Yup.
From my point of view, there’s a gameplay mistake in giving 1 burst to kill main weapons to mercs who have already 1 htk abilities (except thunder).
And this should be avoided and thus balance accordingly.
I tend to play more 120 hp mercs recently because it’s getting really hard to enjoy playing a light on a server filled with experienced players. Especially when there’s half of them using burst rifles stripping you naked from 50m.
I still remember the burst rifles before CW uodate, and right after the CW rework.
No one can deny after the RoF bugfix buff to Stark and BR had fxcking crazy DPS increase with auper high damage output it got. 100ms was the right RoF for them. IT WAS. Look what happened after 133ms.
Seriously, Stark nerf at this year Feb was the right thing but I still feel Stark is one of the best gun in this game. Well, thus is related to killing 110 damn tanky Vassilies so let’s not pull this out.
BR 16? This gun is FXCKING INSANE.
How can you not nerf the damage or spread when BR 16 has Everything nowadays. Even Stark has a right spread after the nerf.
Because of that god damn gun K 121 and Dreiss is still unused.
BR 16 shooting THREE K121 shots every clicks with MUCH LOWER spread, with rifle movement decrease.
That gum just outshines every damn gun in this game. What is that gun’s weak point? I’m so damn sick of BR. I AM.
Super good damage decent spread 29m high range 138 DPS reloads fast enough with Drilled and Fire Support mercs having infinite bullets.
Fragger doesn’t havr Drilled and infinite ammo but BR Fragger is the top OP of this game right now.
BR needs to be nerfed 1 damage and 1m range so that 29m range Timik will have its own advantage including K 121 shooting 1 damage stronger than BR. If not, please. THE GOD DAMN SPREAD.
It’s really not that hard, 250 ms delay between bursts for the Stark, 167-133 ms delay for BR 16. The RoF and damage can be changed accordingly.
Yeah, considering how 100ms -> 133 ms buff in the name of ‘bug fix’ made those two fly above the sky.
DB’s weapon balance is actually very good right now but the only gun that I just can’t tolerate is the BR.
May be it’s because I’ve faced pro Japanase player’s BR Fragger way too many times personally, with MK.46 THUNDA every damn time…(Good thing Fragger got a fitting HP for him finally.)
Should’ve counter that with Stark Thunder but I’m quite a weird guy that thinks MK.46 only fits Thunder so I just use that crappy gun afterall lol.(My own damn problem…stubborn as hell right?)
Stark Thunder is actually best choice for him too, but that doesn’t mean Thunder is good, but OP Stark helping him.
Just like B81(Absolutely Best loadout even after 2nd gen came out.) Arty, 2nd gen B72 Kira, and BR FRAGGA gets so strong only with their primary weapons.
Not un-resistable, but still too strongk. Way stable spread compared to the firepower.
[quote=“ProfPlump;181874”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;181871”]Honestly, if the M4 had a rof buff to 111 ms, and the Timik re purposed to either be a faster, less damaging ar, or a harder hitting, slower firing one, we’d be pretty much fine.
The Burst Rifles, imo, the Stark is ok, but I think the BR 16 should be back to the way it was before. Less delay between bursts but less damaging.[/quote]
That wouldn’t really solve the issue though.
In my opinion, the balance between the M4/Timk and the BR/Stark is fine. But what I’m seeing now is that a lot of people on this thread are complaining that the LMGs are not being picked, EVER. And THAT is a problem, because those LMGs SHOULD be the specialty weapons of Fragger and Thunder, but they’re too unwieldy to be used effectively.
Those LMGs need a buff. But the Stark doesn’t need a debuff (except maybe in its damage over range).
Similarly, the specialty Driess needs a buff so that it is a king at medium range and moderately effective at short and long ranges, because that’s also a specialty weapon that is never chosen.[/quote]
This is so damn right.
K-121 is very good gun, but still there is absolutely no reason to pick machine guns over busrt rifles considering machine guns have much higher spread + aim blooming speed, and significant movement speed decrease which is -17.5%. This is only 0.5% difference to Nader’s grenade launcher and Rhino’s minigun.
Then why not K-121 and MK.46 deserve burst rifle’s firepower?
This is so damn unfair.
