Psi Ops still suck?

LordYanaek
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by LordYanaek »

johnnylump wrote:1) Reduce training times further
I think training times are fine. It's only when high level abilities show early that they might be an issue.
2) Improve specific abilities
This is really the core of the issue. As i said already i don't think Psi Troopers "suck" but i must admit they don't "rock" either. Most of their abilities are better done by other classes and while having plenty of tricks on a single soldier is intersting, the fact that they are often slightly weaker than other classes at what they do brings issues. In large squads you probably already have all your needs covered (crowd control, auto-hit, support) so do you really need a second but slightly worse ability that does the same thing. In small squads OTOH, it can be useful to have all sorts of abilities on a single soldier but can you really afford to take a soldier that doesn't contribute much to the overall power (Psi Ops aim really suck).

I think the worst part is the scaling. If you can get a psi op early (by laser) their abilities aren't bad at all, but later in the game they loose their punch compared to other classes. Unlike techs they can't really carry you early thought as they are not available from the start and require a sizeable investment (not a huge one, but an important one especially if you want to have them early when they feel actually useful)

More specifically what i think of their abilities after playing with them at different parts of the campaign (suggestions are free, ignore as you see fit ;) )
  • Soulfire It's OKis but suffers from the comparison with Hail of Bullets. Early on when you have laser the damage is good, slightly lower than a gunner but you ignore armor while the gunner needs AP ammo to ignore it so it's OK. Later thought the gunner will always do more damage with HoB and since you have one or two in any serious fighting squad it just feels like a poor addition, especially given that the gunner does plenty of damage even while HoB is on cooldown. Only affecting organic enemies is hardly an issue as mecas are usually not the hard to hit enemies.
    Suggestion : improve scaling with high Psi Offense.
    • Soul Steal Doh. Soulfire itself is OK but Soulsteal is meh when it takes a valuable perk slot (it was OK when you could have all perks). It will provide some smallish healing, requires the Psi to be wounded and won't reduce wound timer AFAIK. Certainly feels like a wasted slot.
      Suggestion : Allow it to heal allies if the psi OP is not wounded and reduce wound timer (after all, it's "magical" healing). In addition reduce SF cooldown so it's not a perk than only works if you have been wounded.
  • Fortress. I think it's OK. A valuable survival skill for the Psi Trooper. The only issue is that it only protects the Psi itself and you might consider it weakens the squad since Psi aren't really tanks anyway, but maybe if you roll it on a high health Psi, give him WAR suit and go shieldwall in the open this could be interesting. It really shines once you get ...
    • Bastion Good improvement on Fortress to help the squad. Smallish radius unfortunately.
      Suggestion : maybe increase the radius with Psi Offense so you gain a few tiles at high level much like officers gain improved command range.
  • Insanity Ahem ... a really poor CC ability with low chance to succeed on a single enemy. An assault only needs one perk to be better at CC (chance to stun and guaranteed disorient and lower cooldown), let's not compare with a sting grenade please (even thought those are consumables and it's perfectly fine that a specialized crowd control grenadier is the best option for crowd control)
    Suggestion : Insanity should at least disorient for one turn on a "miss", this way you never totally loose your action. I know shots can miss, but other CC abilities are guaranteed, that's the reason you use CC rather than chance out a low % shot for a kill.
    • Schism Would probably be OK if Insanity was better. I don't know how (if) it's damages scale with high Psi Offense, might be something to tweak for late game : LW enemies are stronger than vanilla and Psi damages mostly stayed at their vanilla values.
  • Mind Merge What can i say about mind merge while trying to stay positive? Aid Protocol is almost always better if you want to protect someone. The will bonus is almost useless as unlike LW1 you don't use will for psi attack (so 2 Psis can't combine their power to mind control a powerful enemy). I can see some corner cases where those ablative Hit Points can help a tank with armor stacking standing in the open but it's rather limited in utility (i can't even use it one the SPARK when he uses Sacrifice)
    Suggestion : Remove the turn ending part or make it last several turns (until you use it again?). Bring back LW1 + to crit chance. Increase Psi Offense in addition to will. Allow will check to remove panic/disorient/mind control if used on a soldiers affected by those. Maybe not all of them but these are all options.
    • Soul Merge Please stop it! Soul Merge will on average add a single ablative HP on top of what Mind Merge did, add more somewhat useless will and reduce the cooldown on the ability you probably don't want to use anyway and it takes a perk slot.
      Suggestion : remove it or improve the HP gain. If Mind Merge is improved Soul Merge won't be as bad thought.
  • Solace Is it buggy or not? I'm still not sure it works as intended. A good ability but the lags reported are certainly concerning.
    Suggestion : Maybe increase the radius with high psi offense similar to the Bastion suggestion. It doesn't need to cover a huge area but a tile or two when you reach the 100is psi offense would be nice.
  • Stasis OK. A good guaranteed CC ability that reliably removes a big threat for 1 round so you can concentrate on all the lesser threads.
    Suggestion : Not even sure it need an improvement. If anything have a chance (based on Psi Offense vs Will) to loose an action when the effect ends since by the end of the game assaults will usually stun for 1.5 or even 2 turns every other turn with the stungun (provided they do hit of course)
    • Stasis Shield I actually like this one. It allows you to be reckless with an assault or tech and go in the open to AoE as many enemies as possible and survive. Of course you could also just armor stack and use Aid Protocol and probably survive but this one is a guaranteed life saver.
      Suggestion : if Stasis itself can remove an action point, don't do it on allies of course
  • Sustain Bah, this once wasn't bad on vanilla where you could have all perks but now ... First it requires you to be shot to death, then it might not even save you after you emerge with 1 hit point.
    Suggestion : If you keep it (it will probably always be viewed as a "loosers" perk until it saves a life) add a regenerative effect (you regain HP while in the shield and some turns after)
  • Fuse I like it. It's always fun to blow the enemies grenades so they can't blow you and they take damage. No cooldown with so many enemies running around with grenades allows Psi to do something useful every turn. Probably one of the best perks a psi can learn.
  • Null Lance It's really not that bad. Decent damage with auto hit and no armor and the ability to hit several target (i managed to hit 3). I'm not sure why players consider it bad.
    Suggestion : Possibly improve damage scaling so it stays ahead of SoulFire in the late game. If you want to improve it further increase it's range with Psi Offense possibly hitting slightly behind visual range with very high psi offense.
  • Void Rift Damage is really low so it's more of a CC ability really.
    Suggestion : well if Insanity is guaranteed to at least disorient for 1 turn, this ability a good mass disorient that does some damage and has a chance for a better effect, no need to add anything else.
  • Domination The big toy everyone wants to see on their Psi :lol:
Many abilities could also benefit from lower cooldowns. With so many enemies running around in LW2 compared to vanilla XCom2 you can't always wait for your abilities to recharge even on non timed missions.
3) Remove any randomization in the order in which perks show up on the list.
I don't think the randomization is a real issue but given you gain randomized initiate perks it could make sense to have the later progression fixed. This would also allow players to know if a psi will be able to learn the "big toy" early from their starting perks and whether or not they want to invest heavily in leveling that particular psi.
Sorbicol
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Sorbicol »

