Buffing some of the less used things and balancing the loadouts/augments!?

(MuhQ) #1

Here is what I though that should be buffed:

Weapons:

-SMG-9, its straight up worse version of Crotzni, slightly slower fire rate, slightly smaller range and slightly slower reload time compared to Crotzni, so I think the best way to balance this would be giving it better range than what Crotzni has, then this weapon wouldn’t be useless but it wouldn’t still be as good and versatile as Crotzni.

-Fel-Ix, increase the headshot multiplier from 2 to 3 so it can one shot Rhino and has some usage compared to Moa that is currently just better. (if you think it wouldn’t be balanced like this with Moa then you could also increase the reload time/fire rate)

Mercs:

-Fletcher, make him have 130hp since hes weapons are quite weak, no one is really using him in competitive atm. maybe with 130hp we could see more of him. (if you think 130hp would be op, then maybe reduce hes speed from 420 to 410/400 as well)

-Arty, just feels kinda week, I think its the artillery strikes that are kinda difficult to use and also feel a bit week, what could we do to him? I think just make the artillery strikes faster and stronger vs EV for example.

Augments; Some augments just feel really useless, here are few example buffs that could be done:

Quick Draw “30% reduction to the time taken to raise and lower weapon”, since 30% just feels so little and most of the time you are hip firing with weapons anyway, you could buff the augment from 30% to 50%, also make one Vassili class with this augment so there would be option basically between Focus and Quick draw at least.

Fail Safe, “reduces the damage taken from your own explosives”, also buff from 30% to 50%.

Enigma, “50% reduction to the duration of being spotted”, just make it so you can’t be spotted at all.

Spares, just change the augment from Arty loadouts for something else seriously :smiley: (I mean seriously he has ammo boxes already!)

Sneaky, “reduces the amount of sound you generate when running by 25%” buff from 25% to 50%.

Untrackable, “turrets, mines and other automatic devices react 30% less quickly”, since some people are complaining about Bushwackers turret, you could buff this augment from 30% to 50% so that would help a bit, I personally think this would be enough of a “nerf” for the turret.

Unshakeable, “20% reduction to the damage taken from explosives”, same thing, since some people complain about Fraggers and Naders nades, this augment could be buffed from 20% to 40%, so if you really hate them explosives you could at least run this augment!

Quick Eye, “35% increased movement speed when iron sighted”, buff from 35% to 50% so maybe iron sights could be more useful, also maybe give this augment to one Vassili loadout (just don’t combine this with the other good augments for balance)

Loadouts; Currently the loadouts are not that well balanced, if these kind of buffs would happen then you could balance the loadouts cards to be more useful, just make sure you give different choices for the classes, for example.

-Vassili nr.1 with Moa + focus
-Vassili nr.2 with Moa + quick draw
-Vassili nr.3 with Moa + quick eye

You see now? 3 great abilities to choose from, can’t get them all so gotta choose wisely!

Currently some classes just have clear winner loadouts and the rest are left in the dust, so yeah hoping to see a bit better balance in loadouts/augments, I think well balanced/rounded loadout cards/augments can make the game even more interesting!

Feel free to agree or disagree with my thoughts and also feel free to add some of your own thoughts and ideas.

Looking forward for some good discussion about these

(JPB) #2

Buffing underused stuff is the way to go, not going to comment about everything you brought up just a couple of things on my mind.

With fletcher it would be nice if he had another SMG available to him other than the blishlok, even if it is the hochfir which is sort of the universal SMG; maybe the SMG-9 so it gets a bit more use.

The FE-LIX could be brought back to 80 bodyshot damage imo or just do that headshot boost so it can OHK rhino!

(Szakalot) #3

I’d rather SMG-9 got an accuracy buff, to stress its difference over Crotzni: less DPS but better accuracy for that ding-a-ding action

(watsyurdeal) #4

SMG-9

Smartest thing I could see them doing is reducing rate of fire to something like 570, and upping the damage a bit to M4 levels.

