The fundamental issue with NTP

[JeanneOskoure]

For those who don't know, NTP is the shorthand name of Neurotoxin Payload, an overclock for the Thunderhead autocannon. Welcome to DRG, greenbeard, I hope you enjoy your stay here.

Nothing seems wrong with this OC at a first glance. Sure, it gives a tiny AoE boost and a 50% chance, but you lose a significant chunk of damage. 7 damage on each direct hit, and 5 damage on AoE hit is quite a lot on an AoE weapon with a heavy RoF. Plus, that OC got two buffs since it was added to the game; first raising the proc chance from 20%->30%, adding a 0.3m AoE radius buff and nerfing the direct damage penalty from -6 to -3; then another buff one year later bringing the OC to where it is now.
Surely, if that OC had to be buffed twice because it wasn't used much, there was a reason, right?
This is where I disagree and will try to explain why NTP is - and always was - fundamentally overpowered and is a detriment for the game balance as a whole.


First, before someone says "it's just a PvE game, balance isn't important, let us have fun", I'll explain quickly why it is factually wrong and if you actually think that, please refrain from voicing any opinion on any matter whatsoever please.
Even in a PvE game, game balance is important. If there are objectively overpowered and underpowered builds, especially if there is a wide difference between the efficiency of both, multiple problems arise. First, a meta is created. There will always be one, as game balance is never perfect, but the meta can become a huge problem if one option is much better than any other. This creates a scenario where taking any other option is not only a mistake, but is actually detrimental to your entire team. Not taking the meta pick may put at odds the chances of completing the mission, and is actively hurtful to everyone in the lobby. If this goes as far as that extreme scenario (we're nowhere near that yet, thankfully), people will start kicking others for not running the meta build, and they'd be right. After all, not bringing it is hurting everyone. This is mostly relevant for haz 5.
This effect would trickle down on other balancing issues. If the meta is not kept in check, then the devs would have to balance everything around that meta, causing it to further its grasp on the players even more. If everything is balance around the optimal choices, everything else falls behind even more, and players are "encouraged" to use meta choices further.
Finally, this may be more of a symptom of another problem but it's still hurtful to the game, having meta overclocks, which are time gated, will be frustrating for players. If they don't get the correct OCs, they will be less powerful than other players. You may say "but they can just not care about OCs", but think about that: a player sees someone else use a build that looks fun and very strong by playing with other people. That build would make them perform better and have more fun. Are they supposed to ignore that? How? By not caring about their team mates and being willfully ignorant? Not going to happen. Of course, the main issue here is how you get OCs. But the meta is worsening this situation by making people not only care about OCs that they think they'll enjoy, but by making people care about OCs that are performing objectively at a much higher level than alternatives.

So what is wrong with NTP, exactly? And why did it get buffed twice if it always was overpowered?

The problem with NTP is that it can NOT be balanced well. It inflicts a status effect that deals massive damage and slows down enemies in a radius without having to do anything. Combined with the ability to use fear on the autocannon (which synergises with fear, making it last longer due to the enemies being slowed), we end up in an awkward situation where the only way to make NTP not overpowered is to entirely gut it. Nothing can be done unless the ability to inflict a very powerful DoT and slow on enemies in a radius without doing anything is changed.
Right now, NTP deals 12 damage per second over 10 seconds and inflicts a 30% slow. This means that even on haz 5, grunts will be dead by the time the DoT runs out. Also, if you can do basic math, you'll realize than the damage debuff of that OC is 7. In one single second, that damage debuff is entirely negated. Even if you shoot more, you'll recoup the damage lost by the time the DoT runs out. With the fear of the autocannon, it means that you can shoot a bit on a group of enemies and have all of them run away from you and be dead by the time the fear runs out. In a horde shooter where half of the enemies are grunts, this is extremely unhealthy for the game balance.
So why did it need to be buffed then? Why did players not take it before? The neurotoxin damage was never changed, and yet the OC had to be buffed.
First, if you look at the buff list, you'll notice that the buffs were mostly very minor. A 0.3m area radius was added, and the damage penalty was reduced from -6 direct damage -6 AoE damage to -2 direct damage and -5 AoE damage. Nothing major, really. It doesn't change the main issue that is: you have a slow and fear on command that will kill more than half of the enemies you encounter in the game instantly as soon as both effects are applied. Well, the reason of why it wasn't used lies in the other stats that was changed. The chance for NTP to trigger. From 20% at release, it was raised since to 50%. The initial chance might look bad, but it isn't. You'll get NTP to trigger in 5 shots, but to get the fear effect you need maximum RoF on the autocannon, which requires more than 5 shots to reach. The power level of NTP is the same with a 20% chance to happen and a 50% chance to happen, because the RoF of the weapon makes the difference in time to proc minimal, and to get maximum efficiency the fear effect is the bottleneck.
But that's exactly why it wasn't used much. The OC LOOKED bad. How a weapon or upgrade appears is very important if you want players to use it. Just look at the minigun and the Zhukovs, their RoF and total ammo is actually half of what the game tells you. The game is actively lying and try to make you believe that the weapons are twice as good as they actually are. Why? To entice you to use them. Here, the opposite happens. Because of the big scary numbers on the overclock debuffs (despite them actually being minimal downside), and the low chance for NTP to trigger (despite the chance itself being meaningless), players thought it was bad, simply because it looked bad.


