Says the Chez: GU07 Weapon Tuning

Since our very own Joshua Sanchez (Mr. Lead Combat Designer if you want to get formal) is busy trying to make GU07 a thing that will happen, I am taking the liberty to post of his intentions for Battle Rifles and Scout Rifles along with what I assume is some BRAND NEW info about VS, grenade, and MAX tuning changes.

Says The Chez:

• All VS weapons
  • The extra damage scaling at range will be removed from all VS weapons. Post patch, the VS damage scaling will match the damage scaling of the other two factions.
• Battle Rifles
  • All battle rifles will be getting recoil adjustments, which will allow them to place multiple shots on the same target at a much faster rate.
  • In addition, muzzle velocity and/or damage scaling will get slight adjustments so that they’re more capable at range.
• Scout Rifles
  • They goal with these is to give the infiltrator a viable medium range weapon, so they will get a large tuning pass that makes them better fit that role.
• MAX weapons
  • A few of the underperforming TR and VS anti-infantry weapons will be getting minor adjustments to bring them up to par.
  • All faction anti-vehicle weapons will be getting a large buff. These weapons will be getting the largest adjustment in the patch, with magazine sizes, rate of fire, and more stats all improved.
• Grenades
  • The grenade trajectory is changing so that it is thrown directly at your aim point, instead of being angled slightly from your hand like it is currently on live.

Now we can all mentally prepare for GU07 and this brave new Auraxis - one where rifles will shoot things with greater aplomb, grenades will go where your eye tells you they should, MAX weapons frighten vehicles, and where The Light of Vanu's Wisdom shines down on damage scaling for his followers. Rage and rejoice, O’ community!

Is it the weekend yet? It is? Awesome. Have fun everyone.

Everything sounds fantastic. As an owner of the scout rifles, I am excited for them to be brought up to par. Also gonna wait for the battle rifles, to see if they are worth it. I love semi-auto weapons.

Although you said you are going to look at rebalancing the other AI MAX weapons for TR and VS, I think you need to look into the other NC AI weapons, because they are never used either. Maybe one should be for longer encounters, right now duel burster's works better at range then slugs.

I approve.

Especially of the scout rifle buff:
They are one of two things that caught my eye when I innitially joined.

I looked forward to being the "Assault/scout rifle support guy..."

Now I can actually be that guy.

Lies

So what is going to balance the lack of drop on VS weapons now? Not that it is a huge problem in the first place.

Hope those anti vehicle stuff for the max's helps balance the game

Good to hear. I hope that this at least means that Onslaughts will have finally have better DPS than Mercies. Currently mercies outperform the other TR MAX AI weapons in every regard except magazine size, which isn't a very good thing for balance's sake.

Sounds good...<stifles laughter>

GU07 goes live...people are like "WOW, Battle Rifles and Scout Rifles and TR/VS MAX weapons are good now!"

People buy said weapons.

2 weeks go by.

NERF!!! BAM LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

No receipt.

Most excellent, battle rifles should serve an important role on the battlefield now.

WHAT???? Instead of doing that crap, give NC MAX a viable mid-range AI weapon finally. Buffing the other MAX instead is not a good solution. NC MAX only has shotguns for AI, which you nerfed, and you BUFF the others instead? Really?

What about constant crashes and general low performance on decent computers ?

Decent AV MAX weapons?

Your tears will fuel my MAX suit well...

Still waiting on the "new " shotguns to be tuned

Well the VS needed a weapons buff like LA needed louder jet pack. Seriously, after a string of solid decision making ... did they pump some vaporized LSD through the vents at SOE?

Ummmm. the way this is worded.. "extra" sounds "good", like the VS can expect
a nerf. 'Damage Falloff" probably would have been better phraseology to use there.

Unless i'm the only person who didn't know that VS weapons get some sort of extra
damage bonus at range and that's about to get kneecapped. In that case: noooooooo!

So good.. my sweet baby Ursa is about to get meaner.

So the VS loses its empire specific weakness? Great, I'm looking forward to getting sniped by LAs now. At least I don't have to worry anymore about not getting too close to the ROF monsters, they can just shoot me from a distance now.

Well, the AV MAX gets a buff, so I guess we can call it even. It's nice to see that SOE tries to help the declining US VS population, but it would be nice to recognize that the EU TR and NC are bleeding out since the beginning.

• All VS weapons
  • The extra damage scaling at range will be removed from all VS weapons. Post patch, the VS damage scaling will match the damage scaling of the other two factions.
  • Just give them back their old OP Magrider FFS and all the 4th Faction VS will return to Vanu's embrace. Not keen on this at all - Vanu weapons are accurate at range as it is, and this is a buff for ALL classes
• Battle Rifles
  • All battle rifles will be getting recoil adjustments, which will allow them to place multiple shots on the same target at a much faster rate.
  • In addition, muzzle velocity and/or damage scaling will get slight adjustments so that they’re more capable at range.
  • Battle rifles that are actually capable at range? OP OP Nerf Nerf
• Scout Rifles
  • They goal with these is to give the infiltrator a viable medium range weapon, so they will get a large tuning pass that makes them better fit that role.
  • Viable? Scout rifles? What is this madness!
• MAX weapons
  • A few of the underperforming TR and VS anti-infantry weapons will be getting minor adjustments to bring them up to par.
• Blueshift? Anyone?
  • All faction anti-vehicle weapons will be getting a large buff. These weapons will be getting the largest adjustment in the patch, with magazine sizes, rate of fire, and more stats all improved.
  • Maybe this should have happened before the triple scatmax nerf - but good news regardless.

• Grenades
  • The grenade trajectory is changing so that it is thrown directly at your aim point, instead of being angled slightly from your hand like it is currently on live.
  • Makes sense. Now for the Prowler main guns....

It's refreshing to see something being done about unpopular weapons. One of the biggest problems with a lot of the "non-used" weapons ie: battle rifles, scout rifles, everything but [mercies cosmos, hacksaw/scatcannons or the "best" weapons for MAXes] etc. is that they simply don't compare to better alternatives. For example, larger clip sizes in mutilators for the purpose of suppression really don't matter because mercies would do a better job at suppressing (and killing). Then certain weapons become the "clear choice" for players to pick and you end up with everyone using only that weapon out of all available options (this is further drawn out by the fact that the MAX weapons all look the same, so there's not really an element of variety (distinction) or a reason for players to look at the others).

On another note, I'm not 100% sure about the VS damage dropoff being normalized because it felt more like people flocked to either TR/NC due to faction loyalty or outfits, or because they liked the feel of the "more normal" factions better, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Aw... burst fire rifle need love too. Don't leave burst fire rifle alone.