disclaimer this might end up a bit disjointed and possibly unfinshed.
It was suggested that i make a post here with changes for weapon balance.
For starters im going to state that the upgrade system for standard survival mode makes little sense, its blurs the lines between weapons and perks and roles and discourages team play in an attempt to try and make weapons that were previously bad - not bad. The easiest way of doing this would simply be to make those bad weapons better or to give them a purpose and then for the T1 starter weapons simply make T3/T4 versions of them with like an attachment or something minimal to tell the 2 apart aside from the damage increase. But we seem to be stuck with upgrades instead so here are my suggestions so far.
This post is basically going to outline weapons that need buffing/nerfing with detailed reasons as to why im recomending the changes that i am.
Ok im going to start with the gunslinger as i am very familiar with this perk
The Deagles are overpowered. At T3 they are in a really strong spot for both trash clearing and large zed slaying, being able to kill fleshpounds in 1 mag which takes less than 2 seconds. Its downside was that you needed 13/14 rounds out of 14 total in order to decap and its ammo capacity is low.
However T4 gives a massive 30% damage increase knocking 2 rounds off the total to kill the FP which brings the time to kill down to under 1.5s
The T5 upgrade increases the damage modifier from 30% to 50% which knocks another round (or 2 depending on stacks) which means the deagles are now killing FP in 9/10 rounds which lowers the TTK even more to the point where fleshpounds cant even start bashing the ground as part of their rage animation.
Because of the increased damage you are saving a huge amount of ammo on large zeds plus the deagle is cheap which means you can easily drop spares of it even in vanilla.
Honestly at T4 a 30% damage modifier is more than enough to make the Deagles the best T4 weapon.
My proposal is simple - reduce the damage modifier from 30% and 50% to 15% and 30% so that each upgrade knocks 1 round off the total shots to kill on an FP.
Personally i dont like the 1858 doing more damage, carrying more ammo and having a similar RoF to the 1911 when the only main difference is the longer reload on the 1858.
Also the AF2011's are now a terrible choice. They were kinda meh before upgrades having similar TTK as the magnums but they were often not used because of the bad recoil pattern and because of the large number of shots they werent very good for longer rangesand they were expensive. But now with upgrades literally every other pistol at T4/T5 is better theres no reason to ever pick these up again. Both the 1858 and the 1911 decap rioters in a single shot the AF's cant, the other pistols are all able to kill large zeds without reloading which means theres no real reason to ever pick these up. before the all pistol build of mags and AF's with a side deagle - why would i ever get the AF's when i can get the mags T4 deags and then an upgraded 1911/1858 for my side arm. Might as well also mention the 1911/1858 which were for killing trash can be upgraded to kill large zeds which makes them overkill for what they are needed for.
Sharpshooter next
The M14 didnt need a nerf just so you can buff it back with upgrades, the M14 was is an alright spot before with its large drawback being the tiny ammo pool so reducing the damage whilst simaltaniously releasing the M99 just comes off as a massive FU to ballistic shock/ranger sharshooter play which is extremely sad since SS is one of the best designed perks with actual options in the skill tree and weapon selection so nerfing this makes no sense. With the FAL's release around the corner there might not even be a need for the M14 anymore.
Just undo that nerf and change the multipliers so that the T5 does the same damage as it does now only the base damage is back to 90.
While we are on the Sharpshooter i would like to mention Winchester is in a really good spot in terms of its upgrade multiplier path, compare that to the 1858, the winchester gets a massive 60% damage bonus for 500 which makes it fantastic in the early waves, the 1858 gets a miniscule 10% (for dual) for 500 which makes no difference for wave 2.
Commando:
AK12 is broken. 50% damage multiplier is enough to kill a FP in under 1 mag and since you can shoot it so fast with burst fire that if done right the FP wont even leave his rage animation. If this isnt reduced then the new mando weapons will be DOA as there will no reason to take the FAL on mando for large zeds unless its even stronger than the AK which is a bad idea as the AK is already OP and it will make the FAL even more OP on the sharpshooter.
This needs toning down - again i recomend making the AK's T5 multiplier 25-30% and make the T4 an inbetween of 15-20% would be much more reasonable.
