Thoughts on the new Rage Burst, Mark for Death, & 'Onslaught'

The rationale with MfD is that now it should work better with burst rather than single shot weapons (though I suspect that the biggest impact must be felt with explosives), thus the flat bonus of +10 rather than scaling with a %. So it wasn’t just about nerfing it (say, reducing it to 25% from 50%) but giving it different synergies. (For example, with Rage Burst and a Deceptor…)

On the one hand it seems odd that Snipers should have this ability (as it’s almost useless for SRs), but on the other as a support ability it actually makes sense that it should be more useful for other classes - same as, e.g. Onslaught is not useful for the caster.

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Honest, I’m not trying to start an argument, but almost anything and everything in PP has a potential for exploit. It’s too opened ended. Which is a good thing for some players, but obviously not for others.

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MfD, is just that. 1 unit says this target is marked and everyone else should shoot at until it is dead. I never saw it as a 1 unit kill.

That’s how I picture that ability, also if you have Multiclass or Strongman , the sniper doesn’t need a partner :wink:

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And is this good for the game?

I don’t think everything. Mostly the skills that repeatedly generate, reduce or transfer AP.

And that is by devs’ design. Obviously they went too far on some things, but it’s their concept. How much should they remove of their design and still keep the game they envisioned?

Precisely. It’s the equivalent of the Range Finder in XCOM2. The Sniper paints the target and everyone else zones in on it.

Standard modern military targeting.

Exploits by design? I would like to hear it from devs :face_with_monocle:

On single character yes. But is that wrong approach?

I would say that it’s uncommon, and I use just single class soldiers now, only one of the snipers use Strongman

Well UV told us some while back that the devs saw alpha-striking (ie. over-exerting a soldier to take out a particular enemy, rather than a First-Turn Strike) as a legitimate and desirable gameplay option which they did not want to remove.

And the devs have recently told the CC that Rapid Clearance is supposed to enable a Squaddie to take out 3 or 4 low level Crabbies on a quarter of the map in one go. So there are a whole series of ‘exploits by design’ that are built into the system.

Problem is, they clearly never envisaged that such skills could be exploited to the extent that they are.

The way I see it, the design philosophy behind the game is to keep the players’ options open as much as possible and give them a skills sandbox to play with. But that leads to some quite surprising blind spots with reference to the exploitation of skills.

The devs were surprised when someone cross-classed a Sniper with a Heavy and started Rage Bursting Sniper Rifles all across the map. But it speaks volumes to me that instead of simply cauterising the loophole, they have gradually closed it down increment by increment, leaving the option to use Sniper Rifles like machine-guns in there for anyone who so desires.

The same, I think is true of RC. Admirable in one way - infuriating in another.

Are we talking about a game with a cross-classed skill system? Or about development with the approach “let’s mix everything up and see what happens ???”


:partying_face:

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I can still remember this discussion very well. @Yoke’s feedback has gone out of control. :laughing:
Then “something” was put into perspective, since alpha strike in PP are not comparable to other turn base games.

Well, there has been a lot of feedback here where the supersoldiers were identified as the main problem. Many of these players are gone or no longer active in the forum. It is already clear to me that PP will not be a simulation and was not intended as such. And that is OK for me. Methods and combinations that make the game seem trivial and downright ridiculous in my opinion harm the game and hopefully that was recognized. Sandbox and magic skills are certainly by design, that is clear to me. Still: Addressing the Terminator builds gave me hope again. These builds have not been closed consistently now, but the direction is good.

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One of the biggest things I can ask for in regards to these talents is to fix the personnel screen to show what a soldiers stats are + show us what the costs of abilities are. I was pretty peeved off to see Onslaught cost 2AP for 2AP. I assumed it was some sort of leadership skill, a straight-up bonus, so I took it on a character who’d be better off BEING Onslaughted than Onslaughting someone else (that sounds weird). A little change like this would go a long way to easing a lot of my frustrations when trying to rediscover all of the changes they continue to make to the game.

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Members of the Community Council have been pushing for this. Unfortunately, it appears to be on their radar, but on a back burner. There are a lot of the “it would be nice to have” things that they plan to address. At the moment, they have bigger fish to fry. But the good news is that UI are things now on the front burners. So let’s cross our fingers on this one.

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I have to say I’m really liking the new Onslaught, very thematic and very useful. And I’m not using it for “cheerleading” (I never give Onslaught to the same soldier twice).

One combination I find myself using quite often is high speed Assault with Onslaught advances with dash to a position, slower Heavy runs/jump jets within 10 tiles of him, Assault casts Onslaught on him. Now Heavy can use his weapon after jet jumping…

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I used to do that a lot with the old Rally - though of course it took 2 officers to achieve the same result.

Rage Burst has definitely become a garbage ability. The only purpose of it is either you have 8 Pandorians lined up in front or you are keeping the safe distance of 6 feet away from the Scylla.

The Rage Burst was one of the few abilities that separated XCOM from Phoenix Point, it has become a parody of the Saturation Fire from the original game.

My suggestion would be to return the old Burst Rage with perhaps fewer shots and more units per usage.

Maybe a solution for Rageburst would be to have the soldier open fire at either 5 targets he can see or at all targets within a much wider arc of fire. If you couldn’t fire multiple times at a single target it would stop it being abused to destroy Scyllas and it would give a heavy trooper a chance to be as dangerous as an assault using rapid clearance.

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Using Onslaught on a jet-jumped Heavy is exactly what I do, yes. Not for the weapon, though, it’s so he can then Bash three times in a row. Or use the Neurazer to bag that pesky Triton sitting in the wings.

I haven’t used either the new Rage Burst or Marked for Death yet, so I have no strong opinions; but MfD was always useful to me for melting larger enemies. Now it’s still useful, it’s just not as incredibly overpowered as it was, since giving 50% bonus damage to EVERYTHING that hits an enemy is a cruelly unfair advantage. +10 base damage, on the other hand, is far more reasonable, especially as it helps overcome the massive amounts of armor alot of enemies have.