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[nenjin]

One would have thought all Psi powers sharing cooldowns, or Psi points, or something, would be a natural balancing choice. A Psi point system where they slowly regenerate Psi over time would be cool.

[Xvareon]

One would have thought all Psi powers sharing cooldowns, or Psi points, or something, would be a natural balancing choice. A Psi point system where they slowly regenerate Psi over time would be cool.

I'm thinking of something closer to how the SPARK's ultimate ability, Nova, damages the SPARK when used consecutively. Psi Operatives who use their powers too much may push themselves too far, and take HP damage or suffer a mental negative effect. I would think that especially those who are just barely learning to use their powers would have problems with using their powers too much. This might be alleviated somewhat by things that give them a mental boost, like combat drugs, killing an enemy, or hitting them with a Soul Steal-boosted Soulfire ability.

[Neonivek]

Psi units "Weakness" is that not only can you not REALLY mass produce them... But that they get stronger through not using them. (That and they require one building all to their own, one research exclusive to them, and one weapon unique to them)

They ARE your Super Unit. Though once you get maxed out units their being "Overpowered" is tempered by the fact that everyone else is absolutely devastating in their own right.

The SPARK is meant to be a sort of mix between all your classes. Unfortunately it overcompensates for that and honestly should have more strongly resembled the mech and SHIV. It really isn't as bad as people say... Unfortunately in this game you are on a budget so...

[Flying Dice]

TBH Psi should never have been a separate class.

[Neonivek]

TBH Psi should never have been a separate class.

I personally have no issue with this aspect, though including more than one Psi class would have kept things a bit more interesting.

It might, however, have been far superior to instead treat them as more of a normal class. Keep the fact that Psi Operatives need a exclusive training facility and limit it to two Psi-Operatives max (unless one dies). Yet let them go on missions and tie their growth to that. If you want to be unique have them have additional boosts and abilities that can only be obtained through special training.

I think the reason they didn't want Psi to be an additional ability set is because they wanted to make classes special in it of themselves without diluting it with psionics.

---

Now if only they would make Hacking not backfire (or backfire less)...

[ZeroGravitas]

Thematically, I'm very much won over. I didn't like feeling like I was the only resistance cell worth a damn in the world who could actually make a difference, especially since we all saw that there were apparently others out there who could hit ADVENT trains, and there was a full-fledged black market going on where you could buy alien alloys and elerium-115 from. That they are finally fleshing out "Le Resistance" more, and not just having them be faceless background characters, is a big leap in the right direction. Of course, mechanically, they've still gotta prove that they know what they're doing, but it looks promising so far.

I mean, they've definitely taken the game away from X-Com and halfway to Mass Effect Tactics. It's not really for me anymore but then again there's Phoenix Point now, so no real loss.

[Neonivek]

What? So humanity has three entire factions of super soldiers and vast unknowable resources whom all oppose the aliens.

I mean you are only an organization of rebel soldiers, many of whom fought in the first war, with state of the art training and technology equal to and in some ways exceeding that of the aliens. Of course the guys who sleep in stone caves are better than you.

---

Goodness why do I suddenly think having these factions actually be usurpers and traitors within the aliens?... It would actually explain quite a bit.

Err wait... humanizing the aliens would mean your a terrorist...

[Chiefwaffles]

Look, I agree with the tone aspects, but Neonivek...

The three resistance factions are all obviously nowhere near the capabilities of XCOM's Resistance.

• They've been competently fighting for a while, not just since the Commander woke up. Remember that before the Commander came into play, Bradford was the de-facto leader.
• They're quite clearly small. When you have a small number of people in something like this, it'd be easier to make an elite group but getting anything done is hard. Whereas XCOM does both.
• "Vast unknowable resources"?

[EnigmaticHat]

One would have thought all Psi powers sharing cooldowns, or Psi points, or something, would be a natural balancing choice. A Psi point system where they slowly regenerate Psi over time would be cool.

I would also say that if domination is going to be a thing it needs to be very very carefully balanced around.

