I personally like the idea that the top skill (lvl 7) would only be available to a single class, if you decide to go multi class then the level 7 skill would become unavailable on both the new and old class.
This would give a benefit to playing a single class, and give diversity and new build options on the multi class. It would have to be balanced though - the level 7 skill would need to be a bit OP to offset all of the benefits of a multi class build.
I think it would work currently:
Even if a few are less spectacular, all are very powerful, even Mark For Death, 1/2 more damages with an armor system not based on percentage is a big boost.
So it could work, but I donāt want play that limited game. My point is none are OP and no mix is OP, the only element to consider nerf is Sniper Rifle, but how is a difficult question. Also some other weapons types need probably a little boost but again itās not that simple. For the skills and the mix the game is designed for that, or at least it seems so.
It would certainly make things easier to balance, but I donāt think that 7 levels per class offers such an overwhelming complexity that it needs to be reduced for balance sake.
If being special is more important than having a coherent gameplay then someone can mod a non-class option where all abilities are available to all classes so classes have no meaning at all. Then remove all active abilities, ohh wait now we have it almost as old system with just stats but we complement them with perks 
Being special doesnāt convert into being good and you donāt need to be special to be good.
It is good your job is not game designer 
You come a lot too late in the boat, the choice of skills is no way new and itās wrong game to want something else.
Persist on that complain is absurd and headbutted behavior. Iām so much used to players that want all games are the same, very bad idea in my opinion.
Before to argue itās non coherent gameplay (lol) you should wait the auto scaling is tuned. i played enough tactical games to know itās not a whole incoherent garbage.
I just played a mission, with two Chiron, scavenging mission, a pair of fast soldiers rushed in a house system, two snipers stayed in back doing few noise from walking/spring, a stealth soldier moved quietly to key position and a tank tried attract some attention. Itās been a huge fun, and no XCOM1&2 maps, LW2 maps ever played like that.
You are conflating a meaningless feature with something that is suppose to be a results of synergy of multiple systems. Someone liking or disliking a media product, has zero relation to quality of the said product. I can watch a Sharkanado and enjoy it but it doesnāt make it a good movie.
Auto scaling wonāt fix anything remotely important, there still will be 100 other things that donāt work. As having some difficult missions is just an icing on the cake of other things not working.
Question to you both. What exactly is awesome about this feature in long term gameplay? You can multi-class at level 4, which already makes your soldiers way more powerful than without multi-class. Level 4 is like 3-4 maybe 5 missions, which is nothing in the terms of the campaign. Why even bother then unlocking it at level 4? Do you realize how big is the difference in the gameplay between single classed and multi-calssed team? Probably not. Do you understand how this effects the whole gameloop where gameplay changes to something completely different?
Read just these forums and check posts of people who didnāt realize what this game is about - using and abusing abilities to no end, you canāt play it by using them sporadically and you canāt win any mid game mission without using abilities. Its doesnāt matter how cool or innovative some feature is, if it completely brakes gameflow without bringing deeper mechanics.
So you are a fan of grinding, Iād argue whatās the fun? The fun is combats end of arguing.
What that even suppose to mean?
Lol, the core fun is combats, not grinding to level up. In RPG itās usual to build a character and when you achieved the final touch itās end of game. Here you build plenty character and thereās a wide field and you experiment them at will.
Ok the grinding phase is lost, I remind the XCOM1&2, despite you was hiring heroes late game, you still had level up one or two level, the total boredom itās always been.
EDIT: That said, XCOM1&2 and even LW2 are very limited in term of builds, they could not target the PP design on that aspect, no chance.
Which grinding are you talking about?
Itās irrelevant how many builds you can make if 2 of them are OP and 3 are the only one that make sense to have. The combat stops being interesting after you unlock essential abilities as after that the game plays pretty much exactly the same. If you are not using some multi-classes and abilities on purpose, itās your own problem, maybe you didnāt āexperimentā enough to find them.
Donāt even compare it to Firaxis XCom, itās neither a good X-Com based game neither it needs a lot of builds, the whole point there is to use limited set of pros and cons of individual soldiers to make teams that āworkā, not to run around with 8 super heroes that can clean up the map alone with a bit of micromanagement.
If you multiclass at level 4 it means you are seriously gimping the stats of your soldier by wasting 50 points on the multiclass alone, before even starting to buy the abilities specific to your second class. This is actually a tough choice!
