Update Discussion Thread (August 2018)

[Gnorse]

Imho, the shotgun is in a good place atm. (or was).
It's a high risk high reward weapon. If you take away the reward part, then what's the point ?

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

Crushers are currently really squishy. They can stop the tank, but that doesn't stop the damage from the tank and the marines with it.

I've been using shotguns since the sulaco, the wielding delay was a crutch people had, and it was rightfully removed.

Buckshot damage was actually buffed via bug fix if I recall.


You can spit out marines randomly now, it's RNG. May be worth reading changelog on that one.

I watched a team of 4 pretty competent MPs try chase someone without armour in the hanger, it would of been comical if it wasn't so common. As stated, previously, it's an issue with the dual shotgun no armour meme.

Arguments regarding "counter them with this" personally doesn't hold ground in my humble opinion, its like when the Queen was broken OP with charging and xenos would tell marines to build barricades during the fight to counter it.

Counter play is an important factor and I like people adapt g to the enemy, but following the thought train that snipers should be the only counter to say, boilers is silly. I want a good player to have more impact on the game while still pushing the team driven narrative.

Currently using my phone so formatting is a bit shit.

-> What damage does the tank have against a blocking Crusher really ? A flamer that, as I said, barely does enough damage to threaten the Crusher ? The LTB that, when fired in melee range, will kill the tank dead to rights ? A minigun that's so shit that you're basically wasting your TC roll if you pick it ?. If Crushers are blocking the tank while marines are still around, then that's their fault. I'm just saying that Crusher is not so "shunned" when you have Prae in its shitty state with 2 tile acid spit and unreliable acid spray still there.
-> That's the PB being fixed, firing 3 shots instead of only one. Buckshot damage (not counting PB) has always been like this, and it even got nerfed already.
-> The RNG in devouring is only after one minute, so it's not that bad of an RNG when you can control and predict it rather than being surprised by it.
-> Again, this is when the marine has already got their armor off before the MPs even got in Tazer range, and the speed boost to MP armor won't make a difference vs unarmored human speed.

Let's see how much risk the queen's charge screech wombo combo has (with queen's stun immunity and fire+explosive heavy resistance) :
- Marines fruitlessly chasing after her charge, never reaching her unless she's cornered.
- Screech has a cooldown (so she can't spam her wombo combo all the time, thank god), and Charge takes a decent amount of plasma while not on weed (that she can put down herself), I guess.
- The queen fucks up her screech (aka player issue) and get chased down, once again fruitlessly since she can just charge away for free.

Now let's see how much risk the so called "shotgun meta" with PB and dual wielding shotgun has :
- High acid splatter damage, which has already been buffed recently to counter the exact same thing. So you're talking 1 or 2 PBs before you're in pain crit.
- If the marine is not wearing any armor, any slashes you get on him will chunk him so much that he'll be slower than when he's armored soon anyway.
- Neuro. If you're tired of me repeating that, xeno still has warrior lunge, lurker's pounce, rav's charge, runner's pounce, queen's screech, acid spray to make you quit your dual wielding really quickly. If you're picking your guns up, you're subjected to wielding delay, because that's just been upped for shotgun in account for Angled Grip (instead of removing AGrip from shotgun's list of attachments, but sure). If you have a Mag Harness on one of the gun as backup, you're now subjected to wielding and firing delay, so have fun reacting to anything possible.
- If the xeno are even slightly annoyed by your dual wielding antics, expect to get dragged 5 tiles away the moment you're stunned and never see your shotguns again.

[Simo94]

not sure about buckshot damage reduction, but the slug reduction should definitely be reverted, slugs never did that much damage, ppl use them for the stun, the only situation where slug damage becomes a problem is if we are using MK221 tactical shotgun, in which case that shotgun is the problem, not the slugs. And to be honest I dont think slugs stun was a problem either, its buckshot that was causing shotgun meta.

[Herac]

I don't think it would really be fair to lower the damage of slugs and PB, though I do have issues with the shotgun meta. Especially marines dual wielding shotguns running around in no armour.

