So that's a "no" on good faith dicussion. Fool me once, and all that.
I am not responding for your sake, but for the sake of others who may be reading these boards to ward off any potential misinformation. Consider this my final post on the matter in this thread, because this has gone so far off track from the original Locust dicussion that there's no point in pretending any more, and I don't further expect any decent conversation from you; this has become a long series of "whatabouts" and I would rather not deal with it.
Stop playing solo on heavily modded games!
...
My actual 6 player game experience >>>>>>>> whatever dogsh!t memes the community is clobbering under their solo play, modded games
I am of course not, nor are most of the people who would otherwise comment on this. In any sort of testing for kill shots/breakpoints/etc., that is done at six players (faked or otherwise) because otherwise that information would be incorrect. That much is bare minimum expectation at this point, for the exact reason that it's the highest possible reasonable difficulty and modifiers to test on for normal/vanilla game mechanics, not "modded" or with any sort of players above six.
But just because you don't see six players milling around doesn't mean that hasn't been taken into account. Some of us (myself included, when the mood strikes me) will play solo games faked to reflect accurate six-player conditions, but with just one person playing, solely for the added challenge.
That is the
entire point of doing testing. Which is a lot more descriptive and helpful than than "nuh-
uh!"; that is to say, the exact sort of thing you've been doing in the various threads you've posted in. So I'm going to put stock into those methods vs. someone lashing out on a public forum that is by all admissions playing on Suicidal while being as needlessly sarcastic to the other posters as possible.
Blithely ignoring every comment and suggestion from players who have been on this game for much longer than you, on conditions harder than you, who have done their homework, while you lash out at them and call everyone who doesn't agree with you "idiots" is not the wisest way to go about things on an established forum if you want actual good-faith responses. Consider that during your time on these boards and ignore it at your own risk.
The scrakes suffered ZERO ill effects from the HRG locusts when I was trying to get one off my teammate. Actually all the zeds from my gameplay pretty much had zero ill effects from the HRG locusts when they were raging and actually trying to kill people. Only time I saw them react in anyway was if they were in their calm state.
There are cooldowns to incap afflictions, as previously mentioned. If a Scrake gets hit by a Locust, flails about, then rages immediately after the panic incap wears off, then they have a few seconds where they cannot be hit with the same panic incap again so that they have a chance to fight back against the players. Otherwise, you could chain the same panic effect without recourse until they die, no matter how long it takes.
A Scrake that is raging is at its most vulnerable to incaps. Scrakes are in fact less vulnerable while they are in their calm state because of a well-known bug where they can technically block attacks but the blocking animation does not properly play.
For example, you could throw a freeze grenade at a Scrake, the Scrake "blocks" it without the animation showing up, and it will keep going through the freeze blast where it appears to completely ignore the freeze. They are incapable of blocking when raged and will go entirely on the offensive, meaning they cannot block incaps.
That is not to say they cannot be incapped while calm, but by definition they cannot ignore incaps in rage unless those incaps are on a cooldown.
Okay you obviously don't know this, but the weapons have something called RELOAD that inconveniences players when they play actual legit games. Furthermore the HRG Bombardier also has something called knockback and stumble power. That's why the HRG Bombardier was outperforming the shitty Locust and the other garbage tier OG weapons of the Survivalists. Because the Bombardier was not only covering my back while I was reloading my guns, but the knockback on enemies was a life saver to get breathing space.
The Bombardier, as I mentioned, effectively gets better the more you and your team have trouble at killing things.
That a weapon exists which covers for player weaknesses (and not that well, I might add) does not make it an objectively good weapon--and there are a
lot of those weapons in this game--it makes it a crutch that largely exists to pad kill counts. As you and your teammates improve at the game, it becomes less useful because an automated turret that stumbles and rages large Zeds while making life miserable for precision perks is the antithesis of what legitimately good players use.
That is not to say it cannot be useful to some players, but to put it bluntly, it gets worse the more you improve at the game. It is only killing trash because the other players present are incapable of reliably doing so (or you are putting it at chokepoints to farm kills so others cannot do so as easily). Knockback on trash only matters when the team is doing such a bad job of actually killing trash that you need spam to keep them at bay.
If you're talking about the FN Fal, that's a massively overrated weapon and it speaks depth about community that they think the FN Fal is as strong on the Commando as it is on the Sharpshooter. When one class can do up to 2.5x headshot damage while the other does none. Furthermore, hmm see, the Fal fully upgraded will do 80 damage, while the M16 grenade launcher fully upgraded will do 644(!) damage. But oh wait, you also have to account for the added 1.5x explosion damage on fleshpounds and quarterpounds while the Fal does half damage on them. Putting the weapons actually at 40 damage (full upgrade) on fleshpounds and quarterpounds for the Fal while the fully upgraded M16 grenade launcher does 805(!) damage on them.