And that's why NTP is impossible to balance.
There are only 3 states in which it can be.

• By default, it will be overpowered and meta, because that's what the OC is to its core. It has too many good synergies and doesn't require any skill at all from the player. The skill ceiling is exactly what keeps electrifying reload in check. That OC on the GK2 has similar effects, but because you need to hit enemies one by one WITHOUT hitting the armor, and then reload (leaving you vulnerable to enemies you haven't tagged) for it to be effective means that you need to take a bit of time to get results, and as such you can't spam it to get results. Compared to the "Hold M1 for a few rounds until neurotoxin and fear both proc, congratulations you killed a whole group of enemies and left the bigger targets with minimal health" gameplay of NTP, the difference is night and day.
  
• Then, you have the release NTP state. Overpowered, but because it looks bad on paper, no one takes it. Again, this is an issue, because you create a huge difference between a sort of ""elite"" caste of people who know that it is OP, and other players who don't care about weapon theorycrafting who will dismiss it as bad. This causes an issue of in-fighting over it, which is definitely bad.
  
• The last thing that can be down is to nerf it to the ground. Make it truly terrible. Make the neurotoxin deal little to no damage while gutting the effects of the whole gun. In that case, you have an underpowered weapon build that is detrimental to the game. Again, this goes against game balance, and you solved the issue by creating the opposite problem. Literally throwing the baby out with the bath water.

So how can NTP be balanced?
Well, that's the problem. It can't. Not in the current state. As long as the neurotoxin effect triggers in an area of effect unconditionally, just with a meaningless chance to happen, it will remain either overpowered, or underpowered if it ends in state 3. The only thing that can be done is to change drastically how it works. An example of this would be the following: instead of inflicting enemies with neurotoxin, NTP now creates a lingering cloud of gas that applies neurotoxin to enemies inside of it. The debuff lasts for a few seconds when enemies leave the cloud. Additionally, instead of reducing AoE and direct damage, the OC now nerfs total ammo and rate of fire and RoF rampup.
This change would turn NTP into an area of denial OC. You can get very good results, but only if you actively think about how you shoot. If you manage to kite enemies in the clouds of poison, you can still kill enemies and grunts in a few bullets while slowing them to protect your team. The RoF reduction nerfs the neurotoxin+fear combo, and the total ammo reduction accounts for the very efficient ammo economy of that OC. The player can still achieve good results, but now have to be skilled and play differently with the gun to achieve those results.
Of course, this is just an example I've made up on the spot, but if you doubt about how good it is, what I described is actually a poison minelayer, which is arguably the best overclock of the Hurricane and a powerhouse of its own kind, but require a different and unique playstyle. This is also how sticky flames work, another insanely good OC.
There would be other ways to fix that overclock, but that's the only example I'll provide because this is already a long thread and I don't feel like writing much more about game balance (and anyway I know this thread will be derailed by comment 10, I've seen Kestrel's threads on game balance getting trashed despite being well-written and accurate).

TL;DR:

• NTP creates a very unhealthy situation for game balance due to its very good power level.
  
