Lets discuss gun balance for a bit...

[RogueComet]

It is my opinion that firearms need some serious love in this game. Currently I am level 71 and have tested all of the firearms up to that level. First ask yourself, how many people do you see or hear of using firearms in this game? Then read on to see what I've deduced. There is a TLDR at the end as well.

When it comes to the Firearm Worktable, you upgrade your weapons to a point, then it is random if it goes up or down on certain stats. For all the firearms I've tested, I upgraded each spot on them probably 12 times or so, watching stats and then waiting to get an upgrade that is close to the highest number I've seen in each category that upgrade changes. The same goes for upgrading the magical damage, which means I went through thousands of Magic Stones.

The weapons I've tested have been both player crafted and a few that I've found from monsters and in chests.

Weapon Discussion:
Pistols suck damage wise. You can upgrade a ton and they still do extremely low damage. Not just low, but extremely low. I upgraded a Standard Pistol (level 70 engram) and then unloaded on a Level 16 Sarco with it to the head. After using up 60 bullets I quit trying, just wasn't worth it due to the ammo cost because the damage was so low from this high tier weapon. Sarco's are tough, but I don't consider them end game bosses so they really shouldn't be taking 60+ bullets to kill from a high tier, fully upgraded weapon.

Shotgun at level 55 is pretty MEH in my opinion too. Damage is higher than pistols sure, but the cost to construct the ammo is INSANE (more on that in a bit.) The Pump-Action shotgun (level 72) when fully upgraded is pretty good, though still a bit low for such a high tier weapon again. I tested a pump-action that I found (and upgraded) against another Sarco, this one being level 20. It was killed in six fairly close range shots. That seems fair enough right? Why do I say the damage is a bit low? Ammo cost is the problem.

Ammo Cost:
Bullets for pistols aren't too bad. You can easily get lots of copper from deposits in the grasslands (I found 3 deposits so far that gave 1700 each) if you know where and what to look for. One gunpowder for each isn't too bad either.

Shotgun ammo is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE for what you get out of it. Sure the pump-action did pretty good damage, but the problem is you go though shells for it at a rather quick rate if you are using it for any length of time.

Doing some math, I found what it would take to make 100 shotgun shells. Figured that 100 is a small amount of shells in the long run, perhaps enough to take with you on a short expedition. So, 100 shells means 900 gunpowder and 900 polymer. The 900 gunpowder translates into 900 flint, 900 charcoal, and 900 sulfur. The 900 polymer translates into 1800 bone ash and 1800 clay. If you had a perfect situation, didn't have to transport it, were using a steel pickaxe, harvesting 900 sulfur, 1800 clay, and 900 flint you are talking 30 minutes just swinging a pickaxe (or using a drill). That is in a perfect scenario. I timed how long it would take me to get that amount of resources, 100 shells mind you, and it took me over THREE HOURS and I already had a lot of resources like flint. How long do 100 shells last? If I go to a temple/dungeon, about 10 minutes.

Simply put, shotgun ammo is WAY TOO TIME CONSUMING to make in it's current state.

Ranged Factor:
"But ranged weapons give you an advantage by staying out of harm's way." This is true, but I question if that factor is worth the amount of time needed to make the pump-action worth it.

PVE: If you wish to use firearms, you are going to be spending an amount of time approx equal to 1:18 for use vs prep-work. Didn't the developers say they wanted a bit less of that than Ark when it comes to taming creatures and gathering resources? Feels worse IMO. Obviously the amount of time needed to make the ammo is too crazy to make using them in PVE worth it.

PVP: Any time you get into PVP against someone with a ranged weapon (any weapon really) and they are good with it, you have the chance to die utterly and horribly fast. Even the super weak pistols can wreck you, especially with the nerfed armor values. High tier weapons are gonna splatter you against the wall. Only real way to get around this is to get your own ranged weapons and be sure to shoot first.

