Simply what happened was that the Scrambler was OP, but few were using it so either it was hard to use or only paying off for a few to use.

Now, what is happening is that since I said that, a flood of player have migrated to the arguably best weapon, without it diminishing the K/S, even to the point that the K/S is going up.

That tells me that its not that hard to use, OP and needs a tweak.

I would welcome players going to TAC AR and the grand design goal is to get these rifles to the point that you will have a preferrred a weapon but switch to other weapons to accommodate tactical situations.

The weapon should not be a "forced" choice, because it is much better than the others, so using them is a handicap.

Thank you for continuing the dialogue. Do you have any thoughts or data about why people may have moved to it? The scrambler itself received no buffs during that time period. Perhaps it was due to a nerf to some other popular weapon?

I want the scrambler in a good place, so I truly hope that we as a community can continue to provide constructive feedback. Also, while I think this thread contains by and large rational people, please ignore the trolls, Rattati o7

Quite honestly, it seems like people read his comment about how efficient it was, said "Oh, I want in on that!" and migrated to it. Honestly, I believe the problem is less about the ScR being OP and more about it's direct competition, the TAR, being UP for so long.

What we need to do is analyze how the TAR behaves compared to the ScR and then proceed to buff the TAR. The ScR hasn't changed in basic function save for several nerfs in months. I doubt it magically became OP when all it's had since Rattati came along is nerfs. So what we need to do is buff the TAR, which has been needing love for some time now.

If anyhting, I'd just do away with the charge shot. That seems to be what Rattati doesn't like: charge shot to kill or severely wound, then a few shots to finish the job.

Whilst I don't doubt your data, should we be thinking about balance priorities?

How's the balance for other weapons? I don't hear much complaining about rifle balance, it feels pretty good to me. How about other weapons? Anything greatly underperforming? Breach shotguns come to mind, that the community have frequently mentioned as being poor.

How about racial balance within suit type? For example, are all four assault suits performing roughly equally?

Maybe I'm unfairly assuming you are focussing too much on rifles.

Breach Shotguns, MagSec SMG, non-breach scrambler pistols, all this stuff needs to be looked at, but they shouldnt take priority over fixing stuff that is overpowered.

Underpowered weapons are a choice you can make while you are screwing around or experimenting with stuff, and you can unmake that choice any time and use one of the better weapons. Meanwhile the scrambler rifle is overpowered, which means if someone chooses to abuse it, they can inflict the imbalance on lots of other people. In terms of priority I think overpowered weapons (i.e. the tac scrambler) should definitely be #1.

However, overall the absolute worst imbalance in the game right now is invincible rep/hardener madrugers, so I'd be 100% fine with rebalancing the scrambler later if it means getting that **** fixed sooner, but thats another thread.

Maybe... profile might also be an issue, its odd that we have the highest damage profile available in the game being used against the lowest EHP form of tanking, just screams for abuse.

Anything would help though.

Here's the thing though; ScR has a heat mechanic that severely limits its ability to engage anything reasonably tanked. If we are going to talk about ehp, the shotgun does a much more efficient job of destroying low ehp suits. Consider that shotguns hold the no. 2 spot for PC kills while ScR isn't even in the top 10. There is much more going on here than is seen. If the ScR was truly this OP, wouldn't more people be using it?

And also, the ScR hasn't been touched except for nerfs in the last several months. It's seen a ROF reduction, a mag size reduction, and a max carried reduction. In light of this, somehow it became OP despite receiving no buffs? That makes no sense. This is why I asked Rattati to share the data on it and the other rifles in order for us to determine what is really going on.

Yes but the shotgun does its job at 5-10 meters and has very limited and clunky fire rate. The scrambler has something like 80 meter range (I dont recall the exact ranges, wish those showed up somewhere in game!) where its still 100% effective.

And in terms of danger for say, a shotgunner vs. a scrambler user, even at close range... the scrambler user doesnt need to worry about their relative speed and can tank for HP, since their weapon has much better range. On the other hand a shotgunner is required to either run multiple kincats or run a scout suit, so their EHP will be very low in comparison, in addition they MUST close distance, where a scrambler rifle user has the luxury of engaging at any effective rifle range (in other words - they will have decisive, crippling, shotgun-like damage regardless of range unless fighting against a laser rifle or sniper rifle or forge gunner at very long ranges).

