Great game, but late game difficulty wayyy too easy

[pedal_pusher]

Just finished a run on MI. It was so easy at the end I just skipped half the content and rushed the final fights hoping for a challenge, but it was easy as pie.

Many people say that stealth sniping is broken, they are not wrong, but late game builds of all kinds get so powerful compared to late game enemies that their is simply no challenge:

- Shotgun (short-barrel auto-5 or AA12) deal incredible damage per ap use and on a merc with high agility fast running, frogleaping and breach and clear perks you can dash across huge distances and guarantee kills on any enemy.

- Melee, a lot like shotguns, but scales even better as you get more perks (Line Breaker, True Strike, Killing Spree, Sudden strike in addition to previous agility perks) and str+dex in addition to agility. Can easily body any enemy for 4ap for zero risk using a sharpened machete.

- AR/MG overwatch. Killzone doubling your overwatch basically guarantees that any enemy that's inside your cone dies. I used a recoil boosted FN-FAL (4x15 dmg) with a extended barrel (30 range), nothing lived overwatches aside from the super tanky assault troops, and they would get shredded too if I used AP ammo. Also enjoy free inspiration next turn and free reloads from the other dex perks. I basically cleared entire fights with two/three mercs setting ambush overwatches.

- Sniping with sniper rifles/AR/MGs. Aim stacking with high dex + Sharpshooter perk + heavy stock + thermal scope + other aim mods is ridiculous. Any headshot can be done with 100% accuracy is you spend enough AP.

- Stealth. If enemies are spread out you can just pick them off and restealth. When there mates arrive then will just dash out into the open if they can't see your party - more free kills. Very broken with sniper rifles, but can be abused with any high damage weapons really.

The late game fights really need a MASSIVE step up in enemies abilities/numbers/health/tactics. Give them tanks and helicopters! I had so many fun resources available like smoke grenades, Molotovs, mortars, rockets, stun grenades, heavy armour and hp perks, weapon abilities like run and gun etc that would have so much potential to shine if their were sufficient need to use them. Would be nice to also have some more fights were stealth is just not an option at all.

I would love to go any explore an amped up late game. The early game balance on MI felt great, and I loved the game characters so much.

[Fernanda Knight]

I didn't play at the highest difficulty or whatsoever since this is my first adult JA experience. I cheated a few times in JA2, Crossfire and BIA as the final battles were too tough for a younger version of me LOL.

I played cleaner with two MODs this time: mine doesn't dry up (which I don't think is necessary) and the inventory ones. I couldn't believe using "a bit easy" to describe my experience after the half way mark - finishing refugee camp and haunted mansion ambush.

I think there should be a 'nerf incident' happened at 75% completion of the game. Players who manage to go so far won't be put off that easily and will keep the motivation to finish the game. I was annoyed by the two challenges early on in the game, but walking into them then finish in my first/second trial with every merc wounded, downed and drying brought a sense of achievement. I hate the tanks in previous JA games, but they are necessary at a later stage to bring challenge and balance. You can't snipe a tank and will need to use some strategies involving smoke grenade, mortar etc. that I almost didn't use in my game play this time.

I chose Colonel as my final battle, which was way easier than I'd imagine. I sneaked a small team of 4 merc to scout the place but managed to take out half the enemy during the process. I then retreated, moved in my main squad since I wanted everyone to be there for the grand finale.

I enjoyed the game a lot and it's the first JA game I managed to complete HAHAHA

[The Great Cornholio]

Agree with sniper rifles being overpowered, to the point where I've used almost nothing else.

In my current run I have several people carrying 3 AP auto shotguns as an alternate weapon, which can kill a croc in a single round or multiple zombies. Dual desert eagle/anaconda on ambidrextrous mercs with short barrel. Its rare that I use them but definitely works when something is in your face.

[zloba]

To fix snipers:

1. Sniper rifles (except SVD) should take a turn to setup and all AP to fire
2. They should get accuracy drop when fired at low ranges
3. Stealth kills are completely broken and should be removed untill they can be redisigned
4. Remove or nerf thermal scope

[engager6]

Originally posted by pedal_pusher:

Shotgun (short-barrel auto-5 or AA12) deal incredible damage per ap use and on a merc with high agility fast running, frogleaping and breach and clear perks you can dash across huge distances and guarantee kills on any enemy.

