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M14: The elephant in the room

But that would pretty much make it a sniper... which is the Crossbows job largely. I mean, i'd love to use a 4x telescopic, but a medium sight, maybe 3x or 2x would be more practical considering it's normal use. Though a 4x would certainly promote shotting from a distance... This is tricky :(

Just so that i know, what is the telescopic range of the Crossbow? If it is more than 4x, forget what i said before :eek:
 
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if i may.

the m14 ebr is an enhanced battle rifle, that being said, it's a weapon that gets used by scouts and designated marksman, so most of the time it is used in combination with a small scope or a battle scope, (think, acog or possibly red-dot/holographic small).

the laser is .. yea ... its a laser, all you're supposed to see is the small dot, which you cant see at all half the time. (this being because its either glitchy or to far away.

lasers for long range (which is at most 100 yards) is always used with a scope, so you can actually see the laser. (or possibly in the dark, when its easier to spot)


but the thing that annoys me the most is the fact that its weaker, in every way, than its T1 counterpart, the only real upside being better fire rate, bigger clips and faster reload.(which makes it a spammerdy spam weapon more than a 1 shot 1 kill weapon)


TL ; DR
they should change "something" about it, possibly the scope, to make it more attractive than the LAR.
 
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You mean higher hs bonus for LAR? You are not taking about increase the base damage AND hs bonus are you? You really want a semi-auto refile to stun scrakes????????????

Well, I dunno about stunning (seeing how I never mentioned it) but I do think that the bodyshot damage should be comparable to the LAR to make it less crap or it should at least be buffed to the point where it can one-bodyshot crawlers on the higher difficulties. I do beleive the headshot multiplier is higher than it is with the LAR anyway, but this would require a reduction to compensate for the increased base damage, or it could stay the same as it is.
 
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I think an ACOG sight for the M14 would be great (leave the red dots to the commando imo) and maybe an increase to it's headshot damage? It should be an upgrade to the LAR, but the LAR does more damage per shot and the advantage of the M14's higher rate of fire is greatly diminished by the bonus to the LAR's rate of fire as a lvl 6 sharpshooter.

/semi-off topic rant
Also, for the naysayers out there, the M14 EBR is in fact a sharpshooter weapon. It was designed to be used in both a designated marksman role (marksman/sharpshooter, not sniper, there is a big difference)* and CQC. Considering the tight spaces and lack of extreme ranges in most maps, I'd say it's a pretty appropriate addition compared to, say, a bolt-action rifle. (Although I wouldn't be opposed to adding one :rolleyes:)

*The main differences between marksmen/sharpshooters and snipers are that marksmen are part of a squad and give that squad long-range engagement capability and fill the range gap between standard assault rifles and sniper rifles. They are also expected to lay down more rapid fire than snipers; their guns are basically assault rifles designed for longer ranges and semi-automatic fire (but usually capable of full auto, which the in-game M14 EBR isn't for obvious balance reasons). They usually move with their squad as well. Snipers generally work with a spotter, perform other tasks like scouting, operate at more extreme ranges, have specialized sniper rifles that are normally a higher caliber than standard assault rifles and are traditionally bolt-action (but improvements to semi-automatics are making them much more common for snipers), and often stay in one hidden position for long periods of time.

Just had to get that off my chest because I'm tired of people thinking the M14 EBR isn't a sharpshooter weapon "because he's a sniper", which he just isn't.
 
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Giving ability to 1 hit shot crawler for M14 is bad opinion. You just suggesting to bring back SS to become annihilating machine, that doesn't think anything.

SS should use his head when playing game. It's not about spamming MOUSE1 and rofling "How Easy KF is".

Having non-insta killing crawler is the big step into improving Sharpshooter role. To make him think and make game balanced and give each class chance to show off their skills.
Why do you think there now so much less SS? Cause all those annihilating machines who spammed m14 without thinking now forced to think to annihilate. But they are too lazy, so they decided it easier to annihilate as Commando or Supporter and get on top of the board.

