DUST Search - Hotfix Delta Ion Pistol

Vell0cet wrote:

Daddrobit wrote:

Vell0cet wrote:

I really like the idea of the charged shot functioning like a mini-shotgun. That may not be possible in a hotfix. This isn't a weapon I ever use, but it seems like a really excellent discussion by people who have a solid grasp of the mechanics.

Let me put the 'ion pistol shotgun' idea in a different light.

If it were function like the afore mentioned, realistically, it would function like the plasma cannon. It has a charge up time, it deals massive damage, and it only has one shot in the clip before reloading.

But now imagine if the plasma cannon had a longer charge up, dealt less damage at full potential, had less range, did less damage at range, had a longer reload, had less ammo in reserve, and almost never dealt full damage even within its optimal and directly on target.

That does not sound like a fun weapon to use.

And indeed I feel we already have a weapon that functions even closer to the ion pistol shotgun theory: the breach shotgun.

A super powerful alpha shotgun with very few bullets in the chamber and a long reload. But now imagine using the breach shotgun where it deals less damage, has a 2 second charge up time, has less ammo in reserve, has a mandatory reload after every shot, and its reload takes twice as long.

Think about how often you see the breach shotgun being used on the field and realize that's what you're saying you want the charge functionality to be as effective as. The only people who use the breach shotgun are newbros that are still experimenting, and people who are engaging in shenanigans or are trying to make a montage to look good.

I'm looking to make the gun viable, not more gimmicky.

You could make it so that it used more ammo based on how long you charged it, maybe with the capacity for 2 max charged blasts per reload. So you could fire many quick-charged shots for 2-3 round blasts each, fewer medium-charged blasts, or a couple max blasts. This gives you situational flexibility. Another point is this is a sidearm, so having a toned-down shotgun capability or a rapid fire pistol would be versatile and a useful compliment to your primary weapon.

I think the concept is interesting. It might not be as useful as it sounds in my head, but it would add more flexibility, diversity, and personality to the pistol lineup.