johnnylump wrote:So there's about three things that I'm willing and able to do at this point:

1) Reduce training times further
2) Improve specific abilities
3) Remove any randomization in the order in which perks show up on the list. Right now the game shuffles a deck of psi perks. I then force one of the top tier perks to be the third card in the deck. The game will replace anything you don't have the prereqs for with one of its prereqs. What I can do is remove the randomization so you know exactly what you are going to get with sufficient meta-knowledge, and you can build how you want. I think.
I think there are a number of circumstances within the game at the moment that make the Psi-Ops fall way below any cost/benefit ratio to getting them. To my mind I see them as this:
  • 1. Psi-Ops are very expensive to set up and start developing. Elerium/supplies/sectoid corpse/energy to get the Psi-Lab up, then the time taken to develop the rookies (rookies, because you can't train anyone else). By the time in game I was in a position to do that, it was late game. This is exacerbated because:

    2. Needing them to go out on missions to be able to promote. That's fine as an idea (and one I support) but at the time I am getting them out they are cannon fodder against the class of Advent/Alien they are up against. Any mission I do send them out on they are mostly hiding at the back hoping no-one takes a pot shot at them. By the time they have learned a few more talents they are cautiously usable, but only really in very low risk situations, or desperate hell-mary "please let this 15% insanity change mind control that advent grenadier!" situations......

    3. Even when they earn a promotion they don't get it straight away but have to back in the tubes for x amount of time. More delay for no appreciable reason. It's just punishment for wanting them in the first place.

