Combat 2.0 Balance Suggestions

[Fully Automated]

I agree that Power Strike shouldn't be buffed too much. Without the Secure MP, Rapid Fire is not that reliable. Rapid Fire and Second Shot seemed to produced an average of about two hits landing per use when I used it throughout Kara's second quest (without the Secure MP). Power Strike could do with some kind of buff, though.

I think comparing just Rapid Fire and Power Strike in vacuum misses a bigger picture. Rapid Fire works with the ranged Mercenary perks like Armor Piercing, Concentrate Fire, and Second Shot, and does so beautifully (and of course, allows for things like Secure MP). Meanwhile, a melee Mercenary either uses a normal attack and benefits from Bloodthirsty, Riposte, (maybe) Cleave, and Second Attack, or uses Power Strike and benefits from none of those.

 

[Savin]

Tech lacks conventional offensive skills. It's potential now lies in use of tease and lust weapons, especially since it has some skills useful against most lust immune foes (who are mostly robots). Also, since tech without a shield is pretty much screwed anyways, you can wear whatever you want without major drawbacks. So your best weapon for now would be slut ray gun from Badger as ranged and any energy melee (jolthammer, lava saber or vamp blade). One catch - double attack perk would not work with pure lust weapons, so either take melee perk or use lust bows. But this build has one major problem - you'll have to invest into both physique and aim for weapons, almost all skills are intelligence based and reflexes are must have for any character... Be ready to train a lot. Yeh, tech is slow going class.

Considering I can steamroll any encounter in the game (except Amara lol) with an energy-pistol-slinging Drone Tech who's done exactly 0 stat training and has never used Tease... yeah, I'mma call bullshit on that.

 

[Longbow]

I think comparing just Rapid Fire and Power Strike in vacuum misses a bigger picture. Rapid Fire works with the ranged Mercenary perks like Armor Piercing, Concentrate Fire, and Second Shot, and does so beautifully (and of course, allows for things like Secure MP). Meanwhile, a melee Mercenary either uses a normal attack and benefits from Bloodthirsty, Riposte, (maybe) Cleave, and Second Attack, or uses Power Strike and benefits from none of those.

You have a point, I think. I cut down parts of that particular post a lot so I wasn't able to elaborate on things that I might have, otherwise. I do think Power Strike should be buffed. Having it benefit from those abilities you mentioned is, I think, the best way to do it.


I was just saying that Rapid Fire doesn't usually reach its full damage potential so that damage shouldn't be the primary consideration when buffing Power Strike, but this simply did not come across very well at all, so I apologize for that. Maybe I edited that one down a little too much.


Increasing Power Strike's synergy with all those other abilities would be a fine idea.

 

[Etis]

Considering I can steamroll any encounter in the game (except Amara lol) with an energy-pistol-slinging Drone Tech who's done exactly 0 stat training and has never used Tease... yeah, I'mma call bullshit on that.

And now compare it to other classes.

 

[Fully Automated]

was just saying that Rapid Fire doesn't usually reach its full damage potential so that damage shouldn't be the primary consideration when buffing Power Strike, but this simply did not come across very well at all, so I apologize for that. Maybe I edited that one down a little too much.

Even without a flurry-negater (like Secure MP), the expected damage of Rapid Fire (with Second Shot) is ~250% of a normal attack. Just because it doesn't reach 400% without Secure MP doesn't mean the damage isn't pretty damn significant. That's without considering the support from other perks - ranged has more perks that actually increase damage.


Power Strike is 150%, buffed to 200% when at level 8 (that's already in the game). If Second Attack worked with it, it'd reach the same ~250%, but it does need the damage boost to get there.


Then there's the fact that Secure MP exists.

 

[Longbow]

Even without a flurry-negater (like Secure MP), the expected damage of Rapid Fire (with Second Shot) is ~250% of a normal attack. Just because it doesn't reach 400% without Secure MP doesn't mean the damage isn't pretty damn significant. That's without considering the support from other perks - ranged has more perks that actually increase damage.


Power Strike is 150%, buffed to 200% when at level 8 (that's already in the game). If Second Attack worked with it, it'd reach the same ~250%, but it does need the damage boost to get there.


Then there's the fact that Secure MP exists.

