Upcoming Balance Changes

[Alexri]

All anyone uses in that class is the wolfhound because its the best, making all other pistols crap, So by trions logic it's OP and needs a nerf to bring it in line with other pistols

I have a Wolverine, Wolfhound, and a VBI TACC, and I tend to favor the Wolverine. Using it as a backup weapon since it can most easily take down an entire Volge emergency on its own, and quickly

[XxLakota3617xX]

Pistols is the weapon type with least crap weapons. Northstar Flare, Wolfhound, Wolverine, and VBI TACC Autopistols are all extremely usable weapons.

That's it right there. Make sure to get a nerf ready for pistols as well. They are OP when people are doing millions in damage and outpointing SAW users. There, now i'm thinking like a Trion employee.

[Maitreakow]

I'm going to say that I understand always considering re-adjusting balance but balance shouldn't be to make all guns so similar that people feel they have no real choice. And balance does also mean that a skilled player can use any weapon and achieve good results. It shouldn't mean that a poor player can use a weapon and from the start rule the game. Any weapon in the game should be a viable way to assault particular enemies effectively. And there just should not be a "one weapon fits all" mentality-one weapon that works no matter the situation (foes) or abilities of the player. As one poster stated some of what they could look at to adjust balance is the crit damage weapons do, but the real problem is some weapons need to be buffed, not nerfed.

SAWs don't need to have base damage nerfed. There merely needed perhaps if anything a re-assessment of the bonus bumps and things like that. The problem comes into play when you have a SAW that can get double damage bonuses as well as the Assassin synergy. Every weapon just needs more clearly to have real downsides along with the upsides of power/mag size/shooting speed, and so on. SAWs have a clear vulnerability in reload speed but that can be offset with perks. It also is a slow shooter with considerable inherent recoil. But it's shooting speed can be temporarily buffed as well.

I'd rather see weapons being more in line with real world mechanics rather than changing what is true about their nature. And I'd rather have their effectiveness be more dependent upon what type of enemy they are being used against.

Larger weapons should from the start have been heavier. Just as the mini-gun used in emergencies and hot shots is. If I'm running with a pistol then I should be able to run. If I'm running with a rocket launcher equipped, then I should need the run and gun perk to actually be able to run ALMOST as fast as if I'm carrying a SAW. And carrying a SAW should make me slower than carrying a pistol. It should also be faster to aim and shoot a pistol than a SAW and RL. It isn't truly the weapons alone that are off; it's the mechanics. SAWs should be able to tear things apart but with less accurate aim than some other guns. So increased accuracy shouldn't bring them in line with burst fire ARs-they should still be less accurate. They do already seem in PvE to have a discernable drop off-in shooting at sniping range they don't tend to hit every time except unless you have the right EGO picked and the right perks,mods, and synergy.

The power of the SAW is not the problem. It's the fact that Trion has really not assessed the impact of all of the buffs available for each weapon - they have not considered what each weapon CAN BECOME.

In effect, you could arm people with toxic teddy bears that they have to throw at a foe and with the right buffs (perks, mods, bonuses, synergy) they could be more deadly than shooting them with a Disruptor. That's at the core of the problem.

We've all come to realize that Infectors are Trion's "pet weapons"-the ones they want to show as setting this game apart from others. And that's fine. They're different. But they also bear out another problem. Where other weapons do have some over-powering abilities that can be buffed to be better, one specific Infector starts off needing no buffs to be over-powered in numerous ways with virtually no down sides to it.

The Immunizer would be fine if it had downsides like the other infectors do. Again, it's about each weapon in the game being limited to some over-powered (normal power) effects and having real vulnerabilities when in use.

The Immunizer has sniper range. It does not require good aim. It can hit someone in cloak even when the shooter cannot see the cloaked person. It has homing ability. In fact, all it takes is for the shooter to hit a target maybe one or two times and then it's possible to keep shooting that target in cover, inside a building, or anywhere, and hit repeatedly. It causes blindness. It has tick (bug) damage. Even rolling does not fully stop this damage or easily remove the larva sac from your head. It spawns bugs for damage to nearby targets. And even "semi-auto" merely means a slight interruption in rapid fire shooting.

Anyone that denies it has too many over-powered features is someone that doesn't really want to understand all this or that paid 750k scrip for the one they use in PvP. The Immunizer is the ultimate stealth weapon with zero vulnerabilities for the user unless they use it up close-but that isn't how it's used. And I don't think distance is the problem. It should be an anti-sniper gun but it should also require some aiming. It shouldn't be able to ALWAYS blind a target. And it shouldn't be able to hit targets when they run for cover or hide-the homing thing is ridiculous. But I'm not saying they should take away all of its powerful characteristics. I just think some things need to be re-assessed. At the very least a player shouldn't be able to just shoot it at no one in particular and hit them and then use the homing capability to keep shooting for the kill.

The reality of what weapons (that are real) can do in the real world should be considered. Shotguns should be powerful at close range with significant drop off and buffs should help that range but not in a ridiculous way. Rocket Launchers should be the most powerful weapons in the game-they are rockets for pete's sake. But they should be slow to aim, slow to reload, heavy to carry.

