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[mastahcheese]

Huh, so I'm not the only one who thinks of ways to reorganize the skill trees. That's good to know.

You know what I would want? I would like for the MEC to be removed, in order to replace it with ALL armor working like MECs, have each piece of armor customizable, so you could upgrade some with grappling hooks, some with cloaking modules, some with jetpacks, what have you.
Although if you did that, I'd want it to work more like genetics, where you have different slots that you can make choices in, so a single piece of armor might let you choose a grappling hook for the arm slot, internal systems for the chest slot, etc.

[EnigmaticHat]

My idea for a sniper tree that turns them into something other than killing everything without ever being at risk:

Gunslinger
Squadsight/In The Zone
Damn Good Ground/Battle Scanner
Executioner/Flush
Disabling Shot/Gunslinger
Lightning Reflexes
Bullet Swarm/Rapid Fire

And yes, the obvious error is not an error.  Bear in mind that In the Zone should require the sniper rifle.  Assaults wouldn't get lightning reflexes in this.  What do you guys think? XD

[Sindain]

Its a bit... odd.
Almost seems like not actually being a sniper would be best with that, with double gunslinger the "sniper" would be matching assault rifle damage!
Also, why rapid fire next to bullet swarm? bullet swarm is basically rapid fire but better. It would be like if someone put rapid reactions and sentinel on the same spot.

[WillowLuman]

But... assaults and supports are the only ones who actually need lightning reflexes. They wouldn't do the other classes much good. Is putting it on snipers just to eliminate it from play? Or is this a close-range oriented sniper tree?

[GreatWyrmGold]

-snip-
Probably going to change them some more, this is just some initial ideas. Fire away though if you have an opinion.

Springs to mind quickly:
Why is Headshot moved to third rank* rather than being the entry ability? And why is Battle Scanner moved to the top?
I like how the HEAT ammo and Shredder Rocket are at the same level. Special ammo or special rocket?
What would happen if you moved Fire Rocket to another place, or better yet another class?

*Can't remember most of the ranks' positions.

So I finally took the time to finish the Normal run, and holy fuck Mental Feedback is powerful when you have high Will soldiers. Two of the three final Ethereals were killed by Feedback, including the Uber-Ethereal.

Remind me, how did these idiots figure out FTL travel?

And yes, the obvious error is not an error.  Bear in mind that In the Zone should require the sniper rifle.

That's the obvious error?

Assaults wouldn't get lightning reflexes in this.

That's insane. Assaults freaking need Lightning Reflexes.


Here's an idea: Multiclassing. (Probably mixed with being able to give rookies rocket launchers, machine guns, shotguns, or sniper rifles, if you wanted to accept lowered hit chances.) Thoughts on how it could work?

[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah, it was intended to be odd.  Also to nerf squadsight into the ground, because achieving a squadsight sniper is the single biggest difficulty drop in the entire game.

I was trying to find skills that would help close range but not long range.  Headshot is out, since it helps squadsight too much.  Snap shot is out, since it helps squadsight and can't be across from squadsight since whatever is opposed to squadsight needs to be amazing.  Flush and disabling shot were intended to change the role of squadsight from damage to support.  Gunslinger is basically snapshot lite, and can't help squadsight, so I added it twice.  Lightning reflexes requires you to see the enemy and vaguely fits with the flavor of a gunslinger sniper, so that's in.  Low profile is apparently broken so I didn't add it.  Rapid fire is next to bullet storm to support the gunslinger style, because you need to stand still to use bulletstorm, and the strength of the pistol lies in the ability to move.

I don't actually intend to make this, I just thought it would be entertaining to see what I could come up with.  Also my best thought on how to nerf squadsight involved removing snapshot from the game, so that probably says something about how valid that particular skill choice is.  If I were capable of hex editing I'd make it so that the sniper has its "optimal" range at exactly the limit of LOS, because that would make snipers less accurate over crazy long ranges and thus make colonel snipers used probably occasionally get a shot of <90% to hit.

[WillowLuman]

But how are they still a sniper if the optimum build is a close-range pistolier?

[EnigmaticHat]

-snip-
Probably going to change them some more, this is just some initial ideas. Fire away though if you have an opinion.

Springs to mind quickly:
Why is Headshot moved to third rank* rather than being the entry ability? And why is Battle Scanner moved to the top?
I like how the HEAT ammo and Shredder Rocket are at the same level. Special ammo or special rocket?
What would happen if you moved Fire Rocket to another place, or better yet another class?

