Changes to the Magnums - Suggestions for Better Balance

(ProfPlump) #1

SMYTH & WHETSMAN and SIMEON .357: Currently SERIOUSLY underpowered: they have TERRIBLE accuracy while hipfiring, and you can’t see what you’re shooting at while aiming down sight due to the massive visual recoil of the gun. This inaccuracy means that the gun is ONLY useful in EXTREME close quarters, where you can spam it at its full DPS and not worry as much about the ridiculous spread penalties.

However, apart from in those extreme close quarter situations, the magnum user must either just spray and pray at full firerate (either in ADS or hipfire, it doesn’t matter) and probably get 1 or 2 hits even with aiming their crosshair perfectly (due to the terrible hipfire accuracy while shooting) OR they can carefully pace their shots and avoid the recoil/spread penalties while simultaneously completely chopping the DPS of the magnum by about half, which means that it is still incredibly poor.
Essentially, you are tossing up either using RNG and throwing skill out the window OR using skill but completely losing the damage capabilities that it offered (meanwhile M9, Selbstadt, Caulden and DE.50 users can just spamfire while ADSing at the same distances, retaining most of their accuracy and DPS).

  • TO FIX: Reduce the max firerate by about 25%, while increasing the damage by 20%, as well as reducing the hipfire spread increase penalties by about 15% - that way you have to use a lot more skill when aiming, but now at medium ranges you are not so severely punished in the DPS area for trying to pace your shots and be accurate.

  • ANOTHER OPTION (to fix): Simply reduce how much of your screen is obscured by the magnums’ visual recoil. That way, in longer ranges, you could still use ADS to fire accurately without completely losing your damage output, at the deficit of being unable to strafe as fast, leaving you more vulnerable. I understand, however, that this would require some changes to the animation of the gun recoil itself, so it may not be as easy to implement to the game as it would be to simply change firerates, damage potentials and spread penalties (which are all just simple percentage alterations, rather than animation overhauls).

And, for the record, don’t get me wrong - I do think that it’s nice to have some guns being less powerful, as it creates more interesting dynamics of loadouts (for instance, Vassili can choose the MO11 and get some good augments and a good sidearm (MP400), OR he can choose the MO93 and get some much better augments (such as Unshakeable and Tough) but at the cost of also getting a slightly less powerful sidearm (Smyth&Whetsman). That said, the issue is that the magnums are just SO bad, that these kinds of trade offs are rarely worth it. This isn’t an issue of a couple of guns being ‘harder to use, but still rewarding’ - this is an issue of a couple of guns being ‘so inconsistent and unrewarding’ - because when you use skill with these guns, it STILL isn’t rewarding you because you’ve either had to roll a dice and pray to the RNG gods, or you have to pace your shots and lose any kind of DPS potential.

(scavazzi4) #2

I think that one of the biggest drawbacks of heavy pistols (and caulden) is damage/magazine.
If those sidearms had one or two more shots they’d be far more useful as actual secondaries.
I don’t mind heavy pistols having high spread, at the moment they work as emercency weapons AKA “there’s an enemy in front of me and my primary is empty”, in those situations their extra DPS makes them surpisingly good.

(Dawnlazy) #3

Imagine the Power of H63 Fletcher if the Simeon was as good as the Empire-9.

(CCP115) #4

I once got a headshot with a SMJUTH and Westman, I can tell you now, it fucking hurts. I still died cos I didn’t land any followup shots, but they are a force to be reckoned with.

(gg2ez) #5

I like their fire rates. As weak as they are right now, I’m sure it would be justifiable to just minimize the spread and amp up the recoil, thus making it a more aim reliant handgun.

(streetwiseSailboat) #6

I’d like the Simeon to have less spread than the S&W while letting the S&W do 28 damage with a slightly lower fire rate. Just some thoughts.

(blisteringOwlNest) #7

Maybe I’m just used to them as I play a lot with them, but they are pretty high damage and not to bad at accuracy. Spamming is so counterproductive and it’s a terrible gibbing weapon, but still powerful with practice

(solace_) #8

I think the heavy pistols could use some tweaking, but not to the degree that you have suggested.

