Why the new RF doesn't do it for me

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

OK, let me start by saying that I was one of the few who was OK with RF the way it was. It was a nuisance, but once you’d figured out how to deal with it, it wasn’t game-breaking by any means.
And to me, it made a lot more sense than the way RF works now.

Let me give you an example to show what I mean:

On a recent mission, my support Berserker, Beany, found himself in a position where an enemy Infitrator had just popped up on the other side of the Hard Cover where he was sheltering. Ahead of him where a Heavy and an Assault with RF. No problem. Beany simply popped out of cover right in front of them, shoved his Shotgun in the Infiltrator’s face and blew the Inf’s head off, before Dashing back into Cover and setting up an OW screen covering both remaining enemies.

So I walked out into the open, killed someone right in front of the Assault, and then sauntered back into cover again with no penalty whatsoever. Stupid. In the old days, I’d have got hammered by the Assault for having the stupidity of breaking my cover, and I was fine with that. Now, as long as I can 1-shot the target, I no longer have to worry about RF at all.

I get that some people found RF hard to deal with, but the fix just makes it trivial and stops it doing what it was supposed to do, which was give the stupid AI some way of supporting its dumbo troops.

For me, a better fix would be this:

  1. The target of your shot does not get to RF (it’s to busy trying to get out of the way).
  2. Anything within, say, 10 tiles of the target AND the firer, does get to RF with ONE shot (maybe 2).

So RF is limited only to those shooters within fairly close proximity to the target, and its effect is heavily nerfed so that multiple Crabbies get to hurt but not kill you for your tactical stupidity.

At the moment, though, it simply rewards tactically inept play.

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Later in the campaign, when crabs have a 50x4 machine gun attached, return fire means you’re pretty dead if you don’t kill it.
That’s one of the reasons you can’t use a PDW with the technician or an AR (Piranha is even worst than I remembered). Because you can’t one-shot and they have an accuracy that forces you to go in RF range.
Crabs have a heavy machine gun that shreds and uses only one (really thin) arm to wield and get return fire.

In real world, snipers are rare soldiers. The large amount of troops are assaults. In this game your assaults are finishers. You first have to weaken the targets (with snipers or a grenade from far enough) so that they can reliably kill them. In the end you field lots of snipers and your assaults also have sniper rifles. Sorry, everybody has sniper rifles. Except for 85/100% stealth infiltrator with shotgun who can reliably one shot things.

You can’t rely on over-watch forcing your distance with the enemy because he doesn’t care about taking hits and can easily go through 2/3 before going down. Will still be able to lob a grenade or murder one of your troops with its gun AND return fire if you retaliate next turn.

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By the way, anything you do should cost AP (even if it is only one). You spent all your AP, no (unlimited 360° over-watch) RF.
Where’s the tactic ? Oh I don’t care about a tactic, you can’t one shot me and I have RF.

Priest powers should use at least 1AP (looking at you mind-crush).

Like always, you have an edge for a situation.
So they buff the enemy and he gets an edge.
So they give you an OP ability to still get through and you get the edge.
So they buff the enemy even more.
So they give you even OPer ability to make it through.
…
and you can ditch you AR.

4 Likes
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Agree it’s among the numerous elements favoring longer range versus shorter range. Despite combats are fun and interesting, it’s not right. Result is most players use shorter range only to exploit two skills and do chain killing, it’s… limited, technical but limited.

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Which is why my suggestion limits RF to 1 or 2 shots, rather than a full burst of 4.

It means that if Crabbie A is covered by Crabbie B, you may decide to risk the damage for the sake of taking one of the buggers out. However, if Crabbie A is covered by several mates, you shouldn’t be able to just pop out, off him, then run away. It makes a mockery of tactics (as do many of the OP abilities in this game at the moment).

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Well (and I’m sorry) the fact that they went for “full magazine” RF may be linked to one comment I’ve put in an other RF rant about how it was screwing ammo management.
You have only half a burst for you next real shot. You thought you were going to kill this Arthron ? … think again … and take some RF in the meantime.

My main grief against this ability (and others) is the fact that it uses no AP/WP and therefore has unlimited use.
Others would be:

  • it is 360°
  • while the crab turns around to face you and shoot, your soldier is there just waiting to get shot while he had (plenty of) time to step back to his high cover.
3 Likes
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RF is the one patch change I’d really like to have a mod to add back in.

