What have you done to the SHOT GUN!

1

OK… WHY! do you keep messing with things that aren’t broken? There have been some truly great changes made to this game but it seems there is constant need to over compensate. The Shot Gun is now a waste of space (as are many great weapons now), for it to be of any use you must walk right up to the target and shove both barrels up their nose and pull the trigger and this only has the effect equal to giving them a bad head cold! Seriously this SCAMdemic fake corona virus does more damage! Also WHY… Do you give a starting base weapon and then not allow the production of ammo for it? I can make shot guns shells in the kitchen why do you need to research this if you start with this gun, seems the research is already done?

In fact so many weapons have been nerfed and had the accuracy reduced it has just become so repetitively boring to take something out it is not funny any more! For example I did my first hive mission and I had the entire team standing right next to the “spermary” and I needed to shoot and “bash” it for so long to kill it was ridiculous! This kind of “nerfing” has a knock on effect:

1: It takes WAY to long to get the job done
2: It requires way to many resources to get the job done
3: It is NO longer a strategy game!

AND… don’t get me started on the accuracy of the grande launcher and its actual damage! A launcher will drop the grenade were you want it (that’s what they do) and when they do get a hit… well… you may as well be throwing stones! The cost and weight of these items also makes it a bad choice unless it gets somewhat upgraded as it usually does LESS yes that right LESS damage than a bullet, seriously have a look at the difference in real life I am sure you will find the grande some what better then a bullet!

On top of this I am only playing on Rookie! One can only image the nightmare on anything else. The resources needed are ALWAYS on the poverty line. I feel that it is a constant battle just to get enough resources to do the minimum in the game which destroys the fun entirely! I know you need to have a balance here but to feel as if your in constant poverty as the timer runs out is just to much. And this has a knock on effect also!

1: You can’t open the base and now you can’t even scan the area, so no progress
2: If you can open the base it takes everything you have to fix it and bring it to any kind of usable level
3: And if you lose a man the cost to replace and the time to train far outweigh any benefits!
4: it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever build a aircraft the only option is to steal it and that just ruins your relationship with the faction involved.

There is a lot more I could put here, however… the main things I feel that have destroyed all the great work you have done to date are two main things

1: you have totally messed up the weapons and ammo situation by over compensation, do those involved in selecting this balance even play this game?
2: The resources and costs of actions, weapons, recruitment/training time and weapons is so far of the charts it is not worth playing… Sorry!

It seems to me that if this is changed this would make it the BEST game out there right now, but there is some serious apparent blockages here which can be over come if you want them to, it really is that simple.

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This game got some little but many annoying dev choices. I mean if the game is fully modable, you can make it much more enjoyable just playing with numbers.

I accept that, this needs a good testing but still in the nae of balance, the game lose its touch and sadly its still not balanced. As I always say, enjoyment should come before balance. Chess is maybe the most balanced tactical game out there, but we don’t see people are crazy for it. So I need to enjoy first then I can talk about balance.

For enjoyment, I can say that I want play this game against an alien enemy but at mid game I still fight against factions and humans maybe %80 of time. Pandoras are really rare to me. They are evolved many times that I did not even saw the early versions yet.

