[Suggestion] Make Empire Specific Heavy Weapons Viable Options

What's up community.

In a bold attempt to direct people's attentions from "nerf threads" I am composing a buff thread specifically geared to empire specific heavy weaponry. Now I have played every faction and have used the specialty weapons exclusively and I must say I am a bit disappointed in all of them. What I hope to accomplish with this post is creative community and developer feedback on creating realistic ways to improve on the weapons that rarely see any action on the battle field because they are simply outclassed by lesser weaponry.

Keep in mind these weapons are suppose to be the absolute best each empire has to offer.

The Jackhammer:

First up we have New Conglomerate's Jackhammer. The poster child of this faction is suppose to be a serious damage dealing shot gun that supports a single shot and triple shot firing modes. While it's current damage and effective range in my opinion are just right. There are a single issue that make this weapon useless in regular combat.

Broken Issues:

• Magazine size: The Jackhammer's magazine size is in no way superior to any other available shotguns. In the original game the magazine size was 5 times the size it is currently which made the weapon something to be feared in close quarters combat. In current combat situations using the secondary fire mode is pointless since it would empty a magazine in 2 shots. This shouldn't happen.

Solution:

• Increase the magazine size of the jackhammer to 15 (minimum 9) and allow extended magazine to increase it's size to 30 (minimum 18). This way the triple shot firing mode becomes a viable option for infantry to utilize.

The Mini Chain Gun:

Next up we have the Terran Republic's mini chain gun or MCG. This weapon is suppose to overwhelm targets in a hail of bullets, however like the Jackhammer this weapon has a major issue which render's it almost completely useless in regular combat.

Broken Issues:

• Spin up animation: The spin up animation is so long that other conventional weaponry can easily dispatch the MCG's user before any shots are fired from this beast. This animation drastically increases TTK and acquisition time which is game breaking. In addition the spin up animation ruins the firing sounds the gun has. You can fire off approximately 3 shots and still hear the spin up animation sounds.

Solution:

• Remove the spin up animation: Taking away the spin up animation immediately makes the gun viable in regular and tactical game play.

The Lasher:

Finally we have Vanu Sovereignty's lasher. The weapon that excels at removing entrenched enemies and creating havoc on the battle field. In my opinion this is the only weapon that comes close to it's intended use but there is still an issue with the weapon I find lacking.

Broken Issue:

• Direct Impact Damage: Enemies taking direct hits should take increased damage from this weapon. Of course the damage should degrade at longer ranges but as it stands the direct damage and splash damage seem identical.

Solution:

• Increase direct hit damage, or possibly add in a secondary fire mode that removes splash damage and increases bullet damage.

These are my ideas to make all empire specific weapons more viable on the battle field. All of the weapons have great potential however they are being overlooked due to their game breaking draw backs. Sure you might see the occasional MCG, Lasher, or even a Jackhammer. Rest assured if someone is using those weapons it's because they are just messing around. Please be constructive in your posts, like if you approve of the proposed changes, and contribute.

Lasher does not deal increased damage on headshot. You can add it up to the bug list.
They ar all flawed, but TR and NC ones actualy kill people.
TTK on them at >50m (stationary target, 30% hit ratio)
TR - 1350ms
NC - 1500ms
VS - 4500ms (lower than ANY PISTOL) + Friendly fire lock + Self damage CQC. Come on.

balanced?

Don't you DARE take your TTK crap and try to argument the jackhammer is a good weapon. Seriously.

Empire-specific heavy weapons are supposed to be special weapons, not intended to be viable everywhere. My comments are based on this statement

Jackhammer
- Simple clip size increase could make it OP, so I suggest slightly lowering its damage to compensate.
- Second fire mode could be redone as this: 3 shots spread mostly in horizontal direction thus making it useful at dispatching cluttered enemies.

MCG
- Removing weapon spin-up could make it OP in close quarters. Anyway, developers could shorten it a bit.

Lasher
- Second fire mode could be useful. In addition bullet (?) speed should be increased at least in second fire mode.

They are ALL BAD. I know you hate yours too, but for **** sake, do you think HA weapon that need 5 seconds of CONSTANT HITTING the target isn't just plain ******* stupid? It's not about what is better or nor, i REALLY want yours to be buffed too.

But mate, mine had 350% worse TTK than yours. 3-5-0 % Got it?

And it's not that it's some "TTK bullsheit" - If you would shoot me with a pistol from 5 meters, and I would use the Lasher - not only you would kill me THREE TIMES bit I would help you with self damage splash. It's not "weak, underpowered or unbalanced". It's just freakin ridiculous.

Now, let's keep the discussion constructive, it started so well.

I'll add my opinions in the same Order:

Jackhammer:
It is already worse than any other shotgun, it hardly needs a balancing factor for potentially having an upside.
I'd be content with 12/18 Shots, with a correspondingly larger backup amount.
Then it's niche over other Shotguns, which have the advantage of being usable by everyone, would be endurance when sweeping a room.

