The Nerf Stuff and My Opinions About It

[Hooman]

Genuinely I think it's all good except for one thing: The railgun. Listen, I ran breaker cause it was just without a doubt the best option and honestly cause me like shotgun it go boom make big hit, the shotguns in this game are fun as ♥♥♥♥. The non-shotgun weapons though are all DREADFULLY underpowered, save for maybe the plasma gun? I haven't gotten a chance to use that one, but people seem to like it.

I don't hate the breaker nerf, it feels the same. I don't hate the shield pack nerf, feels basically the same. The railgun, believe it or not... Feels basically the same because if you weren't running it on Unsafe anyways you were using it wrong. The problem with it though is they nerfed the "best guns" without actually buffing of the primaries aside from shotguns. All of the others still suck.

The reason I hate the railgun nerf however? Its because the railgun was not that good. I used it cause I like railguns, its a big ♥♥♥♥♥♥' bullet that hits a single target. The problem I have with it is it really didn't do enough damage for me to justify using it. Yeah it could 1-shot bile spitters, hulks if you actually hit their head, etc etc. But it wasn't that great against bile titans or chargers despite what people seem to claim. It took way too many hits to actually break charger armor and titans just had an inflated as hell health pool anyways (as they should because I like killing gigantic bug with all I have, except when there's 4 of them.) But them nerfing it gives me the feeling they never will buff it again. It has only affirmed in my heart that they think the railgun was too strong, and that means it'll never actually be better or worth my time. Pre-nerf railgun and post-nerf are virtually identical, just use the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ button and overcharge it for 0.01 seconds and wow look IT STILL WORKS THE SAME. The problem is the damage it dealt wasn't really that great.

My deployable of choice is the grenade launcher, sometimes arc gun. The grenade launcher is just solid, it fires quick and it hits hard, it can kill things with armor, it has fairly good ammo economy, it can destroy nests and outposts. The arc gun is the arc gun I don't think I have to explain why it's good. I'm glad when people bring rockets or whatever, I just don't really enjoy those. I like the flamethrower too now, though I think it should fire a little bit further and the napalm should spawn on the ground a bit sooner.

This "nerf" though showed a fairly big issue in that they didn't even bother addressing the other weapons and strategems. Let me go down the list of them:
The Machinegun is fun and good damage, it is a waste of a slot because the Stalwart is basically just the same thing with slightly less damage but a vastly larger clip size and more clips.
The Stalwart: Machinegun but better, refer to the above.
Laser Cannon: I think it's awesome. It's not useful, it doesn't do nearly enough damage to actually kill most things and it still isn't good versus armor. I think that it should either do more damage or it should PEEL heavy armor. Its a laser cannon but it feels more like a laser pointer. There are not enough ways to actually remove armor at the moment, just kill things that have armor.
Flamethrower: Before? ♥♥♥♥. Now? It's solid, should probably go a little further, set fires a little faster. Honestly solid I like it good strategem.
Anti Material Rifle: Railgun but worse. It has more ammo efficiency but I have seen this thing just straight up bounce off of heavy armor. What is even the point of it? It's inaccurate as hell and very often I can't even break a bot devastator's arm with a direct hit. I could just be using it wrong but I have heard all over that it's "a fun gun but not a good gun."
I'm just gonna lump all these together; Autocannon, Recoilless Rifle, SPEAR: They all serve "sort of" the same purpose but slightly different. They're "fine" but genuinely they do tend to suffer from a problem of "why would I bring these if the grenade launcher or anti tank exist, now I can bring a backpack." They should do SOMETHING to these, I don't know quite what, but SOMETHING.
Anti-Tank: Yeah its alright it works it does exactly what it should it kills big ♥♥♥♥ one shot (usually) and hurts big.
Grenade Launcher: Its a grenade launcher. Maybe a little more damage? I don't really have complaints about it.
Arc Thrower: Most you could do about it is make it more consistently hit enemies. Even after the patch where they "silent buffed" the tracking I swear it will just go straight into the ground in front of me.

The problem is that all of these ARE REALLY FUN. I LOVE THE GUNS IN THIS GAME, THEY FEEL GREAT. But not all of them actually work well. And a lot of them have the excuse where someone else can wear your backpack, but that is REALLY not a good idea because assisted loading implies you can stand still ever at the higher difficulties.