Most of the game-changing abilities are at lvl 5-7. And usually you donāt want to buy them all, because it is so expensive to do so. It is nearly always a better option to place some more points into Will, Speed or Strength. However it depends on your vision of the current soldier role on the battlefield, the weapon/equipment kit you are going to give him, etc.
E.g.: Heavy can be a Grenadier or a Machine Gunner or Melee, be more tanky or more mobile. He can be combined with Berserker for more armour stripping and durability or with Sniper for cheaper and more precise shots or with Assault for extra mobility of Dash and extra luls of Return Fire. You can also leave him a single class more a dedicated Grenadier/Melee with overall better stats.
I have 24 soliers in my current gameplay and most of them have unique builds/kits.
More often than not heāll be a wizard who can teleport around the battlefield and single handily kill everything on one turn with his super magicā¦ I mean super perk powers. 
Being more serious; do you purposely make use of those builds in anticipation of different mission types/opponents, or is it just an experiment to see those 24 different ways, and then you found the 8 best ones that you use for everything?
Not when that combat itself is broken.
That is true, but those likes or dislikes are ultimately what leads to a product finding long-term success or not however, in the absense of steam reviews, Iād expect a lot of potential purchasers are going to be using metacritic, where the outlook, currently for PP doesnāt look good.
Somewhere or another something needs to change in how the game works. It does need bug fixing and balancing, thatās for certain, but the core gameplay itself isnāt going down well, and for PP/Snapshot to have a longterm success IMHO I think they need to respond to the player feedback that theyāre getting.
Headbutted behaviour is to receive feedback that something isnāt working, and continually ignore that feedback even when itās coming from multiple sources who are ultimately the people that you want to make sales to.
Yes, itās called a target audience.
Oh I agree with you totally. And I loved Sharknado Iāve always been into those films that are so bad that theyāre good - I just canāt get many people to watch them with me
Why would that even matter? None of the stats besides willpower have any tangible effect in the game. You need as much strength as the equipment your guys is going to carry, thatās it. The speed just needs to be few point higher than default as you get much more mobility from Dash/JetPack.
There is no tough choice here as the only people in my team who are not heavy/sniper are assault/sniper because you typically start with those useless idiots. You donāt need any weapon besides sniper rifles to do 98% of the jobs, the rest of the stuff like GL/Cannon is just extra I could carry for fun. AR/Shotguns are useless in this team as they donāt have neither damage nor precision to be useful.
There is no āmore tanky or more mobileā because everyone is wearing pretty much the same armor - sniper helmets/sniper boots, jet pack for people without dash, otherwise sniper jacket. When you get to 300Hp crabs, your tankier or more mobile thing wonāt matter anymore. What matter at that point is that each guy in your team is able to do more damage at as large distance as possible. This exists in pretty much the same form since BB5, which we played for hundreads of hours, now itās just made worse because content was added but nothing was really balanced.
I had the same ideas as you have about 3-4 month ago when playing BB5 first time, until I understood that you are not just can but totally should use as many abilities on every turn as possible. At some point you just donāt care about WP anymore as it will be raining on you as enemy will be dying in just few turns.
After the rocket jump he only has AP for one bash with his heavy gun + can make a Battle Cry. Which is pretty powerful, I agree.
I like experimenting. The end goal is to have 3 eight-men squads with variaty of classes in each of them capable of doing any kind of mission without abusing the broken abilities.
Iām just saying that one can total love a horribly designed game, just as they can hate a well designed game. Gamedesign can be judged objectively, unlike emotional response that gameplay invokes in people. It just so often stuff like āVery buggy, almost unplayable but has great potential and I enjoy it a lotā is thrown around that you canāt even tell if someone is recommending the game or not
Agree regarding bugs and core gameplay. Iāve played many games that where in the process of development and having bug or some unbalance rarely kills the enjoyment as you understand their nature. But if itās clear that the core - gamedesign is just not there, then there is no point in fixing bugs or balancing anything as it wonāt get better. This is like hiring top actors and filming crew while providing a horrible quality screen play - it wonāt work regardless of how much effort is put into it.
What makes you think that there are any ābroken abilitiesā? We reported most of these issues back in BB5. As they are barely addressed in release, then either it functions as designed or our feedback is just not needed. How do you know that you are not gimping your builds? Iām really surprised that someone intentionally plays the game in some weird way, making up his own limiting rules and then advocates that everything is well designed.