This discussion is meant to be focused on discussing game balance issues and more specifically changes to weapon balance that would affect the overall game balance. To start out let me say, people that defend the current state of smg's do so because they like to feel like little invincible gods nuking everything in sight and are giving no thought to the state of overall game balance. Weapon balancing is just one small part of total game balance. So to have this discussion we need to discuss the overall game balance we want to achieve and then talk about what we need to change get there.
The game was advertised as a cover based, tactical, 3rd person shooter. It is supposed to reward good tactics over pure twitch gameplay. The current power level of the smg totally breaks that design goal.
As we all know the current meta, due to how damage is calculated, is to have an smg with a high crit chance/crit damage build with lots of firearms to boost damage and then add enough health and damage mitigation to survive a few seconds out of cover. Which is all the time it takes to burn through even the toughest enemies.
With that build you can ignore cover mechanics and just charge straight ahead with little regard for anything other than staying on target. So basically a COD style of gameplay. I don't know about the rest of you but that's not what I signed up for and it wasn't what was advertised.
This has effectively killed all the creative possibilities that would be available in build selection and team composition/strategy if cover weren't so irrelevant. This smg/crit build is so effective there is little reason not to have 4 guys in a squad running the exact same build with the exact same skills just bulldozing their way through anything that gets in their way. That shouldn't be. There should be an effective counter to every strategy and build approach in the game. As it is you just slap on crit gear with high dps, equip an smg with pulse and first aid, and you go around nuking everything in sight. That is not the game I want to play.
So yeah, getting your favorite weapon nerfed always hurts but for the sake of a better gameplay experience it's what is needed in this case. The argument to bring all other weapons up to the same level as the smg in terms of dps potential doesn't change or help the issue in terms of game balance but in fact just makes the issue worse.
I'd like to see changes that put more of an emphasis on using cover and punishes players who mindlessly run out in the open. If you reduce damage on smgs it gives a guy who's using cover properly an advantage. Right now damage output is so high that even when using smart cover you get burned down in an instant by a zerg rushing opponent with an smg/crit build. I should be able to stay in cover with smart cover active and punish that guy for leaving his cover position. Instead, me being in cover just gives him the advantage of shooting a non-moving target.
Furthemore, placing more of an emphasis on utilizing cover would make all those unused skills viable again. All those unused skills and perks were designed from the perspective of players being mostly in cover and only breaking cover to gain tactical advantages. So something like seeker mine or turret would cause you to come out of cover. Sticky bomb would discourage flankers. Mobile cover and smart cover combined would be one of the most op combos ever for a skill build. Ballistic shield would have a great use for making tactical advances. I could go on and on. But, sadly, none of those things are used often because they are are severely underpowered when compared to mindlessly zerging ahead with a vector after pulsing your target.
My proposal is to simply reduce the alpha damage on smgs i.e. their damage per shot. The fact that they get as much or more alpha damage as an assault rifle, AND have higher rate of fire, AND have higher crit chance, AND have better gun handling is just absurd. What exactly is the weakness of this weapon platform? Anyways back on topic. Reduce the alpha damage and bring dps back down to a reasonable level. Plus their effective range should be reduced just a smidgen more. Right now they are so OP with crit damage that they are as good or better than most ARs at AR optimum range. When at their own optimum range they're insanely good which is why most encounters are happening at smg range and out of cover.
Doing this simple change you don't have to rebalance practically every other stat, skill, and perk in the game trying to achieve the originally intended game balance. Giving more damage mitigation doesn't help because all other weapons would still be inferior and you would ignore the cover mechanics even more.
Let smgs be the crit proccing champions of the game but bring their dps back down to the realm of sanity.
Other changes I'd recommend:
SHOTGUNS
Give shotguns a buff to armor damage and possibly give them a slight increase in alpha damage. I think their optimum range is as they should be but they should be devastating to anyone silly enough to get close enough to actually use them against.
LMG
Give lmg's a huge buff to damage on enemies out of cover. Now the weapon will fulfill it's role of suppressing enemies and forcing them into cover. THIS IS MY SINGLE BIGGEST REQUEST AND PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE TO MAKE FOR ANY WEAPON PLATFORM.
DMR
Reduce the amount of headshot bonus on dmr's. No rifle should be getting 2 million point headshot crits. That's gamebreakingly ridiculous. Because of the way damage is calculated I think that's all you need to do for them to be reasonable again is lower that headshot damage bonus.
ASSAULT RIFLE
For AR's you don't really need to do much. It think some could use some slight handling improvements but basically just tweak their alpha damage to an appropriate level so that they are the bread and butter all arounder weapon and the one that each other weapon types are trying to differentiate from. Honestly ARS are quite nice to use but are so overshadowed by the OP smgs at the moment that they feel gimped. They really are very good when using the right mods and skils. They are superb when used at their optimum range which is middle distance. Middle distance is where most encounters should happen but don't because of, again, the OP'ness of the smgs.
Well, all this sounds well and good for PVP but many of us only do PVE. How are we supposed to do the Incursion without all that dps? Firstly, I say to you that more dps is not what you need. If smg's weren't so insanely OP you would already have explored other strategies that would allow you to succeed without just adding more damage. More DPS should never be the default solution for every challenge presented in an RPG. It should be one option of several viable alternatives. Secondly, if the Incursion is so hard that more dps and less teamwork is the only viable strategy then the Incursion itself needs to be fixed. Let's not start tweaking game balance around broken pve difficulty.