I love this update, and appreciate effort of developer and testers, cause now players have to actually think to survive.
 
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Having non-insta killing crawler is the big step into improving Sharpshooter role. To make him think and make game balanced and give each class chance to show off their skills.
Why do you think there now so much less SS? Cause all those annihilating machines who spammed m14 without thinking now forced to think to annihilate. But they are too lazy, so they decided it easier to annihilate as Commando or Supporter and get on top of the board.

I love this update, and appreciate effort of developer and testers, cause now players have to actually think to survive.

What's to "Think" about? It basically just means you have to spend twice the ammo to kill a nuisance zed. If you need to kill a crawler, you're gonna kill it. Not being able to 1 shot it just means that you have to double tap, wasting double the ammo and potentially getting hit. I'm not saying to buff it up to the point where it 1-shots Stalkers and Clots without headshots, but Crawlers are a different story.

There's no reason lower-tier weapons like the Handcannon and Lever Action are so much better than a Tier 3...
 
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What's to "Think" about? It basically just means you have to spend twice the ammo to kill a nuisance zed. If you need to kill a crawler, you're gonna kill it. Not being able to 1 shot it just means that you have to double tap, wasting double the ammo and potentially getting hit. I'm not saying to buff it up to the point where it 1-shots Stalkers and Clots without headshots, but Crawlers are a different story.

There's no reason lower-tier weapons like the Handcannon and Lever Action are so much better than a Tier 3...
You missing point of teamwork and aiming for head. On HoE your handcannon doesn't insta kill crawler in body (So you might wanna also boost that?).
It's not work of SS to kill those. If SS have to kill crawler, he better aim for head or waste ammo for not aiming properly. It's his penalty for not playing how he supposed to be played. Same goes to Firebug or Commando if they don't use their weapons properly, they will lose ammo in middle of the wave. Or if Demolition just randomly spam pipebombs and grenades on single zeds he will also run out of ammo.

I don't know why you trying to make game easier for SS. If it Tier3 Weapon it doesn't mean it must annihilate crawler. It means weapon designed for different use.
 
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I don't know why you trying to make game easier for SS. If it Tier3 Weapon it doesn't mean it must annihilate crawler. It means weapon designed for different use.

The way I see it: If a gun doesn't kill a crawler efficiently, it's bad to use for the bigger ZEDs. In this case, the sharpshooter is intended for killing bigger ZEDs and a weapon that sucks against crawlers isn't very helpful...
 
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The way I see it: If a gun doesn't kill a crawler efficiently, it's bad to use for the bigger ZEDs. In this case, the sharpshooter is intended for killing bigger ZEDs and a weapon that sucks against crawlers isn't very helpful...
You missed headshot multiplier damage. SS suppose to kill Big Zeds / Small Zeds in head.
Of course it will suck if you want to take down Scrake shooting him in body.
Or shooting cloat in the body or siren or husk or whatever.

I repeat myself, Sharpshooter is a class, that designed to aim for head.

If you think that M14 is a BIG GUN, like M99, you missing point here. M14 is not big gun at all. However it will deal massive damage in skilled hands.
 
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You missed headshot multiplier damage. SS suppose to kill Big Zeds / Small Zeds in head.
Of course it will suck if you want to take down Scrake shooting him in body.
Or shooting cloat in the body or siren or husk or whatever.

I repeat myself, Sharpshooter is a class, that designed to aim for head.

If you think that M14 is a BIG GUN, like M99, you missing point here. M14 is not big gun at all. However it will deal massive damage in skilled hands.

In terms of weapons that fire metallic cartridges, the M14 should be the "biggest" gun currently in the game. I see nanostrike's point in that a rifle that fires a 7.62mm NATO round is somehow less potent in some circumstances than the LAR. I don't know what caliber the LAR is supposed to be, a .30-30 Winchester, a .44 Magnum? The cartridges appear to be bottle-neck in the loading animation, so presumably it's the former.

