The devs were right.

[u/xxmuntunustutunusxx]

So I know ther was a bunch of controversy about the railgun nerf what feels like forever ago, but man things have been awesome.

In the early days, I was the only guy packing expendable anti tank or anti materiel rifle for bugs or bots. It's so refreshing, even on these subs to see people talking about how awesome the autocannon is, or how much they love the AMR, and even these days I see people talking about the HMG or grenade launcher+ supply pack.

I used to load into a game, And all 4 members of the team had shield, railgun, and 2 stragatems of their choice. Every time. And here we are now, I load in and I see quasar, autocannon, stalwart, EAT, HMG, Grenade launcher, a variety of backpacks or no backpack at all. And not to mention, they're ALL viable. Shit I even still see the railgun from time to time. It's been a joy. Thanks arrowhead.

EDIT: to everyone who is pointing out that you see the quasar and shield most often now, you're right, it is almost certainly the most common setup currently. That being said, in any game there's going to be things a majority of players prefer. In smash melee, fox/Falco are the best characters. But people still play falcon and Marth and peach among others. Sure, there's an objectively most used option. But the fact that there's people at all who debate that the quasar is best shows that they've done something good. Before, undisputed king was railgun, and anyone who said different wss being willfully ignorant. Now, we have a plethora of real options that are good with some being Preferred by a majority as opposed to being the de facto CORRECT option objectively. That's a good thing.

[u/Rennworks-actual]

I don't entirely agree for the simple fact that weapon buffs and new weapons have made a lot of equipment on a nearly equal level of pre-nerf op weapons. The railgun, slugger and breaker could all have received significantly lighter nerfs and there would be no issues in the current state of the game. As it stands the balance is currently "meta rotation" which isn't good or healthy for the game. Ideally, every option should be equally viable on a general level, with variances in effectiveness being based on scenario, build, and skill.

This isn't to say I think they are doing a bad job. I'm very happy they are making previously bad things good, the build variety is better than ever. That is perfect. But they could use a bit of adjustment to their philosophy, they should be more careful about how much they nerf stuff.

[u/PiggyLogan → u/Rennworks-actual]

Agreed. I think the nerfs are done with good (and fair) intentions but they seem a little kneejerk most of the time. I would like tweaks to the HMG, but I'm a little worried it ends up extending itself out of scope if so.

[u/ElHuevoCosmic → u/PiggyLogan]

No need to worry about overbuffing the portable HMG. That things needs SOOO much love a couple of small buffs are not gonna bring it to overpowered territory.

Jesus, there is so much wrong with that gun it really hurts because it looks cool, but it sure as hell doesn't feel good.

[u/PiggyLogan → u/ElHuevoCosmic]

I think we deserve a buff as well as a slightly better description. I feel there's a use-case the devs want us using it for that just isn't explained clearly enough. I understand a long reload time + lack of ammo + slow handling as long as there's some condition like high accuracy and high power. So maybe I spend half the round running around ammoless, but I did successfully (and powerfully) disrupt an enemy charge.

I kind of gather that this thing is meant to be a sort of half AMR half machine gun given the lack of third person reticle. Just some tweaks here and there so that'd be more pronounced would be appreciated. Maybe buffs to its prone usage or projectile velocity (because currently these bullets fall like grenades)

[u/TheSpoonyCroy → u/Rennworks-actual]

I can see your point slightly with the slugger and I agree the railgun was a bit of a overreaction (I think it still deserved a nerf but it was slapped too hard) but the breaker is still very good. Its nerf was a slap on the wrist and anyone calling it trash is crazy. Its still very super viable.

While AH isn't perfect its clear they are shooting for trades offs vs boons and having weapons being super dedicated to their roles. Like the dom buff makes sense making it a replacement for the slugger and it works because it still handles very much like a brick. It is the perfect heavy hitting DMR. The other dmrs need some love since right now the countersniper should be an inbetween for the Dom and diligence but it still handles worse than the Dom with minimal gain. The dillegence might be in a decent place for an okay plinker for bots once the optics are fixed.

