I think AI pathfiding should be improved -AI agent has no problem locating our operators, even if he never saw the kill, just by missing patrol report, but when you raise alert, enemy reinforcements or enemies have trouble navigating to location of your operators, despite shooting loud weapons, seeing bodies, having guards in sight the same turn or the following turn before being killed[they can report the position through radio, if they arent killed before having eyes on our operator]. Its really funny on one map the one with car mechanic workshop, when i hid for four turns on the highest room, the one that holds the enemy agent, without any guard coming into the room.They clearly had the capability to get there in four turns. Also a small suggestion, if enemy troops are already overly cautious as i showed above, at least make use of it -ie. introduce leapfrogging, two enemies move forward with all their moves, while rest move one MP and then overwatch with full auto or something like that. Then the earlier group that overwatched, move two tiles, while the latter overwatch. That would be really hard to counter, right now you can just catch 5 or more enemies[mainly reinforcements] without any overwatches, and just shoot flanking shots all the time. Its even worse with 1 ap move and 1 ap shoot and then move to cover, same with opening doors and taking shots.
Veevoir how much days took you to complete the game? Im on day 60, im taking my time, i want to try all things, upgrade all shit, generally i feel that im overpowered because of not rushing things in order the campaign wants me[ie. not doing story missions immediately as they show].
And the upcoming patch worries me greatly since i see lot of dumbing down. I might stay on 1.02 if such thing happen. The only thing i think is good, that sometimes reinforcements would just happen in your face, basically enemies could flank your operatives, coming out of nowhere, since spawn was very close. Reinforcements should spawn in logical places -ie gates, main entrances, rooftops if enemy heli can be present on the mission.This could also benefit/go well from increasing the info you get from scouting the mission prior, you should get information about approximate enemy presence, how highly armed they are, how much reinforcements there will be, delivery method of reinforcements -trucks or heli.
So slightly changing reinforcements could be good, but overdoing it, spawning the reinforcements as far away from player as they could be really bad for the game.
Ranges and sidestep -not a problem for me. LMGs could get more downsides as in current meta, they are really powerful. Give them detection like heavy armor, operative movement penalty etc.Assault rifles could also get some downsides, since there's no reason for non disguised soldiers to bring anything but assault rifle/lmg or sniper rifle. Late game shotguns have a niche though, but smg are outclassed by assault rifles, so only used on disguised operators, which is kinda meh.
Buffing the laser perk is also retarded, its already one of the most powerful perks, since even if you fucked up and move in such a way that you ended without movement points, and enemy flanking you, you could use it to deny him shooting you in the next turn. Stripping the enemy with all awareness will mean, that you can also kill said enemy without a problem with headshot on next turn. Brainless as hell.
Bitching about combat is the last thing i would consider, when there are things that should be improved in stealth department [and are quite glaring when your first time play the game], that is first and foremost the bread and butter of this game. But to steam retards, they see the problems in combat, and almost no complaints about some stealth mechanics. Make you think how these people play the PD... Combat is fine as it is, its the stealth that needs some love
And BTW does armor reduction is applied on flanked shots on enemy that has no awareness? Seems it isnt, since i had enemy with 12 armor and 50 health, and froma flanking shot that did 52 damage killed him outright, and he should be left with 10 health. Weird.