Rebalancing the new weapons!

[bstm300]

A bunch of numberideas and stuff for the new weapons. Now, these suggestions might not be enough to nerf them to some people, but let's start a healthy discussion!
(And just a personal sidenote: I LOVE the new weapons otherwise! They look and "feel" really good, they are just a little overpowered numerically, or even underpowered in case of the nailgun))

-Buzzsaw Bow-
Damage: 400 (down from 500)
Headshotmulti: Stay at 2x
Backstab: Should no longer deal double damage when shot at enemies backs (!) (One of the most overpowered features about it, as it allows you to instakill a 6-man HoE Scrake with a headshot...)
Scrake resistance: Make the Scrake 20% resistant to the Blade (0.8x damage multiplier)
Ammo: Increase to 25 or so.
Weight: 8 (up from 7)
Weaponcost: Possibly reduced a tad? (1500, or 2000, down from 2500?)

Now, what does all this mean?
* Scrakes cannot be stunned by bodyshots, not even at the highest Berserker level! (400 * 2 * 0,8 = 640, lower than the stun treshold)
* Offperk headshots cannot stun a Scrake either! (400 * 2 * 0,8 = 640, same damage there again!)
* Scrakes can only be stunned by Berserker headshots (even at level 0!), and a (6-man HoE) Scrake would require 3 headshots to be killed by a highlevel Berserker
* Can still kill the first (6-man HoE) Siren or Gorefast it hits with a single bodyshot for a level 5/6 Berserker
* No more uberdamage on "backstab"-shots

Compared to the Xbow that would mean
- Higher bodyshot damage but lower headshotdamage than Xbow
- Less amount of ammo than Xbow
- Slightly lighter in weight, but also more expensive than Xbow
- Bouncing blades, rather than "railgun" bolts
- Closerange scope (which i think is awesome btw!), rather than highpowered scope

-Tommygun-
As i think it is a rather bland addition (brings no new feature to the game, other than a rather powerful weightadvantage)
* Increase its weight to 6 (the lower weight is a huge advantage for players with a bit of a brain >_> The lower weight would be a better idea for the BULLPUP of all weapons due to its weakness!)


-Scythe-
* Reduce primary fire damage to 200-ish (down from 260)
* Reduce altfire damage to 320 or max 330 (down from 385) to remove the ability to bodyhit stun Scrakes
* Increase cost to 1500 (up from 1250)
This makes it pretty much a Claymore clone, and that's good, because the DLC was supposed to be cosmetic, wasn't it?


-Trenchgun-
* Remove the 1.5 hidden fire damage code from ALL fire weapons, and just compensate those weapons by increasing their damages respectively, BUT, do not compensate the Trenchgun with this multiplier! It does way too much damage offperk (about the same as a level 6 Support's regular Shotgun, but offperk!)
* Alternatively, instead of keeping its damage (14 pellets x 18 damage), it could be rearranged (9 or 10 pellets x 27 damage), which would more or less net the same instant damage, but would give you a higher burndamage.
* However, make its damage scale with Firebug levels as well, which would compensate (even buff a little for level 6 Firebug) the loss of the 1.5x damagemultiplier
* Other than that, the weapon is fine and my personal favourite new weapon in this update (tied with the Flareguns)!


-Nailgun-
* Reduce the spread significantly (currently at 2500, almost as high as the Hunting Shotgun's 3000! Maybe 1500 is enough, a bit higher than the AA12/CSg/Pump's 1125?)
* Reduce number of nails per shot to 5 (down from 7)(meaning total damage per "shot" is reduced to 175, from 245)
* Increase rate of fire a bit (from 0,5sec/shot to 0,4sec/shot or so)
* Increase magsize to 10 (up from 6)
* Increase total amount of ammo to 70 (up from 48)
* Alternate idea: Instead of bouncing of walls, how about they can weld doors (that are already welded a little, it shouldn't weld on doors with no welding on it already, to prevent abuse and glitches etc)? Bouncing nails too me seems a little odd to be honest, but i guess some people like that, hence just an alternate idea. Maybe, instead of a flashlight as altfire, toggleable nailbehaviour would be cool


Flareguns and MKB42 i think are more or less fine though and don't need a close look at the moment. If anything, reduce impact damage of the Flareguns a little (a bit too strong at higher Firebug levels). Other than that, they seem totally fine

Ok, first of all, let me just say that we purchased these weapons with the stats as is, so nerfing them would completely change them. I didn't pay for nerfed weapons. Thanks.