*Can't remember most of the ranks' positions.

You either can't or shouldn't, depending on how they coded the game.  The problem is that launch rocket is both an ability AND a secondary.  This means that either gaining launch rocket would lose you a pistol, OR that prior to gaining the ability to launch a rocket the heavy would be carrying an empty rocket launcher around.  Or the game just explodes because you gave it a case it doesn't know how to deal with.

And yes, the obvious error is not an error.  Bear in mind that In the Zone should require the sniper rifle.

That's the obvious error?

No, the obvious error is that gunslinger is listed twice.  I edited the second sentence in without thinking about how it read with the first :/

Assaults wouldn't get lightning reflexes in this.

That's insane. Assaults freaking need Lightning Reflexes.

No, they don't.  If lightning reflexes were replaced with literally nothing, assaults would still be balanced with supports and heavies (although not snipers, of course).  Hell, an assault Colonel with nothing but Run and Gun, Rapid Fire, and Resilience would still have a place on my team.

Don't get me wrong, lightning reflexes is a great ability.  But assaults have like 4 great abilities, and there are ways to deal with overwatch without automatically negating it.

But how are they still a sniper if the optimum build is a close-range pistolier?

They aren't.  Changing the class name is more modding than I'd be capable of.

And yes, I get it guys, it was a dumb skill tree.

[mastahcheese]

Actually, giving people a second class wouldn't be difficult, just make it work like psychics do, as a sub-class.
Make is so there aren't any classes that get a rocket launcher, and make a "rocketeer" sub-class that gives all the rocket launcher based abilities. That way, everybody gets their pistols, even the heavies, until you decide to make someone a demolitionist.
You could even re-wire the psychics to go along with this "sub-classing" idea and make it a whole shtick. Maybe every class only gets rifles, and sub-classes let you replace the secondary pistol slot with something different, like rockets, or heck, even sniper rifle (assuming you changed the way the sniper rifle worked to make it special ability based, because a sniper/rifle combo would be overkill as all get out the way it works now).
...Actually, if you did it that way, you could even take my idea of making all armor customizable, and even extending it to the main weapon that everyone used. Proper underslung weapons, anyone?
(Actually, with that idea, you could simply customize the rifles to have longer barrels and scopes, making them effectively snipers anyway, so the "sniper" sub-class idea would be moot, anyway. Hmm...)

[Jelle]

About the sniper, I'm balancing with a hefty aim nerf in mind. Last playthrough my sniper was stuck with a default aim of 65 (you can get up to what....120 normally?) throughout the game, but still managed very good odds if not 100% in the right situations. Their insane aim stat growth kind of makes aim trade offs and smart positioning pointless down the road.

Springs to mind quickly:
Why is Headshot moved to third rank* rather than being the entry ability? And why is Battle Scanner moved to the top?
I like how the HEAT ammo and Shredder Rocket are at the same level. Special ammo or special rocket?
What would happen if you moved Fire Rocket to another place, or better yet another class?

*Can't remember most of the ranks' positions.

You either can't or shouldn't, depending on how they coded the game.  The problem is that launch rocket is both an ability AND a secondary.  This means that either gaining launch rocket would lose you a pistol, OR that prior to gaining the ability to launch a rocket the heavy would be carrying an empty rocket launcher around.  Or the game just explodes because you gave it a case it doesn't know how to deal with.

Should be possible to give another class the skill. For instance as a test I made an assault with the headshot skill, wich is pretty darn pointless since you need a sniper rifle to use it. 
I imagine it's the same with the rocket, you'd need a launcher equiped to actually use the skill. I suppose you could mod another class to carry a launcher if you wanted to give them the skill. Mec is another matter though, no idea what would happen there since it lacks the necesary animations.

I'll try it out later, for science!

[Sean Mirrsen]

The whole point of the sniper is being able to hit stuff for ludicrous damage from far away. I'd even go so far as to make Squadsight the default sniper skill, instead of Headshot. No use for a scope on the rifle if it doesn't give you a shooting distance beyond twenty meters. Headshot could tie with Snapshot - you either get the ability to shoot at any time at reduced accuracy, or to hit for extra critical chance every second shot.

No, the skills I'd nerf are those that make Squadsight seem as broken as they are.

