). On another note, It also seems to be a powered suit of armor so why does it actively slow the soldier inside? Shouldnt it boost his abilities?
-For the sniper, maybe some form of heat vision or night vision. If you look at the PP sniper helmet (heck even some of the other factions sniper helmets) the helmet seems to include scopes, visors and whatnot. I think its fair that a soldier would need training to use that effectively and it would still add something, even how small it might be.
-For the assault I dont really have a good suggestion sadly but something to add to their versatility id say. It comes across as a very mobile and supportive class so maybe something like that? Maybe another quik slot? I dont know, I think assaults are honestly in a pretty good spot ability wise.
-For the Beserker you could maybe give it a sort of frenzy ability that it can use x times per mission? Maybe give it a boost for 1 or 2 turns and then a debuff as the soldier becomes winded from the effort.
-For the Technician… I made a mistake earlier, 2 classes have class armor specific skills. The Technician has the arms and turrets.
-Infiltrator: maybe make the stealth be tied specificly to a full suit. Or make abilities like Vanish depend on having a full suit beeing equipped. Its abit weird that any soldier can just turn invisible. Our soldiers are human, not super-human. Having the ability be tied to the suit makes sense and gives us a trade off to consider. If we want that stealth we have to accept the horrid armour values.
-For the Priest: passive WP regen? Most of its skill require alot of WP usage, it makes sense that the (poorly arjmoured) armor serves some form of purpose to boost his strengths. And for the priests thats their abilities, which use up alot of WP.
Ok those were the ‘generic’ things id love to see changed about classes. Give everyone acces to pistols and give us a reason to use matching suits. Il add a 2nd (and maybe third) post about more class specific things.
-Heavy:
As I said in the OP, swap the Beserker’s lvl 2 ability over to the Heavy’s level 2 ability. Also make that ability shred 30 in total rather then 30 for everything that you hit. As the ability is now any explosive can almost completly shred enemies of all of their armor and thats ‘abit’ much.
War cry: Its…mostly fine, but I would maybe change something about it. Maybe make it only work on enemies that have less WP then the Heavy does. As is we can just war cry anything without issues and its…quite honestly; abit OP.
Boom blast: Ability itself is…fine. But its only boosting a very small selection of weapons. Maybe give the bonus to all heavy weapons? Boomblast as a name wouldnt make sense but would also make Heavy’s with other weapons alot more viable.
Inspire: A bit meh in my opinion. For a level 6 ability very underwhelming. That said, I dont think theres anything wrong with it per se.
Rage burst: Uhm… Yeah I honestly dont know. Aside from the fact that trolling a Scylla by rage bursting her with a biochemist Heavy is bloody hilarious, I wouldnt know how to alter it. Or if altering it is needed. It would be great if it wasent a cone though and we could just aim at a spot and it would just fire 5 bursts at that location. But yeah…
So with these changes theres more a focus on fire supporting, and it could so more accurately. Its focus is also on shredding armor thanks to that level 2 ability and in the early game PP could use that help I feel.
Sniper:
-Extreme focus: Nothing really wrong with the ability.
-Quik aim: Not a broken ability per se but most defenitly the one I use the most, even when you factor in all the classes that are in the game. Its mostly so because the rifle uses 3 AP to fire though and without quik aim the sniper would lose alot of punch sadly.
-Master marksman: nothing to tweak imho. Gives a boost for sitting at range with no enemies nearby, Suits the class, suits the lore.
-Weak spot: Stripping ALL the armor when you punched 2 holes in it doesent make sense for the bigger enemies. Maybe give the sniper some passive armor shredding instead? Suits the name and makes alot more sense then completly removing armor if you reduce a parts hp below 0 imho.
-Marked for Death: fine imho. Its an support ability rather then for the sniper itself, but I like it.
Assault:
-Dash: I so much love the mobility, and with only 2 uses per turn not that OP. Imho anyway.
-Return fire: With all the rules for the ability: (target having to be within half perception, cant be on overwatch, have to have direct fire weapon in hands) I feel its fine. Also requires you to be attacked first but it suits the class of high mobile ‘right in their face’ feel the class has.
