You make a list on known bugs of whatever you're testing and if a patch comes with no notes, you go down the list.
Seriously, you are attacking me for asking the Devs list it always, instead of just when they feel like it? It would not hurt them to write a few lines letting us know what is going on. Every player writing down a list of bugs and then checking everyone after is way less efficient then just listing them after a patch, have the whole community working together.
Just been checking the recent update to the weapons, here's what I've noted so far Update as of 08/02 NC precision pro The short and long reload speed is slightly longer, now long is 5.1, up from 4.7 and short is 3.5, up from 3.1, it now sits in between t2and t3 in terms of reload NS crossbow Seemingly flatter trajectory at closer ranges Faster reload 2 hit kill to the body up to render No longer unscopes when reloading Explosive bolts not kill infantry 4 hits to the body, 2 to the head, also have a much flatter trajectory than before, now equivalent to how the standard bolts arched before this update Detect bolt are now working and look exactly like sensor darts when placed down - ****** to say the least they last 20 seconds each, the same time as level 1 recon dart, no idea on their detection radius but I suspect that it is 25 meters the same as the level recon dart this needs a different visual to the recon dart, as all we see is a multitude of potentially maxed level recon darts NS semi and SMG no difference I could tell Stalker cloak recharge time at max 18 seconds down from 24, active duration when moving down to 8.5 seconds, the same duration as the nano cloak VS shade Reduced heat cool down by 5 seconds Uncharged shot heat now at 3 bars up from 2 TR trap Gun seems to resettle much faster allowing for quicker tap firing on full auto
CROSSBOW FEEDBACK The crossbow regular bolt in no way benefits from headshots at any range. You can shoot an infiltrator 2 meters away in the head and he will not die. Is this intentional or a bug? If it is intentional, I probably won't use the weapon as it lacks any real killing potential given its numerous downsides. If they wanted to balance it correctly, they could limit the range at which it would be a OSK to the head (I'm thinking 30-40 meters or so). The explosive bolts and detection bolts seem far more functional than before. The former do significantly less damage now, but flies straighter, making it a reasonable option against maxes and light vehicles. Meanwhile, the latter seem to be identical to L1 recon darts. They do 100 damage to infantry (unlike previously, where they did the same amount of damage as regular bolts). Given the inability to change ammo types on the fly (such as in BF3), I believe they are fairly well balanced. People need to remember that anyone using the detect bolts are essentially giving up their secondary weapon for a basic tool, making them quite vulnerable in dragged out engagements. Engineers, however, may start to compete with infiltrators for intelligence gathering seeing as they can resupply themselves easily, and I am not so sure if that's something we should do in the INFILTRATOR update. I hope SOE keeps this in mind when performing the final tweaks. TR RIFLE FEEDBACK As for the TR rifle, I must admit I am a bit underwhelmed. I won't comment on the aesthetics of the weapon, its sounds, or anything of the like as it is obviously unfinished. If its current functionality is anything to go by, however, I think some little changes could go a long way in making it a more appealing option. First of all, the burst function is completely worthless simply due to the weapon's extremely high vertical recoil. At ranges beyond 50 meters, the second shot always goes far too wide, dramatically reducing the gun's effectiveness at longer ranges (which is strange given how this is supposed to compete with, or at least be comparable in theme to, the other new ES sniper rifles). I believe this could be fixed by dramatically lowering the first shot recoil multiplier. You've already done this with the SABR-13 and it works well enough (though, I would argue that it could be reduced further). If you are concerned about spam fire, implement a firing delay like you did with the NC's Desperado. You should keep the weapon's vertical recoil very high as this discourages laying on the hammer for easy kills. By having a low first shot recoil multiplier, a fast re-centering speed, and profound recoil, you will encourage players to fire in short bursts even while in automatic fire while not completely precluding the option. This seems like a decent trade-off and makes the weapon fall comfortably between the fully-automatic and semi-automatic scout rifles (my personal favorites and what you seem to be aiming for). ---- ---- ---- TL;DR - Crossbows should be able to OSK to the head at close range - Explosive bolts are just about where they should be. They could possibly have their damage increased, or be given unique resistance properties (particularly high damage against light armor, for example). - Detection bolts are looking better, but could benefit from additional toning down. Engineers with detect bolt crossbows will trespass dangerously far into infiltrator territory. - The TRAP seems anemic at the moment. I would like to see it become a weapon that rewards skill by discouraging spam fire. This could be accomplished by decreasing the first shot recoil multiplier significantly (0.25 or even lower to allow two bullets to hit a target's head at medium to long range), keeping the actual recoil values very high (0.45+ up, 0.25+ horizontal, and balanced), retaining a fast re-centering speed, and implementing a Desperado-style delay while in burst fire mode. This puts the weapon somewhere between the fully-automatic and semi-automatic scout rifles in effective range while not being particularly better than either beyond that.