They are not meant to be primary weapons, they are only meant to be used when you have to. Such as if you are out of ammo or have to finish an enemy off. Thats why I think that they are fairly good where they are.

yeah, the visual recoil is annoying but the DE.50 does 40 dmg on headshot and the S&W does 54. If you have put a fair amount of damage in with your primary weapon, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of shots to finish them off. For instance, with vassili, if you manage to body shot someone with the felix, you can take down mercs with one heavy pistol headshot or two body shots all the way up to skyhammers or stokers.

basically, they reward either being close to the enemy and/or having good accuracy. That is what I think they are meant to be used for, and, I personally like them this way. Although, as I said, they could use SOME tweaking.

(ProfPlump) #9

[quote=“succinctDeer;140099”]I think the heavy pistols could use some tweaking, but not to the degree that you have suggested.

They are not meant to be primary weapons, they are only meant to be used when you have to. Such as if you are out of ammo or have to finish an enemy off. Thats why I think that they are fairly good where they are.

yeah, the visual recoil is annoying but the DE.50 does 40 dmg on headshot and the S&W does 54. If you have put a fair amount of damage in with your primary weapon, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of shots to finish them off. For instance, with vassili, if you manage to body shot someone with the felix, you can take down mercs with one heavy pistol headshot or two body shots all the way up to skyhammers or stokers.

basically, they reward either being close to the enemy and/or having good accuracy. That is what I think they are meant to be used for, and, I personally like them this way. Although, as I said, they could use SOME tweaking. [/quote]

But they DON’T reward you for good accuracy! That’s the whole point! If you compare them to the M9 in a medium range fight, the M9 can just ADS and spam fire with ease and only lose a little bit of damage potential due to the range drop off. However, the Magnum user HAS to slow down his firerate and this effectively drops the DPS in half, meaning that someone spamfiring the easiest to use pistol will have a MASSIVE advantage over the one who is carefully using skill to fire the magnum.

I’m not asking that the magnums be made into primary weapons - fuck that. I’m just asking that they make the ‘high skill-low reward’ weapons into more of a ‘high skill-good reward’. In my opinion, the magnums should offer a higher efficiency (or, at least, EQUAL) than the M9/Selbstadt, because the magnums require skill and are much harder to use.

(Dieu-Sama) #10

Just make 'em pseudo MOA/Felix : extreme random non ADS spread, excellent presicion and zoom with ADS

(ProfPlump) #11

But they already are precise and accurate with ADS - the problem is that, unless you’re firing at around 40rpm, the magnum’s gun model recoils up and blocks the aim for your next shot, so basically you have 1 accurate shot and then 5 shots where you are essentially firing blind. If they got rid of this stupid over the top vision blocking animation, then the magnums would be fine and playable, but right now both ADS and hipfire are just a massive gamble.

Although, if the target is standing perfectly still, ADS spam firing can work very well. That said, anyone who stands perfectly still in DB isn’t going to live very long anyway and should probably learn how to FPS better =P

(Tanker_Ray) #12

I agree with both you and @scavazzi4 , but I should say I am much more on to @ProfPlump .

Revolver is not a bad weapon if used properly, but the problem is, revolver will never satisfy what secondary weapons’ role is.

Desert Eagle is quite ok and usable, but S&W and Simeon is more like another Dreiss with super high spread and very low capacity mag.

Only situation that those revolvers are useful is enemy’s HP is so low that you can one shot him/her with single shot, or enemy is so close that you can burst out that DPS right in front.

But this is absolutely not people usually expect for Secondary weapon. It is way too situational, unless you use those as another primary.

What we want for secondary as a weapon is pistols or machine pistols that can help us in urgent situation, not another high damage high recoil weapon that is very hard to fight back enemies when primary weapon isn’t able. Revolvers are just way too hard to use with relax…

If revolvers are reworked, I really do agree the part about the higher damage and lower DPS, and also the ironsighting problem that blocks the whole screen that you can’t even aim for the enemy.

