Let's talk about the Spencer Rifle/Carbine.

[nbreech]

For those who aren't aware, the latest upcoming Beta version features a new rifle! It's a lever action gun like the Henry, but with only 7 shots and slower rate of fire. However, it does more damage, which means that headshots will kill an enemy in one hit at further range.

Give it a try and leave feedback here. I've played with it quite a bit, and will leave my feedback right away.

I personally feel that it's slightly underpowered. Yes it gets quite a bit further 1 hit kill headshots than the Henry, which often would not get a 1 hit kill despite your target being in the same room, but it still is rather short. This would normally be ok, but the gun is supposed to be on a higher level than the Henry, which is the main motivation for my critique. Considering it takes significant hits in all other areas, it should hit this perk out of the park to make up for it. I found myself constantly having to approach enemies who were within accurate, 3 hit kill volcanic combat range of me to get the kill. Hallways and large rooms would often be just enlongated enough to provoke this problem too. I'm not saying it should be like the smith where you can camp and get people in one hit at long range, but I should be able to secure the kill when I venture out and look for the trouble myself.

On top of that, the extra damage doesn't seem to help too much elsewhere. The extra ~8 damage seems to dissapate with just a seconds worth of running and the slower rate of fire makes it even worse at long range than the Henry because you still end up having to take 3 shots to get the kill.

My suggestion would be one of the following.
A. Add an extra ~100 HU to the max damage range, and reduce the rate at which it loses damage by 10-15%.
B. Increase base damage by another 3-5 damage.

Additionally, I would lower the butt of the gun down by a quarter inch or so, the sight is almost entirely covered by it and it feels akward to adjust to.
Overall it's great, just needs a tiny boost.

[Myia]

i agreee with you (in the critique not the suggested buffs), but i dont think it should be a gold weapon, it can stay how it is but i think it should replace the smith in the blue chest (with a higher price tag), as a "budget yellowboy", if it would become a gold weapon (right now its just below the henry and peacemaker maybe (strength wise)) it wouldnt be used much (also it would probably have to be a one shot (or very close) to be on par with the other gold weapons)

[Brick]

loucast の投稿を引用：

i agreee with you (in the critique not the suggested buffs), but i dont think it should be a gold weapon, it can stay how it is but i think it should replace the smith in the blue chest (with a higher price tag), as a "budget yellowboy", if it would become a gold weapon (right now its just below the henry and peacemaker maybe (strength wise)) it wouldnt be used much (also it would probably have to be a one shot (or very close) to be on par with the other gold weapons)

Idk about replacing the smith in blue chest because in elimination that's the only way to get it.

[Scamper9 Ⓢ]

This is my take on it starting with the good:

116 max headshot damage with about double the range, compared with the yellowboy where you can 1-shot.
The range at with you can 2-shot to the torso is notably increased, compared to the yellowboy.

And now the bad:

Offering only 6 notoriety per kill, you would expect a premium weapon to offer premium stats, and while my good points does show that, there are other stats which cannot match the yellowboy or the smith carbine.

The rate of fire is drastically reduced, compared to the yellowboy, but still much higher than the smith. (smith only has 1 shot!)
The max torso damage is 71, only 1 higher than the yellowboy, whilst smith gives 82 damage.
The ironsights on the weapon is significantly more difficult to use at close range, it might be something that has to be adapted to.
The initial reload time to start reloading bullets is significantly longer than the yellowboy.
The initial damage drop-off to the torso is familiar to the yellowboy, you only start noticing damage differences from medium range.

I problem I see with this weapon is the yellowboy does a much better job in more situations than the Spencer can do in others. Despite the extra range on 1-shot headshot, it's still possible to deal less than 100 damage when your opponent is in the same room as you (a bar sized room)

With all that, I fully agree with Nbreech's two suggestions. Increase the max torso damage to 75, and make the initial damage drop-off in between the yellowboy and the smith carbine to off-set the slow rate of fire. Maybe even buff it even more with other minor changes of your choice since the weapon only offers 6 notoriety.

[!^]

The idea was to give it that tiny damage boost but I changed a few things as higher RoF or quicker ironsights and specially faster movement while ironsighted that makes comparisons to other rifles a bit more complex.

[nbreech]

Rebel_Y の投稿を引用：

The idea was to give it that tiny damage boost but I changed a few things as higher RoF or quicker ironsights and specially faster movement while ironsighted that makes comparisons to other rifles a bit more complex.

I went back and checked it out, but I can't help but feel that these things are somewhat counter-intuitive to the benefits of the weapon. Sure you only have a 25% speed penalty while walking and aiming, but you still suffer the accuracy penalty, limiting its effectiveness. Additionally, you do pull the gun up faster, but this implies we are supposed to quickdraw it, which goes against the "longer range" niche.

I'm going on a tangent here about the henry and smith, but bare with me.

When I play with the henry rifle, I simply focus on sending as much lead as possible downrange into my opponents. If I miss a shot or my headshot doesn't do the job, I can just immediately chamber a new round and shoot them again. I can keep this pressure on for a whole 16 rounds, and even if I waste all my shots being a trigger happy drunkard I can simply reload between encounters since I can feed the gun ammo whenever I feel like it.

