The Silver Ghost: A Shadow of Its Former Self

[Mythic V]

Before I start this, I just want to say the Remake is great overall. With that being said, handguns specifically are too unbalanced now. In the original game, the Red 9 and the Black Tail were the best options for people with poor aim. They did high damage, but had low crit. Choosing between these two depended on if you wanted more inventory space, wanted to save more ammo by using less shots, or wanted to have the fastest overall DPS when factoring in firing speed with damage. However, for people with good aim and especially on later difficulties, the Silver Ghost was objectively the best handgun for normal enemies that could be hit with criticals. The critical rate on the gun was absolutely monstrous when fully upgraded to the point it eclipsed the other handguns. The balancing act for this was of course the fact that you needed to be good at hitting headshots, even when enemies are moving around in their stagger animation, and the fact that the other two guns were better for enemies with helmets or some mutations. Though overall, you'd want to just use other guns that aren't handguns for those enemies. The Silver Ghost overall though came out on top IF you were good at aiming. That and positioning yourself to where you won't need a melee to get i-frames to get evade damage, since meleeing is not something reliable on the Silver Ghost. Oh, and the Punisher sucked and still sucks.

Now in the remake, both the Silver Ghost and Sentinel-Nine (which has its same crit bonus exclusive upgrade) have ♥♥♥♥ critical rate that make them completely inferior to the Red 9 and Black Tail. Now it's just those two to pick between. This is really disappointing since the Silver Ghost and Sentinel-Nine look great, while the Black Tail to me looks meh and the Red 9 looks like ♥♥♥♥. But it also literally just makes three of the five handguns completely useless when compared to the other two. And criticals were more fun than just dealing raw damage in my opinion.

Anyways, I doubt this will be fixed, but the Silver Ghost needs to be restored to its original stats. Either do the same for the Sentinel-Nine or give it its own unique ♥♥♥♥ for yet another style of play. I'd say fix the Punisher, but that ♥♥♥♥ will always be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ gimmick weapon that acts as a newbie trap (no offense).

[Lahgtah]

The crits are difficulty dependent as well. Enemies on higher difficulties have some sort of crit resistance, which kind of makes me regret using the Sentinel 9 as my handgun since I was hoping the higher crits would compensate for the higher HP of enemies more than raw damage.

So, on hardcore, it felt like I was getting roughly the same amount of crits with a maxed Sentinel 9 as I was with a maxed Red9 on Standard.

The crits also feel like they're adaptive, just like ammo and health drops. I had points in my first hardcore run where I was really struggling, and all of the sudden "pop pop pop", three crits in a row. When I'm doing well, I have to work for kills more.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Dark-Buddha の投稿を引用：

Soren の投稿を引用：

and it saved about 20% ammo over the Red9 because the 28% higher damage on pro mode. It's like if you took the best parts of both guns and combined them together, and then charged the player half the price of either gun and it unlocked it's exclusive earlier too. It was seriously underrated from my testing I did back then.

What's the crit % like now for the SG? Compared to OG.

And does it get higher dmg on pro mode still?

In my experience the crit rate is significantly gimped. It feels like I get a crit in every 4 or 5 shots instead of every 2 or 3. It also feels like there's a separate critical chance tied to different enemy types, like you will get way more Crits vs basic Village Ganados Compared to Island Ganados.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say the original had increased damage on pro?

[Mythic V]

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

Soren の投稿を引用：

What people don't seem to understand is a 40% crit rate was pretty consistent and provably higher damage on average over other guns. The handgun crit rate was so high for the old RE4 the gun averaged 9.0+ firepower (on pro mode).

People can talk about the Blacktail or the Red9 being very usable all they want for OG RE4. They certainly were. But collectively both those guns had much lower max stat totals compared to the handgun when you factored in crits back then. The OG handgun was basically a Blacktail with a much higher DPS than Blacktail (about 2x the DPS) and it saved about 20% ammo over the Red9 because the 28% higher damage on pro mode. It's like if you took the best parts of both guns and combined them together, and then charged the player half the price of either gun and it unlocked it's exclusive earlier too. It was seriously underrated from my testing I did back then.

The firepower of RED9 made it good because it was usable against other type of enemies or ganados that didn't have their head accessible for the crit. That became increasingly a relevant issue as the game progressed. Popping heads on Ganados is amazing, but on the other hand it's the mos basic easy enemy type in the game. Having a specialized power weapon that's specifically incredible were basic Ganados isn't that valuable in my eyes.