I’d even ask the devs to consider making the new and old RF a setting in the game options. Those who like it as is have it as a default and those who preferred the old version have it as an option.

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I hadn’t played enough after release and between first patch but then RF was insignificant on enemies side, now it’s a serious parameter to consider. My negativity about it is it’s one more disbalance favoring longer range versus shorter range. Otherwise it adds one more element to consider seriously when before it was a detail.

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See, for me it’s the opposite. Now it’s an irrelevance, as long as you can 1-shot the Crabbie who has it (if you can’t, you simply shoot his MG arm off. Before, it was a serious tactical consideration, because you had to take account of the support fire from the Crabbie’s friends.

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Agreed totally backwards. The original tutorial explained just how important it was to take down ranged units with RF before melee ones, now it’s totally irrelevant because they’ll just stand there.

Do I attack X who is the bigger threat and soak probable damage from its ally in the process or let the threat live another round to take out the ally first and risk damage from X which may or may not be even worse.

Ditching the allied portion of RF took all the tension away because 1v1 you pop the arm and problem solved and vs the bigger threat you can outright ignore the allies.

I’ve had two solid scenarios before where RF as it was made for sweat sessions. Now I don’t even notice if it’s in play.

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the way it is now it cannot be used to cover teammates, and actually promotes going for the 1-attack-kill method as its extremely potent if it does happen to trigger on one of your troops. (but then again, most methods in this game prefer the 1-action kills…be it rage burst killing of big pandorans or shotgun-daisychaining for assaults)

I also agree with pantolomin that it is an action, and should hence cost AP per-shot much in the vain an overwatch would…

to elaborate:

  1. you would state the unit is going into return fire/cover mode…it is no longer a passive. activating it will stop you from issuing extra orders but won’t cost any AP
  2. it will now counterattack all enemies that attack and are visible to the assault, within 1/2 the assaults perception range, with a proficient direct fire weapon…it will retain its 360 degree angle.
  3. it will use AP value of weapon-1 (minimum 1) AP per counterattack, until out of AP…or out of bullets in the weapon magazine using full bursts.

crabs and AI assaults can do the same, there will be no other indication of them being in cover mode then the current return fire emblem. neither should get it for free, but it may be a default mode they go into once they end their turn.

it should not (if it got its ability to fire at enemies when the assault is not directly attacked himself back.) be abused by having a return fire sniper somewhere in the back that completely destroys enemies “for free” with RF shots because of his massive perception range. hence a cost is required, but I do feel a reduced cost is preferred…

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Full bursts is too powerful, especially in the current Crabbie configuration.

If late-game Crabbies stay as they are, then it should just be 1 or 2 shots. If they get nerfed, then it could fire more.

The other alternative is to give it a massive aim penalty, as it is essentially a reactive snapshot.

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or just change their weapons… no MG you have has 50 dmg… why should they? Deceptor Gaus MG does 40… so reduce damage of Crab MGs, but give them more rounds in burst… let say 8-10… then, armor would still matter somehow, and they would still be quite dangerous to fight… but not so ridiculously so as they are now…

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I think the ability system needs a skill progression. After gaining the ability, it is immediately OP. You need to pay more SP / PP (maybe even specially 25SP / 10PP) for good ability in the result.
perk2-3

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Mike I like to read your posts. :smiley: Thank god that there is a player who thinks the same way on many things with regards of how everything works in PP.

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Thanks Krzysztof, glad someone out there likes them :blush:

Actually, I think there are a whole bunch of us on these forums who can see the diamond in the rough and just want to help hone it into what it could be.

Your statistical analysis of the way BB5 worked was very helpful in that respect. I hope you’re doing something similar with 1.0.

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I would say to Yokes to not pretend know what think other players, on another side, I won’t disagree with Ignotus that there’s a lot of very good fun to take with the game in its current states and despite a large number of problems. I’m probably closing 200H, and I I don’t know when I’ll stop play it yet. I would be a poor liar to argue now that it’s a tedious boredom game.

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In fairness, Zzzz, he doesn’t have to pretend to know what other players think - there are an awful number of players out there who have posted their very explicit opinions on this game, both :+1: good and :rage: BAAD.

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Nobody have a count, and it’ not 10 players with an opinion that mean anything, too small numbers.

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Mind crush actually is the best weapon in the game. Does not need LoS, goes through any obstacle, ignores armor, has gigantic AoE, does not cost AP, no friendly fire, no ammo, a bunch of other things …