Oil balance, weapon durability

[Frayo]

After 20 hours of playtime, I have found almost no oils that are worth using, most of them serve no purpose and sometimes are an active detriment to your gun, not considering any gun-bricking bugs at the moment.
Every single oil has the hidden downside of decreasing how many shots you can fire before the weapon breaks. I'll list a few examples from my stash:

Trusty Old Oil⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀Hunter Oil⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ Rebound Oil
Max Durability +20%⠀ Crit Chance +15%⠀ ⠀Bullet Bounces +2
No Money Drops⠀ ⠀ ⠀ Move Speed -30%⠀ Damage -15
[+1 DUPS]⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ [+1 DUPS}⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀[+1 DUPS]

DUPS = Durability used per shot
You might be spotting the problem already, and there are many more oils like this. As of right now, the oil system is realistically unusable, the drawbacks far outweigh the positives. The public demo featured far more usable oils that still made your gun break faster but provided benefits that made the sacrifice worth it.
I would overhaul the entire oil selection that is currently in the game and move back to the approximate direction oils had before the early access launch. I don't pretend to know how much work this encapsules for the developers, but from the player point of view, the oils desperately need it.

EDIT: I am aware that there may be an oil combinging/crafting feature coming in the future, the post is about the current state of oils.
EDIT2: Bubble explained that my thinking was off, you lose one additional durability per shot for each oil / enchantment, not 50%.

[Bubble]

What you're not taking into consideration is the amount of shots you have to fire to kill a single enemy. Without oils you use more ammo, and burn basically the same durability as with 2-3 enchantments (you're still at a loss with more ammo spent)
Second, is the fact that only the first oil halves your durability, every subsequent uses less percents

Current oils are trash for sure. You may wanna get 2-3 enchantments tho, so your weapon will do more damage, that way you're using the same amount of durability to kill enemies, but they die in 1 shot instead of 3. My regular setup is Tandem + Damage + Explosion scroll.

[Bubble]

That being said, another problem emerges - low durability weapons become complete trash (since what's the point of using them , if you can take a more durable one, enchant it, and it will be both stronger and still more durable than the fragile one)

[Frayo]

Originally posted by Bubble:

Second, is the fact that only the first oil halves your durability, every subsequent uses less percents

EVERY oil halves your durability. A weapon with 1000 durability will have an effective 500 after one oil, 250 after two, 125 after three and so on. A powerful weapon is useless if it's broken before your run finishes. At the current state of the game I can one-shot even the cultists with a well placed rifle headshot without applying any oils or enchantments.

[Bubble]

Originally posted by Frayo:

A weapon with 1000 durability will have an effective 500 after one oil, 250 after two, 125 after three and so on. A powerful weapon is useless if it's broken before your run finishes.

No it won't)
1000 Durability weapon
0 Oils - 1000 shots (1dps) Durability per shot)
1 Oil - 1000/2dps = 500 (50% of initial value lost)
2 Oils - 1000/3dps = 333 (~66% lost)
3 Oils - 1000/4dps = 250 (75% lost)
4 Oils - 1000/5dps = 200 (80% lost)
5 Oils - 1000/6dps = 166 (~83% lost)
as you can see, every subsequent oil uses far less durability compared to the previous one, but it still heavily reduces the amount of shots. So as I said, just throw all fragile weapons in the trash.
I use Fisk (3300) with 3 enchantments and it lasts a whole dungeon-castle run (well, I use the sword a lot). Needs one repair if I do a full run from town to castle (you will find Ralphie at some point, so just don't forget to repair and you're good)

[Frayo]

Okay fair enough, what an embarassing mistake on my part... but even then the weapon durability can become extremely low. The applied oils would need to make up for the high amount of durability lost, which they currently just don't.

[Bubble]

Originally posted by Frayo:

The applied oils would need to make up for the high amount of durability lost, which they currently just don't.

Well, my example works pretty good. I one-shot most enemies. Without those enchantments, I would have to shoot at leats 3 times more. I get 825 shots out of 3300 durability, but it's better, since the weapon uses less ammo and kills enemies faster

The actual problem with oils is that the ideas for them were probably brainstormed (devs flooded the game with completely obscene and mostly useless oils, just for funzies / testing)
Why the hell would someone ever use an oil that prevents drops?? Or lowers your movement speed by 30%? There're also a lot of duplicates with different downsides (like, +30% damage, but the 1st oil's downside is -move speed, second has +spread, and 3rd has like extra recoil. Wtf?)

[Frayo]

Well, I assume you've been finding oils that I seem to have been too unlucky for. I approximate 90% of oils I come accross are sold straight to vendors because of downsides I posted above and the ones you mentioned. I've never even come close to making a gun build thats anything like you've been talking about. Except in the demo, of course.

[Bubble]

Originally posted by Frayo:

I approximate 90% of oils I come accross are sold straight to vendors. I've never even come close to making a gun build thats anything like you've been talking about. Except in the demo, of course.