    4. This is a general problem to my mind, but it really doesn't help the Psi-Ops at all, and that's getting the right corpses so you can get the high level gear you need to be able to "compete" at the high level end game. It's not just Psi-OPs that suffer from this admittedly, but again, given the stage in the game where you get them then getting the right aliens on the right missions so that you can research the autopsies so you can then build the high level gear - and needing more corpse so you can actually build them.............. again with that just feeling like punishment.
I totally get the idea behind having Psi-Ops having to go out on missions to earn a promotion. However to make that viable they have to able to get out much earlier in game. The Vanilla game gets around that by allowing them to remain in the tubes until they come out as Gods, however I agree that approach doesn't really work for LW2. the fixes I see are:
  • 1. If you want to have them go out on missions to earn experience that's fine, but you need to make them a viable option much earlier in the game. That basically means making the Psi-Lab a hell of a lot cheaper than it currently is so it can be built much earlier. At the moment, at the point I would guess most people can get a Psi-Lab up and running, any Psi-Op you do develop is massively underpowered against any advent they might face. Even in low strength regions.

    2. My preference would be that If they have to go back in the tubes to learn a new talent, then massively reduce the time needed to train them up. Restrict the options to a chooseable talent as per the unlock abilities for other classes. Don't make it random. However if that isn't really an option I would definitely make the training times a hell of a lot shorter, and improve some of the basic talents. Having Solace offer a passive heal at 1hp/turn would be nice, or mind-merge give a decent stat boost (aim/will/defense/dodge) to the target, which remains for as long as the link is maintained - which should be until you need to use the Psi-Op to do something else.

    3. Just take a look at and possibly tweak the requirements for some of the high level gear. Psi-Ops/Shinobis/Specialists really need the Fusion Blade / Mark III Gremlin / Alien Psi-Amp to be effective against the highest tier Advent/Aliens. I have a disciple level Psi-Op with the advanced Psi-Amp and Neurowhip, and she struggles to get an insanity/domination hit above 50% even on the most basic level Advent I'm now come up against (generally M3) Needing to see an Archon/Sectopod/Gatekeeper on a Supply Raid/Troop Ambush etc really drags that out and is massively frustrating late game. I've not seen an andromedon on any of those missions, hence I have no advanced grenades / grenade launcher, and only one fusion blade despite having researched the archon 3 months previously in game. It's just punishment.
Sorry, wrote more there than I was expecting, and went off on a slight tangent with my final point ;) I don't think that the Psi-Ops are as bad as a lot of people are saying talent wise, it's just the time in the game when most people get them they are badly outclassed, and the requirement to send them out on missions to earn experience mostly means they are deadweight, cowering at the back and hoping they make it through.
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by gimrah »

@Johnnylump

Thanks for that. I guess I'll shut up about infiltration then.

I agree it should be entirely possible to balance psi mostly by adjusting inputs: on the perks themselves it's damage, cooldowns, hit chance, effect radii/width, duration, and then there's training times and pre-requisites (with the last being made more transparent if not intuitive).

There are just a few abilities which probably do need some kind of conceptual change to be worthwhile:

- Insanity is just too weak if it has a chance to do nothing (it was terrible in vanilla too). I like the concept that a 'miss' still disorients and the other effects (maybe adding stun as a possibility) are will tested.

- Soul Steal can't be made good without amending the concept. The suggestion to add ablative HP was pretty cool.

- Solace needs to be de-bugged but is otherwise pretty good.

And then I guess there are two other input-driven dimensions:

- The will stat of enemies. From the ufopaedia it looks like will scales fairly smoothly for most enemies with no obvious weak type/species at any given stage of the game. In LW1 psi was particularly good for dealing with heavy floaters, which were otherwise very tricky to manage. A candidate now might be archons - they aren't that common, if you dominate one they are tanky but their abilities aren't 'I win' buttons, and because they are tanky and flanky it's good to be able to panic one too.

- The set-up cost. Removing the sectoid corpse requirement from the psi research (and maybe one core from research or lab) would make psi-rush much more viable.
Jj001
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Jj001 »

I think psi troopers in vanilla were fine. Yes they were op but they were expensive and wernt available till mid to late game.
Also you couldn't have them in large quantities anyways. In Long War II psi troopers have the same issues however they're just plain average and borderline ineffective. I think that their abilities need to be buffed. Especially Insanity. Not being able to achieve it on a low-level Advent Trooper is just plain sad.