Because at the moment the AK is like the king of AR's with massive damage and burst, the med AR is like the Queen as its got just enough damage (on mando) to be fantastic for trash which is all it needs to be thanks to its RoF and magazine size buff.
Pre update the AK and scar were pretty neck and neck with the AK being statistically better but the scar was good enough that it wasnt a bad pick if you werent amazing with your burst fires - now the scar is just BTFO. even if you cant properly burst fire spamming your M1 will have higher DPS than the scar.
Also the AR15 and the L85 are better now than before but still worse than the existing high teir AR's and are catered more for the early game.
The stoner is a tough one, idk what to say about it. It feels like a SWATs weapon with its low damage large mag and high RoF.
If its RoF was to be lowered and its damage increased it could compete with the other AR's for sustained DPS. Overall an LMG is going to be impossible to get right for mando as its either going to outclass everything or be underwhelming.
Maybe something like 400-450RPM with higher damage (similar to or maybe higher than the SCAR) could work better because its problem atm is it doesnt break any thresholds that the other top teir weapons do all it has going for it is a big mag - which is made worthless/irrelevent because it needs more shots to kill.
While we are on the mando we need to talk about deminishing returns. If it takes 150 damage to decap a gorefiend then my gun doing 80 damage or 140 damage is the same, both take 2 shots - This is the problem the AK and the scar have always had, they meet similar thresholds dispite the SCAR doing damage per shot. So its always been close between the 2 weapons because of this (and you will see its the same story with the SWAT as well).
Support:
DBS, i know why you nerfed it - it needed some toning down maybe make it weight 5kg (or increasing the Hz12 to 6kg) increase the price a bit but holy **** you then also nerfed everything you could; weight, price, the reload speed, damage and stumble power (by reducing the pellets).
Considering how staple and core this was to the Support its pretty sad to see this get gutted - mostly to make room for the QBS which then also got gutted :/
Best fix would be to make it a T3 costing 1100/1200, weigh 5kg, give it its 12 pellets back but then reduce the damage so that way it can at least keep its somewhat consistent raging FP stumble.
The only issue with the doomstick is its ammo pool and possibly its weight - if its doing the similar damage per shot as the M4 might as well give it similar ammo as well instead of like half the amount. This is the only reason its so weak - its 12kg and cant even manage 10 large kills - the M4 weighs less and kills 20+ why am i ever going to look at the doomstick while that thing exists.
If anything its T4 damage could use a nerf to make the upgrade worth while since its 2 shots to kill both SC and FP regardless of upgrade or not making it 2 shots on SC and 3 on FP at T4 puts it on par with the T5 DB.
Speaking of the M4 I dont know if it needs a nerf or not, its in a similar position to the DBS pre upgrades its treading the line of OP but its just where it needs to be.
SWAT:
Not really sure what to say here, almost every SMG is the same now. The UMP's selling point was it did enough damage to 1 shot gorefasts - now every SMG (apart from the med SMG) is capable of this so now its just got a high rate of fire and kills clots faster which was never the SWATs problem.
None of the other SMG's come close to the Kriss all of them do about the same damage per shot (apart from the UMP) but have varying rates of fire - this means that the MP5 has the best DPS, followed by the MP7, followed by the UMP followed by the P90.
Idk this class is all shades of grey now, with a clear best weapon and then everything else doing the same thing. Maybe this is just my bias but this is what kills the upgrade system for me, it turns all the guns into reskins of each other and waters down the emphasis on weapon choice, its just most noticable on the SWAT than other perks.
Medic:
Is worse off because all the good weapons to take as offperk got nerfed, but the healing got bumped so i guess its not the end of the world. Weapon wise this perk is always going to feel awful while crossperking is a thing as nothing can ge too good.
To be continued...
------------------------------------------------
I'm to lazy to finish this now as its almost midnight but this also might be helpful for tinkering with multipliers:
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AmZIWebhFO4cgRMiLmILeAHxmqop
Since you guys dont have a spreadsheet with all the weapon damage thresholds i started one in june but i didnt finish it since roughly 80-90% of my friends stopped playing around that time, which was a bit of a buzzkill.