Buzzaw bow: Beserkers are already have enough trouble moving around as is. Adding additional weiht to the buzzaw is going to make them slower; plus, when beserkers equip a non-perk weapon, they move slower anyways. Don't make it worse. I'm hesitant to agree with you on raising the ammo to 25 and on removing the backstab attack. Although the attack may be very high power, that's the point. The low ammo (around 15) also ensures that people won't be spamming it. Not sure why you need to change it at all given the low ammo it already has. Plus, do you think everybody is going to be able to land the perfect back stab head shot? I think you're talking about the top 3% of players. Most of us can't do those sweet headshots.

-Tommygun-

Tommy guns are meant to be light smg's, not heavy shotguns. If you want heavy guns, switch to sharpshooter or support. If you're concerned about it's lower weight making it compete with the bull pup, then raising the price of the tommy gun relative to the bullpup should be enough to ensure that the bullput remains cost competitive.

-Scythe-

"This makes it pretty much a Claymore clone, and that's good, because the DLC was supposed to be cosmetic, wasn't it?"

If we paid for a weapon, why would we want an exact equivalent of a claymore? You've pretty much contradicted yourself here as just in the previous entry on the Tommy gun you were complaining that the tommy gun is a bland entry. In the same way, weakening the scythe and removing it's scrake stun capability, will make it bland and indistinct. Leave the scythe as it is.

Trenchgun

Agreed on the need to remove the damage multiplier so that it isn't abused by off-perkers and on the need to have the damage scale up as you suggest based on your Firebug level. This will effectively keep the overall damage the same for Firebugs while reducing it for non-firebugs.

Nailgun

For god sakes, leave the nail gun alone! It is strong, but it's just right. Even my level 6 support specialist had trouble taking down FP's with it on a six man hard on the hill billy level. Leave the spread, rate of fire, and magazine as is.

 

[Phada]

Umm, my numbers already fixed all that (with the 20% resistance on the Scrake for the Sawblade). Read it again, everything. And carefully. I made sure it can't stun offperk, nor ever stun with bodyshots as a Berserker. But Berserker can still stun with it on headshots, from level 0.

My bad! Nevermind then, I totaly agree with you

And poosh: Doesn't the Impact damage of the Husk Cannon and the Flare Revolvers now scale with Firebug levels (hence the numbers). That means a fully charged shot from the Husk Cannon at level 6 should now deal as much as 1200 damage, no?

I just checked and both flare and husk impact damage are actually scaling by the firebug perk bonus.

Important note: both damage type aren't considered as fire, so the fire dot aren't based on these projectiles's impact and no x1.5 fire damage bonus to zeds will apply.
There is a single target "impact" + (area of effect to burn *1.5).

Flare impact: 100 damage *perk bonus
Flare aoe: 25 burn damage *1.5 *perk bonus, radius 100

Husk launcher impact: 100~750 *perk bonus
Husk launcher aoe: 25~50 burn damage *1.5 *perk bonus, radius 150~450
(non-charged~full-charged)

I must put this in the pdf ^^


The trenchgun damage doesn't scale with the firebug perk, only the fire dot will be improved.
Like for the mac10, I think this gun should use a alternative non fire damage type when off-perk.
This will remove the dot and the x1.5 damage bonus.

 

[karsey22]

Ok, first of all, let me just say that we purchased these weapons with the stats as is, so nerfing them would completely change them. I didn't pay for nerfed weapons. Thanks.

Buzzaw bow: Beserkers are already have enough trouble moving around as is. Adding additional weiht to the buzzaw is going to make them slower; plus, when beserkers equip a non-perk weapon, they move slower anyways. Don't make it worse. I'm hesitant to agree with you on raising the ammo to 25 and on removing the backstab attack. Although the attack may be very high power, that's the point. The low ammo (around 15) also ensures that people won't be spamming it. Not sure why you need to change it at all given the low ammo it already has. Plus, do you think everybody is going to be able to land the perfect back stab head shot? I think you're talking about the top 3% of players. Most of us can't do those sweet headshots.

-Tommygun-

Tommy guns are meant to be light smg's, not heavy shotguns. If you want heavy guns, switch to sharpshooter or support. If you're concerned about it's lower weight making it compete with the bull pup, then raising the price of the tommy gun relative to the bullpup should be enough to ensure that the bullput remains cost competitive.

-Scythe-

"This makes it pretty much a Claymore clone, and that's good, because the DLC was supposed to be cosmetic, wasn't it?"

If we paid for a weapon, why would we want an exact equivalent of a claymore? You've pretty much contradicted yourself here as just in the previous entry on the Tommy gun you were complaining that the tommy gun is a bland entry. In the same way, weakening the scythe and removing it's scrake stun capability, will make it bland and indistinct. Leave the scythe as it is.