It's cool, but not clearly the best pistol in OG R4E as some people claim, for anything other than basic Ganados the original Base Handgun was a peashooter that performed worse than any other gun.

The vast majority of enemies could still be critted even at end-game. And you forgot that enemies got more and more health as the game went on, rendering raw damage weapons like the Red 9 less and less effective, while the Silver Ghost just skipped damage entirely for 80% to 90% of the basic enemies even at end-game. The gap between the Silver Ghost and the other handguns is actually smaller the earlier the game is due to the enemies having overall less HP.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

The firepower of RED9 made it good because it was usable against other type of enemies or ganados that didn't have their head accessible for the crit. That became increasingly a relevant issue as the game progressed. Popping heads on Ganados is amazing, but on the other hand it's the mos basic easy enemy type in the game. Having a specialized power weapon that's specifically incredible were basic Ganados isn't that valuable in my eyes.

It's cool, but not clearly the best pistol in OG R4E as some people claim, for anything other than basic Ganados the original Base Handgun was a peashooter that performed worse than any other gun.

The vast majority of enemies could still be critted even at end-game. And you forgot that enemies got more and more health as the game went on, rendering raw damage weapons like the Red 9 less and less effective, while the Silver Ghost just skipped damage entirely for 80% to 90% of the basic enemies even at end-game.

The 6.5 damage of Red 9 never became irrelevant in the game not on normal or pro.

[Mythic V]

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

The vast majority of enemies could still be critted even at end-game. And you forgot that enemies got more and more health as the game went on, rendering raw damage weapons like the Red 9 less and less effective, while the Silver Ghost just skipped damage entirely for 80% to 90% of the basic enemies even at end-game.

The 6.5 damage of Red 9 never became irrelevant in the game not on normal or pro.

Strawman. I never said it became irrelevant. I said it became less and less effective. Still effective, but it kept falling behind the Silver Ghost more and more as the game went on.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

The 6.5 damage of Red 9 never became irrelevant in the game not on normal or pro.

Strawman. I never said it became irrelevant. I said it became less and less effective. Still effective, but it kept falling behind the Silver Ghost more and more as the game went on.

Keyword being on basic enemies. You know what fell even harder on enemies that you couldn't hit with a headshot crit? The Silver Ghost. My mentality with the silver ghost has always been that the enemies the weapon excels at are the kind of basic fodder enemies I really don't personally need a specialized tool dealing with.

[Mythic V]

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

Strawman. I never said it became irrelevant. I said it became less and less effective. Still effective, but it kept falling behind the Silver Ghost more and more as the game went on.

Keyword being on basic enemies. You know what fell even harder on enemies that you couldn't hit with a headshot? The Silver Ghost. My mentality with the silver ghost has always been that the enemies the weapon excels at are the kind of basic fodder enemies I really don't personally need a specialized tool dealing with.

Most of the game are basic enemies. That's pretty much all you fight. If you are fighting something much stronger like a mini boss or an actual boss, you shouldn't be using a handgun at all. Yeah, the Red 9 is better than the Silver Ghost at something you shouldn't be using a handgun for at all, with said thing being much more uncommon. And again, like 80 to 90% of the basic enemies do not have helmets. And crits work on mutated enemies before you bring them up, so the Red 9 gets toasted there too. And don't forget that the knife has absurd crit with the Silver Ghost as well. But put the original Silver Ghost in this game and it would out-preform all of the handguns in the Remake as well. But it would require skill since hitting headshots is harder here, so it balances out. Though the knife upgrade glitch should obviously not return, as cool as it was in the OG. The knife is already good enough now.

[Lahgtah]

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

The firepower of RED9 made it good because it was usable against other type of enemies or ganados that didn't have their head accessible for the crit. That became increasingly a relevant issue as the game progressed. Popping heads on Ganados is amazing, but on the other hand it's the mos basic easy enemy type in the game. Having a specialized power weapon that's specifically incredible were basic Ganados isn't that valuable in my eyes.

It's cool, but not clearly the best pistol in OG R4E as some people claim, for anything other than basic Ganados the original Base Handgun was a peashooter that performed worse than any other gun.

The vast majority of enemies could still be critted even at end-game. And you forgot that enemies got more and more health as the game went on, rendering raw damage weapons like the Red 9 less and less effective, while the Silver Ghost just skipped damage entirely for 80% to 90% of the basic enemies even at end-game. The gap between the Silver Ghost and the other handguns is actually smaller the early the game is due to the enemies having overall less HP.