There are also a ton of other strategems I just think are good until you get to higher difficulties. All of the defensive ones aren't that useful, the sentries remain useful until you reach the higher levels because enemies will just run up and destroy them. The second bile titans become a consistent threat your sentries are no longer valuable. They're really only used in bot extermination missions because the robots still have to WALK UP TO YOU. Titans just walk over everything and step on the sentries. That is fine, it encourages less over-reliance on them I suppose. Aside from the sentries there isn't a ton of use for the others. The minefields kill your team more often than they kill enemies. I have never seen a single person use the tesla tower. The HMG could be good if it worked on heavy armor but it doesn't, as it stands it is a "get in this to get shot by a random robot missile or watch as a charger breaks your gun." Shield Generator? Ehhh, maybe, but it isn't that great as a slot.
I notice less and less people using most of the offensive orbitals. Why would you use precision strike, airburst strike, gatling barrage when the 120MM and 380MM exist. Walking barrage is just bad its cool but it really doesn't serve a purpose. The laser is fine, it kind of gets wasted if it targets just a big enemy and still doesn't kill it in it's full duration but it works great as a swarm clearer. The orbital railgun isn't that great, it's cooldown is way too high for a weapon that hits ONE ENEMY and STILL doesn't always 1-shot a titan; either give us a faster cooldown or give us a harder hit. The problem with that also is almost every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mission in the higher difficulties have a 50% cooldown increase, which encourages using eagles more cause you get more bang for your buck. Also: The gas, EMS and smoke strikes are all just a waste of a slot and have no value worth using over an actual truly damaging orbital.
Eagles are all fine EXCEPT for the smoke strike and strafing run. The smoke has the same problem with the orbital strike variant and the strafing run really does not do very much damage and affects a TINY area, it is not worth using over just an airstrike.
Backpacks are MOSTLY good. Laser guard dog: Great. Ballistic guard dog: Worse in every single way compared to the laser. It doesn't have infinite ammo, I think it's damage it COMPARABLE at best, I swear it doesn't last as long between volleys either. Shield pack: I mean yeah it's the shield pack. Ballistic shield pack: It MIGHT be good if it DIDN'T BREAK and could ACTUALLY PROTECT YOU FROM MOST PROJECTILES. It works EXCLUSIVELY on the lasers, if you get spit on/rocketed it will not save you, and it definitely doesn't help it barely has a defensive cone. Jump pack works as advertised. Supply pack works as advertised.


Let me finally preface all this as: I do not have a real problem with this game, but I think both sides of this argument are being morons. "The game is unplayable after these nerfs" are just whiny babies as well as "If you can't beat the game now you sucked at it before"/"The devs want the game to be harder, not easier" are just elitist losers who hate the idea of people having fun. I want the game to be fun, and it is. I also want there to be more ACTUAL choices over other things. But as it stands too much stuff is just "a better option" than most things, and with how they handled things that were just better than other things, it does not give me confidence. It makes me things the devs will never buff anything and will just proceed to nerf other ♥♥♥♥ to be as bad as the worst item. But, but... They also made the flamethrower and the other shotguns good. And that gives me hope that maybe its a rough patch, that we'll eventually get to use our rifles and whatever else like we want. I want everyone to have fun in this game, not only CBT enthusiasts or game journalists.

[Sym]

The railgun wasn't the best at any of the tasks it was being used for when taken in a vacuum, but it was the fastest reloading one, while on the move, with the highest range and therefore the lowest risk.
That's what made it the best overall, and why it became the meta weapon.

The team-loading weapons are slow to load solo, when you have to constantly be on the move, so they break the teamload function anyway because it just decouples you.

Even with the non-backpack weapons, /after/ the buff to the flamer and laser cannon, you still have to adjust to your placement significantly - the flamer is now more dangerous to allies than the arc thrower and the laser cannon's issue of cursor-wander slamming damage is still right there.

The safe mode of the railgun /had/ to be nerfed, it was obscenely good - the issue lies with making the unsafe mode less viable against groups of chargers than the arc thrower, when the arc thrower is already primarily for swarm clearing.

[Hooman]

Originally posted by Sym:

The railgun wasn't the best at any of the tasks it was being used for when taken in a vacuum, but it was the fastest reloading one, while on the move, with the highest range and therefore the lowest risk.
That's what made it the best overall, and why it became the meta weapon.

The team-loading weapons are slow to load solo, when you have to constantly be on the move, so they break the teamload function anyway because it just decouples you.