• If NTP was buffed since its creation, it wasn't because it was weak, but because it appeared as such due to having big scary numbers on the drawbacks, despite those drawbacks not affecting at all the core issue of NTP. Only a few players who did theorycrafting would realize its strenght, creating a unhealthy divide between casual players and theorycrafters.
  
• NTP will always be overpowered, overpowered but appear as bad due to scary statistics and meaningless and uneffective drawbacks, or be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ due to being nerfed to the ground. A healthy balance can't be reached in the current state.
  
• The only way to balance NTP is to change how it works: making the toxin effect be skill based instead of chance based (raising the skill expression of the weapon without making the OC terrible by default), having drawbacks that actually matter like a reduced total ammo and RoF, and nerfing the synergy between fear and NTP without nerfing fear itself are all necessary to reach a healthier balance of the OC.

[Jack left town]

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

That’s not very nice of you to say.

Frankly I find ammo efficiency OFFENSIVE. You VIL collect every last 0.1 nitra. Or I VIL ammo efficiency your HP to zero with my superior firepower.

[WholeWheat]

ntp is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring I would rather read a book on contemporary ethical analysis of the gregorian calendar

[Marmarmar34]

Originally posted by JeanneOskoure:

Originally posted by Marmarmar34:

I have yet to join a game and say "Wow, we handled that wave of bugs wonderfully! I'm uninstalling." I don't get what the ruckus is.

*broadly gestures at all the "game's too easy" threads*
You're allowed to not care about game balance at all, that's fine. Playing for fun and just using whatever is not a problem at all. You don't have to comment in threads about balance if you just don't care, though. Or at least, try to bring up real arguments instead of "I don't care about it therefore it's not a problem". Jack left town did that by bringing up points to say that this thread is exagerating a bit and that it isn't as black or white as I made it out to be. That's good. You saying "I don't care, so you should stop caring too" isn't.

But I care about not caring :(

[Marmarmar34]

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

Originally posted by Marmarmar34:

I have yet to join a game and say "Wow, we handled that wave of bugs wonderfully! I'm uninstalling." I don't get what the ruckus is.

the issue is when one option is so powerful and is the best in its class then most people will continue to use that build over and over and over again. People like familiarity, and people like it when things work. This lack of build variety makes this game a staler experience. Build variety is one of the many great pillars holding this amazing game up.

But that variety stops after you spend 1k+ hours of playing?

[Cynimatic]

boring easy OC on a boring easy weapon that makes the game easy and boring.

[Bogan]

it should have a -0.5x ammo downside

[Torres, The Devourer]

Originally posted by Marmarmar34:

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

the issue is when one option is so powerful and is the best in its class then most people will continue to use that build over and over and over again. People like familiarity, and people like it when things work. This lack of build variety makes this game a staler experience. Build variety is one of the many great pillars holding this amazing game up.

But that variety stops after you spend 1k+ hours of playing?

no of course not. Not if you love the game. Build variety helps the longevity of this game by adding more variety.

[Bookslayer10]

Originally posted by Jack left town:

NTP good vs soft squishy things
Carpet Bomber good vs soft squishy things bunched up
Splinter shells good vs soft squishy things
Flamethrower good vs soft squishy things bunched up
Sludge pump good vs soft squishy things
Engineer's shotgun demolishes soft squishy things one at a time
Lead storm is good vs soft squishy things, soft squishy things bunched up, big hard things, big hard things bunched up and bipedal annoying things
Things having 50 HP left only matters to scouts
NTP not OP, doesn't need nerfing, QED

All of those things are decent against soft, squishy targets, but the argument is that NTP is still better than all of them, even the ones that are trying to be AoE.

Nothing else let's you hold down the trigger and demolish swarms of any size, they always have ammo issues or need strategy to avoid being overwhelmed.

Originally posted by Jack left town:

Originally posted by Bookslayer10:

incredible ammo efficiency

Touch grass, nerd.

No.

[Jack left town]

Originally posted by Bookslayer10:

Nothing else let's you hold down the trigger and demolish swarms of any size, they always have ammo issues or need strategy to avoid being overwhelmed.

You have skill issues, any self respecting driller can solo 4P haz5 swarms.