Felix

Just buff the damage to 100 and give the gun overall worse handling than the MoA. Much more noticeable sway, aimpunch, slower reload, and it already has a slower rate of fire so there’s that.

Fletcher

Two things, make direct sticks a little bit more powerful, enough to one shot Vasilli at least. Then make the throw animation faster, so it’s less awkward to use.

Arty

His strike is already hella strong against the EV, the smart thing to do here I think is just simply make the marker tool less restrictive. It’s a fight in itself to get the damn thing to drop bombs somewhere.

Quick Draw

I think it just depends on the weapon being used, I’d rather see the default values and the values with the aug added to see the difference. And no Vasilli does not need this, sorry.

Fail Safe

It’s fine, 30% is more than enough, it’s roughly anywhere from 25-40 damage less, which does make a big difference.

Enigma

Can’t really say no to that one honestly, as long as it doesn’t affect turrets or mines

Spares

It’s fine, just because not a lot of other classes have it doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Sneaky

Again, fine as is, listen more

Untrackable

Again, fine, it does make a difference despite the whiners

Unshakeable

Again, it’s fine, that’s roughly 15-30 damage shaved off which is a lot for most classes

Quick Eye

Leave it, and again Vasilli does not need this, part of the reality with Sniper Rifles is they need risk, otherwise they are simply too strong. A Sniper Rifle without risk means easy to use, and considering the lack of decent counter play right now, yea, not a good thing.

And as far as loadouts go I’d say they just need to be more creative and add a few more augments, and mix them up a bit. Some loadouts are great, others aren’t.

(Gi.Am) #5

SMG-9 is more accurate than the crotzni and overall easier to handle (lower firerate more stable). I’m currently switching back and forth between both and hochfir to decide what I like the most on Nader. They feel all pretty solid. That said a slight buff would propably seal the deal towards the SMG-9. However buffing the damage and reducing the firerate would put it right into M4 territory.
Would be a bit unfair towards the M4 mercs if they get outperformed by a smg soley based on numbers.

Fel-IX you are preaching to the choir pretty much everybody agrees that it needs a buff usually involving some form of moar damage (I’m with the 80-90 body damage and making it slow and hard to use).

Fletcher is imo fine speed/HP wise his main damage should be coming from his stickies (similar to Nader) and his weapons are for cleanup. The ahlud is imo a nice underated shotgun it outperformes the other shotguns at range. Which is great considering that most people try to move away from you.

Arty is strong as is (there are enough treads where I state my opinion about him allready).

Augments are not meant to be gamechangers (just something nice to have). Yet quite a few of your suggestions take allready strong augments and buff them by nearly doubleing their effect. making them pretty much mandatory.

(watsyurdeal) #6

[quote=“Gi.Am;26965”]SMG-9 is more accurate than the crotzni and overall easier to handle (lower firerate more stable). I’m currently switching back and forth between both and hochfir to decide what I like the most on Nader. They feel all pretty solid. That said a slight buff would propably seal the deal towards the SMG-9. However buffing the damage and reducing the firerate would put it right into M4 territory.
Would be a bit unfair towards the M4 mercs if they get outperformed by a smg soley based on numbers.[/quote]

I wouldn’t be too sure about that, since apparently range IS a thing which is news to me.

So…maybe 13 damage would do? And a rate of fire of something like 570? That would give it the following values

80 HP: 0.32-0.63
90 HP: 0.32-0.63
100 HP: 0.32-0.74
110 HP: 0.42-0.84
120 HP: 0.42-0.95
150 HP: 0.53-1.16

Compared to the Crotzni

80 HP:0.28-0.55
90 HP: 0.37-0.64
100 HP: 0.37-0.74
110 HP: 0.37-0.83
120 HP: 0.37-0.83
150 HP: 0.55-1.10

Seems like we’d need to tweak the RoF a bit more…but I think there’s definitely something here we can use…

Plus you got to remember that the SMGs have overall more spread and less range compared to the M4.

