Rebalance combat specialists weapon abilities

[contributor]

So this is just to get a discussion started because I don't necessarily have the solutions to suggest at the moment.

The problem I'm finding is that a lot of jobs that we could call combat specialists (e.g. exo-scout, bounty hunter, combat medic) or quasi-combat crew (military officer, spy, zealot) have weapons skills that go up very slowly and therefore they are very hard to use in combat unless they are made officers and cross-trained with another fighting profession. Unfortunately making many of them officers is not very practical. Since their weapons skills are so low, I find that they often miss their shots rendering them not very useful in combat, especially the Exo-Scout, whose talents are much more geared towards actually shooting as opposed to buffing/debuffing. All of these jobs I believe are also missing evasi

Like I said, I don't really know how to balance this. If you just start giving them more weapons skill, that could make for some OP officers who would have the ability to cross-train in weapons too. It seems rough though limit them all to really only being effective in combat as officers. Especially professions like exo-scout/combat-medic. Spies have some great combat talents too, but their weapons skills are the lowest as to make them very hard to use.

I did think about the possibility of switching their skill priorities at some point, so that say after level 9 they start rapidly gaining points in weapons skills (and maybe evasion) as opposed to their other skills.

Anyways just starting a discussion. It would be great to hear what others think too.

[fallen]

Are you upgrading your weapons / weapons locker?

[contributor]

Yeah, but I'm also playing on Impossible. So they get lots of misses.

[fallen]

Using Buffs? Curses? Much like Heroes, if you're seeing a weakness, my interest is in how you're building the team to address the weakness.

We can't upset the skill equation for any job, so that won't be a solution.

Maybe part of it is understanding that a Military Officer is not going to be a crack shot on Impossible unless he is an officer paired with another pistol ability, or the team is using buffs & curses to make him effective. Otherwise, MO should go into combat to use their commands and not the default pistol talent.

[contributor]

Yeah, I am trying to compensate. The ones where I sense the biggest weakness though are Exo-Scouts and Spies. Both of them have primarily attack talents, not buffs, so they need to shoot and connect to play a vital role in combat. For some of them I can see the argument that they should always be officers to really play a role in combat but for some of the others it doesn't make as much sense.

[fallen]

Which Buffs / Curses are you using to help?

Just trying to get to a Heroes-level discussion, as I feel like we can always get there with that game. Using Choking Ash? What about this or that pairing?

I can see that we could update the skill build for Exo-Scout pretty easily to put more preference to weapon skill, especially earlier in the progression. Spy is a little more challenging. Maybe the bonus for being in Stealth Mode could be applied to Accuracy instead of as Critical %.

[contributor]

I'm not using significant buffs and debuffs other than some pretty typical ones like Back Line Leader. I have a pistoleer who can debuff with pinning shot. I think one of the challenges is trying to get everything to work out just right. If my exo-scout gets more initiative than my pistoleer, than he waits a whole turn to hopefully shoot his debuffed opponent and if they are killed before than than the cycle continues. Maybe I need to look around and see what other debuffs I have that can make people easier to hit, but again it's gets hard to use things reliably in the midst of combat, and since it's somewhat hard to get all the people you need all the time it's a major challenge to put together.

But I like your suggestions about Exo-scout and Spy. Again, I'm just asking you to look at things and also curious to see how things are working for other players.

[fallen]

Would love to hear from other players about it as well.

Sounds like a good call to action to change some of the stats in the Exo-Scout / Spy buffs / buffing attacks as well. They could help by adding some Accuracy.

Will shift the Skills for next update. EDIT: Electronics simply removed, all Skill Pts moved into Rifles.

Re: Impossible, you need to be doing it really really well, and using all the strategies. That's the expectation I have with the difficulty. It shouldn't work to take the same strategy from Normal on up.

Upcoming combat gear release will also give a lot more options.

[amongstshadows]

I like spies getting bonus accuracy, and sticking with attack talents.

Maybe exo-scouts can get a buff that improves accuracy and critical. Weak Spot is a possible name

Oct 30, 2017 15:03:16 GMT -5 fallen said:

Upcoming combat gear release will also give a lot more options.

maybe exo-scout can have a trait like explorers. the one that allows 2 gear instead of 1 Just realized that wouldn't work because exo-scout isn't a starting job

[fallen]

Oct 30, 2017 15:44:48 GMT -5 amongstshadows said:

I like spies getting bonus accuracy, and sticking with attack talents.

Maybe exo-scouts can get a buff that improves accuracy and critical. Weak Spot is a possible name

Yeah, I think adding a stand-alone buff may be good. Maybe even an Init Talent.

[resistor]

I would normally just use Exo-scouts primarily for Exploration, and only use them as fighters when one of my main combat crew died or was at low HP.

Since I used Exo-scouts as explorers first and fighters second, I'm not really a fan of fallen 's decision to remove Electronics skill and put it into Rifles

[fallen]

Oct 30, 2017 17:06:54 GMT -5 resistor said:

I would normally just use Exo-scouts primarily for Exploration, and only use them as fighters when one of my main combat crew died or was at low HP.

Since I used Exo-scouts as explorers first and fighters second, I'm not really a fan of fallen 's decision to remove Electronics skill and put it into Rifles

It's just that ... 6 out of 11 of their Talents are crew combat Talents (more than 50%).

Also, not a single one of their Talents uses Electronics.

Their Explorer Skill was not reduced.

We're working hard to tune the game up and have been making a lot of good job skill improvements based on player feedback, will keep doing so.