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Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 853	Posted - 2014.09.03 12:43:00 - [1] - Quote After reading the thread on sidearm changes, as an avid ion pistol user I was disappointed to find very little feedback given on how to fix the ion pistol other than, "just change the damage to x per shot and the dispersion to y%." But to be honest, those suggestions really don't fix the problems that are at the root of the weapons woes. First let me give you a quick synopsis on how the ion pistol functions for those of you that either have not tried it, or have only tried it once and then never touched it again, (for good reason.) The ion pistol has 12 shots, each dealing 50, 52.5, and 55 damage per meta level. The weapon is hybrid-plasma, giving it a +10%, -10% for damage against shields and armor respectively. The ranges for each are 20/35, 22/39, and 24/42 for the optimal and effective ranges per meta level. And the range is where we encounter our first issue. The weapon does -not- apply damage past it's effective range. This has been a problem since the weapon was released along side the bolt pistol. However while the bolt pistol was eventually fixed, the ion pistol is still splashing about like a flounder forcing its users to constantly be within nearly shotgun range just to apply damage. To apply this damage, you can either fire one fully charged shot for a 7x multiplier which comes out to 385 on shields or 315 to armor. Or you can rapidly fire single shots with tiny charge multipliers gained from just the quick tap until the weapon overheats. Overheating at 11 shots with operation one is not uncommon. A full charge immediately overheats as well as a 1/2 charge. The overheat lasts about 3 seconds and is generally a death sentence. The maximum ROF for the weapon is 375. However again, there are problems here with the gun firing false positives and seizing between shots. I've noticed on -many- occasions where the gun will fire 3-4 shots while I try to finish off an opponent, but only 2 will have actually left the clip. This gives the player a false perspective on how well the gun is performing. "Oh, he has a sliver of health, and I just shot 4 rounds with 3 of them hitting." However in reality, only 2 rounds were actually fired, and only one round actually hit the enemy for damage. I can not tell you how many times this has happened to me..... For me it's come to the point of just mashing R1 until the gun overheats regardless of what the gun is showing. The dispersion is one of the worst in the game at 46.65. The only things with worse dispersion are the HMG and the shotgun. And we know how fickle the shotgun can be, and the HMG throws out bullets 6-16 times faster and allows over 200 shots before it overheats Next comes the operation skill, and this I believe to be the biggest propagator of problems for the ion pistol. Each level of the operation skill quickens the charge up rate per shot of the ion pistol by 5% for a 25% faster charge up at level 5. Let me show a couple numbers here to represent how this functions. Let's say that the overheat happens at 100. A full charge costs 100 heat causing an instant overheat. Each tap costs let's say 9.5 heat at the bare minimum with the fastest shot you can fire causing an overheat after the 11th shot, a common occurrence. Now let's apply the level 5 'bonus'. Regardless of weather you want it to or not, with level 5 operation, each shot now charges the weapon 25% more than it did before, even with the same length of a short tap. This means that the original 9.5 heat per shot is now 11.875 heat per shot. So now you are guaranteed an overheat on the 9th shot with short trigger pulls, and if you hold down one of the shots for a fraction of a second too long it becomes very easy to overheat it even on the 8th shot. Getting level 5 operation effectively removes a large portion of the damage you would be able to apply before an overheat otherwise. Basically, the more you invest in the weapon, the less you get out of it. It is almost exactly the opposite of the Scrambler Pistol really. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 853	Posted - 2014.09.03 12:44:00 - [2] - Quote So how do we fix it? The gun needs a few things. First and foremost, fix the stupid effective range bug. That's something that should have been fixed with the bolt pistol and will act as a massive buff in and of itself. Next fix the false positives. If the gun isn't actually firing a round, I don't want to see a round. If you believe a damage buff is in order, it should only be a fairly minor one. 55, 57.5, 60 tops. Although that's only a 5 damage per shot increase, it adds a potential 60 to the mag, and just under 39 extra damage for a full charge shot. Next decrease the dispersion slightly and I do mean ever so slightly, no more than 10%. After you put this on a fully pimped Gallente assault and throw a couple levels into the dispersion, it's actually quite manageable. However if you guys at CCP decide to change the Gallente assault bonus to not include a dispersion bonus, then whatever you remove should absolutely be added to the base level of the Ion Pistol. Having that bonus is paramount to making the Ion Pistol a viable weapon. Finally you -need- to change the operation skill of the Ion Pistol. In my opinion it would be best to change it from the current -5% charge up time, to a new -5% heat build up per charge. Let me explain how this would function. Let's keep the overheat at 100 and the full charge at 100. But let's change the quick fire heat build up to a base 10. This means that at level 0 operation, (should CCP implement a militia variant) the gun will overheat either after a full charge, or 10 shots. Let's add operation 1. Now a full charge only does 95 heat and allows for a follow up quick shot which now only cost 9.5 and allows for 