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Author Topic: Assemblies and game balance  (Read 13955 times)

Sylph

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Assemblies and game balance
« on: March 14, 2011, 08:23 »

Having played with assemblies in recent versions of doomrl quite extensively, I'm convinced that some or all of them need some rebalancing to fit in with the risks and rewards of other item types in doomrl.

The basic assemblies that do not require unique or exotic mods are, imo, pretty underpowered. Tactical boots are obviously a great item, but they pale in comparison to a pair of phaseshift boots, which is about the right place balance-wise for these assemblies: better than basic mods, not as good as modded exotics. The rest of the (very) basic assemblies are items I have a lot of trouble justifying construction of. As usual for this game they seem to fit in with very one-dimensional builds, but overall I feel they could use a bit of a buff. Tactical armour could use +1 armour, HP weapon is a nice one, but not really worth constructing on non-exotic items due to the clip capacity modification, etc. Nanofiber armour is a good assembly, and probably, imo, the best-balanced of the entire bunch.

Next up we have advanced assemblies that don't require exotic or unique mods. These are probably the most well-balanced of the bunch, imo. The assault rifle is a little *too* accurate, and benefits a little too much from triggerhappy, making it somewhat overpowered. The double chainsaw would suffer from the same problem as the assault rifle, were it not for the gauranteed unique that outshines it.

Now on to assemblies that require a single special modpack. This is where things start swinging the other way... Plate armour is a good example. How plate armour gets away with it's stats is beyond me. Compare it to classic uniques like malek's armour, cybernetic armour, onyx armour etc... For a single unique item find you basically have a suit of armour that surpasses everything else in the game. Single unique item. All the other components are common as muck. Gravity boots are even easier to construct than plate armour, and offer a similarly ridiculous advantage to the player, again greater than any unique or modded exotic in the game,but are somewhat better in that they require whizkid, and are arguably a waste of a good mod pack. Nanofiber skin armour is another stupidly good item, again negating every unique, but falls into the same domain as gravity boots, balanced due to whizkid and the other potential uses of the modpack. Plasmatic shrapnel much more reasonable, and perhaps a fair use of it's component unique without going too far, but I'd still consider it as powerful as a nano railgun, which, of course, requires 2 unique drops to construct...
The most ridiculous of them all, however, is nanomanufacture ammo. This isn't that hard to construct, it's basically, again, a single unique drop and some careful inventory management. The reward, when placed on a BFG, is truly the most ridiculous weapon ever to be featured on doomrl. It's *much* more of an 'I win' button than the dragonslayer is in a melee game, and it's miles more common. It basically removes every last bit of challenge from the game, and enables us, as players, to acheive diamond badges on item drop luck alone. This thing needs changing or outright removing. At the very least, it should be restricted to non-blast weapons.
There are *some* single-rare weapons that are reasonably well-balanced. Demolition ammo is a nice touch, storm bolter, assault cannon, and energy pistol are all reasonable, and in fact I'd probably advise taking their requirements down so that whizkid is not needed. Ripper is probably underpowered given that it requires so much whizkid.

Finally, there are those weapons that *would* be good, were it not for ridiculously poewrful and cheaper assemblies in the list. The main offenders here are cybernano armour, and the biggest fucking gun. Cybernano is barely any better than nanofibre skin armour, and is much harder to construct due to it's extra requirements. When we consider the extra requirements, we have to consider plate armour, and with that, cybernano armour becomes a ridiculous waste of a great mod pack for a ridiculously small difference. The biggest fucking gun, of course, is a powerful weapon, but when compared with the much, much more obtainable nanomanufacture BFG, it's absolute rubbish.


I think the game would benefit a lot if the assemblies were rebalanced somewhat.
- It would be more interesting to non-whizkid characters if there was a little more scope and choice in the basic assemblies.
- The assault rifle and the tactical shotgun are both a little too good for the basic modpack requirements
- The assemblies that require a nano pack should be balanced somewhere in between a nano-packed rocket launcher, and a nano-packed railgun. Anything less than the nano rocket launcher will be a waste of a nano pack and not worth constructing, whereas anything more than a nano railgun means that (using assemblies) a single unique is better than 2 specific uniques, which is too much, imo.


This is just my impression from the assemblies. I absolutely love the concept, but I think the execution could use a little rebalancing, since they have made many old exotics and uniques lose their lustre.
I'm hoping to garner some opinions of other posters on this topic, perhaps I'm the odd one out with my impression of assemblies, so I pose this question to the forum - are assemblies guilty of power-creep, removing the appeal of the old exotics and uniques?

