Darkstar and Goose

[/quote]


OK, now I have to ask a few questions.

Firstly, to me it seems obvious that if two weapons have identical stats they will perform the same. How is it then that anyone at all from any faction can hold that the Betel is better than any other weapon with the same stats?

The Betel used to be the Orion with a heat mechanic. That didn't make it better in practice than many guns in TR or NC which were either faster or harder hitting. To me it's obvious that people were using the Betel because the heat mechanic made it satisfying for an experienced player, particularly with good trigger discipline because the smaller effective magazine size made this necessary. How was that not the case?

The next question I have is that now the Betel in its hobbled form has been in use for a little while, how are people finding the roughly 40 magazine size? I personally find I can still use the Betel, since I don't have any problem with that sort of magazine size. However, I find the Eclipse almost a problem, and the Skorpios (20 shots and exactly 1.6s before overheat) is a joke. In the sort of altercations I have with SMGs, they are so close range that trigger discipline goes out the window. I might try to work on that a little more, but for the moment, my Skorpios locks up and the other guy keeps firing, and I'm dead. Trigger discipline won't fix that.

20 shots on an SMG is ridiculous. I used to run the Eridani with extended mag for 35 shots or the Sirius with 50. I could run the Eridani with only 25 shot mag, and that worked, so the Skorpios is not far off being useful. My guess is the devs just applied the same logic to the Skorpios as they did to the Betel, which gave the Skorpios 20 shots to the Betel's 40. That's like chalk and cheese. They are practically the same ROF, so you can fire a Betel for twice as long, 3.2s, before overheat. In extreme CQC, the Betel will easily deal with the same opponent where a Skorpios will just lock up and I'm dead.

In my opinion, all VS directive rewards should have the heat mechanic, and I've believed that all along, but the trade off they've given the Skorpios is just ridiculous. Treating it the same way as the heat mechanic LMG is just not thinking.

So, what do you think about the 'new' Betel? Is it actually that badly nerfed? 40 shots for me is still reasonable, small for an LMG but reasonable.

I have to remind myself as a general point that this discussion is dominated by PS2 players on PC where apparently there is a belief that VS is OP and to an extent this is attributed to the Betel. But it's well known within VS that the Orion is actually just as good as the Betel in most situations, and in fact better, at least before the Arsenal update, because of its better options, attachments, etc. It STILL is when you consider that you can put a suppressor on an Orion, where you can't on a Betel. Maybe most people don't use a suppressor on an Orion, but it's there, and I have successfully used it (deals quite well somehow with recoil - go figure).

On PS4/5, VS is the underdog. Noone there believes the Betel is better in any way than something like a Godsaw, for instance. The Orion is just as effective, and perhaps even more so after this Betel nerf. I continue to try to use all of my directive reward weapons - the Betelgeuse, Eclipse and Skorpios - to varying success. I don't feel the need to aurax any LMG, carbine or SMG now, so these are pretty much the only weapons I use normally (except for range issues). The Eclipse isn't that good at really tight CQC, so I would normally switch to the Skorpios for that (ASP2 BR100), but this nerf means the current Skorpios is almost unusable in this scenario.

Why this focus on one gun anyway? It's clear to me that NC with their Gauss/God saw has a much more powerful gun and they are VERY effective with it on PS4/5. I could have the same discussion about those guns being OP, but we just accept that VS are the underdogs and NC and/or TR will always wipe the floor with us when we aren't zerging (which is most of the time).

Your logic is sound. I've been following this entire conversation, and there is no doubt in my mind that from a set theory perspective, you are correct.

This conversation is pointless because Demigan is not using correct logic and refuses to see your points. It should also be noted that you refuse to see Demigan's points, but for me that's because they're not logical, sorry to say, Demigan.

This is quite literally just conveniently ignoring the truth and wrong. You note the COF stats to be identical, the literal aim stats are based on the recoil patterns when ADS. and these patterns differ.
Also Damage model is immensely important since it changes the amount of bursts, ROF, punishment for misses and how you use the weapon overall.