-Ready for action: id remove the part where you can also manipulate things in friendlies right next to you for no AP. If it was just restricted to the soldier himself, it would be 100% fine. But as is you can do some weird…shenanigans with it.
Onslaught: Support ability. Has its uses and imho not that overpowered. Maybe a restriction of only allowing it to be uses on a soldier once per turn would be in order? That means you dont get cheerleading shenanigans.
Rapid clearance: I think the biggest ‘problem’ with regards to skills in the game. Restrict the number of times you can get it per turn or only return 1 AP per kill? Only 1 AP beeing returned could still make some OP builds work though so just limit the amount of times that it works is imho the better solution.
Technician:
-Fast use: sort of a support ability I suppose. Doesent make the soldier any better at combat though but no real problems with the class.
-Remote control: Maybe restrict the number of uses per turn. Just spending all AP’s to manipulate turrets makes the soldier itself not so much deadly but its turrets so much more so. If every turn is a set amount of time though how can you explain the turret suddenly firing 4 times as fast? Thats kinda weird.
-Field medic: A nice ability but maybe it make the Technician better if it was in the 2nd spot? Swap it and fast use. Or would that be to powerful?
-Remote deployment: I love the ability! But maybe the range is abit to far? Generally if I love a skill and use it every chance I get it also tends to be a sign that its to powerfull
-Electric reinforcements: It suits the idea behind the class (support) and I dont think theres a problem with it. Maybe have it require rechnician armor though. (it does scratch that comment, actually never bothered to check )
Beserker:
-Armor break: Like I said earlier in the OP: swap the ability with the Heavy’s brawler and/or max the amount of armor shredding to 30 rather then 30 per hit. I mean I dont mind firing a Deceptor at like 20 tiles at a Scylla with armor break active and shredding it of all of its armor with a single volley but its abit much
-Close quarter evade: Keep as is. It suits the class and the lore behind a Beserker.
-Bloodlust: This ability seems weird to me and id love to see it removed with an enrage ability instead. Maybe every time he gets wounded he (has a chance to) enrage. While enraged he does more damage but you cant control the soldier?
-Ignore pain: very powerfull and suits the lore and the rest of the class abilities.
-Adrenaline rush: Can be powerfull and has downsides but please make it that you cant avoid beeing dazed by equipping the Armored Head mutation. That completly removes the dazed status downside of this ability.
Infiltrator:
-Suprise attack: very situational. Id remove the requirement for a rear attack from this one. Maybe make it only daze if you are stealthed?
-Deploy decoy: How could you magicly put down a hologram? Youd need some tech for that. Make it be tied to stealth armor
-Spider drone pack: Tied to his special weaponry, fine imho.
-Vanish: We have humans for soldiers not super humans, let it be tied to inifiltrator armor
-Sneak attack: Specially when used in combination with a cross class this one is way to powerfull imho. Maybe nerf the numbers a little bit, make it 50% instead?
Priest:
Il say upfront: Dont think theres anything wrong with the priest. That said I wouldnt want to skip it when I did adress all of the other abilities.
-Mind control: abilitiy by itself is fine, If you dont reduce WP’s by alot its not really usefull but if you use viral rifle and their WP get below 0 and they panic mind control has no use. I feel an ability such as this need some good balancing but I do feel its fine as is imho. Maybe make the Scylla immume to it as its supposed to be one of the apex creatures of the Pandorans. Just MCing her feels…off.
-Induce panic: I feel its fine.Has some of the same problems as mind control but a little bit less so. Maybe swap their locations so that by the time you get MC you should have higher WP and get better use out of it? The time you had to play with induce panic would then also prepare you to uyse both abilities effectively.
-Mind sense: passive ability, if abit situational. Dident get to much mileage out of it as my Priests tended to hanging out in the back. But helps to avoid you from beeing snuck up on I guess. Maybe would be more usefull if the range was bigger though.
-Psychic ward: Gotta admit, never found myself in a situation where I could check if it works. If it does work, nice passive ability to shield your team. Shield them in 2 ways no less. Panic immunity is pretty strong.