Something needs to change. I do like that you have to take side troopers on missions to level them up. As opposed to vanilla where they can just sit in the tube and do nothing and get stronger and stronger. However when you first get side Troopers it's already mid-game and they might as well be Rookies. So leveling them up as such a process because they're ineffective in combat. So to have to invest them through so many missions to make them effective is fine however once the investment is made there's no return on the investment because they're not good even if you level them up.
Jacke
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Jacke »

LordYanaek wrote:I think the worst part is the scaling. If you can get a psi op early (by laser) their abilities aren't bad at all, but later in the game they loose their punch compared to other classes. Unlike techs they can't really carry you early thought as they are not available from the start and require a sizeable investment (not a huge one, but an important one especially if you want to have them early when they feel actually useful)
Interesting you mention Technicals. The soldier class many players think gets effectively weaker as the game progresses.

I've found one mod that makes Technicals fantastic, even from the start: More Technical Rockets. You get the double-weight Micro-Missile Package at start which gives two rounds of micro-missiles. Later on with better tech there's a more powerful version and for improved grenades, there's a rocket version to unlock. Maybe it's too OP, but I think it may just be right. And there's room to develop against the greater mid and late game threats.

It's like the weapons of most soldiers. Besides swapping between rifle, SMG, and shotgun versions, there's 5 tiers. If what you have isn't good enough, or isn't going to be good enough soon, develop improvements.

Consider now Psi Ops. Pavonis is trying to balance them between being significant, especially considering the investment, and being overpowered.

I'm going to suggest doing this. Might be tricky to get an interface in XCOM 2 to handle this.

1) Change the heavy cost of the Psi Lab and its upgrade into more steps, sort of like the Laboratory.
2) Reorg the perk tree into a simpler grid of different powers across and more powerful versions down.
3) Fix the issues with each power, whether it's a borked effect or insufficient strength.
4) Have the new Psi Op get a random pick of powers in the first row.
5) Have the Psi Op at least have the stats to be a fill-in soldier.
6) A quicker lightweight combination of infiltration time and tube time allows the Psi Op to both develop stronger skills and develop sideways into other skills the player wants by leveling up. The two times should be about the same. As with other classes, they should be able to get the first 3 promotions quickly.
7) With enough mission time and tube time to get to Master Rank, a Psi Op can get all the perks.
8) As a Psi Op goes up in rank, most if not all the perks get stronger.
9) A combination of cooldowns and charges should be used to limit the perks appropriately. These will likely have to be adjusted. Maybe they can change as the Psi Op ranks up.

Consider the chart that Tuhalu made here. http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 631#p37631

Here's my revised chart.

Code: Select all

0   Fortress

1   Sustain      Solace    Statis     Mind Merge  Soul Fire

2   Soul Steal   Bastion   Insanity   Soul Merge  Fuse

4                          Schism                 Null Lance

8                          Domination             Void Rift
My progression design:

1) A Novice Psi Op gets Fortress, one of Sustain or Solace, and one of Statis, Mind Merge, or Soul Fire.
2) As they rank up, Psi Op's stats should improve somewhere between Assault and Ranger. They are deadly soldiers as well.
3) Psi Ops should get some AWC skills to allow them to round out their soldier skills.
4) As the Psi Op go up in rank, all psi perks become more powerful. Example Soul Fire from a Novice Psi Op is one thing. From a Master it is quite more violent.
5) At each rank, a Psi Op gets points to unlock further perks. To unlock a perk requires using points equal to its row number. The row 1 perk needs to be unlocked before the row 2 perk beneath it is unlocked, and so on to the row 4 and row 8.

Code: Select all

Rank            Get  Can Carry Forward

Awakened         3      1
Sensitive        3      1
Talent           4      2
Adept            5      2
Transcendent     6      3
Psion            7      3
Master           9      -
6) At each rank, points equal to half the ranks points rounded down can be carried forward.
7) At Master Rank, the Psi Op has all the perks at full power.
Goumindong
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Goumindong »

Autoclave wrote:I don't see the benefits of ANY changes brought to Psi by Pavonis. I would like to get the good old vanilla system back. It worked perfectly fine and I had absolutely no issues with it. It wasn't op, it did not make the other classes useless.