It was suggested that i make a post here with changes for weapon balance.
For starters im going to state that the upgrade system for standard survival mode makes little sense, its blurs the lines between weapons and perks and roles and discourages team play in an attempt to try and make weapons that were previously bad - not bad. The easiest way of doing this would simply be to make those bad weapons better or to give them a purpose and then for the T1 starter weapons simply make T3/T4 versions of them with like an attachment or something minimal to tell the 2 apart aside from the damage increase. But we seem to be stuck with upgrades instead so here are my suggestions so far.
This post is basically going to outline weapons that need buffing/nerfing with detailed reasons as to why im recomending the changes that i am.
Ok im going to start with the gunslinger as i am very familiar with this perk
The Deagles are overpowered. At T3 they are in a really strong spot for both trash clearing and large zed slaying, being able to kill fleshpounds in 1 mag which takes less than 2 seconds. Its downside was that you needed 13/14 rounds out of 14 total in order to decap and its ammo capacity is low.
However T4 gives a massive 30% damage increase knocking 2 rounds off the total to kill the FP which brings the time to kill down to under 1.5s
The T5 upgrade increases the damage modifier from 30% to 50% which knocks another round (or 2 depending on stacks) which means the deagles are now killing FP in 9/10 rounds which lowers the TTK even more to the point where fleshpounds cant even start bashing the ground as part of their rage animation.
Because of the increased damage you are saving a huge amount of ammo on large zeds plus the deagle is cheap which means you can easily drop spares of it even in vanilla.
Honestly at T4 a 30% damage modifier is more than enough to make the Deagles the best T4 weapon.
My proposal is simple - reduce the damage modifier from 30% and 50% to 15% and 30% so that each upgrade knocks 1 round off the total shots to kill on an FP.
Personally i dont like the 1858 doing more damage, carrying more ammo and having a similar RoF to the 1911 when the only main difference is the longer reload on the 1858.
Also the AF2011's are now a terrible choice. They were kinda meh before upgrades having similar TTK as the magnums but they were often not used because of the bad recoil pattern and because of the large number of shots they werent very good for longer rangesand they were expensive. But now with upgrades literally every other pistol at T4/T5 is better theres no reason to ever pick these up again. Both the 1858 and the 1911 decap rioters in a single shot the AF's cant, the other pistols are all able to kill large zeds without reloading which means theres no real reason to ever pick these up. before the all pistol build of mags and AF's with a side deagle - why would i ever get the AF's when i can get the mags T4 deags and then an upgraded 1911/1858 for my side arm. Might as well also mention the 1911/1858 which were for killing trash can be upgraded to kill large zeds which makes them overkill for what they are needed for.
Sharpshooter next
The M14 didnt need a nerf just so you can buff it back with upgrades, the M14 was is an alright spot before with its large drawback being the tiny ammo pool so reducing the damage whilst simaltaniously releasing the M99 just comes off as a massive FU to ballistic shock/ranger sharshooter play which is extremely sad since SS is one of the best designed perks with actual options in the skill tree and weapon selection so nerfing this makes no sense. With the FAL's release around the corner there might not even be a need for the M14 anymore.
Just undo that nerf and change the multipliers so that the T5 does the same damage as it does now only the base damage is back to 90.
While we are on the Sharpshooter i would like to mention Winchester is in a really good spot in terms of its upgrade multiplier path, compare that to the 1858, the winchester gets a massive 60% damage bonus for 500 which makes it fantastic in the early waves, the 1858 gets a miniscule 10% (for dual) for 500 which makes no difference for wave 2.
Commando:
AK12 is broken. 50% damage multiplier is enough to kill a FP in under 1 mag and since you can shoot it so fast with burst fire that if done right the FP wont even leave his rage animation. If this isnt reduced then the new mando weapons will be DOA as there will no reason to take the FAL on mando for large zeds unless its even stronger than the AK which is a bad idea as the AK is already OP and it will make the FAL even more OP on the sharpshooter.
This needs toning down - again i recomend making the AK's T5 multiplier 25-30% and make the T4 an inbetween of 15-20% would be much more reasonable.