Yes, I guess I shouldn't be ignoring the Secure MP. It was just my natural reaction to assume it would have a nerf bullseye painted on it for being unbalanced, so I tended not to include it when I talked about Rapid Fire.


Alright, I concede. Your point makes sense to me. Power Strike could use a bump in damage to bring it up to the same average as Rapid Fire. Synergizing with Bloodlust and Riposte would also make it a little more interesting than just a straight counterpart to Rapid Fire.

 

[TheInfamousImmortal]

Considering I can steamroll any encounter in the game (except Amara lol) with an energy-pistol-slinging Drone Tech who's done exactly 0 stat training and has never used Tease... yeah, I'mma call bullshit on that.

How the hell did you do all that with only beginner stats?

 

[Fully Automated]

How the hell did you do all that with only beginner stats?

He meant he didn't use the stat trainers (like Syri or NT gym), just level-up stats. Max Aim and Int, and you're pretty much done.

 

[Savin]

He meant he didn't use the stat trainers (like Syri or NT gym), just level-up stats. Max Aim and Int, and you're pretty much done.

Yep. 

 

[Xeivous]

The one thing I'd like to see with combat is for there to be some more ability to hybridize a character into using both melee and ranged weapons. As it stands it just feels like there isn't any point in not just going fully into one tree and your other weapon basically becoming a decoration on your person. Maybe make it towards end game where abilities you got earlier on get upgrades that make the weapon type opposite of it into a support feature for that ability.


Take Riposte for example. It increases your evade after taking a swing with melee. Maybe it upgrades to let you take a potshot with your gun if you evade when it is active.

 

[Couch]

One thing I've been thinking about is the Attack Drone / Shield Booster pick for techs.  As it stands, Attack Drone is kind of a sucker's choice, adding no more than single-digit damage when even regular attacks should be doing around 30-60 at the current level cap without crits, while Shield Booster adds a whopping 64 points of Shields.  Buffing Attack Drone requires eating the Accessory slot, meaning giving up even more important defensive features like the Lightning Duster, and more to the point anyone else can use those drones too to effectively get the drone tech's entire class feature except the 1 points of Shields per level, which is...not impressive.  The only way to avoid this is to come up with reasons why only drone techs can get access to any good drones, which worked okay with Tamwolf but will become increasingly hard to justify with time.


The way I would fix this would be to change the level 2 Tech perk options to:

• Guardian Drone: Boost your Shields by four points per level as long as you have a drone equipped.  Enables equipping drones.
  
• Attack Drone: Increase the damage dealt by any drone you have equipped.  Enables equipping drones.
  

In addition to this the level-up hands out a starter Guardian Drone or Attack Drone equippable.  The Guardian Drone provides something like eight to twelve points of Shields so that the net Shields the tech possesses is the same as before, the Attack Drone does damage that when augmented by the perk is roughly equal to the amount of damage the perk deals now.  These go in a Drone slot that opens up either by having the tech perk or by one of your other pieces of equipment having the Drone Controller tag, defined below:

• Drone Controller: Enables access to the Drone slot.  If the player has the Guardian Drone or Attack Drone perks, increases the performance of the equipped drone.  Multiple instances of this tag stack(?).
  

So, for instance, Professor Steele the tech specialist reaches level 2 and picks Guardian Drone.  Her drone slot is unlocked and immediately filled with the starting Guardian Drone (+12 Shields), which raises her bonus shields to 20.  Later, Professor Steele somehow manages to clear the Stellar Tether while still only level 2, acquiring the Tamwolf drone and a Control Band accessory.  Steele likes her existing Lightning Duster, so she forgoes the band.  She can put Tamwolf into her Drone slot without needing to equip anything to control it with, replacing her existing Guardian Drone and reducing her bonus shields to 8 in exchange for Tamwolf's attack power.  If Professor Steele decides she wants to equip the Control Band, having the increased fine control over Tamwolf increases its performance.


At the same time, Dread Lord Steele the Mercenary decides he wants a robot doge of his own and runs the Stellar Tether.  Unable to equip Tamwolf on its own, he must first equip the Control Band, which doesn't do anything for him but give him the ability to equip the drone.  He gets no bonus like Professor Steele does.


