# We have to talk about the Scylla in the room
**URL:** https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997
**Category:** Game Feedback
**Created:** [March 19, 2020, 6:07pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997 "2020-03-19T18:07:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@VOLAND](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/VOLAND)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2020, 5:31am UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/21 "2020-03-20T05:31:48Z")
1.
> [@Caedeas](#):
>
> Not everyone is a sadist, who wants everytging to be superhar
That would a masochist, someone who enjoys receiving pain. Sadist is someone who enjoys giving pain to others. Underestimate the distinction at your own peril.
1. I will requote myself from literally one post above, though I’m not sure why I even bother:
> [@Nerf everything](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/nerf-everything/9914/63):
>
> I will just quote myself from the thread which brought this one about:
>
> > [@Nerf everything](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/nerf-everything/9914/63):
> >
> > One important caveat for all balancing that involves nerfing player’s capabilities, and particularly skills: I think they are fine as they are now for a casual difficulty level.
>
> > [@Nerf everything](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/nerf-everything/9914/63):
> >
> > PP can be played in many different ways, almost as different games, _and it is being played that way right now_ . Different difficulty levels should be used to allow for that, to avoid balancing necessary for some “game modes” cutting into other players’ fun.
>
> I’m all for easy to be easy, hard to be hard,
---
### Author:  [@MichaelIgnotus](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/MichaelIgnotus)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2020, 6:01am UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/22 "2020-03-20T06:01:10Z")
> [@MichaelIgnotus](#):
>
> > [@MichaelIgnotus](#):
> >
> > but a Scylla still goes down in one turn once I’m concentrating fire on her.
>
> Because you still use unbalanced skills (even when putting restrictions on yourself). I suppose that Scylla is quite ok with her stats compared to weapon stats - it is all bonuses to attributes and all the skills which break that balance.
Yes, and be honest with yourself Yokes, those skills are _never_ going to go away. So the Scylla has to be able to survive for more than 1 turn vs concentrated fire by a squad doped up to the max on super-skills.
Honestly? I think that’s what the devs expected her to be able to do - which is why they programmed in such dumb random behaviours. If she won’t go down in one concentrated barrage, then it’s a relief when she decides to pick the Misty Daisies and fart out the odd 'Fragger, rather than charging across the map and Screaming at you. But, as with many aspects of this game, they made the squad so OP that it is literally possible for a full squad to take her down in one turn with one hand tied behind its back.
Now that wouldn’t be so problematical if she wasn’t the Maguffin on Citadel Missions. But the devs have literally designed a mission where to win, all you have to do is concentrate on alpha-striking the biggest target on the map and the game’s over! Doesn’t matter if she spills out 8 'Fraggers in her death throes; doesn’t matter that you’re surrounded by Little Nasties - Queen’s dead: game over.
So you position your squad so that she will blunder into that 1-turn death trap, press the nuclear button, and simply ignore all other tactical considerations on the map.
So Voland’s idea that she has an Achilles Heel that you can only reach by blowing off its protection is a good one. Say her heart is hidden behind her Carapace. First, you have to blow off her carapace (the most heavily armoured part of her), then you have to position yourself so that you can _see_ her heart, which can only be targeted from certain angles (mainly her very dangerous front). Then you have to take out her heart.
Suddenly, dealing with the Queen becomes a tactical game of cat and mouse. RB, Armour Break etc still matter, because you’ll need to take out her most dangerous tactical abilities in order to position yourself to take her down safely (I do that anyway - if she has Scream or Goo, her Head is the first thing that goes). But you can no longer simply sit back on your baseline, get our your cigar, shout: “Pull!” and wait for the Turkey to come lumbering out of the trap.
And to all of those who are immediately going to say: “But how can you do that when you are surrounded by Sirens/Chirons/1-shot Sniper Tritons/Insane Acid Crabbies? It’s ok for you hardcore power-gamers, but give us little guys a break.” _You don’t buff the Queen until you’ve rebalanced the game!_ NONE of this works unless the devs finally grasp the nettle and address the fact that the number and power of Nasties currently on these missions is insanely over the top for most players and needs to be addressed.
---
### Author:  [@Caedeas](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/Caedeas)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2020, 10:16am UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/23 "2020-03-20T10:16:33Z")
the word is sadist because you want to make the experence harder for everyone else. You could take steps to make the game less easy. But you want to make it a painful for everyone else, Sadist.
---
### Author:  [@Nattfarinn](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/Nattfarinn)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2020, 10:34am UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/24 "2020-03-20T10:34:18Z")
Not sure if anyone here wants to make game harder. Most of us want to rebalance some thing so it isn’t always “I’ll kill you in one turn or you’ll kill me in one turn.” mexican standoff. You will not be able to kill Scylla in one turn, but Acid Chiron will not kill your squad in one turn either and so on.