Well I suppose that's more down to the rest of your loadout as well. If someone's using handguns for more than just ganados, there is definite appeal in the Red9 or Blacktail. It's also a matter of the fact that weapons don't get their exclusives in the original until the latter parts of the castle stage earliest. That's half the game worth considering.

Finally, there's the matter of how aiming worked differently. In lieu of bloom like we have in the remake, there was stability; the Red9 was incredibly easy to aim with a stock, the blacktail was great to handle as well. By contrast, the regular handgun had the 2nd worst stability(losing out only to a red9 without a stock), making it pretty difficult to aim at a distance. It was basically like every weapon had a scope sway.

I've enjoyed all weapons in the original multiple times over, and my personal conclusion is that what you use depends on how you play, and what other weapons you have. Personally, since I use the TMP and rifle for boss fights, I always chose the default handgun or punisher since I'd use handguns and shotguns for ganados and other "lesser" enemies only. I didn't really use magnums much - all too often they just rotted in the briefcase, only used during bosses, and taking up space that could've been used for more ammo or healing(or better yet, grenades: flashbangs are my lord and savior in RE4.)

[Soren]

Dark-Buddha の投稿を引用：

Soren の投稿を引用：

and it saved about 20% ammo over the Red9 because the 28% higher damage on pro mode. It's like if you took the best parts of both guns and combined them together, and then charged the player half the price of either gun and it unlocked it's exclusive earlier too. It was seriously underrated from my testing I did back then.

What's the crit % like now for the SG? Compared to OG.

And does it get higher dmg on pro mode still?

I think the crit rate is about halved. On top of crits just mulitplying damage rather than inducing a kill state now. So the crit rate was doubly nerfed in a way. Which is quite rough because it means the Red9 out performs it most of the time in my experiences with it.

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

In my experience the crit rate is significantly gimped. It feels like I get a crit in every 4 or 5 shots instead of every 2 or 3. It also feels like there's a separate critical chance tied to different enemy types, like you will get way more Crits vs basic Village Ganados Compared to Island Ganados.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say the original had increased damage on pro?

In the original game crits were just insta kills really. They stopped las plagas from spawning too if I remember correctly. So the more max HP enemies had on pro mode, the more damage the crit did in some respects.

[Mythic V]

Lahgtah の投稿を引用：

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

The vast majority of enemies could still be critted even at end-game. And you forgot that enemies got more and more health as the game went on, rendering raw damage weapons like the Red 9 less and less effective, while the Silver Ghost just skipped damage entirely for 80% to 90% of the basic enemies even at end-game. The gap between the Silver Ghost and the other handguns is actually smaller the early the game is due to the enemies having overall less HP.

Well I suppose that's more down to the rest of your loadout as well. If someone's using handguns for more than just ganados, there is definite appeal in the Red9 or Blacktail. It's also a matter of the fact that weapons don't get their exclusives in the original until the latter parts of the castle stage earliest. That's half the game worth considering.

Finally, there's the matter of how aiming worked differently. In lieu of bloom like we have in the remake, there was stability; the Red9 was incredibly easy to aim with a stock, the blacktail was great to handle as well. By contrast, the regular handgun had the 2nd worst stability(losing out only to a red9 without a stock), making it pretty difficult to aim at a distance. It was basically like every weapon had a scope sway.

I've enjoyed all weapons in the original multiple times over, and my personal conclusion is that what you use depends on how you play, and what other weapons you have. Personally, since I use the TMP and rifle for boss fights, I always chose the default handgun or punisher since I'd use handguns and shotguns for ganados and other "lesser" enemies only. I didn't really use magnums much - all too often they just rotted in the briefcase, only used during bosses, and taking up space that could've been used for more ammo or healing(or better yet, grenades: flashbangs are my lord and savior in RE4.)

I was talking about the guns upgraded fully against the enemies they are meant to be used against (basic enemies and mutated ones sometimes). If we are talking about different levels of the guns before being fully upgraded, the Silver Ghost indeed is inferior to the Red 9 and Black Tail before it gets its crit increase. The Silver Ghost fully upgraded also isn't ideal for those who want to rely on melee for crowd control and I-frames, nor is it great for those who can't hit headshots a lot. There are reasons for people to pick the others. I'm just saying at absolute peak performance against basic enemies and mutations in the hands of a skilled player, the Silver Ghost is much better against all enemies without helmets, which is the vast majority of them. I'm not saying the Red 9 or Black Tail are overall irrelevant, suck on their own, or are not preferred with other play styles. I'm just talking about from a pure handgun lethality standpoint and using the least amount of shots/ammo to take down an enemy on average. The Silver Ghost also crushes all other guns in the game for those who use the knife a lot to attack people due to its crit chance going from 0% to 40% with the Silver Ghost equipped.