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You actually made a very good point and in fact is what I was trying to say but did not quite say it. You did however, and the key is ENJOYMENT… Your right! All the best games out there are because of enjoyment it really is that simple! And to get enjoyment out of the game you need to not have to repetitively fight for every single step and live on the poverty line of resources, you need a good satisfying win at times and plenty of time, resources to explore, build and research! I have had this game since backer build 4 and at the start it was truly fun and it actually got more fun. THEN… the balancing started and the pendulum started to swing in huge directions like trying to correct a car out of a tail spin! They got so scared of giving us powerful weapons that they “nerfed” and cut down everything on our side of the board. However, it seemed the opposite with the aliens, they got thicker armor, strong acid and better accuracy and more deadly LONG lasting and reaching weapons! We got reduced accuracy, cones instead of sights on the range burst (which was my favorite one, not anymore) grenades that do as much damage as a rock if you were lucky enough to get is close enough. Then to top of this maps were changed (usually for the better but not always) and you have these huge scallas on tiny maps that can reach you in two turns and even if your entire team was able to hit it every time with their most powerful weapons it took 6 or 7 rounds to take it out, then they drop 6 mind fraggers right on top of you, thus you lose at least two men which you can’t afford to replace or retrain. I could go on and on here, but you nailed it with your chess analogy! This is exactly what they have done here. I seriously love all the XCOM games I have them all and every add on they ever made and I never get sick of playing them, some more than 15 times through. They to have many things that could “balance” the weapons etc… but if they changed what they did there it would no longer be FUN which is what seems to be happening here! And after all isn’t that why we are here, to have fun? I played this game again when the new add on came out but only until the first liar, I have not seen anything of the new stuff yet which I wanted to, but I have not. I was so frustrated with the lair and how much it actually took to kill this giant snail (the spermary). That I never bothered to even finish it! There is so much to do in this game which is great but very little way to actually do it with enjoyment. I was so frustrated and irradiated with the entire affair it ruined my day so I turned it off and read a book. So I have to ask myself, is that really a great game to have?

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I made my first lair yesterday and I nuked that building with two heavy, one minigun and one cannon… Minigun used 2 clips and grenade launcher destroyed after some bashes. It took 6-7 turn I think just to kill it when I was tring to kill sirens with others.
It was not hard, but loooong…

So as I see there are some very hard core players who wants to have this game souls-like. They want everything very hard and very limited… They enjoy that… but Snapshot wanna make a soul-like game version of xcom? Or something everybody enjoy?

By the way, resources… as the havens can save themselves mostly and pandorans don’t attack to them as often AND you got tons of human-related missions factions and 2 DLC story ones which gives you nothing mostly, I just don’t have any resources… Because of those missions, I don’t even time to check question marks… people will say that make a second squad… then I can ask… WHEN? I need to get those 6 ppl, need to train them, need to give them gear (I play hero, less is easy at tactical) and send them against Sirens? and even they survive they will be at 4-5 lvl probably at end game.

Again some people will come up with great ideas here as he is already playing this games at hardest of hardest difficulty. Yes mastermind, sorry but we are here not to live hell… we want to enjoy our games. We don’t want easy games, but not hell too…

To be honest, the game mechanics are there and they are mostly solid. Just need moding. And I can forsee that easily, when there is a good balancing mod out there, most of the audience will use it. Someone will make soul-like mod too and many people will play that too. BUT there will be options for everyone. Now we have not those options and Snapshot is not helping with that.

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Spot on! You nailed it again!

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Because it was too powerful compared to assault rifles. It easily overcomed armor when rifles couldn’t do it.

I find shotguns still useful. You just need to pay attention how much armor enemy has, and if he has more than usual first use something that removes armor. Then wreak enemy with shotgun.

Game is still fun and doesn’t take too much time. Lair case above for example -> You can kill Spawnery in like 2 or 3 turns. Just place 3 soldiers near it, kill eggs and it will bleed out in the second turn after yours actions.

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I think that scaling up the number of soldiers you have is quite a subtle task. If I understand correctly, then the easier levels give you more time before you lose the game. That being the case, wouldn’t it be easier to play on a less difficult level?

For me, learning how to acquire more soldiers, training them etcetera is also the challenge of the difficulty in a limited time. I very much felt like this in the past with these difficulties, but hours of playing the game has taught me otherwise.

Theoretically there should be a difficulty level for everyone’s enjoyment. If not, then something is seriously wrong with the game.

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Shotgun works fine for me. Does way more damage if you mind where you hit while being close range. Pretty much how I expected it to be. I never really used shotguns before.

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You used to be able to kill something from about 3 tiles away and use it in “over watch” when inside a building. Now that is useless… Yes if you watch were you aim when close you can do some damage which is why I said you have to put both barrels up their nose to damage them! It is a game… and games are meant to be fun this is no longer that. It is constantly being tweeked to more and more difficulties which is fine for some who enjoy pain and time wasting. I however, have limited time for games and like to walk away feeling like I had some fun not stressing out… I only play on rookie here which is very unusual for as I have been playing these kinds of games since the early 80’s (not as cool as today’s games however) but I usually can play all the games on hardest level eventually, but not this one and I have put over 200 hours into it and I still find anything above rookie very irritating. Maybe I am just getting old? But this game CAN be something great to all of us if ALL of us are taking into consideration not just those who love to play in nightmares!