Stark is actually quite ok after the spread nerf but still has the strongest burst damage(the reason why SD aren’t touching this is may be because of Vassili’s 110HP health. If they roll back his HP to 100, then Stark has to follow up to -1 damage nerf.)
But BR is the most significant one that OUTSHINES K-121. It’s just so funny K-121 and MK.46 is Fragger/THUNDA’s special weapon.
They don’t even have enough firepower for this!
same 17 damage that even fires THREE times simultaneously, 2m longer range than K-121(29m), rifle’s weight, enough as hell 30 mag. 137.7 DPS with MUCH stable spread and recoil? let’s not even talk about this.
BR-16 currently has NO DISADVANTAGE.
most of the times I agree with you @Amerika, but I guess not this time.
Hate to admit it, but I actually agree to @retired (and Also B. Montiel.) eventhough his speaking with way too offensive attitude. I mean, let’s discuss, not fighting ok?
Anyway, burst rifles are supposed to be strong, yes, and other guns can be OPs, right.
But M4 doesn’t have that much DPS or harder hitting abilities, which means your maximum firepower expectation is quite limited no matter how much you can pull out realistic DPC by shooting heads.
This is so different from burst rifles able to deal over 17 damage and 135DPS all the time.
125DPS and 26m range which is definitely not a long range compared to other high-fire power guns(even Timik has 29m eventhough is had shxtty ironsight), M4 is a great gun because of its high versatility, not like super firepower gun like BR or Stark.
Well I’m definitely not saying I just can’t win against BR but those gun’s firepower easily overwhelms two machine guns and Dreiss.(I use these three a lot too. I think Dreiss is at quite ok spot right now though.)
Whether nerfing the burst rifles or not, I really wish special weapons like K-121 and MK.46 will at least more viable than the bursts…
It’s just like I always felt Stark Thunder was best Thunder,(Still too) but it isn’t because Thunder himself was good, but Stark was way too good that could even save Thunder from the bottom hell.
You can take pretty much every aspects of this problem through balance fiddling, one of my biggest concern is that both bursts rifles are atm breaking most of the mechanics of this game.
One burst to kill up to Phoenix should not happen with the merc that can equip them. Supports + Fragger + Thunder are jack of all trades by essence and they don’t need that to be good already.
@ProfPlump i think you got it wrong regarding PDP and boltaction SR: PDP has a lot more bullets which means you can consistently lock down an entire enemy push, spamming in their choke dealing enormous DPS. bolt action, even if its getting a single kill, will have to reload, and in that time the enemy team already moved through the choke.
im in the ‘burst rifle too stronk’ camp atm, it just feels there is nothing you can do to counter a good aiming player, if you have an inferior gun.
balancing these isnt easy: lowering RoF and increasing damage (to preserve DPS) will make it weaker up close, but a lot more powerful at any other range or when juking corners due to alpha damage. increasing RoF will just make it an automatic-lite and destroy any separation between the two groups of guns. playing with recoil sounds nice, but it just pushes the burst rifles out of the long range area, where they are supposed to shine.
an interesting nerf i havent seen thrown around much is decreasing AMMO CAPACITY (maybe increase reload time). this is a more subtle type of nerf that doesnt affect weapon power directly, but actually could make it significantly weaker up close, where being caught on reload is more easily exploitable by a pushing opponent. it also makes it considerably harder to gib targets - it could be that a burst rifler just doesnt have the ammo to effectively gib enemies at longer ranges. finally, it sets it apart from the LMGs that display impressive sustained fire.
maybe that br16 fragger is a beast and deals more damage, but if the enemy mk46 thunder can outlast a few bursts, he could push while fragger is stuck on reload.
imo this is the most optimal way to go about it: it preserves the power&separation between these types of guns, while making burst rifles rely on teammates to back them up, and decreases those insane situations where a single burst rifler wipes the entire enemy team
As far as I’m concerned, Burst Rifles shouldn’t one hit ko 100 hp mercs, 90 hp though…fair game, though only in close range imo, before damage drop off kicks in.
And only the Stark should do it, the BR 16 shouldn’t one hit ko anyone, but a burst to the head should do enough to kill an enemy with a follow up to the body.
Burst Rifles are super tricky, it’s hard to make the viable without breaking the game, and hard to nerf them without making them useless.