[Mythic V]

Soren の投稿を引用：

Dark-Buddha の投稿を引用：

What's the crit % like now for the SG? Compared to OG.

And does it get higher dmg on pro mode still?

I think the crit rate is about halved. On top of crits just mulitplying damage rather than inducing a kill state now. So the crit rate was doubly nerfed in a way. Which is quite rough because it means the Red9 out performs it most of the time in my experiences with it.

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

In my experience the crit rate is significantly gimped. It feels like I get a crit in every 4 or 5 shots instead of every 2 or 3. It also feels like there's a separate critical chance tied to different enemy types, like you will get way more Crits vs basic Village Ganados Compared to Island Ganados.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say the original had increased damage on pro?

In the original game crits were just insta kills really. They stopped las plagas from spawning too if I remember correctly. So the more max HP enemies had on pro mode, the more damage the crit did in some respects.

I believe I saw somewhere that the Silver Ghost in the remake has a crit chance of 25% with the exclusive and not fully focused in some modding discussion, so yeah, big L. Luckily mods can restore the Silver Ghost to its former glory, though I haven't messed around with that stuff yet. Just been using the Red 9 for a while, and now the Black Tail as my final main non-modded handgun of choice.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

Keyword being on basic enemies. You know what fell even harder on enemies that you couldn't hit with a headshot? The Silver Ghost. My mentality with the silver ghost has always been that the enemies the weapon excels at are the kind of basic fodder enemies I really don't personally need a specialized tool dealing with.

Most of the game are basic enemies. That's pretty much all you fight. If you are fighting something much stronger like a mini boss or an actual boss, you shouldn't be using a handgun at all. Yeah, the Red 9 is better than the Silver Ghost at something you shouldn't be using a handgun for at all, with said thing being much more uncommon. And again, like 80 to 90% of the basic enemies do not have helmets. And crits work on mutated enemies before you bring them up, so the Red 9 gets toasted there too. And don't forget that the knife has absurd crit with the Silver Ghost as well. But put the original Silver Ghost in this game and it would out-preform all of the handguns in the Remake as well. But it would require skill since hitting headshots is harder here, so it balances out. Though the knife upgrade glitch should obviously not return, as cool as it was in the OG. The knife is already good enough now.

A strong handgun performs just fine VS. Novistadors, head protected enemies and dogs. The higher firepower also means it's an useful weapon for finishing off a stronger enemy that didn't quite die to a stronger weapon so you don't have to waste another shot of that stronger weapon.

Again Silver Ghost isn't bad. It's just not the clear winner and superior compared to other options even in the original game. Despite what people from the fanatical crit chance camp think the High firepower of Red9 makes the weapon versatile.

[Mythic V]

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

Most of the game are basic enemies. That's pretty much all you fight. If you are fighting something much stronger like a mini boss or an actual boss, you shouldn't be using a handgun at all. Yeah, the Red 9 is better than the Silver Ghost at something you shouldn't be using a handgun for at all, with said thing being much more uncommon. And again, like 80 to 90% of the basic enemies do not have helmets. And crits work on mutated enemies before you bring them up, so the Red 9 gets toasted there too. And don't forget that the knife has absurd crit with the Silver Ghost as well. But put the original Silver Ghost in this game and it would out-preform all of the handguns in the Remake as well. But it would require skill since hitting headshots is harder here, so it balances out. Though the knife upgrade glitch should obviously not return, as cool as it was in the OG. The knife is already good enough now.

A strong handgun performs just fine VS. Novistadors, head protected enemies and dogs. The higher firepower also means it's an useful weapon for finishing off a stronger enemy that didn't quite die to a stronger weapon so you don't have to waste another shot of that stronger weapon.

Again Silver Ghost isn't bad. It's just not the clear winner and superior compared to other options even in the original game. Despite what people from the fanatical crit chance camp think the High firepower of Red9 makes the weapon versatile.

Dogs and enemies with helmets are extremely rare. The Silver Ghost shreds Novistadors too. Again, 80 to 90% of the basic enemies in the game are ganados with zero protective head gear. Dogs go down easily period. And the Silver Ghost can crit Novistadors IIRC.