Balance Discussion:
As we've seen in other posts about recent changes in the game, getting both PVE and PVP to balance well isn't easy. Here are a few ideas I have which would help firearms greatly.

First off, I honestly feel that pistol damage needs to be raised by at least a factor of two. You run out of ammo and you are screwed, so the factor that you are carrying the number of uses for a weapon, compared to melee which has unlimited FREE uses, should help balance the time required to make the ammo. I honestly feel that guns should be at equal to the damage someone can do at low tiers, and slightly higher DPS than base melee damage at higher tiers.

Level 55 Shotgun could get a raise in it's damage output as well (maybe 50% more?). Shooting it against easier targets in the Desert should take them out in 1-2 hits. Takes more currently.

Pump-action Shotgun should do perhaps 30% more damage than it does currently to make it feel like a late game weapon. That wouldn't be too bad at that point. The level 20 sarco I took out with it should really have died in 4 shots, vs the 6 it took.

Overall a higher DPS from firearms would offset against the people who choose to put lots of points into melee damage, though if they put a lot of points into it (say 20+ so they are at 200%+) melee should definitely do more Damage than guns.

Ammo cost isn't too bad for pistols. Wouldn't change anything on how those are made. Shotgun ammo though is INSANE currently. Taking three hours of work for only 10 minutes use isn't worth it no matter what the damage output is. In order to balance the shotgun damage, I'd change the cost to make shells down to 1 or 2 gunpowder and 1 or 2 polymer. Another possibility is if you make the shell, you get 5-7 shells per crafting instance. Perfect world for this in my opinion would be making shells cost 4 gunpowder/polymer and giving you 3 shells per crafting instance.

PVE: I feel the changes listed above would help make firearms useful in PVE situations, without giving them so much power you are considered a deity. You still have to take time to farm materials for making the ammo, thus loose out on time over someone who goes pure melee. Guns SHOULD be safer than melee but they should take a little (not a lot like shottys) more time to prepare so you can use them.

PVP: Not sure it is possible, but if damage output vs players is possible to lower overall compared to monsters it would help PVP some.
Pistols doing at least 2x more damage wouldn't be too insane in PVP, but if they did the double then lowered it vs players by 30% I feel pistols would kill but not too quickly. Perhaps raising the pistol output by 3x but adding in a wide spread would be a good and semi-accurate way to balance this.
Shotguns in PVP should splatter someone of similar level if you are at close range. A melee user should be able to put a shield up to close to melee range with a shotgun wielder.
Increasing the damage slightly to shotguns would make them viable overall in PVP, but only if the code is working properly for less damage as range drops off and people can close the distance with a firearm wielder by using a shield to block the damage. If they don't use the shield, of course firearms should own melee people, but if they can get in close, melee should own firearms.

Anyways, that's my review on the current state of firearms. They need some seriously TLC to make them worth using.

TLDR;
Pistol damage is way too low. Needs to be increased greatly. Pistol ammo isn't bad to make. Shotgun damage is a bit low, but nothing like pistols. Shotgun ammo takes an INSANE AMOUNT OF TIME to make and needs to be looked at closely.

[Kittehman]

Big +1, just want to note this goes for all tiers of weapons. I've been level 80 since day one and have had every single ice dungeon on my seed on farm since the get go. I have ascendant everything - sniper, longneck, pump action, AK, rocket launcher - my lowest bonus value % is 170%. Even with full modification with in excess of 150% bonus damage upon the base stats of each of these weapons respectively, I cannot kill a single monster in the ice dungeons reliably with ranged weapons (Melee was fine pre-armour nerf). Yet i've seen an excellent ascendant pistol fully modified one shot a 500+ armoured player with a headshot (Pre-armour nerf). The PvP/PvE balancing needs some serious attention.

On a side note, poison ammo needs a nerf. That ♥♥♥♥ is a joke. It's sad when tick damage tripples the initial damage from a shotgun.

[Faya AOP]

Everything will be tailored for pvp anyways, so good ideas...sadly wont happen.