But like Scavazzi4 said, unless the mag size is increased, I think revolvers are never going to be better than M9. Max mag size you can pull out is one of the ‘easy to use’ part for secondaries, which is the main top priority including why machine pistol is considered as the best secondary in DB.

(ProfPlump) #13

[quote=“ThunderPro;140757”]I agree with both you and @scavazzi4 , but I should say I am much more on to @ProfPlump .

Revolver is not a bad weapon if used properly, but the problem is, revolver will never satisfy what secondary weapons’ role is.

Desert Eagle is quite ok and usable, but S&W and Simeon is more like another Dreiss with super high spread and very low capacity mag.

Only situation that those revolvers are useful is enemy’s HP is so low that you can one shot him/her with single shot, or enemy is so close that you can burst out that DPS right in front.

But this is absolutely not people usually expect for Secondary weapon. It is way too situational, unless you use those as another primary.

What we want for secondary as a weapon is pistols or machine pistols that can help us in urgent situation, not another high damage high recoil weapon that is very hard to fight back enemies when primary weapon isn’t able. Revolvers are just way too hard to use with relax…

If revolvers are reworked, I really do agree the part about the higher damage and lower DPS, and also the ironsighting problem that blocks the whole screen that you can’t even aim for the enemy.

But like Scavazzi4 said, unless the mag size is increased, I think revolvers are never going to be better than M9. Max mag size you can pull out is one of the ‘easy to use’ part for secondaries, which is the main top priority including why machine pistol is considered as the best secondary in DB.
[/quote]

“Revolvers are just way too hard to use with relax…”
What?

But yes I also agree that mag size is highly beneficial for sidearms, but at the same time a sidearm with a much higher DPS, comparatively small magazine and high skill gap is also highly beneficial as it can extend the amount of enemies you are killing.
Sure, having a large mag is useful for spraying down an almost-finished opponent, but the latter kind of sidearm is much better for when you’ve used your primary weapon’s magazine to kill one enemy and then you swap to your sidearm to take out the 2nd enemy.
Both mag size and DPS are important.

(SzGamer227) #14

You should not be comparing the S&W and Simeon to primary weapons in any regard. The magnums are in a realm of their own, and they are very, very good at what they do if you know when to use them.

If you are engaging full-health mercs with a magnum, you’re doing it wrong.

If you are engaging at a range where accuracy becomes necessary, you’re doing it wrong.

What you’re left with? The Simeon and S&W are phenomenal weapons for finishing off an enemy during a close-quarters engagement. After landing a few hits with your primary and leaving your foe with 50 health left (or 75 if you practice), you can whip out your magnum and finish the fight in a split second. No other weapon can do that (unless you count Rhino’s minigun).

As you can imagine, the ability to discharge 150 damage in just over a second is marvelously useful against mercs with 100 health or less, as long as you aren’t leaving your magnum to do all of the work. It’s not very accurate, it’s not designed to do that, but you can always ensure that you land a few hits, and if you play it right, those few hits are all you’ll ever need. (Also, 150 damage is quite the punishment for big mercs that are easy to hit cough Rhino cough)

The problems with your proposed changes:

“Reduce the max firerate by about 25%, while increasing the damage by 20%, as well as reducing the hipfire spread increase penalties by about 15% - that way you have to use a lot more skill when aiming, but now at medium ranges you are not so severely punished in the DPS area for trying to pace your shots and be accurate.”

This would make magnums hilariously over powered. Instead of discharging 150 damage over the course of 1.2 seconds, they would be discharging 180 damage over 1.6 seconds with greater accuracy. That is some powerful shit man.

“Simply reduce how much of your screen is obscured by the magnums’ visual recoil. That way, in longer ranges, you could still use ADS to fire accurately without completely losing your damage output, at the deficit of being unable to strafe as fast, leaving you more vulnerable.”

