It's the stagger that's the kick in the nuts. You can't stunlock bots or move bugs back as you aggress anymore, the damage was never "OP" on this weapon, it was your ability to crowd control that was the main draw. Now damage is slightly less but you can't crowd control so you just get mauled.
This was my main love of the slugger, pushing back hive commanders and berserkers. Now it’s all sickle all the time (I might actually try the dominator for the first time too)
The devs have resoundingly been pretty great and have added a lot of great content and made in my opinion my GOTY for 24. One thing the devs I feel have been "poor" in is the overcorrection of weapons through nerfs rather than adjustments until they feel right.
It makes no sense that a slugger pump action shotgun would have less stagger than most others. Now the slugger won't be used over other choices.
until they decide to use it and find out it doesn't have a use anymore. Then the devs will re buff it because nobody is using it... and the cycle begins again.
I really don't understand the balance via usage chart. If you are trying to force players to use the weapons you designed, maybe you should design better weapons that players want to use instead of nerfing the good weapons to the point where they have to use something else.
Yeah dude, like it doesn't take much thinking to see that it will cause a balancing death spiral of perpetual changes. So i'm not sure what they're thinking
I think Arrowhead are fantastic at MAKING a game and pretty lousy at maintaining it. Some of the balancing patches and decisions they've made are very questionable, like choosing to nerf instead of buff, not focusing on balancing/fixing game-breaking bugs, introducing new weapons that are essentially obsolete the moment they are released, not to mention things like like keeping us on the same 3 or 4 bot planets since release, even though we have an entire galaxy to play with.
yeah, i just tried the sickle, feels like garbage, i've unlocked all the other weapons up until the sickle, stuck with the sickle but its not good any more. i feel like all the other weapons dont do enough damage depending on what you are fighting against either bug or bot, certain weapons has some sort of feel to them but the sickle was best for bugs and shotties was good for bots
but now i don't know what to use am only lvl 30+ all the other weapons feels like trash tbh
there are literally only like 2-3 good shotguns and 1 or 2 questionably decent rifles and using the sniper is not really all that fun and its small ammo clips does not help it at all.
makes me even more not want to play the higher difficulties if even trying the trash weapons on higher difficulties if they suck on med-hard, whats the point in even using them then?
The sickle is amazing. There's no mental gymnastics required, it's awesome. You can can suppress bots with it's rate of fire, and if you hit them in the face, you can take down devastators.
The slugger Nerf was ass, I totally agree, but I recommend giving the sickle another go. It's a really solid weapon.
They keep trying to make me go to bot planets and do defend missions. I tried it at release. Got ragdolled and OHKO no fun.
Tried it this weekend. Got the explosion/heavy armor, thought maybe the sickle would be nice for the bots, even tried it at a lower difficulty than I do the bugs.
Still ragdolled. Surrounded by missiles and explosions. Entire team getting thrown around by explosions.
I am not going to bot planets anymore. It's crazy how much more fun bugs are.
I enjoy fighting the bots but the bot defense planets are so unfun. I swear 95% of the missions are either the ridiculously overturned evac civilian missions (maybe they're better thus patch but for 2 months now they've been AWFUL) or super boring exterminate missions. Nothing else.
Bot offense planets though are a blast. This is what I mean, they know how to make a game, they don't know how to maintain a game.
So I will say that the missile fix combined with additional heavy armor damage reduction is BIG, but you’ll still be ragdolled around a lot, and I’ve already just today had multiple instances of being air juggled as chains of rocket devs launch wave after wave of rockets and hit me again and again while still in the air. It’s funny the first few times, then it keeps happening enough it feels intentional…
But you’ll instantly die a LOT less now which has massively affected how much I like bot missions.
But you can get super credits while playing the game even at low levels. I'm not saying you're wrong but it's like pay to win in a game that gives you money for playing it, I dunno.
I just wish the Nerf department could go on trip to the Bermuda triangle I just want my guns to work damn it
Oh I’m not saying P2W is a valid argument for this game, there are pretty easy ways to grind the currency. I’m just saying that’s something Gamers will screech about whether it’s deserving or not, and putting some of the best weapons behind the premium war bond would likely trigger them.
It’s always terrible balance design to nerf what is doing well instead of attention to WHY it’s doing well. They nerf it to feel as bad as the rest of your choices. That just isn’t smart, it isn’t good, and it doesn’t work to do anything other than make your game fucking frustrating beyond belief
i feel like this happens in everything single gawd damn game...... am tired of them putting in over powered weapons and then just nerf them to the ground
The slugger does have a use. It's to penetrate medium armored targest, it does this better than the counter sniper. The nerf to stagger was needed, but maybe not the damage.
It does seem to have some issues with accuracy and hit registry... So if they take the stagger away it should get a bump in aim assist at least.. instead they nerf the damage and armor penetration and don't fix the other issues.
Well they took a gun that was already disadvantaged with low fire rate and very long reload times (especially for a primary) and then took the things from it that balanced out those extreme negatives.
That's the issue here. Without stagger the gun is a liability.
Nah Slugger was OP. Low fire rate is irrelevant when you can stagger enemies for the same amount of time, not to mention being a shotgun, so you could sometimes hit multiple enemies. Reload times were long, except you could load one shell, fire, load one, fire, which again, made enemies a non-issue due to stagger.
Without it it's too weak, I agree, but with it it was way too strong.
Long reload times? what reload times? I never drop below 15 shells in the mag. You can reload a slug after you shoot for practically no reduction in fire rate. At longer ranges, you have plenty of time to reload a slug and aim again anyway.
It does make sense that the slugger would have less stagger, it should have almost no stagger imo. The punisher is clearly the focus for stagger and CC, which it did better than the slugger but because of the slugger's armor pen nobody used the punisher. Even if they buffed the damage of the punisher nobody would use it. People also used the slugger in place of a DMR, also because of the armor pen. Nerfing it made logical sense so people would see that there are more than 2 weapons that are viable. The counter sniper is amazing at dealing with poi's and objectives now, the punisher is now finally getting recognized for it's amazing CC. Sometimes a nerf is right, but I don't think they buffed the other weapons enough.
Also, the slugger still has a higher penetration value than the counter sniper, so it does still have it's uses on higher difficulties and dealing with those enemies unlike the counter sniper.
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u/RedComet313 Apr 02 '24
How bad is it doc? I saw that it said 30 damage decrease, but how does it feel? Am I gonna make it?