Higby Asks: if there is a hole in a weapon lineup, better to modify an existing weapon, changing it

Discuss.

Personally I think that there are too many very similar weapons in each factions arsenal that really just wastes space. Like EM6 and Anchor. You could easily give either one the other's attachments and it'd do that job easily too.

That would be better than balance changes completely removing any role the weapon had like they did with the Jaguar.

Modify existing weapons. When it comes down to it, there are three automatic weapon types, close, medium, long, and currently something like 5 or 6 autos per class. There is more than enough content there to reach the desired end. Adding a whole new weapon to fill the role that the existing weapon is failing to fill is not a very noble way to fix the problem.

I think this picture will help bring relevance to this discussion. TR and VS LMG's have considerable overlap and could stand being switched into different damage tiers. (Credit goes to Blood Eagle)

Ignoring what is "noble" they should plan on getting new players and getting them to want weapons rather than making a new sniper rifle for the 10 people who have already auraxiumed every other other sniper rifle. I mean, that makes financial sense to me.

Honestly, if we're just looking at damage tiers. NC isn't much better off than TR or VS. When we look even closer the only difference between NC's 167 weapons is either a bit of velocity and/or 1-2 attachments(you could easily condense EM6 and anchor or Gauss Saw S and GD22S into one weapon). Which is likely the same problem TR and VS have with their umpteenth hundred 143 damage tier weapons. We either need some new damage tiers or wildly different mechanics to make some of these different. It feels like we're getting fairly close to sniper rifles in power-creep-land.

Yes, missing old Saron.

it depends on what the weapon is.

with the LMG's yes, we can break those apart into specific roles.

for other cases, it might be good to make a new weapon.
for example, many VS infiltrators would like some sort of phaseshift with access to low power optics.
a new weapon would be fine there (since i doubt we will ever see a 4x scope on the phase shift. that's all it really needs)

in general though it seems like there a large amount of overlap in what the guns are available to do any given job, especially in the non infiltrator classes. (infiltrators, on the other hand have the exact opposite problem)

it would probably be worth while to rework many of those overlapped weapons to help differentiate factions.

make the hole bigger refining the current weapons to be more unique and then add 2 new unique weapons refining includes weapon models

thats what i tweeeted to higby

I've been asking for a 155 damage tier weapon for a while now. It would at least be a bit refreshing.






Full Explanation: http://imgur.com/a/EblSc
Reddit (224 Upvotes): http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1na6fz/155_damage_tier_weapon_idea_pics/

Modifying in design questions.
In question of balance, you must fix the existing weapons and then add new ones.

I have to agree that when you look at the current arsinals of the Factions there are plenty of weapons that really dont have much Use or are too close a copy of other weapons.

There are a few regions that could be an exception though if you were to look at some rolls, like Suppression, the VS have the only Infantry weapon that fills that roll so I could see there being a new weapon introduced for the other factions to give them something with that roll.

Really think overall though the vast majority of Holes can be filled with some of the existing weapons that cover a Well covered area to begin with.

Doesn't matter to me as long as we get better variety.

I think there're plenty of fairly worthless weapons already though that could be tweaked.

I'd also rather see unique and better looking models on existing guns than new ones. VS has a hideous carbine model shared across basically all their carbines and their LMG situation isn't much better.

Also while they're doing some work on weapon balance they should look at scopes. There's no reason for a gun not to have a 2x, there's no reason for only NC to get the simple crosshair 3.4x, and there's no reason for the iron sights to be so impractical and the reflex sights to go off the center of our screen while moving.

If the weapons are too similar, sure, it'd be better to modify the existing ones. I don't think the world really needs the Basilisk, the Kobalt, the Walker and the Ranger.

If they do modify them, though, they should have some kind of refund scheme in place, so when your Walker gets turned into a cupcake launcher you can get something else instead if you want.

What? Your definition of similar is terrible. If we went with that premise, there would only be like 4 guns in the game.

I think a lot of players would agree that differentiating the guns' appearances and sounds would be a priority. Modifying a weapon's role/capabilities seems like it would interfere with the game's state in a way (e.g.: people who have bought/aurax'd, or are in the process of aurax'ing a weapon), so the best route would probably be to churn out more content.

Although, the least popular guns are probably the ones that can be modified (e.g.: marauder, canister, etc.)


Out of the classes, I find that the HA weapons lineup doesn't make the HA feel much like a HA (the HA lineup feels like there's a hole). It's as if there's something missing, like a midway between kobalt/basilisk and LMGs. Something like an actual machinegun. The current specialized HA weapons do not feel like they are significantly stronger than normal guns.

More specialized HA weapons would be interesting—especially those that fill in niches that normal infantry weapons can't (I find the lasher to be one of the very few weapons that most easily satisfies the role of a suppression weapon with its AOE).

I don't quite understand why there isn't a class of specialized weapons that take up (remove use of) either the tertiary slot (ie: rocket launcher) or both tertiary and sidearm slots (if coupled with some kind of buff to the HA specialized weapons, they could change the class to have a "heavier" image closer to a MAX instead of just the class known to carry a rocket launcher, a shield, and an LMG 24/7 (also by removing the use of the rocket launcher or so, it may make the HA slightly more vulnerable against vehicles/MAXes/air, etc., depending on how the weapons are specialized))


(I could say the same for the engineer's lack of gadgets or so, but that's for another time)

Hard to say. Weapons may be similar but can offer a very different feel. Like I have the AC-X11 and the Razor. They both kind of have the same niche but both feel different enough (Damage vs Velocity) that I use them both. I'd be bummed to lose one but if the absolutely need it to be that way it is what it is. But there will always be the rabble rousers in this case that will rage on the forums, spam CS with refund demands and so forth if the weapons role is completely changed.


Personally, I think new weapons would be the way to go. Especially if each faction has different holes in their arsenal, it could be filled with new ES weaponry.

It really depends.

If you have a gun that's not being used, or being used by such a small population while its stats prety much show that it's a crappy weapon, then it needs to be modified to make it more viable.

I'd like more variety in weapons for sure, but fewer NS weapons. Generally, I think the NS weapons should be weaker than most faction based weapons, but they tend to perform better than or at least comparable to most. possible exception to Launchers.

My biggest problem in releasing new guns isn't going to help unless they're drastically different. We don't need 30 LMGs or 30 SMGs or many carbines or BRs or sniper rifles. There's no point in having pretty much the same gun with 50 less rpm or 10 more damage. What needs to happen is there needs to be a noticeable difference between two guns of the same category, not in just control, but if you're using a slower, more powerful firing LMG that's highly accurate for long distance firing, it should not always win out in CQC battle with a similar LMG that fires faster, but is less accurate and does less damage, if both are fired at the exact same time and hit equal amounts.

As it stands, the guns are separated out by gun for different situation use, i.e., SMGs for close, LMGs for medium, carbines for long, snipers for extreme distance. You need more diversity for the situation in each group of guns to encourage people to use more than just the SAW or just the PDW for all cases.

Some weapons in this game need a flat out change (Striker). Other weapons need an adjustment so they can actually do their advertised role (TRV). Sometimes new weapons should be added (the crossbow is nice) and some should not have been added (the silenced version of the PDW)

Using existing weapons to fill the gaps is better because it gives you a quicker turn around to implementation and makes better use of assets already in the game.

Be ready to refund certs because people will be upset if their favorite gun no longer does the job it did before.