For the record I think the current difficulty level of the Incursion on challenging is fine. It's not meant to be beatable by a random pug group that has poor communication and little to no skill synergy. Hard mode is easy on pug groups. Challenging is there to give coordinated high level groups challenging content to work against. If it weren't being exploited, getting one high level item a week would not break game balance in the DZ. Meaning the gear gap would not be that big an issue if that were the case. Sadly that's not the case becasue cheaters have abused the crap out of it. But even still I hold my own just fine in the DZ with a skill based build and GS of only 188. So yeah, let's not whine about how broken the DZ is. That's not true and even if it were would be another thread entirely.
In conclusion, let's get the game balance swung back in favor of using cover mechanics and smart teamwork. Let's open up all the possibilities available in all the various skills and talents.
Have fun out there guys and I'll see you in the DZ.
ADDENDUM:
Massive/Ubisoft,
If you'd like to hire me as a consultant I promise my fees would be more than reasonable. :P
Raising ttk will do absolutely NOTHING to cause more tactical game play or use of the cover system.Originally Posted by Streven7 Go to original post
If anything I will have to use cover LESS because now you can barely hurt me. I only take cover when my life is in jeopardy .
Being able to run around team shooting people while out of cover and barely taking damage. Hell yeah. Sounds great. Where do i sign up . You don't know what you are asking for.
With the new gear sets solo players actually became a threat to teams.
To go back to what it was before and those same solo players are going to get destroyed worse than ever. They won't have enough up time on their weapons with constantly trying to reload while teams gang up on them with 100 percent uptime on at least 2 people at all times.
I really think that the ttk is only an issue with bad players right now.
I have drawn out gun fights all the time. Using your talents and meds correctly and not trying to stand toe to toe with people is key.
I only have 58 percent midigation and 71k health. The ONLY time I get melted is when I make a mistake and get team shot by 2 or more people.
The thought of 2 teams sitting behing cover on opposite side firing at each others is a day dream. It will NEVER happen.
What will happen is while your in cover 4 guys will run up on you and shoot you in the face while you are a static target.
If you expect anything less you arent thinking clearly.
The masses have spoken and the game play has evolved into what it is going to be and changing ttk will not change any of it.
If anything, buff autos and lmgs to keep up so that you can actually force someone into cover if they want to stay alive long enough to return fire .
I don't think you read my entire post did you. TTK is not a problem right now with ARs, shotguns, or lmgs. But it is out of control with smgs. If you make the change to lmg's like I said you'd better believe people will use cover mechanics more. But because of smg being overpowered you can blindly rush forward now with 4 guys. You probably wouldn't do that with AR'S and shotguns. Especially if being out of cover is going to cause you to take more damage due to lmgs.Originally Posted by il DOWN li Go to original post
You would then need to use more skills than just the two current fotm skills and be more tactical when deciding when to break cover. You would want suppressive fire from templates before moving up. Yes, being outnumbered would be bad but that's how it should be. Being solo and in cover and ambushing a team that is blindly running up a street is what should give you an advantage.
For the most part I agree with what you are saying. Just a couple points I'd make:
Its all well and good to say not to tweak game balance around broken PvE difficulty. But I can make the same argument about tweaking game balance around PvP concerns. Destiny has ruined their weapon classes due to PvP complaints which has resulted in that game losing one of its biggest selling points: the weapons were fun to use. But so many classes and Exotics got nerfed because they were deemed OP in the Crucible that now all the weapons feel bland and samey.
Second point is that while I agree that the Challenging Incursion should be difficult for PUGs and that it requires a well co-ordinate group making use of synergistic skills to complete, the problem is that the next Incursion has a recommended GS of 220. Currently the only way to get your GS that high is with the 240 items from the Challenging Incursion. So basically the only people who will be able to participate in the new Incursion on Day One are the groups you mention. I dare say that is a small percentage of the user base. Why put out content that most players won't even be able to play? The upgrade path in this game is quickly becoming out of whack.
Well if OP would be Division Dev then i think it is safe to say all guns pretty much need nerfs and there would be more bullet sponging than we have now.
Cover mechanics wont work after Massive introduced grenade spam + another rocket spam every x seconds. You can bet new incursion will be similar. Funny how so many talents and skills work in cover but game forces you to find glitches and other ways to counter that mechanic without using cover that much.
Gulity. It was long winded and I jumped ahead. I can admit that.Originally Posted by Streven7 Go to original post
If you are saying to buff other weapons then yes.I competent agree with you. I'm driving. I'll respond later when I can take the time to read and respond with some thought.
One thing I'm definitely not saying to do is make all the weapons the same. My theory on the weapons is that all should have their particular strengths. I thought I made good suggestions to do that. The main differentiation of course being the optimum range.Originally Posted by googlebright Go to original post
The AR should be the gold standard that every other weapon should be based off of and differentiated from. And it actually is if you remove the current smg from the comparison. The AR is good. When buffed properly by pulse from someone running a decent skill build it's incredible. The shotgun is quite good. The DMR is op because of headshot bonus combined with crit bonus but easily fixed. The current LMG is really bad. Damage to enemies out of cover would give it a defined role and make it an interesting option. Plus really help direct people to cover. The smg is totally out of whack. It performs as good or better than an AR at AR range.
We also shouldn't be balancing the game around the Incursion. It is a small part of the game. Plus, if people were not so caught up in the fotm smg build they would actually see the Incursion and the"grenade spam" in a different light.
I've already said this but will say it again. Grenade spam doesn't break cover mechanics. You can actually sit and take the grenades on the chin with the right skills and stats. Nobody has those though because EVERYBODY is a flaming dps.Originally Posted by DivonaB Go to original post
The game is unbalanced by the massive amount of damage you can do as you progress through the higher end gear. It creates a massive devide between the haves and havenots and with the hardest missions aimed at the haves, the have nots are really going to struggle. But there are two types of people who just dont give a flying ****. The haves and the devs.