You misunderstand KPU.
The unique refers to a unique player, not a unique weapon pull. If you pull 10 MBT's and kill 2 other vehicles, your vehicle KPU is 2. If you pull 1 MBT and kill 2 vehicles your KPU is still 2, since its about the user.

That is why if you look for uniques it lists the amount of users, not the amount of time someone pulled the weapon. You can test this: pick a weapon with only a handful of users per day and pull the weapon a hundred times, then see if it rises the next day.

HSR is not an indication of average player skill. It can be a small indicator in some cases, but the overall achievements of the weapon are more important.
This is one part where your logic keeps falling apart.

BR is an average. We can assume that while some of those are veterans with new characters, most lower BR usage will be by less experienced players. This is visible in how every starter weapon has a lower perfmance than equivalent non-starters on other factions. Which makes it more suitable for gauging skill than HSR, which we see can be more or less equal despite the actual killing performance being wildly different.

Again the logic falls apart because you set store on stats that dont matter as much as you think and give them the wrong interpretation.

No you do not agree. If you did, you would acknowledge the fact that the VS Betel users would not be "more effective" than other players since it would make no sense for these players to never touch other weapons, which if they were more effective would shift the stats in VS favor.

I can assume this as it is a correct assumption. You cannot assume that every day, all "more effective" players on the VS pick the Betel exclusively and do not touch any other weapon. Nor can you assume that the VS players somehow manage to all gain this skill the moment after they complete Auraxium and pick up the Betel. We would see all somewhat equivalent weapons and especially the carbon copy weapons have an increase in performance whenever players about to reach the Betel pick them up. We dont see that, so there are no suddenly "more effective" players wielding the Betel.

You create this story in your head that the VS arsenal is not fun somehow. What you cannot assume is that the Betel has a magic fun rating that suddenly makes players "more effective" and use it more. The usual way it goes is "if the weapon is more effective, players find it more fun". And the Betel is more effective, which attracts those players.

And ONLY this weapon? How is that possible? Why are these players not using shotguns, snipers, Lightning guns, Sunderer guns or other carbon copy weapons? Why arent they shifting the performance across the board?

You are the one missing the key. You have zero proof that the "good" VS players all flock to this particular weapon. HSR is not proof. Also since the Betel has a high user rate all other weapons would suffer immensely as the good players on VS arent using it.

I can. Why wouldnt I? It would be a statistical anomaly to say it isnt. If anyone is waxing poetically its you.

Also lets put something straight: the Betel is superior in the Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. So even in the less skilled regions of players just picking up the Betel they perform better.

The logic can be taken further, you just dont want to hear it.

I mean you are quite literally saying "ONLY good players pick the Betel because of their opinion of it being fun". You have no proof, just your own subjective idea that "this must be it, otherwise I was wrong".

But close to the same amount of players pick the GodSAW. That would make it more or less equally FUN! So why dont they score more headshots?

Oh yeah, because FUN does not determine SKILL. The weapon influences the performance of the weapon. And the Betel is obviously superior, not the players.

Where's the proof? You are using a circle reasoning "they perform better because they are better so they perform better". But there is nothing to indicate that the weapon automatically attracts superior players, especially since this attraction would automatically mean all other weapon who do not get these players suffer for it. I provide an actual start to finish which logically and clearly shows the Betel to be a superior weapon.

No not wrong. I am not trying to "change your logic", I am adding the logic you gloss over. You are willfully ignorant, putting logical proof away when it contradicts your world view of magic good player attraction to one particular weapon.

Lets put it another way: why arent BAD players attracted to this weapon? Why isnt it fun for them? How come ONLY good players want to use it? Your logic so far was that it has to be a fun factor that attracts them, yet why would that fun factor be so specifically aimed at only the "more effective" players? It makes no sense whatsoever.

You compared 4 weapons with identical COF stats! You cant even get that straight! And similar COF stats but a different damage model are a big deal!