Later, the two encounter a suit of armor designed to interface with drones and decide to equip it.  Dread Lord Steele now has much more sophisticated control over his drone, and gets the benefits that Professor Steele would enjoy from having the Control Band equipped as long as he keeps both armor and accessory on.  Professor Steele, meanwhile, gains even further benefits now that she has three sources of controlling drones (one from her class, two from her equipment).


Essentially everyone can use drones under this system, but techs can always do it one step better than everyone else.  A tech Steele wanting to focus near-exclusively on their drone's performance can stack the tag up to a theoretical limit of eight times (once from their class and once from every piece of equipment they have), while a non-tech Steele can only get up to seven.

 

[Xeivous]

I feel like giving the tech a drone slot should be a part the other classes getting their own class slot. Maybe a refinement of what the classes are about, or just rethink the whole two perk choices thing as I'm not sure about some of them.


Shade's conversation about her using both her shock gun and a back up with regular bullets makes me think that smugglers should be tuned towards being more inclined to being gunslingers and pulling whatever gun they need for the situation out as quick as possible. Smugglers ought to be about dodging damaging, debilitating enemies and taking advantage of those debilitations and reacting quickly to being debilitated themselves. Think dex classes in general. All about finesse.


Merc on the other hand, is about going for the most simple and direct means to overpowering everything. Heavier weapons and proficiencies with both guns and melee and maybe the ability to use them both at once if they become skilled enough.They soak up and ignore damage with heavy armor, overwhelm everything in their path with power and tend to be very resilient to being debilitated physically.


Just thoughts by my sleep deprived mind thou. I'm probably off in how exactly classes should feel.

 

[Couch]

I feel like giving the tech a drone slot should be a part the other classes getting their own class slot. Maybe a refinement of what the classes are about, or just rethink the whole two perk choices thing as I'm not sure about some of them.


Shade's conversation about her using both her shock gun and a back up with regular bullets makes me think that smugglers should be tuned towards being more inclined to being gunslingers and pulling whatever gun they need for the situation out as quick as possible. Smugglers ought to be about dodging damaging, debilitating enemies and taking advantage of those debilitations and reacting quickly to being debilitated themselves. Think dex classes in general. All about finesse.


Merc on the other hand, is about going for the most simple and direct means to overpowering everything. Heavier weapons and proficiencies with both guns and melee and maybe the ability to use them both at once if they become skilled enough.They soak up and ignore damage with heavy armor, overwhelm everything in their path with power and tend to be very resilient to being debilitated physically.


Just thoughts by my sleep deprived mind thou. I'm probably off in how exactly classes should feel.

The reason I'm only really concerned about doing this with drones is that the way drones are handled now requires a lot of events to be designed specifically so that only characters with one particular perk can get drones that aren't in some way nerfed.  This in turn means that, for instance, you can't sell drones in stores.  If you do, then a shield tech can buy one, equip it, and have all the benefits of Attack Drone plus seven more points of shields per level.


Smugglers accomplish the goal of being able to have a specialty weapon for everything quite cleanly with their ability to swap guns as a free action, for instance.  You don't have to write around non-smugglers potentially getting their hands on a specialty weapon because odds are they aren't going to use it, or else they're going to be using it exclusively.  Anyone can use a specialty weapon, but smugglers can use it noticeably better.


Mercs also accomplish their goal by just being better at everything important about combat than everyone else.  Tons of HP, easily the best recovery move that lets them come out of chump fights stronger than they went in, lots of passive perks instead of useless special attacks, and the special attacks they do have just work.  If I wanted to give them an equipment advantage, I'd give them the ability to use heavy weapons without needing to wear powered armor, with a bonus if they are wearing powered armor in similar manner to the system I outlined for techs.

 

[Xeivous]

The reason I'm only really concerned about doing this with drones is that the way drones are handled now requires a lot of events to be designed specifically so that only characters with one particular perk can get drones that aren't in some way nerfed.  This in turn means that, for instance, you can't sell drones in stores.  If you do, then a shield tech can buy one, equip it, and have all the benefits of Attack Drone plus seven more points of shields per level.


