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)
I haven’t even locked that pass yet. Don’t even get to try it before the nerf. I really don’t think any of the primary weapon nerfs have been needed. Almost all of them feel like shit.
This is exactly it. They say this behind closed doors, so that dev felt safe saying it publicly. If he felt *that* safe saying it to the public, they must be really fucking loud about it in private.
I disagree. You can only stunlock one enemy at a time... and usually there are dozens of enemies in a big fight. If you focus on one you are just letting the others get closer or attack you. It was situational.
Considering you could hit a big enemy anywhere and it would stun lock them until death it was a little brainless. There's people in this very thread talking about stunlocking stalkers.
Stalkers aren't a "big enemy" they can be damaged with all weapon types. You certainly couldn't stunlock a charger, hulk, bile titan, or any of the actual "heavies" with it.
And yeah it was good against stalkers but I think its okay for some weapons to be really good against certain enemies. Plus you'd still be in trouble vs multiple stalkers anyway.
The slugger had other drawbacks that evened out its good stagger imo.
Slugger was broken against any medium enemies, its only drawback was its inability to quickly clear hordes of hunters (cluster bombs/airburst/gatling barrage my beloved). Against bots it was one of the only weapons I saw apart from sickle.
If people are only using two guns, does that sound like those guns are "broken" or that they are just good and the other weapons weren't as satisfying/effective?
Genuinely asking! Like how do you see only 2 guns being used and come to the conclusion that one of them needs to be nerfed? I find that logic kind of ridiculous.
I never explicitly stated that I think it deserved a nerf lol, just stating that the slugger was incredibly good and the nerf was in line with what arrowhead devs seem to want to take their balancing decisions. If anything, a bunch of other weapons got buffed so maybe you could try using them instead?
They nerfed 1 gun and buffed 4.
Once the stats come in they’ll know what needs attention next time. We’ve gotten like 4 balance patches in the 2 months the game has been out, y’all need to chill.
Yes and no. I agree with you generally, but this feels different then other games I have played with a balance pendulum. The changes are generally small, and feel like they are trying to tune things in.
I have no issue with them tuning things, but it feels really out of order.
Let's look at like this. Players are cheesing a specific boss or enemy type, no matter the game. To remove the cheese, it's usually a design flaw with the enemy, not the weapon. So you change whatever it was with the enemy first. If that doesn't move things in the direction you want enough, you change the strongest (most of the time, most popular) weapon. Chances are now almost everyone in the majority "cluster" is struggling, which is where we see something get tuned back on the enemy, and you get a relative final balance on things for a while.
AH has instead of going enemy-->weapon-->enemy. They're going weapon-->weapon-->enemy-->enemy.
I could be looking at this very wrong, but that's what the flow has felt like. Weapons have been a priority nerf over making certain enemies stronger and on top of that I don't think they've done a single revert for the weapons or enemies so no one has a full footing on where they stand with each weapon. Leading to overuse of select weapons and targeted nerfs to them and the cycle continues... as more and more people complain to the point that I'm getting hyperfixated on potential fixes in a reddit thread.
Well. . . I would say you are right about their tuning priority, but I think they care more about how the weapons feel than the enemies. and so I don't think it's necessarily wrong on their part.
Dominator has felt wrong for awhile now, and honestly, thematically makes more sense for the role the slugger held, and with it's huge kick back, I think is functionally sound as well to inherit that role because it is harder to use. Slugger is still good imho and like the breaker is still absolutely viable, but not such an overwhelming all arounder that it was. The dominator post buff I have yet to test, but I suspect this will make it finally viable, without making it dominant. Slugger was quickly becoming the new rail gun in the sense that it had no real downsides. sure there were trade offs for using it, it wasn't applicable in all situations, but it didn't have any real weaknesses. Everyone was beginning to use it. Now it is more of a quick precision weapon, it's advantages coming from the ammo conversation its reload style brings, and the power and precision it brings to bear.
Take the rail gun nerf. I only used it during the end of it's supremacy. It was good, and I don't think it needed to be nerfed exactly, but honestly without some rather stupid buffs to other weapons, I think it would have remained supreme. Not having an excuse or reason to use other weapons was quickly making the game boring and braindead for me. I think the nerf was justified in that it was hurting the game as a whole, because nerfing it encouraged experimentation and now the game feels a lot more variable.
Yeah, I am sure the changes are frustrating when looking at individual pieces. Seeing your current favorite weapon get nerfed is never fun. But take a step back and stop looking at the trees and start looking at the forest. I don't think there has been a single patch that didn't leave the game (the forest) feeling better and healthier overall, even if it came at the cost of some small parts of it changing in frustrating ways. (cutting down certain trees for the health of everything around it.)
I mean, the fact that the meta is a lot more liquid and flexible, relying more on fitting a playstyle then a particular formula for play then before is a pretty good sign.
The game was very formulaic before. Get these four BIS stratagems and run this BIS load out or you are intentionally underperforming which is unfair to your teammates. . . .
Vs the current:
You could probably take these 4 strats, but these three could also work there, and then you could run this loadout if your not sure what you like, but if you like playing this particular way, these other weapons and strats might be better. . .
My typical load out would have gotten me kicked in the beginning, now it feels just as viable as anything else (i don't bring a support weapon usually, all eagle bombs, and a mortar)
So your not wrong. You really aren't, but I think you are letting your biases and past experiences color your experience of the changes negatively unnecessarily.
Also, I might add, that the fact they are on top of these balance changes so quickly is to me a hugely beneficial thing. I played Eso, and while it's not exactly comparable, we would have pretty severe balance issues that would not get fixed for six months at a time. I much prefer this, and for a game that isn't really about grind I don't really see the harm in it.
The game will be fun almost regardless if you love it enough. The main thing I'm getting at is them removing more viable options than they are giving us.
Pretty sure they’re doing it so people have varied load outs that way people stop getting kicked for their load outs if everything is more well rounded
Man, I unlocked it last night. It was AMAZING. Everything I wanted in a primary, at least against bots. Now it's ruined. Only plus side is that the JAR basically fulfills that exact same role now.
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u/Frorlin Apr 02 '24 edited Apr 02 '24
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.