But why only good players? What magic happens there? And how come this distribution doesnt hold up for other aurax weaoons with similar usage? The GodSAW isnt anywhere NEAR the Betel in performance despite having a similar user base and being an Aurax weapon. Compared to the Gauss SAW the GodSAW isnt that much more effective. But the Betel is head and shoulders above the rest including its contemporaries EVERY DAY. even at bad days! Even when the worst players use the Betel and it is having a bad day, other weapons need to be having a good day to surpass it. How can the worst users who visually tank the performance for that day still perform so well? Still "more effective" players or the weapon? I wonder what Occams razor would say (well it would say there is no need for occams razor as a reasonable conclusion can be made without resorting to "I have the subjective opinion makes good players use this so logically it must be true".

If more skilled players use the Betel they are more effective.

Also you had a whole post about "more effective players versus the weapon".

No, we should not have to revise THE ENTIRE ARSENAL just to equal the top-tier weapon. Instead we should nerf the obviously OP weapon.

Also for all the whining about the nerf, the Betel hasnt really tanked in its performance that much. Its almost as if some ability on the weapon is rather important to how well it performs!

It is the actual damn point you are making. If you cant even see that, what is the point? How can these players using the betel be "good" but not "better skilled"? How can they be "more effective" but not better skilled? You pull magic skill out of your rear based on "people who are good find it fun". That is literally what your entire essay boils down to. Nothing more.

No, I put it in context because you try to talk around it. You simultaneously want to tell me its the players who are better but that its not their skill.

I am not strawmanning. If you cannot see the logical conclusions of your own words, again, what is the point?

B u l l s h i t.

It would rather be the other way around: the VS has some particularly more fun weapons that attract attention. Why else do so many people manage to achieve the Betel?

Per UNIQUE. There is literally a Unique category and to make it easier to compare they use the Kills per Unique rather than suddenly going to unit (besides, per unit would require the API to create a new identifier for each weapon pulled each day, whoch is unnecessary and weird to code in).

Do you understand it?

No that wouldnt happen. It would be closer to 1.3 or something. Because the Betel is an aurax weapon and requires a lot of playtime and experience to get, raising the average performance. However the KDR would still rise because its objectively and logically a better weapon.

Eh yeah, EVERYONE's skill is. Its because we dont get enough fresh players to stick around which leaves more dedicated veterans. This isnt however proof for the Betel.

His logic isnt sound, your confirmation bias is speaking. You should have picked up on some things if you were objective, like his use of KPU as a form of "unit" rather than "unique". Or how he tries to say that good players use it but when I use words like "superior players" to use the Betel then suddenly its a problem (I know he'll claim that I only say the ENTIRE VS population is superiorly skilled but I have both responded with the assumption that ONLY the Betel users are superior in skill and also with the logical conclusion that this cannot be true).

You cannot claim his logic is sound if you do not even pick up on his errors.

I think it's worth repeating that the Goose is the ONLY weapon in the entire PS2 arsenal that new characters make a beeline for by foregoing the "normal game experience" in favour of hardcore farming to the exclusion of everything else. Whether that's twinks or new players who got told about it is irrelevant. One does not simply have an auraxium weapon in the 50s of BR unless you know what you are getting and that it's worth it.

I think your own logic is being clouded by your determination to see what you want to see. I'm not interested in the minutia you quote. The Betel is or was a good gun but really no better than the Orion. Now it's worse. Say what you like, this patch has nerfed ALL VS aurax reward weapons. I'm still using the Betel, for the fun of it but really if I want to be serious I will use the Orion, or more likely the Polaris, Flare and Ursa. Maybe the Maw. You will never be able to explain away the idea of the Betel being OP when it just clearly isn't. The only reason it's OP is because of the players who use it being that good. Now they may go onto a different gun, since this nerf. It's still usable but it's not what it used to be.

Is that true? I would have thought that there were other factions that had go to favoured weapons, like for instance the Godsaw. I admit that when I heard of the Betel heat mechanic I thought that was neat and auraxed LMGs to get it. But I actually liked it even less than I did the Orion, which I disliked from the very start and still do. The ONLY thing that the Betel has over anything else is the heat mechanic. Now that's nerfed as well, I'm only still using it for the challenge of seeing whether I can overcome the handicap of using what should be an Auraxium REWARD weapon.