-Mind crush: 100 damage in an aoe sounds like alot but by itself not all that super powerfull. High WP prevents spamming though so theres that. Like psychic ward never really got good milage out of it, but mostly because the squad dident need it at the point when I got it.
So, those were all the classes. That said id like to add one more point of feedback before I tl:dr the post. Please add cooldowns to some abilities. If you really dont want to, limit the use of some abilities to a certain number. Dash is already limited to 2 uses. Why not use that same mechanic in other skills?
Limited uses and/or cooldowns are a perfectly fine way to balance abilities. Its a tool you have, why shy away from using it?
To recap the entire post:
-Please give all soldiers pistol profeciency.
-Please give us a reason to use matching ‘class’ armor suits.
-please rebalance some classes and/or abilities. Things like a single soldier clearing the map in a single turn shouldnt be happening and it seems to be tied to a very small selection of skills.
-Please rework the classes so they have a clear field of expertise. Specially the Heavy and Beserker seem to be confused about what theyre supposed to be doing. Infiltrator turning invisible on a whim shouldnt be possible without some bit of technology as well.
If anyone read through all that. You have the patience of an angel and thanks for your time
The game still have serious overpowers that destroy the late game for core players making us to choose between have severe self restrictions to have a challange in playing or just have an arcade game with super soldiers massacring everything with zero fun.
The devs very very rarely, most of the community has also switched more and more to discord, facebook, twitter.
The best place for suggestions is the linked Canny server.
But the forum here is still good or even better to discuss specific things and to track them even some days later. On discord anything simply diffuses into nirvana after a few hours.
I’d change most of them but it’s again old question. They’re OP for a reason. For some people plying with OP skills is fun. Nobody wants to eliminate fun for other people. But why does it mean we can’t have “no OP” difficulty level in this game. This is not super time-consuming thing. You’re not making behemoths here only changing numbers and orders. If you would think that would be confusing just make a pop-up that this is made for players wanting more balance and elements of the game can work differenetly than in base game.
Or you fear that more poeple would actually play in this mode? That would be hillarious, wouldn’t it?
Rookies and casual players would love to play OP and smash all Pandoras. For that easy level is great, and maybe would be a good ideia to create a Fantasy level, in that way all players have fun and a game ti play. In regular game and hardest difficulty that should not exist but unfortunatelly it happens.
like devs said - it is difficult (coincidence in naming) for them to differentiate stuff like enemies or abilities between difficulties. That is why they tweaked other elements of the game.
they do read here, but mostly by community manager(s)/helpers/what not. If they find important topic they pass it to development team. Actual designers rarely look in here. But the same thing is with other sources like facebook / canny / discord or tweeter. Canny maybe is the easiest way for them to check things, but I suppose they also don’t do it frequently there, except people responsible for handling community.
Overall reasonable suggestion, BUT… Heavy doesn’t need a skill to shred armor. All his weapons do that, of course with lesser extent. Devs give him Brawler just to be able to jet jump to enemy and smash him (little bit stupid and overpowered over typical melee, but hey I’m not designer here). And Armor Break isn’t shredding 30 armor at total? So with burst or explosive weapons it doesn’t shred less with each hit? If so, it is a bug.
This one is mutually exclusive with Rage Burst. Boom Blast works with not direct fire weapons, RB works with direct fire. So I’m not sure if something like that will happen.
Other than that I strongy agree as I had similar observations. I would even neft abilities more, but that surely won’t happen without mod support. Community Council already presented similar findings about skills (not proficiencies or class armors) to the devs and we wait for them to decide if some of it should be changed. Unfortunately they are busy with Festering Skies, some free updates and next DLC, so hard to say when that will happen.
Armor break does indeed just add 30 armor shredding to your attack. So with 10 pellets (iconoclast) you would shred 3 armor with each part of your burst for example. I thought it dident do that, but turns out it does
I still think it belong on the Heavy though. Hes the groups heavy weapon specialist (for lack of a better term) and I think him loading an armour piercing shell (or somesuch) makes ALOT more sense then the Beserker jjust channeling his inner Hulk and magicly making armor dissapear…
Or that the heavy weapons guy gains a perk to do more melee damage and a class who specificly only has melee and pistol weapons does not.
