New spiker changes

I do use them, the problem with them are:

- Beamer's full RoF is not effectively exploitable to the fullest. realistically speaking you will fire at around ~400rpm, unless you've got some other way to do so (either macros -which is forbidden-, or mousewheel shooting. Never managed to implement the mousewheel shooting myself), or have a better trigger finger than the average person

- Beamer having higher theoretical dps (1255dps; 400rpm Beamer= 1113dps) It then becomes mostly an inferior gun to the Manticore (1170dps) (same effective range, similar gameplay)

While the Manticore or Beamer aren't bad it's mostly the same gun: a semi auto shooting at a mild speed exclusively with an ok TTK <10m. And Cerberus (1250dps) is in the same league, but restricted to 8m before the kill on a 1000 hp target requires an additional bullet, then falls off very fast (5 tiers drop to its minimum).

So basically we have the same pistol thrice with a damage tier variant each time.
The kind of gameplay those pistols cater to (accurate semi auto, slow RoF) is actually a bit farther than their theoretical 8~10m range before fall-off, somewhere between 10m and 20m. The NS pistols aren't too different in that aspect, except their higher alpha damage makes them more suitable to finish an opponent already damaged by your primary.

Since a lot of sidearm usage is also under that 8~10m limit, having a high dps CQC weapon can be very useful (Repeater: 1577dps, AMP: 1561dps, Desperado: 1392dps, Underboss: 1375dps) if you want to be effective within those bounds. The MagScatter fails at that with very low dps, but higher theoretical alpha damage (i won't dispute how bad it is though).
The Magshot is a Manticore with 15% additional velocity (not too important in the 10~20m range but still), The Rebel/Emperor have rather low dps, lower than the VS sidearms+Magshot semi-autos, but virtually built with SPA (fall-off at 15m only), which is in sync with the effective range for that kind of gun, and a better TTK on a non-nanoweave target in the 8~10m to 15 meters range.

The Inquisitor also has an unexploitable RoF, but its damage drops only by one tier, making it a rather unique weapon, which i would say is actually better employed at longer range (otherwise it's just a terribad Beamer). It's quite niche, but i guess it could be a good gun to have if you're wielding a shotgun, but want to take shots at longer range a little.

In essence it's not that they're bad (though the Beamer without tricks truly is), as much as we don't have a close range choice available for those "oh crap, no rounds left in clip" situations, whereas i'd qualify the VS pistols as more of "oh crap, no rounds left at all" guns. Thus our best close range weapons are the Commie/Underboss, one for the alpha damage, the other for raw dps.

This is not even the point.
We are not here to debate if the VS get an usable pistol yet.

We are debating how to make the Spiker an usable, yet unique pistol, worth its 1000 certs (or the equivalant station cash)

I see. Well, it is an important feature of the Spiker, I just don't know why I feel that.

As stated elsewhere it's almost impossible to use the Beamer to it's full potential without the use of a LMB script.

The Manticore is good... but look at the stats and it's basically an exact replica of the Mag-Shot except for 1000 certs.

Many people say that about the TS2 Inquisitor, it fires at 531 rpm and is incredibly difficult to eek out it's max damage potential but people still use it because it still has a killer potential, even with 143 damage.

Thank you for the detailed response. Now you've shed some light on the situation, and i can fully comprehend most the complaints about VS pistols. Honestly, i've never really had trouble with the beamer because i've had to deal with the difficulty of trying to squeeze DPS out of a sidearm with much higher RoF (Inquisitor), but i've managed to train myself to click fast enough to almost maximize the output, hence why i like the beamer/manticore over the NS sidearms.

It makes me feel ashamed that VS are trying to defend current spiker. There is no reason for a weapon to be OP. Even if we have all **** sidearms which we most certanly do.

One single OP gun in each category is the same as every other gun being good. Everyone will just use that one and neglect all other guns.

Does it mean you consider the current spiker as OP ?
Please explain.

I still feel that the current PTS Spiker needs to have a single explosive charge up shot. This would give it more utility and not allow people to call it useless. Those who do don't have to use it as the charge up mode is a completely separate selection all together.

