Bunch of suggestion after playtrough 0.1.10.0

[Fenix]

This playtrough was on Normal, experience system - Oddity.
Pure Psi build.
I'll start with what I got in the final.
16 lvl, almost 17, without 1 point.
This build hit hard.
In final battle, he did 250 crit dmg with Electrokinesis on Faceless, 250 crit with Neural Overload (Faceless), 284 crit dmg with NO on Faceless Mindreader, 162 crit dmg with Telekinetic Punch on Plasma Sentinel (and 162 was resisted), 226 crit dmg with TP on Faceless (96 was resisted).
Bilocation deal 26-54 dmg3 times in a turn, and one of 6 hit (or 9) it's a crit around 60-70.
And this is without

Doppelgangers should now properly ignore target's resistances with their attacks

I know about changes presented in Dev Log #28: Energy Shields, and I'm a little concerned about it.
In this playtrough my FenBarbiturat walked like a tank through a rotten fence the entire game except Burrowers in GMS compaund (love these guys)), one stealth ambush, and maybe Plasma Sentinels.
Why else would reinforce the strongest build of the game? 

Perhaps some wish me a painful death for these words - but why so many skillpoints?
I'm a master of all - high Lockpick and Hacking, skyhigh damage-dealing psi-skills, high Evasion and Dodge, capped Electronics and average Biology and Persuasion.
And that's only 16 lvl, so 20 lvl results in plus 4x40.
Maybe we should nerfe skillpoints income a little, or at least nerfe synergies on psi-skills down to 5%?

Second - why so many Psi Boosters? Seriously.
I ended up with 77 PB. 1\2 of a game I even didn't go for mindshrooms, and the last 1\3 I even didn't picked up the one which I passed.
You can should lower respawn rate, maybe in 2-3 times?
And that guy that sold Mindshrooms in Junkyard, 5 tomorrow instead of 10 today sound great.
And price on PB should be higher in 2-3 times.
I mean, we need to make PB more inaccessible, to raise its value.
Now it's as common as cave hoppers.

Added more psi boosters to early areas to ease up the early game for psi characters who need those rather than bullets

Would it not be better to do instead "Added more psi boosters to early areas to ease up the early game" that doctor Pasquale give 5-10 PB to a player character with a words "That's all I can do for you" and the like?

About Oddity system - we need some kind of list, where we can see number of oddities we already have, and what we can have (from creatures). I remember I forgot that already have all oddities from these bloody bloodsucker frogs from hell, and killed at least 12 of them, before realizing it.

About economy - this changes didn't do any difference for me, as you can see.
I sold everything that could be bought.
The only suggestion about trading process - could you place a locker near all trader?
It was very tediously to run from one to another trader with all loot, and if I just drop related swag on the floor near trader, it ruin all ambiance a little. )
What if locker belongs to merchant, and we may redeem him, or rent, or get it with discount after minor quest for that merchant, or we could just win a locker in the cards?

I am most concerned about fights.
Why it is so easy?
The only answer I can get - AI. Potentially NPC AI can do all that player character can do - use weapon, equipment, and feats correctly.
It's the only way I see fights can be challenging.

[Fenix]

Due attachment restrictions.

[Fenix]

And again.

[Fenix]

Final.

[Fenix]

Start is always hard.
Usually I use crossbow from Quinton's quest, and retreat 3-4 times at doctor Pasquale for free healing.
I shoot Rathounds trough fence, use all bolts, knife if I have it.
It's all hard until moment char got 4 lvl, maybe 5 lvl at worst.
Then next hard moment - GMS compaund, first Sentry Bot (we need EMP grenades or adrenaline and a few AP rounds), then my lovely Burrowers.
After that - stealth ambush, when I get armor +42 stealth and shoked dagger with 15-30 electro dmg, which help with Plasma Sentinel, which was the last semi-hard thing.

BTW, about Plasma Sentinel. When it transformed in plasma turret, did you know, that if you walk it around, it spend full turn to turn his hot barrel to you?
I mean, in that form PS is completely helpless like a kitten, if there is a place to get around it from the rear (sorry for my poor language).