Why would you ADS with a gun with so much recoil? Making that change would be reducing the aesthetic accuracy of revolvers so that it’s marginally better at doing something they’re not supposed to do in the first place. To put this in another light, imagine you just said “let’s put reflex sights on shotguns so that it’s easier to aim when using sights”. (An imperfect analogy, but it gets the point across.)

(Amerika) #15

I have zero issues with the accuracy from hipfire of the revolvers because of how I pace my shots. Am I getting, “max dps”? Nope. Am I still finishing people off faster with a bigger chunk of life lost per shot I made sure would hit? Yup. Finishing a player with almost no HP in a big chunk with an aimed and accurate shot is better than spamming a button and chunking them down IMO.

People love the M9 because you can shoot it really fast and not worry about how you’re pacing your shots and it’s mag efficiency is pretty good. But if somebody is sitting at 25% HP I want a S&W so i can fire 1-2 shots and focus on my next target. I think giving them even more damage than they are capable of now would make them ridiculously good. And I already find them extremely good as it is.

(ProfPlump) #16

[quote=“Amerika;140912”]I have zero issues with the accuracy from hipfire of the revolvers because of how I pace my shots. Am I getting, “max dps”? Nope. Am I still finishing people off faster with a bigger chunk of life lost per shot I made sure would hit? Yup. Finishing a player with almost no HP in a big chunk with an aimed and accurate shot is better than spamming a button and chunking them down IMO.

People love the M9 because you can shoot it really fast and not worry about how you’re pacing your shots and it’s mag efficiency is pretty good. But if somebody is sitting at 25% HP I want a S&W so i can fire 1-2 shots and focus on my next target. I think giving them even more damage than they are capable of now would make them ridiculously good. And I already find them extremely good as it is.[/quote]

If the Magnums truly were extremely good and were better than sidearms with higher firerate, slightly lower DPS and high magazines, then NOBODY would pick the MO11 Vassili loadout over the MO93 (since MO93 has better augments but has a magnum instead of an MP400). (And I’m talking about the pub players and comp players here - everyone uses the M011 simply because it has the better sidearm instead of the S&W).

I really think your opinion is highly unpopular. Doesn’t 100% mean you’re wrong, but I’m definitely not sold.

(ProfPlump) #17

[quote=“SzGamer227;140868”]You should not be comparing the S&W and Simeon to primary weapons in any regard. The magnums are in a realm of their own, and they are very, very good at what they do if you know when to use them.

If you are engaging full-health mercs with a magnum, you’re doing it wrong.

If you are engaging at a range where accuracy becomes necessary, you’re doing it wrong.

What you’re left with? The Simeon and S&W are phenomenal weapons for finishing off an enemy during a close-quarters engagement. After landing a few hits with your primary and leaving your foe with 50 health left (or 75 if you practice), you can whip out your magnum and finish the fight in a split second. No other weapon can do that (unless you count Rhino’s minigun).

As you can imagine, the ability to discharge 150 damage in just over a second is marvelously useful against mercs with 100 health or less, as long as you aren’t leaving your magnum to do all of the work. It’s not very accurate, it’s not designed to do that, but you can always ensure that you land a few hits, and if you play it right, those few hits are all you’ll ever need. (Also, 150 damage is quite the punishment for big mercs that are easy to hit cough Rhino cough)

The problems with your proposed changes:

“Reduce the max firerate by about 25%, while increasing the damage by 20%, as well as reducing the hipfire spread increase penalties by about 15% - that way you have to use a lot more skill when aiming, but now at medium ranges you are not so severely punished in the DPS area for trying to pace your shots and be accurate.”

This would make magnums hilariously over powered. Instead of discharging 150 damage over the course of 1.2 seconds, they would be discharging 180 damage over 1.6 seconds with greater accuracy. That is some powerful shit man.

“Simply reduce how much of your screen is obscured by the magnums’ visual recoil. That way, in longer ranges, you could still use ADS to fire accurately without completely losing your damage output, at the deficit of being unable to strafe as fast, leaving you more vulnerable.”