Alright, here I go with the infiltrator update. Specifically I am focusing on the faction specific snipers, starting from most ready to launch, to least. TR - as far as weapons stats and balance is concerned I would say this one is ready for launch. Although fairly conventional (aren't all TR weapons?) it does feel uniquely accurate and hard hitting but with a reasonable mag size that should keep it fairly balanced and in check. NC - It is a bit hard to say. In general the shotgun mechanic on a sniper rifle feels a bit weird to me but it is probably alright. The problem is that it seems to ignore resist values and even damages heavy armor. I assume this is a bug and it needs to be corrected before going live. VS - I will be honest, I main VS, but this will be the most ridiculously OP thing ever introduced to the game. I had really hoped for the 'no bullet drop' faction trait to be on this rifle and I think that is alright (and should stay) but 2 things need to change to keep this rifle balanced: 1) The unlimited ammo needs to go. I am fine with keeping the charge mechanic as is, but give IN ADDITION, a maximum ammo pool. Even the entire ammo pool in one single magazine (battery) is fine (aka no reload times), but there needs to be an overall limit to the number of shots in the rifle without terminal or ammo pack access. Otherwise solo VS snipers will just completely dominate once they drop in to a prime sniping position. 2) The uncharged shot is simply too powerful considering the fire rate (even if total ammunition winds up being limited). I would recommend bringing the uncharged shot damage model to be in line with the battle rifles, not the other semi-auto rifles. The ability for extreme accuracy at range (no bullet drop) plus extreme effectiveness in close quarters is unbalancing. This damage adjustment will still allow some degree of flexibility and survivability in close quarters to medium ranges but it will not completely dominate there. The rest of the update I am still undecided on. The NS SMG seems pointless to me. I realize it isn't even near a finished state but I just can't imagine that there is some SMG variation unique and differentiated enough from the existing models to justify another new SMG at this point. I haven't really tested stalker cloak. The NS sniper has such a problem with ADS right now it can't really be properly tested. I think it seems fine to me but it also seems to be very similar to the existing semi-auto sniper rifles. Again though I will reserve final judgement on that until the ADS is corrected to allow for proper testing. I also have a lot of questions regarding the new proximity sensor and bolt attachments but I also need to do some further testing there as well. The crossbow is just silly. I personally am opposed to crossbows at all in this game but I think most people disagree with me on that. I will let others decide on that matter I suppose.
This is inteded I think: when the Stalker is equipped you can't carry a primary weapon at all, like in PS1. Man I just want to say one thing: if you release this revamp without fixing both EMP and Decoy I'll curse you with my voodoo.
I hear a lot of people complain about the EMP being broken. I am not really sure what they are talking about. it seems to have always worked fine for me. The decoy grenade however has not worked right since GU04 (I think, or somewhere arounf there), and even when it does it doesn't give faction specific gun sounds. Can anyone explain to me how EMP is broken? Maybe I just haven't noticed it not working before.
Shade As of now: 4 fast shots overheat weapon. Highly inferior to semi auto. Triple? 1 Charge shot overheats weapon. Heat is dropping faster but you still cant go semi-auto till it goes down. Horrible scope is still on. You cant cancel the charge. You cant charge while cloaked. This weapon is much worse to semi auto, much worse then bolt rifle. And actual combo is just plain bad. 1. Ditch that horrible scope. Allow users to pick from x6 to x12 2. OHK to render range on bolt. 3. 6 fast shots to overheat. 4. Bolt create 55-70% of heat. You cant bolt another for fe "X" amount of second but you can still tap semi auto. 5. Im not excited about this no bullet drop stuff on bolt. Im thinking that because of that you are dumbing down scope and making radiculouse low time to kill 2 guys. IN that matter - the worst weapon ingame. Do no bullet drop on semiauto and bullet trop [like paralax] on bolt. And it will be dandy. 6. Dont use "overheat penalty". Its 100% - you must wait till it will be 80% to make another shot which result in 100% again. Penalty is way overboard.
