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Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 5:08 pm
by Stroggus
I suggest to nerf armor shredding scaling with weapon tier. And by nerf I mean to completely get rid of.

Gunners (for example) with shred strip all armor from sectopod/gatekeeper in 1 their attack (chain shot/rapid fire). Isn`t it kinda op? Whats the point of big armored targets then? Armor shredding late game is overkill, since in the late game you have so much raw damage that you basically don`t need to shred armor and you will be fine. So may be this will help aliens to stay on their toes a bit in late game (not really, but small buff wouldn`t hurt).

Thoughts?

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 5:33 pm
by stefan3iii
Except it competes with 2 other really strong perks, so I never take it. I'd rather see shredder ammo be buffed to work like the perk, because right now it might be the worst ammo type, since it always only shreds 1 armor.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 6:57 pm
by Alketi
All balance requests really need the following information attached:

- What difficulty are you playing on?

- Are you playing pure Ironman? Ever reloaded a bad pull? Restarted a mission that ended in a wipe?

- Do you type console commands to move your soldiers?

- What game changing mods do you use? True Concealment? See all AWC perks? etc.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 8:26 pm
by SouthpawHare
Alketi wrote:All balance requests really need the following information attached:

- What difficulty are you playing on?

- Are you playing pure Ironman? Ever reloaded a bad pull? Restarted a mission that ended in a wipe?

- Do you type console commands to move your soldiers?

- What game changing mods do you use? True Concealment? See all AWC perks? etc.
The first is relevant, as the various difficulties do indeed play rather differently. The others seem more like just elitist nonsense that shames a player for not being as skilled as others here on the forums (and being a Legend Ironman player is a high bar indeed!)

Realistically, advice from players of all skill levels is important. They experience the game too, and their feedback about their experiences is just as valid.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:50 pm
by chrisb
I don't think getting rid of is a good idea. You 'can' strip all the armor off some enemies, but your not guaranteed to. Cyclic Fire and Rapid Fire has steep aim penalties, and Chain Shot is not a guaranteed 2nd shot.

Aside from that you have the ammo which you can put on anyone, and you have acid which you can also put on anyone, though best served from a grenade launcher.

And it's not like there aren't strong gunner perks competing with it. I typically have 1-2 shredder gunners that I start building after I'm past the point where hail of bullets is starting to fall off.

I also wouldn't agree that late game armor shredding is pointless. When you have -7 dmg to all your shots, that's a massive damage loss. The enemies that have this kind of armor are typically unflankable and harder to crit. Not to mention there are plenty of other threats typically on the field that you have to deal with as well and you can't always drop everything and pump every AP you have into 1 target.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:20 pm
by Alketi
SouthpawHare wrote: The first is relevant, as the various difficulties do indeed play rather differently. The others seem more like just elitist nonsense that shames a player for not being as skilled as others here on the forums (and being a Legend Ironman player is a high bar indeed!)
When players give feedback on a game the implicit assumption for all involved is that they're playing the same game as everyone else.

If, however, one is playing with a mod like True Concealment (for example), which allows for an infinite number of turns on a map that everyone playing "vanilla" is required to complete in 10-turns, and if that same person then claims something is "too easy", should that claim not be given a different weight than someone playing the game "as designed"?

Similarly, if I'm reloading all my bad pulls, while you don't, and then I appear on the forums to claim that XYZ missions are too easy, wouldn't you think my claims should require a disclaimer?

Regarding LW2, the number of people streaming on YouTube and playing essentially "LW2 vanilla" can be counted on one hand, while many more (famous streamers) have either given up completely or have begun installing mods like True Concealment because they're finding the missions over-tuned on any difficulty level. So, when someone invariably shows up and says "HAI GUISE, LW2 is too easy because ..." then, yeah, those of us who are finding a great challenge in vanilla LW2 Ironman want to look a little deeper before that claim is used to balance what might be a "different" game.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 11:45 pm
by nick_abbott
Alketi wrote:
SouthpawHare wrote: The first is relevant, as the various difficulties do indeed play rather differently. The others seem more like just elitist nonsense that shames a player for not being as skilled as others here on the forums (and being a Legend Ironman player is a high bar indeed!)
When players give feedback on a game the implicit assumption for all involved is that they're playing the same game as everyone else.

Snipped for brevity...
Good post Alketi.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 12:18 am
by Dlareh
Let's nerf a perk most people never take because it's generally seen as weaker than the other choices on that tier?

