Giving assault rifles medium penetration by default

[my girlfriend's phantom boner]

Title. While this change would be VERY radical, i think it could be very beneficial for the overall gun balance.
Assault rifles are very much usable right now, however, their whole existence is basically overshadowed by the sickle and the the fact that it's an assault rifle with infinite ammo, and the smgs due to their one handed operation with a minor dps difference (and the with the pummeler just being a better concussive liberator).

Giving medium pen. to assault rifles by default would not fix the issue of them being quite homogeneous right now, but it could be a good move to set them off in to a better direction, a sort of strong all rounder category of weapons that do well against both bugs and bots.

The smgs and sickle could fill the niche of light pen. with their own upsides (infinite ammo, one handed operation, stun)

I'm curious to hear what do people think would have to be done to even the playing field for assault rifles right now

[Malidictus]

I have actually thought about this. Giving assault rifles across the board Medium 1 Penetration would go a long way towards giving them, like... a reason to exist. Especially if SMGs and Shotguns stay where they are. The Sickle should probably stay Light, though, else it's going to take over the game.

While we're on the subject, give the Peacemaker and the Verdict Medium 1 penetration, bump the Senator to Medium 2. That actually gives people a reason to use those two over the Redeemer and gives the Senator a bit more love.

Not really sure what to do about the Penetrator and Adjudicator, though. Giving them Medium 2 penetration seems a bit... much? Definitely think the Stalwart should have Medium 1 penetration, though, and maybe bump the damage on the MG a little conpensate.

[Khloros]

No, awful idea.
If you wanna fix Assault rifles, the first thing you need to do is make it so every assault rifle has 30 or 35 rounds per magazine BASE. Thats a good starting spot, then they need to work on damage numbers.

[Clail]

Disagree, I think rifles are in a good spot due to their high fire rate + high dmg. The liberator Mark 2 is also essentially what you are asking for in exchange for lower damage and capacity, so just use that?

Medium Armor is not difficult to deal with, most support weapons are designed for them or alternatively hit them with a grenade.

Giving high damage primaries medium pen would make far to many support weapons and alternative primaries not worth using; just trading one problem for another.

[Vespertellino]

might as well delete 2/3 of them at that point

[Furia]

Originally posted by Vesper 🠉🠊🠋🠋🠋:

might as well delete 2/3 of them at that point

gotta sell that premium warbound.

[LoveTruffle]

Originally posted by Clail:

Disagree, I think rifles are in a good spot due to their high fire rate + high dmg. The liberator Mark 2 is also essentially what you are asking for in exchange for lower damage and capacity, so just use that?

Medium Armor is not difficult to deal with, most support weapons are designed for them or alternatively hit them with a grenade.

Giving high damage primaries medium pen would make far to many support weapons and alternative primaries not worth using; just trading one problem for another.

+1

Primary and secondary weapons need more identity, but they can't overshadow support weapons called down via stratagems.

[Quadsword]

Okay. What would you do with the Adjudicator and Liberator Penetrator at that point? If every assault rifle has medium armor penetration by default, the existence of those two weapons becomes largely redundant.

[M0ntS4intM1chel]

Yes, keep demanding more penetration. Instead you'll find Automatons toughened up and your medium penetration ammo just ploinks off most of the parts of their plating.

[Midas]

This isn't a good solution. Stuff like penetration is role-definining, and changing the role of half the assault rifles just muscles into the roles of other weapons and makes a different set of weapons redundant. Nothing would be gained.

Far better that the LACK of medium penetration have a more recognizable cost and the weapons are statted accordingly.

[Aldain]

The issue is with the needlessly convoluted armor system, it's supposedly on a 10 scale for some inane reason despite being only in 3 subcategories.

Medium armor is also way too important to deal with and has too much overlap with Heavy armor answers, primaries and secondaries by proxy feel weak because they don't plink off of only 1/3rd of the forces.

[SPIGOT]

Tbh I actually like using the default AR against bots, it's quite decent at clearing up the weak hoards I don't want to waste my AMR on.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Aldain:

The issue is with the needlessly convoluted armor system, it's supposedly on a 10 scale for some inane reason despite being only in 3 subcategories.

Medium armor is also way too important to deal with and has too much overlap with Heavy armor answers, primaries and secondaries by proxy feel weak because they don't plink off of only 1/3rd of the forces.

It makes sense, it's just not communicated in game at all. Armor pen should be a listed stat.

[dyra55]

Originally posted by Midas:

It makes sense, it's just not communicated in game at all. Armor pen should be a listed stat.

it kinda already is but only for grenades for some reason, you can see a number of penetration when comparing their stats that ranks from 1 to 9

[Aldain]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by Aldain:

The issue is with the needlessly convoluted armor system, it's supposedly on a 10 scale for some inane reason despite being only in 3 subcategories.

Medium armor is also way too important to deal with and has too much overlap with Heavy armor answers, primaries and secondaries by proxy feel weak because they don't plink off of only 1/3rd of the forces.

It makes sense, it's just not communicated in game at all. Armor pen should be a listed stat.

I disagree, needless separation of the armor penetration is WHY it not being listed is a problem in the first place.

If "Medium armor penetration" meant exactly that and not "Oh only up to this sort of armor" then people would know what they're dealing with reliably, as it currently stands HD2 has the Warframe issue of "Too damn many health/armor/shielding types" which causes players to just default to "Do enough damage/penetration to not care anymore".

It doesn't need to be this complex, all the complexity it does is create a different "minimum" standard every weapon has to live up to, hell that much should be obvious since nobody complains about anything that is "light" armor type since every single weapon damn near actually works against them.

Not to mention how much of a resource drain hardware wise it must be having to calculate all the different armor types and hit locations...

[PhellAsleep]

They'll probably "buff" assault rifles by increasing damage drop-off and spread on shotguns.