Question: How would you balance the weapons?

[黒人]

Imagine yourself as the lead dev responsible for balancing weapons. You have the power to change any weapons you'd like, be it a primary, secondary, or a support weapon.

What would you change? You can issue both nerfs & buffs, the world's your oyster.

[Paulie]

Default kit is a happy medium, make energy weapons more niche in their function, have them serve different roles than instead of being "new weapon better" or just a stronger/weaker version of an existing weapon. make weapons with higher pen produce a higher bleedout rate (makes sense the deeper in the round goes the more its gonna rip apart)

another idea would be to make energy weapons garbage at penetration, but increased damage vs flesh

[Lord Bofa]

Imagine trying to balance weapons in a pve game...

THIS JUST IN: Halo is making balance changes to every weapon in campaign (said no one ever)

[Hellfire]

I'm going to do their job the moment they pay me for it.

[Slavbringer57]

By testing them before and after probably, idk. Maybe also pay attention to how and why the playerbase uses them.
I'm just some gamer whose favourite guns got ruined for reasons that didn't match the nerfs.

Surely I couldn't know more about balancing than someone who gets paid to do it.

[Aldain]

I could take a crack at it, lemme just pull open a spreadsheet of weapon stats (since that's how the clown at Arrowhead seems to do it).

I'll start with the Assault Rifles and work my way down with each post.

The base Liberator can remain as is, it's a solid benchmark weapon for the weapon class and I think it does the good job of a generalist weapon.

The Lib Concussive's fire rate is staggeringly (pardon the pun) low for what it does, there's a reason the new SMG is basically it but better. You could probably reasonably move the RPM up from it's paltry 320 to something closer to a standard Liberator, not an RPM specialist but I think moving it into the low 400s would at least give it a technical DPS boost.

Lib Pen...just move it's damage up to 55 or something, as it stands it has the lowest damage per bullet of any weapon in the game and the penetration is so not worth that amount of damage loss.

Tenderizer...bump the damage up to around 70ish, maybe 75 and make it penetrate the lowest end of medium armor, also make it regain mags like the other ARs (full not half), it can take a hit to Recoil if need be to compensate (not sure why a supposedly high power rifle has the lowest Recoil in its class).

Adjudicator, you could probably give it another 5 damage if the Tenderizer getting bumped up happens and make sure that it penetrates one degree higher than the Tenderizer to make up for the lower mag size though.

The ARs are mostly internally consistent (Lib Pen/Concussive notwithstanding), the core issue mostly stems from the problem of hitting reasonable break points against the trash mobs they're supposed to deal with, I don't know those break points but in regards to chaff clearing it is always best to make small upward movements to find that sweet spot imo.

[StaunchStache]

I'd try to make most weapons feel different. Some straightforward to use but average, others clunkier but very rewarding if used well, etc.
The idea being that all primary weapons have their use, with gaps that can be mended with secondary/support weapons, or vice versa.

Much like what the Eruptor did before its nerf, giving a slow and clunky anti-armor option which fills a unique niche while leaving a hole in your kit that a sustained chaff-clearing support weapon like the Stalwart can fill.

If one or two weapons are picked much more often than the others, look for the reasons why before making any changes. Are they truly too strong? Do they fill too many different roles at little cost, and thus should be toned down a bit? Or should other weapons be made more appealing?

Contrary to some people's knee-jerk reaction, balancing is important even in PvE games.
Having a handful of go-to options with the rest left in the dust isn't fun, whether those options are much too good to the point of making the game too easy, or the only viable ones in a sea of garbage.

[Powerfull_Midget]

You can simply copy games like the division.You can separate the weapons in sort of "class"
Crowd control(stagger),sniper,close range,support

Its not THAT difficult

[Jackson Lamb]

Stop thinking about this game like it is a PVP game and throw out the concepts of 'nerfs' and 'buffs' - at least for weapons - which would fit with the Dev's apparent aim to create an experience that matches the game's narrative.

We're supposed to be meat popsicles thrown in to hordes of enemies with the whole armoury and so much arty it would make a Kriegsman cream his pants. Currently the game is basically Russia defending Stalingrad with every second man having a weapon and as many bullets as they have fingers and toes.

Give us guns that would make Judge Dredd let out sex noises and then focus on giving the enemies tools to counter your uber weaponry, give them the ability to take advantage of the environment and to exploit your mistakes. Have the bugs react to your presence more than they do, have them be able to tell where you're going and start setting ambushes and flanking you.

They devs should look at it like this:

* 'Gun A' literally makes players laugh like the Heavy from TF2 when they fire it? GOOD.
* 'Gun B' makes players feel like Vasily Zaitsev blowing hairs off a stalkers back side? GOOD.
* 'Gun C' causes Doom guy to propose to it, get married, have 18 little Doom Guy Gun babies and settle down on a little bullet farm? GOOD.


Not like this:
* The =average formula in my spreadsheet is telling me the Breaker is used more by players than other guns. Lets ♥♥♥♥ with it.
* I've nerfed these 6 weapons because this piece of the pie chart is bigger than the others
* Too many people are creaming themselves over this weapon on the Discord, lets kill it

[TFCaesar]

Give each main weapon their unique purposes and drawbacks instead of making them all-around weapons.
AR: good for dealing with small mobs and medium enemies from mid-range, but can't take down heavy armored enemies. Medium penetration ARs will be given lesser mags in exchange of more firepower.

Shotguns: can kick back and even stun enemies, low damage against anything above small enemies and they have higher recoil, but good for crowd control. You need to get up close and personal in order to let shotguns shine.

