So, every other weapon in this game gets nerfed just as soon as the AR nerf brigade gets going.

OP or Not, the AR is ruining Dust. This weapon is so overused it's just stupid. The weapon, in pubs, accounts for as many kills as 11 of the 14 weapons combined. Combined.

Does that sound like balance or diversity? no, it isn't.

CCP - Are other weapons supposed to compete with the AR? They aren't.

It's about damn time that CCP approaches balance with, you know, usage balance in mind.

Still tired of AR 514.

An Assault Rifle being the most predominate weapon in an Infantry Combat game makes perfect sense. Pretty sure it is the most predominate weapon for any army in the world. It is a general combat weapon designed to excel in battle against other Infantrymen. It provides adequate DPS and requires the user to hit what they are aiming at. Pretty balanced all around.

A line platoon is composed primarily of Rifleman carrying Assault Rifles. They are generally supported by other weapons that fill specific roles. So pretty much what we have here in Dust 514. A bunch of Riflemen supported by a handful of Snipers, AV Gunners, Heavy Machine Gunners, Grenadiers and Designated Marksman. There should not be an over abundance of any of the latter roles.

What the game needs, is more variants of the Assault Rifle available as most FPS do. Right now we have two. Gallente Assault Rifle and Amarr Scrambler Rifle.

I'm sorry, but a call to real world militaries is pretty stupid.

First off, in a real world military the AR is a medium range burst tactical rifle, not a short and medium and long range bullet hose like we have in Dust.

With that out of the way, in Dust we currently have, in pub matches, the AR killing almost as much as 11 of the 14 weapons. This means that nearly all of the other weapons are undesirable compared to the AR.

This is why there's a problem. The AR is suffocating diversity, and dumbing the game down. The AR needs to be corrected to restore some semblance of usage balance.

Well then I guess my first suggestion would be to get out of Pub Matches because it will always contain the lowest common denominator in terms of playstyle and tactics. The majority of players in them are not team based groups so you will not find diversity because support weapons only make sense when players are working together.

So, every other weapon in this game gets nerfed just as soon as the AR nerf brigade gets going.

OP or Not, the AR is ruining Dust. This weapon is so overused it's just stupid. The weapon, in pubs, accounts for as many kills as 11 of the 14 weapons combined. Combined.

Does that sound like balance or diversity? no, it isn't.

CCP - Are other weapons supposed to compete with the AR? They aren't.

It's about damn time that CCP approaches balance with, you know, usage balance in mind.

well, i might as well start speccing into Caldari assault. i already have my GEK. might as well get a dvoule...
stack on some damage mods and its go time.

well, i might as well start speccing into Caldari assault. i already have my GEK. might as well get a dvoule...
stack on some damage mods and its go time.

Oh and earlier you posted in real world a.r.s are mid range weapons for militaries , but the u.s. armed forces are trained tobkil with it from 0 to excess of 400 yards using like 2-3 bulletd a person

A good bit of info.

It is interesting to see how RL weapons compare to what we are using, it's important to recognize a few things

1. The AR shoots plasma that will burn itself out before the projectile itself loses any momentum.

2. if we are going to use RL info for the range of the AR we should use that same line of reasoning for every other weapon. I don't think anybody wants scramblers or LR's to have infinite range, though.

3. Balance should be king. high DPS weapons should have low range, or some other sort of drawback. balance > realism.

The only, I repeat ONLY way to stop a.r. spam is to make militia variants of scrambler rifles and/or laser rifles.

