I'm sure this has come up before, but I have been attempting to use the burst fire guns in this game for a few months now, and I cannot have any meaningful success with them. The Gauss Rifle Burst, T1B, T1S are my main concerns. The SABR is not something i'm really discussing here, but it could apply (2x burst is less broken than 3x burst). Here's the TL;DR version: Burstfire sucks. Semi-Auto sucks. There is no reason practically to use these kinds of weapons as their recoil deficits outweigh their tiny spread and bloom bonuses. Solution: Move the recoil of the burst, including FSR, to AFTER the 3rd round. To counter how OP this would be (as all three rounds would be too accurate), make the base accuracy about 15% worse than it is presently. This would mean that the burst would be very, very tight (but not sniper quality), and therefore reliable at ranges. BUT... the player would be forced to let that huge pile of recoil and spread reset before sending as second burst. This way, the burst fire can reliably deliver all 3 rounds, and has a front-end advantage over weapons that are manually burst firing via auto-mode. Apply (Or continue to use) a burst delay mechanic, as I believe is already in place, to limit upward rate of fire to be at least 100-200 rpms less than it's full auto counterparts. What does this look like: Vaguely similar to the way the burst rifles of COD Black Ops 2 worked. (Of course, bullet drop and travel time would still be a thing in Planetside, and not in that game). I'm not a Codfan, but this was one way I felt they did burst fire better than most games do by far. Semi-Auto mode fix: I also would recommend removing FSR either entirely, or a 3/4th's reduction for using semi-auto modes. Come on guys, if I shoot 8 rounds from a T1 cycler in semi-auto, I have taken a staggering 16 rounds of recoil for the same damage! That's insanely bad! And nevermind I'm losing at -least- 300 rpms while doing it... There's zero benefit for using the select fire modes in game. And there should be- afterall, in real armies, semi-automatic and burst fire are agreed to be more accurate for the shooter, and easier to control by -far-! Why can't this also be the case in game? Even if semi-auto had no FSR multiplier, you still would be doing less than half the damage per second of the same gun in full auto. So, the long issue breakdown: Planetside 2 has a thing called First Shot Recoil or FSR. For most guns, it ranges from 1.5, to 2.5x. The average of course, is 2x. FSR means that on your first shot, you will take about double recoil compared to every other shot. Physics, in reality, disagrees with this mechanic. Assuming you're firing identical rounds every time you shoot, your gun's recoil will be 1x across all rounds. In game, this is not the case. While I understand this is to reduce the effectiveness of tap-firing to counter bullet-spread issues, this system renders 3x round burst weapons (and even 2x) burst weapons largely inferior to full auto weapons. The issue is this: If I have the T1 Cycler, and I fire 9 rounds. I will take 10 rounds of recoil. If I use the T1B, and fire 9 rounds, I will take 12 rounds of recoil, for the same damage output. Recoil is generally a bigger impediment to accuracy than spread, except in cases when A) ROF is very very low, or B) Spread is very high. Burst fire weapons tooltips and balancing generally says "These weapons are more accurate because they use burst fire." Mechanically, this translates to: "We make the COF bloom and spread on these weapons less than full auto counterparts". The problem here is, the FSR being taken multiple times compared to the auto fired models, counters and even over-counters the benefit of tighter spreads. Meanwhile, the jerky, uneven recoil is much harder to compensate for than the initial jerk, followed by steady recoil of automatic rifles. AS such, the average player can hit more shots in a 9 round burst from an automatic rifle, than compared to a burst fire rifle. Semi automatic is a whole 'nother issue: You take literally doubled recoil per shot, and lose half or more of your ROF over automatic fire weapons. There is therefore no discernable benefit to using semi-auto modes, except when you have an eternity to plink at your target, and very little ammo left. I have tried many times, but I'm always better off just using the full auto setting. Vastly.
i actually do better with burst guns, it's all in the timing and not spamming the mouse button and knowing what range is best for the weapon i recently rediscovered the trap what i hated before and now love for it firing modes when i play VS or NC i now hate it that these factions don't have something like the trap to DBG, new infil weapons please
The TRAP is a unique weapon, but it does have the ability to hit really hard as it has a 187 damage model, which is a lot more per shot than the other 3 round burst weapons, and is... not a very popular or well liked weapon in general. Stats wise, it really comes into line with a semi-auto scout rifle in it's characteristics more than anything else. It is an amusing tool, but not really one I was focusing on here. (though it would benefit, and might be more balanced with other faction options as well.) Thanks for the feedback! As you do well with them, are you sure that they are -actually- performing better than auto rifles used the same way? I recommend trying out the T1 vs the T1B cyclers at mid range, and try to use the T1 in about 9 round bursts and do the same with the B model's three bursts, and carefully consider how comfortable those weapons are, and which one is really more attractive the option, when considering general versatility as well.
I would say the FSR should just be lessened or entirely removed from burst-fire rifles. For instance you can change the FSR to 1.2 or 1.1.