Well you don't really need to rush the meta guns on TR & NC, the anchor can be got at level 10 and the MSW-R can be got at level 4.

Hypocrite much? You do realize that the Orion also got its bloom increased to be equal to that of their closest faction relatives? And that the Betel was upgraded by giving it access to all attachments rather than have a few build in? But suuuure the Betel only got nerfed and is waaaay worse than the Orion! Who cares that you wouldnt be able to use any 30-mag weapon in the game if you think that a 40 round mag on an accurate burst oriented weapon that regenerates between bursts is too little.

You are willfully ignorant, building a story about how the players are magically better without any evidence that they are, closing yourself off from any proof to the contrary. In this case you try to avoid it with "oh not interested in the minutia".

And the Orion is unlocked from day 1 on the VS. Yet they still grind away hard for a weapon that according to them has no added value beyond "fun" and for some reason only the good players on the VS are attracted to this gun.

It's because the heat mechanic is good for farming worse players, which is valuable in live server play. Whilst a worse orion, it's still an orion so it's better than almost every other VS lmg you could chose.

You really have a problem. The Orion is simply not that good. Neither is the Betel. None of what you are on about matters. They nerfed the Betel. That should make you happy. The good players will now either make it work or find an alternative. All this nerf has done is damage a good gun. But the real damage is to guns like the Skorpios.

For the record I'm not interested in debating you. Others better than I have done so, you lost and refuse to give it up. That's fine but I don't have to participate. You're making stupid statements now, comparing LMGs to 30-mag carbines and trying to belittle people. None of what you say matters in the end. The players will decide. I already have. The Betel is still fun, but is it really that good? Again, the players will decide. I find any number of guns better than the Betel for different purposes. The issue here is whether the nerf has made the Betel unplayable, which it hasn't. But it's nowhere near what it used to be.

It used to be a "worse" Orion since it couldnt pick its attachments to suit the best engagements. Now it can.

The HEAT mechanic leans heavily into burst firing, which the Betel benefits heavily from. Sacrificing 10 bullets for the ability to reload without the vulnerability of an actual reload is also a massively powerful thing. Evidence? The Betel is outperforming the rest of the guns by a LOT. Weapons with similar user amounts on a good day dont have such large differences so it cant really be "just good players picking the Betel up", besides that day in day out only good players would somehow pick up the Betel and bad players would somehow not be attracted to it.

Now, is it the meta LMG or is it something only good players pick up because it is an interesting albeit not superior option? I keep hearing it differently.
Slightly sarcastic "you all need to get your stories lined up" comment aside, players either wanting or feeling the need to (depending on what part of the story one adheres to, see above) get the aurax weapon to the exclusion of the rest of the game is a red flag. It means that this weapon is either so superior that it's worth attaining at any cost or that the rest is so abysmal it is needed. The fact that BR 50s can rock the Goose would point towards the former, as if the rest of the arsenal were that darn crap they'd not get this far without either giving up or being higher level from coincidental captures etc.*

* = Doesn't mean that some guns can not feel inherently unrewarding or unsatisfactory. But they can not all collectively be horse manure.

"The weapon type that is the most popular and better performing on the other two factions and that we get standard is not that good"

Keep telling yourself that.

"The best performing LMG in the game is not good! Truly! Its just that the HEAT mechanic is fun I tell you!"

But hold on, other weapons also have HEAT mechanics and even before the standardization of 20% off the magazine these weapons werent that popular (because like most aurax weapons they sucked).
So why is the HEAT mechanic only fun on the best performing LMG in the game? Could it be... that it leans best into the playstyle of an already great LMG design which makes it a morre powerful weapon which attracts players?

Oh no ofcourse not, because reasons and you dont want to read anything that might break your precious world view.