Trenchgun

Agreed on the need to remove the damage multiplier so that it isn't abused by off-perkers and on the need to have the damage scale up as you suggest based on your Firebug level. This will effectively keep the overall damage the same for Firebugs while reducing it for non-firebugs.

Nailgun

For god sakes, leave the nail gun alone! It is strong, but it's just right. Even my level 6 support specialist had trouble taking down FP's with it on a six man hard on the hill billy level. Leave the spread, rate of fire, and magazine as is.

I'm glad someone like you isn't working at TWI on game balance.

 

[masteriamamind]

If tripwire would post some of the balancing ideas around before just doing them, the community could come up with a happy medium.

 

[DDC1234]

@Btsm300
This is from TWI employee so just becuase u purshace it OP doesn't me it will stay OP
and IT WAS suppose to be purely cosmetic that is what twi was aiming for plus balance


Quote"[TW]Wilsonam

4. There have been a couple of comments about "pay to win". Um - this is a CO-OP game, not competitive. You're not playing AGAINST someone who can get a drop on you because they've spent money. No-one can "beat" you at all - with or without any extra weapons. The weapons aren't any "better" than FREE weapons anyway. That is just knee-jerk reaction.

So - the weapons are effectively cosmetic anyway. If we've missed anything and one of them is OP, we'll reel it back in - just as we would with FREE weapons. Have done, in fact. We're doing it as an experiment, related to the Steam workshop experiment, seeing if we can give people decent ways to reward community members who do a boat-load of work - that meets the quality bar as well. We picked this one as the experiment as it is reasonably simple to handle. And Paypal buttons on random websites are largely useless.""


http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showpost.php?p=1142494&postcount=6

 

[Aze]

I just checked and both flare and husk impact damage are actually scaling by the firebug perk bonus.

Important note: both damage type aren't considered as fire, so the fire dot aren't based on these projectiles's impact and no x1.5 fire damage bonus to zeds will apply.
There is a single target "impact" + (area of effect to burn *1.5).

Flare impact: 100 damage *perk bonus
Flare aoe: 25 burn damage *1.5 *perk bonus, radius 100

Husk launcher impact: 100~750 *perk bonus
Husk launcher aoe: 25~50 burn damage *1.5 *perk bonus, radius 150~450
(non-charged~full-charged)

I must put this in the pdf ^^


The trenchgun damage doesn't scale with the firebug perk, only the fire dot will be improved.
Like for the mac10, I think this gun should use a alternative non fire damage type when off-perk.
This will remove the dot and the x1.5 damage bonus.

Yeah, Poosh has already taught me so many things about Firebugs and their features (as well as its many bugs)
The impact contra burn damage thing, is a good thing they made it split that way. Otherwise the burndamage would be ridiculously powerful (or the initial damage would be abyssmal if done the other way around).

But wow, that means the Firebug using a Husk Cannon now actually DOES deal (fully charged) 1200 damage only with the impact damage (and another 120 initial damage with the burn damage, totalling 1320 initial damage). That, combined with its powerful DoT (Average DoT: (50+18)*1,5*1,6*10 = 1632 over 10 seconds)
That's... actually quite powerful Oo

 

[Arblarg]

Its fun to use the new Sythe and Buzzbow like a support uses a Katana | axe and Hunting shotgun against a Scrake.
Probably can still be managed with an axe or claymore + buzzbow, but sythe wins bonus points for looking badass while doing it.

New KF Halloween weapons are fun - YouTube

 

[FDRs Legs]

The new medic nades are cool I guess although I feel they heal for too much. Also the zeds need to have their threshold modified for how much damage they are willing to avoid as the current system keeps the zeds at bay for far too long. Maybe a reduction in the cloud's length would solve both issues.

I do however miss the medic's access to frag grenades. They were essential for breaking welded doors and allowing a team an escape route when things went pear shaped. Since the medic does not have to immediately concern themselves with killing, they are the best suited to ensure doors don't slow the team down.

I don't understand the reasoning for replacing the frag grenades wholesale. Let the medic nades be an item slot weapon much like pipes, or allow a medic to choose the type of grenade they want to equip in the trader menu. i.e. So long as one of the grenade slots contains ammo you cannot buy the other type of nades.