Can we have a mod with vanilla Psi for long war 2?
The reason that soldiers have go on missions is because there is an enforced risk in order to level up. If you could just tank a psi and then get all the abilities they would be too strong(well, provided the abilities weren't shit) because they would have no risk of being lost. You would just get them and then a few months later have MSGTs.
trihero
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by trihero »

The reason that soldiers have go on missions is because there is an enforced risk in order to level up. If you could just tank a psi and then get all the abilities they would be too strong(well, provided the abilities weren't shit) because they would have no risk of being lost. You would just get them and then a few months later have MSGTs.
Not all soldiers have to train the same way.

Plus, what they've wound up doing is making a bastardization of both systems - if you require combat experience, what's wrong with just doing a typical 3 column tree to pick from? They've made it super super awkward to balance where you require combat experience, tube time, and have random skills picked. Shot themselves in the foot by disturbing something that wasn't really broken to begin with.

Psis already naturally nerfed themselves with the infiltration mechanic (can't have them on every mission), and now we have all sorts of weird balance issues to sort out with them.
Jadiel
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Jadiel »

I said this in a separate thread, but it's relevant here as well. I think eliminating the crazy way that aliens Will stat currently scales would fix a lot of the problems with Psi. It's silly that aliens scale in two ways (HP and Will) which both reduce the effectiveness of Psi abilities, when that's not the case for any other soldiers abilities (e.g. Hail of Bullets). If enemy Will didn't scale up over the course of the campaign, I think you'd see Soulfire giving similar numbers to HoB during midgame and endgame as well. I think eliminating Will scaling would be a good first step, and then you can look at balancing abilities that seem too weak once you've got a decent balance between different stages of the campaign.

I also think it's fine for Psi to be balanced around you getting it early. If you wait until later in the game to get Psi, it's not surprising it feels underwhelming when your first Psi Ops come out of the tube, just like if you wait until September to research Mag weapons, it's not surprising that they feel pretty weak. Mag weapons need to be balanced so that they don't break the game if you get them in May, this means that they are inevitably going to be underwhelming in September. This may mean that in some games Psi isn't an option, but that's ok, just like in some games it will be better to skip Mag and go straight to Coil.
fowlJ
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by fowlJ »

Jadiel wrote:If enemy Will didn't scale up over the course of the campaign, I think you'd see Soulfire giving similar numbers to HoB during midgame and endgame as well.
Well, you wouldn't see that, actually, because Soulfire (and the other damaging psi abilities) deals fixed damage based on Psi-Amp tier. Psi Offence (and Will) only applies to Insanity (and by extension Void Rift), Domination, and I think Mind Merge might account for it but I'm not sure.

(I disagree with it being so limited in application, personally, but that's vanilla design, not anything Pavonis have done.)

The scaling of damaging abilities should definitely be adjusted, though. It doesn't seem to have been changed at all from vanilla, while for almost all other items there is a significantly larger difference from tier-to-tier (+1.5 damage per tier for rifles, a little more or less each for other items.) I'd place the Psi Amps at about T1 - T3 - T5, so Soulfire would maybe go 5 - 7.5 - 10 damage, Void Rift 2.5 - 4 - 5.5, Null Lance 7.5 - 10.5 - 13.5.
Jadiel
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Jadiel »

fowlJ wrote:
Jadiel wrote:If enemy Will didn't scale up over the course of the campaign, I think you'd see Soulfire giving similar numbers to HoB during midgame and endgame as well.
Well, you wouldn't see that, actually, because Soulfire (and the other damaging psi abilities) deals fixed damage based on Psi-Amp tier. Psi Offence (and Will) only applies to Insanity (and by extension Void Rift), Domination, and I think Mind Merge might account for it but I'm not sure.

(I disagree with it being so limited in application, personally, but that's vanilla design, not anything Pavonis have done.)