Are you sure we are playing the same game? In my play AA-12 hit crowd of melee legion thugs (3 short burst at 4 targets 3-5 squares away) for "incredible" 13 damage with buckshot! I read in other places on the forum that people also got trashy results as well. How is this piece of garbage able to delete someone if it can't even significantly damage thug standing 4 tiles from you with 3 shot burst... I guess this garbage comes from zero armor penetration on shotguns, 6 AP for 13 damage? I was way off better just to hit two times with the knife instead scoring two kills with true strike.

What i'm doing wrong or what is going on here. I completed the game 4 times, including 2 times solo, and every time i ever tried shotgun it happened to be complete useless dumpster fire. How do you guys use them to "delete" anybody apart from yourself?

[rusznica]

Early game is to easy to.

[Chaos Theory]

Yeah shotguns seem kind of useless, actually. Once you also give up on under-powered ARs, SMGs etc the game basically forces you exploit the AI with long rifles (not necessarily sniper rifles, but anything with 30+ range). But the AI is atrocious, and that's what makes it easy:

* spoiler ahead *

For Colonal Fauch-whatever's battle at the fort, I came in via the tunnel and camped in the locked room you arrive at and didn't move the whole time. 24 of 26 enemies just 1-by-1 came running into the line of fire, didn't lose a single HP. Even the Colonel came running down the stairs and was taken out by overwatch before he could finish his "I'm running away" line. And I only had mid-tier long rifles.

[Fernanda Knight]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory:

* spoiler ahead *

For Colonal Fauch-whatever's battle at the fort, I came in via the tunnel and camped in the locked room you arrive at and didn't move the whole time. 24 of 26 enemies just 1-by-1 came running into the line of fire, didn't lose a single HP. Even the Colonel came running down the stairs and was taken out by overwatch before he could finish his "I'm running away" line. And I only had mid-tier long rifles.

In my game play, I killed more than half of the enemy by entering at the back of the fort (not secret passage). They just came out to be killed by my sniper rifle one by one LoL.

[mr_oluap]

Originally posted by engager6:

Originally posted by pedal_pusher:

Shotgun (short-barrel auto-5 or AA12) deal incredible damage per ap use and on a merc with high agility fast running, frogleaping and breach and clear perks you can dash across huge distances and guarantee kills on any enemy.

Are you sure we are playing the same game? In my play AA-12 hit crowd of melee legion thugs (3 short burst at 4 targets 3-5 squares away) for "incredible" 13 damage with buckshot! I read in other places on the forum that people also got trashy results as well. How is this piece of garbage able to delete someone if it can't even significantly damage thug standing 4 tiles from you with 3 shot burst... I guess this garbage comes from zero armor penetration on shotguns, 6 AP for 13 damage? I was way off better just to hit two times with the knife instead scoring two kills with true strike.

What i'm doing wrong or what is going on here. I completed the game 4 times, including 2 times solo, and every time i ever tried shotgun it happened to be complete useless dumpster fire. How do you guys use them to "delete" anybody apart from yourself?

1 weapon : Modded M1014 with short barrel and UV

3 perKs : Shotgun free move (70 str) ; Fast runner (70 agi) ; Frogleap (80 agi)

Enjoy the massacre.

All people saying "shotguns are useless" just did'nt play enough of the game (or only played with other weapons, especially SR).

People play with only one strat and then think it's only one viable, simple psychological bias

[mr_oluap]

Originally posted by mr_oluap:

Originally posted by engager6:

Are you sure we are playing the same game? In my play AA-12 hit crowd of melee legion thugs (3 short burst at 4 targets 3-5 squares away) for "incredible" 13 damage with buckshot! I read in other places on the forum that people also got trashy results as well. How is this piece of garbage able to delete someone if it can't even significantly damage thug standing 4 tiles from you with 3 shot burst... I guess this garbage comes from zero armor penetration on shotguns, 6 AP for 13 damage? I was way off better just to hit two times with the knife instead scoring two kills with true strike.

What i'm doing wrong or what is going on here. I completed the game 4 times, including 2 times solo, and every time i ever tried shotgun it happened to be complete useless dumpster fire. How do you guys use them to "delete" anybody apart from yourself?

1 weapon : Modded M1014 with short barrel and UV

3 perKs : Shotgun free move (70 str) ; Fast runner (70 agi) ; Frogleap (80 agi)

Enjoy the massacre.