 

[masteriamamind]

Firebug actually feels good on the higher levels. I love the flamethrower. I can main it not worry as much about zeds (M^#$&^% gorefast) getting to me if I hose them down now. Double flare guns are nice to pick off medium zeds. On patty wave I no longer feel stupid getting the Husk Cannon. Mac 10 has always been solid. Now better. I didn't feel the need to use the trench gun with the fixed mechanics. If I have the distance for dot I can hang on past wave 5. So much variety in load outs. Seeing Players use something other than support!! I think I am going to cry flaming tears of joy!!

gods of gaming, don't take my joy away

 

[poosh]

But wow, that means the Firebug using a Husk Cannon now actually DOES deal (fully charged) 1200 damage only with the impact damage (and another 120 initial damage with the burn damage, totalling 1320 initial damage). That, combined with its powerful DoT (Average DoT: (50+18)*1,5*1,6*10 = 1632 over 10 seconds)
That's... actually quite powerful Oo

Yes it does. Plus x1.5 headshot multiplier = 1800dp. It kills SC with 2 full-charged headshots. But since charging takes 3 seconds - I don't think it's OP.
But to tbh I would like to see charging speed bonus + max ammo increase instead of damage bonus (like it's done in ScrnBalance). Waiting 3 seconds is annoying.

 

[noob3]

The Firebug perk is FINALLY not useless and worth using, please don't ruin it for me and others, i've been waiting forever for it to be useful

Tommygun is broken.

Mkb42: is fine.

Scythe: kinda powerful but it's slow so it's fine.

Buzzsaw: not used this actually.

 

[C_Gibby]

Tommygun is broken.

No it isn't.

The Tommy is pretty much perfect as it is.

However, any balance that may be upset by the Tommy (or the MKB) calls for changes to the other guns, IMO. The Tommy and MKB have a clear place in the game now, however it feels as if they have rendered the Pup, AK, and M4 obsolete. They're the ones that need changing.

I was thinking they reduce the Pup's weight to 5 like the tommy, give the M4 a bigger headshot multiplier, and give the AK a pair of extra magazines and/or buff its damage ever so slightly.

As it stands, the MKB is an improvement from the AK, the M4 doesn't really hold up to the task of being the sniper version of the tier 2 assault rifle (the AK (and now MKB) does that way better as well as everything else) and the bullpup's weight just seems illogical- that it'd share that value with the mando's bigger guns.

 

[noob3]

It's not adding Stalkers to Stalker kills for Commando, so it's broken =o

 

[C_Gibby]

It's not adding Stalkers to Stalker kills for Commando, so it's broken =o

Oh isn't it? I thought you meant broken as in OP or something.

That's interesting to know, thanks. :IS2:

 

[Teraku]

Should be the handcannon's job, tbh. As it stands, there's little reason to want a handcannon. The Mk23 and 44 are both much more versatile.

If the HC could invariably one-shot a crawler in its body on HOE, it'd be doing something that none of the other pistols possibly can. That will justify its 4kg weight, its smaller ammo pool, mag size, and sluggish fire rate. That will make the HC finally desirable.

It'd also see itself working into more loadouts that way. We'd see loadouts like Pup + Tommy + HC. We may also find the demos, zerks, and supports trying to squeeze it in again, exactly how a sidearm should be.

Also there's a bit of debate as to why someone should ever want a .44 when they can afford a Mk23. If the price of the .44 was knocked down to

 

[masteriamamind]

All of this.

Although the KSG should be either buffed or cost slightly less.

 

[noob3]

Oh isn't it? I thought you meant broken as in OP or something.

That's interesting to know, thanks. :IS2:

I'm amazed they didn't even test them out before releasing it, especially considering it's part of a PAID pack, but there you go.

Don't bother me because I have 5007/3600 odd but for those who don't it's bad for them if they think it's working...

 

[masteriamamind]

Thoughts on the Trench gun. I feel it should stay where its at. I have seen it used off perk. It gives players a chance to level the Firebug off perk without having to get a flamethrower. Every other class can be level off perk fairly easily. The trench gun helps the FB get on that cross-perk level train. Trench in the hands of a FB is still a overall better weapon.


On firebug overall: The combination of code fixes and new weapons make the firebug feel badass by comparison to what it was. I was getting cocky and aggressive with my play style, and got my *** handed to me!! I enjoyed being beaten thoroughly. The improvements only make a Firebug a little better at what it did. Sweeping trash, Spreading dot damage, a being a kiting teams ace in the hole.

 

[Althamus]

It gives players a chance to level the Firebug off perk without having to get a flamethrower. Every other class can be level off perk fairly easily. The trench gun helps the FB get on that cross-perk level train.

Bejeebus yes. Taking the FT offperk is just suicide, and the husk cannon is PRICEY, and not that effective in most circumstances.

Srsly, if the MAC did fire damage offperk, I would use it SO much. Flare gun is the gun I like the best out of the DLC pack for this reason alone.

Although I do think the trench gun needs a nerf offperk. On perk, the only advantages it has is faster reload, and extra shells. I was using it as a zerker for example (where firing speed matters not) for great success earlier today.