My changes to the Snipers would be like this, based somewhat on sniper-like philosophy:

Squaddie: Squadsight
Corporal: Snapshot/Headshot (either you shoot fast or you shoot true)
Sergeant: Gunslinger/Battle Scanner (learn to fight in close or give yourself more vision to keep your distance)
Lieutenent: Executioner/Disabling Shot (shoot to disable or shoot to kill)
Captain: Opportunist/Damn Good Ground (advantage in positioning or timing)
Major: Double Tap
Colonel: Low Profile/In the Zone (either be unseen or destroy enemies before they see you)

Something like that. Elimination of stacking advantages, with perhaps some tweaking of the exact bonuses of each ability.

[Jelle]

The whole point of the sniper is being able to hit stuff for ludicrous damage from far away. ... No use for a scope on the rifle if it doesn't give you a shooting distance beyond twenty meters.

Yes however this is a specialty that doesn't entirely rely on having insanely high aim. Contrary to other weapons wich have an ideal accuracy range and drop off in aim over longer distances, the sniper rifle as a unique trait has an ideal accuracy range with drop off the closer  the target is instead. Even if you cut down on aim the sniper rifle still is a lot better at long range then other weapons.

In fact and here's the beauty of it, if you reduce the snipers aim growth you stop getting free 100% hits all the time, making it that you need to either position on high ground to get those tricky shots off, or opt for mobility and getting in closer for an aim bonus from flanking/aiming angles (wich really should be a default setting imo).

[EnigmaticHat]

-snip-

Squadsight+Headshot+Battlescanner+Disabling Shot+Opportunist+Double Tap+Low Profile

Nice nerf, you just made me take disabling shot instead of gunslinger... and I get two of the most broken skills in the tree earlier as a bonus.  Clearly squadsight sniping will be less effective than it is in my normal build.  And you allow Double Tap + In the Zone, or Squadsight + Snap shot, both of which are just ridiculous.

The whole point of the sniper is being able to hit stuff for ludicrous damage from far away. ... No use for a scope on the rifle if it doesn't give you a shooting distance beyond twenty meters.

Yes however this is a specialty that doesn't entirely rely on having insanely high aim. Contrary to other weapons wich have an ideal accuracy range and drop off in aim over longer distances, the sniper rifle as a unique trait has an ideal accuracy range with drop off the closer  the target is instead. Even if you cut down on aim the sniper rifle still is a lot better at long range then other weapons.

In fact and here's the beauty of it, if you reduce the snipers aim growth you stop getting free 100% hits all the time, making it that you need to either position on high ground to get those tricky shots off, or opt for mobility and getting in closer for an aim bonus from flanking/aiming angles (wich really should be a default setting imo).

Nope.  A properly positioned sniper can have 100% to hit on an alien in full cover.  That represents at least 140 total aim, or... 105 aim with a rookie's stats, which would mean 65+% to hit on an enemy in full cover.  This is already excellent, so it doesn't matter what the sniper's aim growth is.  Also, snapshot carries a -10% to hit, so any aim penalty that applies to snipers will just nerf them harder.

Unless you mean giving the sniper rifle the same range attribute of other weapons, but... A that would probably involve Hex editing, and B that would mean snipers become less accurate for using squadsight.  So the only point of the ability would be making the sniper invincible, because for damage dealing he might as well be closer.

[Sean Mirrsen]

How about just introducing an accuracy penalty for targets in Squadsight? Also, Double Tap and In The Zone don't synergize well. All it gets you is the  theoretical ability to start the Zone spree with a non-one-hit-kill.

[Jelle]

Nope.  A properly positioned sniper can have 100% to hit on an alien in full cover.  That represents at least 140 total aim, or... 105 aim with a rookie's stats, which would mean 65+% to hit on an enemy in full cover.  This is already excellent, so it doesn't matter what the sniper's aim growth is.

...No. Or I should say I'm not following your train of thought. A brand new squaddie sniper has an aim of 75, a fully leveled 105, without modifiers. Take an alien in full cover and a sniper on higher ground and you get 55 and 85 respectively, so long as they are not to close. Only with an additional aim modifier (scope is a no brainer on sniper) can you get to 100 with a maxed sniper. Or a chance to hit of 55 without further modifiers on a squaddie, wich like you say isalready quite good, hence why immense stat growth really isn't needed.
To get 100 aim a squaddie sniper would require a whopping 45 aim bonus to get to 100. Let's say combat drugs+ground+executioner+holo targeting 20+10+10+10=50 would do the trick. That's not counting aiming angles if they are relevant/actived.

That's all without extra defense enemies may have. Some aliens have better innate defense, so thigns vary.

Also, snapshot carries a -10% to hit, so any aim penalty that applies to snipers will just nerf them harder.

That's the idea yes.