I just went the path I established in demo: +projectiles and +damage percentage as much as possible with the least downsides. I feel like Tandem (-15% dmg, +1 Projectile) + Damage (+25% Dmg, no downsides) Oils is a nice combo. In demo I was running +50% Dmg Oil and +200% Projectiles with -25% Dmg, and that's it. But there was only the goblin cave, where everything is weak
I also sell all other oils, cause they're just terrible

[Neon]

Originally posted by Frayo:

After 20 hours of playtime, I have found almost no oils that are worth using, most of them serve no purpose and sometimes are an active detriment to your gun, not considering any gun-bricking bugs at the moment.
Every single oil has the hidden downside of halving your effective weapon durability, how many shots you can fire before the weapon breaks. I'll list a few examples from my stash:

Trusty Old Oil⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀Hunter Oil⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ Rebound Oil
Max Durability +20%⠀ Crit Chance +15%⠀ ⠀Bullet Bounces +2
No Money Drops⠀ ⠀ ⠀ Move Speed -30%⠀ Damage -15
[-50% Durability]⠀ ⠀ ⠀ [-50% Durability]⠀ ⠀ [-50% Durability]

You might be spotting the problem already, and there are many more oils like this. As of right now, the oil system is realistically unusable, the drawbacks far outweigh the positives. The public demo featured far more usable oils that still made your gun break faster but provided benefits that made the sacrifice worth it.
I would overhaul the entire oil selection that is currently in the game and move back to the approximate direction oils had before the early access launch. I don't pretend to know how much work this encapsules for the developers, but from the player point of view, the oils desperately need it.

EDIT: I am aware that there may be an oil combinging/crafting feature coming in the future, the post is about the current state of oils.

+30/35 flat damage on shotguns DOUBLES your damage, making the sacrifice of half the durability worth it.
Also, every oil past the first one has less durability reduction, as in the first oil halves your durability, the second only reduces it by 1/3 etc, so you just need to keep your oils ahead of that curve, so +dmg on shotguns is still efficient, as well as Tandem oil +100% multishot -15%dmg (gemini oil for .50cal/high base damage), and something like Dead Center oil reducing spread by 2 which can effectively increase your damage output by like 50%
But overall most oils are kinda ass with either not enough positive benefit to warrant a slot(and the durability burn) or negatives too massive to justify its use (bullet drop also decreases bullet speed which kills guns for me)

[Neon]

Originally posted by Bubble:

Originally posted by Frayo:

I approximate 90% of oils I come accross are sold straight to vendors. I've never even come close to making a gun build thats anything like you've been talking about. Except in the demo, of course.

I just went the path I established in demo: +projectiles and +damage percentage as much as possible with the least downsides. I feel like Tandem (-15% dmg, +1 Projectile) + Damage (+25% Dmg, no downsides) Oils is a nice combo. In demo I was running +50% Dmg Oil and +200% Projectiles with -25% Dmg, and that's it. But there was only the goblin cave, where everything is weak
I also sell all other oils, cause they're just terrible

I suggest not sleeping on +flat dmg oils, in most cases they are as good if not better, especially on lower base damage guns and shotguns.

[Bubble]

Originally posted by Neon:

I suggest not sleeping on +flat dmg oils, in most cases they are as good if not better, especially on lower base damage guns and shotguns.

I don't use shotguns or low damage guns and only stick to 7.62 ARs which have 120 base damage. Yea Flat is only good on shotguns or smgs, and sometimes it gives you the exact same +25% as Damage Oil, so that way they're interchangeable

[Frayo]

Originally posted by Neon:

Also, every oil past the first one has less durability reduction, as in the first oil halves your durability, the second only reduces it by 1/3 etc, so you just need to keep your oils ahead of that curve,

Yeah, sorry I know now. Adjusted the post accordingly a little too late...

[Neon]

Originally posted by Bubble:

Originally posted by Neon:

I suggest not sleeping on +flat dmg oils, in most cases they are as good if not better, especially on lower base damage guns and shotguns.

I don't use shotguns or low damage guns and only stick to 7.62 ARs which have 120 base damage. Yea Flat is only good on shotguns or smgs, and sometimes it gives you the exact same +25% as Damage Oil, so that way they're interchangeable

I highly recommend a Corpsemaker or the Fisk chambered in 12 gauge with some dead center oil and flat damage. Both accurate and insanely damaging. Might need some recoil reduction if you wanna keep it in full auto.

Edit1:
Also, +30 flat damage from Ascetic or brute is still keeping up with the +25% dmg even on the 7.62 ARs like Typhoon and if you use both it's even better. Potshot for +35 is even better, but requires a more specific build.

[FuzioN]

There is plenty of enchantments that dont have any sideffects, for instance there is an oil with 20 dmg with no downside to it.

you can also change weapons bullet type for instance im running an Anger that i turned into a 7.62 ammo, two oils that reduces its recoil. and one with % damage. baiscly what im saying is you can turn some weapons you really dislike to beasts with correct oils and combinations.

there should be less downside to oils thou i dont think negative effects should be like no loot droppped or less drop etc. i wouild rather they made it like you take % more damage.

when hit there is a chance that you get hit with an alignment lets say fire eventhou the mob dont have fire on it.

Stuff like that, one of the best ones is to have a big killer weapon with damage and get as tradeof 10% less jumphight. you just swap weapon to your mobility weapon then instead.

[Bubble]

Originally posted by Neon:

Fisk chambered in 12 gauge with some dead center oil and flat damage. Both accurate and insanely damaging.

How much damage tho? 12Ga is more expensive than 7.62 (which does at least 260 damage per shot) , and I also can't tolerate more than 2 spread (even with dead center it's gonna be like 3) and having no Ads. I one shot most enemies, and don't even need a second gun. Might try that in creative