Yeah, let's not.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:44 am
by stefan3iii
Alketi wrote:
SouthpawHare wrote: The first is relevant, as the various difficulties do indeed play rather differently. The others seem more like just elitist nonsense that shames a player for not being as skilled as others here on the forums (and being a Legend Ironman player is a high bar indeed!)
When players give feedback on a game the implicit assumption for all involved is that they're playing the same game as everyone else.
I kind of assume feedback about things being "too easy" means they're playing L/I pure. I also don't see much complaints about that :)

Some mods can definitely affect other relative balance of things. Like True Concealment would make stealth missions even easier than normal.

In this specific case I'm not sure how much stronger/weaker armor shredding would be on various difficulty levels. Seems like it would be fairly similar on all of them.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:49 am
by marceror
Stroggus wrote:Lets nerf armor shredding
Let's not, and say we did?

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:52 am
by chrisb
I'm not sure why people see Shredder as 'weaker'. It's quite strong late game, as is made obvious by the existence of this thread. I view the perks at this tier as being relevant at each of the stages of the game.

Hail is good early game, but falls off as you get into M2s and more so into M3s. By this time the gunner typically has more important things to do than shoot 1 alien once for moderate damage. Other multi-shot perks take precedence and hail becomes more situational as the game progresses.

Lockdown is great in the mid-game as you start getting better triggers and ammo and suppression becomes more used with bigger pod sizes, higher HP and more varied dangerous abilities.

Shredder is great coming into the late game. Picking up a SSGT Gunner gives you an immediately good shredder option. If I pickup a gunner late-game I'll typically spec them Graze > Shred > IC > CS. This perk combo works well together, but is useless in the early game when very little has armor, can easily be taken out with 1 shot and often the pod sizes don't work well with IC.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:14 am
by Dlareh
So, let's nerf shredder because grabbing a couple SSGTs with it in the late game is OP?

Having useful sidekicks or B team gunners in the late game is pretty obviously not game breaking, most especially considering how meh shredder is through the first 2/3rds of the game

Silly idea is silly

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:46 am
by stefan3iii
chrisb wrote:I'm not sure why people see Shredder as 'weaker'. It's quite strong late game, as is made obvious by the existence of this thread. I view the perks at this tier as being relevant at each of the stages of the game.
I think it would be better if shredder cannons weren't so much more effective at shredding armor, and if the late game mattered more. The only enemy I'd really care to have shredder against is the gatekeeper and sectopod, and the game is basically over by the time you're fighting them.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:13 am
by chrisb
stefan3iii wrote:
chrisb wrote:I'm not sure why people see Shredder as 'weaker'. It's quite strong late game, as is made obvious by the existence of this thread. I view the perks at this tier as being relevant at each of the stages of the game.
I think it would be better if shredder cannons weren't so much more effective at shredding armor, and if the late game mattered more. The only enemy I'd really care to have shredder against is the gatekeeper and sectopod, and the game is basically over by the time you're fighting them.
Yes, shredder cannons are an issue. They do way too much. I've heard nerfs are incoming for it, but what I heard is that they are simply making exo more expensive? I don't know if that is 100% true, but if it is that isn't fixing them at all. I really hope they make changes to how it works and don't just make it cost twice as much. Especially the suit itself as that only hurts technicals.

The late game I think is something that will probably take some time to work out. Most people spend most of their time in early/mid game so most of the feedback/tuning is relative to there. End game does feel quite empty. I've actually restarted successful campaigns after September because the game is over by then anyway. If you made it that far in good shape, you won, it's just a matter of clicking buttons, hard to lose past that point. If your in bad shape, it's probably game over, figure out what went wrong and try again.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:35 am
by KevlinTallfellow
I would ask a couple questions here:

How many people are playing the game to win as soon as possible?

How many people are playing the game because they enjoy playing the game, and not actively trying to win as soon as possible?

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 9:48 am
by chrisb
For me it depends on the goal I set when I start the campaign. If I'm playing on Legend with house rules that prevent breaking the strategy layer, then the first questions is always going to be yes and the second is not applicable. The reason is that on that difficulty you have no choice, if your not constantly progressing towards completion, your not going to enjoy the beating you get.

I will run other campaigns on lower difficulty. For example my Commander campaign I have now is mostly about testing some things out at various stages of the game. Basically it's a run through to experiment with things. I don't Ironman it, the whole point is to try things different ways, but I'm also not trying to win either, typically I stop playing these in Sept as it's basically over by then anyway. I also configure these runs so the strat layer is more like Legend because anything at lower difficulty is just too fragile and simply breaks as a matter of course.