Burst Rifles are way to good. No reason to use any other guns. BR seems like a faster shooting M4 with more damage and similar recoil. It’s not hard to spam left click to make it feel like an auto. The gap between burst and auto weapons is huge imo and auto over smg classes. SMG vs Burst is a joke.
I would say that the burst rifles should choose between being a sniper rifle (and have very low RoF) or being close to an LMG (and have low single tap damage). They of course shouldn’t approach the LMG DPS, but they also shouldn’t fall behind the typical assault rifle.
The burst rifles were balanced to have less powerful augments in exchange for the firepower they have. However, the gap between a burst rifle and an LMG is rather large, where the LMG has several disadvantages over the burst rifles.
The MK46 was likely flavored as a cheap LMG, thus it is weak and has the most powerful buffs on Thunder. Unfortunately the MK46 is not strong enough…
Slightly worse augments. But yeah, I agree that the LMGs need buffs. I also think that the high-recoil guns need buffs too, namely the Timik and the Dreiss. Not the Crotzni though…
The Timik especially needs a buff to make it better than the Dreiss’s DPS in all honesty.
[quote=“JJMAJR;182241”]I would say that the burst rifles should choose between being a sniper rifle (and have very low RoF) or being close to an LMG (and have low single tap damage). They of course shouldn’t approach the LMG DPS, but they also shouldn’t fall behind the typical assault rifle.
The burst rifles were balanced to have less powerful augments in exchange for the firepower they have. However, the gap between a burst rifle and an LMG is rather large, where the LMG has several disadvantages over the burst rifles.
The MK46 was likely flavored as a cheap LMG, thus it is weak and has the most powerful buffs on Thunder. Unfortunately the MK46 is not strong enough…
Slightly worse augments. But yeah, I agree that the LMGs need buffs. I also think that the high-recoil guns need buffs too, namely the Timik and the Dreiss.
The Timik especially needs a buff to make it better than the Dreiss’s DPS in all honesty.[/quote]
Idk what you’ve been playing but for Fragger, his BR 16 loadout is the best right now.
Fail Safe, Explody, and Quick Switch on a single card? It’s freaking insane
[quote=“Watsyurdeal;182243”][quote=“JJMAJR;182241”]I would say that the burst rifles should choose between being a sniper rifle (and have very low RoF) or being close to an LMG (and have low single tap damage). They of course shouldn’t approach the LMG DPS, but they also shouldn’t fall behind the typical assault rifle.
The burst rifles were balanced to have less powerful augments in exchange for the firepower they have. However, the gap between a burst rifle and an LMG is rather large, where the LMG has several disadvantages over the burst rifles.
The MK46 was likely flavored as a cheap LMG, thus it is weak and has the most powerful buffs on Thunder. Unfortunately the MK46 is not strong enough…
Slightly worse augments. But yeah, I agree that the LMGs need buffs. I also think that the high-recoil guns need buffs too, namely the Timik and the Dreiss.
The Timik especially needs a buff to make it better than the Dreiss’s DPS in all honesty.[/quote]
Idk what you’ve been playing but for Fragger, his BR 16 loadout is the best right now.
Fail Safe, Explody, and Quick Switch on a single card? It’s freaking insane[/quote]
Oh RIGHT. That part of the game balance is removed. Thanks for the reminder.
The burst rifles were not being used by anybody due to the disadvantages they had. SD revamped them a bit and made them easier to use. A lot of people saw them as a nerf and so the few using them stopped using them and everyone who was ignoring them already continued ignoring them.
But a few people started using them that same day to test them out. They found them to be not only good but an extremely good alternative to the m4/k121/mk46 (the latter two are much better than they are given credit for). Suddenly there is CHOICE in the game. But the BR’s had to be buffed up to have more advantages than the m4 because nobody was using them and the buffs were meant to not only balance to give a meaningful choice but to entice people to try them out.
