Ok everybody, calm the fuck down. As far as I see, we have four premises in a linear order. 1) The Boltgun on live is more powerful than other weapons. 2) The Boltgun on live is overperforming. 3) The Boltgun on UAT is underperforming compared to the Boltgun on live. 4) The Boltgun on UAT is underperforming compared to other weapons. Ok, here is, how it goes: I will assume everyone agrees on 1). I am sorry but if you don't think there is a problem, you are just willfully ignorant. If virtually 90% of the playerbase use the same weapon, that indicates that there is a problem! If anyone thinks there has never been a problem in the first place, feel free to discuss that but you better make some damn good points! As for 2), this is mostly the debate of whether the Boltgun needs a nerf or other weapons need buffs. I agree that buffing other assets is the more elegant choice, but it is also much more time-consuming and could lead to further imbalance much quicker. 3) is something a lot of you don't like but 3) is a good thing! A nerf is no nerf if it does not hurt you. The idea is not that you can just continue playing as you do now but with a DPS-loss. This goes out to @DemonKingBAAL in particular: Every nerf that affects you, also affects other players. So, if we want to decrease your effectiveness, we have to look for an option that hits you harder. Removing the CQC-barrel won't do that. Both sides loose DPS, relative TTK stays the same. Increasing spread will. Now, the current changes might have gone too far, but 0.7° on hipfire is too good and you have to be able to see that! You can talk Quake all you want but this is not Quake, this is not a speed-based shooter. You are supposed to ADS on medium range and, playing a Hawk, I do exactly that and it isn't actually that bad, it just means I am easier to defeat because I can't strafe as well. 4) This is the last argument and, IMO, a pretty ridiculous one. Yes, maybe the Bolter-nerf currently goes too far but the Plasmagun or the Stormbolter are still nowhere near superior. But, its still a valid point and a potential, future problem. I perfectly understand why you are all upset but this 'nerf' is really in no way worse than what has happened to Eldar over the past year. We cried about it, but we adapted, moved on and continued to be successful and so will you so, frankly: grow the fuck up and get over it. The Tempest was also important for us to breach objectives and the only way to defeat Bolterporn. I was legitimately upset when they removed it. Yet, I can also see how it was hurting the game and the newer players that fell prey to it. Its the same story now: They are hurting you so you can't hurt others as much. It's not like the Boltgun will disappear. You will have to change your playstyle a bit, you might score 40 kills instead of 50 but it will still remain the dominant weapon and core of the meta and a good player will still be able to utilize it effectively. You people talk 'skill' so much. Sometimes 'skill' means winning with an imperfect asset, rather than the strongest shit there is.
I have said multiple times in my posts that Textured Grip's 0.7 spread is overpowered and overtuned. How did you miss that in my previous posts here lol? Yes I understand what you're saying, and like I said in my previous posts once again that this new Bolter I'll get used to it no problem and still dome people and frag 100+ without issue, but that doesn't mean the change is good. And yes, I understand this game is not Quake, which is why I pushed for hipfire nerfs on the Boltgun in the past and still do, but I can also understand that the current hipfire iteration is too much of a nerf and needs to be buffed.
Why shouldn’t it? 1. Does the Boltgun on UAT still cost 100 LP less than the Storm Bolter and Plasma rifle? 2. Why should the Boltgun(or any weapon for that matter) outperform and consistently dominate in a wider variety of situations vs other considerably more expensive and more situational anti infantry Tactical weapons? Even with the extremely powerful CQB barrel and dirt cheap, uber Drum mag the Bolter is still cheaper than and has a metric fuck ton more utility than both the Storm and Plasma. Why should a cheaper anything consistently outperform in wider variety of situations vs more expensive weapon systems in any game? That makes no sense. My point being, if folks want the Bolter to outperform Plasma and Storm in most situations and if folks want the Bolter to be the best all round weapon in game that’s fine by me. If that’s the model we all want then the default Bolter needs to cost more than the weapon(s) it is consistently outperforming. Plainly said the unmodified Bolter in its current state on live should cost 300LP. Tweaking weapon stats is only half the equation. It seems that at some point the developers of this game forgot about balancing the price of a weapon according to how effective and lethal that weapon is on the battlefield. 3. Should the best all around and most widely spammed anti infantry weapon in the entire game only cost 200LP? Even with extremely powerful and cheap drum mag and cqb mods, how is it balanced when the Bolter with these mods still comes in 20LP cheaper than the Storm and Plasma rifle? 4. Should more situational weapons like the Storm and the lackluster Plasma rifle, that lose to the Bolter most of the time in 1v1, still cost 300LP? 3. Would we all be better served if the Bolter, Storm Bolter and Plasma Rifle were all priced at 250 LP?
