Make the BMG more fun to use and useful.

[Aetrion]

Right now the BMG is pretty lame, it's useful to have one, but it's atrocious as a weapon, and the healing is too slow to be a real lifesaver, if the enemies aren't outdamaging a BMG then they aren't really much of a threat to begin with.

I would change it so instead of being both a poor healing tool and a poor weapon it would be pretty good at both, but require you to alternate roles, and basically be the definitive "caster" equipment of the game.

Basically it would start at 0% power, but you could shoot it at enemies whenever you like. When you hurt an enemy with it it builds power, the more enemies you chain it through the more quickly the power builds up. (Hitting a player in PvP would charge it much more quickly than hitting an NPC, to keep it viable there)

When you hit the right mouse button it goes into heal mode, as it currently works, and expends power. It heals and uses up power much more quickly, but regaining power can take much longer depending on how many targets you have.

If it hits 100% power and you continue holding the attack button it begins to charge up, if you keep holding until it is fully charged it releases a massive ball of energy that explodes and does huge damage, but resets your power to 0%.

The reload button for the tool could be changed so that it allows you to generate some charge by draining your own shields and health.

This would eliminate all benefit for having two BMGs, but honestly, no other weapon benefits from being doubled up either due to ammo constraints.


I really want to be able to actually play the game with a BMG, and have people apreciate it if I bring one to a group. Currently when you start wielding one it just makes people groan, because they know they don't need the meager heals, and the damage you inflict is one tenth of what you could be doing with an assault rifle.

[Mudblood]

Maybe you have a bad bmg. I love mine for attacking and healing. You also probably dont know how to use it.

[Aetrion]

Well, maybe you should explain it then instead of being condescending shtakohead.

[Foxhop]

I love the BMG but agree that it could really use some zest or more functions...

[Scorpio989]

BMGs are by no means unbalanced... They have INFINITE AMMO, their mobbing damage is pretty good, they can easily give you 100% damage reduction if perked out properly, they can make most mobs/players nearly immobile for a set time, they provide shields with long delays a way to recharge faster than short delay shields, and most importantly they can be used to exploit shield bonuses and shield oriented perks at will...

[Aetrion]

Meaning what? That BMGs will set off any shield charging perk?


I still don't think that they are particularly fun as a primary weapon, and when you use it in a group most people really don't appreciate it, they would rather just kill the enemies more quickly.

[Santiak]

I agree. I've used the BMG almost exclusively alongside the Infector for the vast majority of the time I've played, and the BMG ticklebeam rarely shines at the same level as any other weapon.
And while your suggestion is one way of doing it, personally I feel it would remove it a bit too much away from the healing mechanic.

Since I can see you reposted your suggestion from my earlier thread, I'll take the liberty of reposting my own suggestion here as well - as long as something happens there's no harm in getting the Devs to contemplate if - and possibly how - the BMG should be changed.

Been using the BMG for a while now - just to try and see if it was feasible to use in any way.

As it stands, the damage is far too low to be of any use in most situations, even under the best of circumstances, if you happen to come across a group of bunched up nasties that you can link together - and all 6 - 8 of them happen to be non-low hp enemies, the low damage still makes it just below standard when compared to other weapons in the same situation.

Now, I get it's trade-off is no ammo and the ability to heal/shield friendlies, but despite that, what you most often see is the BMG acting like a very niche weapon, capable of keeping people alive if they take low damage over an extended period of time - which is rare given the high damage other weapons apply - or number of people present. As well as dealing with extremely low-health enemies such as Skitterlings.
Healing rarely out-"heals" shields faster than they recharge, once recharge kicks in - so they are only usefull for the 2,5 - 8 seconds it takes for it to kick in, unless of course they can't or don't dash for cover, which is equally rare.

However, I was wondering, what if the Overload function actually had a purpose?
From what I can gather, in its current iteration, it only serves to prevent people from "scanning" instead of actively targeting enemies - as I can see no noticeable increase in damage if the weapon is overloaded even to the 4th section of the reticule.
What if Overload - while that particular mechanic remained in place - also became an Overcharge - for lack of a better term - both in regards to damage and heal, removing the ability to self-heal in the process, possibly as a trade-off.

Suggestion Here:
So, let's say, for each section of the overload reticule that's highlighted, the damage/heal/shield effectiveness increases by X%, but the energy drain also increases for Y% - something that could be modified by mods/skill levels.

Which would, hopefully, allow the BMG to function in certain situations where high spike damage/heal is preferable to a low but constant damage or heal - damage-wise, situations which are already better accomplished with Infectors.
The trade-off for this increase, apart from the faster charge drain, would also be a risk that you effectively waste a complete mag because you didn't fire soon enough - as well as a slight delay, more or less the equivalent of adding a longer reload time - if you wish to Overload/charge the BMG.

On a side-note, given that the beam isn't cut after aquiring but losing a target, it could be made to revert back to normal levels should that happen.

[Lalalioness]

I agree. I usually play a support role in just about any game that offers it as an option. With the BMG you have such a great potential, and I'd just like to see it be more useful. Right now it's just kind of a "man my shields are down and I don't want to wait for their recharge"

But I just want to be able to support better xD

[Aetrion]

Yea, that's sort of my beef with it too. I want to play in a support role, but I feel like you're hardly even needed in that capacity in the first place. Also there is really just no way of running with a BMG as your primary weapon because it's just not all that good for dealing damage. I can kill most standard enemies in roughly one second with an assault rifle, and most boss types in between 10-20 seconds. With a BMG it's like 10 seconds to kill a standard enemy, and longer than I care to count for anything elite or boss level.

The whole argument of "it doesn't need ammo" is also extremely weak. I have run into one or two fights in about 40 hours in the game where I've run out of ammo while rocking an assault rifle and a BMG - which means that despite the fact that I only even had one type of ammo on my character, and a fully automatic weapon on top of that, I have been able to keep myself fully stocked through just about any fight. Ammo is abundant in this game, there is just not really that huge of an argument to be made that not needing ammo is a huge advantage when it comes at a significant cost.

The fact that attacking with it drains the power you want to use for healing makes it doubly bad as an offensive tool. Why would you even want to attack with it if you can hit one button and have a weapon in your hand that's an order of magnitude more deadly, while simultaniously not draining the BMG of charge in case you want it's healing later on.

I also really dislike that the BMG doesn't seem to be able to score critical damage. My accuracy with the assault rifle is so good that I expect at least half my shots to be headshots, and that makes a huge difference in terms of killing enemies quickly. With the BMG I feel like I've been deprived of the ability to do that extra damage by being more accurate. It's a weapon that seems to have a very low skill ceiling. Then again, it's never really fully explained how the thing works, and some people seem to think that there is a right and a wrong way to use it, so maybe I'm just not understanding it correctly. At any rate, it takes me easily ten times longer to kill enemies with the BMG than with the assault rifle, and enemies where the only way to kill them quickly is hitting weakspots, like hellbug warriors or tankers are basically impossible targets with a BMG.

[Honved]

I can understand that they seems ok in pve, however buffing it for pve would break it for pvp. In pvp, this weapon may not make the difference for that one player but when used in a functioning team they are set. Right now I would rather see new weapon types instead of berfing/buffing the current weapons since those that need nerfs/buffs are all in our own opinions.