I completed my first campaign with CIA. I also enjoyed the game greatly with it being one of the best for me on PC this year. That being said...

Sniper rifles need a minimum range.

At the point of the last mission on the CIA playthrough, every agent had: full heavy armour, Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles Medkits and Grenades.

I used Full Automatic on the Assault Rifles to deplete Awareness and used Headshots with every agent possible with Sniper Rifles and quickly thinned out all opposition. Even point black with a Sniper Rifle. Which raises the question of what the pistol is for... Since the Sniper Rifle does what a pistol does both at Longer Ranges and Close Range, with higher damage and every agent can use a sniper rifle, again what is the point of the pistol?

To fix this, I suggest Snipers having a minimum range so the Pistol has its place.

Support this. Or maybe force Snipers to end turn even if they have FP's left.

I would also add a minimum range to MG's and maybe (small one) to Assualt Rifles.

I thought sniper rifle users were forced to end turn after firing - unless they only fire a single shot (not a headshot) and have the appropriate perk?

Pistols definitely have their place - snipers can only fire once on overwatch and once on breach (IMO they should probably have a 0 for breach? Because who uses a sniper for breaching?). Pistols can fire five on overwatch and three on breach, so I use them a lot more. Plus you cannot use snipers if you're disguised.

Having said that, I definitely support min ranges for snipers - at the very least, it shouldn't be possible to get max damage from point-blank range, since it's a bit silly for snipers (but OK for most other weapons).

Another way to counter this (somewhat) would be to have the AI support each other more with overwatch fire. At the moment, I hardly ever trigger overwatch.

Or possibly have point-blank range potentially force an automatic overwatch attack from the one being attacked (even if not on overwatch), in certain circumstances - e.g. if they have a pistol/smg as their current weapon vs. any other weapon? The AI never seems to attack from point-blank range so this kind of thing would only affect the player.

On the other hand, unless you trigger overwatch with hardly any awareness, or you trigger multiple ones in one move, you're not likely to be affected by it too much due to "dodging" it - which raises the point of whether overwatch should possibly ignore (or at least reduce the effect of) awareness?

Pistols definitely have their place as it is currently, as you mentioned.

I use pistols all the time, even with sniper rifles available, for many of the reasons you mentioned.
- Shooting doesn't end your turn with pistols, and you don't need a special perk for that.
- Pistols get 3 attachment slots available compared to 2 for sniper rifles (though revolvers only get 1)
- You shoot multiple times per overwatch & breach compared to sniper rifles

That last point is huge, especially during a breach when multiple shots are necessary to take down an enemy agent because of their full awareness bar and resulting dodge(s).

Sniper rifles and pistols are balanced as it should be and it needs to be left alone. Having a minimum range for any weapon is stupid, since literally all guns do maximum damage at point blank range, which is also why it would be bad to have sniper rifles do less than maximum damage at close range.

Nerfing one thing to make something else more useful is always the wrong solution. If something sucks, find a way to make it better or more useful, you don't nerf something else.

My only complaint on balance would be to re-organize some of the guns so that their damage relative to each other is more realistic and correct, ie: a PPK, while certainly one of the coolest guns in the game, should also be one of the weakest guns in the game - NOT 2rd or 3rd most powerful pistol in the game. The only thing it should be more powerful than is the french dao. The Wembly and the Cobra revolvers need to switch places power wise, and there may be one or 2 others.

There is a reason why sniper rifles are not the desired weapon of military in close combat, despite a .50cal piercing even vehicle armour. A few additional points:

1) By that point, a 9mm should exceed 70 headshot damage and inflict 9999 in theory against unhelmeted opponents. This is a 'game', not a simulation. So should a 5.56mm, so should a 12 gauge. So should grenades, FFARS, Gatling canons from Helicopters...

2) Nerfing exists to bring balance to a game, to prevent a certain overpowered scenario where nothing else is necessary.

There is one way to make pistols great, Ballistic Shields. And ONLY Ballistic Shields can work with pistol weapons.


The AI have attacked from point-blank a few times (Normal Difficulty), AI also downed some of my agents with the Sniper Headshot (not point blank).

Agreed. I think that reason is fairly well implemented in this game by only letting you have 1 shot during a breach. One could make a good argument that any headshot should inflict 9999 damage against an unhelmeted opponent. I didn't intend to make that argument, but now that you mention it, I do think that would be a pretty cool optional feature. I should clarify, incase there was any confusion, that when I said all guns do maximum damage at point blank range, I meant that whatever a given weapon's damage range is (say 50-110) that the weapon should always do 110 at close range and that should decrease as range increases until it gets to its minimum damage at the weapons maximum range, along with whatever other factors come into the equation. The type of weapon should NOT change that. Nerfing exists either because the developers screwed up in something's initial implementation, or because a bunch of ignorant fan boys want something to bitch about. One instance is valid, and the other is not.

* edited to that I don't mean my last comment to come off as a shot at you - only that sometimes, certain groups of fans can bitch about some of the most asinine things.

Don't forget, each Agent has great potential in the weapon sets, Pistol has a good breach yes, but I go with Assault Rifles and Snipers with grenades. I can't remember the stats of the breach of the Assault Rifle. The average damage of the assault rifle out performs the pistol too, combined with the full automatic, most of the time leaves pistols as a 'finisher' (where the sniper rifle takes the role).

I agree, weapon damage should ***not*** be nerfed at minimum range, it's going to hurt close and far up to the optimal range. The damage however, does not work like this in the current game, the head shots against higher hp targets(it makes no sense, unless you scraped an ear - all the time), or surviving grenades under your feet, FFARs or Gatling Cannons. If we insist 9999 damage for the headshot, why this value, and why not automatic death from a Gatling. Or do you propose automatic death from a Gatling? ( I actually don't mind that.)

A minimum range however represents optimisation at particular ranges (Battletech and XCOM) to which the lesser damage from the Sniper Rifle at closer range represents the Agent unable to accurately get a shot of and takes a snap shot, grazing the opponent Agent. The pistols would be the inverse, grazing at the longer ranges.

As to nerfing, yes you do get the fanboys, but I don't think that should distract us from keeping the Game itself fun and balanced (which in my case, I don't find any persuasion to arm my agents with a pistol, none whatsoever.) Each gun is a tool for a particular use, just not getting that with the pistols in Phantom Doctrine.