Even with the non-backpack weapons, /after/ the buff to the flamer and laser cannon, you still have to adjust to your placement significantly - the flamer is now more dangerous to allies than the arc thrower and the laser cannon's issue of cursor-wander slamming damage is still right there.

The safe mode of the railgun /had/ to be nerfed, it was obscenely good - the issue lies with making the unsafe mode less viable against groups of chargers than the arc thrower, when the arc thrower is already primarily for swarm clearing.

Yeah see, this, I agree with this. The railgun couldn't stay in that state, but they think it was literally too strong in general. The problem is it just serves the purpose of the anti-material but better but still not good enough.
It sets an incredibly bad precedent. What're they going to do not that everyone's using arc throwers and flame throwers? Are they going to nerf those or will they make the other stuff better

[BaconX]

Originally posted by Hooman:

But it wasn't that great against bile titans or chargers despite what people seem to claim. It took way too many hits to actually break charger armor

This factually wrong, it took only 2 safe mode charge to the leg to break armor.

It had to be nerf, there were no weakness to the railgun, but now you actually have to do it in unsafe mode (the funner mode btw), and it will still strip armor albeit with one extra overcharge shot.

[Hooman]

Originally posted by BaconX:

Originally posted by Hooman:

But it wasn't that great against bile titans or chargers despite what people seem to claim. It took way too many hits to actually break charger armor

This factually wrong, it took only 2 safe mode charge to the leg to break armor.

It had to be nerf, there were no weakness to the railgun, but now you actually have to do it in unsafe mode (the funner mode btw), and it will still strip armor albeit with one extra overcharge shot.

Didn't seem that way to me. I don't agree with people saying "it took 12 of my shots to break" but it definitely wasn't 2.

[Eudicots]

Originally posted by Hooman:

Didn't seem that way to me. I don't agree with people saying "it took 12 of my shots to break" but it definitely wasn't 2.

It 100% was 2 safe shots. Now it is 3 unsafe shots.

[Fluffy Monster Thing]

In all honesty a better nerf would of been to significantly increase the reload time while mobile with the weapon instead of the blanket damage nerf Arrowhead performed.

They essentially killed everything that made the railgun useful/special and made it the anti-material 2.0 but it's outclassed by a slugger.

[BaconX]

Originally posted by Hooman:

Originally posted by BaconX:

This factually wrong, it took only 2 safe mode charge to the leg to break armor.

It had to be nerf, there were no weakness to the railgun, but now you actually have to do it in unsafe mode (the funner mode btw), and it will still strip armor albeit with one extra overcharge shot.

Didn't seem that way to me. I don't agree with people saying "it took 12 of my shots to break" but it definitely wasn't 2.

It was exactly 2 shot, not probably, not maybe, exactly 2 safe mode shot to the leg to strip armor. And you can shoot it from the next planet over, it had no weakness compare to the other power weapon.

If you didn't get it at 2 shot, you didn't shoot the leg with it.

[Meefreese]

When the ♥♥♥♥ are people going to realize the devs themselves called this a minor balence update and thus not a large balence patch.

[Eudicots]

Originally posted by Meefreese:

When the ♥♥♥♥ are people going to realize the devs themselves called this a minor balence update and thus not a large balence patch.

They did mention this. This patch was to try to make a baseline before a massive overhaul. Sadly no one cares

[Eligor]

You can't penetrate armor of turrets and tanks also shield of machinegun devestators. There is a railgun that can't pierce ♥♥♥♥. If it can't pierce anything is it still a railgun tho? Lets just call it charge rifle or something.

[Eligor]

Originally posted by Kaan d'Arc:

You can't penetrate armor of turrets and tanks also shield of machinegun devestators. There is a railgun that can't pierce ♥♥♥♥. If it can't pierce anything is it still a railgun tho? Lets just call it charge rifle or something.

I need to add that even if you fully charge it you still can't pierce

[Rigimortis]

Would you like a glass with your whine?

[Hooman]

To the people complaining about the railgun nerf: Get over yourselves, I'm not on your side.

[Naijiro]

Can i get the TL;DR cause i aint reading all that ♥♥♥♥.

[Hooman]

Originally posted by naijiro:

Can i get the TL;DR cause i aint reading all that ♥♥♥♥.

Sorry let me put some subway surfers gameplay embedded so you can pay attention long enough.