~Sylph
« Last Edit: March 14, 2011, 08:28 by Sylph »
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2011, 08:52 »

(I'm going to assume you (Sylph) mean "power armor" when you say "plate armor" which is, in fact, a different (but currently beta only) assembly. Also (for everyone else), I'll probably be mentioning specific mods with regards to the assemblies, so there are schematic spoilers ahead.)

Assemblies in general will need some balancing. Right now a good deal of them are all over the place in terms of usefulness and feasibility. Some examples you mention:

- Assault rifle is probably too strong given the mods used. Changing a 1d6x4 to a 2d5x2 is decent, although there's also 0.8 firing time, 1.0 reload time (where did this come from, anyway) and, more importantly, a whopping +6 accuracy. The accuracy makes sense in that you're applying triple-A mods, but the rest of the stats should be relatively unchanged. 3.0 reload time, 1.0 firing time, and 2d3x4 or 3d2x4 damage is probably a fairer weapon. We have to keep in mind that the high accuracy of the weapon appeals to MAc users, who already get a point of WK, so the bonus shouldn't be TOO high, and yet still be useful to people who aren't necessarily getting MAc.
- Tactical armor/boots are balanced, possibly even TOO good, because AA is practically guaranteed if you can handle fighting Arena Master. If you want to, it's an item you can make every single game. Having both grants -50% KB and 0.64 sec/step so, even without significant protection, they are invaluable tools.
- I think high power would do better if the capacity drop was to 3/4 instead of 1/2. The extra damage output does not make up for the loss of capacity (and therefore more reload time added to your DPS) when it's so significant, not to mention it's nigh unthinkable to use if you're getting any points of WK. If I'd consider using just P or B on a weapon over HP, there's a problem. (Exception is HP Railgun, which is very awesome, but that's a unique so it's fair.)
- Power armor can be destroyed, FYI, so you can't run into battle all the time with it. Dropping the protection a bit (even to six, essentially making the boost in terms of MS/KB) is probably for the best, however. I agree that there's a discrepancy between it and the nanofiber skin, the latter only being particularly good on cybernetic or gothic armor (which then takes even more luck in producing). (Plate armor, which I mentioned earlier, is like the heavy version of power armor, so the balancing here would mean that having a basic suit of awesome is still possible, though the MS drawbacks would balance it out in this case.)
- Nanomanufacture likely needs to be forced on rapid-fire weapons only. Nanomachic BFG 9000 is, I'm sure, so OP that no one would ever think to choose otherwise.

If you know the stats for cybernano and biggestFG, would you mind adding them to the Wiki? I can't tell if either are worth the trouble, since they're so hard to produce as it stands.

Most of the new assemblies are more balanced toward what you're talking about: equipment that is slightly better than the exotic it simulates, but not quite as useful as modding the exotic itself. In the meantime, however, we should attempt to work all the current assemblies so that they fit this ideology.
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Sylph

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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2011, 10:51 »

(I'm going to assume you (Sylph) mean "power armor" when you say "plate armor" which is, in fact, a different (but currently beta only) assembly.
- Power armor can be destroyed, FYI, so you can't run into battle all the time with it. Dropping the protection a bit (even to six, essentially making the boost in terms of MS/KB) is probably for the best, however. I agree that there's a discrepancy between it and the nanofiber skin, the latter only being particularly good on cybernetic or gothic armor (which then takes even more luck in producing). (Plate armor, which I mentioned earlier, is like the heavy version of power armor, so the balancing here would mean that having a basic suit of awesome is still possible, though the MS drawbacks would balance it out in this case.)
Actually, I was talking about plate armour. Power armour is a decent item, but a complete waste of a good mod pack. It's specifically plate armour that I was talking about in my previous post, which I think dwarfs almost all other armours in the game.

Quote
If you know the stats for cybernano and biggestFG, would you mind adding them to the Wiki? I can't tell if either are worth the trouble, since they're so hard to produce as it stands.
Sure, I'll add them later.

Quote
Most of the new assemblies are more balanced toward what you're talking about: equipment that is slightly better than the exotic it simulates, but not quite as useful as modding the exotic itself. In the meantime, however, we should attempt to work all the current assemblies so that they fit this ideology.
The only new assemblies that I've tried are the grappling boots, the plate armour, and the tactical shotgun. Grappling boots seem like junk, tactical shotgun feels a little powerful, but not too bad (as I mentioned in my post).
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #3 on: March 14, 2011, 11:24 »

Actually, I was talking about plate armour. Power armour is a decent item, but a complete waste of a good mod pack. It's specifically plate armour that I was talking about in my previous post, which I think dwarfs almost all other armours in the game.
I haven't gotten the chance to look at plate armor yet, so I don't know if the stats are off. It's supposed to be 8-protection, I think, and infinite durability (it's onyx'd for those not in the know), but has really bad movespeed factor to compensate. Alternatively, a gothic armor with PAB would probably function almost identically (given 400% durability is nearly infinite) and takes only an exotic instead of a unique. But, again, I don't know what the MS rate is, so I'll take your word that it may very well be far OP'd.

