Yup. Another AR balancing post. This is my view on how we can balance it.

I've been an AR user since I've first started playing in January. From my experience as an AR user, I put together a document that would make this weapon more of a 'jack-of-all-trades' weapon. I'm not necessarily proposing to nerf or buff it. Simply balancing it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UDin3aJhrQ2dg_oTzbMfoDlQ9H542of48Twk-NG_9Xw/edit?usp=sharing

Do note, I've not done any variants or tiers of this weapon. Just the plain Assault Rifle. I'll do tiers and variants later.

I hope you enjoy! Feedback is always welcomed.

I'll give you a +1 because that was very elaborate work.
But i disagree.I think ARs are powerful,but as they are i think they are good.
An above avarege player like myself can do in any AR user with my niche weapon the Scrambler rifle.(Other playerswith TAC ars,ASCR,SMG's,Mass drivers,etc...)
They are just the most overall effective weapon,but its not OP.There by they dont need a ''balance''.

Hear me now people.The AR playerbase is around 55%-60% Of all dust 514

If you ''balance'' (NERF) the AR, you will have at LEAST 50% of our miserable 2000 playerbase complaining/leaving just because some niche weapon users felt they were getting overrun by ARs.

I prefer dealing with ARs as they are than loosing yet another 400-800 players due to AR nerf.

I was just talking with 4 of my friends about your post.
They all use Duvolles ARs.

They say they wouldnt mind a CLIP REDUCTION, but the damage should stay.

I kind of agree with them,i mean,still hit hard,but negating your spray and pray ability wthat is at the end of the day the REAL problem.

45 For Regular ARS
18-24 TAC
30 for Burst
30 For Breach

This of course.If applied needs,for balance sake, a clip reduction for Scramblers:

55 ASCR
35 SCrbs

Just my 2 cents.

I'm an AR user. It's the only weapon I have trained to a prototype level. I want ARs to be toned down.

Let that sink in for a moment. I want the only weapon I am capable of using to be toned down. It is OP. There's a reason 60% or higher of the playerbase uses ARs. This whole build has been a giant clusterf*ck, and rapid fire weapons (aside from the HMG) are to blame. The time to kill has gone down to a Rainbow 6 shooter level of one shot one kill, effectively. You don't get to react. Your skill points in shield extension or armor plating don't count for anything. All that matters is that you're using an AR or assault scrambler, and that you shot the other guy first.

Imagine if every frigate in eve came with a doomsday device on it. That is what Dust is today. Subdreddit has 382 people in it who have logged in during the last 30 days. After a few weeks with this ridiculous instakill version of Dust the average number of players logged in for our corp has dropped to less than 10.

People do not enjoy playing Dust in it's current state.

My approach to this is to log in and play a few games with cheap fits in a squad, and log out the moment I get bored. Lately I'm getting about two games in before I get to that point. The only reason I'm still logging in every day is because of the SP bonus. If it weren't for that I'd play once every three days. I used to cap out every week and then start leveling an alt.

Yes Dust has had some major improvements, and yes it will continue to do so. But I think the game has come to a critical point. The massive buff to high ROF weapons was a gigantic leap in the wrong direction. People just die way too fast. If this doesn't get fixed quickly, I'm concerned that the playerbase is going to fall off a cliff that will take years to recover from.

I think even the laser rifle may need to be looked at. I loved it back in the day and was sad when it became useless, but now I think it's just too powerful again. This is all about time to kill, not how powerful one weapon is compared to another.

It is a good proposal, I too have thought of just reducing clip size. But in reality you're making the weapon UP. A few times I'll find myself have barely 5 or so bullets left right after killing just a medium frame. This is usually due to himher being a somewhat good distance from me and he/she's movement. If you reduce JUST the clip size you're penalizing the AR user for a situation like that. Increasing the damage just a tad bit would compensate for this. It's reducing the spray and pray 'tactic' from ARs, while maintaining a good amount of damage. Because you will always miss. The least skilled players will miss more than the skilled, and will find that this weapon is not worth speccing into, then we'll have a reduced population using such a good weapon. (I'm not saying that reducing the population is a bad thing, but reducing the population because it's UP is a bad thing. I'd rather the population be reduced because there are weapons just as good as this one out there.)

I do appreciate their input, and I do like the clip stats for the variants. And it does make sense to reduce the ScrR's clip size.

The AR in Dust is supposed to be a blaster rifle. This means it should have high DPS, but be very short range.