[Quotr]None of what you are on about matters. They nerfed the Betel. That should make you happy. The good players will now either make it work or find an alternative. All this nerf has done is damage a good gun. But the real damage is to guns like the Skorpios.[/quote]

Why doesnt it matter? You say you dont even read my posts, so how would you know? Why should I be happy about the Betel getting buffed (getting access to all attachments) and its COF bloom being EQUALIZED with the closest TR relative the MSW-R?

Are you really so blind that you dont see that they quite literally had a better COF bloom before and that the "nerf" was just putting the weapons closer in balance with one another?

Because you dont want your world view shattered, I get it.

[Quptr]Others better than I have done so, you lost and refuse to give it up.[/quote]

How did I "lose"? Even Jibba says that his logic fails to completely prove his point so then it has to be some magical "only good players pick up this gun". While I have, you know, complete evidence that the weapon is overperforming and there is no magical skill at the VS side that can prove this.

Hypocrite much? And I am pointing out that the statement that a 40-round magazine is not enough while most weapons have less shows a real flaw in your abilities. After all, if you cant make 40 rounds (with ammo regen!) Work, how will you ever make a 30-round magazine work? That is what we call "logic" and "pointing out someone's flawed argument".

The Betel has dropped a small amount of its performance. A small amount. Nothing major. Because all that happened was that its COF bloom was put on an equal footing to its closest TR relative and that its HEAT mechanic sapped a bit more ammo from the starting magazine, in return the weapon got access to all attachments.

The sad whining of "oh noes the blantantly best performing LMG in the game is actually a terrible weapon that is barely useable and I would rather use anything else its just a meme weapon" is ridiculous.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say or how it's relevant to the discussion. As for the Betel being the best performing LMG in the game, is that a fact or just your opinion? The Betelgeuse has had two major nerfs now in fairly short succession, first the conversion to a manual long reload on overheat and then this 'standardisation' of heat mechanic across all the VS aurax rewards. The Betel appears to be the least affected by this because it still has a nominal mag size of 40 shots, compared with the 20 shots that the Skorpios has ended up with. Yes, the heat mechanic makes this only nominal, but it really is a problem when the fight calls for emptying your magazine and the Skorpios simply can't keep up the fight. I've managed to get some kills with it since the nerf but nothing like the kills I get with the Betel. The same heat mechanic for the Eclipse gives it 24 shots which is still marginally servicable.

Anyway, I'm not the slightest interested in debating any of this with you. You haven't convinced me and I don't actually need to be convinced. People will decide for themselves and the devs will react accordingly. Nothing you say actually matters. Whatever your problem is with the Betel, I don't think it will ever be fixed in your mind. For me, I continue to try to make it work. I no longer see the aurax reward weapons as rewards because a reward weapon should be better, and these aren't, at least to me. So I really only use them now for the challenge.

No I don't think you're looking at this wrong. I actually came to this thread wanting to see if others had experienced the same as I have - I don't have the Darkstar yet, but I do have the Betelgeuse, Eclipse (directive reward carbine) and Skorpios (directive reward SMG). All of these have suffered under this new mechanic, the worst being the Skorpios, with just 20 shots before overheat. I'm somehow making it work, and yes, headshots and bursting appear to be the way to do this, but the Skorpios in particular, runs out with just a few shots to go before completion. I am used to the Eridani which the Skorpios is based on, and it has native 25 shots. I can easily get kills with 25 shots on the Eridani, but on the Skorpios, I regularly die because it runs out just a little too soon, and the other guy's weapon never does.

These new heat mechanic directive rewards are absolutely for only the best players, players who can control the fight and have very good trigger discipline (I'm not one of them!). Even so, I'm sure there are some of these who are dying more now. Other factions have had their magazine sizes increased in the face of this. 40 shots (not bullets, or rounds, these are energy pulses) for the Betel, an LMG(!!!) is very short. But it seems OK for an LMG, where 20 for an SMG is just not enough. The Eclipse, with 24 shots before overheat, is just barely enough. I'm still regularly getting kills with the Eclipse, which has just shy of the 25 shots that the Eridani has. Perhaps for me at least, 24/25 shots is the minimum that I can rely on to get me through an extreme CQC altercation.