MCG:
As far as I know, the weapon isn't actually that bad.
I'd like the keep the spinup, though it needs to shortened a bit; Instead, the weapon should be yet a bit more lethal when it actually fires, thus allowing a skilled user to tap-spin the weapon and be lethal in CQC and medium distance.

Lasher:
The Lasher deals 150 damage on a direct hit, and 75 damage AOE.
Flat.
I recommend giving it a damage curve like the flare, which deals 167 damage, but with a falloff to 125 at 125m, and keeping the AOE damage the same.
Of course, I would much prefer it to have an actual lash, preferably around a meter at 50 damage twice per second, and reducing it's impact splash to the size of the crater, which is very small.
Ultimately, the weapon suffers from it's user being dispatched so easy; it be a great weapon as is if I could grab one on a MAX. Or two.

Jackhammer:
Larger clip is something I've already been polling for in other topics, and I've been pushing for 30 as well. Making the Jackhammer into the "neverending shotgun" would go a long way in differentiating it from other shotguns and make the burst fire a little more useful.

MCG:
This gun is the most overpowered LMG in the game when it's firing, the bullet spread it fires is one of the tightest of any guns. More shots hitting means things die faster. The spinup keeps it from firing. It needs the spinup to stay balanced. You use it by prespining around corners and it's great for clearing out Point A when the enemy is camping there. What it needs to be more user friendly is just more attachments, like all the heavy weapons do. The LMGs can be attachment loaded up to make them much better than their default versions while the MCG's default is slightly stronger than they are, but lacks any compatible attachments to make it more of a beast.

Lasher:
It has a niche. It's an AOE weapon that's rather unique. The damage is lower, but that's true with a lot of AOE weapons, the splash is bonus damage and surpasses the DPS of regular guns when it actually hits more than one person. Haven't used it much so it's hard to say what it really needs, but some of the top players on the scoreboard are Lasher ****** and love it.

Just a reminder that heavy weapons should not be murder death kill rifles. This isn't PlanetSide 1 and we don't need them having half the TTK of other weapons. You're still one man with one gun, not a monster of slaughter. The heavy weapons need to be slightly better than normal guns in specific situations, mostly related to crowd-clearing. These changes are toward that effect. Every gun in the game is just a slight variant in damage and the tradeoffs these guns have should be to compensate for them being the best at what they do. MCG is a superior LMG that has a spinup to balance it, Jackhammer is a weaker shotgun with triple-shot mode that should have an endless magazine, and Lasher is the AOE bomb launcher. Having a heavy weapon squad in a Bio Lab versus a normal squad of LMGs should result in a win for the heavies. Just not by a landslide. We do not want these weapons REPLACING LMGs and shotguns.

I'd like to be able to cert them up more than their current meager options.

Ive only had experience with the TR MCG so here are my two cents.
Damage and spread etc at the moment seems fine. What makes it almost pointless to use is the spin up. The only way to compensate for this is to hold the trigger down before you walk round a corner. However, this means 99% of the time the MCG is obsolete and to say causes friendly fire issues is an understatement.
Possible fixes:
-Remove the spin up all together.
-Shorten the spin up and allow the gun to keep spinning when zooming aka like the Heavy in Team Fortress 2. This way it would still have the draw back of the spin up from the hip but the user could zoom in to mitigate this but in turn would become slower.
FF

I don't agree with you on the Jackhammer:

1) The single shot mode is useless because other shotguns have the same rate of fire, same or larger magazine and 27% more damage.
2) The burst fire mode has uncontrollable recoil and low applied damage. The burst fire Jackhammer is one of the least dangerous weapons in the game. Trial it if you don't believe me. The other shotguns kill faster, more reliably and with less ammo usage.

The weapons has more problems than merely low magazine size.

The weapon is also advertised a heavy shotgun, yet it does less damage than the other shotguns. First of all, the damage should be increased to 143x6 to bring the single shot mode in line with the other shotguns. The burst fire mode should have the same dps as the automatic shotguns. The recoil should be similar as well. The Jackhammer should fire the second and third shot sooner though while having to wait longer between the first and second burst. This gives it a niche as having slightly lower time to kill at ranges where only 2-3 hits are needed, while having slightly higher ttk at ranges where more are needed. Since burst fire mode is ammo inefficient, the magazine should be increased from 6 to 9.

Then it's at least not worse than other shotguns and has perhaps even it own niche where it is a little better. It's still going to be horrendously ammo inefficient but at least has good killing power.

I think the Lasher should actually lash out like its name suggests (and how it worked in PS1), i.e. if the projectile passes very close by to you but doesn't hit you, you take a certain amount of damage.

Only at distances where the character is almost touching the projectile; really close, but enough that near misses are still rewarded for a suppression weapon that currently only works against enemies near a wall or being shot from above.