It shouldn't be a generalist weapon in the first place - That was CCP's second mistake with it.
Their first was naming it the assault rifle rather than the blaster/plasma rifle that it is.

Even the generalist version of this weapon might be ok if CCP didn't also go ahead and make it OP. Yes it is. It has too long a range, to much ammo, too high of DPS, and is too accurate.

Nerf a couple of these stats and the AR might be ok. Until then, Dust is dead.

Hail king AR. Hail AR 514.

I agree on the Range and the Accuracy, I disagree on the DPS and ammo.

Compared to the AsCR ( the only real comparable weapon) the GAR has nearly the same DPS and Range (Stupid concep) but the AsCR has a bigger clip and more ammo. So any changes to the GAR have to be followed by a balance approach on the AsCR (and bear in mind the AsCr should only mimic the power of the GAR)

People comparing ASCR with ARs are demented, sorry but its true.
If the ASCR was so good , there would be more people using it,and as it is i can get in a game and see 10 people with AR and i've never seen more than 1-2 ASCR in a game.Why, the ARs dont have recoil,nor dispersion rate, have equal or even more optimal range than the ASCR,dont have the amount of muzzle flash the ASCR has nor it overheats....
the :''the only real comparable weapon'' part is just , incorrect.There is NO weapon that compares to the AR.

OF COURSE if the ARs would get a ammo decrease to 45 the ASCR would have an ammo decrease equally comparable.ASCR clips, 60.

I'm an AR user. It's the only weapon I have trained to a prototype level. I want ARs to be toned down.

Let that sink in for a moment. I want the only weapon I am capable of using to be toned down. It is OP. There's a reason 60% or higher of the playerbase uses ARs. This whole build has been a giant clusterf*ck, and rapid fire weapons (aside from the HMG) are to blame. The time to kill has gone down to a Rainbow 6 shooter level of one shot one kill, effectively. You don't get to react. Your skill points in shield extension or armor plating don't count for anything. All that matters is that you're using an AR or assault scrambler, and that you shot the other guy first.

Imagine if every frigate in eve came with a doomsday device on it. That is what Dust is today. Subdreddit has 382 people in it who have logged in during the last 30 days. After a few weeks with this ridiculous instakill version of Dust the average number of players logged in for our corp has dropped to less than 10.

People do not enjoy playing Dust in it's current state.

My approach to this is to log in and play a few games with cheap fits in a squad, and log out the moment I get bored. Lately I'm getting about two games in before I get to that point. The only reason I'm still logging in every day is because of the SP bonus. If it weren't for that I'd play once every three days. I used to cap out every week and then start leveling an alt.

Yes Dust has had some major improvements, and yes it will continue to do so. But I think the game has come to a critical point. The massive buff to high ROF weapons was a gigantic leap in the wrong direction. People just die way too fast. If this doesn't get fixed quickly, I'm concerned that the playerbase is going to fall off a cliff that will take years to recover from.

I think even the laser rifle may need to be looked at. I loved it back in the day and was sad when it became useless, but now I think it's just too powerful again. This is all about time to kill, not how powerful one weapon is compared to another.

Gonna throw my two cents in as well I believe.

AR's. I love them. I play a scout running a scrambler pistol so this is the majority of my opposition. They do their job very efficiently especially to my poor over taxed shielding and armor. I've been slowly progressing this new character ( Just a little over a mill sp and rising. Just hit my cap a few hours ago for the week so I'm very happy that resets soon. ) Off topic. Back on topic now. The AR does its job of reminding me that I have no freakin armor. I run a valor suit because I'm cheap and had some aur left over from a pack I decided to buy. So my current ehp on my main ADV hacking scout is 92/199. The heavies with the HMG's don't scare me like an AR plinking at my armor when I'm tacticly retreating my motocross looking backside behind some cover toward my squad. Heavies simple cant keep up unless I missed one on my initial overlook of an area before moving in to harass. I'm the annoying little guy that always tries to flank your group with the pistol and headshots people from you side to try and thin the group. So these AR's as current do their job to send my suit scurrying.