To start, I am mostly happy with the proposed changes. I am out of town, so can't test any of them, but hip fired needed to be nerfed (on all factions equivalents, not just the marines) and personally, I like a higher alpha damage, slower firing weapon. I think it will feel better. I don't know if they went too far with the details or not yet and I am unwilling to make comment about them, but I do not agree with all of your points. For number 1, I agree that the bolter out performs other marine tactical weapons (I hope I don't need to go through the reasons why it is better), but it is not better than the shoota. They either on par, or the shoota is slightly better in most situations (close range). You see the bolter more, because more people want to play marines for obvious reasons. Orks also have a Big shoota that is approximately on par with the shoota and the bolter, which gives them two viable weapons and therefore slightly more diversity. The ACS, if it had magazine capacity mods, would be better than the bolter. It does not, which means that it is worse than the bolter. Not by much, but it is worse. Unfortunately the devs refuse to give the ACS a magazine capacity mod. I understand that the ACS also has a faster damage dropoff, but they become the same when you take the heavy barrel (sorry, CQC, habit) into account and the ACS still has higher dps. Luckily you have the TL, which is an amazing rifle that just about out classes every other one in the game and with the heavy barrel, only has 0.05 more hip fire spread than the bolter. It also comes with a large magazine (not as large as the bolter drum mag's due to ammo efficiency) and much much higher dps. If the bolter is going to become as bad as people say it will, I predict that eldar will have a large influx of players. 2) My opinions are covered elsewhere here, but I agree with an amendment. Every faction has a rifle or multiple rifles that are over-performing due to one thing. Hipfire accuracy. There is two choices, buff all of them, or nerf the ones with good hipfire. 3) I agree, it is a good thing. Only it should be every tactical rifle (shoota, ACS, along with others), not just the bolter. Hipfire needed to be nerfed. It should never have been buffed two Decembers ago (which I have been saying since that December). There is no reason to ads now, other than to use the scope to reset your spread or shoot a heavy. 4) The stormbolter is shit and I always laugh when I see it. The horizontal spread (which I don't think that stat is given to us) is high even when ADSed at any sort of range and the hipfire is nigh useless compared to the bolter. There is never a reason to use it. Plasma is fun to use, but you are gimping yourself when using it. It holds a spot only in dislodging heavies, in which a bolter with a frag will do better. There is a reason why you don't see these guns, because they are not very good, compared to ork and eldar weapons and to marine weapons. The grav-gun is fun and a support weapon and doesn't belong in this conversation. You whining about the tempest is ridiculous. It was and still is a point and click instant kill weapon. Every other faction got their siege weapon nerfed and those had charge times! How can you possibly defend this nerf in the face of plasma and kannon nerfs and why did you think that eldar would somehow be immune? Not only that, I still see it, which is more than I can say about the plasma cannon. And I still see YOU use it. Other eldar nerfs were mostly deserved. Released Hunter's Mark was completely out of this park OP and ridiculous and you can't see that, then there is no reason to talk to you about balance. The blanket survivability nerfs was stupid and eldar were given enhance to make up for it, which it does do, but is a no fun stupid spell that turns the warlock into a buff stick that I don't know who in their right mind would want to play (but people do play enhance warlock, so whatever) and I understand being upset about that. I was upset about that (I do have a rank 6 eldar w/ everything unlocked, including challenge token, bling sword, and bling TL) and enjoy playing eldar. As for other nerfs, I guess you would have to remind me about them. Somethings, like grenades never being as good, are annoying. I know someone made a list of eldar nerfs at some point, but honestly I don't remember most of them being that big of a deal. I guess the vehicle survivability nerf sucked, but I think it was in response to fire dragons and eldar vehicles just running over anyone trying to deal with them. Your point about playing hawk with Hunter's Mark and Bolter is silly. The Hunter's Mark hipfire spread with mods is 1.0, while the bolter with mods is 0.7. 0.3 is really not that big of a difference. . . I use hawk hipfire fairly frequently. Just not while flying. Which you can't shoot a bolter while rolling, so I don't see the big deal here. If you want, make the bolter 1. I think it should be higher, but I also think the Hunter's Mark should be higher. I don't know what release spread was, but I think that was fine. So yes, the bolter hipfire should be nerfed, along with every other rifle in the game! With maybe the exclusion of the ASC, because it doesn't have magazine capacity mods (devs why???). It could be an eldar trait, although I think that all the game's vets would switch to eldar if that became the case. You would have to be a die hard marine fan not to. Good hipfire is what allows for ADAD to be as effective as it is and bad players can't deal with it. Or at least most players. Another viable nerf along with the hipfire nerf would be mag capacity mods for the shoota and bolter. That would really hurt the people that don't make their shots count. As for the other changes, they are in the right direction. I like them. I am looking forward to them. I am actually excited for them and think that they will separate the boys from the men. Many will rage quit, but really, we are just going back to release with some changes in a good direction (although unfortunately only for 2 of the 4 factions. . .). I think it will be more fun to use and am looking forward to better ammo efficiency. And if the nerfs are too strong, then I will use something else (will they leave the quick silver alone? I can only hope), or switch to playing eldar predominately and abuse the TLASC. Either way, I am not worried about it. I should be going to bed, but instead I wrote this mountain of a post while traveling for work in which I mostly repeated myself. Grrr.
