If the goal was to drive down usage, why haven't they redesigned the maps to have more cover and less open areas? RR is great because there's always 9 miles of open field between you and some guy you want to shoot at.

Rooftop campers can only be hit by RR or sniper rifles effectively. And open field give first strike advantage to RR. I can always find a spot on a map to abuse the RR range.

If you want more usage out of short range weapons then you need maps very obscured line of sight, plenty of cover, ceilings and enclosed areas that can't be viewed at long range. The bare bones map design is the problem you want solve if you're trying to drive down RR usage.

If the goal was to drive down usage, why haven't they redesigned the maps to have more cover and less open areas? RR is great because there's always 9 miles of open field between you and some guy you want to shoot at.

Rooftop campers can only be hit by RR or sniper rifles effectively. And open field give first strike advantage to RR. I can always find a spot on a map to abuse the RR range.

If you want more usage out of short range weapons then you need maps very obscured line of sight, plenty of cover, ceilings and enclosed areas that can't be viewed at long range. The bare bones map design is the problem you want solve if you're trying to drive down RR usage.

In this light, a map that was solely indoors would have very low RR usage.

Think of the Gallente Research Facility domination. Almost no RRs there, because everyone is underground or in the city. RR's shine on the bridge domination because there is so much open space.

I call your posts QQ because you make it sound far worse than it actually is.

You have to hold the trigger through the expenditure of an entire clip to get 120 degrees of kick, and that is without any attempt to compensate. What competent player would empty an entire clip in one burst?

Most of the kills I get with the RR are in the 30m to 40m rang. A rang nerf would not change that any more than the hip fire kick would. However, the hip fire kick does make it weaker at very close rang, which means there is a tradeoff to picking the RR now. Every weapon should have a tradeoff. When one weapon is good in every situation, then there is no reason to ever use anything else.

Every weapon should be a niche weapon. If one weapon does everything well, why would anyone every use anything else?

Balance decisions must consider both PC and Public Matches. In this case the RR may well have been balanced in PC, but for unskilled players in Public matches the RR worked just as well in CQC as any other weapon.

The RR was OP in the sense that it was the best weapon in the least skilled hands. It was too easy for low to mid level players to get exceptional results with it. It was too easy to use.

So perhaps we need another word to use instead of Overpowered to describe this phenomena. (I detest the term GÇ£noob-tubGÇ¥ by the way.)

I think you are too focused on only the top 1% of players, and are not giving any consideration to the realities of balancing for the other 99%. Ratatti has to look at both.

As a Cartographer, I would love to see maps showing where all the kills occurred in a match. Heck, I would love to have the raw data and create a map like that. You could probably draw many insights from such a map.

Planetary conquest analysis up next week.

The Gallente have their AR which is superior at close to mid range. Same with the minmatar CR. The Amarr has the ScR, which is obviously takes a bit more skill, but has no niche as it works well at CQC and range. What do the Caldari have? The worst CQC weapon already just got 4x harder to control, and the delay increased by 60%.

And we have no idea how well or not the RR truly worked in CQC in comparison to other guns. All we have is anecdotal evidence and a lot of differing viewpoitns. A few of us have been calling for K/S statistics to include some range information so we can see what's really going on. I've not seen anything. Have you?

Again, simply wrong. It was the most popular weapon, not the best. If it was the best, it would have had a clear K/S advantage. The data shows it does not...despite having a range advantage that would lead towards higher K/S situation -- killing at range.

And the most telling question of all: If the RR was so superior, why was it only on one of your fits? I'll wait for your answer to that one.

Again, simply wrong. It was the most popular weapon, not the best. If it was the best, it would have had a clear K/S advantage. The data shows it does not...despite having a range advantage that would lead towards higher K/S situation -- killing at range.

Are you judging the RR by Saxon's videos killing noobs on USA servers from his home in Europe in the morning USA time? Taking nothing away from Saxon, who's one of the most experienced and highly skilled players in this game, but lolz.

And the most telling question of all: If the RR was so superior, why was it only on one of your fits? I'll wait for your answer to that one.

Which may be exactly what was intended by this nerf. Make it more of a niche weapon and drive down usage.


Again, simply wrong. It was the most popular weapon, not the best. If it was the best, it would have had a clear K/S advantage. The data shows it does not...despite having a range advantage that would lead towards higher K/S situation -- killing at range.


I think the term you are looking for is overused or overpopular, not overpowered.

Here's my take: The RR is popular because it was truly OP at the time it was introduced -- the time the entire playerbase got a respec. It is also popular for the same reason people like sniping -- it allows you to kill at range (albeit a much narrower range than the sniper rifle) where your targets can't effectively kill you -- and most maps have areas that allow you to do just that: Find one of the many spots in this game that allows you to watch the wide open approach areas. Or use a heavy's HP to overcome it's already glaring weakness in CQC. Luckily, that scrub tactic doesn't work in PC, as anyone who has played PCs recently can attest to, but even overwatch/approach camping works in PC, which is the niche that weapon fills in PC.