Now for a subject of things I've noticed on my bonus sp used up character. This one is specced into AR level 4 cause again, new characters. Now the problem seems to lie with my burst AR's. Doing damage calc's my ar is firing a three round burst at I believe ( cant remember exact figure but we will say...) 34 damage a shot? Three round bursts hitting a target with each bullet doing 34 should add up to 102 damage per pull of the trigger. It however still takes me half a mag to down an enemy from across two close rooftops. Im not sure if it's because I'm doing the calculations wrong or what but I think the hit registration might be wonky on this. I love that its a three round burst but for the effectiveness I cannot afford to fit it on my regular suits. ive used entire stocks of ammo with it not getting a single kill because people hop back into cover after standing there and letting me lay into them for several seconds. Idk, could just be me on those rifles.

In short, AR's dont all need a nerf, maybe a buff on the breach's rate of fire and a little bit more recoil would fix them. As well as maybe a bit less range to them with the exception of the burst and tac which I feel should be classed as Marksmen role type weapons, hence keep the range. My two cents.

You've earned my +1 sir. My ideas for balancing ARs were a lot less involved than this; basically just increasing recoil and reducing range. But I actually really appreciate your approach because I think it really does drive that jack of all trades role home. One thing I didn't see you mention that I think also needs to be done is making the recoil actually work properly. Because right now, any recoil accumulated from continuous fire can instantly be removed and reset simply by letting go of the trigger for an instant. This makes no sense from either a mechanical or thematic perspective.

The only thing about your work that I really specifically didn't agree with was your comparison to real world assault rifles. This is really something that needs to be said more clearly anyway, so to go off on a minor tangent: this game has nothing to do with the real world. People frequently try to reference real world guns to make cases for their ideas, things like "IRL ARs and even miniguns can fire accurately up to or past 100 meters easy!" But again, this means literally nothing. Because Dust doesn't take place in modern day earth, it takes place in a future sci-fi far away galaxy setting. The technology used here in no way follows the norms and conventions of our technology, for better or worse.

And think about this, there is no 'biotic' HP, just shields and armor. This implies that when even a single bullet penetrates your suit, it kills you immediately with ease. Which means these guns are all actually incredibly lethal, which in turn means that these dropsuits must also be really really good at keeping people alive against such powerful munition. So while I have no doubt that your assault rifle can fire a bullet at least 100 meters, it simply isn't able to damage a target in a high-tech Iron Man suit at that range.

Ok, sorry to get a little ranty there, but I think it needed to be said. Anywho, overall great work here OP. I look forward to seeing more of your balancing ideas for other weapons in the future.

I'll give you a +1 because that was very elaborate work.
But i disagree.I think ARs are powerful,but as they are i think they are good.
An above avarege player like myself can do in any AR user with my niche weapon the Scrambler rifle.(Other playerswith TAC ars,ASCR,SMG's,Mass drivers,etc...)
They are just the most overall effective weapon,but its not OP.There by they dont need a ''balance''.

Hear me now people.The AR playerbase is around 55%-60% Of all dust 514

If you ''balance'' (NERF) the AR, you will have at LEAST 50% of our miserable 2000 playerbase complaining/leaving just because some niche weapon users felt they were getting overrun by ARs.

I prefer dealing with ARs as they are than loosing yet another 400-800 players due to AR nerf.

you know the RoF for the laser rifle is 750.

when you remove the HMG from the ammo count because is skews the numbers you only get 28 rounds per clip average.

also remove MD/sniper rifles because it skews your damage number as well as AV weapons.

I was just talking with 4 of my friends about your post.
They all use Duvolles ARs.

They say they wouldnt mind a CLIP REDUCTION, but the damage should stay.

I kind of agree with them,i mean,still hit hard,but negating your spray and pray ability wthat is at the end of the day the REAL problem.

45 For Regular ARS
18-24 TAC
30 for Burst
30 For Breach

This of course.If applied needs,for balance sake, a clip reduction for Scramblers:

55 ASCR
35 SCrbs

Just my 2 cents.

I'll give you a +1 because that was very elaborate work.
But i disagree.I think ARs are powerful,but as they are i think they are good.
An above avarege player like myself can do in any AR user with my niche weapon the Scrambler rifle.(Other playerswith TAC ars,ASCR,SMG's,Mass drivers,etc...)
They are just the most overall effective weapon,but its not OP.There by they dont need a ''balance''.

Hear me now people.The AR playerbase is around 55%-60% Of all dust 514

If you ''balance'' (NERF) the AR, you will have at LEAST 50% of our miserable 2000 playerbase complaining/leaving just because some niche weapon users felt they were getting overrun by ARs.

I prefer dealing with ARs as they are than loosing yet another 400-800 players due to AR nerf.