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Pseudonym0
Free Guard of Arrakis
1
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Posted - 2013.06.04 17:11:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm not entirely sure why they chose to alter the range mechanic in the first place. In my personal opinion it was the least imbalanced aspect of the weapons. What needed to be addressed were damage/ROF mechanics and accuracy, and as far as I can tell all of these have been adjusted in the wrong direction. And besides all of this, I've still been unable to ascertain just what a metre is in this game, since it seems to change depending on what mechanic it applies to (e.g. run speed and blast radius are definitely less than a metre, whereas range is considerably more).
I'll use an example of a weapon which I've unfortunately now wasted a considerable number of skill points on because it is in all ways inferior.
The mass driver was a weapon which caused radius damage, but required a very close blast to do significant damage, had a low ROF, very slow reload, very limited ammo, required the user to gauge range and loft, and was often ineffective in uneven terrain, but had the ability to hit multiple opponents and do high burst damage per shot if used properly. It's blast radius is now so minimal as to make it virtually a direct fire weapon which still has all the limitations of it's previous incarnation. It is now almost incapable of damaging an enemy behind cover, is practically useless at middle range, and has no area denial component as people generally ignore the blasts going off near them. It's still capable of causing considerable close range damage, but not effectively more than it's counterparts which don't require the user to lead their target (because they are hit-scan weapons), and have vastly superior rates of fire, ammo capacities, and reload speeds.
By contrast, the assault rifle class is cheaper to skill into, cheaper to buy, sacrifices less CPU/PG, and is superior at most ranges and at least equal at close range.
This is just one example, but it leads me to question why CCP bothered keeping some of these weapons in the game, if the only effect is to make many of us spend exorbitant amounts of skill points on them only to discover we should have gone with the considerably cheaper AR. |
Pseudonym0
Free Guard of Arrakis
2
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Posted - 2013.06.05 18:32:00 -
[2] - Quote
EnIgMa99 wrote:Bendtner92 wrote:
The reason for the need for longer max and optimal ranges is that all the current maps seem to be made for mid to long range fights, or even long range fights, but all the weapons are short to mid range. This leads to a lot of situations where enemies just stand there and look at each other unable to shoot each other.
Sorry for the double quote, but this does raise an issue prevalent in more weapons than this. Maps which previously were designed mainly for mid-long range combat have been even further increased, and even many of those with urban environments now have large exterior areas where much of the fighting occurs due to spawn mechanics and command point placement. Even take the shotgun for instance....I'm sure there's not too many people who will argue that it's underpowered at the close range it is intended for, it still inflicts considerable damage. However, the passive bonus it gives is a reduction to "spread". Anyone who has used the weapon fairly consistently knows that spread is and always has been a misnomer, the weapon does not hit without the target being directly in the centre of the crosshairs, and it has never been possible to hit multiple opponents. Thus the only effect of the skill is to increase it's damage over range (still at very limited ranges and with very minimal damage at max range). It's only real benefit was the ability to take down a tough opponent you had already softened up almost to death and was trying to retreat to heal or to cause a little screen shake when you're running in on someone. The hard range cap makes both of these basically impossible, and makes a weapon which takes considerable skill points to acquire (comparable to the MD) , and makes it a niche weapon which serves little purpose on a lot of maps, especially with the logi suit that I use it with since there's no sidearm. If they wanted to increase the range falloff a bit, fine, but a very short hard cap was a bad idea given the map layouts.
Sorry if I deviated a little off topic. |
Pseudonym0
Free Guard of Arrakis
2
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Posted - 2013.06.06 15:32:00 -
[3] - Quote
Not sure if you'll see things such as multiple damage models any time soon in Dust, if ever. I don't know it there's any comment from CCP on the topic but it seems it would take an awful lot to institute. e.g. if Thermal ammo is available, does that also mean that Minmatar suits will have an inherent weakness to Thermal? Will I then be able to purchase modules for armor and shield resistance? Since there's no capacitor in Dust, and controllers have a limited number of buttons, active resistance modules aren't really practical, so everything would have passive resistances, which are generally weaker. Any ammo changing mechanic would probably be pretty cumbersome. And constantly fighting any of 16 different people means you could encounter any type of damage or resistance at any time. Seems there's a lot that could go wrong here. |
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