The Lok 1 controversy

[Maximum stupidity]

So I have been noticing that a lot of people seem to not like the Lok 1 smart rifle for engineer. I personally enjoy all the weapons and find the Lok 1 pretty neat. But of course others have different opinions, which is fine. I just wan't to know why? So if you really do not like the Lok 1, please tell me why. Of course If you are a Lok 1 enjoyer then you can share your opinion also. Just please keep it civil. I hopefully do not need to explain why getting mad over other peoples opinions about a virtual object in a video game is not very mature.

Also what do you think is the coolest weapon in the game. Not the most powerfull or fun to use but the one that looks and seems the most powerfull.

For me it's probaply the shard defractor. After the cryo of course.

[Chibbity]

I love the Loki personally, sure it's a bit tight on ammo, but you also shouldn't be missing any shots with it; so it balances out.

I think it's become sort of a meme to hate on it, like C4ing Scouts; people do it because they saw other people do it. Let's face it though, an auto aiming gun was always gonna be controversial lol.

Coolest gun? Prolly the PGL, I just love a good ol' fashioned break away grenade launcher.

[Frisky]

I'm mixed on the lok-1, I enjoy using it but I'm certainly not gonna avoid the very glaring issues it has

firstly it's got a very tight ammo economy, even with the ammo upgrade the gun will run dry very fast if you use it for more than 1 role and for too often without also constantly using your secondary to compensate

secondly it's another one of "those" weapons thats built lacking to start then carried by overclocks which really shouldn't be the case for any weapon, executioner makes it actually good for picking HVTs and explosive chem rounds makes it a useful crowd cleaning, eraser is also very good on elimination if cryo is present and lets you do some crazy damage with a max lock build but without OCs the weapon falls very short

thirdly, this one might just be me but why does it have no weakspot damage bonus built in or applicable via the mod tree? why just executioner, IK GSG as of recently has developed some kinda fear of weakspot hits being rewarding (cutting praetorian weakspots to 1X, the M1K incident, etc.) but it's a smart rifle, it's basically the precision weapon of choice for the engineer why is there no weakspot reward for a weapon that is supposed to encourage hitting weakspots via curving your bullets? coilgun has that issue too of being a precision weapon with no reward for precision but this thread is about the lok-1 so I won't rant further on that, but the lok-1's only form of weakspot bonus being execution is basically screaming for the gun to have no build variety

TL;DR:
-very difficult to manage ammo
-carried by OCs
-no weakspot bonus outside a single OC

as for coolest weapon, honestly I'm gonna say autocannon, it's a very fun weapon and in my eyes easily has the most build variety among gunner's weapons (maybe even all weapons imo)
while I've settled pretty much on 1 build for all other guns I still change my autocannon build constantly to try out new things with it, just feels so well rounded outside of NTP which I avoid but it's other OCs are generally good and have their place

[King Fossil]

Runs out of ammo instantly, isn't really very impressive even when it has ammo. Locking on isn't that important since most enemies run right at you and don't dodge so hitting them is pretty easy. If you want to aim at weakspots then it's actually harder to aim than the other engineer primaries a lot of the time.
It's also not that useful when taken in combination with engineer's other weapons. You have turrets and really nice secondaries so the primary weapon is usually used as more of a defensive weapon. Smart rifle taking time to lock on is exactly what you don't want for that. If a slasher gets close I want to be able to immediately shoot it in the face. Shotgun and pistol can do that. Smart rifle I have to beep beep beep beep and then I get to shoot it.

This is assuming no overclocks, since there are some overclocks that can save it. But not everyone has those. And if they don't then shotgun/pistol are way better.

[wubbelflup]

hate the lock1 cuz of it's lower dps, low ammo and inability for close combat.
i join randoms so i want to carry with every build i have. i can't with the lok1. i can with the bbygun and shotty fairs relatively well too.

[Aimee]

I play DRG mostly to scratch the itch of shooters that i cant play competitively anymore. Along side the coop and community ofcourse.

Thats why i dont like the Lok1, since it had autoaim. Im not a fan of autoaim in games in general, with maybe the exeption of rockets. So thats already a big reason for me not to like the weapon.
Another reason is the time to kill, since i mostly play hazard 4-5 games. How long it takes for a weapon to actualy kill a target becomes more important, and the Lok1 is extremely slow in that.
It has a delay on the lock on mechanic, then you need to lock on, then there is bullet travel time, then there is another delay before you can use the lock on feature again, and there is also the reload. That together does not make for a fun weapon in hazard 5, although its probably fine for lower hazards.