When I play with the smith carbine, every shot counts. If I land the headshot, it's a for sure kill and the threat has been eliminated. However, if I miss the shot, I have to go back and put a new round in while the enemy charges after me. Either that, or I pull out my backup gun, but at this point the enemy has already closed in on me and even if I land a perfect headshot melee combo they will probably end up doing significant damage to me anyways. Of course this can be avoided if you land your shots, making precision aiming very rewarding with the smith.

Now for the relevant part:
When I was playing with the Spencer, I felt much more like I was playing with a nimble Smith than a buffed up Henry, but this was problematic because I wasn't rewarded with the same benefits as an aggressive Smith plays. When I would shoot at people charging at me from just across a medium sized room or hallway, they would still be after me even though I landed the headshot. If it was the Henry, I could just pop another round to finish them off, if it was the smith, they'd be dead, but here we have a problem. Additionally, just like the Smith, if you are completely out of ammo, the time it takes to get one shot in is very long! I feel this weapon is supposed to fill the role of an "aggressive Smith Carbine" where the super long range benefit of it is sacrificed for more ammo output, but it fails to do this because people are surviving headshots at what could be considered short-medium combat range at best.

TL;DR- Spencer plays like the Smith more than the Henry, so it shouldn't be doing
this -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1096523981
or this -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1096523867
or especially THIS -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1096523737

[Dauntless Duelist]

Its 2 hit bodyshot range is quite far.

[Myia]

☭☭nbreech☭☭ の投稿を引用：

TL;DR- Spencer plays like the Smith more than the Henry, so it shouldn't be doing
this -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1096523981
or this -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1096523867
or especially THIS -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1096523737

i dont think this is too bad (partially because im of the opinion put the weapon in the middle ground between gold and red (or between yellowboy and the other red weapons)) right now it plays kinda like a rifle variant of the mares leg (with the benefit of easier headshots/better accuracy) so i think this damage output is mostly ok a little increase wouldnt hurt but even now a LMB Fist is enough to finish them

[Dauntless Duelist]

The walking accuracy of 70% without the capacity or rate of fire of a Yellowboy makes walking and fireing very unapealing.

[omar]

Dauntless Duelist の投稿を引用：

The walking accuracy of 70% without the capacity or rate of fire of a Yellowboy makes walking and fireing very unapealing.

does it? the yellowboy has the same walking and jumping accuracy as the spencer

[omar]

if this gun is set to be "between red and gold" by current shootout tier standards then i think it's alright as-is, not worried at all about balance or whatever. it does seem a bit plain though, doesn't have a unique character like the remington.

[Myia]

Fallin' の投稿を引用：

if this gun is set to be "between red and gold" by current shootout tier standards then i think it's alright as-is, not worried at all about balance or whatever. it does seem a bit plain though, doesn't have a unique character like the remington.

the spencer costs 5 more than the yellowboy (arguably the better weapon in most situations) and in the new system is classified as a gold weapon (stock priced in gold crate)

[Dauntless Duelist]

El Zorro I(Not actual Zorro now) の投稿を引用：

I tested the weapon recently (on bots), and what I find most striking about the weapon, is that it is not very accurate. This might be because I use shift all the time, but I think that it is only accurate at close range, which defeats the purpose of it being a rifle. Also, I believe the reload is too easy to cancel, and it might be slightly too fast in my opinion.

Also, the model looked a bit awkward to me in first-person, which is confusing to me because the world-view model looked good enough for me.

-Z

It is only accurate when standing still and aiming down sights. And when doing so it has 99% accuracy. A bit strange that it has less of a movement penalty when aiming down sights compared to other rifles considering fireing it while moving is usally bad.

[omar]

El Zorro I(Not actual Zorro now) の投稿を引用：

it is not very accurate. This might be because I use shift all the time, but I think that it is only accurate at close range, which defeats the purpose of it being a rifle.

holding shift makes no difference to your accuracy with any of the four rifles regardless of whether you are zoomed or not.

all rifles are always at "1%" accuracy when unzoomed, walking running or standing.
sharps is always at 99% when zoomed on the ground, and 31% when zoom jumping
yb and spencer are 99% zoomed, 70% zoom walking, and 53% zoom jumping
carbine is 99% zoomed, 81% zoom walking, and 59% zoom jumping

bear in mind that 70 is still very accurate and totally usable at pretty long ranges. if you need to make a precision shot at long range then just stand still and you'll get 99% which is the highest you can get in this game.

previously you could get 100% by crouching with sharps but it looks like that disappeared at some point...

[Dauntless Duelist]

Fallin' の投稿を引用：

previously you could get 100% by crouching with sharps but it looks like that disappeared at some point...

I believe that disapeared with the change to the displayed accuracy numbers. I think Sharps is still just as accurate while crouching as it was before when it stated 100%.

[That Guy]

wonder if the spencer will ever be added to the game at some point? if it does I hope its soon.