Rough Draft for a Better Burst Fire

[Thetagent]

From the forum posts that I have read so far, Burst Fire seems to be regarded as the weakest among the latest overclocks. The majority of the complaints seem to originate from two major faults.

• Burst Fire fails to hit any significant breakpoints beyond standard grunts.
  
• It wastes ammo for bugs that take an amount of hits that is not divisible by three.

Compared to other overclocks, as well as a non-overclocked GK2, it fails to dispatch High-Value Targets more effectively (the Scout's primary combat role). Even in an unorthodox swarm-clear build that focuses on grunts, Electrifying Reload can perform the same role with more flexibility and synergy with high burst damage secondaries.

This all got me thinking as to how Burst Fire could be improved while maintaining what I perceive to be GSG's intentions with this overclock. That being, Burst Fire is intended to improve the GK2's ability to quickly dispatch HVTs with accurate fire, while sacrificing its flexibility in handling several targets within a shorter time-frame. To achieve these goals, I would make these modifications in addition to its current effects:

Weakpoint hits should extend the burst by an additional shot

This would solve the issue of the three-round burst failing to hit HVT breakpoints. Now, players are rewarded for their accurate fire by continuing the burst with its increased fire rate until a shot fails to hit a weakpoint. The duration of the burst can effectively adapt to any particular bug, so long as all shots are on target.

Killing a bug should immediately end the current burst

This would solve the issue of ammo being needlessly wasted on the majority of targets. To reinforce the trade-off of decreased flexibility, I think players should still have to wait out the burst delay upon a kill.

Now, Burst Fire could fill a more niche role in being able to quickly laze a single target. Would this be as effective as AISE for a single-target build? Probably not (and frankly, when is AISE not a decent pick for any build?), but I think it would at least be more appealing. I'd rather it be a fun/novel option to toy around akin to Bullet Hell as opposed to a why-in-the-world-would-I-ever-choose-this option like pre-patch Double Barrel.

I have heard some other good ideas prior to making this, such as each successive shot dealing more damage. If any of you have something else in mind, I'd like to hear it! I'm no game designer (inb4 You made that obvious OP), so it's likely someone with far more hours than myself can think of something more refined.

It's just Lok-1 without aimbot lol

[kestrel]

i feel like both of these would just make the overclock incredibly awkard to use
having the amount of bullets fired in a burst vary depending on what you do with it would make it inconsistent and unreliable, not to mention the many ways it would affect recoil and make using it at long range unfeasible

the only reason you would want the burst to end early is if you're firing at swarmers, but scout doesn't need literally everything in his arsenal to have an edge against his counter enemy (you shouldn't be shooting at swarmers as scout in the first place)

it would be a lot better and simpler if the gun just awarded bonus damage for landing all shots in a burst, in the same way the BRT's stun mod works. a full burst is about 40 damage off from killing a mactera, so if you were to add 40 bonus damage for landing a full burst, that would give burst fire a critical breakpoint it's missing out on

[Bilbo Tha Donk]

Hope you generated that with AI because no one will ever read it.

[Dollop of Mayo]

ah more burst fire threads just what we needed

why not just make it so you can hold Reload and switch it off when needed (I don't know when this would be, and what circumstances y'all are in that a couple of wasted bullets here and there is life or death, also it's not like you're not wasting bullets left and right with the minigun but there's not 3 minigun threads a day about it)

[Jakal, Lady kisser]

this seems like a pointlessly complicated and largely useless set of ideas that is both aimed at making it the LOK-1 but stupider and turning the OC from grunt-b-gone to functionally a deathtrap.

[SCamp]

Ew. Yuck. 3-round burst is good because it's consistently 3-rounds. Adding "dynamic spending" is garbage. Imagine trying to kill a mactera/spitter and a swarmer just hopped in front of your burst, or you need to swap targets.

Just give it more base damage and/or tack on a combo/all-hit mechanic. (Damage increases the more bullets hit, or extra damage if all 3 bullets hit.)

[Derpykat5]

Originally posted by Thetagent:

Weakpoint hits should extend the burst by an additional shot

This would solve the issue of the three-round burst failing to hit HVT breakpoints. Now, players are rewarded for their accurate fire by continuing the burst with its increased fire rate until a shot fails to hit a weakpoint. The duration of the burst can effectively adapt to any particular bug, so long as all shots are on target.

This would be obscenely overpowered against certain targets. Praetorians and Oppressors and Dreadnoughts in particular would just melt under the incredible burst fire rate.

Killing a bug should immediately end the current burst

This would solve the issue of ammo being needlessly wasted on the majority of targets. To reinforce the trade-off of decreased flexibility, I think players should still have to wait out the burst delay upon a kill.