This entire line of reasoning is so misunderstood I don't even know where to start with it. But one thing I can guess at is that you don't practice headshots or takedowns, so let's break that down.
The FN FAL does rifle-type damage on both Commando and Sharpshooter--the same kind as the M14--rather than assault rifle damage. Rifle damage is a .75x multiplier against Fleshpounds rather than .5x multiplier (which only applies to assault rifles). The FAL also has an extremely rapid fire rate when full-auto is toggled. It is a significant addition to Commando's arsenal because it's a high-damage, high-RoF weapon, something Commando did not have outside of the brief period when the AK-12 used to be able to one-mag Fleshpounds.
In most cases it would be not that great; however, when used with "High Capacity Magazines" and "Hollow Point Rounds" on the Commando's skill tree, it gives Commando the capability to
take down a Fleshpound before their rage animation finishes playing out and they can hit you, with about 22 out of 30 bullets in the mag needed to do so.
This is on a perk that was originally designed as a dedicated trash-killing perk, and despite the fact that the FP takedown is not easy, the fact that it can be done at all is an astounding boost to a perk that otherwise would be dead in the water against Fleshpounds (which was by design).
If you don't understand how huge being able to delete a Fleshpound in just under 2 seconds without getting yourself or anyone hit is, and the fact that the FAL has enough ammo without "Prepared" to do this to up to eight Fleshpounds in a single wave while still being able to take its best anti-trash rifles to go along with it, I can't help you.
(The Sharpshooter can do likewise even without the added magazine size because of how Rack 'em Up gives the Sharp added margin for error on the takedown that they otherwise wouldn't have, and that's just considered one of the
worse options for Sharp to dumpster FPs because that's kind of Sharpshooter's job.)
Compare that to the M16, which has no reliable 6P HoE Fleshpound takedowns that don't allow you to get hit. None. The explosive damage with one grenade doesn't matter nearly as much as effective time-to-kill, and that is where the M16 drops the ball.
The first grenade will rage a FP, and it will then come closer to smack the nearest person, probably you. The closest thing you can get to an honest takedown with a (Tier 5) M16 is to unload a dud round on the FP and spray at its head, and
if you have a Tier 5 weapon, and
if you are using Impact Rounds (I think), and
if you get lucky and roll the extra long stagger animation and not the brief stumble animation, the Fleshpound can die if you hit the dud grenade and ~31 shots all in the Fleshpound's head. But that's not something you can reliably count on.
"Spray underbarrel grenades at it until it dies" hasn't been a viable tactic in 6P HoE or CD since the nerf to the M203's reload speed several years ago, and I don't consider wildly throwing grenades a thing Commandos should be building around nor focusing on; the M16 remains a noob trap in this game as it always has been.
I'll save the complicated math for the HMtech-501's grenade, and just point out on base damage for the 501's rifle does 1410 damage before reloading vs the Fal's base damage of 1400 before reloading.
This doesn't check out, partially because of the FAL doing rifle damage as noted above, and partially because the 501's firing rate means that damage comes out slower when compared to the FAL.
Nobody is using the 501 in serious takedowns, although it absolutely has its place in Commando's arsenal. Just not as your big game hunter weapon.
Potential damage per magazine is not the only thing that counts. What primarily matters in high difficulty games is how that damage translates to shots-to-kill (less shots = better), effective damage per second, and how that damage circumvents large Zed rage mechanics. Efficiency is the name of the game.
On Commando, for example, the FAL can kill FPs before they rage, the M16 and Stoner can't, thus the FAL is objectively better than those guns at killing Fleshpounds.
Against trash, the SCAR does more damage per shot than the HMtech-401, but has half the magazine size of the 401 and only saves substantial shots to kill on medium Zeds while having to reload much more often, meaning its damage uptime is worse than the 401 against trash and you get much fewer dead trash Zeds from a full SCAR than a full 401. Ergo, the SCAR is worse against trash than the 401.
Different perk example: The Seal Squeal puts out higher total theoretical damage than the RPG in one magazine but requires a more stringent set of circumstances to pull off a takedown on a Scrake involving stuns and a pre-shot with the Magnum...as opposed to the T5 RPG being "shoot it once in the head," due to the RPG's high damage and bonus multiplier against Scrakes.
Against Fleshpounds, the RPG kills them in 3 bodyshots that can be reload cancelled, and the Seal Squeal can't; you're not doing it without reloads or without C4 mixed in as a combo, and if you have to reload, you're getting hit unless dynamiting the FP first.
Hopefully you understand what I'm getting at here; the short version of the above is that damage-per-mag isn't everything.
Add in the magazine perks and 501 is increased to 3525 base damage vs the Fal's 1820 damage (since the community will always pick the 30% damage and reload speed over the 2.5x magazine size for that weapon).