Tactical shotgun is basically a P-modded assault shotgun with a slightly slower reload time. It might be strong because it's basic but otherwise it seems pretty balanced to me. (Personally I believe the assault shotgun is a VERY small upgrade from combat shotgun in the first place, so this is a fair way to make use of a basic assembly.)

EDIT: Looking at cybernano, I agree that it's not particularly better than nanofiber skin: something like PPBO probably makes more sense on it (and change the name to reflect it, obviously). BiggestFG still looks really awesome (not compared to nanomachic BFG but that NEEDS a fix) although all the mods needed does make it ridiculous to expect to make it in anything besides a particularly lucky A100 run (not to mention holding the mods in anticipation). It's something to talk about, for sure.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2011, 13:38 by Game Hunter »
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Sylph

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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2011, 14:42 »

BiggestFG still looks really awesome (not compared to nanomachic BFG but that NEEDS a fix) although all the mods needed does make it ridiculous to expect to make it in anything besides a particularly lucky A100 run (not to mention holding the mods in anticipation). It's something to talk about, for sure.

It's not just poor when compared to nanomachic BGF, imo. It's nothing special when compared to, say, a nano rocket launcher. It takes a long time to recharge 100 cells, and destroys a good portion of the cover you might want to be hiding behind while you wait for the recharge. I'd sooner see it become a truly awesome item, and it's probably the only one we don't really have to worry too much about being overpowered, given the mod requirements.

Re: Plate armour. Sure, it has a movespeed penalty, I just don't think the movespeed penalty is anywhere near high enough. For a 8-armour indestructible item, I'd expect something like a 80% movespeed reduction, and it would still be a massively useful assembly...
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Thomas

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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2011, 17:29 »

My thoughts on assembly balance:
Tactical boots are still the best assembly that you can make consistantly.
Nobody wears boots for the protection, so it pretty much has no drawbacks. The -25% knockback can sometimes be annoying when you don't get pushed away from the baron that's killing you or it screws around with your fireangel dodging, but what are you going to do, go back to plasteel (A), with its 50% knockback reduction?

As for the ones that cannot be consistantly made, the fact that they require a unique modpack should be telling of how unbalanced they are. A balance between "Is worth the modpack" and "Doesn't hand victory to the player" would be almost impossible. I'd say that a complete redesign of all assemblies with a unique requirement is needed, making them worse but with only basic mods as requirements.

The assault rifle (and similarly, the hyperblaster in BETA 2b) are both a bit too good, maybe. The hyperblaster sucks up 2 power mods, so it's got to be good, and the assault rifle means you probably aren't getting tactical boots, so it's got to be pretty good too. Even so, they've got a lot of benefits and only a couple of drawbacks.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2011, 11:07 »

I think that there is a big problem with traits balance now. I mean - whizkid. With assemblies it becomes very useful trait (even more useful than earlier). More than that - you need it to take ammochain trait. And I think that ammochain is a very dishonest trait. Just infinite ammo for all chainfire weapons (and chaifire are the best weapons in the game in my opinion). More than that - you can't take army of the dead if you decided to take whizkid. I think that traits should be rebalanced somehow.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2011, 20:06 »

I've completed several runs since 0.9.9.2 was released, so I figured I'd just throw in my $0.02 regarding the basic assemblies.  I still don't have much experience with advanced/master assemblies, so I won't comment on those.

Tactical Boots
Of all the assemblies, the tactical boots are the only basic assembly that I think borders on being overpowered.  Out of a dozen runs I've only regretted using these boots once (lots of lava to run across), and that was an extreme situation which could have otherwise been mitigated using other means: environment suit, powerups, etc...

If it were up to me I would remove the knockback resistance.  Otherwise the only reason I would *not* make these boots is because I want to use the mods on a plasma rifle instead.

Tactical Armor
This assembly is pretty well-balanced IMO.  Useful for much of the game, but not overpowered.  The level of protection is an obvious drawback, but regen and speed make the assembly tempting anyway.