They are on the right track with it.. It justs needs to have its explosive single shot charge up.

There is basically, IMHO, two kind of VS players talking about the Spiker.




1- The pro-burst weapon players

Those players feel actualy frustrated that TR/NC get nice, functional burst pistols giving good results in close range combat, and not the VS.
As the spiker was about to be released, those players, that only seen in it a "new" pistol, complained during the PTS tests that once again, we didn't get a functionnal burst pistol, which was the cause that the Spiker (if what people have been reporting in various threads is exact) to be changed from the PS1-like Spiker to something using burst instead of AoE.

However, the charge mechanic was kept, which make the pistol unsuited for what those players hoped for: the delay on each shot caused by the "fire on trigger release" aspect of the charge mechanic made it feels sluggish, and hard to aim on moving targets.

For those players, who are obsessed with this burst weapon issue, the charge mechanic itself is the problem: they don't give a damn about it, because they just want something that match what other empire's player have in that field, and thus, they argue about the charge mechanic to be removed each time, so it couldn't be used as an arguement by the TR/NC players to say that the weapon can't be also as efficient in the burst field while keeping this extra-feature.




2- The pro-unique weapon players

Those players think that what the VS need the most is an unique, VS-like pistol
They don't care a lot for lack the burst weapon problem, or at least, consider that the Spiker is not the weapon that should adress our lack of burst pistol.
They were fine with the thought that we would get a single-shot pistol with splash damage, and still are.

Those people were not expressing themselves a lot during the PTS tests of the current live version of the Spiker, and had been even surprised that the promised AoE shot disappeared suddently without much explanation. The explanation being: the first category of players whined so much that they pushed the dev to change their plan, without that second category to see it coming.

Some of them purchased the weapon immediatly, some of them even with real money (like myself) because strong or not, what counts for them is the weapon to be unique by itself.
They will strongly refuse the charge mechanic to be removed, and the weapon to become the burst-like-clone weapon that the first category hopes for, because it will just "kill" the weapon in their eyes.




3- The dev stance

The dev are caught between those two category of players. They have two issues, but only one pistol planned for release.
The logical thing would be to release two weapons, one burst, one PS1-like, to adress the two different issues, but you cannot give the VS one extra weapon... without the TR/NC players to start crying over 100 thread that the VS got one extra weapon compared to them, which would raise a lot of problems.

So they try, in my eyes to reach something else: merge the two needs into one weapon. Both burst-like, and unique.

This is difficult. And dangerous.
But far less that giving the VS two weapons, in many aspects.

However, the problem is here: if you make two modes, one for burst-lovers, one for uniqueness lovers, you will probably make the uniqueness lovers happy.... but probably not the burst-lovers.
Because the burst lovers once again, don't give a damn about the second mode. They want a burst weapon that performs on par with TR/NC weapons... has long they don't get that, they will complain, and if you give them that, TR/NC players will complain that VS get a weapon that both equal them in the burst field, but as also an extra-features





Conclusion:

Whatever the dev choose, they will be unhappy people:

- Simple burst weapon without charge => the people that want an unique pistol will whine (I surely will, because I will have wasted my SC)
- Simple mode AoE pistol, or Dual-mode weapon burst/charge with slightly weaker burst => the people that want a functional VS burst pistol will whine
- Dual-mode weapon burst/charge with burst equal to TR/NC => TR/NC players will whine

There is no "good" answer to this riddle. Someone will need to accept that the Spiker is not meant to make them happy.
"Who?" is the most important, yet displeasing, question that BBurness will have to answer (and I hope he will say us clearly what is this answer, so we stop uselessly arguing)

My opinion is: The Spiker was not meant to be a burst pistol at first. I should not have even tried. So "who" should be the VS burst-weapon-hoping players...
But I know that those players are not going to let me say that without reacting...

The only real solution is to look at all the VS pistols and make the Spiker the "unique" one with the charge up mode etc and make one of the others have the burst fire mode.