Smugglers accomplish the goal of being able to have a specialty weapon for everything quite cleanly with their ability to swap guns as a free action, for instance.  You don't have to write around non-smugglers potentially getting their hands on a specialty weapon because odds are they aren't going to use it, or else they're going to be using it exclusively.  Anyone can use a specialty weapon, but smugglers can use it noticeably better.


Mercs also accomplish their goal by just being better at everything important about combat than everyone else.  Tons of HP, easily the best recovery move that lets them come out of chump fights stronger than they went in, lots of passive perks instead of useless special attacks, and the special attacks they do have just work.  If I wanted to give them an equipment advantage, I'd give them the ability to use heavy weapons without needing to wear powered armor, with a bonus if they are wearing powered armor in similar manner to the system I outlined for techs.

I think the problem with techs was that their drones aren't a basic ability that they all got. Similarly Smugglers right now have to choose between leap up and quick draw which I find to be a bit of a mistake.

 

[Longbow]

One thing I've been thinking about is the Attack Drone / Shield Booster pick for techs.  As it stands, Attack Drone is kind of a sucker's choice, adding no more than single-digit damage when even regular attacks should be doing around 30-60 at the current level cap without crits, while Shield Booster adds a whopping 64 points of Shields.

I think it would be kind of neat if the Attack Drone did things when you performed special attacks. Deploying its strobe to increase the blind chance of Volley or deploying its taser to turn Paralyzing Shock into an area attack, for example. It doesn't seem to synergize with much at the moment while the Shield Booster works with anything that increases the effectiveness of shields... not to mention it just works better from a general standpoint, like you said.

 

[VantagePoint]

Tech Specialists have no means to restore Energy in combat, unlike the other two classes. Which is lame.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think this is too horrible, especially considering the skills you guys seem to be looking to replace have an effect unique to Tech Specialists, which further distinguishes the classes from each other, not to mention the ability to regenerate the shields  is wholly conductive to Tech Specialists retaining their most powerful form of defense. As long as Energy items exist (Although not giving as much energy as the abilities, probably regening 40 energy at max), I don't feel it's necessary to blur the line between the difference of the two classes further. Perhaps a passive ability that halfs energy costs would be better suited?


However, if Attack Drones are revamped to actually be noticably useful, I'd think replacing Deflector Regenerator with something more useful to Attack Drone builds than Defense Drone ones, like the shielding is, would be necessary to retain parity between the two builds.

 

[Doombot]

I'm quite concerned with the Teck's "Armor Tweaks" perk   "Grants 20% bonus th defence values provided by equipped armor" . I find it quite useless, to even get something from it you need to have armor with at least 5 Defence, then you get 1 bonus point of defence. Since there are no armors with more than 8 defence you will never get more than that 1 point of bonus defence.  Where Mercs get bonus crit chance or Kinetic Dmg reduction, Smuglers get utility skills or a lot of Evasion, Tech's get  1 point of Defence ..... at best. (Crystal Shard consumable gives you 4 defence by the way)

 

[weredragonj]

i have been unable to beat amara because i keep getting stun locked it makes it no fun and theres no way for me to beat her its frustrating as hell that i can't beat her or win that fight is unbalanced i want to beat her not loose to her and kara killing herself this is my set up sal-riffle or the light machien gun from the jug, goo armor, s-trenchcoat,  and v-blad or the tweeked hammer

 

[Savin]

i have been unable to beat amara because i keep getting stun locked it makes it no fun and theres no way for me to beat her its frustrating as hell that i can't beat her or win that fight is unbalanced i want to beat her not loose to her and kara killing herself this is my set up sal-riffle or the light machien gun from the jug, goo armor, s-trenchcoat,  and v-blad or the tweeked hammer

Try teasing her.

 

[epidemico]

Drive-by thought: I think Zil and other combat encounters that use some form of pheromone-based ability should have innate resistance to pheromone-based attacked from PCs.

 

[Partysan]

When you have AoE skills, such combats are stupidly easy, when you dont, things got serious, but its appreciated a bit of hard combat

 

[VantagePoint]

I have my concerns with the Melee portion of the game, namely that every class seems to be better off for going the Ranged Route.