11 shots to be fired otherwise. Operation 2: Full charge is 90, allows for 2 follow up shots at 9 per piece and you can finally fire off the full 12 without overheating. Operation 3: Full charge is 85, still only allows for 2 follow up shots at 8.5 per shot. Operation 4: Full charge is 80, allows for 3 follow up shots before overheating at 8 per shot. Operation 5: Full charge is 75, allows for 4 follow up shots at 7.5 per shot. So now with the new bonus you actually -get- a decent return on your investment by being punished less from the overheat and actually incentivising the use of the charge rather and getting rid of the current thought process of, "Oh god no I accidentally charged it, I'm screwed..." What do ya'all think of this, thoughts and other ideas are absolutely welcome, I'd love to hear from other ion pistol users and CCP folks on the matter. :) O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 854	Posted - 2014.09.03 13:03:00 - [3] - Quote BL4CKST4R wrote: Daddrobit wrote: Mercy Snip. :) I like your suggestion to the operation. I do believe the dispersion should be a lot lower, 10% reduction and it would still have more dispersion than a ScP. Like I said for the AR the weapon should be good by itself and better on the Gallente. It's dispersion should be similar or better to that of a ScP after all the Ion has the shortest range of them all, while the ScP has the second longest. As for the damage it should have 68-72 damage per shot at the Creodon level, simply because it the shortest range side arm and also very skill intensive weapon it should have the highest DPS. And yes I know the charge function exists but that doesn't stop the SCR from having the highest DPS. At 60 damage per shot it has 375 DPS which is way lower than any other sidearm. The damage really shouldn't be touched all that much because you never actually deal that base damage. Even those tiny charges add small damage multipliers to each shot. Watch this video. They found that on average, even the basic Ion Pistol does 80 damage with a quick shot because of the tiny charge multiplier. After the 5 gained from the 10% bonus to shields, that's an extra 25 damage or basically a 50% bonus from the original base. The more you increase the base damage, the more monstrous it becomes. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 855	Posted - 2014.09.03 13:59:00 - [4] - Quote BL4CKST4R wrote: Daddrobit wrote: BL4CKST4R wrote: Daddrobit wrote: Mercy Snip. :) I like your suggestion to the operation. I do believe the dispersion should be a lot lower, 10% reduction and it would still have more dispersion than a ScP. Like I said for the AR the weapon should be good by itself and better on the Gallente. It's dispersion should be similar or better to that of a ScP after all the Ion has the shortest range of them all, while the ScP has the second longest. As for the damage it should have 68-72 damage per shot at the Creodon level, simply because it the shortest range side arm and also very skill intensive weapon it should have the highest DPS. And yes I know the charge function exists but that doesn't stop the SCR from having the highest DPS. At 60 damage per shot it has 375 DPS which is way lower than any other sidearm. The damage really shouldn't be touched all that much because you never actually deal that base damage. Even those tiny charges add small damage multipliers to each shot. Watch this video. They found that on average, even the basic Ion Pistol does 80 damage with a quick shot because of the tiny charge multiplier. After the 5 gained from the 10% bonus to shields, that's an extra 25 damage or basically a 50% bonus from the original base. The more you increase the base damage, the more monstrous it becomes. I am aware of this but it counter balances against the SCP who also can have very high damage damage if you manage to hipfire a headshot which isn't to hard. Also your suggestion on heat% build, which I really like, would lower this effect. My suggestion would not affect the mini-charges, it would only affect the amount of heat they produce when fired. Take the 68 damage suggestion. it becomes 74.8 after the shield bonus, add 45% for a mini charge and you now have a shot dealing between 89 and 109 damage. At 72 base it becomes 94-115. That's some serious power to be dealing out at a rate of 375 ROF. That's just under 590 DPS just against armor in fact. 718 vs shields. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 856	Posted - 2014.09.03 14:46:00 - [5] - Quote Fox Gaden wrote: The Burst HMG uses both overheat and ammo usage as balancing factors, and the result is fun to use. How about using a similar methodology with the Ion Pistol? If the charged shot has a 7x damage modifier, how about have a charged shot consume 7 rounds of ammunition, and set heat buildup for a charged shot to just a bit higher than the heat buildup of firing 7 rounds one at a time. It should not overhead on a single charged shot (possibly with the exception of the militia version). When skilled into the weapon you should be able to get multiple single shots off after the charged shot. I like your scenario of being able to follow a charged shot with 4 single shots at full skill. I donGÇÖt think it needs more range. It is supposed to be a pocket shotgun isnGÇÖt it? The effective range bug should be fixed though. Regarding misfires, the same fenomina is recorded for the TAC Assault Rifle in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuOXdZfHeN8&feature=youtu.be All that being said, I am not an Ion Pistol user, so my understanding of the weapon is purely theoretical. I disagree with the gun eating bullets per charge as it would make the charge even less useful as the charge time does not line up with the ROF. Currently it takes about 2 seconds to get a full charge, but had I simply rapid fired the gun for those two seconds instead, I could have theoretically unloaded the entire clip. In that proposed solution, it would simply always be more economical to rapid fire the 7 shots in less time for more DPS. Not to mention a single charge would eat up over half the clip. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 856	Posted - 2014.09.03 16:56:00 - [6] - Quote Xerth Frejer wrote: Your explanation of the IP's function were very good and your proposed fix makes sense to me (+ maybe increase clipsize). But I'd like to toss in the idea I read in KAGEHOSHI's Thread for the next client update. Those changes do imo make more sense gameplaywise and synergise better with the suits. I really like the idea of changing the IP's chargeshot from a damage multiplier to a shotgunstyle multiprojectile shot, which uses more ammo than a single shot. The IP would lose the heatmechanic completly (instead give that to the ScP). It makes more sense since heatmanagement is an Amarr thing and a shotgunstyle chargeshot is easier to hit/more effectiv in cqc. But having it eat more bullets for charging simply hurts the weapon. In the same time that it takes to charge the weapon in the first place, I could have already fired off the entire magazine. E.G. I would get more DPS out of the weapon simply by semi auto firing it. Instead with Kags suggestion you have to wait 2 seconds to fire off X amount of shots, and there's more potential for disaster there because it's not a guaranteed hit with all or even most of the pellets. Making it eat the entire clip and forcing a reload would place it into an even more niche crowd than it already is moreso than eating one round and forcing an overheat. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 861	Posted - 2014.09.03 22:14:00 - [7] - Quote Dexter307 wrote: Increase charge dmg to 500 Increase damage of non charged shots to 70 Fixed That would make the charge a 7.14~ times multiplier and the minicharged shots would skyrocket to 95.3 vs armor and 115.6 vs shields. Again, far too much power to be throwing around at 375 ROF. 595 DPS vs armor, 722 vs shields. We're looking to make this gun -viable-, not so powerful it gets nerfed into flaylock levels of uselessness. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 861	Posted - 2014.09.03 22:29:00 - [8] - Quote Vell0cet wrote: I really like the idea of the charged shot functioning like a mini-shotgun. That may not be possible in a hotfix. This isn't a weapon I ever use, but it seems like a really excellent discussion by people who have a solid grasp of the mechanics. Let me put the 'ion pistol shotgun' idea in a different light. If it were function like the afore mentioned, realistically, it would function like the plasma cannon. It has a charge up time, it deals massive damage, and it only has one shot in the clip before reloading. But now imagine if the plasma cannon had a longer charge up, dealt less damage at full potential, had less range, did less damage at range, had a longer reload, had less ammo in reserve, and almost never dealt full damage even within its optimal and directly on target. That does not sound like a fun weapon to use. And indeed I feel we already have a weapon that functions even closer to the ion pistol shotgun theory: the breach shotgun. A super powerful alpha shotgun with very few bullets in the chamber and a long reload. But now imagine using the breach shotgun where it deals less damage, has a 2 second charge up time, has less ammo in reserve, has a mandatory reload after every shot, and its reload takes twice as long. Think about how often you see the breach shotgun being used on the field and realize that's what you're saying you want the charge functionality to be as effective as. The only people who use the breach shotgun are newbros that are still experimenting, and people who are engaging in shenanigans or are trying to make a montage to look good. I'm looking to make the gun viable, not more gimmicky. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 863	Posted - 2014.09.04 00:31:00 - [9] - Quote Zatara Rought wrote: I had actually suggested that you third the heat for a charged shot. Normal heat would apply...with the addendum that you couldn't fire the shot unless you less under 2/3's heat to prevent firing a charged shot from like 10% heat to overheat if that makes sense. You may want to rephrase that, but what I think you were trying to say is that you don't want a player to be able to fire off shots up until just before the overheat and then be able to charge a full charge shot am I right? I'd have to kindly disagree. You have the same functionality with the ScR, but it certainly doesn't make the weapon too powerful by itself as being a 'finisher' tactic, and I don't foresee it being too much of a problem for the IP either. Heck, because of the high cooldown on the ScR, you can actually even fire charged shots until the cows come home if you wait a split second between shots. But with the cooldown on the IP being only 1/10 the speed that it heats up, spamming should never be an issue. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 867	Posted - 2014.09.04 00:50:00 - [10] - Quote Zatara Rought wrote: My idea is to make it so you over get 1/3 the heat to overheat per charged shot...meaning you could not only fire regular follow up shots instead of being defenseless in overheat..but also you could get 3 charged shots off theoretically in succession. So a full 7x damage charge only heats to 1/3 the maximum? So long as the charge up time stays the same, if not even longer, I don't want to see people spamming this things charges everywhere. If they were to go with that instead of changing the operation to a heatsink, I'd say increase the charge time by 10%, that way you really can't spam it, but with a 25% reduction in charge time you still can fire charges well faster than the base speed. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny

Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 874	Posted - 2014.09.04 03:53:00 - [11] - Quote Vell0cet wrote: Daddrobit wrote: Vell0cet wrote: I really like the idea of the charged shot functioning like a mini-shotgun. That may not be possible in a hotfix. This isn't a weapon I ever use, but it seems like a really excellent discussion by people who have a solid grasp of the mechanics. Let me put the 'ion pistol shotgun' idea in a different light. If it were function like the afore mentioned, realistically, it would function like the plasma cannon. It has a charge up time, it deals massive damage, and it only has one shot in the clip before reloading. But now imagine if the plasma cannon had a longer charge up, dealt less damage at full potential, had less range, did less damage at range, had a longer reload, had less ammo in reserve, and almost never dealt full damage even within its optimal and directly on target. That does not sound like a fun weapon to use. And indeed I feel we already have a weapon that functions even closer to the ion pistol shotgun theory: the breach shotgun. A super powerful alpha shotgun with very few bullets in the chamber and a long reload. But now imagine using the breach shotgun where it deals less damage, has a 2 second charge up time, has less ammo in reserve, has a mandatory reload after every shot, and its reload takes twice as long. Think about how often you see the breach shotgun being used on the field and realize that's what you're saying you want the charge functionality to be as effective as. The only people who use the breach shotgun are newbros that are still experimenting, and people who are engaging in shenanigans or are trying to make a montage to look good. I'm looking to make the gun viable, not more gimmicky. You could make it so that it used more ammo based on how long you charged it, maybe with the capacity for 2 max charged blasts per reload. So you could fire many quick-charged shots for 2-3 round blasts each, fewer medium-charged blasts, or a couple max blasts. This gives you situational flexibility. Another point is this is a sidearm, so having a toned-down shotgun capability or a rapid fire pistol would be versatile and a useful compliment to your primary weapon. I think the concept is interesting. It might not be as useful as it sounds in my head, but it would add more flexibility, diversity, and personality to the pistol lineup. The thing is that even if you charge the weapon only 1/4 of the way and thus release 1/4 of the bullets, and even if they match up the charge to the ROF and they all manage to hit, you'll still be losing damage because had you fired them individually each would have also come packed with a mini charge damage multiplier. So it's either fire 4 at once after a charge for 220 damage, or fire 4 individually at 80 a piece for 320 damage in the same amount of time or less. There is no situation here where the shotgun performs better. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny
Daddrobit You Can Call Me Daddy 883	Posted - 2014.09.04 10:22:00 - [12] - Quote Vell0cet wrote: Daddrobit wrote: Mercy Snip :) That's a good point. So why not keep the damage multiplier for shotgun blasts too? I think there's a lot of room to play around with the stats to make it useful without surpassing the actual shotgun or outperforming other sidearms. I just like the concept of having a wide array of fun/interesting weapons that all feel very different. A slightly different version of the scrambler pistol is kinda underwhelming. Maybe this is to gimmicky to be practical though. I haven't spent nearly as much time analyzing this as you have, so I admit I could be totally wrong here. Before my thoughts on how I'd potentially get the ion pistol shotty to work, here's a thought on weapon variations. Personally, I feel like the IP does function in a manner that is fun/interesting/unique in comparison to the other sidearms. It's not that it's a slightly different scrambler pistol, it's that it's a miniature ScR, much in the same way that the ScP is a miniature Tac AR. Like how the flaylock is a miniature mass driver and the smg is a miniature ACR. To call the IP a slightly different ScP is like to call the ScR a slightly different Tac AR. I understand that you like and want more weapon variety, but to take away one variant in place of another just because it doesn't currently function at an optimal level is a step back in my opinion. We have the unique weapon system in place, we just need to figure out how to make it work. But that's not to say I don't completely dislike the theory of having a pocket shotty sidearm. I do think it's an interesting idea, I just don't want to have my sidearm stripped of me to make that one a possibility. So what if you petitioned to make an ion pistol -Variant- that functions as a pocket shotty? So far we only have one type of IP while the smg and ScP both get several of their own, I'd certainly like to see more variety in the gallente section. As to how you would make that work, I came up with a possible solution. At first I thought that it might be feasible to give all the bullets fired a damage modifier equal to the % required to charge it that far, but I quickly realized this would make it sickeningly OP because of the scaling. To explain, one bullet is 1/12 a charge, so give that single bullet 8.3% of a 7x charge multiplier, which translates to 58%. Then two bullets would each have a multiplier of 116% and so on. At 6 bullets, each would be fired with a 350% damage modifier totaling 1050 damage. 12 bullets each with a full 700% damage would become a tank buster at 4200 damage. That's the basic variant. No thank you. Back to the drawing boards. So then I thought, well, just give each bullet a damage modifier of just how much it requires to charge for that single bullet. Basically, just give each bullet a 58% damage modifier. A single shot does 79, two does 158, three does 237. No odd scaling here but still capable of ludicrous power. 12 shots would still have the potential to do 948 damage, throw on a damage mod and you're putting out over a 1000 damage. You're one shotting most suits in the game at the basic level here and you're able to do it at 20 meters. It still seems a bit much. So then I realized, why do we have to damage mod it at all now that we're talking a different variant? Pop the base damage per shot to 55 and then let the charge simply determine how many shots are fired, no tinkering with damage modification at all. 12 shots would net you 660 damage so you're still one shotting most militia frames, but well tanked basic suits and above would still survive. Again, you're losing damage versus the standard IP as each one of those pellets could have been damage modded, but the full charge of the shotty IP does more damage that that of the standard, so maybe that would sway people in that direction. And I have to stress this again, should CCP be listening here, this should really only be considered as a variant, I want my basic version fixed, not replaced. O.G. Pink Fluffy Bunny