The Deceptor machine gun is awful

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

Take two identical soldiers. Give one the Ares (the starter assault rifle) and the other the Deceptor (the NJ machine gun). Put them on opposite ends of the map and have them fight. Who wins?

The Deceptor is a higher tech level than the Ares and needs more resources. Plus it’s bigger and it’s a machine gun. You’d expect the guy with the machine gun to win, right?

Wrong! The guy with the assault rifle wins and it’s not close.

Ares stats: 30x6 damage, 25 range.
Deceptor stats: 35x12 damage, 11 range.

The damage numbers are pretty similar. The Deceptor puts out 12 shots to the Ares’s 6, but it takes 3 APs to fire instead of 2, so the guy with the Ares gets off two shots to the Deceptor’s one. The problem is the range. 11 range is awful! The guy with the Deceptor will get shot to bits as he tries to get close, because the Deceptor has the same sort of range as a shotgun.

Unsurprisingly, the best way to use the Deceptor IS to use it like a shotgun: at touch range. Except if you’re that close, you can just Bash the target three times, and if you’re a Heavy, it’ll literally do more damage than shooting would.

THE MACHINE GUN IS MORE EFFECTIVE AS A CLUB THAN IT IS AS A GUN.

This sort of thing is the reason that new players think the Heavy class is useless. It’s not, but it’s incredibly counter-intuitive, and its early-game ‘upgrade’ is worse than the starter Hel Cannon.

The only way to use the Deceptor effectively is to pair it with some combination of Lvl 7 skills, cheese, and incredibly specific circumstances, like using Adrenaline Rush or Rage Burst to pump lots of shots into a Scylla whose armour you’re shredded already. But if you can do all that, you can kill the Scylla in about 5 other ways. No other weapon in the game is this finicky.

Have you noticed how none of the Pandorans use the Deceptor or Uragan? They use human handguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. But they use the special Arthron machine gun instead of human ones. Why? Because the Deceptor sucks. Every time you go up against enemy Heavies using the Deceptor/Uragan, you can basically ignore them while you take out the dangerous targets.

A machine gun that you have to research ought to be heavy and dangerous with a lot of firepower. It shouldn’t be worse than the starter weapons, and it shouldn’t lose 1v1 against a rifle!

Feedback ticket for suggestions

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I just wrote something about heavy class and his heavy weapons, mostly this minigun and what do we have.

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The other mechanic that XCOM-type games tend to use with machine guns is suppression – have the machine gun have some way to pin targets in place/reduce their accuracy while they’re under machine gun fire.

This is how real machine guns get used – they’re support weapons that you use to suppress an area and engage groups of enemies.

They’re not supposed to be giant handguns that you shove in someone’s face! But that’s the best way to use them in PP.

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Heavy class should be redesign with every gear, skills and purposes.
But PP just nerfs it more and more… I can’t see their logic…

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I mean, the current Heavy class is actually really good.

It’s just that what it’s good at is being an Assault Marine from Warhammer 40k. You jet jump next to targets and beat them to death in melee.

Then later in the game they double as artillery units with Boom Blast + grenade launcher + missile launcher.

So the problem’s not that they’re weak, they’re not. It’s just that the game tries to tell you that you should be using them with a machine gun to shoot things, when that’s actually the worst way to use them.

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Class is not designed to use weapons. You don’t expect anyone to able to use them with so many debuf. 40k marines are very fast and agile soldiers and their armor is helping them. Here everything is against heavy. For that reason, it’s melee aspects should be revisited for ranged combat, it’s armor and weapons too.
At this game, they wanted to give some roles to heavy… short range melee, long range artillery annnndd mid-range heavy weapons… but it’s against that 3. one.

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If you don’t want to introduce suppression mechanics, one simple/easy way to improve the Deceptor and Uragan would be to make them cost 4 APs to shoot or to go on Overwatch, but massively increase their accuracy.

So you can’t move and shoot in the same turn, but you can do a lot of damage at a good range when you do shoot.

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You’re comparing 2 different classes weapons. At range yes the Ares is more accurate. But up close the Deceptor will outclass the Ares in total damage. Heavy weapons are meant to do high damage or strip off the armor better than any other weapon.

You’re better off comparing the Ares with the Bulldog or Deimos since they are the same class of weapon

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Well, the Deceptor is a failure as a heavy weapon then - it’s awful at doing high damage or stripping armour because its terrible accuracy means that its bullets will get sprayed all around and over the target. So you end up with a bunch of missed shots, and 5 different locations with minimal armour shred each.

To reach the point where the Deceptor outdamages an assault rifle you have to be practically touching the target, and at that point you’re better off just bashing them.

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And once again it’s the argument over believable realism and game mechanics/design. In real life heavy weapons tend to be fairly immobile but generally very accurate. For instance one of the longest sniper shots in wartime was done with a .50 calibre heavy machine gun! I do think that their is a gap with players expecting how something should work and how designers create their games. What is the balance point with a game and a believable level of realism?

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Look for Gears Tactics Heavy class please. You will see the answer.

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Which I don’t own, so doesn’t really help.

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Youtube is your friend. Just watch a video about class or google it for it’s skill tree and game play. I would like to explain it here but i dont want to hurt your head with my english. If you check that you will say: “Ohhh so it’s how to make a heavy class…”

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Yes, I agree with you, unfortunately PP isn’t GT. I really wish I could set up a Heavy in a position and have far better and more accurate firepower and have no movement that turn, or one turn to set up a position and then have the benefits of heavy weapons.

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What is that mean? So as we got PP, it should suck? There is a great example… devs just should redesign it with this idea, add some mechanic… it’s not hard.

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Sorry for not understanding your last reply, I never said it should suck? If it did that much we would not be discussing it.:wink:

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The Deceptor is presently an extremely effective shred weapon, even at longer ranges. It’s good for stripping off armor from Chirons, Scyllas, and Sirens as the opening volley.

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I think all of the heavy weapons are intended for use against the bigger targets i.e. Chirons and Scyllas and the Sentinels or the vehicles of the factions. Othewise, why give the Heavy abilities to deal with rank and file, human sized pandoran targets? Or why is is pretty easy to get access to another weapon to use and carry on the mission?

I prefer the Deceptor to the Hell Cannon because I think it does more damage and it’s not all or nothing either. If you’re lucky enough to get the Biochemist skill on a soldier it becomes even more useful.

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I tend to think ahead 1 or 2 turns with my heavies. After the culture shock of their ungodly awfull accuracy kicked in I had to work with the tools at my disposal. Using jumppack or a full dash to get into position to put them as close as possible to an enemy. I tend to use war cry as well after closing in. Then next turn they shred the enemy at a range that suits their weapon and I must say, its works fairly well.

It can do very good damage numbers honestly but the biggest problem is that you generally have to be within 10 tiles or so to have a workable accuracy on the heavy. A full burst against something with no armor will do some insane damage.

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About bashing: Any Character can use Hel as bashing weapon. Hel also may apply shock.

Heavy weapons are meant to be melee damage, for this reason you can’t compare Ares and Deceptor. Also Deceptor has a higher armor shred than ares. Ares with 4 AP can shred at max 12 Armor, Deceptor has 36(?) or 24 shred.

If you compare Ares and deceptor vs large targets like Chiron or Scylla, the Deceptor will outperform the Ares.

In my opinion, Heavy works best with sniper, this would allow the heavy to use his heavy weapon 2 times, or 1 times, if you use APC.

1 Like