Sad thing about that is that it isn't gonna happen for a long while if ever....

(at) Meeko Fent

From yesterday my deaths was like:

10 Sniper rifle
7 SR
5-6 TANK/blaster
5 LAV-bump
5 AR
4 OB
2 RAIL/Instalation
2 LASER
2 MD
1 HMG

NERF SNIPERS!!! TANKS! OB!! (joke) .... wait where are AR? No flylock ?

1. AR was nerfed enough.
2. Looking at all (yours list) I will be sugest nerf rocks... there are plenty of it... and I cant climb on them.

Just leave the damn A.R.s alone; stop nerfing ****.

CCP needs to sorely BUFF the other weapons.

Funny how AR users want everything nerfed, but when the mob brings pitchforks and torches to their doors, they want equality.

i normally use shotguns, md, flays and my knives to mess around but when it comes down to make some isk i switch back to my gek...easy kills, the ar-nerfs didn't change much

Ha, yeah ... this is pretty much what I do, too.

And it cracks me up when all these people rage about 'noob tubes' ... in my experience, the AR is the easiest thing to use in this game.

By a mile.

Terrain glitches... heh, nerf the rocks!

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.

Of course the AR is popular. It's easy to use, reliable, and many players will choose to invest SP in it before considering a second weapon to skill into simply because of its simplicity and familiarity. You said it yourself, you're complaining about overuse and not imbalance. From my perspective, you're also wildly exaggerating.

Expecting every gun to be represented equally among the player base is pretty ridiculous. If I ran a poll of everyone's favorite ice cream, animal, cartoon show, book, superhero, whatever, not one of these would receive equal representation throughout. Why should random chance or even balanced weaponry somehow result in balanced diversity in weapon usage?

I think you'll find so many AR kills because the AR is the most widely used weapon. Why is it widely used? Because that is what the AR is designed for, lots of people run assault and, strangely enough, the ASSAULT RIFLE is useful for assault players. Who would have thought it?

The AR is the mainstay of any army, real or in games. Do you see the World Powers banning the AR because too many people use it in battle? NO!

Dust is a FPS and like every other FPS game in History the AR or some variant of it is going to feature widely in it. If you die a lot from getting shot by ARs I would say become a sniper (you'll be out of range), become a tanker (ARs are useless against tanks), become a better player (so you can kill people before they kill you) or most preferably, go play Skyrim (they have no ARs and then we wouldn't have to listen to your crap)

OP, I value your opinion, because you're a niche player like myself.
AR Spam is natural and expected, this goes all the way back to Counter Strike, even Quake.

The AR is everyone's basic starter utility weapon.
The scrambler rifle is my new utility weapon of choice, however. Learn to manage the heat, and it'll facerape ARs all day long.

When the other utility weapons come out, I believe CCP will change the racial starter fits to use that race's utility weapon.
Only Gallente will start with the AR, Amarr will start with the SCR, and so on. Then you'll see the systemic balance you desire.

Be nice if we had access to weapon variants at Standard level again.
STD Assault Scrambler Rifle, STD Tactical Assault Rifle, etc.

(at) Meeko Fent

From yesterday my deaths was like:

10 Sniper rifle
7 SR
5-6 TANK/blaster
5 LAV-bump
5 AR
4 OB
2 RAIL/Instalation
2 LASER
2 MD
1 HMG

NERF SNIPERS!!! TANKS! OB!! (joke) .... wait where are AR? No flylock ?

1. AR was nerfed enough.
2. Looking at all (yours list) I will be sugest nerf rocks... there are plenty of it... and I cant climb on them.

I think you'll find so many AR kills because the AR is the most widely used weapon. Why is it widely used? Because that is what the AR is designed for, lots of people run assault and, strangely enough, the ASSAULT RIFLE is useful for assault players. Who would have thought it?

The AR is the mainstay of any army, real or in games. Do you see the World Powers banning the AR because too many people use it in battle? NO!

The ARs aren't OP they are just the baseline weapon in this game and every other FPS in the universe. After the TAC nerf you don't see any bull$hit kills like you did with the flaylock.