For the Mercenary class, you have two Melee skills, one active and one passive, and they cancel each other out so you can only ever get 200% damage a turn before the 20% Kinetic Weapon Boost. As for the Ranged side, it's unreliable, but you can get up to a maximum of 400% damage because Rapid Fire and Double shot stack on top of Armor Piercing, Concentrate Fire, and the Kinetic Weapon Damage Boost. With all of that damage stacking, the only way ranged does less damage is if you miss all of your shots or one of them. Bloodthirsty's regen is too low to really matter and Cleave is too situational, both are pretty poor choices compared to their ranged counterparts. 


Smuggler:


Not as pronounced, but there's still a glaring issue, relating to the Skills "Flashbang" and "Low Blow". Flashbang's longer overall duration, easier time inflicting it, and the fact you don't have to sacrifice another skill to get it (Shoot First) means that it outclasses low blow to a ridiculous degree. Shoot First Either needs to be removed or moved somewhere else and replaced in that slot with Low Blow and Low Blow either needs an adjustment to make it's complete immobilization of the enemy worth the heavy loss in damage, or Flashbang needs to be dialed back a bit.


Tech Specialist:


As it stands this class may as well have it's Melee Skills scrapped, BOTH of the possible active attacks are ranged, and choosing the Second Attack passive is contingent on whether or not you want to sacrifice damage for the very rare chance that an enemy disables your ranged weapon or it's ineffective, and the problem is, you can't fix this by changing the enemies because Melee would still merely be ancillary to the Ranged, rather than it's own thing, and you basically invalidate Pure Range builds.


And unrelated to classes, there seems to be a bias towards Ranged Weaponry. Melee weapons seem to be stuck at a damage cap of 20, only the Electrified Hammer breaking it, while the Rangec Weapons are already breaking 25 damage and make up the bulk of the quest rewards (Arc Caster, Khan's Arc Caster, Aegis Light Machinegun, Secure Mp) and all of them are still relevant weapons as of now while the only Melee Weapon Quest rewards are already outdated (Taivra's Spear and Shock Blade).

 

[balitz Method]

I think it would be kind of neat if the Attack Drone did things when you performed special attacks. Deploying its strobe to increase the blind chance of Volley or deploying its taser to turn Paralyzing Shock into an area attack, for example. It doesn't seem to synergize with much at the moment while the Shield Booster works with anything that increases the effectiveness of shields... not to mention it just works better from a general standpoint, like you said.

Giving them more utility would go a long ways toward making drone specialist a choice you'd actually want to make, yeah. If they could mirror the tech specialist attacks (like they could do a volley or charge shot of their own when Steele does one) and if they had swappable attack types that could be changed mid-combat - say, you can set them to do electric, energy, kinetic or lust damage - that alone, even before tweaking numbers would be something. Other classes don't need to be barred from using drones; drone specialists just need perks to greatly enhance drones and to give drones unique utility that would make the idea more appealing than a raw shield boost.

Lust combat is in real need of some rethinking, too. Lust resistance is spotty at best and boob-wiggling functioning as the primary means of "attack" is both really silly for the setting and completely separate from all other areas of combat. For the most part everything at least works together and makes internal sense to some extent - save for tease attacks, where somehow Steele's dick is so appealing that aliens who see them all day just can't help but fall to the ground in rapture.

More robust lust resistances and lust attack types would be a good start but in general special attacks should probably have a stronger lust combat focus. Many of the physical damage attacks simply aren't worth it - headbutt, low blow, etc. - and would be a heck of a lot more useful causing lust damage or maybe lust-based status effects. Teasing doesn't necessarily have to be removed or anything but Steele's lust combat should be as robust and sensible as everyone else's. If lust specials had a chance to induce status effects that make opponents temporarily fuck-crazy (and much more vulnerable to teasing), for instance, or if teasing itself had different "attack types" - something along the lines of low-power visual ones (what we have now), intermediate grapples where Steele tries to stimulate their opponent into submission (with checks against different stats depending on class) but a risk of the opponent stimulating them back, and advanced high-risk ones where Steele performs some kind of sex act on them and it becomes a battle of wills and libidos - the whole thing could be both sexier and a bigger part of combat.

As is it feels like drones and teasing are half-baked (or holdover in the case of teasing) ideas waiting for someone to add the missing ingredients to finish them.