(Eox) #7

About Fletcher.

I am pretty sure that sooner or later most of people will just decide to trade any shotgun for the Anhuld. All shotguns suffer from an obvious con : short effective range. This is mainly why I always say that SMGs are far superior. You will totally outdamage a shotgun as long as you keep something like 10 meters between you and the shotgun user. Further more, the pellet dispersion make shotgun’s damage extremely unreliable for scoring consistant headshots : it’ll only work at point blank, plain and simple.

However the Anhuld features a much more thighter spread (maybe needs to be more tight ?), so headshots are far more reliable, and you can hit full power from farther. If you can score headshots, I am pretty sure that you wouldn’t come back to any other shotguns anymore.

Oh, and Fletcher’s stats are perfectly fine, and yes his stickies are able to one shot Vassili. If you do not one shot Vas’ on direct hit, he’s probably carrying the Unshakeable augment.

(avidCow) #8

PDP-70 needs a little love I think. I rarely see it. Not sure exactly what to do with it. Perhaps less sway when moving and slightly less recoil.

(Jojack) #9

I agree that Fletcher is fine as is regarding stats and weapons (he doesn’t need an smg when he has a virtual hoschfir as a secondary and the ahnuld is very underrated as a primary). He’s by far my favorite merc to play. The one thing that I would like to see is the throwing animation and the detonation animation being quicker. I think that would make the whole setup feel and perform a lot better.

(Gi.Am) #10

TBH. I’d rather not see a damage/rof increase on the SMG-9. Most people already perceive the smg’s as the best weapon class in game (easier trackshooting, better range of the ARs not relevant in close to near midrange). Buffing them up to balance them with each other wouldn’t help that.
I’d rather see the crotzni (and propably the kek too) taken down a little bit. not necesserly by lowering the damage but simply by giving them clearer disadvantages in the case of the crotzni I think a bit more kick to emphasize its higher ROF would be a good way. Also both deal the same damage so presumably, same caliber ,so the SMG-9 should be on the same page as far as range goes (As the OP suggested).

(commandingTabby) #11

I like the ideas of increasing a lot of these buffs from 30% upwards to 50%+.

Also, silver, gold and cobalt loadouts are useless…why not make the buffs increase as the cards increase? Then you have an actual incentive to get the elite cards - an extra 10% buff at each level.

Granted this opens the door to buying your way into being better, they’re not huge advantages in and of themselves. This may have the unintended consequence of forcing the good players to buy the elite loadouts (remember though, you can’t directly purchase above bronze), but what if then the loadout upgrade process was changed to counter that…

Keep cases entirely random, but how bout a process where you can select the exact loadout that you want? Right now I have bronze loadouts with the buffs and bonuses that I want, and I’m not going to upgrade to something random in order to get some visual effects and lose the loadout that I want to use. If you’re upgrading, give us the option to either upgrade to something random, or upgrade to the next level of the same loadout as one of the cards being used. This makes the path easier for good players to get elite loadouts without forcing them to make purchases or gamble away their bronze loadouts. This also keeps the incentive for new players to make purchases so they don’t need to spend the time upgrading to get decent loadouts (but they still can’t directly purchase above bronze). In fact it may even increase the desire for some people to do that since a) elite loadouts are now more useful, and b) after purchasing elite cards, even if you get a lower elite card of the loadout you want, you now have a direct path to a higher card of the same loadout.

In review:
-Make silver through cobalt increase the buff percentages (+10% at each level for example)
-Allow for the selection of specific loadouts based on what cards you are using to upgrade
-(Addional related item) Limit the merc selection of a card to one of the cards being used
-This change to the effet of different levels of loadouts:
*creates direct upgrade paths
*maintains the incentives to purchase cards and cases
*allows for dedicated players to work their way up
*potentially increases incentives for new (even good) players to purchase cards and cases so they can attain their upgrade paths through those means

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