The scaling of damaging abilities should definitely be adjusted, though. It doesn't seem to have been changed at all from vanilla, while for almost all other items there is a significantly larger difference from tier-to-tier (+1.5 damage per tier for rifles, a little more or less each for other items.) I'd place the Psi Amps at about T1 - T3 - T5, so Soulfire would maybe go 5 - 7.5 - 10 damage, Void Rift 2.5 - 4 - 5.5, Null Lance 7.5 - 10.5 - 13.5.
Really? And here I've been congratulating myself for having high Psi Offence Psi Ops when I Soulfire/Void Rift, when actually it makes no difference at all. In that case, yes I agree with you - they should definitely be adjusted, especially as the higher tier Psi Amps are gated behind extremely late game tech. I still think removing Will Scaling would make abilities where Psi Offence is relevant more consistent over the course of a campaign.
trihero
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by trihero »

"Your recent efforts with the psi ops over the past month have been..mediocre. We will have to do better." - Spokesman
fowlJ
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by fowlJ »

trihero wrote:"Your recent efforts with the psi ops over the past month have been..mediocre. We will have to do better." - Spokesman
I'm inclined to believe that you aren't actually going to make psi operative changes happen any faster by posting that over and over.
wadeanthony
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by wadeanthony »

@johnnylump I personality feel that option two is what needs to be done, since the other 8 classes and Spark were put together so well that even if the PSI could learn all abilities they still will be considered lackluster.

Soulfire - Needs a damage buff, 6-8 by endgame amp is far far too low. On a 3 turn cooldown at that as well. This is Laser rifle damage when you are fighting normal advent troopers with 14 + health. I would rather take a shot then use this if they have more then 6 health remaining and nearly ANY class is better at using a gun even grenadier (Chain Shot).

I think making it match the power of the rifle tiers would be a easy fix 5-8, 6-11, 7-14 (laser, mag, coil).

Soul Steal - The healing is useless in most situations unless you have made a PSI Tank and you still suffer wound times. I would like if this was reworked to add shielding instead of healing and reducing the cool down by 1 for Soulfire so even if they don't need the shielding it's still useful for spamming you're abilities.

Insanity and Schism - Completely horrible, when you first get it, you have such low chances to actually do anything with it. 33% was my avg chance at the start. After getting a PSI with 90+ will I had an 83% chance but I thought at least with Schism I will always do damage but if you fail it's just a complete miss. Make it work like Electroshock and remove the ability to mind control from the list to balance it out.

So it will Disorient on a miss and it will Panic/Stun on the hit. With Schism , you will always Disorient, Rupture and do at least 1 point of damage. But on a hit you with Rupture, Panic/Stun and increased damage 2-4ish. I loved Schism in X2 but with such low hit %, it's become wasted skill.

Mind Merge and Soul Merge - Should not be turn ending, will boost is useless, shielding is ..okay but it's basically planning on this soldier getting it for it to be worthwhile. Bring it back in line with LW1 Mind merge which did

Merge minds with the target, granting the target +25% critical chance, bonus will, and temporary health (for aliens) or damage reduction.


Have it boost Crit chance, increase PSI strength and add shielding. Maybe increase Aim has well. Soul Merge should increase the duration of the effects if the cool down isn't reduce. But really, it should 100% not end your turn.

Stasis, Fuse, Stasis Shield, Fortress all fine in my opinion.

Bastion can use any area of effect buff and maybe make you (the PSI trooper and not another else) immune to Stun and freeze as well.

Void Rift - Reduce cooldown to 4 and increase damage by +2 at each tier, , if we compare this to flamethrower (damage + status effects) we are looking at 3-6 damage (+1-3 if Insanity with Schism hits.. 3 perks to barely it 9 dmg) vs 5-10 with ability to burn, panic and Disorient. 6 turn cooldown vs none, fire is best status effect next to dead as well. Only thing flamethrower loses in is range.

Domination - it's fine.

Null Lance - Lower cooldown by 1 or 2 at least, it shouldn't match Saturation Fire's cool down when it barely matches up to it. I think the damage is fine, I would like the range to be wider or at least let Soul Steal buffs apply to it as was well like Insanity with Schism to Void rift.
please delete my account, I know long use it.
trihero
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by trihero »

fowlJ wrote:
trihero wrote:"Your recent efforts with the psi ops over the past month have been..mediocre. We will have to do better." - Spokesman
I'm inclined to believe that you aren't actually going to make psi operative changes happen any faster by posting that over and over.
It's for comedic purposes. Do you think the Spokeman makes you play any better when he whines at you?
Jacke
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Jacke »

trihero wrote:It's for comedic purposes. Do you think the Spokeman makes you play any better when he whines at you?
I think people have been conditioned to follow the dulcet tones of Movie Voiceover Guy. They don't want to disappoint him!
Phrozehn
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Phrozehn »

How would everyone feel about having will also play a roll in a Psis' strength? It laways bothered me how will was basically ONLY used as psi defense. Thematically it'd make sense. Being more disciplined means you can maintain your abilities like MM for longer in the heat of battle. Your ability to focus. Having a high raw psi potential to nuke someone wouldn't mean that you had the will and resolve to maintain focus while keeping your head down and doing other things.