Personally, I'd like to see scalding buffed up a bit, maybe scale with damage delt so PB'ing a xeno with more powerful weapons does more acid scalding damage to you, especially if the damage could hit multiple body parts (spreading the damage out) but always landed a bit on the chest/head to punish marines for not wearing armour/helmet.

I do want to keep PB buck as a high risk high reward strat, the risk just isn't high enough right now for my liking.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

not sure about buckshot damage reduction, but the slug reduction should definitely be reverted, slugs never did that much damage, ppl use them for the stun, the only situation where slug damage becomes a problem is if we are using MK221 tactical shotgun, in which case that shotgun is the problem, not the slugs. And to be honest I dont think slugs stun was a problem either, its buckshot that was causing shotgun meta.

The whole "shotgun meta" started with Slug being the only counter to pre-nerfed and post-nerfed Warriors and Defenders (while those were still being spammed), along side Buckshot (after having its PB fixed) being the only thing that was dealing enough damage so that they can't just back up and heal to full again.

[Simo94]

The whole "shotgun meta" started with Slug being the only counter to pre-nerfed and post-nerfed Warriors and Defenders (while those were still being spammed), along side Buckshot (after having its PB fixed) being the only thing that was dealing enough damage so that they can't just back up and heal to full again.

and way before that, no one used slugs and everyone agreed on considering them utter trash, then devs buffed slugs stun time and range. their appeal is the stun, not the damage.

[Casany]

>Ree marines are taking a ton of risk and it's paying off because I'm bad at the game

Literally what I'm hearing about this "shotgun meta".

As much as I hate that phrase, just get good. One slash can take a marine who's unarmed down to orange and potentially break a bone, two will get them into paincrit. Xenos also have a lot of stuns and special abilities to counter rambo marines, use some of those. This meta is one of the few that can be countered via SKILL. But, sadly I doubt that anyone cares and it's just gonna be nerfed into the ground to the point of uselessness like so many other skill based meta's. Because skill doesn't matter anymore, and has never really mattered.

[digitalattack]

Sentry change from patch notes sounds good, No idea if it actually is yet to try it.
I don't really agree with slug damage being reduced, it's damage output never was anything remarkable in the first place even if you happened to dual wield with slugs(Which I happened to do a lot >.>)
Honestly I think the best way to deal with the buckshot shotgun meta is to reduce the effect of PBing with a shotgun, or a all round increase to Xeno armour to make buck less effective but increase natural armour pen on other weapons.(If it even works like that.)

[Gnorse]

unarmored shotgun marines are the exact definition of glass cannon. (also known as ravagers)
literally use your caste's special ability to stun the fuckers or, get this, try not to engage them in CQC.

[Karmac]

It sounds like it isn't shotguns that need a nerf, it's dual wielding that's the problem

Additionally remove the armor speed debuff for MPs or allow them to take armor off to chase marines, I've escaped far too many arrests by not wearing armor it's not even funny

[immaspaceninja]

Sentry gun still hits things behind corners, so their use is still pretty much the same - being a proximity alarm

[spookydonut]

Stripping armor now displays a message when they start doing it.

[Karmac]

Stripping armor now displays a message when they start doing it.

I sincerely doubt the problem was MP's weren't noticing marines stripping their armour off. I'd at least like to hope so.

[Surrealistik]

People who know what the fuck they're doing take shotguns because they can actually kill due to their spike damage output; the only way an M41A can even begin to compete with its lethality is if it's made into an effective shotgun via BFA + AP (AP because it can't ignore armour via PB due to its PB only shooting one bullet for some stupid reason), and even that is prohibitive now because it leaves you at the mercy of shitty wield delays without the Angled Grip. However, that's not to say Shotguns should have gotten worse so much as that the shitty M41A needed to get better; period. This is Sentry vs M56D balancing all over again where they needlessly nerf what should be the baseline (Sentry) instead of buffing the obviously underperforming option (M56D).

Even now rifles are still pathetic, pattycakes peashooters that can't really finish the job short of a xeno misplay or truly massed fire between several shooters. Revert the shotgun nerfs and make Rifles better; this isn't hard.


Meanwhile Angled Grips are basically now obligatory due to the cancerous anti-fun/anti-QoL wield delays that have been added for basically no good reason.

and way before that, no one used slugs and everyone agreed on considering them utter trash, then devs buffed slugs stun time and range. their appeal is the stun, not the damage.

