Also, nerf force field.
Did I mention nerfing force field? (And thermodynamic destab, for that matter.)
Months ago Styg said he was considering giving Force Field blocks a hit point value so they could be destroyed. If the AI would go after the field, that would be a pretty good nerf. I'd probably still take Force User though on every psi build for the extra punchiness. A ThermoD fix would require addressing the big bugbear of psi, in order to be a graceful fix and not just a quick kludge - the fact that psi scales too high with the combination of flat-% results as well as scaled numbers, and can then apply those to multiple targets. Like, TK Proxy -> Implosion -> TK Punch. Double percents,
then double scaled values on the tiny fraction that remains. That's just too much. But if Implosion and TK Punch shared a cooldown? Or if triggering one put, say, a 2-turn cooldown on the other (so you couldn't just LTI it away)? Well, that might make things more interesting. Similarly, ThermoD does scaled % damage (and allows you to pick the highest-health target you can subsequently kill, meaning it actually double-scales the percentage) to uncapped targets, meaning its multiplier is whatever number of enemies you can group up - and, as much as I love the game, the AI isn't world-class. You can group the entire Lunatic Mall in a tight ball with one bear trap and a flashbang. So you'd probably need to decouple the ThermoD damage potential from its target potential. If its damage was divided across targets, instead of copied to them, well that might make it more interesting. If damage fell away with distance from source
and then spread, ThermoD might not be any more powerful than a well-placed grenade, while still retaining a uniqueness. And of course, you could fix all that all day and I could still faceroll the game by dodging robots then LoC+Enraging everything else, everywhere, every time
Still, I've always been of the opinion that games should have an easymode, and I don't mean an Easy setting. Psi is way more interesting than tin can AR or sledge juggernaut; it would be a shame to make the easiest option one of the least varied. I can always limit myself if I want a challenge when playing psi - tuning the game to be relentlessly hard is the best way to drive away a big portion of potential player base.