Well, I want to add something I forgot to add. )
We need map. How about map similiar to Geneforge map?

[Elhazzared]

I am unsure how psi skill will scale with the current game as it is but quite frankly I highly doubt it will be better than a grenade/sniper user. I made a psi based character in the previous version and yes, at a point I thought it was overpowered as past the GMS I started face rolling everything with the sole exception of the depot A but mostly due to the bug of my stealth not working as intended which meant engagements were not going the way they should.

Still when I made a character for guns and grenades it was an absolute face roll on everything that moved. Everything from start to end was incredibly easy... Yes, even the start was a lot easier, only the cost of bullets was a bit harsher but even that was managed... EMP grenades took care of the bots and yes, I could buy 3 of them which nearly killed the robots in the GMS. Any large groups of enemies instantly died to my grenades. Small numbers of enemies were either dispached by one shot from a sniper or 7 rounds bursts from my assault rifle and I could also use much better armor.

At the end of the day, I had about less 1/3 of the money I had on my psi user but I had much less efforth to go through the content in the game... So if you sugest that PSI is overpowered, I tell you to try aiming for a build like that. Remember to include skills to craft your own grenades from the very start and then tell me, after you finish it how hard was it.

Now on the subject of difficulty. Yeah, things could be made harder, there is no doubt about that but with my Psi user I've discovered that you can get killed very easly if you're not careful. Once I just wondered into the wrong part of the town, I was killing the left overs of the gang I had helped clean out and forgot to get my stealth on. Sniper takes the initiative and one shots me. Plain and simple... The mutants with the dogs in the depot A were always a problem if you couldn't just eliminate them all before they started beating on you... I belive that currently the balance of the game is actually done like that. Things kill you extremelly fast and you kill things extremelly fast... At least on the most common builds... If you want to go through things in a more slow pace I belive mellee with metal armor will give you that, you kill enemies slower, enemies kill you slowly too but I don't think that overall things will change much in the difficulty depart.

At the end of the day I don't really have a problem with the difficulty except the beggining cause it's boring having to go back for free healings all the time. A better starting armor would have been a good thing. Like a 20/4 or a 21/4 leather armor... But yeah, I think it can maybe be upped slightly, ever so slightly, but it's mostly balancedfrom what I had seen previously. The only thing I don't know is the newest content.

[Fenix]

Even the largest caliber does not give you the opportunity to completely block all enemy, or create doppelgaggers, immuned to all except laser\electr.
As psion you can deal with huge crowd in 1-2 turn, and provide for yourself with survivability that never be available to other.
you can froze\fear sa AoE, can stun living\mechanical, froze them to retreat, block a passage.
What shooter build may oppose to it? He can barely shoot two times in a turn. Only grenades?
More than that - you don't need invest in throwing or grenade-making.
With a future update, Telekinetic Punch can probably deal 500? or 1000 dmg I assume.

[Elhazzared]

Throw a mk5 grenade and EVERYTHING in the AoE dies! You don't need CC or whatever because nothing will survive it, there might be some very small exceptions like extremelly armoured enemies but for those all that is needed is one shot from the sniper.

Yes you need to invest into throwing, but you know what. I invest into throwing and guns. You invest into 3 different psi skills. At the end of the day I'm investing into one less combat skill and having it easier.

What I mean is that psi isn't OP. Now some of the possible future updates might give the psi user some OPness, I have no doubt but that will be tested and will be tonned down. Still grenades+guns can deal with absolutly anything and you won't even break a sweat. mass stunning, fear, Mass doppleganger+walloff... I just throw a grenade and carry on. It's much more OP but it needs to be so because they don't have as much utillity as the psi has.

[Styg]

Thanks for the feedback, Fenix.

I wouldn't say the combat is too easy, though I might need to look at the late game scaling of the psi abilities. Some of them might be too powerful now and with the coming feat changes they will only get stronger.

It's probably a matter of you playing the game better than the average dude, so I might need to add "hard" difficulty for people like you.

