So… the Magic stat, Willpower, doesn’t really fit non-psychic powers. Why does it damage my Heavy’s willpower when he uses his jump jets? Is he afraid of heights? It’s not like I was going to spam Jump Jets when they cost 3 AP to use. The scattered WP boosting squares are also pretty random and gamey, and I basically ignore them.
I would suggest realigning Willpower to fit the theme, and making it more like Morale from UFO Defence. I will call Willpower Morale, for this suggestion:
Morale Loss
Soldiers will lose Morale when they are shot at, wounded, when allies are incapacitated or killed, when you get lost in the mist, you get the idea. Enemy monsters and humans will lose Morale in the same ways.
The shot at part is crucial, as this allows it to function like a Suppression system. If you shoot at an alien enough, you can temporarily reduce its morale and suppress it.
You can have some other cool details. Make it so that if an ally dies, everyone loses 1 Morale. If you SEE him die, you lose another point of Morale. And if he was killed gruesomely, by claws or tentacles or explosives, you lose a third point of morale. This makes aliens with heavy weapons scarier, and allows them to suppress your team so that you might want to back off and regroup before reengaging.
Morale Gain
You’d gain morale in the same ways as before. You might want to consider having morale slowly regenerate, like once every other turn.
Suppression and Panic
When morale hits 0 or less, you panic and lose control of yourself, just like before.
When morale gets low, you are suppressed, and your accuracy is reduced. Your AP might be reduced by 1, when fully suppressed.
If a soldier is suppressed, you might want to send in others to back him up, until he recovers, as with real unit tactics. But, play it well, and it’ll be the ENEMY who is regularly suppressed. Managed correctly, enemy counterattacks will tend to miss you, as you already laid heavy fire on their positions.
Heavy Weapons
Grenades and heavy weapons will of course have much higher suppression effects. This will make it less frustrating when your Heavy misses his shot, as it can still suppress enemies.
Cover
Standing in cover will make you harder to suppress.
Balancing Abilities like Jump and Dash
As mentioned, I don’t spam Jump Jets, because they cost 3 AP. That means I can’t do anything useful that turn. The Willpower cost on top of that feels forced, and just means I can’t make use of my fun jump jets. So, you can easily and more effectively balance abilities, without a Mana Bar.
What about Dash? Make it cost 1 AP. So, you get 2 AP worth of movement, for the cost of 1. Heck, maybe just make it passive, so the Assault Class gets 1 AP of free movement? That’s a nice boost to the Assault Class, which shows how they are about speed, but shouldn’t really be over powered.
In think that’s a lot more interesting than Dash as it currently stands. Right now, it’s a free ticket to go a huge distance, then shoot twice at an enemy within medium range. Don’t get me started on the ability to ping-pong across the map with a shotgun.
No More Idiotic Suicide Rushes!
This change would stop moronic enemies from being able to rush up and give you a hug. They can still be bullet sponges, but suppressing them would likely stop them from charging you, or would make them inaccurate enough to blunt their suicide charge. Especially if they end up losing an action point in the process, and so can’t manage to shoot you sometimes more than once.
Seriously, the AI is ruining this game, as it makes the original UFOD AI seem brilliant… and that was literally the enemies moving in random directions. And because everyone is a sponge of HP in PP, they can get away with their stupidity quite well.
If you want to have a cover based game with actual tactics, you need something like this to blunt suicide rushes. It’d make Willpower an interesting stat worth tracking, and would actually fit with the setting.