The only result of a nerf on the a.r. would be current players investing in scramblers amd lasers and newbs rage quiting because the other weapons are now o.p. and dust would not have a growing player base

Also look at the k/d of ar users it will in no way be greater than any other weapons

Some RL ballpark weapon ranges (most from wiki)-

Shotguns-
The practical/effective range of your home defense type shotgun, with 00 buckshot, is about 20 yards

(in my experience shotguns built to shoot decent distances would NOT be at all ideal for CQC)

SMGs-
Effective range
200 m (656 ft) (MP5A2, MP5A3, MP5A4, MP5A5)

100 m (328 ft) (MP5/10)

70 m (230 ft) (MP5/40)

100 m (328 ft) (MP5K, MP5KA1, MP5KA4, MP5KA5, MP5K-PDW)

(As you can see, these are all MP5 varients)

Assault Rifles (AR-15)-
Effective range
400GÇô600 m (avg 547 yd)

(I would imagine this is an extremely rough ballpark. AR15 actually stands for Armalite (<--I think) Rifle 15, Armalite being the original brand. With all the different brands, and all the different ways to trick them out, i'm sure this number could vary greatly)

Sniper Rifles-
Maximum effective range
7.62+ù39mm
600 m

5.56+ù45mm
600 m [36]

7.62+ù51mm (.308 Winchester)
800 m

7.62+ù54mm R
800 m

.30-06 Springfield
800 m

7 mm Remington Magnum
900GÇô1,100 m

.300 Winchester Magnum
900GÇô1,200 m

.338 Lapua Magnum
1,200-1,500 m

.50 BMG (12.7+ù99mm NATO)
12.7+ù108mm (Russian)
1,500GÇô2,000 m

14.5+ù114mm
1,800GÇô2,300 m


LMGs-
Effective range
1,200 yd (1,100 m)

(This is an M60)

HMGs-
Effective range
1,800 m (2,000 yd)

Maximum range
6,800 m (7,400 yd)

(M2 Browning)

So yea, that's rough RL ranges. Don't know in game ranges, so i'll leave it to someone else to compare and contrast.

I would imagine the AR15/AK47 are the backbones of every military on the planet. Pretty much a guarantee. Shotguns in actual combat are NOT for anything other than CQC i.e house to house, I would say that the closest RL gun to Dusts ARs is probably the LMG (say, the SAW, or Squad Assault Weapon ((<--I think)), due to range and power, but they're obviously not as accurate and a good bit heavier. The HMG is a powerhouse with range, but most are mounted, and the rest are usually a two man team. I don't think you would be very mobile at all, if you were even able to pick it up and fire it, and obviously Sniper Rifles are long range exclusively. So that pretty much leaves the AR15 style rifle as the jack of all trades in real life combat, more out of necessity than choice. Not saying Dust has the AR right (I use it, but at 2 weeks play time I don't have the proper knowledge to judge OP), but yea, its the equivalent of the Pike. It's standard issue for most front line troops, I wouldn't be surprised to find it is the leading killer in Dust, just as i'm sure it is in almost any FPS type multiplayer game.

DISCLAIMER: I realize my newness, please don't mistake my 2 cents for anything more that it is.

Well it takes around 3-10 seconds for plasma to diffuse from a cathode, so if we assume the projectile that's is being converted to plasma as a cathode, whilst adding some projectile speed lets say 600 m/s (pretty slow for a bullet but we aren't using realism) that means the bullet plasma projectile can travel 1800 meters before dispersing. But because plasma is a gas, and the numbers I have are from a stationary cathode that means this is not at all true. To be able to put a realistic range on a plasma rifle we would need to know how the projectile is being turned to plasma, what the energy source for this mechanism is, how much matter is available for conversion, and the density of the plasma. With this we can know how much plasma will be dispersed through speed of the projectile, when the conversion mechanism will slow down due to lack of energy, and how much damage will the projectile have when it reaches its target; F=MA and if we are losing plasma to the atmosphere our mass will be lower, while our acceleration will decrease with time. Although this also means that if there is a strong intermolecular bond within the plasma even though it is expanding and dispersing, shots from plasma rifle would have a radius, meaning the longer the range the weaker the shot is but the more accurate it will be.

The kdr tells you when you look at a group of people using a weapon compared to another group usong a diffrent weapon whether its good or bad

If I give 50 smgs and 50 people (at random) scrambler pistols what group would have the better k/d
If I do the same with scrambler or ar it could go either, but probably not far from balanced