This might be workable, but I'd imagine there's a more elegant way to solve the issue. After all, nobody has this problem with the BRT.

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by Thetagent:

It's just Lok-1 without aimbot lol

Well..atleast you realize that haha.

[kestrel]

Originally posted by Derpykat5:

This might be workable, but I'd imagine there's a more elegant way to solve the issue. After all, nobody has this problem with the BRT.

exactly, that's my point. the only people complaining about burst fire being "inefficient" are crap scouts who waste all their ammo shooting at grunts and swarmers instead of exercizing a modicum of target priority

burst fire being bad at killing swarmers literally does not matter because no scout should ever be shooting at swarmers or grunts or any trash mob for any reason. if you get surrounded by them you have an infinite ammo grapple gun that can take you 25m away from them near instantly. that's exactly why the grapple doesnt use ammo

it's so easy to just not shoot swarmers as scout, just get the driller or engineer to kill them, it won't kill you to rely on your teammates in a coop game

[kestrel]

Originally posted by Dollop of Mayo:

also it's not like you're not wasting bullets left and right with the minigun but there's not 3 minigun threads a day about it)

you guys are wasting ammo with the minigun?

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by kestrel:

Originally posted by Dollop of Mayo:

also it's not like you're not wasting bullets left and right with the minigun but there's not 3 minigun threads a day about it)

you guys are wasting ammo with the minigun?

I assume they mean the low accuracy while spinning up?

[Thetagent]

Originally posted by kestrel:

snip

You're absolutely right about the recoil, I had not taken it and bullet spread into consideration. This thing firing at a maintained rate of fire of twenty at any reasonable distance would be unwieldy, and would make T3A Floating Barrel almost a must. Adding any accuracy bonuses to the OC itself would only encroach on AISE's niche, and I see little reason to take my idea over something like OFM for a close-range build.

I also agree with your second point, you should not be concerned with swarmers as Scout (and if you have to be, grenades and Boomstick are far better than the GK2). As for ending the burst early, my first header would already entail that the burst ends upon killing the bugs scout is intended to kill. Now I realize that the second header is rather redundant.

Providing a damage buff for landing all shot sounds like the simplest solution to this thing. My only concern with that is how it may prove difficult to balance it around all the different health values of HVTs. I figured that the issue of Burst Fire not killing within full-burst increments could be avoided if the burst itself was dynamic, but I suppose now that more people would be willing to forgive some wasted shots so long as the thing actually dealt some serious damage.

Originally posted by Derpykat5:

snip

I did have that idea after I made this thread. I think praetorians and oppressors would be more of a nuisance than anything else, as Scout lacks the total ammo to handle tanky targets unlike Gunner. Imagine accidentally clipping a praetorian's rear-end and spontaneously dumping your entire magazine. Dreadnaughts, however, would be absolutely busted with this thing. Without announced swarms, they are what you should be spending your ammo on, and twenty rounds-per-second sounds a bit too strong.

I had thought about why the BRT did not face the same criticism as Burst Fire when it has the same inherent flaws that come with burst weapons. I think Gunner has to worry far less about ammo consumption than Scout, plus the BRT is often employed for stragglers and HVTs Scout hasn't killed yet. It isn't his primary weapon. However, it also does the same damage without upgrades as 21112 BF, so more damage would be the more elegant solution.

Seems like I had gotten caught up with the idea of maintaining twenty rounds-per-second, freezing targets with the 60% stun chance, and larping as a GAU-8 30mm cannon than trying come up with simpler fixes first; i.e. losing the forest for the trees.

Originally posted by Dollop of Mayo:

ah more burst fire threads just what we needed

Stay tuned for my next thread where I breakdown how GSG can implement a fifth class with melee weapons. I'm fixin' to break new ground.

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by Thetagent:

Stay tuned for my next thread where I breakdown how GSG can implement a fifth class with melee weapons. I'm fixin' to break new ground.

You mean the exact thing they've said no to dozens of times? Please tell me you're kidding haha.

[Aimee]

Originally posted by Thetagent:

Stay tuned for my next thread where I breakdown how GSG can implement a fifth class with melee weapons. I'm fixin' to break new ground.

They have said no to this like a hundred times... but its one of the few things i support people nagging them about :P
Keep on asking this, they might break at some point and give in, or add it to rogue core :P

[Thetagent]

Originally posted by Chibbity:

You mean the exact thing they've said no to dozens of times? Please tell me you're kidding haha.

I can lead them to water, but I can't make them drink.
Yeah I'm just fooling around.

[Aimee]

Originally posted by Thetagent:

I can lead them to water, but I can't make them drink.

You can lead them to the axes, but cant make them smash bugs with it