Both of the final missions are difficult because of the length of the mission and the number of characters you have compared to the enemy; if you've played them you know what I mean.  Psi Ops' domination ability let's you turn an andromedon to your side, which just completely fucks up the time economy of the game to the point of breaking it.  So first of all, you turn a vast chunk of health over to your side AND you pretty much kill two enemies at the same time.  Then until that andromedon dies you have 7 (or 8, or 12) units on your side, so now even if your psi soldier doesn't use any abilites for the rest of the game they're still going to be the most offensively powerful soldier, the toughest soldier, the fastest soldier, simply because getting a billion health and 4 actions a turn does that.  I would actually say that even if psi ops ONLY got dominate and no other abilities, and it ONLY worked on andromedons which it doesn't, they would still be the best class.  (side note: still think andromedons are an amazing enemy design)

In fact the ability to trade one turn for one turn even if the enemy is high health means that stasis is arguably more useful than the other classes' last perks.  The ability to save an ally from suicidal positioning, well, that's just gravy.

I think that we need some kind of lategame pressure or psi ops shouldn't be allowed to train every ability.  The optimal way to play the game is to hold off on the final mission until you have 6 psi ops ideally with maxed out everything.  Maybe if the gift were random, and you only got to level up a normal number of perks, you might only see dominate and psi lance once or twice even if you test your entire soldier pool.  Of course that would mean the final encounter of the game would need to be toned down...

It sounds like the resistance psi faction will have to build up some kind of mana by fighting, maybe they want to add that system onto psi ops?  It would be good.  The narrative they're going for with psi ops seems to be godlike super-soldiers, going off of newcoms transhumanist themes.  If we're going to go that way I think that psi ops should either be weak to psionic enemies, or they should be stronger against psionic enemies but weak against everything else.  They should be constrained to a specific role on the team.  Like how specialists are amazing but most of their shit is beneficial during the enemy turn, you can't expect specialists to do anything at all to a full health enemy during your turn and that means that even tho specialist is OP you don't want a 6 specialist team.

[Xvareon]

What would have made things more interesting is if some of the ADVENT higher-ups had the "Neural Feedback" ability. How this worked in Enemy Within was that if an enemy used a psi power on you or a soldier nearby, they would take damage proportional to the power of the psionic attack, and all their psi powers would be put on cooldown. It didn't affect the psi power's chances of success and didn't stop any damage, but it did let you strike back at Sectoids and Ethereals for mindfraying, psi-panicking, or mind controlling you. If, say, the Gatekeeper enemy in XCOM 2 had that, you could still use Stasis on them to take them out of the fight for a turn like you can now, but your psi operative would get hit for a heavy chunk of damage (perhaps affected by Will) and be unable to use any cooldown-dependent psi powers for several turns after that.

[Chiefwaffles]

That actually seems like it could be a pretty awesome psionic mechanic.
Have a class, or psionics in general, be able to perform a ton of OP psi abilities with no cooldown, at the exception that each ability takes varying amounts of their health. So you'd have to balance the delicateness of the guy and their abilities.


And in other news, there's a new official video regarding the Assassin Chosen. I haven't watched it because I want to avoid any more spoilers at this point, but it's an official video.

[TheDarkStar]

The narrator in that video is... not fun to listen to. Mostly because it's all done in a hoarse whisper.

[scrdest]

TL;DR on the video:

When you were resisting, I studied THE BLADE.

Also @TheDarkStar - bonus points - it appears to be the official voice for the character. And the earlier information indicates these guys will join the 'What Is Radio Silence Good For Anyway' Squad. So... be ready to endure quite a lot of the hoarse whispering.

I'm also on the Meh Train on the style of XCOM2 in general and new factions in particular. It just seems... lazy. Like they were working backwards from the mechanics and didn't think much about the lore, the overall aesthetic, or internal logic. Which I suspect was the case, since they are supposed to mirror each Chosen's skillset.

So, instead of there being SEKRIT LEET Resistance groups that make sense, where you can examine their motivations, history, justification for having those mad skillz, and however little lore you can get your hands on, nod your head and think that sounds plausible, we get these hilariously cliche, 'I mixed up the design doc and my D&D notes' factions.

[Chiefwaffles]

I think it's a bit unfair to judge the factions' histories and motivations and what not before we actually get that information.

[scrdest]

I think it's a bit unfair to judge the factions' histories and motivations and what not before we actually get that information.

Sure. That's a hypothetical; if my suspicions are correct, that's what I expect.