Edit: In addition its worth noting that the scrambler rifle is the second best rifle in PC even though PC framerate lag dramatically favors full auto assault/hmg weapons or big chunky hard hitters like the shotgun. If the framerate issues were fixed, you have to wonder what the situation would be in terms of rifle effectiveness when the tac scrambler is already one of only 4 of the rifles (and the ONLY non full auto rifle) that can really compete in that environment.

If the shotgun is so clunky, why does it have such an incredibly larger presence in PC? Despite these disadvantages like range, it is clearly the far more popular choice. Look at what suits the ScR is used on. Now ignore it being used on AmAssault. There are less than 400 kills with the ScR on a non AmAssault suit. That is telling. Meanwhile, the best rifle beats it out by a solid 6 places with 14349 kills vs ScR at 5184 kills. That's nearly 3x more kills. Is the ACR incredibly OP? Should we nerf it hard?

The point is we don't have all the data we need to back up these claims. We have Rattati's word, and that's it. I would like to see the data and have him help me understand why he's interpreting it the way he is. Because again, the ScR hasn't gotten better in several months. If anything, it has had several nerfs. So why is it now a problem? Why wasn't it a problem then? What changed? We need more data than what we have right now to find a solid answer. I don't want the ScR to become useless like the flaylock was, or like the TAR was. We need to get all the cards on the table so we can figure out a decent solution.

By clunky I mean when you fire a shot you have to wait a second or so for your second shot. The scrambler does not have this limitation, as far as I can tell when you click the shoot button that thing shoots right up until it overheats.

And again PC strongly favors full auto weaponry (which is why the Assault Combat Rifle is much more effective and much more used in PC than the tac scrambler), but the tac scrambler still beats out the assault rail rifle, assault scrambler, and assault plasma rifle. If the framerate issues in PC were not there it would be a much different story.

Also re: data, those numbers are just kills made in PC and what suit the rifle/kill was made on. It doesnt tell us how good each weapon is in relative terms. So for example: if those 5184 scrambler kills were made by 2000 spawns worth of clones, and the 14349 acr kills were made by 10000 spawns worth of clones, the scrambler would still be the better weapon despite the disparity in raw quantity because per clone the scrambler rifle is performing better. So yeah I agree we would need more data for our plebian general forum discussions to really figure things out, but I dont think Rattati is inclined to just make **** up to randomly nerf something (but I'd still love to see that data ).

I always disliked balancing by use because it fails to take into consideration that something might just be cooler and thus more popular. Imagine if there was a laser rifle that shot rainbows but did 5% less damage. It is factually worse than the regular laser rifle, but it would certainly get a heck of a lot of kills.

[quote=Georgia Xavier
on fizzer's defence, the ScR has received many nerfs already. It may actually be op but a number of nerfs on a single weapon can annoy people more than one or two proper nerfs

In lieu of extreme measures, I would like to open a dialogue with Rattati over changing heat from per second to per shot. But the thing is, we have never seen a Dev comment on whether changing heat mechanics is even feasible.

It would require a client side update. The heat attributes existing as they are is just an aftereffect of them reusing LR heat for everything else where it makes less sense.

The thing is overpowered, and it has nothing to do with the TAR's performance. Scrambler absolutely devastates sheild or low hp tanked suits

and its performance over time or against armor tanked suits isnt bad enough to justify its dominant killing power. It needs to be rebalanced to bring it into line with other rifle's performance (which for me generally means making it slow enough in terms of TTK that someone can actually react to being hit by it before losing 80% of their health

So I switch to the scrambler rifle because Im ****** if Im going to let these losers win because they want to lean on their little crutch guns. Its just bullshit and it needs to be fixed.

Now to buff Burst AR and TACAR more

First point: "Scrambler absolutely devastates sheild" I believe in that way it is working as intended. As an Amarr laser weapon, shields are where it is supposed to shine.

Second point: "or low hp tanked suits" It is my opinion that by the very definition of "Low HP" you should expect to have a reduced survive-ability under direct fire.



To me, it seems like your gripe stems from being dispatched too quickly for your liking. If that is true, my experience would lead me to think that it is the charge shot in particular that could be causing the trouble.

The scrambler is an alpha weapon, dealing high damage in short bursts. If we combine alpha damage with a charge multiplier, then factor in your low HP shield suit, I can fully understand how a scrambler would cause you irritation.