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There is nothing wrong in sticking to rookie if that fits your pace. Are you saying with a better shotgun you’d be able to play on a more difficult level ? Surely that cant be it.

3 tiles away still works … you just cannot hit specific body parts. Like I said it feels fine to me. AR and shotguns both have a reason to exist.

It did get more challenging to build I-win soldiers, but the game itself got easier. At least in the first months where it was the hardest for me. I play since the 80s too but I was a kid then.

Overall I think that complaining about higher difficulties making the game more difficult is kinda silly. Maybe the curve needs some tweaking, the easiest being easier but I’d like if they keep the most difficult one where it is.

That being said I’m indifferent to shotgun tweaks. I don’t think a buff would have that much of an effect. Sounds like you are annoyed by where the game is heading, which is quite unfortunate.

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So far so good. The old shotgun was too good. I would barely use assault rifles after researching it. Now I am running with both on my assaults and they both come useful. :+1:t2:

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There is nothing wrong in sticking to rookie if that fits your pace. Are you saying with a better shotgun you’d be able to play on a more difficult level ? Surely that cant be it.

No what I am saying is that if it was left alone I could enjoy it a lot more!

3 tiles away still works … you just cannot hit specific body parts. Like I said it feels fine to me. AR and shotguns both have a reason to exist.

Have you ever shot a real shot gun! … It destroy everything from 20 feet away about 6 tiles roughly in the game! It was perfectly balanced in before the nerf!

In the 80’s I had 3 children by then, i was not young, i have 4 grand children now, so yes I am a grandpa…:slight_smile:

Overall I think that complaining about higher difficulties making the game more difficult is kinda silly.

only if you like it the way it is right now and I am complaining about rookie not higher levels, …:slight_smile:

actually I am getting used to the tweeks now but still think they should have left it alone

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Okay, but that is not really a sound argument. Some people have fun modding their protagonists and avatars into obscene power levels, but you cannot make that a status quo. You have to use some sort of framework for trade offs in order to make different things viable.

No I haven’t. Weather or not I shot a real shotgun is completely irrelevant to any discussion about gameplay balance. We can only appropriate whats happening in the real world, especially when you realize that given a certain level of technology all you’d have to do is send a bunch of unmanned Drones to any area of conflict and automatically win any engagement without risk or causalities.

Yea, well like I said maybe they should make the lower difficulties a bit easier. I would not know as I have not tried them. Perhaps the distribution is off. I just think that overall you seem to have a problem with the general direction of the game and not just with the shotgun.

It seems they are in fact upping the difficulty with each patch - at the very least for those that used exceptionally strong gadgets and abilities in the past - so maybe they should dial back the overall difficulty for normal and below a little bit.

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Yes I agree unfortunately that is what they (devs) don’t seem to be doing. And yes I’m another old crotchety Grandfather😉

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I’m not convince that the devs are making the game more difficult. Yes they keep re-balancing the game which in itself makes the game more difficult. One has to spend time working out what is new or has changed and that takes time. But I’m lucky that this year I’ve had time to spend with the game and I honestly believe that the difficulty overall has remained the same, but in individual aspects it may seem more difficult.

However, I haven’t played on easy recently. So as @Spagetman43 is suggesting easy should be easy. It’s a game. I have had my resignations over many changes in this game, but I honestly think they have improved the game. But easy should be fun!

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Thank you for your reply​:wink: It may well be the constant changes are what are colouring my opinion. I always play on easy to begin with to learn the mechanics and how to play, I was an early backer and I still haven’t managed to complete it yet. To me it’s not so much the strategy side but the constant changing of the tactical side and the opposite choices between game and perceived realism that the devs have chosen to use (looking at you heavy armour with it’s negative accuracy…Stability People!):wink:

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