1.4 Some feedback notes
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 5:50 pm
Before I begin let me just say that I'm loving the 1.3/1.4 update. I'm really into the game with this patch.
Feedback/Observations/Comments:
1. Intel Raid missions late game really kinda suck. I can't exactly remember what month I'm in offhand but I'm at predator armor, researching plate and I've fielded some mag weapons. I had an Intel raid mission that I successfully ended up defending and clearing the map despite having some bad luck. I ended up with Muton Centurions, three of them, on one side of the map and had to clear a mech1 pod before I could scoot over to get the Mutons locked down and in control. It was some bad luck because the placement of the rebel building and the window positioning in relation to the incoming enemy pods left the rebels within flanked from the opposite side at all times. It was also unfortunate that I had the mech pod in the way before I could get on top of the Mutons. What really struck me, outside of the bad luck was that it felt completely ridiculous that I was facing down Muton Centurions with unarmored rebels. The flanking certainly didn't help anything but regardless all of my rebels were gunned down in a turn and a half by the Mutons (including a veteran sniper that was the haven advisor). Even though the rebels had laser rifles, to three two AP Muton centurions they might as well have been pea shooters, if the rebels could even hit (was lucky on one overwatch shot hit on a Muton for 2 points of damage before they found cover and gunned the rebels down). Essentially for the Mutons it was a turkey shoot, as the saying goes. I thought maybe in the future I could just evac the rebels out to spare them but then realized the Mutons would have just taken out the asset and that the rebels essentially served as hit point sponges to save it. So five dead rebels and a sniper later and with a couple of hits to the intel asset I was finally able to lay control down on the Mutons and clear everything but I had essentially zero chance of saving the rebels, which really just doesn't feel great having the deck stacked that high against you. In comparison the Rendezvous missions where you're using unarmored rebels are balanced on the rebels, which makes them entirely reasonable. Not sure if there's a great solution to this but I wanted to make note of it.
2. Squad cohesion seems fairly pointless right now. There are two points to this, the UI clickfest when trying to assign squad members as haven advisors (such a PITA) which I know nothing can really be done about it afaik. The second point is that the nature of the changes in 1.3 have made it such that I'm cycling out squad members on such a frequency that squads no longer make any sense. I may have one or two members from a particular squad and the rest are fill-ins that are either from multiple other squads or just whatever I have free in the barracks and I'm just constantly running that way unless I shut down mission runs completely and wait for wounds to heal up; which isn't going to happen.
3. This is something more of a sub-point to issue number 2 above but is an area that I'm a little fuzzy on and is unique to my campaign since I've turned the Graze band down to 2. So again, I'm into plate armor research and mag weapons (I've unlocked coil weapon research but chose the armor first) and I've seen three grazes occur in my entire campaign so far (I wrote them down to keep track). Two have been shots on Advent and one was against one of my soldiers. I bring this up because it means I'm taking more wounds (see point 2) but it also seems like turning the Graze band off also severely gimped Dodge, if it wasn't already an issue. I have a number of soldiers who have picked up high dodge perks both from normal class selection and AWC perks and on all of the shots that these high dodge characters have taken, not one of them has been a graze. We're talking taking shots with Evasive, +dodge PCS, hard target and high natural dodge values. Not once have I seen a graze against these characters, which would seem statistically improbable. Which is why I separated this point from point number 2 because I realize it may be unique to me and I don't have enough data to declare 'strangeness' with any confidence. However, bias aside, it does seem to feel weird that soldiers are taking full hit damage with Evasive up. It could also be that I don't fully understand the implications or interaction of Graze and Dodge. At any rate I would think that Evasiveness would be way more effective compared to what I'm seeing atm and I'm fairly disappointed at its performance. If Evasive isn't effective at at least downgrading a first hit into a graze then any perk with +10 to dodge would become highly circumspect in its value.
Feedback/Observations/Comments:
1. Intel Raid missions late game really kinda suck. I can't exactly remember what month I'm in offhand but I'm at predator armor, researching plate and I've fielded some mag weapons. I had an Intel raid mission that I successfully ended up defending and clearing the map despite having some bad luck. I ended up with Muton Centurions, three of them, on one side of the map and had to clear a mech1 pod before I could scoot over to get the Mutons locked down and in control. It was some bad luck because the placement of the rebel building and the window positioning in relation to the incoming enemy pods left the rebels within flanked from the opposite side at all times. It was also unfortunate that I had the mech pod in the way before I could get on top of the Mutons. What really struck me, outside of the bad luck was that it felt completely ridiculous that I was facing down Muton Centurions with unarmored rebels. The flanking certainly didn't help anything but regardless all of my rebels were gunned down in a turn and a half by the Mutons (including a veteran sniper that was the haven advisor). Even though the rebels had laser rifles, to three two AP Muton centurions they might as well have been pea shooters, if the rebels could even hit (was lucky on one overwatch shot hit on a Muton for 2 points of damage before they found cover and gunned the rebels down). Essentially for the Mutons it was a turkey shoot, as the saying goes. I thought maybe in the future I could just evac the rebels out to spare them but then realized the Mutons would have just taken out the asset and that the rebels essentially served as hit point sponges to save it. So five dead rebels and a sniper later and with a couple of hits to the intel asset I was finally able to lay control down on the Mutons and clear everything but I had essentially zero chance of saving the rebels, which really just doesn't feel great having the deck stacked that high against you. In comparison the Rendezvous missions where you're using unarmored rebels are balanced on the rebels, which makes them entirely reasonable. Not sure if there's a great solution to this but I wanted to make note of it.
2. Squad cohesion seems fairly pointless right now. There are two points to this, the UI clickfest when trying to assign squad members as haven advisors (such a PITA) which I know nothing can really be done about it afaik. The second point is that the nature of the changes in 1.3 have made it such that I'm cycling out squad members on such a frequency that squads no longer make any sense. I may have one or two members from a particular squad and the rest are fill-ins that are either from multiple other squads or just whatever I have free in the barracks and I'm just constantly running that way unless I shut down mission runs completely and wait for wounds to heal up; which isn't going to happen.
3. This is something more of a sub-point to issue number 2 above but is an area that I'm a little fuzzy on and is unique to my campaign since I've turned the Graze band down to 2. So again, I'm into plate armor research and mag weapons (I've unlocked coil weapon research but chose the armor first) and I've seen three grazes occur in my entire campaign so far (I wrote them down to keep track). Two have been shots on Advent and one was against one of my soldiers. I bring this up because it means I'm taking more wounds (see point 2) but it also seems like turning the Graze band off also severely gimped Dodge, if it wasn't already an issue. I have a number of soldiers who have picked up high dodge perks both from normal class selection and AWC perks and on all of the shots that these high dodge characters have taken, not one of them has been a graze. We're talking taking shots with Evasive, +dodge PCS, hard target and high natural dodge values. Not once have I seen a graze against these characters, which would seem statistically improbable. Which is why I separated this point from point number 2 because I realize it may be unique to me and I don't have enough data to declare 'strangeness' with any confidence. However, bias aside, it does seem to feel weird that soldiers are taking full hit damage with Evasive up. It could also be that I don't fully understand the implications or interaction of Graze and Dodge. At any rate I would think that Evasiveness would be way more effective compared to what I'm seeing atm and I'm fairly disappointed at its performance. If Evasive isn't effective at at least downgrading a first hit into a graze then any perk with +10 to dodge would become highly circumspect in its value.