I agree that it takes some skill to use but it is still a bit too powerful. All that range and that much alpha? It just needs its damage dialed back a bit to prevent it from becoming a flavour of the month. I'm not advocating a nerf but a tweak.

Bolt Pistol....more like BULL**** Pistol.
I think the damage is way to high.
Got hit by 3 shots of those at close range by some proto stomper....I had no chance and i was stacking ehp modules to decent levels too. Maybe he had DMG mods or something...way to harsh.

You clearly haven't read one of my posts in a sniping thread before but let me sum up my opinion for you. Sniper rifles are broken because of thier ability to get a reward (kills) with too little risk (thanks to their range). This breaks the risk reward relationship that is the halmark of this game and what makes it fun for all players. So, basically, yes. I do think that for their range sniper rifles have too long of range.

No one fears them. That is a problem for sure. But we can't kill them either. Also a problem.

The real issue here is that most snipers choose to snipe from the redline, where they are extremely challenging (and sometimes impossible) to kill. Their range needs to drop, to get them out of the redline and they need to be able to kill (the current stats for damage are actually quite nice as far as that is concerned). Drop the range down to the point where they can't cover a letter from the redline and then balance damage from there.

As far the sniper rifles in this game having any resemblance to real sniper rifles I think you need to just throw that idea out the window for the following reasons:

1) The maps are not large enough to accommodate for realistic sniper weapons.

2) The way the physics engine handles sniper rilfes does not allow for travel time, bullet drop, or windage removing any challenge from sniping.

3) Having a redline and realistic sniper rifles would make the weapon have zero risk (which should never even be an option) and removing the redline would just lead to dominant teams camping enemy MCC and ground spawns (which used to happen all the time).

4) Games are supposed to be fun for everyone and, lets face it, real weapons including sniper rilfes, are not created around the idea of an enemy having an enjoyable, fun, and fair combat experience. Multiplayer games on the other hand, need to include all these elements to make people want to play them.

Eve online is fun in many different respects, causing misery is merely one of them. If it wasn't fun to do other things you'd only see trolls in game which would make it not fun, even for trolls. Plus there are other aspects of the Eve which are fun and don't involve hurting others.

Getting rid of the redline really isn't going to happen any time soon. I'm pretty sure it would require a client side update, which aren't happening right now, and sky spawning would just turn tactical ground movement into suicide to flank tactics. Big enemy group approaching? No problem. Simply have your squad suicide, then sky spawn behind the enemy and a pack.

I agree that getting rid of the redline would solve the issue but it would also start a whole bunch of other issues.

As to the BP RoF reduction Ratatti never said a %, so I hope he is aiming at a lower number to start so he can make lost of small incremental changes to get things perfectly tuned. Also I'm guessing the RoF reduction is intended to cause a DPS reduction, so boosing damage would be counter productive. I could be wrong about his intentions though.

My data should show that I have been using bolt since it dropped with reasonable success. I must admit.. I like the instagib on the unready scout
But now it has way too much dakka


Meet me in the middle, 5 shots 180-ish dmg.

/extends hand