That is a hole they dug themselves when they chose to screw over the VS in the first 3 available sidearms.

I thought about it, too, but this is not as trivial as it seems to be, IMHO.
Which weapon? Will the players that currently use it will agree? Does the dev has enough allocated time to fix two weapons instead of one?

Let's stay constructive, shouldn't we?

Fixed that for you.

Not sure why people keep saying the VS want a Desperado clone when there is a far better burst pistol in game. I'd even compromise for something between the Desperado and the Repeater.

If the Devs were to rework one of the other pistols and make it the burst fire one, hint look for the least used, its either the manticore or the cereberus.

Our "burst" side arm should have been the Cerberus since it's according to mythology it's a three headed dog instead of the POS high damage (but only at extremely close range) thing we got.

Then the Spiker could have been a charge up Lasher pistol with a Beamer like alt fire mode.

Instead due to the devs incompetence with designing the Cerberus the Spiker now needs to function as both our burst pistol and our gimmick pistol which means neither will be worth a damn because if they were it would make the weapon OP in the eyes of the TR/NC.

What is the point in a burst pistol anyways?
Lot's of people want it, but why?
Are they tired of clicking too much, something I can definitely relate to?
Do they just want on-par dps in CQC? Do they hope that more shots increases their odds at hitting in CQC?
I don't know, but I'm rather sure that for the vast majority of them, it's mostly only one of the above, maybe two.

I agree with ATRA Wampa On. The Cerebus is really just a slightly modified Manicore, and past 10 m is worse. The extra 50 damage upclose is nice, IF you are within 10 m, but you give up all the rest of it verses the manicore, like the rate of fire and accuracy. So its a slightly modified alternative, yet, costs 1000 certs. Having the Cerebus with a burst 2 shot or a burst 3 shot would have been nice, and then the Spiker, another 1000 cert pistol should have been something like a Lasher type weapon, but with higher rate of fire, low damage and made for short range combat for Kill effectiveness, ie it has longer range shots but the damage is low, thus its effective kill is 10m and would do something like the Lasher but with less per shot damage. Or here's an idea.

How about a spiker that does 6 shots, but it goes in a cone, like a shotgun, then you can have a Lasersight on it to tighten the cone (not an advanced one). It would then have damage that if your in 10m, probably two squeezes of the trigger could kill. So it is sort of like a shotgun, and yet, the shots fire off like they do in Charge up Mode. OR you can have that Charge Up mode, yet lower the Rate of fire and do not require it to charge up. You simply pull the trigger, but keep in mind it would have an even slower rate of fire so it is not bam bam your dead, by slow rate of fire I mean it is more like the Cerebus maybe slightly slower.

Dev's make changes and put on the test server, then take a Poll and let us vote. It might help solve it.

The PS1 spiker was an AoE, single-shot pistol with charge.
It seems fine if it gets like that in PS2, no need to invent a new "type" when we didn't already got that one live on the second opus.

Having a burst pistol is the most likely way to provide a high dps (and thus CQC-optimal) gun, which VS doesn't have any of at the moment. As such, you are right in your assumption about wanting a CQC gun that would be competitive to NC/TR in that department, though arguably TR is still a good notch over even NC there, and even the Spiker won't change everything there.

You can't have a too high dps on a single shot because of alpha damage issues (especially if you don't want stalker infs abusing it), so the best thing to do is to go for more smaller damage/shot +high rof. Since high RoF is physically unexploitable, it caters you to burst weapons. Though arguably the AMP seems to have broken that barrier, at the cost of crippling clipsize.
In theoretical dps Repeater/AMP are actually better than 652/143 or 550/167 damage models. Desperado is way lower though (comparable to a BR).

As ATRA_Wampa_One said, the Cerberus is a blight in the VS arsenal, not because it is that bad, but 1.because of its lack of role difference, 2. because it should've been a CQC gun considering its min damage range and considerable tier drop (5 tiers over 50m!!? Repeater/AMP/Desperado drop 4 tiers!), while it lacks any CQC feature. Even with a more competitive Spiker, that doesn't seem subject to change.