Pepperball guns need a buff

[Wilson]

I've been using the beanbag shotgun for quite a long time. It's working great and it's been saving my ass many times. It usually takes one shot to the chest for the enemy to immediately stop bothering you and surrender, or at least have a very long pause before they try to shoot you.

So, i loved it and then decided to take a look at the other non-lethal option, the pepperball gun. Having 25 balls in one mag and being able to create pepper clouds seemed like a straight upgrade from the shotgun.

In reality, it turned out to be nearly useless, and equipping it feels more like a liabilty than something helpful.

You have 25 shots. But it takes 3-4 shots to make a cloud. And i've never seen an enemy surrender in less than 3-4 hits, even in the head. So in reality, you have a semi-automatic gun that always has to be manually fired in bursts of 3-4 shots, meaning that the real useful capacity of your gun is 25/4 = about 6 or 7 bursts. The same amount that you get with a shotgun. Except the shotgun gives you an instant effect, while with the pepperball gun you give the enemy time to shoot you while you're firing your burst. Encountering 2 enemies at once is always a death sentence, you have no time to get both of them.

SWAT AI sucks at using it too. They don't shoot pepper at the suspects preemptively, so they are almost always doomed to die when using this gun, because they don't have time to fire 3-4 shots.



It sounds quieter than normal shots, so i thought "cool, it will also work as a silenced version of the shotgun."
No. The enemies hear this thing through walls just as well as any other unsilenced weapon.
With how slow it is to make suspects surrender with it, the only good way to save yourself from enemies rushing into doors towards you is to preemptively make clouds in doorways before they enter.
The problem that comes with this is that by shooting the gun you're making the suspects hear it and switch to their alert mode.
Meaning that their reaction is almost always doubled when encountering you.
So if even just one suspect happens to stand outside your clouds' range, you're doomed to die.



I know that it would be a pain in the ass to implement, but if you wanted to make these guns and their cloud mechanic actually useful, it should work based on the amount of pepperballs fired.

A single ball shouldn't have much effect in the air, but hitting it in the face should be enough to make the suspect cough/feel the pain from the hit.

Firing multiple balls should create and expand the cloud and its duration in the air based on the amount balls you fired. Using all 25 balls shouldn't feel as weak as 4 balls.

Right now even filling your entire 15 slot inventory with pepperball mags is more useless and less reliable than bringing just a couple of gas grenades.




Also, what's the point of TPL?
You have a smaller pepper gun that takes the primary weapon slot and is also using 12-round mags(so only 3 bursts per mag), and you can't even carry more of these mags than you can with the bigger version.
It's basically a straight downgrade.

At least allow us to equip it in the pistol slot, it would be much more useful there.

[MrjMln]

I have to agree with it needing a buff. Sometimes I dump a full mag into a suspect, and my AI teammates are shooting him as well, and he just walks away. When I go after him and turn a corner, he's back to shooting us again. I lost games like this, when I see the guy stumbling away, only for him to instantly dome me the next time I see him.

[KillSmithID]

Def agree here. Had a similar thing happen on a few runs the other day. Hell one paintball to the face would shake a regular suspect for a few seconds, let alone one filled with pepper gas. +1 to the buffing pepperball for me as well, especially if realism is in the interest of the devs.

[Quill]

Pepperballs are meant for longer range engagement due to their higher accuracy

Beanbags stop a suspect in a single shot but are pretty inaccurate

[krzychuzokecia]

Originally posted by Meow:

That is not a buff the gun need. That is a buggy AI that needs to be fixed.

Agreed. In fact sometimes I had mask-wearing suspects who would get as easily subdued with pepperballs like regular ones. But then comes some "John Wick on meth" type who's not phased by anything, whether it's pepperbals, flashbangs, stingers etc.

Originally posted by Quill:

Beanbags stop a suspect in a single shot but are pretty inaccurate

I dunno - SWAT AI seems very deadly headshotting suspects with beanbag shotguns.

[krzychuzokecia]

I wouldn't really take mission briefings as indicators of anything in-game. Briefing for 4U Gas Station not only describes older version of map, but also flips east side with west side.

[krzychuzokecia]

I was hyped for the story content in 1.0 so I paid a lot of attention to the briefings/suspect profiles/911 calls etc. As standalone pieces they're great, but sadly there is disconnect between them and missions/other pieces of lore.

[Quill]

Originally posted by Meow:

Originally posted by krzychuzokecia:

[In fact sometimes I had mask-wearing suspects who would get as easily subdued with pepperballs like regular ones. But then comes some "John Wick on meth" type who's not phased by anything, whether it's pepperbals, flashbangs, stingers etc.

That is because what suspect AI is wearing clothes-wise does not match what they actually have equipped. I think on Post office map, you are engaging enemies that at most wear t-shirt, some jacket and/or suit, with no visible hints of armor. But I think mission description tells you they all have heavy armor.
Visual aspect needs to be addressed as well. If I look at the guy I must know if they are wearing any armor above light-bulletproof west, mask or helmet...

Ya it's a major issue

In the game they're wearing heavy armor ceramic

The terrorists have Steel armor

[Delta Dagger]

Originally posted by krzychuzokecia:

I was hyped for the story content in 1.0 so I paid a lot of attention to the briefings/suspect profiles/911 calls etc. As standalone pieces they're great, but sadly there is disconnect between them and missions/other pieces of lore.

Great job, Void.