Marksman rifles: Good for single target but weak against mobs, you also get less bullets from them. In exchange you'll be able to hold your breath while aiming through a scope, under this condition each shot will deal small amount of damage to heavy armor enemies. DMR will require you to stay stabilized from a safe distance to use its maximum power.

Energy/Beam weapons: their damage outputs are low compared to ARs and DMRs, but they can strip down enemies' armors and can break all sort of shields.

As for the explosives (Eruptor, crossbow), they should just stay in the stratagem section instead of being main hand weapons. I want them to stay powerful instead of dealing weak damages.

[dyra55]

I'll buff the railgun damage back to how it used to be because it was overnerfed

I'll change energy weapons so they're more engaging to use and bit more different than ballistic ones

I'll make heatsinks take five times longer to overheat but increase heat generations and make dissipation five times longer as well but it's happening even during firing and is affected by planet weather conditions

And to facilitate this change i'll add new firing modes - Low Power, Medium Power (Default) and High Power

High one increases damage per second but also increases heat buildup, opposite for low power - Less damage but also less heat buildup

Sickle will have increased or decreased firerate instead of damage depending on mode enabled

Dagger will finally be able to shoot for longer than 3 seconds before overheating in medium power but you can swap it to high power mode so it fires for 3 seconds like before but deals increased damage

With exception of Quasar, i'll rework so it'll use heat mechanic instead of being on timer, each shot generates a huge amount of heat after firing, let's say like 90% of heat before overheating, it'll take same 15 seconds for its heatsink to cool down fully but you'll still be able to take a second shot before waiting and overheat the heatsink by which point it has to be replaced by a spare one like with laser cannon

[Khanwolf]

Easy:

Revert all the changes to any weapon except for the RG. Now give the RG 200 more damage.

Create more Primaries/Secondaries with Armor Pen, improve their Handling slightly and buff the damage of some Secondaries.

I would take some more time to test the Machine Guns and some Anti Tanks, slightly change some damage or Handling Numbers there, done.

Then i would destroy the Mech, fire everyone who ever touched it and rebuild it in God's own Image and call it a day.

Now filter my Text for the word: Nerf. It is NOT in there.

[Tired of your crap]

Originally posted by Powerfull_Midget:

You can simply copy games like the division.You can separate the weapons in sort of "class"
Crowd control(stagger),sniper,close range,support

Its not THAT difficult

Originally posted by Hellfire:

I'm going to do their job the moment they pay me for it.

Yeah, let the people getting paid to do it figure it out.

I don't do that stupid "Early Access" crap anymore.

[黒人]

Originally posted by Khanwolf:

Easy:

Revert all the changes to any weapon except for the RG. Now give the RG 200 more damage.

Create more Primaries/Secondaries with Armor Pen, improve their Handling slightly and buff the damage of some Secondaries.

I would take some more time to test the Machine Guns and some Anti Tanks, slightly change some damage or Handling Numbers there, done.

Then i would destroy the Mech, fire everyone who ever touched it and rebuild it in God's own Image and call it a day.

Now filter my Text for the word: Nerf. It is NOT in there.

Is this you? ->
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[Khloros]

Easy to start these are some blanket changes

Assault rifles: Every single assault rifle would never have less then 35 rounds, that would be the floor, with most of them going up to 45 and then possibly increasing damage of some of these, along with general ammo increase in magazines

SMGs: honestly both are fine currently.

Shotguns: Breaker is fine, punisher is fine, slugger needs a bit more damage OR a higher weak point multiplier the thing should be 1 shotting bugs in teh weakpoint and 2 tapping commanders and biles. Fire breaker needs a slight damage decrease, things is crazy good.

Energy: Sickle is fine, Scythe would do with a increase in damage but increase in heat gen, plasma puisher is ight, maybe a slight damage increase to it to 275, plas 1 is fine, Blitzer needs to just be unbugged and its fine, Purifier needs to have its explosive radius reduced by like 1/3rd, then increase its damage to about 400 or 500 with a 1/2 decrease to its explosion range

Explosives:
Jar 5 goes back to 300 damage call it a day
Crossbow: Redesign this thing, make it a shaped charge, so that it has a very small radius of explosion im talking like Plas 1 radius BUT it does like 700 damage with medium armor pen. Or make it a thermite explosion or something.
Eruptor: Give it shrapnel back, reduce shrapnel shards by like 1/3rd no one ever got hit by this thing unless they were right next to it.

BONUS
LMG: Give it 200 round magazine, make it get 2 magazines back on a backpack resupply and reduce its reload by half or 1/3rd, stopping to reload a horde clearing weapon makes it garbage.

HMG bump up to 150 Round in the magazine, life is good.

[Midnight]

I'd start balancing with how players interact with the gameplay loop in mind.

For example constantly reducing mag size while increasing mag count might technically balance things out. But fact is no one likes reloading constantly and damage per mag is pretty important metric in a PvE horde shooter.

Stop crutching the balance on that one stat and when you do use it, give it more weight to account for the increased importance to player experience.

The charge time on the new plas rifle is another example. They completely remove the ability for a player to quickly react to new threats and open them to getting flinched out of shots or having to cancel in order not to kill themselves. Then slap little more damage on the gun as compensation. The gun could do 500 damage and it would still feel bad. Give it a semi uncharged shot ffs.

If it were just about numbers that would be the least of our problems.

Also, this is a breakpoint game, not DPS game. Parts even have separate health on many enemies. Small incremental damage buffs rarely matter unless they enable new breakpoints. It mostly matters just for brood commanders and berserkers and those are not worth dumpstering something like mag size for.