The idea is to improve Queen survivability but only when remaining menagerie will be much more manageable:
> [@MichaelIgnotus](#):
>
> And to all of those who are immediately going to say: “But how can you do that when you are surrounded by Sirens/Chirons/1-shot Sniper Tritons/Insane Acid Crabbies? It’s ok for you hardcore power-gamers, but give us little guys a break.” _You don’t buff the Queen until you’ve rebalanced the game!_ NONE of this works unless the devs finally grasp the nettle and address the fact that the number and power of Nasties currently on these missions is insanely over the top for most players and needs to be addressed.
---
### Author:  [@MichaelIgnotus](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/MichaelIgnotus)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/25 "2020-03-20T18:37:39Z")
No we don’t - we want to make it _less painful_ for everyone.
But as I and Voland and god knows how many others have said before and keep saying, you do that by _rebalancing the game_, so that you _don’t_ have to exploit stupid combos to survive.
At that point, and only at that point, do you address all the other elephants in the room - like the simple fact that as things currently stand, it is perfectly possible to kill the Biggest Nasty on the Map and _immediately end the scenario_ in one turn - even on Turn 1 if she’s in the wrong place and you’re using all the exploits that are currently available to you.
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### Author:  [@Caedeas](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/Caedeas)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/26 "2020-03-20T19:05:17Z")
I think the devs have purposly made the game unessacarily hard, because they are aiming for the Dark Souls market or dont have an idea on how to balance a game.
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### Author:  [@MichaelIgnotus](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/MichaelIgnotus)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2020, 12:46pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/27 "2020-03-22T12:46:53Z")
@VOLAND, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve created a Canny post incorporating yours and my ideas here:
[https://phoenixpoint.canny.io/feedback/p/make-the-scylla-less-vulnerable](https://phoenixpoint.canny.io/feedback/p/make-the-scylla-less-vulnerable)
Just tell me if you want me to withdraw it.
---
### Author:  [@Foraven](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/Foraven)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2020, 2:40pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/28 "2020-03-22T14:40:36Z")
A better and easier solution for boss like enemies; give them a huge health pool and make it so taking out limbs and parts the only way to inflict significant damage to it. By that i meant taking out a limb does extra damage as well as significant bleeding. That way shooting limbs with stripped armor would not be the most efficient way to kill it.
Another note; the devs really should make it so that damaged limbs receive reduced damage so that it would be less effective to keep attacking damaged ones.
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### Author:  [@mcarver2000](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/mcarver2000)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/29 "2020-03-22T15:31:39Z")
I still find it extremely odd that a disabled body part with 0 HP can be hit over and over again with the enemy losing 100’s of HP each time. But, many others don’t find this odd at all.
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### Author:  [@SpiteAndMalice](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/SpiteAndMalice)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/30 "2020-03-22T18:13:35Z")
> [@Foraven](#):
>
> Another note; the devs really should make it so that damaged limbs receive reduced damage so that it would be less effective to keep attacking damaged ones.
+1 That’s a good suggestion for canny.
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### Author:  [@MichaelIgnotus](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/MichaelIgnotus)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2020, 10:30pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/31 "2020-03-22T22:30:52Z")
I’ve always found it odd - even commented on it in the early BBs, and have even suggested that max damage through a disabled body part should be no more than the original HP of that body part.
No joy.
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### Author:  [@mcarver2000](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/mcarver2000)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2020, 11:12pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/32 "2020-03-22T23:12:35Z")
Early on I assumed that hitting a disabled body part with 0 hit points was pointless. Once I learned this not to be true, it became obvious that one only needed to find the most vulnerable part, take it out and then get max damage by hitting it over & over. This totally ruined the suspension of belief in the mechanics of the game. This is not a realistic result of ballistics.
EDIT: corrected typo
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### Author:  [@Nattfarinn](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/Nattfarinn)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 7:56am UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/33 "2020-03-23T07:56:13Z")
> [@mcarver2000](#):
>
> This totally ruined the suspicion of belief in the mechanics of the game. This is not a realistic result of ballistics.
Also disabling head doesn’t kill a human. 😛
---
### Author:  [@SpiteAndMalice](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/SpiteAndMalice)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 1:55pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/34 "2020-03-23T13:55:58Z")
> [@mcarver2000](#):
>
> This totally ruined the suspicion of belief in the mechanics of the game. This is not a realistic result of ballistics.
Me too, the ballistics model, highlights unrealistic features of the game far beyond what a percentage based simulation system would have done.
For disabled limbs in particular, I wonder if it should work so that disabled limbs are treat as not being there for the purpose of subsequent hits. i.e. You disable an arm, so the next bullet will pass straight through it and strike the body part immediately behind.
---
### Author:  [@VOLAND](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/VOLAND)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/35 "2020-03-23T14:19:53Z")
On the body part issue in general…
It depends.
1. Disabled doesn’t mean destroyed.
2. It makes sense that at least shots to the torso and to the head continue to do damage after they get disabled.
3. I’m not an expert in trauma (my medical expertise being largely confined to knowledge obtained in the the course of unwillingly watching Dr Mcstuffins), but it’s obvious that PP damage model is completely unrealistic, and has no pretensions in that regard.
