DRL > Discussion

Nerfing the Chaingun

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Malek Deneith:

--- Quote ---Also note that the fact that SoaB damage is armor piercing
--- End quote ---
Frankly I don't recall that "armor piercing" theory beeing ever confirmed. Did I miss something? O.o

edit I asked Kornel about that and he confirmed what I thought - SoaB is not armor piercing - SoaB get's added before armor reduces damage.

Zeb:
I actually just realized that I made those calculations without armor piercing damage anyway, so it's all good.

tisiphone:

--- Quote ---For example, you could add a warm-up period (0.3-0.4s) before the chaingun starts to fire to demonstrate the barrels accelerating to the right speed.
--- End quote ---
A little clarification on this: What I mean is there should be a time delay before the chainguns first shot but this should only apply to the first shot. In other words the delay will not apply if you decide shoot again after the first burst but will apply if you move and then shoot. It could add some extra decision making. Do you just fire at the former human that you see or move closer to see if there’s anyone behind him that could use being shot at? Do you invest in some Finesse and speed mods to nullify the delay or go for Son of a Bitch? And so on.

Conker:
I'd say half the problem is that shotguns are very distance-orientated. Whereas a Chaingun/Plasma Rifle works at any distance. And in the late game, where you're encountering enemies that can kill you in a couple of turns, you don't want to waste time changing weapons or moving around to get into a better position. The chaingun's nice because you can just stand there and fire without having to worry about reloading or distance.

I honestly think that shotguns still do need to be empowered - to be even remotely competitive in the late game, you'd need Reloader, Reloader, Shottyman, Hellrunner * 3, and an advanced double shotgun. Even then, if you open a door and find 3 viles just on the edge of your sight range, you're screwed if you can't lure them to you. Perhaps a shotgun variant should be introduced that doesn't decrease its damage over distance?

To be fair though, Chainguns should be nerfed - slightly. I'd say cap TH at one level. This would probably work well to increase trait variety, too.

modular:
I like the fact that with SoB2 and TH I can survive the arena on a higher difficulty level. Its really fun to see the game scale up at that point in the game.

Maybe its more interesting to limit TH to just one trait rather than reducing its bonus by half, in addition to lowering the base damage of a chaingun by 1, or lowering its accuracy.

Shotguns and what traits to choose:

Rel->Rel->SM->
Reload speed -40%, reload on move.
Overall very expensive traits. Shottyman allows you to dodge and shoot, but that tactic is not effective against sergeants, AV's, and to many barons/knights/cacodemon. The range of the double shotgun is not so good. Its also very dangerous to use when there are to many barrels around.
Problem with these traits is that they are exclusively usefull for shotguns (and possibly rocket launchers), but there are alot of situations where using a shotgun is sub-optimal.
I suggest at least removing the requirement to take Rel2 so you can take Rel(1)->SM.

Fin->Fin->Wiz
To pimp an advanced shotgun you need another 3 traits. Most characters are lvl 9 when they finish the game, so you can only pick 2x3 traits that you will use during the last 1/3th of the game. The fire speed bonus isnt going to help as much as it would with a chaingun, so this is a rather expensive combo. This combo is flexible and can also be usefull for other weapons.

HR->HR->HR->
+30% speed, +30% dodge chance. Compared to the other defensive traits, HP+66%, or armour+75%, this is rather weak. This combo 'could' be good with SM, but the bonus to speed would have to be increase significantly.
I would suggest at least doubling the movement speed bonus to +20 speed each trait for a total of +60% speed. Increasing the speed bonus might make melee games more enjoyable also.

Fin->Jug->
There is the possibility of altering the Jugler trait, so you can also swap weapons at no action cost in addition to automaticly using a prepared melee weapon. This might make shotguns more usefull to use combined with chainguns, but would also be very usefull to use with other weapons like rocket launchers, plasma rifle, BFG.

Shotguns are overall pretty weak, bad range, bad damage, bad traits, and hard to find in-game. My last test game on hard took me till lvl 6 to find anything better than a normal shotgun. Another testgame I found a double shotun on lvl 2, but there is always a chaingun on lvl 2 or 3 on hard.

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