I think a lot of it is going to depend on what difficulty a player is running their campaign at. If they are playing it Ironman, and if they are breaking the current fragile strategy layer. The last part is important because if you don't do that, then you can't simply delay finishing the game or your going to lose. Only through breaking the strategy layer can you really extend a campaign.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:37 am
by JulianSkies
chrisb wrote:I will run other campaigns on lower difficulty. For example my Commander campaign I have now is mostly about testing some things out at various stages of the game. Basically it's a run through to experiment with things. I don't Ironman it, the whole point is to try things different ways, but I'm also not trying to win either, typically I stop playing these in Sept as it's basically over by then anyway. I also configure these runs so the strat layer is more like Legend because anything at lower difficulty is just too fragile and simply breaks as a matter of course.
If anything below Legend makes the strategy layer break then the strategy layer needs a lot more work, it should be working properly on Veteran, the base difficulty (if I remember right the naming schemes always elude me), and be broken in the less-playable variety on Legend.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:49 am
by LordYanaek
JulianSkies wrote: If anything below Legend makes the strategy layer break then the strategy layer needs a lot more work, it should be working properly on Veteran, the base difficulty (if I remember right the naming schemes always elude me), and be broken in the less-playable variety on Legend.
Yes, Veteran is the "Normal" difficulty.
No it shouldn't be broken on Legend, neither should it be broken on Rookie. It should be robust enough on every difficulty for a player playing at the correct difficulty. I'm not sure thought that breaking the strategy layer is possible on veteran unless you are actually over-skilled for that difficulty. Almost nothing can be done for players who are playing at a difficulty that's too low for them and then complain the game is too easy. Unfortunately it's hard to know if a player is playing at the "right" difficulty when they give balance feedback.

On the subject of "breaking" the strategy layer, i'd like to know what that means. Does it mean taking (and winning) 0% raids because it gives you much more supplies than intended? Does it mean slowing Avatar to a crawl by playing the vigilance-alert game? Both could be argued as simply smart play. I decided i wouldn't do any ambush with less than 50% this run but i sure won't let ADVENT rest and work on their project if i can avoid it (still Commander but Bronzeman this time - not true IM cause i want to work around a silly glitch in case one prevents me from completing a mission). I don't see this as breaking the strategy layer but simply playing as i should to win the game without having to rush (something i shouldn't be able to do with longer base infiltration on GP missions) and it seems like if i rush through the GP missions to end the game without even plasma tech, i'm not really fighting a "Long War"

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 3:45 pm
by chrisb
JulianSkies wrote:
chrisb wrote:I will run other campaigns on lower difficulty. For example my Commander campaign I have now is mostly about testing some things out at various stages of the game. Basically it's a run through to experiment with things. I don't Ironman it, the whole point is to try things different ways, but I'm also not trying to win either, typically I stop playing these in Sept as it's basically over by then anyway. I also configure these runs so the strat layer is more like Legend because anything at lower difficulty is just too fragile and simply breaks as a matter of course.
If anything below Legend makes the strategy layer break then the strategy layer needs a lot more work, it should be working properly on Veteran, the base difficulty (if I remember right the naming schemes always elude me), and be broken in the less-playable variety on Legend.
The reason it 'breaks' is because of the lower difficulty. There's less strength on the map in the beginning and less strength added. Veteran only adds +2 strength every 12 days, legend adds +2 every 8 days. It breaks because you can get NetGV to a point where avatar ticks take an eternity when you have a NetGV > 100, which is near impossible on legend. Saying it should 'work proper' on veteran doesn't really make sense here. Any skilled legend player will always be able to break the game on Veteran. Such is the nature of lower difficulty.

They could add more of an auto-scaling mechanism that makes veteran scale up strength. There already is such a mechanism, adding +4 strength every 21 days. But this is easily overcome on lower difficulty. If there were more 'steps' besides >20 NetGV then maybe it wouldn't break so easy.

In terms of NetGV getting so high it turns avatar progress to a tortoise pace, it could be capped at say 40. Anything beyond that has no effect.

Re: Lets nerf armor shredding

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 3:52 pm
by dstar3k
chrisb wrote:Any skilled legend player will always be able to break the game on Veteran.
NO!

I am shocked, _SHOCKED_ to find that a player who can beat the game on a difficulty not really meant to be beaten (assuming the same design principles as LW1, anyway) can break the game when playing a difficulty two levels lower!!!!!

Clearly this means that shooting needs to be nerfed -- maybe -50 aim for XCOM units that haven't moved, and -80 for those that have, with a corresponding buff of +50 to defense for alien units!

Or, you know, we could always evaluate the ability to break the game in the context of a player of appropriate skill _for that level of difficulty_.

Nah. That's crazy talk.