Doesn't mean their already anemic damage should have been nerfed. Also, even after the buff to the stun range, they were still situational; it just so happened that Defender + Warrior meta played to their niche perfectly.

[misto]

if you need to introduce specific new nerfs to counteract angle gripps maybe just remove or rework angle grip instead

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

When QF was a problem on M41A, they didn't lower its fire rate in account for QF, they just removed the QF from M41A's list of available attachments. I don't know why they didn't do the same, instead of giving us even more shitty delays.

This is just like if they lower M41A's accuracy in account for RDS and EB; or lower its damage in account for BC. It really doesn't make much sense in my brain, and this method of adding delays just makes the weapon unfun to use. They wanted to make ambushes more detrimental, when ambushes already were, and if you're caught 1v1, you're probably dead even before that patch. Like if the xeno get you in a 1v1 situation and can't manage to kill/capture you, they should be punished, rather than you.

Now, if you're even spitted/tackled down, you're just dead to rights, since it takes such a long time for you to wield (because one handed fire is absolute shit and will kill you by recoil before you can kill anything) and shoot. The moment they up the tackle chance up for xeno a tiny bit to make up for the overdone tackle nerf, the delays will feel really really really bad.

[Simo94]

Doesn't mean their already anemic damage should have been nerfed. Also, even after the buff to the stun range, they were still situational; it just so happened that Defender + Warrior meta played to their niche perfectly.

I know lol, we are arguing for the same thing, read my reply before that.

[Sulaboy]

August 9 2018
Spookydonut updated:
Added some enhancements to Predators, be more wary of attacking them and stealing from their dead.

[Grubstank]

Yeah, crushers are hilariously weak now, compared to the other T3s. I think they ought to be buffed out a little bit with an active tank ability that drains from their plasma pool. Plasma means pretty much nothing to a crusher at the moment, so giving it a pool to manage would help out its gameplay by making it depend on the hive castes for high-intensity combat. An active-tank version of the crusher would restore some measure of its old glory (ie, able to survive a single charge at the barricades) while still making it tactically limited.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

If there really wasnt a alternative to decreasing shotgun damage, (which there really should be heaps of other options) it should have been only very slightly decreased.Yet im hearing reports by shotgun players they are pretty sure the damage have been basically halved.Thats probably not a good thing if true, considering we still only have three current standard available guns to marines.As long as thats the case, i dont think no weapons should be decreased to the point that players arent willing to use it anymore, not good.We will have to wait and see if thats the outcome from the shotgun decrease, maybe players will continue to use them anyhow and basically be a player wielding a pre-update M39, rendered useless.

[Xperia15]

The shotgun damage nerf is a good balance for the massive decrease in reload time.
Rifles should be the main weapon of the Marine force, not shotguns. Buff rifles slightly maybe for compensation.

[Casany]

The shotgun damage nerf is a good balance for the massive decrease in reload time.
Rifles should be the main weapon of the Marine force, not shotguns. Buff rifles slightly maybe for compensation.

I don’t get it. Instead of making the pulse rifle better they have to make the shotgun worse. Much worse if I can say.

Yeah sure a SMALL nerf to damage and a buff to rifles damage would have been great. Instead we were given effectively a HALVED damage weapon with the pulse rifle having nothing done to it in return. How about instead of forcing people to take an underpowered weapon which is just objectively worse, make it better so it incentivizes people to pick it.

[spookydonut]

I only decreased shotgun damage by one step, i'll have to see if it really decreased it that much.

[Xperia15]

Wel they did improve the accuracy of the pulse rifle.

Shotguns were way too OP. I remember a round on prison station not too recently where I was an elite queen and Marines were attacking the hive at civilian. I deovid of course and moved to help defend the hive. I approached the attacking marines, screeched, and tried to tactically retreat.
It failed miserably because a Marine with no armor who was double wielding shotguns with buckshot and some attachments removed 75% of my health with 2 shots. I died a few seconds after.

[Karmac]

rifles dont feel any different tbh

i still see em miss half the time and they dont feel like they hurt t2s or t3s at all