Post by xdesperado on Mar 21, 2013 17:57:56 GMT -5
Okay been playing TA Elite a lot the last few days and have some thoughts.
1) Difficulty level is broken. After a couple false starts early on and a little time running on hard, I switched back to brutal and have had no problems. The ability to abort in the middle of a level means you should never have a Templar die unless you force yourself to go hard core and accept the loss. So far I've only been running a Chaplain so don't know how his healing ability affects this, but with the Advanced Technologist Kit 5 heals and range 5 with them means you can take a lot of punishment before ever worring about death.
Granted I've only been playing easy and moderate campaigns but unless you get dumped in a situation where one or more of your Templars is getting attacked multiple times in one round you shouldn't have many worries.
So what's the point of Brutal when I can abort in the middle of a level and suffer no consequences for it.
2) XP not sure how this could be fixed or if it should be at all but have some issues with it. Since I can abort a campaign at any time but not lose any of the XP and Honor gained, this allows me to rapidly build up XP by repeating something easy like the first level in the Moons of Nachot-Ugo campaign. Kill 25 xeno with almost no risk and I get an XP for all of my Templars and very often get 2 for the Captain. We all want replayability in the game but with the current way XP works your Templars can quickly build stats through a little grinding. Perhaps making the cost for Attributes and stats work more like either ST or CK would make this a little less attractive.
3) Honor awards seem a bit backwards. A totally green squad gets a lot less Honor for completeing a level than a more experienced squad. Thinking of Honor, I think of it like earning the respect of your superiors. At first its easy to impress them and move up in their opinions of your worth. After you start making a name for yourself though it gets harder to impress them as your just doing what they have come to expect from you and aren't really impressing them with your heroics anymore. Because of game play balance and not wanting the best equipment immediately available I can understand not giving a huge award to a green captain, but think the award should be more tied to the difficulty of the level VS the Squads XP level so its much flatter in progression and maybe even starts getting smaller at some point.
4) Training fresh Templars. Need to be able to do levels without the Captain or else give less experienced Templars bonus XP so they remain assets and not liabilities. Since you can only take 3 Templars into a battle and they are the only ones getting XP you can quickly have a highly experienced veteran squad and a bunch of cannon fodder with a larger unit. Wouldn't be as big an issue except that being able to mix and match a squad for particular levels can be a problem. Maybe you haven't been using your heavy weapon specialists regularly but a defensive mission comes up and an experienced Specialist would be a real asset.
Perhaps giving an XP to all Templars not used for every 2 or 3 battles the Captain has would be a solution. Means the extra members of a unit aren't raw recruits but still leaves them behind the more active Templars in the unit.
Also since the Captain gets all bonus XP from battles he will quickly outstrip the rest of the unit in ability and that only becomes more obvious if your trying to rotate the unit members to get them some needed XP. Yes he/she is suppossed to be the best of the best but this gets rediculous.
5) Better armor for Captains. Mainly this refers to getting them some Armor that adds AP or at least better Armor that doesn't reduce AP. Have one elite squad where the Scout has bonus AP from armor with Atreus and Ward and 2 Berzerkers with bonus AP from both Armor and Shield with double Atreus bonus and Ward. Would be a fantastic fast recon squad but the poor Captain either slows them down or else becomes irrelevant in combat since she's expending all her AP just trying to keep up.
Love the game so far. These are just some things I think could be better.
1) Difficulty level is broken. After a couple false starts early on and a little time running on hard, I switched back to brutal and have had no problems. The ability to abort in the middle of a level means you should never have a Templar die unless you force yourself to go hard core and accept the loss. So far I've only been running a Chaplain so don't know how his healing ability affects this, but with the Advanced Technologist Kit 5 heals and range 5 with them means you can take a lot of punishment before ever worring about death.
Granted I've only been playing easy and moderate campaigns but unless you get dumped in a situation where one or more of your Templars is getting attacked multiple times in one round you shouldn't have many worries.
So what's the point of Brutal when I can abort in the middle of a level and suffer no consequences for it.
2) XP not sure how this could be fixed or if it should be at all but have some issues with it. Since I can abort a campaign at any time but not lose any of the XP and Honor gained, this allows me to rapidly build up XP by repeating something easy like the first level in the Moons of Nachot-Ugo campaign. Kill 25 xeno with almost no risk and I get an XP for all of my Templars and very often get 2 for the Captain. We all want replayability in the game but with the current way XP works your Templars can quickly build stats through a little grinding. Perhaps making the cost for Attributes and stats work more like either ST or CK would make this a little less attractive.
3) Honor awards seem a bit backwards. A totally green squad gets a lot less Honor for completeing a level than a more experienced squad. Thinking of Honor, I think of it like earning the respect of your superiors. At first its easy to impress them and move up in their opinions of your worth. After you start making a name for yourself though it gets harder to impress them as your just doing what they have come to expect from you and aren't really impressing them with your heroics anymore. Because of game play balance and not wanting the best equipment immediately available I can understand not giving a huge award to a green captain, but think the award should be more tied to the difficulty of the level VS the Squads XP level so its much flatter in progression and maybe even starts getting smaller at some point.
4) Training fresh Templars. Need to be able to do levels without the Captain or else give less experienced Templars bonus XP so they remain assets and not liabilities. Since you can only take 3 Templars into a battle and they are the only ones getting XP you can quickly have a highly experienced veteran squad and a bunch of cannon fodder with a larger unit. Wouldn't be as big an issue except that being able to mix and match a squad for particular levels can be a problem. Maybe you haven't been using your heavy weapon specialists regularly but a defensive mission comes up and an experienced Specialist would be a real asset.
Perhaps giving an XP to all Templars not used for every 2 or 3 battles the Captain has would be a solution. Means the extra members of a unit aren't raw recruits but still leaves them behind the more active Templars in the unit.
Also since the Captain gets all bonus XP from battles he will quickly outstrip the rest of the unit in ability and that only becomes more obvious if your trying to rotate the unit members to get them some needed XP. Yes he/she is suppossed to be the best of the best but this gets rediculous.
5) Better armor for Captains. Mainly this refers to getting them some Armor that adds AP or at least better Armor that doesn't reduce AP. Have one elite squad where the Scout has bonus AP from armor with Atreus and Ward and 2 Berzerkers with bonus AP from both Armor and Shield with double Atreus bonus and Ward. Would be a fantastic fast recon squad but the poor Captain either slows them down or else becomes irrelevant in combat since she's expending all her AP just trying to keep up.
Love the game so far. These are just some things I think could be better.