Now, many months later, a lot of people have figured out that the burst rifles do have quite a few advantages at high end play. Not only in some of the paper advantages but also in playstyle. And most have overcome the CQC and timing issues inherent with those weapons which require a different playstyle than m4 tracking. Good players with good aim are able to use the burst damage and door strafing to their advantage in a game where every good player runs as soon as they take damage or starts hopping like mad to increase lower their TTK (which helps less with initial bursts than a constant stream from an m4). And burst rifles allow you to get a huge lead if you surprise somebody and potentially put them down in a burst depending on the merc and how many bullets hit the head. So the very nature of burst rifles lend themselves to competitive play due to how DB matches work. If you remove some of those elements the guns stop becoming a good choice and simply become inferior to the m4 and other choices once again.
Also, due to a lot of higher end players switching to bursts to help with the running/hopping players then a lot of people have started claiming that due to this switch they are OP as fuck and need to be nerfed into the ground. A lot of those people can’t articulate what makes bursts good which drives me nuts. Knowing the situations they are good in compared to paper stats is important when discussing balance. And many don’t even try to compare to the m4 which also has situations it’s good in and didn’t suddenly become a bad choice. It just doesn’t tick as many boxes at the higher end of play partly due to some paper stat issues and partly due to how it fires and the speed that people can avoid it after you start firing.
Here is an example of the bursts vs. m4. If I miss a burst on somebody who is the same level of aim as I, I only have a fraction of a chance to win that fight where it was mostly even before if we started firing at the same time. Tracking with the M4 is all you need and panic and poor timing isn’t even a factor with the gun. It is with burst rifles. If I don’t perfectly follow a person with the M4 they still die super fast to chaining headshots with a quick correction after a mistake. Where with burst rifles, if you miss a burst or two, you’re dead every single time in the same situations. And you’re horribly inaccurate at anything but close range after those first two bursts. So both guns have their pluses and minuses in close/medium combat. At long range the bursts are good if you know how to drag down and they have less falloff. I believe that was kept on them to entice people to actually use them and it could probably be reverted. They were also both given 3 more rounds in the mag, again, to entice people to use them.
The problem I have is not that they should be toned down. I’m on board with that. I just don’t want them nerfed into the ground with people who don’t know what they are talking about screaming how OP they are simply parroting other people as opposed to knowing what makes the guns good and bad in different situations. SD silencing the squeaky wheel basically. I want it done right because I want the guns to all be relevant and come down to preference as much as possible. The issue is, due to the nature of the bursts and how they are used at the higher end to offset the things I detailed, I am not sure they can be toned down without these same people screaming they are OP until they suddenly get nerfed enough to no longer be a choice.
The nature of the weapons and how they are used will make them extremely hard to make be exactly on par with the m4/similar weapons in all situations. You really can’t do that. So I’m pretty sure, at some point in the new future, they will cease to be a choice and we all will go back to the m4 only meta for AR’s.
Look what’s happening to the PDP. It was fine before Redeye. Most of the people screaming OP want the gun nerfed instead of the ability to fire it in smoke nerfed (make him extremely visible via muzzle flash outline while firing would be a good fix). A lot of these people simply want that style of weapon out of the game and essentially removed as a choice as opposed to fixing the actual problem. And in the case of burst rifles the actual problem is the nature of how the weapon is used that makes it a better choice for a lot of players at the higher end. So the chances of them getting essentially removed from the meta is pretty high. Then we all get to use the m4 again. Which I’m fine with…but I’d prefer it to be my choice.
TLDR - I just want it handled right and not give in to the backlash of the masses who are only repeating what they heard from somebody else.
A relevant problem is that bursts have a tremendous output in the 0.5s of combat, which are the most important time in a duel. Pretty much like a shotgun, but without the fall off they logically suffer from. On top of the miss factor reducing on high-end play, this creates an awfully powerful weapon against any threat. Keep in mind, they have an overall 135-like dps, but stark dispatches 108 damage potential in less than 0.1s. I guess it’s self-explanatory.
M4A1/Timik are still at 28 dmg during that gap, and dreiss at 50. In a game where you can do a lot in half a second, this is definitely significant. Yes, they’ll take this delay back if the fight goes on the long side, but it’s too rare now to counter-balance the great start of bursts.
After the different updates they’ve made on bursts, I already forecast what was going to happen. I’ve always played burst in a fair amount of time, even when they were total crap for the common opinion and I perfectly knew what was going to happen at the end. Being alone playing them on servers make the obvious less visible :p…
One only thing that surprises me : Burst vs Full auto and their usage is a usual balance problem in any fps with significant weapon variety. But generally, to compensate the sheer instant power of bursts, they generally have a lower dmg/bullet than their full auto counter-part. Pretty much in any game I can think of : cs (galil vs famas), bfs, cods… Except dirty bomb.
