I've been playing CoCII, and T.I.T.S for a few years now, I think I have a decent idea of the combat in the games. As far as I'm concerned the balance in CoCII is excellent.
T.I.T.S' balance was good for a while too, but a few problems came to my attention when I was playing a new game. I hadn't played for a little bit and wanted to see what was new. The rushers you can fight are a nice addition to difficulty, though they might be a bit rough at times. It seems like Uveto's difficulty was raised quite a bit. I'm not sure which probe you're supposed to be at by the time you go there. The main problem I've had with the combat is the
stun-lock by some enemies capable of stunning. The first is like- "Ok, I'll recover." I get stunned again when I get up- "A little annoying, but I'll just recover again.". The third time is almost a death sentence for that fight. I get stun-locked pretty often, and my CC abilities are a lot less effective than the enemies'. When I stun an enemy or knock them down, they usually get back up the turn right after mine.
I think the enemy needs to have a much lower chance of using another CC the turn after they use CC.
The player's CC needs to be more impactful/useful. I was also trying out Kineticist, but since that is a brand new class the imbalance is pretty much expected. It does feel much weaker than the other 3, I'm not quite sure why. It may be numbers, it may also be that the abilities are just less effective. I lose fights much more often with Kineticist than in the other classes. Entropic Leech falls off in the later part of Tarkus, the survivability of Kineticist isn't that great either. I really want to play Kineticist because "Space Wizard!", but it's kind of hard to sacrifice the fun of a fight, just for Space Wizard.
Edit 1: I was messing around with the different class perks on Kineticist, the level 8 class perks are when you can start doing decent damage (it does depend if the enemy is resistant to kinetic or thermal damage though). More on that stun-lock thing; If you CC an enemy, that enemy still gets their turn, so they can CC you right back. This makes it so you can't follow up on yours. I was stuck in a 16-turn CC loop, I lost that fight obviously. It's not a good feeling to watch the "You're still stunned!" for 16 turns and watch my shield/health bar sink down.
I saw in another post someone talked about Entropic Leech needing to scale, I agree with that. It needs to draw more energy-lvl/int/will, do more damage-lvl/int/will, or both. I think it's cool that Kineticist is buff/debuff oriented, but it becomes a problem when the buff/debuffs don't mean much, or have reduced effects on a lot of enemies.
Edit 2: I tweaked some stats, and perks with my Kineticist (I power-level then make a save before setting my stats/perks so I can test different builds). I got some idea of how Kineticist is supposed to be played methinks. The damage is generally good once you build it right, and get some items. But Kineticist is still VERY squishy compared to the other 3 classes. You can somewhat get around this problem with the vamp weapons in the game, which pretty much makes "Telekinetic Warrior" a useless perk. If you want to survive any meaningful late game fights, you will need the vamp weapons, or get lucky in fights. Maybe Kineticist was made to be a glass cannon, in that case, I suppose they did a good job excpet for early-mid game. Early-mid game does not feel good at all, and what I said earlier about "Entropic Leech" is still true, it needs to scale. I don't think the damage for "Entropic Leech" matters, but I do think how much energy you get from it matters.
I think "Entropic Leech" should give more energy based on the player's level. So - (Entropic Leech (energy gained = 5 + player level)) This makes it so "Entropic Leech" doesn't fall off as hard as it does now. And I do understand that it has the Deep Freeze status effect, which has good damage when you shatter it with a crushing weapon.
T.I.T.S' balance was good for a while too, but a few problems came to my attention when I was playing a new game. I hadn't played for a little bit and wanted to see what was new. The rushers you can fight are a nice addition to difficulty, though they might be a bit rough at times. It seems like Uveto's difficulty was raised quite a bit. I'm not sure which probe you're supposed to be at by the time you go there. The main problem I've had with the combat is the
stun-lock by some enemies capable of stunning. The first is like- "Ok, I'll recover." I get stunned again when I get up- "A little annoying, but I'll just recover again.". The third time is almost a death sentence for that fight. I get stun-locked pretty often, and my CC abilities are a lot less effective than the enemies'. When I stun an enemy or knock them down, they usually get back up the turn right after mine.
I think the enemy needs to have a much lower chance of using another CC the turn after they use CC.
The player's CC needs to be more impactful/useful. I was also trying out Kineticist, but since that is a brand new class the imbalance is pretty much expected. It does feel much weaker than the other 3, I'm not quite sure why. It may be numbers, it may also be that the abilities are just less effective. I lose fights much more often with Kineticist than in the other classes. Entropic Leech falls off in the later part of Tarkus, the survivability of Kineticist isn't that great either. I really want to play Kineticist because "Space Wizard!", but it's kind of hard to sacrifice the fun of a fight, just for Space Wizard.
Edit 1: I was messing around with the different class perks on Kineticist, the level 8 class perks are when you can start doing decent damage (it does depend if the enemy is resistant to kinetic or thermal damage though). More on that stun-lock thing; If you CC an enemy, that enemy still gets their turn, so they can CC you right back. This makes it so you can't follow up on yours. I was stuck in a 16-turn CC loop, I lost that fight obviously. It's not a good feeling to watch the "You're still stunned!" for 16 turns and watch my shield/health bar sink down.
I saw in another post someone talked about Entropic Leech needing to scale, I agree with that. It needs to draw more energy-lvl/int/will, do more damage-lvl/int/will, or both. I think it's cool that Kineticist is buff/debuff oriented, but it becomes a problem when the buff/debuffs don't mean much, or have reduced effects on a lot of enemies.
Edit 2: I tweaked some stats, and perks with my Kineticist (I power-level then make a save before setting my stats/perks so I can test different builds). I got some idea of how Kineticist is supposed to be played methinks. The damage is generally good once you build it right, and get some items. But Kineticist is still VERY squishy compared to the other 3 classes. You can somewhat get around this problem with the vamp weapons in the game, which pretty much makes "Telekinetic Warrior" a useless perk. If you want to survive any meaningful late game fights, you will need the vamp weapons, or get lucky in fights. Maybe Kineticist was made to be a glass cannon, in that case, I suppose they did a good job excpet for early-mid game. Early-mid game does not feel good at all, and what I said earlier about "Entropic Leech" is still true, it needs to scale. I don't think the damage for "Entropic Leech" matters, but I do think how much energy you get from it matters.
I think "Entropic Leech" should give more energy based on the player's level. So - (Entropic Leech (energy gained = 5 + player level)) This makes it so "Entropic Leech" doesn't fall off as hard as it does now. And I do understand that it has the Deep Freeze status effect, which has good damage when you shatter it with a crushing weapon.
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