[krymzonbladez]

DMG on guns is a joke unless you are just killing low level newbie herbivores, and apparently those ants and dragon flies are bullet proof, even the bows need a dmg increase. I shot a lvl 25 ruins skeleton 18 times with a modified exploding pistol, he still ran over and killed me in 3 hits. It's a bit ridiculous. The armor nerf was absolutely atrocious and weapon damage is terrible.

[KaruLegend]

Oh you sweet child. Elemental bullets 1 shot people in ascended bone steel. Maybe ♥♥♥♥♥♥ regular bullets are meh, but end-game bullets are literally the strongest weapon in the game. I was killing flyers all night last night with just a few shots and any player I hit with my shotty was a 1 tap 100% of the time.

[RogueComet]

Originally posted by KaruLegend:

Oh you sweet child. Elemental bullets 1 shot people in ascended bone steel. Maybe ♥♥♥♥♥♥ regular bullets are meh, but end-game bullets are literally the strongest weapon in the game. I was killing flyers all night last night with just a few shots and any player I hit with my shotty was a 1 tap 100% of the time.

I disagree with you. I have a Mastercraft Sniper Rifle that I upgraded as much as possible, highest elemental damage possible (poison) and it took over 80 bullets to down a level 8 Ghost Dragon with it. Most of my shots were to the face of the thing too.

Strongest... nope.

[Kagero]

PvP and PvE need separate systems in place, one area of balancing should not affect another. Many games do this, I don't know why these games cannot. Some people want only one or the other, or both, but keeping it all in one system is an almost a sure way to fail at any kind of balancing. There has to be some sort of way to treat player damage and defense mitigations differently vs NPC's and vs Players. I'm no genius when it comes to game development, but I know it's possible for the tech to be written as such.

[Oblivion]

pretty sure guns are made for players and swords for dinos/or dinos of your own

[Prince Vegeta]

Originally posted by KittehSoldier:

Big +1, just want to note this goes for all tiers of weapons. I've been level 80 since day one and have had every single ice dungeon on my seed on farm since the get go. I have ascendant everything - sniper, longneck, pump action, AK, rocket launcher - my lowest bonus value % is 170%. Even with full modification with in excess of 150% bonus damage upon the base stats of each of these weapons respectively, I cannot kill a single monster in the ice dungeons reliably with ranged weapons (Melee was fine pre-armour nerf). Yet i've seen an excellent ascendant pistol fully modified one shot a 500+ armoured player with a headshot (Pre-armour nerf). The PvP/PvE balancing needs some serious attention.

On a side note, poison ammo needs a nerf. That ♥♥♥♥ is a joke. It's sad when tick damage tripples the initial damage from a shotgun.

lolwut 80 since day one? this game really that broken or didja cheat?

[Ash]

Actually, it's easy to hit 80 on day 1, same as in regular ARK, you just need to know what to build, smelt, craft etc as well as kill. Some enemies give more than 700 exp each easy.

That said, i agree guns need attention, poison should be a % based damage (low amount like 1-2% tops) and blast damage should obviously be raised. The ice rounds are harder to make than ice arrows by a decent amount but don't work underwater so I feel they're not worth using, currently.

All said and done, shotguns ammo too expencive still, but pistols are too great for poison atm.

[Prince Vegeta]

With all that said, I can't help but wonder if that's a far more important issue than gun balance. Considering we're weeks in now and folks are still in 50-60 range on official server. Ark seriously never fixed that? In a world where every mmorpg on the block has that fixed Ark couldn't figure out how to cap xp gain based on level?

And yet .... guns ... are what matter? /disappointed

Edit -> Also I mean a big portion of the game is the sense of progression which you entirely robbed yourself of so why would you even want that? No self control? I couldn't short change myself like that. O_o

[Sexually Activated Microwave]

I tested a mastercraft pump action shotgun on a level 50 naked. 3 direct close range hits and he kept running away like i never even hurt him. That to me is rather troubling.