DUST Search - Weapon damage reductions

Crimson ShieId wrote:

As it currently stands, most weapons in the game have a penalty to either shield or armor in an attempt to make some variations in their performance (That's my guess anyways) against certain enemy types. A good idea and all, but why is it so low? The penalties (or bonuses) are usually measly 10% bonuses or so, with a few exceptions coming from the Amarr weapony having 20% bonuses.

Essentially, there's no reason to use one weapon over another outside of personal preference and whether or not it's the FOTM. A combat rifle has no disadvantage against an assault rifle or scrambler rifle, even though it's a weapon designed to take out armor. Most of the penalties can be negated completely with a single damage mod or a few proficiency levels, so... what's the point in having them? They're all currently extremely low and I can't help but think that the game could benefit from higher percentages in that such percentages would encourage more strategy in gameplay. If your enemies are all armor tanking, you bring out a combat or rail rifle, if they're shield tanking, you bring out a scrambler or laser rifle, or you stick one of each on your commando suit for greater effectiveness in more situations. Plus it would make weapons that effect shield and armor equally like the assault/plasma rifle more viable options, even when they're outdone in other fields, they can still have a position in the game instead of getting tossed away whenever a new, shinier weapon gets released.

Just some thoughts from a lowly merc. Ideas? Anyone?


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Zeylon Rho Subdreddit Test Alliance Please Ignore 3489	Posted - 2014.02.21 20:02:00 - [1] - Quote Crimson ShieId wrote: As it currently stands, most weapons in the game have a penalty to either shield or armor in an attempt to make some variations in their performance (That's my guess anyways) against certain enemy types. A good idea and all, but why is it so low? The penalties (or bonuses) are usually measly 10% bonuses or so, with a few exceptions coming from the Amarr weapony having 20% bonuses. Essentially, there's no reason to use one weapon over another outside of personal preference and whether or not it's the FOTM. A combat rifle has no disadvantage against an assault rifle or scrambler rifle, even though it's a weapon designed to take out armor. Most of the penalties can be negated completely with a single damage mod or a few proficiency levels, so... what's the point in having them? They're all currently extremely low and I can't help but think that the game could benefit from higher percentages in that such percentages would encourage more strategy in gameplay. If your enemies are all armor tanking, you bring out a combat or rail rifle, if they're shield tanking, you bring out a scrambler or laser rifle, or you stick one of each on your commando suit for greater effectiveness in more situations. Plus it would make weapons that effect shield and armor equally like the assault/plasma rifle more viable options, even when they're outdone in other fields, they can still have a position in the game instead of getting tossed away whenever a new, shinier weapon gets released. Just some thoughts from a lowly merc. Ideas? Anyone? A couple things: 1.8 changes include nerfs to damage mods and possibly changes to proficiency. This will address one of your issues with negating penalties. I think the guns have less extreme divisions in damage type for practicality. The largest jump right now is with the Scrambler with has a 20%/-20% stats against shields/armor iirc. If you widened that even further, it gets to the point where trying to kill armored units is especially hard (more so with the damage mod and proficiency changes if those went through. The races aren't supposed to be like elements in a Final Fantasy game with a gigantic glaring weakness and overpowering strength packaged together. These are full-formed empires with "tendencies" existing in the martial philosophies. If an Amarr soldier were basically rendered ineffective when only carrying Amarr weaponry against armored units, then that is something of a significant issue. Varying your weapons shouldn't be a bad idea, for sure, but it shouldn't be mandatory. A race's go-to battle rifle should be "generally" effective. That's why they issue/design those rifles in the first place: for general efficacy with the armed forces. To put it another way, if the mainline weapon of a civilization is only good for killing Gundersnarks, it's less of a mainline weapon and more a Gundersnark-killer. The point at which everyone has to train in every rifle to be effective (and die or have a supply depot somewhere to switch... those being destroyed sometimes...) would effectively introduce a lot of balance problems even aside from the logic issues. In EVE, there's actually a lot more flexibility in this respect even within a given race. Caldari can change their missiles to be any of 4 damage types, but they also have rail turrets that can loaded with various ammo types. Amarr work with lasers, to be sure. However, their lasers are both Beam and Pulse (long range and shorter range, as opposed to continuous vs. pew-pew like in Dust), but you can also change "ammo" there as well and opt for changes in the amount of energy use, EM/thermal damage, and range. They also have some missile ships. Both Amarr and Gallente have Drone-focused ships. Gallente also have blasters of various kinds. All the races have fast ships, logistics ships, EWAR ships, etc. Dust has meanwhile kept a much more restricted perspective on the races, relatively speaking, as if the audience isn't capable of grasping a civilization with nuances (e.g. - Amarr = Armored + Slow + Lasers). The overly simplified approach isn't helpful, and it results in awkwardness like the Amarr Scout suit being Assault-speed and not filling it's role as a scout because of some fascist adherence to some sort of made up stereotype that doesn't exist in the prior material. If anything, the game would be better served by broadening the view of what constitutes each race with a mind towards providing basic parity in battlefield usefulness (you want to fill roles: like the Amarr/etc. needing a counter to the Caldari Sniper Rifle in a logical sense because that's a core type of battlefield weapon/role; on the other hand, while "short range" is a role, every race's short range option doesn't need to be a "shotgun" per se). Dren and Templar equipment stats, wrong since release.