Sudden difficulty spike in the second half of the game ?

[Omega Ridley]

I'm probably not the first one asking about this, but what the hell is up with that sudden difficulty spike once you hit the Los Angeles wasteland ? The game had been very enjoyable up to that point, and now I really feel like I'm wasting bullets and watching my squad get torn apart every second encounter. If I wanted a "real challenge" I'd have turned the difficulty setting up to Supreme Jerk.

Is there a good way to level up my squad ? (1 sniper user, 1 smg user, 1 AR user, 1 Energy weps user, 1 blunt weps user and 1 pistol user)
Most of them are currently around level 26, with some tier 4/5 weapons I found while looking around Rodia and smaller locations, and some okay armor. I've got around 20 000 scrap in savings.

Thanks !

[Gillsing]

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

Im not referring to the dogs

Yeah, I didn't think you were referring to the dogs.

Those help calls you're referring to though, would that be for Santa Monica and Culver City? Those people are tough indeed. My Armor 12-13 Ranger handled those situations for me. Particularly Culver City, where there was barely any room to move. Might have been a good time to sacrifice one of those rare RPG-7 rockets though, if I didn't have someone who could walk into a shooting range and only take damage from the grenade lobber. My primary concern was keeping my robot followers alive though. They don't handle adversity very well. They're a bit vulnerable. Can't let anyone shoot at them.

[SnapSlav]

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

Is not that simple

It actually IS that simple. Fact is, most players who struggle after reaching the 2nd half of the game either aren't really trying, or failing to adjust new strategies.

Mods and targeted shots. THAT'S the name of the game. Mods give your weapons the accuracy and range to be as deadly as possible, and targeted shots give your team the options to mitigate the harm your enemies can do when you can't put them down before they act. Shoot legs to stop melee enemies from reaching you in a single turn. Shoot arms to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce their deadliness. Shoot torso to make them weaker to your attacks (until you get better weapons such that their AC ceases to be an issue). Shoot heads to get them killed as quickly as possible. Wherever these options do not apply, you prioritize your kill order.

When you spend your turns STRATEGIZING and deciding who/what to shoot at in what order, and what your shots are going to be, and actually ANTICIPATING your AP and turn orders, rather than reacting, you will absolutely obliterate fights, regardless of the padded HP values and higher damage outputs from these tougher enemies.

As Gillshing put it, AZ was unnecessarily easy. You need to judge how you did in Damonta to figure how well you'll do for the rest of the game. If you entered Damonta and got eviscerated by the first wave of enemies, then you adjusted your strategies and started handling Damonta with limited struggle, you'll be fine going ahead. If you never got better with every fight, then you're the problem. Not the game.

[Cursed Life]

I already know all this and has nothing to do with my case: if ur enemies have 3 times ur hp, deals triple ur damage and they even outnumber you, you wont win with aimed shots, you may cheese it with the 500 dmg bazooka, thats it

[Gillsing]

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

... deals triple ur damage ...

Most of them have low Penetration weapons though, so if you beef up your Rangers with Power Armor from that vendor at Santa Fe Springs, they'll take less damage. And with the Hardened perk they take less still. There's also Self Defense (Bladed Weapons 3) and Reinforced Plating (Weaponsmithing 8) for even more Armor, so you can mitigate a lot of pain even without the Thick-Skinned quirk.

But I guess if you weren't planning on armoring up, you might have spent your perks on other stuff that wouldn't be so helpful against those enemies. But with Armor 10 you'd take only 40% damage from their Penetration 6 Wasteland Hawk handguns, and with just Armor 9 from Power Armor you'd take no damage from their Penetration 3 Uzis. Just having one armored up Ranger who take a lot less damage could save your bacon if you can get the enemies to attack that Ranger instead of the others. Particularly if that Ranger is also the Field Medic, who could self-heal while taking damage.

I certainly didn't need to 'cheese it' with any 500 dmg bazooka (335 dmg in Ranger difficulty). I'm saving those for later, in case they'll be needed for real. Like all the magical potions I find in fantasy RPGs: "Too rare to use, too rare to use. Save them for when they're really needed. Oh, is the game over now? Uhh..."