Because at the moment the AK is like the king of AR's with massive damage and burst, the med AR is like the Queen as its got just enough damage (on mando) to be fantastic for trash which is all it needs to be thanks to its RoF and magazine size buff.
Pre update the AK and scar were pretty neck and neck with the AK being statistically better but the scar was good enough that it wasnt a bad pick if you werent amazing with your burst fires - now the scar is just BTFO. even if you cant properly burst fire spamming your M1 will have higher DPS than the scar.
Also the AR15 and the L85 are better now than before but still worse than the existing high teir AR's and are catered more for the early game.
The stoner is a tough one, idk what to say about it. It feels like a SWATs weapon with its low damage large mag and high RoF.
If its RoF was to be lowered and its damage increased it could compete with the other AR's for sustained DPS. Overall an LMG is going to be impossible to get right for mando as its either going to outclass everything or be underwhelming.
Maybe something like 400-450RPM with higher damage (similar to or maybe higher than the SCAR) could work better because its problem atm is it doesnt break any thresholds that the other top teir weapons do all it has going for it is a big mag - which is made worthless/irrelevent because it needs more shots to kill.
While we are on the mando we need to talk about deminishing returns. If it takes 150 damage to decap a gorefiend then my gun doing 80 damage or 140 damage is the same, both take 2 shots - This is the problem the AK and the scar have always had, they meet similar thresholds dispite the SCAR doing damage per shot. So its always been close between the 2 weapons because of this (and you will see its the same story with the SWAT as well).
Support:
DBS, i know why you nerfed it - it needed some toning down maybe make it weight 5kg (or increasing the Hz12 to 6kg) increase the price a bit but holy **** you then also nerfed everything you could; weight, price, the reload speed, damage and stumble power (by reducing the pellets).
Considering how staple and core this was to the Support its pretty sad to see this get gutted - mostly to make room for the QBS which then also got gutted :/
Best fix would be to make it a T3 costing 1100/1200, weigh 5kg, give it its 12 pellets back but then reduce the damage so that way it can at least keep its somewhat consistent raging FP stumble.
The only issue with the doomstick is its ammo pool and possibly its weight - if its doing the similar damage per shot as the M4 might as well give it similar ammo as well instead of like half the amount. This is the only reason its so weak - its 12kg and cant even manage 10 large kills - the M4 weighs less and kills 20+ why am i ever going to look at the doomstick while that thing exists.
If anything its T4 damage could use a nerf to make the upgrade worth while since its 2 shots to kill both SC and FP regardless of upgrade or not making it 2 shots on SC and 3 on FP at T4 puts it on par with the T5 DB.
Speaking of the M4 I dont know if it needs a nerf or not, its in a similar position to the DBS pre upgrades its treading the line of OP but its just where it needs to be.
SWAT:
Not really sure what to say here, almost every SMG is the same now. The UMP's selling point was it did enough damage to 1 shot gorefasts - now every SMG (apart from the med SMG) is capable of this so now its just got a high rate of fire and kills clots faster which was never the SWATs problem.
None of the other SMG's come close to the Kriss all of them do about the same damage per shot (apart from the UMP) but have varying rates of fire - this means that the MP5 has the best DPS, followed by the MP7, followed by the UMP followed by the P90.
Idk this class is all shades of grey now, with a clear best weapon and then everything else doing the same thing. Maybe this is just my bias but this is what kills the upgrade system for me, it turns all the guns into reskins of each other and waters down the emphasis on weapon choice, its just most noticable on the SWAT than other perks.
Medic:
Is worse off because all the good weapons to take as offperk got nerfed, but the healing got bumped so i guess its not the end of the world. Weapon wise this perk is always going to feel awful while crossperking is a thing as nothing can ge too good.
To be continued...
------------------------------------------------
I'm to lazy to finish this now as its almost midnight but this also might be helpful for tinkering with multipliers:
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AmZIWebhFO4cgRMiLmILeAHxmqop
Since you guys dont have a spreadsheet with all the weapon damage thresholds i started one in june but i didnt finish it since roughly 80-90% of my friends stopped playing around that time, which was a bit of a buzzkill.