I sympathize. Now, looking at the weapon itself, the charge mechanic (coupled with the heat system) is what makes the scrambler unique. Therefore, I would hate to see the charge option removed entirely as some have proposed. This would result in the scrambler being being much closer to any other rifle rather than having it's own place on the battlefield as all weapons should.

My opinion: lower single shot damage by a reasonable amount, and increase charge shot damage.

Everyone keeps talking about how the scrambler requires skill. I agree, but if what Rattati says is true (and I don't doubt him) then it appears that an increasing amount of presumably less-skilled people are using it to great effect. To rectify this, reduce the effectiveness of the fast firing single shot. Do not do away with it entirely, simply make it less rewarding for those who use the weapon in ranges that it might not be ideally suited for. Scramblers should be able to defend themselves up close, but that's not what the Amarr mentality dictates the weapon should be used for.

By increasing charge shot damage, it would become what most players belive it to be: A long range, high damage weapon that promotes timing and placement above close range trigger fingers.



This sadly falls in to ranting territory, and makes me sad

Now:



Buff the Burst. No arguments there.

The issue that I could see happening lies with the TAC. Many people say it's fine, but again, Rattati thinks differently. Fair play, broken things must be fixed. However, as has already been pointed out, the Scrambler and the TAC are very close in their respective fields. Both high damage, anti-shield weapons.

The difference lies in their profiles, with the Scrambler having the longer range and greater shield damage, and the TAC being Mid to Long ranges with less of a draw-back versus armor.

The point is that because they are so similar, nerfing one while buffing the other could lead to abandonment of one for the other. If that were to happen, we'll simply be having this conversation again as people naturally migrate away from the scrambler.

TLDR:

Skilled Charge Shot>Rapid Single Shot

Don't Over-Nerf or Over-Buff; it'll just cause more problems down the road.

An excellent thought process.

I want this to be done in small intervals so that we don't overshoot the sweet spot. So how about reducing damage to 67.5 and increasing charge shot multiplier to 3.75. This gives the same charge shot damage with lower regular shot damage. DPS will be 675 down from 715 with this change assuming you can hit 600 RPM.

First point: "Scrambler absolutely devastates sheild" I believe in that way it is working as intended. As an Amarr laser weapon, shields are where it is supposed to shine.

Second point: "or low hp tanked suits" It is my opinion that by the very definition of "Low HP" you should expect to have a reduced survive-ability under direct fire.



To me, it seems like your gripe stems from being dispatched too quickly for your liking. If that is true, my experience would lead me to think that it is the charge shot in particular that could be causing the trouble.

Now, looking at the weapon itself, the charge mechanic (coupled with the heat system) is what makes the scrambler unique.

Everyone keeps talking about how the scrambler requires skill.

This sadly falls in to ranting territory, and makes me sad

I want this to be done in small intervals so that we don't overshoot the sweet spot. So how about reducing damage to 67.5 and increasing charge shot multiplier to 3.75. This gives the same charge shot damage with lower regular shot damage. DPS will be 675 down from 715 with this change assuming you can hit 600 RPM.

+1 from me if Heat Mechanics couldn't be changed (or until heat mechanics could be changed)...something like that...maybe take down damage a bit more and up the headshot multiplier?

I don't want to see the damage drop any lower than my proposal without running metrics. We need to take this slowly. If more needs to be done after this change has settled, then we can return to your idea, but too much changed at once is what leads weapons to becoming useless and unused, a la the flaylock and TAR of old.

An excellent thought process.

I want this to be done in small intervals so that we don't overshoot the sweet spot. So how about reducing damage to 67.5 and increasing charge shot multiplier to 3.75. This gives the same charge shot damage with lower regular shot damage. DPS will be 675 down from 715 with this change assuming you can hit 600 RPM.

I love the scrambler, but i do think it is too good. The problem i see with it, i can hip fire that thing way too effectively. My general play style is charge shot, 3 shot, charge shot 3 shot, however if the need arises i can spam that **** and rarely miss. I think this is the biggest difference between the TAC and the SCR, the ability to convert damage, not statistical differences.

I actually think Darth's suggestion of reduced standard shot, but improved charge could go a way to alleviating some issues with CQC spam effectiveness.

I want this to be done in small intervals so that we don't overshoot the sweet spot. So how about reducing damage to 67.5 and increasing charge shot multiplier to 3.75. This gives the same charge shot damage with lower regular shot damage. DPS will be 675 down from 715 with this change assuming you can hit 600 RPM.