Will could maybe have an influence on cooldown and duration, while psi str impacts intensity and CTH. So a high will Psi would be great as a support, as it could lead to MM lasting an extra turn and having a lower cooldown, or increasing the range of Bastion, and a high psi offense would be our offensive psi, doing more damage with SF and NL, and maybe even having stronger MM, but lower duration. Any thoughts?

I also really want to see psi amps ONLY be responsible for giving you psi offense boosts, and not be a determinant for anyhting else psi related. Let the damage of all your abilities be strictly tied to psi offense. Let any ability with damage, radius (If we ignore my will idea above), or % to hit be influenced by psi offense. That way we'd be less reliant on Psi amps in general since the bulk of the Psi's improvement will happen through leveling up. Yea, having 20 less offense sucks, but it won't be THAT significant. It won't be a hard cap on our abilities' strength. We won't be SO reliant on rare corpse drops. It'll also make it so that particularly high psi offense psis will be even more awesome :) Still have some abilities that aren't really as granular in the psi stat influence, like mindmerge, so that high psi units are the ones we want with offensive abilities (like we want high aim units to be shooty classes), and the lower ones be better off being relegated to a support role, because a low psi will wind up having the same str MM, or only SLIGHTLY worse, because the difference between a 70psi unit and a 100psi unit would be one point. This'll alow stats to influence their roll like stats influence what class we promote a rookie to :)
LordYanaek
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by LordYanaek »

Phrozehn wrote:How would everyone feel about having will also play a roll in a Psis' strength?
<...>
I also really want to see psi amps ONLY be responsible for giving you psi offense boosts, and not be a determinant for anyhting else psi related.
I like both ideas but i fear the will idea is more work than the developers plan to put into Psi troopers at this point. It would be great however because it would allow different builds based on different stats much like we see in almost every other classes. I have a low aim high move Ranger, sure i'll take Pump Action and make him a sawed-off expert for some of those timed missions with limited opposition. I have a low aim sharpshooter : OK he'll be an holotargetter officer scout. I have a low Psi-offense, high will psi trooper : well he'll just be (slightly) worse than others :( An issue would be to actually start with the "right" abilities as they are randomized, it would suck to have your high will trooper start with Soulfire and your high offense one without.

The Psi-amps issue is real as i pointed in another more general thread on late game corpses. With an Alien (T3) Psi-Amp, a psi trooper don't really suck anymore. Insanity rises to 90% on ADVENT and 100% on Aliens. Null Lance hits as hard as a Plasma Blaster but with a cooldown instead of unique charge. Unfortunately, i had those in December and from what I've read, on Legend you should have won approximately by that time or you loose. Psi troopers might not even get their T3 Amp in many campaigns and as a result, they "suck" as i've read here a lot, or in better terms, they don't scale well in the late game. Fixing the "corpses issue" so late game enemies are forced in Full salvage missions would help but i really think Psi abilities should scale with Psi Offense mostly or exclusively, and Psi Amps would help by simply providing more offense and/or reduce the cooldown on abilities but not determine the damage. This would also help Psi Troopers be more unique as they wouldn't rely on equipment as much as other soldiers but rather on their own mind.
Regarding the balance, Psi Troopers will "level-up" more slowly than other soldiers with the added tank timer so i don't think they would break the game by reaching late-game damage too early but this is a concern we must keep in mind. An option if Psi-amps gain a cooldown reduction would be to increase the base cooldown of their abilities so they would hit harder, but less often then they do currently in the mid-game, and by the end of the game they would hit hard and more often to compete with other powerful plasma-equipped MSGTs.
JulianSkies
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by JulianSkies »

I personally would hate having will do anything to the psi op abilities, for me it's like asking for shinobi accuracy be based off of their dodge stat. Same for untieing the amp from the damage of their abilities, it's their secondary weapon, it's the tool that makes the job work. So not a fan of that proposition.
Phrozehn
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Phrozehn »