[Aimee]

I think the issues with NTP and its balance is blown out of proportion, like with many things on the forums.
Just because its popular in high hazard games does not make it broken or an issue for the game.
If there were more viable and fun builds for higher hazard games, less players would use builds like NTP and all of a sudden this conversation would have a lot less traction.

Balance is important, and i cant advocate for it enough. But thats balance throughout the entire game, not just one single overclock.
The more weapon builds are viable for every hazard, and fun to use for every hazard, the more players would use different weapon builds and the OC's that are central in those builds.

I never see a single person play with the Snowball OC from the cryocannon, even on lower hazard games. One of the more unique and interesting overclocks in the game. And there are plenty of fun overclocks and weapon builds that are great in concept but just never see the light of day because of balance.

Does the game need better balance for weapons and OC's? Yes absolutely. But there is no point in only talking about a single overclock that stands out, while ignoring all the rest. Other than creating an eccho chamber.

[Plumber]

Gunner having minimal contributions to traversal is grounds enough for him to be really, REALLY good at hunkering down and taking out bugs. It’s more or less his job to pour out the most focused damage or the most efficiency so the other classes can save their resources for critical situations. “In a horde shooter where half the enemies are grunts”, it’s the other half that you’re actually pressured by. This isn’t a consideration isolated to NTP; all classes have to toe this line. NTP is spectacularly efficient but not universally effective which is what keeps it (and other fodder-clearing weapons across all four classes) in check.

Reiterating what I wrote in another thread, even if the fear upgrade is what pushes it into “really good at its job” territory, there’s a lot of value in making sure a dangerous enemy is actually dead and not just scattered. The most threatening enemies are also the ones that the poison does little or nothing to. It sacrifices damage against dangerous enemies for extreme efficiency for weak enemies that would otherwise chew up ammo reserves. This is the critical difference that stops it from overshadowing Engineer’s secondaries, Driller’s primaries, and Scout’s GK2 Electric Reload.

That’s that for actual game elements, though. I’d like to comment on the idea of stigma against inefficiency, which is both a nebulous topic and also more of a social one than gameplay. A game that trends towards sterilizing its options so that nothing stands out in particular and everything is universally applicable - a game that is afraid to allow some options to have higher highs and lower lows - is also a very bland one. Balance for its own sake is counterproductive in this regard, just as much as hyperfocusing on efficiency is a good way to suck the variegation out of the game. The solution to people optimizing the fun out of their gameplay is not to strangle their options into order, but to make alternatives enjoyable or situationally strong enough to offer variety anyway.

In a different game called EDF, in a different context of ambitious modding, I had a lengthy discussion with someone that had wild and sweeping ideas for how a game should be adjusted. They were extremely ambitious and tried very hard to curtail anything that stood out too well in the vanilla game. “Water finds a crack”, and people gravitate toward what works without paying much heed toward unorthodox weapons, but it’s a massive undertaking to try and force people to experience more of the game; the mod ended up having a pileup of overcorrected nerfs in trying to rein in the standout weapons rather than exclusively focusing on improving weapons that needed adjustment to function at all. That design philosophy thus ended up at the same bottlenecking the vanilla game did, albeit with a meta that suited his ideals and preferences.

Water may find a crack, but it’s sometimes a hell of a lot of water - dedicated and practiced players will do what they enjoy irrespective of what’s ‘best’. New players might gravitate towards power as they experiment, but its better to encourage them to try new things or grow bored of something overperforming on their own terms. Haz5 can be bullied into submission even without the strongest overclocks, after all.

there’s a reason I actively avoid “must be lvl 100+” lobbies, too

[twoxsp]

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

Originally posted by JeanneOskoure:

I mean, can't blame you, it is still an enjoyable and good playstyle. Personally, I don't like the AC much and prefer the Lead Storm and the Hurricane (thanks to Mark!).

Hey, Looks like my threads and guide are paying off!
I believe the hurricane is a weapon with great potential. I also find that it has the best variety of builds despite the smaller mod tree. I recently downloaded a mod that makes the firing sfx beefier while still sounding like the base hurricane and it is great! I think the explosions of the rockets should be beefier as well but oh well.

the base RoF should be buffed but should retain a slow-ish speed. buffing it by 0.5 keeps the viability of both OFM and the T3 RoF mod while making the mag mod better.