I wouldn't have a clue about the MCG but I think the Jackhammer would be a bit more interesting and useful for larger groups if the projectiles pierced enemies and hit those behind them as well in a single shot.

While I see you concern with the Jackhammer and MCG. Unfortunately there issues currently make them usless right now. Taking away those restrictions will make those weapons viable. There is nothing devs can add to the weapons that would make them sort of useful.

None of the weapons are bad in ideal situations, but as of right now there draw backs are killing their true potential.

• Jackhammer NEEDs increased ammunition in the magazines
• MCG needs the spin up removed
• Laser needs a direct hit damage increase or alternate fire mode.

I like this idea as well. Allow the mcg to use softpoint or high velocity, let the jackhammer use slugs, laser dot,etc When it comes to the laser I'm really not sure what can be added attachment wise.

I have no problem controlling the burst effect on the jackhammer. If you don't try to control it the weapon will pull upward. It's damage in my opinion is fine, but now that you mention it the single fire mode is not automatic and it should be.

As it stands right now if someone with a piston shot gun met up with a jackhammer with the secondary fire mode selected. The jackhammer user is going to win, but it's lacking magazine size is killing it's usefulness. Again I do think the single fire mode should be automatic.

I'm not understanding why you would be afraid of these guns being a replacement to every other gun in the game. In their current state the weapons are mostly useless and need to be unrestricted so they can be used how they are meant to be. I see you are already on board with the magazine size increase for the jack hammer, If the mcg was as overpowered as you say then everyone would be using it. As for the lasher it has the same niche as the other heavy weapons. To dispatch groups of people and it doesn't do it's job correctly either.

Allow HA to equip heavy weapons in the tool slot the RL uses, boom the first step to these hyper situational weapons is done.

Actually thats not a bad idea either. Allow regular fire arms to be primary and ESW's (Empire Specific Weaponry) allowed to be carried in the third weapon slot. I like the possibility.

I call ********. I have no problem killing with semi auto and auto shotguns, but with the Jackhammer in burst mode I'm suddenly losing to almost everyone in CQC.

I really don't see how . The weapon is solid in it's secondary fire mode. I found it hard in it's single fire mode but thats cause it wasn't automatic fire.

The Jackhammer does 112x6 damage unlike the other shotguns which do 143x6. That's why the single fire mode sucks.

The burst mode has a refire time of 240 ms unlike the other shotguns which have 200ms. Plus only being able to fire in bursts of 3 is very ammo inefficient. That's why the burst fire mode sucks.

The Jackhammer in burst fire mode does 2800 dps, the auto shotguns do 4290 dps (50% more).

The Jackhammer will only kill in two body shots from very close range, after that it needs three. With three body shots its TTK is already similar to the better LMG and carbines under ideal conditions. It's quite common to need more than three shots though and that's with all the range limitation it has as shotgun. I wasn't kidding when I said it's one of the least dangerous weapons in the game.

That said, I'm was exaggerating about the recoil. It's not worse, just relatively bad considering the lower damage and fire speed.

PS: you can look up these numers yourself. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ZOSWNaanFqSUVxLWc&f=true&noheader=true&gid=23

Look under FireModes. Jackhammer primary fire mode has the ID 8036, secondary has the ID 8057.

The damage is listed under Fun Stuff (even though it doesn't specify that it's 112x6). I double checked with in game damage testing and its indeed 112x6.

I haven't used any of the other heavy weapons, so I'll just give my two cents on the Lasher. I find it to be a decent suppression weapon, but that's about it.

The magazine size is good.
The amount of splash damage is good, but the friendly fire and self damage from splash damage NEEDS to go.
What the lasher really needs is a direct hit damage boost. It has a slow rate of fire so missing even one shot will cause you to lose. It's almost impossible to land every shot with it.

MCG is the best weapon if you like getting team kills.

It's not their intended purpose to be head and heels over all other weapons. The MCG is currently just that, a superior LMG and by removing the spinup you'd create a weapon that everyone WOULD use because it'd be stupid to use anything else. The reason everyone isn't using it currently is precisely because it has a spinup time which balances its ridiculousness. The only people who use the MCG currently are the ones who understand its niche role and prefire it before entering a heavily guarded area. One of the ways the developers can eliminate the spinup time without overpowering the weapon is by allowing it to spinup independently of the actual bulletfire, similar to how a Heavy does it in Team Fortress 2. This would reduce the speed of the minigun carrier and alert enemies of his presence. Unchaining these weapons is most certainly not the goal as this is not PlanetSide 1 and they are no longer the one and only weapon Rexo-wearing heavy troopers should carry. LMGs are the primary weapon, the MCG is merely a stronger LMG with a spinup drawback which makes it good for situations when you are holding off waves of attackers or assaulting entrenched defenders. It is by no means a primary carry everywhere weapon, it's a portable hand turret with a faster firing rate and tighter bullet spread than the LMGs.

We want them to change heavy weapons, but we still want the game to be balanced after they do.