[SnapSlav]

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

I already know all this and has nothing to do with my case: if ur enemies have 3 times ur hp, deals triple ur damage and they even outnumber you, you wont win with aimed shots, you may cheese it with the 500 dmg bazooka, thats it

Funny how you say "you [won't] win with aimed shots", and yet that's exactly what happens... Strategy wins out over brute force every time. Gillsing's tank build is a strategy. Choosing your shots is a strategy. Tactical positioning is a strategy. Players are HUMANS who can strategize, and the game's enemies were given deliberately-padded stats because they have no chance against players because they have no strategy beyond a few routines that the players can game. Either way, the players still win.

If you are having trouble with this, unless you're playing on SJ difficulty, you're the problem dude. Stop trying to pin that crap on the game, or everyone else...

[Cursed Life]

Ok, cleary you have dificulty understaning things so i put down in number so even you (maybe) can understand:
my man hp: 200
enemy hp: 600
my man armour: 5
enemy armour: 9
my dmg:65
enemy dmg:180

nope, aimed shot or positiong doesnt make any difference here my crazy weird friend

[Gillsing]

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

my man armour: 5
enemy armour: 9

But your armor doesn't have to be 5. It could be 9 too. They sell two power armors after Cerritos, don't they? Did you not buy them because wearing speed-decreasing armor goes against your religion? You already got Weaponsmithing 2 and the Tinkerer perk for all your Rangers, so they could all get +1 Action Point when wearing light armor, so with all that you took a solemn vow to never ever wear heavy armor?

[Gillsing]

No they don't? Cerritos is the first distress call, and that is to the south. The distress call from Santa Monica comes when your Rangers approach the well in the Rodia crater. And Santa Monica is way over to the west, so I assume that's what you mean. But hey, maybe you went to Rodia first and ignored Cerritos? Then you would indeed not have been offered to buy weapons and armor from a vendor at Santa Fe Springs. Though you wrote earlier:

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

I have those weapons...

Don't tell me that you just bought some tier 4 pea shooters from the vendor right outside the entrance to Rodia? Or looted tier 4 pea shooters from dead leather jerks?

[Zeon08]

Dany did Nothing Wrong a écrit :

two ret@rds
Again.. what im saying is that after you go out the base they send you into the far west with urgency, so you dont have time to buy anything

I don't know why these guys try to convince you that it's not that hard. It's clear to my that you are just a filthy casual and yo need to git gud

[Cursed Life]

Im playing at maximum difficulty and now im doing quite good, thank you :D

[SnapSlav]

Gotta love how you keep saying "the numbers" prove us wrong, but you repeatedly fail to mention ANY numbers associated with targeted shots. Like 65/50/0% accuracy with targeted shots to the arms. If you destroy their weapon, that "number" goes down to 0! Even if you ONLY get the lowest quality effect, you mitigate their damage by 2/3. If you're not making regular headshots, you're choosing to be less effective. headshots means 140% damage.

No amount of calling us stupid changes facts. Insults aren't arguments.

[Cursed Life]

Another terrible balanced battle: when you are sent to Whittier and are ambushed, well those enemies are unbeatable for my team, why im even sent there in a fight i cannt possibly win?

[Gillsing]

Just hack the synth and have it DESTROY (or at least distract) the opposition. I had Rose do it for me. If she ends up in the right position she can reach it in her first turn.

Also, maybe not wear your fancy new Power Armor for a battle with energy weapons? I mean, I'm pretty sure I had my Thick-Skinned Ranger wear Power Armor for that fight, because it was a good way to take no damage from the CotC cutter's proton axe, but I also had the sabot rocket and rifle rounds to deal with the pulse gunner to the south, so energy weapons targetting my heavy armor wouldn't be a concern.

[Cursed Life]

You need 10 informatic just to try to do it, and the synt just oneshot all my man, no matter the armour or the cover. Just hope you can go ahead with the game avoiding that for a while

[Gillsing]

Computer Science 10? Yeah, I think Rose might have had that, and she had a 100% chance with that synth, I think. And like I said, she could reach it in her first combat turn. Maybe give her the Pair of Engagement Rings trinket to increase her Combat Initiative so that she gets to go before the synth? Or the Choice trinket if you've found that one. That'd be even better. Faster, and with no -1 Action Point.

Then again, I'd also been increasing her Awareness, because I knew that's the most important combat attribute. So my Rose was fast enough. If you have no Ranger who can quickly hack that synth, I don't know what to tell you. Game Over, Man! You'd have to lower the difficulty to Rookie and bear the Shame of Inadequacy.

I even managed to keep both my robots alive through that fight, thanks to my clever use of The Lariat to keep Jamie the Robot from moving.