To see if it was actually me that had somehow started playing worse, I switched back to the Orion (Betel), Eridani (Skorpios) and the Solstice (Eclipse) and discovered that I was actually playing better with the basic weapons instead of the directive rewards. The Orion, in particular, was quite satisfying, and having died so much with the Skorpios, the Eridani was a breath of fresh air. Only the Solstice felt like it was not much different from the Eclipse. There is no doubt in my mind that this revised heat mechanic for all VS directive rewards is NOT a reward. Still, I have one loadout in each class that makes use of these directive reward weapons where appropriate, and I'm trying my best to make them work. It's more a challenge really, one which I feel I shouldn't have, given these are supposed to be 'better' weapons...

There is one aspect of all this that I feel I wish to mention. There is a lot of focus on balance between the factions. But by their very nature, the weapons of each faction can't be balanced between the factions. VS weapons are energy based. NC are hard hitting, TR are high ROF. You can't balance these things, and I don't think that there should be an effort to do so. You pick the faction based on their characteristics, and that comes with choice of weapon mechanics. People complain about the Orion (and the Betel) being OP, but that's just because they're accurate. However, you actually have to be accurate with these weapons, because their accuracy is the thing they have over the other factions. If you're not an accurate shot, the heavy hitting and fast firing of the other faction's weapons are going to get you.

People wishing to balance them across the factions would end up with just carbon copies of the same weapon in each faction's arsenal. I don't think that's what this game really wants, although I'll warrant there are those who would prefer that.

I didn't like the Orion either when I first started. My first auraxium was in fact the Polaris, which is well behaved, solid, and dependable. I think I just wasn't very good back then, and when I finally went back to the Orion, because it was the basis of the Betelgeuse, so I may as well get used to it, I found it wasn't that bad. I obviously auraxiumed it because I have the Betel now.

I don't think the Orion (or the Betel) is a bad gun. I think there are better VS guns, but yes, if you can use VS guns, you will find most of them pretty good. I've noticed a big difference between the handling of any VS gun and that of the NS alternatives. I'm just now trying to aurax the Gallows, and I'm finally getting the hang of it. For me at least, VS guns are really nice. I've used NC and TR guns, and I have to admit I don't like them as much, but yes, they seem more forgiving.

Betelgeuse is not OP at all and should be buffed.
Or not ?
https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...,1879&startDate=2022-03-29&endDate=2022-04-23

Stats since Arsenal Update. Betel scored almost twice compared to Butcher. Magic ? Skill gap ? )

Since you dont even bother to read my posts by your own admission, no surprise there.

Fact. If you read Jibba's own posts and followed his links then you would have known that. But you seem to prefer to just nod along and say "this guy stands for what I want to hear so he's right"
Why do you think Jibba spends so much time on the "it just happens to be good players who like it and not bad players" argument if he could just point and say "but that LMG is the best"?

Thank you for proving my point that the Betel was definitely overperforming based on the weapons actual stats! Because that manual long reload is what all weapons have to deal with, the Betel just had the immense power that if you overheated it and pulled out a side arm, it would be reloaded again when you switched back. That is why the first nerf happened and the second still hasnt put the Betel in its place as its still the best performing LMG.

I am not discussing the Skorpios or the Eclipse here. I already mentioned in relation to the Darkstar that if the weapon is underperforming that it should be buffed to at least be average. In the same breath, a weapon that is obviously overperforming should be nerfed to be in line with the rest.

Pathetic. You close yourself off from any argument that contradicts you. What is even the point of you coming here if you dont care about what anyone else says unless it confirms your twisted world view?

Also Aurax weapons should definitely not be superior weapons out of the box. They should require the player to show off all the skill they earned playing with the previous weapons in order to be effective.

Also if the Betel, the best performing LMG, is not good in your hands than you should seriously consider why those hands arent up to the task.