On almost every (good) Commando weapon the ideal combination of skills involves "High Capacity Magazines" and "Hollow Point Rounds" because of the combination of increased damage and higher DPS since you have a higher mag size that isn't broken up by having to reload mid-kill.
Almost every Commando weapon worth taking can be reload cancelled, making "Tactical Reload" almost completely useless in most meta loadouts. The weapons that often require TacRel for optimal use are weapons with underslung attachments, none of which are considered meta picks (and not having HCM by extension makes all other weapons worse).
Try actually using the Demo's other weapons besides kaboomstick, RPG and C4. You'll be amazed how much trying some strategy and versatile play style works. The moment I started using the Seal Squeal for example, I never looked back at the RPG or the C4 as it's basically a more accurate C4 that does 1875 base damage before having to reload that thing as oppose to the RPG's 900 damage and reload after every shot strategy. Then the ZedMK3 came in and I didn't have to prioritize my shots like I did with the RPG and C4 (you get all of 3 bombs!). Add in the bombardier and you never have to prioritize shots or worry about enemies back attacking you or attacking you while you have to reload.
Yes, I know Demolitionist has grown over the years from being a perk that
just shipped with the C4, M79, and RPG and was designed around needing allies to cover them in exchange for not needing mechanical skill to use, to being a perk that most players just spam everywhere with, as the addition of new weapons encouraged that playstyle because players kept complaining about it actually having weaknesses and needing to measure shots. I still don't think that makes most of its weapons good compared to the three quoted options because
taking down large Zeds before they can rage and hit people is Demo's main job; anything that doesn't help me do that--like kill trash--is something I might as well play Firebug for.
The Seal Squeal has been left off most serious weapon takedown lists because the requirements and setup needed to kill large Zeds without raging them and getting hit is excessive compared to the RPG, which is famous for having much easier-to-use combos and setups to kill Scrakes before they can even rage and kill FPs fast enough to avoid getting hit during the takedown. SeSq does kill trash effectively, but that's nothing new and is largely relegated to Survivalist shenanigans, not Demo loadouts. It's mostly there for the novelty rather than utility.
Zed Mk3 is...fine? It's there. I don't really care much for it but I won't say it's unusually bad or super strong. It just is. It's a rapid-fire precision weapon on a perk that is
not either of those things.
Both the AA-12 and boomstick are mid weapons that the community wanks into oblivion and are not good at killing large zeds. As I've experimented with tons of Support weapons and found not only does the HZ12 outperform both weapons badly, but even the dragonsbreath does a better job at killing large zed than them.
I absolutely hope this is sarcasm, particularly the line about the Dragonsbreath. That thing has trouble hitting all its pellets even when you have the barrel pressed to a Zed's temple with Tight Choke on,
and it causes burn panic which makes followup headshots unreasonable. To compare that to the Doomstick--a weapon capable of just instantly killing a Scrake with a single button press and needing all of 2 alt-fires to delete a Fleshpound with reload-cancelling--or an upgraded Boomstick (add number of alt-fires from Boomstick plus one) is misguided at best.
The AA-12 has always been good at killing large Zeds assuming you know how to land your shots, and from a safer distance than other Support weapons, at that.
So basically you want every class besides gunslinger and sharpshooter to be dogsh!t. Got it.
See that? That thing I told you was a bad idea at the start of this post? Being a jerk like this and responding with as much bad-faith vitriol as possible? You're doing that exact thing here.
That said, I
do wholeheartedly believe that Firebug, Demolitionist, Berserker, Medic, and Survivalist have extremely problematic kits that allow them to be too good at the highest difficulties for much,
much less effort than Gunslinger, Sharpshooter, Commando, and SWAT. The fact that the former are allowed to perform almost as well as the latter but with a fraction of the effort or knowledge required to play well has been extremely unhealthy for the game's long-term appeal, and the additional fact that there is a dedicated scene of players who have to set up their own harder-than-HoE servers that blacklist those former perks and a number of problematic weapons in order to maintain higher levels of challenge speaks volumes to the issue.
When one of the main original design points is "headshots are much more effective and efficient, but harder than bodyshots, so git gud at headshots if you want to do well" and then you patch the game over the years to make the non-headshot classes both extremely easy to play and win with despite that design specification, of
course nobody's going to want to play the perks that actually have to aim and put in the work at winning.
For the record, I don't like the presence of one-shot weapons like the M99/Doomstick/RPG, either; I believe they cheapen the skill curve for HoE and make the game boring for everyone else involved when you can simply delete large Zeds on command, as a team worth any salt will keep the one-shot wielder completely safe from trash while they are free to instakill the game's minibosses.
The M14 Marksman build is the best example of skill indexing in the game while also being reasonable from a perspective of how good it is vs. how hard you need to play well at it to earn that power. Any other perks should be balanced around that capability in mind for KF3.