Armor break needs to be fixed because it can compete well against rocket speed.

I think some of the rocket speed and maneuverability should be added to the base. Not a lot mind you, but so it doesn't feel as slow.

Toggalable rocket controls would also help people who don't like missile guidance. though the missile guidance isn't even that bad. I find it more helpful than detrimental.

T5 napalm rounds downside needs to be reduced. At release, it was arguably the best T5 mod because of the extra damage from the fire alongside the extra ammo efficiency you gain from using it. I think a damage reduction is a good idea, but it should be reduced from %33 to %15 or %17

T5 nitroglycerine compound is too weak right now. Kestrel had the idea of when it reaches max rocket speed it gets a damage bonus. I'd rather it have an AoE damage bonus because nitro already gives an AoE damage boost and would keep some of the identity of nitro. Also, I don't want to indirectly buff jet fuel homebrew (though this would also indirectly buff frag missiles but that build is fine as is and very strong like JFH)

along with these buffs to the Tt5 mods, I'd like to add a plus 2 direct damage to the stun mod. Simple.

With all these buffs I think the hurricane could use an extra 36 more ammo. maybe 72.

then we could increase both direct and area damage by 2, but I think that would be a bit much with all my proposed buffs.

Notice how all these changes are simple. That's because the hurricane is a good weapon now, but needs some very simple buffs to reach its true potential.

Oh, and buff PBM

I also have a new OC concept.

Custom Built mags
+36 ammo and -0.5 reload speed
Custom-built magazines give you a smooth-as-butter reload speed while also allowing for a faster reload.

I'm just some random person but I've also been loving the hurricane recently after giving it another shot because of you. R&S!

[Torres, The Devourer]

Originally posted by twoxsp:

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

Hey, Looks like my threads and guide are paying off!
I believe the hurricane is a weapon with great potential. I also find that it has the best variety of builds despite the smaller mod tree. I recently downloaded a mod that makes the firing sfx beefier while still sounding like the base hurricane and it is great! I think the explosions of the rockets should be beefier as well but oh well.

the base RoF should be buffed but should retain a slow-ish speed. buffing it by 0.5 keeps the viability of both OFM and the T3 RoF mod while making the mag mod better.

Armor break needs to be fixed because it can compete well against rocket speed.

I think some of the rocket speed and maneuverability should be added to the base. Not a lot mind you, but so it doesn't feel as slow.

Toggalable rocket controls would also help people who don't like missile guidance. though the missile guidance isn't even that bad. I find it more helpful than detrimental.

T5 napalm rounds downside needs to be reduced. At release, it was arguably the best T5 mod because of the extra damage from the fire alongside the extra ammo efficiency you gain from using it. I think a damage reduction is a good idea, but it should be reduced from %33 to %15 or %17

T5 nitroglycerine compound is too weak right now. Kestrel had the idea of when it reaches max rocket speed it gets a damage bonus. I'd rather it have an AoE damage bonus because nitro already gives an AoE damage boost and would keep some of the identity of nitro. Also, I don't want to indirectly buff jet fuel homebrew (though this would also indirectly buff frag missiles but that build is fine as is and very strong like JFH)

along with these buffs to the Tt5 mods, I'd like to add a plus 2 direct damage to the stun mod. Simple.

With all these buffs I think the hurricane could use an extra 36 more ammo. maybe 72.

then we could increase both direct and area damage by 2, but I think that would be a bit much with all my proposed buffs.

Notice how all these changes are simple. That's because the hurricane is a good weapon now, but needs some very simple buffs to reach its true potential.

Oh, and buff PBM

I also have a new OC concept.

Custom Built mags
+36 ammo and -0.5 reload speed
Custom-built magazines give you a smooth-as-butter reload speed while also allowing for a faster reload.

I'm just some random person but I've also been loving the hurricane recently after giving it another shot because of you. R&S!

Aww thanks.

You know, I'm in a really crummy mood right now, but you just made me feel that much better.

[phenir]

I don't believe there are enough people that don't think ntp is too strong that you felt like you had to write a short story about it.

[Jack left town]

How is it too strong if it's only very good at taking out glyphid grunts and swarmers
If it could kill a glyphid guard in 1 shell I'd see your point