Honestly, I still believe that bursts would still be good if there were on par with timik/m4 on the damage per bullet field.
A relevant problem is that bursts have a tremendous output in the 0.5s of combat, which are the most important time in a duel. Pretty much like a shotgun, but without the fall off they logically suffer from. On top of the miss factor reducing on high-end play, this creates an awfully powerful weapon against any threat.
After the different updates they’ve made on bursts, I already forecast what was going to happen. I’ve always played burst in a fair amount of time, even when they were total crap for the common opinion and I perfectly knew what was going to happen at the end. Being alone playing them on servers make the obvious less visible :p…
One only thing that surprises me : Burst vs Full auto and their usage is a usual balance problem in any fps with significant weapon variety. But generally, to compensate the sheer instant power of bursts, they generally have a lower dmg/bullet than their full auto counter-part. Pretty much in any game I can think of : cs (galil vs famas), bfs, cods… Except dirty bomb.
Honestly, I still believe that bursts would still be good if there were on par with timik/m4 on the damage per bullet field.[/quote]
If they wanted to go with that route, they’d have to make the burst rifles incredibly accurate in terms of spread. I wouldn’t actually mind it that way - because it would still mean that the burst rifles would be the most effective rifles (since they hold up much higher accuracy over distance, going by this assumption).
I think a few things we need to keep in mind, is theoretical dps vs actual dps, the feel of the weapon, and the player skill here.
The real question is, assuming equal skill, does the M4 match up with the burst rifles? Or is it inferior to them? And if so by how much?
Do the Burst Rifles have enough risk to warrant their extra power?
I mean think about this argument if it were the Grandeur, should it have theoretically higher dps than the M4? Of course, assuming it could 2 shot kill a little over half of the mercs, and assuming it only had 12 shots, and had a very specific manner in which you had to fire it in order for it to be of any use, it should in theory kill faster than the M4 to make it worth using.
But in the case of the Burst Rifles, we have a gun that does 17 and 18 damage respectfully, and the delay between bursts is longer than it was before, around 200-250 ms I believe. But the question is, is the clip size low enough to justify the power? Is the delay between bursts long enough to punish people for accuracy?
This is all stuff I’d be able to answer better if I had proper stats and time to come up with solutions, but unfortunately I am limited in that regard right now. So I’ll just have to sit and watch for now until someone produces accurate stats for the guns.
If 1 damage was taken off each burst rifle, they would still be good weapons.
[quote=“ProfPlump;182274”]
Honestly, I still believe that bursts would still be good if there were on par with timik/m4 on the damage per bullet field.
If they wanted to go with that route, they’d have to make the burst rifles incredibly accurate in terms of spread. I wouldn’t actually mind it that way - because it would still mean that the burst rifles would be the most effective rifles (since they hold up much higher accuracy over distance, going by this assumption).[/quote]
Well they were pretty much on par with timik/m4 after the stoker release, but no one tried them due to significant problems with timing bugs. But I recall after you got used to them they were actually not that bad. At the same time they resolved timing bugs, they’ve also improved their spread/recoil. So they’ve literally thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
And they would still be picked because of how useful they are due to the situations that they help with in competitive play. The DPS of the weapons doesn’t really matter much compared to the ability to get out a lot of front loaded damage from a person who is instantly going to turn and run soon as they are hit and be evasive. Which is part of how DB works that isn’t true in other games like the BF series that punish your movement when jumping and don’t have the types of movement available (which is why you can’t compare DB to BF easily when talking gun mechanics). With the m4 they have a better chance of running with less damage taken. With a burst, if taken off-guard, they will be down a huge chunk of HP. That’s a good reason, but not the only reason, they are picked.
So even if you lower damage or RoF a bit and make DPS even to the m4/timik and reduce the range, the bursts are still going to be chosen. And, based on history, they will probably be nerfed so much as to lose relevancy before certain players who don’t understand how mechanics work will be quiet about them. Because if they are still chosen they are OP even if they are not.