However, if I have to choose between tactical boots and tactical armor, I'll choose to make the boots every time - and it's pretty rare that I fail to find steel boots before the Chained Court.

Speedloader Pistol
Meh.  I'm not crazy about this assembly.  If I'm focusing on pistols then I usually go for Gun Kata, which makes reload time irrelevant (except for Cybie - but he's easy to dodge anyway).  And if I'm not focusing on pistols then I'm certainly not going to waste mod packs on them.

Elephant Gun
There's almost no reason to make this gun, especially since it uses up valuable power mods that could be applied to armor.  Shotty users will usually find a double shotgun long before acquiring two power mods.  At short range the double shotgun has a bigger punch, and at long range this gun is practically the same as the combat shotty but with poorer reload time.

Chainsword
No use outside of a Strongman Badge attempt, but that's probably reason enough to leave this assembly alone.

Gatling Gun
This is a great assembly.  It's definitely an upgrade to the standard chaingun, but not quite as good as a plasma rifle.  It's not a no-brainer either, as you might want to keep the bulk mods around for an eventual BFG upgrade.

Micro Launcher
Why would I want one of my biggest guns to do *less* damage?  Seriously, if I want a launcher more suited for combat then I'll probably clean out The Wall and grab a missile launcher.  Its 4-rocket capacity is much better suited to heavy combat situations than the negligible speed improvements of the Micro Launcher.  Practically speaking, most of my rockets are used for busting walls anyway - so this assembly is a definite downgrade.

Nanofiber Armor
Personally I'll never use it because I hate speed penalties.  The assembly might appeal to other players.

High Power Weapon
As other posters have mentioned I think the clip size penalty is too harsh.  I've used these with Ammochain (since clip size doesn't matter), but even then it was a tough decision - I'd already invested in Whizkid at that point, and I could just as easily have preferred to stick some agility mods on the gun instead.
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MaiZure

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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2011, 21:13 »

I think that there is a big problem with traits balance now. I mean - whizkid. With assemblies it becomes very useful trait (even more useful than earlier). More than that - you need it to take ammochain trait. And I think that ammochain is a very dishonest trait. Just infinite ammo for all chainfire weapons (and chaifire are the best weapons in the game in my opinion). More than that - you can't take army of the dead if you decided to take whizkid. I think that traits should be rebalanced somehow.

Amen on the MAD limitation - I've always been a shotgun player and because of that, I rarely venture in to the assemblies because Finesse is blocked on my build.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2011, 21:44 »

Elephant Gun
There's almost no reason to make this gun, especially since it uses up valuable power mods that could be applied to armor.  Shotty users will usually find a double shotgun long before acquiring two power mods.  At short range the double shotgun has a bigger punch, and at long range this gun is practically the same as the combat shotty but with poorer reload time.
I disagree, and make it in almost every shotgun game. Yes, the double shotgun has a bigger punch at short range, but therein lies the problem - at short range. The Elephant Gun hits almost as hard (12d3 vs. 16d3 if I'm understanding the double shotgun bug right) at a considerably longer range. Shottyman completely negates the reload issue.

And I use Nanofiber regularly, especially on TAN builds. Even if it's not useful as primary armor for your build, a reliable unbreakable [3] defense is nice to have around in case your main armor breaks somehow.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2011, 02:10 »

Micro Launcher
Why would I want one of my biggest guns to do *less* damage?  Seriously, if I want a launcher more suited for combat then I'll probably clean out The Wall and grab a missile launcher.  Its 4-rocket capacity is much better suited to heavy combat situations than the negligible speed improvements of the Micro Launcher.  Practically speaking, most of my rockets are used for busting walls anyway - so this assembly is a definite downgrade.

Why do people always seem to forget that it also gets a +3 improvement to accuracy? But even then I'm not sure if it's a good trade-off. It *might* be helpful in clearing out the Wall, since you really don't want to miss when shooting at the Hell Barons, but then again you have to fire more shots if you're using the micro launcher.

The tactical rocket launcher, however, doesn't even get the accuracy bonus, just the increased clip size and a small decrease to reload time. Definitely not worth the 3 bulk mods imho.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2011, 04:54 »

The Elephant Gun hits almost as hard (12d3 vs. 16d3 if I'm understanding the double shotgun bug right) at a considerably longer range. Shottyman completely negates the reload issue.

But consider the following: If you take a regular combat shotty and apply a technical mod pack then you can fire in 0.8 seconds and pump in the next shell in 0.2 seconds.  That's a total of 1 second per shell, at least for the first 5 shots.