Maybe a bit of perspective to be added here: First off, TL needed a nerf. Badly. The reason why many, myself including, were miffed about it was how it was nerfed, not that it was nerfed. For Eldar (as you probably should know considering you have a max rank char), breaking fortified positions is a nightmare (against a coordinated group practically impossible). The reason why the TL was so important is that our main attack classes do not feature the tools necessary to crack these entrenchments. The Dire Avenger has not the meat on his bones to do it. The TL filled that gap as it allowed to sweep the fortifications (hence circumventing the Eldar downside of much smaller HP pools which ails the DA in that role). It was too good at it too. Now, they nerfed it but left the gap unfilled. Further, it left the TL without an identity really. What is that thing good for now? It does not feature the range (hence security) of the Reaper Launcher, it's basically three shots which have to hit two/three and after that, you're a fish on dry land flopping about while the cooldown runs. The Shuriken cannon offers more security than the TL now. Since the nerf, I removed the TL from my loadouts and many have done the same. The weapon is effectively out of the game. So to sum it up: It's not about the TL nerf itself but the environment into which that nerf struck. And I sincerely hope that such a blunder isn't happening to the Bolter or any other weapon in the future. Also, my observation is diametrical to what you describe (maybe a timezone thing?). I see loads of Plasma Cannons around but no or almost no Tempest Launchers.
Ok last friendly warning to everyone posting here the very next post that is not talking about UAT stuff in this post gets banned for 3 days. I don't care if you have 0 warnings on your account this thread is for UAT talk only. So cut it out or I will cut you out for 3 days from posting. And if you have already been banned it will be longer. This off topic fighting ends here or your posting rights end. The choice is yours. Choose wisely.
Hi everyone, As mentionned in my previous post, the Boltgun changes on UAT are quite substantial so it disrupts your habits and makes you feel the new intent of the Boltgun's behavior. I would want to see more thoughts about the behavior only of the Boltgun keeping in mind that it is at its maximum right now on UAT. Roughly speaking: do you like this kind of weapon's behavior? either way, why? From there we would be able to refine the stats for every player, either new or experienced, to keep an interest in the Boltgun. More likely narrowing the Moving spread, the hipfire accuracy and maybe increasing the RoF (and the Damage accordingly to keep a similar TTK) But for now try to focus on the feel of the weapon For the iteration present on UAT, here is what changed comparing to the first test: - I experimented a hidden stat of the accuracy to see if you would notice it. The spread is really important when moving, we can see it as the reticle becomes wider. The hidden stat (let's call it Gaussian) is using a Normal Distribution multiplier. This means that even though the spread is high, increasing the Gaussian also increases the probability for each shot to land precisely in the middle of the crosshair regardless of the spread penalty, rewarding good and consistent AIM. - The recovery speed of the spread penalty from moving was also reduced a lot, meaning that you can Strafe - Stop - Shoot and repeat instead of shooting while strafing (still possible thanks to the Gaussian multilplier) Let me know what you think about this mechanics. To clarify other concerns, the mods will also be modified according to the final Boltgun rework. Other weapons are also considered to be modified in the future if this first experiment goes well. Thanks everyone, Pierrick
Ah-ha! I was wondering what that stat does ever since SWD(tm) was first released but the internet was no help. So the idea is essentially that a bullet is more likely to either hit the bullseye or miss completely but is less likely to hit somewhere in between? From the feeling, I would say the recoil on ADS could go up. Right now its good to make the weapon feel like it has some punch but you don't actually have to put any effort into compensating for it. All in all: cut the movement-spread down a tiny bit, up the damage to match the old DPS and lower the clip-sizes.
Ah I see my initial intuition was correct! On the topic of moving spread, from such activities as are called "ADAD" aka side-stepping movement, couldn't you have just added an initial "bloom&return" so the bloom of the reticle gets accelerated bloom as you move, but then draws back to normal bloom-levels upon maintaining the same trajectory of movement changed to? Sort of like if you're moving forward while shooting, you have a set spread, you press A to move left, in the transition-time between forward and left (call it time of momentum-change) you get extra bloom that will even out once momentum has been shifted to the new direction. That would cause anyone constantly changing momentum to never have it settling back down, but someone who were less irregular with movement would be rewarded with consistency and still benefiting a mobile style of play (sort of a "move&shoot" thing, rather than a quasi-standstill like side-stepping-strafe would be). But on the topic of "feel" yeah the feel was great as I've said before, so it may be as always.. those outraged by stat numbers didn't actually use the weapons in-game, and therefore only generated outrage prior to experience. I didn't mind the damage-model even though I would of course want as much damage as possible lol, but not gonna fault redesign with the intent of making the playingfield more equal for new players. I like that you're not afraid to try new concepts and ideas @Pierrick hopefully I'll get a chance to give you my ideas on reworking the Stalker Bolter in the future (without making it necessarily worse, but making it more lore-correct&authentic while doing it). Can't wait to see what you have next up your sleeve
I mean, it's not like you're going to fight them or anything. So no need to worry about that bit for the time being.