Lol. Reading this, then seeing the post just below this made me laugh. It's an A2A weapon, you're not suppose to be taking out infantry with it. The overheat after the one charged shot is intended. If you need a follow up shot after a charged shot, then you either missed or you didn't aim for the head. It's fine as is.
I haven't been on the test server yet, but I hope the new snipers have access to 4x scopes and below. I stay away from any weapon intended for the 6x-12x range.
The stalker cloak needs another pass, 8.5 seconds with 18 seconds cooldown maxed out just isn't good enough, plain and simple, right now its utter trash, you lose your primary and spend 2/3rds of your time sitting around hoping folks wont spot you, given the number of ways you can be spotted/found, sitting about is never a good idea. Right now id use nanoweave over this, at least if I'm spotted i have a decent primary to fight back with. The worst part is they introduced hard counters for this cloak (affecting all the other cloaks as well) because it was supposed to be powerful.
To my point, in order to find that post, you must be checking the forum constantly. Also, those are only the one that he has noticed. That does not mean there are not more. For example on ever variant of the crossbow, the rear sight and stock detaches from the crossbow after aiming and goes off screen to your upper left. While sprinting it gets in your way and blocks that half of the screen. When cycling the cross bow on the Heartstring and Blackheart, the reload animation differs from the normal version. I do not know if it is supposed to be smooth like those two, or jerky like the others. I assume it should be like the others. Does not mention that with the straight pull back bolt, first clip has your hand in the way when you reload, and each one after that does not. Your hand should never reach in front of scope to reach the bolt. If you resupply at a terminal while reloading no bolt action animation will happen after that point until you reload your current magazine. Occasionally you can cause this by unscoping while firing and will give the same effect for the rest of the magazine. The NS sniper rifle takes up the whole screen when trying to ADS and the only working scope is the BDS (6x) The TR rifle does not make the correct sounds I am assuming. The NC rifle does not make the correct sounds while it has rounds. Once out of ammo it makes correct sounds and animations instead of the normal "out of ammo" clicking sound. I did not notice everything he did, he did not list anything I did. It would be so much more simple if they Devs just listed it.
Did you have everything that both of us listed before either of us did? Do you have more you would like to share? Do you think the best way to let a community help find bugs is by giving them no information on what has been done? Honestly you are either just trolling, or honestly believe that it is a better Idea to have every player find every bug by them selves, compile a massive list of them, and after every secret update go through that entire list? By time that happened, another update is likely to have happened and then you start all over again. If you compile a list, then when they let us know what was fixed, you can just test those, and if they did get fixed mark them off, if not send them the list and let them know that it did not work.
The Detect bolt, I feel actually detracts from the infiltrator class. Squads right now usually need at least one infiltrator to help keep detection up. This bolt, if the crossbow is for most classes, will sort of eliminate that need for some situations. Maybe if the mechanics were changed. Something like line of sight only. Or a sort of tagging system where any enemy hit with it shows up on the minimap for a time and it'll show his friendlies that are in his close proximity. Still, I think it should be scrapped and replaced with something else.
I think the infiltrator class should have that option still, but I agree on the other classes not having that.
Crossbow Feedback: The weapon has great potential, however, one of two things needs to happen. A- A larger clip size, maybe 5 or six arrows or B- Higher damage arrow. Right now the head shots on this weapon are uttter shyte. Change this and fix the bugs people were talking about and this will be a great weapon. I also hope other classes will be able to use this weapon. And if standard editions can't be used by all other classes, I believe that the Valentine editions should be available to all classes.
Loving all of these weapons quite honestly. The NS SMG seems kinda redundant ,but I guess you are putting it in so you can have more of a close quarters SMG on everyone of your characters. NC ESR( Empire Specific Rifle) is cool, maybe a little faster chamber time on the shotgun mode. TR ESR - awesome design and concept just need to lower the recoil a bit and have GOOD attachments for the weapon. By giving us an adv. laser and adv. forward grip you would be giving the gun a lot of versatility. VS ESR - Pretty awesome semi-auto/bolt action sniper. Reminds me of the Jackhammer which is like Pump-action/High Capacity, so you can have the best of both worlds in one gun. You might want to have some limit one how many shots you have, unlimited ammo is maybe to much unless you have some of trail like the Lancer does. Crossbows will be a nice addition with the Stalker cloak (Crossbow + Stalker= Long range and invisible. Commissioner + Stalker= CQC Invisible). Though the Detect bolts will be taking away from the Infiltrator so maybe have that an Infiltrator thing only or just scrap the idea since it is not really necessary. So keep those things and mind and keep up the good work.