[Aratorin]

I think the people complaining about it mostly play Haz 4 and 5. "Normal" difficulty is Haz 2, and I believe that is the difficulty weapons are designed around. It works fine in Haz 3 as well. I think it's silly to expect things to be balanced for Haz 5, as the bugs scale, but the weapons don't, so they're never going to be balanced for all Haz levels, and Haz 5 is a much less popular mode, so balancing around that, and thereby throwing off the balance for Haz 2 and 3, would be silly.

[A Rock Seller]

I always take it when I need to hunt fester fleas or when I'm doing a drunk run. Like a really really drunk run. I'm not good enough at the game yet to comment on the nitty gritty details. For all I know it could be a very bad weapon. I just enjoy it well enough, but I haven't really done anything past Hazard 4, so my take really doesn't amount to much.

[Fryskar]

Low ammo count, highly dependant on OCs and an unneeded gimmick.
Its high accuracy at high range is barly ever needed.

Originally posted by Aratorin:

I think the people complaining about it mostly play Haz 4 and 5. "Normal" difficulty is Haz 2, and I believe that is the difficulty weapons are designed around. It works fine in Haz 3 as well. I think it's silly to expect things to be balanced for Haz 5, as the bugs scale, but the weapons don't, so they're never going to be balanced for all Haz levels, and Haz 5 is a much less popular mode, so balancing around that, and thereby throwing off the balance for Haz 2 and 3, would be silly.

Imo about all weapons are fairly OP if the balancingpoint was h2. If you'd try, you could probably go ~80% melee and it works fine enough.
Some stuff like fatboy and other AoE dependant things would need a serious buff to be able to compete with anything.

[BaronVonNapking]

it has aim bot, it has wall hacks...

having every position be a good position is great for when you're hiding on your platform parkour or spiral. and I've saved team mates from getting swarmed a couple of times with it from down the neighboring village.

you can kill while running away...

ammo isn't the greatest, but it's still manageable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and now we can get to the important part...

I think the m1000 looks the coolest, a classic heavy hitting run of the mill rifle.
I'm a simple man like that...

[Waldherz]

I love the Lok so...

[StaunchStache]

I like it a lot, but there is no denying it's a definitive example of a weapon that relies on specific overclocks to be good at higher difficulties - those being, in the LOK-1's case, Executioner and Explosive Chemical Rounds.

Executioner in particular possesses two upsides that I think the base weapon would greatly benefit from, either as a mod or already built-in; and that's increased lock speed and weakpoint damage.

[TyresTyco]

The first OC I got was executioner. I started with scout and gunner. But getting that OC made me curious about engi so I started playing him.

Never looked back once I had it slotted in. The ability to scan for leeches in the dark... focusing on HVT's.. instantly deleting them once they spawn.. makes it very strong and ammo efficient.

It might be that I dont have good OC's for the shotgun and stubby.. but I struggle greatly with them. Lok1 with executioner for everything but big swarms and breach cutter combo for swarms is just so strong that I can't see how people can even think about stubby being better.

That said I'm only lvl 50 yet with a couple of promotions.. fairly new player that probably has no right to say anything about whats being good or not. Especially since nobody wants me for EDD's I have to settle in haz3-4.

I just enjoy the lok1 the most.

[The man, the myth, the leg]

it has quite a lot of issues

1- its carried HARD by its few actually good OCs
2- the lock and fire often feels slow and clunky
3- the massive noob trap of smrt targeting
4- arcing bullets

a player who doesnt know/isnt used to all of that will righfully just see it as garbage.

[Maximum stupidity]

Ok good replies so far. From what I have gathered, for most people the issue is that the Lok1 runs out of ammo to fast and gets carried by overclocks. That and it's lock on mechanics. Interresting.

Originally posted by StaunchStache:

Executioner in particular possesses two upsides that I think the base weapon would greatly benefit from, either as a mod or already built-in; and that's increased lock speed and weakpoint damage.

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

The first OC I got was executioner. I started with scout and gunner. But getting that OC made me curious about engi so I started playing him.

I really should try more overclocks. I have all of them but only have ever used like 10% of them.

Originally posted by The man, the myth, the leg:

3- the massive noob trap of smrt targeting

Yes. If you need the targeting og the lok 1 to carry you through higher hazards, then you are not really ready for them.

Originally posted by Chibbity:

sure it's a bit tight on ammo, but you also shouldn't be missing any shots with it

You dare challenge me?

Anyway great replies so far, thanks everyone.

[The man, the myth, the leg]

Originally posted by Maximum stupidity:

Originally posted by The man, the myth, the leg:

3- the massive noob trap of smrt targeting

Yes. If you need the targeting og the lok 1 to carry you through higher hazards, then you are not really ready for them.

its not just that you dont need it. its outright harmful to the weapon
the lock limit often prevents you from getting max locks or 3 locks, which messes pretty much all of the good builds for the weapon(that is even before mentioning the fact that it often undershoots in terms of damage)
the base gun already stops shooting when the enemy dies