JulianSkies wrote:I personally would hate having will do anything to the psi op abilities, for me it's like asking for shinobi accuracy be based off of their dodge stat. Same for untying the amp from the damage of their abilities, it's their secondary weapon, it's the tool that makes the job work. So not a fan of that proposition.
I think you misunderstood my will suggestion. It wouldn't determine hit chance or intensity. It could affect cooldown and area of effect. It'd be more akin the relationship between dodge and defense. THey both increase survivability, but differently. Will and Psi could both increase offense, but in different ways. I i dunno, just seemed more interesting to me than ALL psi abilities being the exact same across different units, except for SOME having a chance to hit. Psi strength seems to mean nothing for some abilities, and everything for others. Just seems kind of lame to me.

Also, untying the Amp doesn't mean it isn't still a big factor for a Psi. it just means it's LESS of factor because it isn't the ONLY determinant of psi dmg. Having their secondary only be a psi boost STILL makes it an important upgrade, it just makes it SLIGHTLY less important. it also opens up the class to having it's abilities scale more granularly.
LordYanaek
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by LordYanaek »

JulianSkies wrote:I personally would hate having will do anything to the psi op abilities, for me it's like asking for shinobi accuracy be based off of their dodge stat.
Not really as it wouldn't affect their chance to hit but provide other benefits.
Also it would make the Neurowhip a real choice because currently Will is so useless to Psi Troopers (or about anyone for that matter) that you could just as well change it to plain +10 Psi Offense and nobody would see the difference.
Same for untieing the amp from the damage of their abilities, it's their secondary weapon, it's the tool that makes the job work.
It's not a gun, it's just something to focus their mind. Their mind is what "makes the job". As i said, part of why i like this idea is because it would set them apart from the other classes. Rather than have a "disguised gun that can't miss" they would really use their mind to deal damage.
The other reason i considered this even before Phrozehn post is because as i said, i got my T3 Amps so late that i could have finished the game before i even had it available if i had focused more on the storyline missions and this is definitely part of why so many players think that Psi Troopers "suck", they never have a chance to reach their full potential before the game is over!

Psi Troopers actually stay with T2 amps for most of the late game. I bet many players would complain that Hail of Bullets is useless and Gunners suck if they still had Mag Cannons at the end of the game but that's actually what happens to Psi Troopers! For Psi Troopers, the Secondary weapon is actually the primary especially since their aim is so crappy. Untying their abilities from the Psi-Amp (something that didn't even exist in EW/LW1 where will was the Psi stat) would allow them to reach most of their potential before the game is over.
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3tamatulg
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by 3tamatulg »

Would be cool if Psi Ops used will in place of Aim for their chance to hit.
Veneficus
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by Veneficus »

After reading 7 pages of this, it seems like the easiest, and perhaps best solution is just to revert the psi op to working exactly how it did in vanilla without modification.
LordYanaek
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by LordYanaek »

3tamatulg wrote:Would be cool if Psi Ops used will in place of Aim for their chance to hit.
You mean with conventional weapon? Let the Force guide you?
Veneficus wrote:After reading 7 pages of this, it seems like the easiest, and perhaps best solution is just to revert the psi op to working exactly how it did in vanilla without modification.
Easiest, maybe, best certainly not. The Vanilla model where every Psi Op had access to every perk was bad not for balance reasons (well they were OP in Vanilla but probably wouldn't be in LW2) but because every single Psi Trooper was exactly the same as every other Clone Trooper ;)

Having different soldiers with different skills for different jobs is a good idea but we can't afford "filler" skills when they might the place of useful ones purely due to RNG.
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3tamatulg
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by 3tamatulg »

LordYanaek wrote:
3tamatulg wrote:Would be cool if Psi Ops used will in place of Aim for their chance to hit.
You mean with conventional weapon? Let the Force guide you?
Yeah. Might add some flavour.

Also thinking it would be cool to have the Psi Lab basically be a duplicate of the AWC but with special Psi perks where a ton of the randomly selected Psi perks rely on the Will or Psi stat.
LordYanaek
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Re: Psi Ops still suck?

Post by LordYanaek »

Well it used to be this way in LW1 (sort of) as Psi Abilities were added on top of existing classes, but it's not how it works in XCom2 and i don't think the devs plan to change Psi that much so it would be something for another mod.
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