Psi boosters are not meant to be rare, just a resource you must manage, like ammo. Concerning the "more psi boosters in early areas" change it practically means there will be a couple psi boosters as static loot in the SGS outpost areas to help psi characters get rolling.

I might add oddity list at some point, it has been suggested a number of times now.

I don't agree that player receives too many skill points. If you max out each skill you take you can only take 8 out of 22 skills which I think is ok. You have enough to make a versatile character, but you're far from being able to take everything.

World map is something that has been discussed many times. The answer currently is a strong maybe.

[Fenix]

Thanks for the feedback, Fenix.

I look forward to when you released your game. So you're welcome. )

It's probably a matter of you playing the game better than the average dude, so I might need to add "hard" difficulty for people like you.

How about you'll add atmospheric description to difficulty "easy" (and "hard" if you do it)).
Like - "your gene pool was great, so that you get the benefits of such and such" in the style of the game?
However, not far from here backgrounds system, like in Arcanum. 

[Fenix]

I invest into throwing and guns. You invest into 3 different psi skills.

You are right, didn't think about it.

Still grenades+guns can deal with absolutly anything and you won't even break a sweat.

If happens that you can't cover with explosion all enemies at once  - you are dead, isn't it?
What if AI will be taught a few tricks like trowing grenade at an invisible target to cover it with AoE?

[Elhazzared]

Even if you can't cover all enemies with it it's very likelly that the vast majority of the enemies are dead. If what's left is still that dangerous, throw another greandes, the flashbang kind and the rest of them are stunned for you to pick them off one by one with the sniper.

As for AI being taught a few tricks like throwing grenades at stealthed targets... That would be stupid in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, no one tossess a grenade at an empty space hoping to kill something that they don't know it's there!.. It would make sense if you could attack enemies from stealth and remain in stealth that they would throw a grenade or two at random places in hopes to try and find you. Even then you have to realise the AI uses mk1, maybe mk2 grenades (ok that was in the previous update, now I am not sure if they cn use better grenades in the new areas) which will no doubt hurt, but are far from killing you.

[Elhazzared]

True but usually every character gets a little bit into some type of crafting or another so taking a maxed chemistry doesn't really really hurts that much.

Also no, you don't need 3 maxed characteristics, you need a high perception and somewhat high str if you want to be able to get the feat for extra shots on burst fire. You don't need a high int nor a high agi or dex.

As for the grenade damage. I dunno, unless they somehow heavly modified the enemies, the mk5 was always 1shot kill on everything other than the depot A mutants, the spiting acid ones. Even those when they survived it was on a sliver of health... Everything else no matter what it was took huge amounts of damage as it should.

[Elhazzared]

Possibly. I've told before that the new requirements were ridiculous because I feared that without at very least mk4 grenades it woul be incredibly hard for a gunner to actually be able to deal with depot A. At very least something that almost guarantees a kill on the dogs is required and as far as i recall, mk4 grenades were that, they would either kill or leave them on a sliver of health... It's not really psionics that are too good, it's more like anything not psionics has a lack of utillity.

As for the crafting... I dunno where you will be when you reach the end of the current content, level wise. But with int at 5 which normal, a level 11 or 12 character should craft mk5.

[Zephyros]

Personally, I have only played Psi-based characters from start to (the current) finish because they seem very strong. I maxed both Will and Intelligence and max all Psi skills + Mechanics/Electronics/Tailoring for crafting, and intermittently put points in Lockpick/Hacking and the other two crafting skills. In combat, my character has access to AoE CCs as well as the ability to chain stuns/fears/disables on single/few targets, and most enemies die to a single crit from Neural overload, empowered by Mental Breakdown (which can be cast as an AoE, with Locus.) I imagine that the new buff to Telekinetic Punch + Opportunistic attack + the shatter effect from Cryogenic Induction will result in a similar outcome. All this is possible with moderate int to craft a crit chance/crit damage Thought Control headband (or the money/time to buy one.)

As I haven't really played many other types of characters to suitable depth I cannot comment on how it compares but a psi/int-based character is incredibly fun and rewarding.