In any event, the M14 effectiveness should be well in excess of the LAR across the board. In fact, as I'm sure has been pointed out in the past, since the M14 EBR and the SCAR Mk.17 fire the exact same round, there shouldn't be even the slightest difference in terminal ballistics between those two. But, that is a different can of worms, which I'm not about to open.

Before the M14 nerf, it pretty much behaved in a fashion that a weapon firing this sort of round should. But, the abuse was deemed common enough for the bodyshot to be dialed back. My personal solution to that would have been to keep the authentic 20-round magazines, but drop the total ammunition carried to 120 rounds. Maybe even just 100 rounds.

However, sverek's point is also entirely valid. Despite the, (IMO), screwy head vs. body damage, this is now a weapon that must be used in a very particular fashion to realize it's full potential. What probably should have always been a specialized weapon certainly is one now. In essence, the community received what it wished for, and now we just need to live with it. It doesn't seem too unreasonable if one knows the requirements ahead of time. (It certainly isn't as good a "battlefield pick-up" for non-sharpster's as it previously was.)
 
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Read first post

So apparently there's an oversight in the design of the weapon, the ironsight is actually off-center. This may explain why the gun is so bad at long-range, even getting past the fact that the ironsight takes up so much screen space.
Well, there's that too, and also you can't really see the laser dot from afar.
I liked someone's idea of the ability to zoom in; But I wonder how that'd go in maps like Wyre, where you can't see too far.

I can't say I use the M14 much, not due to its laser sight or anything... its recoil when using the iron sight was ack to me. (Perhaps I need to level my SS more.)
 
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If I'm not mistaken, even the LAR does more per shot, still. But then again, I've skipped all the various Calculating Floor threads so I could be wrong about that.

That's my biggest issue. The Lever Action rifle is better in almost every single way except magazine size and ammo capacity. Just look at it:

-Costs less
-Does more damage per shot
-Has better ironsights and Ironsights zoom more.
-Can reload on a per-round basis with an interruptable reload (This isn't really an outright benefit, but can be really useful).
-Stuns Scrakes


I get that you want the M14 to be a precision headshot damage monster that does almost nothing for bodyshots...but right now the weapon just isn't viable for that unless you're point-blank laser spamming (In which case you're arguably better off as an AK/SCAR Commando!).

And while not 1-shotting Crawlers on HoE would be acceptable , because HoE is supposed to be above and beyond the normal difficulty. The problem for me is that it doesn't one shot crawlers on anything above NORMAL, where the Handcannon can do so clear up until HoE. It's pretty pathetic that it's outperformed by almost every other sharpshooter weapon so badly, yet costs so much more. My favorite part of your reply, however, is this:

You missing point of teamwork and aiming for head. On HoE your handcannon doesn't insta kill crawler in body (So you might wanna also boost that?).
It's not work of SS to kill those. If SS have to kill crawler, he better aim for head or waste ammo for not aiming properly. It's his penalty for not playing how he supposed to be played.

So, if the Sharpshooter can't hit the extremely difficult headshot on a crawler, he has let another class kill it or be "Punished"? With Firebugs and Commandos being useless against Scrakes and FPs, it's annoying, but not even close to the same level. Scrakes and FPs are uncommon enemies that don't even appear on the early waves. Crawlers appear on EVERY wave past Wave 1 and are a constant threat. Just because Sharpshooter might not be the "Best" class to deal with 'em doesn't mean it should be specifically weak to 'em just because it's Tier 3 Rifle inexplicably sucks at anything but headshots.
 
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So, if the Sharpshooter can't hit the extremely difficult headshot on a crawler, he has let another class kill it or be "Punished"?
Yes. And it's not extremely difficult. Pretty easy shot if it after straight after you. I usually switch to 9mm pistol for crawlers. 1 shot from 9mm is enough.
It will just remove weakness of SS with m14, if it gonna 1shot annihilate crawlers. It made nicely and clear, SS can't 1 shot kill any species on hard difficulties in body. Aim for head. Or waste ammo. Easy as that(dot)
 
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