Pistols pretty much do make sense now. Magnums should be powerful and have range, but should also have recoil and be less accurate. The faster they fire, the more the recoil.

The problem is the other LMGs are just garbage. In real life LMGs are not weak but they are just not so accurate and due to high rate of fire, they are prone to even less accuracy because of recoil. The SAW should be more accurate because the weight of the gun should in some way help to minimize recoil. So the other LMGs should be able to shoot faster with less recoil effect.

What's wrong isn't that a base SAW can do 400+ damage, but that some other base LMGs or ARs can only do 40. And they may have incredibly small mags. If that's the reason for nerfing the SAW then what Trion really should do is consider creating better base stats for the weaker weapons. They have no over-powered effects that would make them desirable.


And Trion really has to separate PvP and PvE usage for all weapons. One of the things that really could help is to have PvP with more variety, including classes of players so that people have to adjust their loadouts for different enemies. As it is all players in the game are really just the same vanilla version with some variation-this is especially obvious in PvP with variety only related to perks and somewhat to shields. Different races, different classes, and so on could require different loadouts instead of just constantly nerfing whatever weapon is the most used right now.

^^ this
Thank you for taking the time to put forth a well reasoned and calm discussion.

[Sdric]

I don't know if the Devs check other topics about the SAW, so I quote myself and point out what exactly bother players about the SAW nerf.
It's less because of the SAW being powerful, but most of the alternatives being absolutely no fun to use.

The point is ARs and LMGs suffer from bad design.
A zoomed Assault Rifle is less accurate than an unzoomed SMG.
SMGs are fine, they coul maybe need a small range advantage over shotguns (not much, maybe +4 Falloff damage) but in comparison to Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Grenade Launchers and Infectors they do their job.

Assault Rifles are normally the medium-long range precision weapons.
LMGs are the body-shot medium range weapons.

However, at 15m an enemy head is about 1/8th of an AR's crosshair.
At their current state AR's simply can't fullfill their alloted role.
Not to mention the huge Falloff damage that makes an FRC AR take 30 bullets to down a Rhino at 30m.

LMGs whatover don't fullfil their roles either.
Disruptors are designed as bullet sprayers, however - they have bursts that totally don't fit this design.
With the nerf of Nano effects there really has to be an increase in fire rate AND pure damage to make this weapon worth using.

Rockers are not that far off, however - their crosshair doesn't seem to match their accuray, I've noticed many times that I miss an enemy right in the middle of my crosshair.
Bullet grouping has to be rethought.
Again this weapon is not working as intended.

Last but not least the Thunder LMG.
An LMG that is designed to be an accurate bullet sprayer.
Sadly it feels like sprinkling with warm, enjoyable water.
The crit multiplier is so incredibly low (1.2) that you can't even take advantage of the accuracy.
When I see a player pointing a Thunder LMG at me I turn around and 1-shot him with my Sniper Rifle.
This weapon requires at least a 15% greater magazine and 30% more bullet damage.


In short
Not all weapons have to be buffed.
But 3 LMGs (Disruptor,Thunder, Rocker) and 3 Assault Rifles (TACC, Blast, FRC AR) are simply weak.
While saying "Two hole classes need buffs!" - seems to be quite a lot.
But most other classes are ~ in line, those 2 have simply flawed realizations of their design idea.
Just because the SAW is working as it should be doesn't mean it has to be brought down.
Nerfing the SAW will make people change their weapons.
But to none of those listed above.

[kasaitenma]

instead of nerfing the SAW; buff the rocker to do more crit damage and make the thunder RoF 12 instead of 10.
on the immunizer, make the reticule radius smaller their current size allows a entire person fit in the circle at 40m there shouldnt be such a large margin for error with any weapon

[GeordieReaper]

Here we go with the nerf hammer hitting my favourite weapon the SAW. Its already been said in this thread so all I'll say is no thank you leave the bloody SAW alone!

What's the point of all weapons doing the same damage with the only difference being the skins? If this is the future of the game then I'm done.

[marshy]

If Gary and the dev team don't listen to the majority of this community and leave the saw alone, then it's shows how you truly feel about the customer base , you know the ones who are paying the bills and keeping you all in a job

[Tharcion]

All anyone uses in that class is the wolfhound because its the best, making all other pistols crap, So by trions logic it's OP and needs a nerf to bring it in line with other pistols

No, I prefer the Wolverine because I'm not quite so brilliant at crit shots. Wolverine gives me more hits and a pretty good crit multiplier. Of course, with the nano-nerf it's going to be essentially pointless using a burst-fire weapon, so the Wolfhound should get nerfed next round. Your logic is faulty, but the outcome is correct.

[Linamaria]

What's the point of all weapons doing the same damage with the only difference being the skins? If this is the future of the game then I'm done.

Interesting point, but... What's the point of a specific weapon doing a huge damage compared to others weapons and most of people not being stupid to use weaker weapons?

At end, won't most people use the same (best) weapon (with the same skin) as well?

[Dracian]

14 hours, 238 replies... Nice one, nice one...

slowclap.gif