VS ESSR: Shade general discussion thread.

Data: (I'll add more data and maybe answer other common questions in this section.)

VS: semi-automatic sniper rifle with a charged shot doing bolt action damage. This weapon uses heat displacement mechanics instead of standard ammo.

-Bullet drop: none for both SA and charged shots.
-Charged shot: Lancer/Vortex charge style, overheats after one full charge. Cannot fire/charge while cooling.
-Heat displacement mechanics: no ammo at all, just a heat bar.
-No attachments yet.

I'll add more data and maybe answer some common questions in this section.


Personal opinion:
Good ideas slapped together into a terrible weapon.

Suggested changes: (Other suggestions will be credited and added)
Unconditional: Remove the charge mechanic, replace with a toggle between bolt action and semi-auto.
-Charge mechanic adds unnecessary complexity to the VS sniping game
Balancing option 1: Bolt action bullet drop, no overheat after firing a charged shot.
Balancing option 2: Decrease bullet velocity, no bullet drop, overheat after firing a charged shot.

Optional: Remove unlimited ammo, replace with large single magazine with no reloads.
-Unlimited ammo isn't the draw, not having to reload is. Ammo should still be a concern, otherwise there'd be silly amounts of semi-auto Shade spam.

someone posted an idea of having a charge shot being held longer, which gradually uses more heat. I like that approach.

The charge shot can't be held.
Which makes it practically useless in the field for the poor marksman. Or average player.

The charge mechanic requires a brief time. The target moves. Miss.
The heat bar now has a huge cooldown.

Nice for plinking away at targets indefinitely without ammo problems - but charged shot mechanic leaves a lot to be desired.
Obviously it's fabulous shooting at non-moving targets in VR

My thoughts:

I would be fine if the overheat duration was halved, which I think is the idea since right now its a whole 10 seconds between shots. Holding a charge would be nice as well.

The charge on the VS sniper rifle is quite clunky to use, in addition that its cooldown period is very harsh after firing a powered up shot.

My suggestion for a charging mechanic:

(Shot starts charging as you ADS, no additional key presses are needed, making it more user friendly. You can hold the chagre for as long as you like, so you can get the perfect shot. This also allows you to make its charge time longer to balance the weapon out versus regular BASRs. It also allows you repeatedly press the trigger to fire Semi Auto )

The Shade:
2/6/2014 Tested

I tested the shade last night. I tried to love it, but cannot due to the fact when your charging for a BASR "style" headshot, you only have a specific amount of time to line up. READY OR NOT! the gun will unload. This is horrible because it will compromise your position. Sadly I don't see many Snipers at the level of Elusive1 just running around on LIVE so frankly this gun will probably be a flop in its current state. It really needs some tweaks but I like how its SUPPOSED to be flexible between a Semi-Auto and BASR.

The Shade makes you feel like you are punished for trying to make a charge up shot. Emphasis on " trying to make the shot "since the gun is literally designed to go off quickly requiring incredibly snappy target acquisition in order to use the Shade for a OHK purpose.

DRAWBACKS:

• Cannot be charged up while you are cloaked
• Charged Shot Automatically Releases at 100%.
• Cooldown Heat Mechanic does not allow time for any follow up shots for BASR.
• Does not allow for the sniper to read their targets and place their shots.
• Optics currently are lacking

Charging up can only be done when your NOT cloaked. This also adds to the feeling that the gun punishes you severely for trying to use it like a BASR. To be clear I am totally fine with waiting for a heat cooldown after making a bolt action style shot. However the cooldown now is way too long to be effective in combat. Basically follow ups are NOT possible with this sniper rifle in BASR mode.

The other major drawback never considered by the Devs is the lack of ability to hold your shot. Automatically releasing the projectile at 100% damage, will not be a good thing. As a sniper you want to pick your moment. (I am sure everyone reading this knows) Wait that 1-2 seconds and kill the HA as he ADS with his rocket launcher. Or wait for his shield to drop then release the shot. Picking that moment to kill the engineer as they are placing ammo. With this gun you do not have the luxury of reading your targets and placing your shots. Huge major problem!

And for the record. The fact you cannot make quick kills from stealth by being forced to wait for a charge up, and also be exposed to enemy eyes while doing so is more then enough of a drawback. We do not need an excessive heat cooldown to prevent any follow ups in addition to everything else.

For me the things that need to be fixed with the shade are:
The heat cool down on charged shots: someone suggested make it so it only fills heat to 2/3rds on one charged shot, then reduce the cool down on maxed heat to 5 seconds.

Secondly allow us to hold the charged shot for as long as we wish, rather than than the 1-2 seconds currently.

Well, turns out I forgot PS2 forums don't allow users to edit posts...that's rather silly.

Data:
-Unable to charge while cloaked
-Cooldown is in excess of 5 seconds (Exact numbers?)

Suggestions:
-Reducing/halving heat generation
-ADS automatically charges the weapon
-Longer charge with heat decay

It looks like everyone's raising points against the current iteration of charge, but aren't entirely opposed to the idea of a charge mechanic. These points are excellent, and seem like they'd make for a better, more usable weapon, so good work!

However, we still haven't addressed an ugly issue:
-No bullet drop + Instant death = QQ

All of the points that have been brought up increase our killing potential severely with the only trade-off being that the Shade user can't cloak before lining up a shot.

The way I see it, there are two ways to balance: no skill high risk (NSHR), high skill low risk (HSLR); the usual risk-reward deal.

Suggestions: (please consider these individually)
NSHR:
-Overheat on charged shot, can't cloak while overheated
-Overheating gives a visual cue
-Reduced moving ADS accuracy

HSLR:
-Bullet drop
-Reduced bullet velocity
-Reduced damage

I realize these suggestions may not be the best, but I'm just throwing them out there. I'd really like to see the Shade be an interesting, balanced weapon in the Vanu arsenal, so let's try to keep it from being OP!