4. I can live with damage being dealt to disabled limbs in principle- I imagine that a human being shot repeatedly in the same disabled leg still gets hurt.
5. Not so in the case of the Scylla, as she is basically a milipede, or a spider, or whatever something that intuitively should survive a leg being ripped off of her.
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### Author:  [@mcarver2000](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/mcarver2000)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/36 "2020-03-23T14:49:53Z")
But when one targets a disabled body part it shows 0 hit points. Why then does hitting it remove HP? An arm or leg disabled is not necessarily gong to increase trauma, it’s numb and already bleeding out. Hitting it again is not going to increase the trauma.
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### Author:  [@VOLAND](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/VOLAND)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/37 "2020-03-23T14:55:49Z")
> [@mcarver2000](#):
>
> But when one targets a disabled body part it shows 0 hit points. Why then hitting removes HP?
Because HPs don’t scale with strength, ie the total HPs are not distributed among the different body parts.
It’s actually a pretty smart decision gameplay wise, though I didn’t realize this at first. It means that a character with say, 30 strength = 300 HPs, can be crippled as easily as a 15 strength character (with 150 HPs), as both have (in the case of humans) 60 HPs for head, 80 HPs for legs, etc., even though the 300 HP character will obviously withstand much more punishment.
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### Author:  [@Yokes](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/Yokes)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/38 "2020-03-23T16:47:54Z")
> [@MichaelIgnotus](#):
>
> Yes, and be honest with yourself Yokes, those skills are _never_ going to go away. So the Scylla has to be able to survive for more than 1 turn vs concentrated fire by a squad doped up to the max on super-skills.
If you put it this way, then yes. Scylla need to be buffed. 🙂
> [@Foraven](#):
>
> Another note; the devs really should make it so that damaged limbs receive reduced damage so that it would be less effective to keep attacking damaged ones.
This is interesting idea. I would keep possibility to deal damage on disabled limbs, but decrease in effectiveness can make it more interesting.
> [@Foraven](#):
>
> A better and easier solution for boss like enemies; give them a huge health pool and make it so taking out limbs and parts the only way to inflict significant damage to it. By that i meant taking out a limb does extra damage as well as significant bleeding.
My first though was “It won’t work, because…”, but then I couldn’t find good counterargument to it.
- Of course I can’t say if additional damage can be inflicted when body part is disabled - that would probably require additional method and parameter to disabling method.
- “remove max HP” from general pool always is some fraction of general HP, so it won’t work as you would need to disable all body parts - but that is not important in this situation
- but massive bleeding can be the core of such mechanic. Let say that Scylla has 20000 HP, her body parts still have between 150 and 600 HP. And each disabled body part could incurr like 200 bleed damage.
Disabled body parts would give the AI good trigger and bleeding value proper scale how soldiers deal damage, so she could decide when to retreat from battle. As standard firepower at random body parts still woudln’t be so much effective vs her massive HP pool, and with above solution from you about less effective hits in disabled body parts it could be valid solution. So +1 from me.
> [@mcarver2000](#):
>
> I still find it extremely odd that a disabled body part with 0 HP can be hit over and over again with the enemy losing 100’s of HP each time
> [@MichaelIgnotus](#):
>
> I’ve always found it odd … suggested that max damage through a disabled body part should be no more than the original HP of that body part.
Because otherwise with current values you would need to disable at least half of body parts to kill any given enemy. That would be less realistic than killing him by hitting one body part multiple times. Btw don’t confuse disabled with destroyed.
You can argue then that killing enemy by hitting one body part can become more realistic if devs will increase HP of each particular body part. But then mechanic of disabling body parts will become not interesting. Why? Because attempt to disable any particular body part would probably mean close death of an enemy. So what would be point to even try to disable that body part in first place?
> [@mcarver2000](#):
>
> Once I learned this not to be true, it became obvious that one only needed to find the most vulnerable part, take it out and then get max damage by hitting it over & over.
What is odd in it? This is valid tactic to attack most vulnerable place on enemy. Why this way should became invalid when that place is disabled during that process?
> [@SpiteAndMalice](#):
>
> > [@mcarver2000](#):
> >
> > This totally ruined the suspension of belief
>
> Me too,
It is because you treat it too much realistically compared to other parts of the game. If you would want to keep it so much realistic then first bullet should kill enemy. Then disabling wouldn’t even matter. 🙂 I definitely prefer more realistic approach, but this is a game - some things need to stay unrealistic to make it playable.
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### Author:  [@mcarver2000](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/mcarver2000)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/39 "2020-03-23T16:49:11Z")
Generally they are distributed across body parts. There are a few exceptions when viewing the info.
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### Author:  [@VOLAND](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/u/VOLAND)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://forums.snapshotgames.com/t/we-have-to-talk-about-the-scylla-in-the-room/9997/40 "2020-03-23T16:59:08Z")
I’m pretty sure that is not the case, I can’t recall any case where the sum of HPs in body parts of a character wasn’t much larger than the total number of HPs. I cannot open the game at the moment. Are you thinking of any particular examples?
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