Why would you ADS with a gun with so much recoil? Making that change would be reducing the aesthetic accuracy of revolvers so that it’s marginally better at doing something they’re not supposed to do in the first place. To put this in another light, imagine you just said “let’s put reflex sights on shotguns so that it’s easier to aim when using sights”. (An imperfect analogy, but it gets the point across.)[/quote]

Ok so first off, I never compared the Magnums to any primary weapons - I only compared them to the other sidearms. Not sure where you got that from…

Second, you do realise that ‘150 damage in 1.2 seconds’ is STRONGER than ‘180 damage in 1.6 seconds’, right? You’re saying that it would make it overpowered? It’s a NERF to the damage, mate, not a buff. Sure, the accuracy buff is important, but you’re focussing on the changes to damage like THAT’s the problem, when it’s really not at all…

Third, you’re asking “why would you ADS with a gun with so much recoil?”. It’s not the recoil I’m trying to avoid - it’s the spread increase. If you quickly fire six shots from a magnum at a wall with hipfire, then do the same thing with ADS, you’ll notice that the ADS shots hit in a perfect accurate line (despite the user being completely blind as to where they’re shooting while doing so).

And finally, you keep bringing up that revolvers are “meant” to be innaccurate, SUPER close range only weapons that are just supposed to be spammed. And, in my opinion, I don’t think the devs really intended it this way and that they just left it like that without bothering to change it. Now this is something neither of us know for sure, so stop using “it was meant to be that way” as an argument. Plus, in my opinion the game (and any game, for that matter) should reward high skill with higher efficiency, whereas the magnum is the complete opposite of this - apart from in MELEE range, it relies on spam-fire and RNG, and THAT is what I’m suggesting be changed.

Oh, and also, you’re being highly condescending and arrogant. Stop that - there’s no need for it here.

(SzGamer227) #18

This entire thing boils down to whether or not you think magnums should be kept the way they are or not. I do. I like the variety that revolvers offer in terms of usage. I like having a gun at my side that is different than my primary, something that is useful outside of being a last resort when I’m out of ammo, and magnums fill that role well.

Regardless, given that the odds of any drastic change being made to the S&W and Simeon are next to none, I suggest you either stop using them for your own sake or just get used to using revolvers as a close-range spray to down wounded enemies.

(Dawnlazy) #19

[quote=“SzGamer227;140960”]This entire thing boils down to whether or not you think magnums should be kept the way they are or not. I do. I like the variety that revolvers offer in terms of usage. I like having a gun at my side that is different than my primary, something that is useful outside of being a last resort when I’m out of ammo, and magnums fill that role well.

Regardless, given that the odds of any drastic change being made to the S&W and Simeon are next to none, I suggest you either stop using them for your own sake or just get used to using revolvers as a close-range spray to down wounded enemies.[/quote]

I think his point is pretty valid, a buff to these sidearms would make them actually worth picking over machine pistols depending on your playstyle, right now you’re hurting yourself a lot if you don’t use an MP secondary on the mercs that get to choose between them.

(ProfPlump) #20

[quote=“SzGamer227;140960”]This entire thing boils down to whether or not you think magnums should be kept the way they are or not. I do. I like the variety that revolvers offer in terms of usage. I like having a gun at my side that is different than my primary, something that is useful outside of being a last resort when I’m out of ammo, and magnums fill that role well.

Regardless, given that the odds of any drastic change being made to the S&W and Simeon are next to none, I suggest you either stop using them for your own sake or just get used to using revolvers as a close-range spray to down wounded enemies.[/quote]

Mate, I can use Revolvers properly, just for the record… Stop being so fucking arrogant and condescending…

I KNOW that in their current state the Revolvers are pretty much melee weapons only, and I don’t try to use them as a primary and I don’t consider them to be a primary weapon. I’m not stupid, fucks sake…

Just cause I think it should be changed doesn’t mean that I don’t understand how to use the gun itself.

Regardless of how you feel about my suggestion, there’s no need to think that you’re the only one who knows how the revolvers work in Dirty Bomb - you’re just sounding snobby and immature, which really doesn’t help your argument.