Sure, it could finish off a stronger enemy that already took massive damage from a stronger gun, but at that point you might as well dump an extra shot from said weapon into them. It's really not that big of a deal. You save one extra shot from that weapon at the cost of taking longer to finish the enemy (and thus having a higher chance of getting damaged by them because they are around for a longer time) because you decided to use a handgun. The Silver Ghost overall saves way more handgun ammo because of how quickly it waste 80 to 90% of the enemies in the game. The way you are describing using the Red 9 is using it as a support weapon to finish off enemies. I mean sure, yeah. But that doesn't make it better. You're basically saying the Red 9 best functions as a support weapon to better guns in this case, while the Silver Ghost curbstomps almost everything by itself. And in the case of using it as a support weapon, you'd actually be wasting more ammo on other guns because you'd be needing to use them more. The Silver Ghost is overall objectively superior to the other handguns. It's just that the other handguns could be preferred by some players, as they may fill a specific niche play style of theirs better. But at peak efficiency, the Silver Ghost is unmatched. I could literally just only using the Silver Ghost 99% of the time and use my hordes of saved up shotgun and sniper ammo for the very few helmet enemies in the game or dogs.

[Peelsepuuppi]

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

A strong handgun performs just fine VS. Novistadors, head protected enemies and dogs. The higher firepower also means it's an useful weapon for finishing off a stronger enemy that didn't quite die to a stronger weapon so you don't have to waste another shot of that stronger weapon.

Again Silver Ghost isn't bad. It's just not the clear winner and superior compared to other options even in the original game. Despite what people from the fanatical crit chance camp think the High firepower of Red9 makes the weapon versatile.

Dogs and enemies with helmets are extremely rare. The Silver Ghost shreds Novistadors too. Again, 80 to 90% of the basic enemies in the game are ganados with zero protective head gear. Dogs go down easily period. And the Silver Ghost can crit Novistadors IIRC.

Sure, it could finish off a stronger enemy that already took massive damage from a stronger gun, but at that point you might as well dump an extra shot from said weapon into them. It's really not that big of a deal. You save one extra shot from that weapon at the cost of taking longer to finish the enemy (and thus having a higher chance of getting damaged by them because they are around for a longer time) because you decided to use a handgun. The Silver Ghost overall saves way more handgun ammo because of how quickly it waste 80 to 90% of the enemies in the game. The way you are describing using the Red 9 is using it as a support weapon to finish off enemies. I mean sure, yeah. But that doesn't make it better. You're basically saying the Red 9 best functions as a support weapon to better guns in this case, while the Silver Ghost curbstomps almost everything by itself. And in the case of using it as a support weapon, you'd actually be wasting more ammo on other guns because you'd be needing to use them more. The Silver Ghost is overall objectively superior to the other handguns. It's just that the other handguns could be preferred by some players, as they may fill a specific niche play style of theirs better. But at peak efficiency, the Silver Ghost is unmatched. I could literally just only using the Silver Ghost 99% of the time and use my hordes of saved up shotgun and sniper ammo for the very few helmet enemies in the game or dogs.

Paragraphs.

[Mythic V]

ToveriJuri の投稿を引用：

Mythic V の投稿を引用：

Dogs and enemies with helmets are extremely rare. The Silver Ghost shreds Novistadors too. Again, 80 to 90% of the basic enemies in the game are ganados with zero protective head gear. Dogs go down easily period. And the Silver Ghost can crit Novistadors IIRC.

Sure, it could finish off a stronger enemy that already took massive damage from a stronger gun, but at that point you might as well dump an extra shot from said weapon into them. It's really not that big of a deal. You save one extra shot from that weapon at the cost of taking longer to finish the enemy (and thus having a higher chance of getting damaged by them because they are around for a longer time) because you decided to use a handgun. The Silver Ghost overall saves way more handgun ammo because of how quickly it waste 80 to 90% of the enemies in the game. The way you are describing using the Red 9 is using it as a support weapon to finish off enemies. I mean sure, yeah. But that doesn't make it better. You're basically saying the Red 9 best functions as a support weapon to better guns in this case, while the Silver Ghost curbstomps almost everything by itself. And in the case of using it as a support weapon, you'd actually be wasting more ammo on other guns because you'd be needing to use them more. The Silver Ghost is overall objectively superior to the other handguns. It's just that the other handguns could be preferred by some players, as they may fill a specific niche play style of theirs better. But at peak efficiency, the Silver Ghost is unmatched. I could literally just only using the Silver Ghost 99% of the time and use my hordes of saved up shotgun and sniper ammo for the very few helmet enemies in the game or dogs.

Paragraphs.

Uh, and? Don't tell me you think that was a long post. lmao