Perhaps. I've admitted that PC is my focus, and I play public matches to hone my (relatively lackluster) skills for PC.

Shouldn't this game be balanced for both PC and Pubs?

Even more to the point, shouldn't we evaluate both data sets before deciding what to do with a weapon?

Leadfoot, I disagree with almost everything in this reply to Fox. Every time you said "wrong", I thought "right".

How can you state that we are making the RR a "niche" weapon, when it almost has as many kills as the rest of the Rifles combined? The Rail Rifle is making all the other weapons "niche" weapons.

How can you say repeatedly that the Rail does not have a clear K/S advantage, when it is the highest of all the Rifles? And twice that of many of them.

The Rail Rifle is still used to kill massively in PC and that was taken into account.

It is not simply "overused" when it has the highest K/S as well. That doesnt make any sense.

Even if it was OP when it was introduced, why is the Kill trend growing rapidly for the last 5 months? It literally means people are migrating to it, not stuck with a decision made around 1.8.

Leadfoot, I disagree with almost everything in this reply to Fox. Every time you said "wrong", I thought "right".

How can you state that we are making the RR a "niche" weapon, when it almost has as many kills as the rest of the Rifles combined? The Rail Rifle is making all the other weapons "niche" weapons.

How can you say repeatedly that the Rail does not have a clear K/S advantage, when it is the highest of all the Rifles? And twice that of many of them.

The Rail Rifle is still used to kill massively in PC and that was taken into account.

It is not simply "overused" when it has the highest K/S as well. That doesnt make any sense.

Even if it was OP when it was introduced, why is the Kill trend growing rapidly for the last 5 months? It literally means people are migrating to it, not stuck with a decision made around 1.8.

I use a Rail Rifle on my Drop Uplink Logi fit, so I decided to run a few ambush matches with this fit to see what all the whining was about.


What the Fox Says:
If you skilled into the Rail Rifle because you felt it was the best choice for CQC before, then you were taking advantage of a flaw in the game and you should feel bad.

How can you state that we are making the RR a "niche" weapon, when it almost has as many kills as the rest of the Rifles combined? The Rail Rifle is making all the other weapons "niche" weapons.

How can you say repeatedly that the Rail does not have a clear K/S advantage, when it is the highest of all the Rifles? And twice that of many of them.
...
It is not simply "overused" when it has the highest K/S as well. That doesnt make any sense.

The Rail Rifle is still used to kill massively in PC and that was taken into account.

Even if it was OP when it was introduced, why is the Kill trend growing rapidly for the last 5 months? It literally means people are migrating to it, not stuck with a decision made around 1.8.

Rattati, let say, that we had an empty map with flat terrain (no cover at all). both teams spawn 400m from each other. one team is using assault rifles, and combat rifles. the other team is using rail rifles, and scrambler rifles.

which team do you think would win an ambush?

after the match ends, the teams are allowed to select new weapons. which weapon do you think will be selected after the first battle?

at this point you should be considering poor map design as the problem for RR popularity. More cover, increased broken lines of sight, and you make long range weapon ineffective, and close range weapons more preferred. There is a reason why the RR is popular and its not because its great at CQC.

Although I wouldn't use the words "poor map design", the logic above makes a lot of sense to me.

When I use the RR/ARR it's in very specific situations where the map sets up for it. For instance, guarding the approach to one of the sockets in fractured road (the zig zag road map) or the outside points of the bridge map, or on the approach to any city socket, or in practically every map at the exit to the redline (for all those times the other team finds themselves redlined) -- areas with wide open kill zones in the perfect range for the RR user to own it up.

And the change to it's CQC handling it seems to me to have done nothing to the RR/ARR effectiveness in these situations, except make them more vulnerable up close.

And if it's the map design aiding this usage profile, will changing the CQC handing of this gun have the desired effect? If so, which of the rifles will pick up the slack in this regard?

We shall see.

As a Cartographer, I would love to see maps showing where all the kills occurred in a match. Heck, I would love to have the raw data and create a map like that. You could probably draw many insights from such a map.

Rattati, let say, that we had an empty map with flat terrain (no cover at all). both teams spawn 400m from each other. one team is using assault rifles, and combat rifles. the other team is using rail rifles, and scrambler rifles.

which team do you think would win an ambush?

after the match ends, the teams are allowed to select new weapons. which weapon do you think will be selected after the first battle?

at this point you should be considering poor map design as the problem for RR popularity. More cover, increased broken lines of sight, and you make long range weapon ineffective, and close range weapons more preferred. There is a reason why the RR is popular and its not because its great at CQC.

2. Automatic weapons will always be good in CQC barring some insane measures to counter this, such as the ridiculous kick on the RR currently. What we need to do is reduce its rate of fire while upping its per-hit damage to keep it at its current DPS. I can run numbers and make a spreadsheet if you're interested (especially now that I know how to share them, thanks for showing me that! )

I do think the ARR should be better in CQC than the RR, as it not only has a slightly shorter range, but also has iron sites rather than a Scope

You just sold me on the ARR right there. I HATE the scopes in DUST