With the elephant gun it'll cost you 1 second to fire plus your movement speed to reload (usually around 0.6 or 0.7 for me since Hellrunner is blocked on MAD runs).  Once you factor in the movement time, the DPS of the elephant gun is worse than the modded combat shotgun.

Also, I'm almost always using my shotguns from cover.  Shottyman is practically useless in that situation because I don't want to step outside of my cover.  If I take a step backwards and then forwards then the sum cost of two steps is just as slow as a regular reload.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #12 on: March 23, 2011, 09:53 »

I think that there is a big problem with traits balance now. I mean - whizkid. With assemblies it becomes very useful trait (even more useful than earlier). More than that - you need it to take ammochain trait. And I think that ammochain is a very dishonest trait. Just infinite ammo for all chainfire weapons (and chaifire are the best weapons in the game in my opinion). More than that - you can't take army of the dead if you decided to take whizkid. I think that traits should be rebalanced somehow.

I agree with this. I think Whizkid has to stand on it's own from the master traits, like Ironman, it shouldn't be part of the requirements for them. I can see two levels of finesse being required, but with the new assembly benefits it's too much.
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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2011, 12:32 »

Let me suggest an alternative assembly structure:

At least one assembly for each exotic/unique mod in each of the three assembly levels (basic, advanced, master) that doesn't include more than one exotic/unique mod.

At least one melee, single fire, rapid-fire, armor, boot assembly per level that doesn't require an exotic/unique mod and a more even mix of different mod types used to construct them. (Right now power mods are required for almost everything whereas technical and agility mods are used in very few.)

I know some ideas similar to this are in the works so here's the wild and crazy part of my suggestion:

Using a mod on another mod results in a random mod that isn't either of the first two, with a small chance of creating an exotic mod. The chance of creating an exotic mod could increase each time a character combined mods and reset if they ever produced one.
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Sambojin

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Re: Assemblies and game balance
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2011, 20:55 »

I've played around a fair bit with the assemblies in 0.9.9.2 and you're right. The WK and mod requirements are way off on a reasonable power/use trade-off. And remember that we've all been completing the game without them for quite some time now. The guns are great or useless, the armour is similar (and somewhat pointless sometimes. They're great, but to me onyx or similar means win-the-game-if-you're-not-stupid). The thing I do like is that there seems to be quite a few more mods about (even just due to the armoury bonus). Basic modding is easier, which makes the 0.9.9.2 assemblies either great or crappier than normal modding depending on WK in your build.

If I found a nano pack, I'd probably be happy putting it on a RL/ML/shotgun or a red armour. Actually, from that point on I'd think it was up to me to not lose the game. Having hyper-super weapons wouldn't really be a concern. I just lost my ammo requirement for a good weapon or got some nice armour. Times two if I had levels in WK (giving me some really nice weapons, armour and options for them). A power/bulk/nano red armour is kind of industructable as it is. Or almost with good playing.

Some of the other assemblies that look like the would be REALLY useful are a bit hard to get. I'd friggin love plasmatic shrapnel if it didn't need a nano pack. Hell, I'd love "bullet damage, 10mm style" shrapnel if I could get it.  I don't really care if it doesn't regen ammo. Not because bullet damage shrapnel would be super-powered, it'd just let me use my shotties a lot longer into the game with a lot more builds. Otherwise the combat/double/single shotty just becomes a spotlight for creature hunting/corner shooting. But right now its either AoTD "blasty", fireangel "dodger-iffic" or "hope-like-hell-you-find-a-nano-and-now-get-a-shotty-that-is-probably-too-good". It's an on/off choice for shotguns, and you have to WK build for the last option anyway. The same goes for chaingun assemblies. There's not too many cases where a modded plasma gun isn't better, more useful and more reliable. And ammo isn't THAT bigger problem for plasmas if you don't go all stupid with them and they don't need a WK/TH/SoB/Mac build to be useful (ala Assault rifle, Assault cannon).

I guess this post probably came off too much as a whinge. But I don't think assemblies should really be about power (compared to uniques/exotics or by themselves). I think they should be more about useablilty. My bulk modded BFG, agility modded plasma, tech/bulk RL/ML, modded armours and power/tech modded shotties already do it for me. They can take down cybie and often take down JC. I just want more options to use them with different builds. For all the weapons really. The tactical kits seem great, even the speedloader pistol is nice. The rest just kind of seem hopeless or overpowered. And very, very random in their usefulness to anything other than a WK build, when normal WK modding does the biz anyway.........
« Last Edit: March 24, 2011, 20:58 by Sambojin »
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