All people saying "shotguns are useless" just did'nt play enough of the game (or only played with other weapons, especially SR).

People play with only one strat and then think it's only one viable, simple psychological bias

And of course use a good MRK merc, you'll do nothing with 70 mrk dude...

The 13 or so damage you do is the free AOE damage that applies when you MISS, it's basically low guaranteed damage, and burst has reduced precision (even with AA12)

if you HIT (like with any other weapon) you'll do insane damage/AP

That's why the M1014 is the best shotgun, with UV point it's by far the most precise shotgun.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by pedal_pusher:

late game builds of all kinds get so powerful compared to late game enemies that their is simply no challenge

Yeah. Enemies do seem to have some perks of their own too, but nowhere near to same extent as playable mercs (which makes sense in its own way of course).

It could be interesting if scouts had Distracting Shot and maybe if enemy snipers were less focused on using Pin Down - it's way easy to avoid.

[Bozzemoggel]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

It could be interesting if scouts had Distracting Shot and maybe if enemy snipers were less focused on using Pin Down - it's way easy to avoid.

when enemy sniper use Pin Down, you always go on with a little "thank you for wasting your move"... it might be a threat in combination with surpressing overwatch by other henchmen, but overall... why not simply shoot while you have a target?

[mr_oluap]

About difficulty in general i agree there could be a more challenging mode.

Apart from redesign ennemies features that could be good, a simple balance tweak for more challenge would be to increase the number of ennemies on camps and big boss fights.

In my experience, if you are heavily outnumbered in active combat (not stealth) and don't have explosives, the game can get really challenging very quickly.

Currently the "easy" feeling from the game's combat (again not talking about stealth) comes from the fact that a lot of battles have reduced number of ennemies who can be dispatched easily ; while on tougher battles (which are rare if you don't seek for them) you can mostly rely on explosives to reduce the numbers.

So simply by adding numbers to ennemies and reducing the amount of explosives the game should offer a much bigger challenge.

That said i've still lost 4 mercs in both my ironman campaigns (every time because of mistakes i made), often being one turned-killed, so no-stealth MI ironman is overall a fine difficulty imo.

[[ScrN]PooSH]

I guess the developers couldn't put more enemies on a map due to performance issues. I have a decent PC, but the game was lagging when fighting 30 enemies at once. At least they could add reinforcement waves for boss battles.

And yeah, Pin Down is too weak and is being overused by enemy snipers. Pin Down should act like Overwatch but against a single target only.

[engager6]

Originally posted by mr_oluap:

So simply by adding numbers to ennemies and reducing the amount of explosives the game should offer a much bigger challenge.

Actually playing campaign with 2.5x enemy numbers right now, it was harder at the beginning, but things level off toward middle of the game. Some fights (especially in tight/small areas) are somewhat harder, but after completing the game several times i have enough knowledge to stall them no matter what. This time i intentionally play completely without sniper rifles or stealth kills, with 2 mercs only (one is AR guy and Fox is melee/grenadier) on MI and it still feels manageble.

So from my eperience i can say that 2.5x enemies make game somewhat harder, but not negate common difficulty curve, it's still same stuff, just a little more challenging. It's still fun though, the biggest fights so far was like 2 mercs vs 40 enemies, lots of bodies everywhere, often ends like this:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3020147653

[mr_oluap]

Originally posted by engager6:

Originally posted by mr_oluap:

So simply by adding numbers to ennemies and reducing the amount of explosives the game should offer a much bigger challenge.

Actually playing campaign with 2.5x enemy numbers right now, it was harder at the beginning, but things level off toward middle of the game. Some fights (especially in tight/small areas) are somewhat harder, but after completing the game several times i have enough knowledge to stall them no matter what. This time i intentionally play completely without sniper rifles or stealth kills, with 2 mercs only (one is AR guy and Fox is melee/grenadier) on MI and it still feels manageble.

So from my eperience i can say that 2.5x enemies makes game somewhat harder, but not negates common difficulty curve, it's still same stuff, just a little more challenging.

Interesting, some questions please :

- Is the mod affecting all fights or only patrols ? I've been looking for a mod for this and it said it was only patrols, does it still affect camps and boss fights (meaning 75 ennemies at the military base ?)

- Do you think it might be related to the quicker xp gain, especially playing with 2 mercs ?

- Are you looting more explosives than in a standard campaign due to the bigger number of ennemies ?