• Attachements:
  • 6-12x scrollable scope to make it more useful in different ranges
  • Suppressor (toggle on off - I don't get it why this isn't default with all weapons...)
• Charge-bolt or Semi-Auto toggle by the usual key
• Bolt Action:
  • Charge on ADS - fully charged at 50% heat within 1 sec
  • Holding Charge possible for 10 seconds adding 5% heat per second, no auto trigger
  • Release ADS to uncharge and cool the gun down - 20% heat reduction per second.
  • At 100% heat cooldown weapon lock for 5 seconds (usual long reload time other weapons)
• Semi-Auto:
  • No charge and overheating while on ADS
  • You can follow-up 10 shots before the gun overheats when you are fast tapping (capacity like a SA rifle with 10 rounds in the clip)
  • Auto-Cooldown after every shot - usual heat mechanics like on turrets
  • At 100% heat cooldown weapon lock for 5 seconds (usual long reload time other weapons)
• If you like to add drawbacks:
  • either drain life for every time the weapon reaches 100% heat
  • or add bulletdrop on Bolt shots
  • or reduce the amount of follow-up shot on Semi-Auto

I thought "man this would be less awkward if the overheat happened AFTER the shot" when I used it. All in all, it is a cool gun. I'd actually use it which says more than the TR sniper.... I'd almost prefer that it had two cooldowns, 1 for the semi auto and 1 for the charged shot. This way you aren't twiddling your thumbs for 10 seconds. Just toggle to semi auto after a charged shot and little shoot while it cools down.

Something I found kind of strange. You can get the heat bar 1 semiauto shot from overheating, then charge a big shot. Seems kind of odd, as it should like melt the gun logically speaking Overall, with the infinite ammo and no drop, I think it's a well balanced gun, and the charge mechanic, while odd, is not nearly as horrible as everyone thought it would be. I'd be willing to bet that those willing to put some time in using it would get quite good with it.

Despite the wonky charge mechanics its still a 1HK headshot weapon with NO bullet drop, with some real optics this
will be the best weapon of the three ES sniper rifles

Copy-paste of my reddit post:

Shade!

PROS:

• Same damage model as the Spectre.
• No drop.
• Unlimited ammo!
• Unlimited ammo! opens up the suit slot for grenades, nanoweave, shield, run-faster-boots etc.
• Can fire for a very long time in semi-auto mode, in VR I fired 15 rounds before it started dipping into the red.
• A charged shot can one-headshot-kill; with no drop.
• A fully-charged shot can be fired at any time, as long as the heat bar is not full.

CONS

• When overheated, it cannot fire again for 10 seconds.
• Awful scope, taken from the Lancer.
• Relatively poor velocity (550m/s)
• It fires when you release the mouse button, which can be offputting and slows down semi-auto fire.
• A charged shot completely fills the heat bar.
• Charged shots are unwieldy:
• It takes 1-2 seconds to charge up.
• The charge cannot be held for more than about half a second, it'll fire even if you don't let go of the button.
• 1 charged shot per 12 seconds, tops.
• These properties all add up to a really bad "bolt action" mode.

I see myself using it as a semi-auto rifle, a role in which it excels. Charged shots will be reserved for distant targets that I won't be able to land follow-up shots on.

On reflection, I'd change... nothing apart from the awful scope? Either that or shift the balance away from semi-auto focus by having non-charged shots generate more heat, and charged shots generating less.

What are you talking about! The scope it the only thing good in that gun.

Anyways i think the whole gun will be completely useless, i see no point in running it over parallax or ghost ever.

I think the gun needs to be accurate on the move while firing without charge and the overheat time has to be drastically reduced.

Honestly, I love the mechanics.
I always wanted a charged sniperrifle, though I expected it to also have atracer like a lancer.
I'd totally be willing to take that drawback in favour of it being such a damn flexible weapon; Just I agree the charge needs to be holdable for longer. The idea of 50% heat on release and a constant heat rise on aiming sounds neat, also beats the "shoot till 95%, then charge" tactic.
I don't get why people would want it to be like yet another bolt action that contributes nothing to a battle.
Definitely a weapon I will buy if it develops into something balanced and usable (Currently it's the stock VS sniperrifle with heat instead of ammo, with the option of a oneshot kill. Would be OP if you were ever tempted to use that option ).
For once a weapon that plays a little differently. Even if I'd use it close to a Phantom.

Drop is like 0.5m @ 300m on the top tier BASR's. It's really not a big deal to account for so "no drop" is only useful for the noobiest of snipers.

So they ninja patched shade. Now charged shot is faster.
Still no charge in cloak, ugly crosshair and way overboard overheat.

That white blob works for the lancer because you're aiming at vehicles. It's not good for lining up headshots - a proper scope crosshair works much better.

I think they just copy/pasted a Lancer, built a new model around, changed a few stats for it and put it on the PTS to get some feedback. Thats all.

We probably get a Lancer in a new design with different stats - not much work to do for the devs

The Shade's heat mechanics have been tweaked:

• Cooldown time reduced form 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Charged shot still fills the heat bar.
• Uncharged shots generate much more heat - it overheats in 4 shots if you fire them back-to-back.

Point #3 sounds really severe but in practice I was getting 6-7 with natural delays between firing aimed shots. Even then it's only locked out for 5 seconds. It's pretty beast now, just needs proper optics but I'm 100% sure those are coming anyway.

That may sound OP, but bear in mind the straight-pull bolt attachment is going to completely change how existing bolt-actions perform.

I haven't had time to check for changes to the NC & TR guns yet.