A rapid-fire weapon that throws small high speed projectiles is just the most practical and adaptable weapon on the battlefield. They are meant to be the go to choice when you are facing a broad range of situations where you need a weapon that is versatile. Decent but not exceptional range, good ammo capacity, ability to burst and spray, etc.

They aren't meant to be the master of all and the specialist weapons in Dust are often underpowered or fail to shine in their area of expertise. For example, the laser rifle is insufficiently good at long range to offset its lack of versatility. This however is not the fault of the AR, its just that those other weapons aren't developed enough.

The reason you see lots of AR kills is not because it is OP but because players have made the choice to go for familiarity and versatility at the cost of range/AE/whatever.

Even if every other weapon was significantly buffed people would still use the AR because it is versatile.

/rage
So, whenever it comes to nerfing any other gun, no matter if it was OP or not, the ARs spam the forums, and get it nerfed into to bowels of weapon hell, but nobody look at the AR....

The gun makes other guns obsolete!

Why use the SMG when you can use the AR and get comparable results with 4 times the range?

When heavies start dropping the HMG for the AR, there's a problem!

When CCP adapts game design of suits for its use, there's a problem!

Don't you think?!

/end rage

actually. i agree with him. put HMGs back to where they were in chromosome with the same range, and the current damage. make lasers like they were in chromosome. put flaylocks damage back to where it was (the splash radius can stay the same. just use standard and then ull get used to the smaller radius), put shotguns where they were in chromosome, put MD back to where they were in chrmomosome.

then we will see who has the last laugh

CCP would probably try to nerf the rock before they would think about touching the AR. They're probably afraid of they ARs screeching they will make on the forums.

This is untrue on almost every level.

First off, the AR is not the most widely used weapon in a lot of FPS games. Mostly older ones though.

Second, the AR is not used by western militaries because it is a bullet hose, like in Dust. It's used because it has accurate fire at fighting ranges, and can be put in full auto in emergencies, but modern warfighters are trained to fire short bursts almost all the time.

Also, the AR carries far too many rounds if you want to compare to real world weapons. (and other weapons in Dust)

Also, the argument here is that the AR, as seen in Dust, amounts to kills equivalent to 11 of the 14 available weapons in game. That kind of overuse is killing diversity in Dust, and ruining the game. It doesn't matter why it's so overused, only that it needs to be fixed.

Part of the reason AR seems OP is because folks have skilled heavily into it because the other weapons get nerfed/changed so much but the AR stays pretty constant. Also, every suit can use the thing so why not?

If you skill the other weapons into lvl 5 profeciency, they are just as effective and deadly, difference is that they typically require a different play style than the run and gun most FPS players are used to.

COD Black Ops was same way with everyone using the same weapons until folks figured out how to be effective with the others, then you'd see folks killing the masses with hipfired sniper rifles or shotguns or pistols while they tried to stick with the ARs there.

I loved the MD until it was nerfed, now it's fixed and I'm working my way back into them again. But my AR fits won't be erased because it's a stand by. Also, a MD in Skirmish on an open map is pointless so choose a weapon that fits the map and role you want. The all around weapon of choice will still likely be the AR... stop QQ'ing about it

yeah real ARs have 30 round magazines. because it only takes 1 good shot to take someone down.

AR is not OP. been using every type. i used the TAC AR for most of my time playing, with my minmatar logi...

until two days ago

i took a chance and tried out adv lasers with a basic adv medium suit

destroyed the **** out of people, and when i was too close with the laser, my scrambler pistol or assault pistol worked fine, especially in a bull rush

i will never look back on ARs ever again, unless i run my minmatar logi in which i need close and medium range with the only weapon due to the lack of a sidearm slot.

i was so sure i would never move away from that TAC AR due to "how easy" it was to kill with. laser is so much easier

Then, after the inevitable cries of apocalypse, we would see weapon usages balance out to something more reasonable. Even then, we would probably have ARs being the most dominant, but it wouldn't be the "one weapon to rule them all" like it is now.