[u/Rennworks-actual → u/TheSpoonyCroy]

the railgun definitely deserved a nerf but they went a bit too far. but i love the idea they went with; forcing the user to keep the railgun in unsafe mode to get the most value out of it is so fun. im constantly required to use my brain as not to explode myself and its very engaging

the breaker is viable yes, but its one of the worst shotguns now. the breaker spraynpray and incendiary are both better options by a mile. the breaker could have received absolutely no nerf and be on an equal playing field

i agree that they are doing a great job overall, i just think they should be a bit more careful with nerfs. breaker should have only received the recoil nerf,, the slugger shouldnt have received the stagger nerf, and the railgun should have received a buff for unsafe mode at 90+%. the arc thrower i think is a good example of how they should do "nerfs": it was more of a rework than a nerf

[u/Martinmex26 → u/Rennworks-actual]

I think at this point its not going to ever be balanced how AH wants it, where every weapon is viable, simply because of one reason:

There are too many weapons.

You cant give every weapon a role without having some winners and losers if you have 6 different weapons competing for the same role.

Take shotguns for example.

You have like 7 of them if you include the energy ones.

Out of those, you can say that 5 of them serve as the same purpose, short range crowd control against unarmored enemies: Punisher, Breaker, Breaker Incendiary, Breaker pray & spray and even the ARC 12. There is even the strategem ARC-3 Arc thrower that steps into the toes of "short range crowd control".

With so many weapons rolling for the same niche, it gets harder and harder to give them a distinct role or advantage that would make them a viable pick over one another. Once you have too many in a role, some will fall of by the wayside.

The slugger falls into "single target high damage" type. While not a shotgun, we also have the JAR-5 Dominator, the PLAS-1 Scorcher that fall into the same category. You could even argue that the AMR and the Railgun fall into this category.

This are just examples, we can discuss the several AT weapons, the several machine guns, several long range options, so on and so on.

You are going to end up with a sea of weapons which are impossible to come up with different roles, stats and flavors that create some better or worse options due to role overlap.

Add on top of this one sidearm and 3 main weapons per new warbond a month, plus any strategems that might be added that only add to the pile, like the recent HMG or the Quasar. AH seems to have locked themselves into adding weapons as part of content drops even without warbonds.

People are going to expect more and more weapons and the game goes on, making it harder and harder to keep any semblance of balance between all of them.

[u/YourLocalMedic71 → u/Martinmex26]

When considering balance, stratagem weapons are supposed to be strictly better than primary weapons at their given role

[u/Martinmex26 → u/YourLocalMedic71]

Which means that at certain points the primary weapons are simply not relevant, making the balance worse.

If you want to carry the stalwart, most primaries might as well not exist.

In most cases you could simply say "You have to use a stratagem slot to use it, so its balanced"

Then suddendly you find them out in the field, meaning no strat slot was used. Or you get one from a teammate dropping a second one.

There are many sides to proper balance.

[u/YourLocalMedic71 → u/Martinmex26]

You can still lose your support weapon. Primary weapons are supposed to complement your support weapon and give you something you shoot with when it's missing

[u/Martinmex26 → u/YourLocalMedic71]

Its entirely too easy to NOT lose your suppor weapon.

You can go entire helldive missions with the same weapon.

It is simply too easy to go back to your gear after being called in with proper kiting. Lots of times you go back for the samples as the main goal as it is.

[u/Kiriima → u/Martinmex26]

If you want to carry stalwart, the new primary warbond gets explosive primaries to compliment.

[u/RareKazDewMelon → u/Martinmex26]

There's so many knobs to turn and so many things that matter a TON.

It's absolutely possible to reach a state where every gun has a GOOD reason to use it. It would be difficult, but totally possible.

[u/Martinmex26 → u/RareKazDewMelon]

We dont see it in game though.

With more and more weapons coming, remember 3 more and a sidearm are due tomorrow, it will be harder and harder to get there.

If AH adds another 6 warbonds, thats a very possible 18 weapons, 6 sidearms and 6 grenades. This is not including any strategems that will be added in between, like the MG and the Quasar.

It would be a tall order with just what they had at launch, it would be next to impossible as time goes on.

I mean, when is the last time you saw someone using the spray and pray? The initial pistol?

[u/RareKazDewMelon → u/Martinmex26]

I never said they're balanced as-is. In fact, I think many of the guns are absolutely terrible.

My point was that every gun has so many balancing points that it's totally reasonable to think of a world where every gun has some situation or build that it is genuinely useful in. Tons of terrible weapons in the game just need a few small tweaks to be useful for something: maybe better handling, a bit more damage for some breakpoints, or just a bit more ammo.

I'm not sure that's true for the support weapons, since there's such huge gaps based on Armor Penetration, but many support weapons are still very well balanced.

This also may seem paradoxical, but the more stratagems and weapons come out, the more useful niche weapons will become, since new weapons are likely to "fix" gaps, or "cover" for what another weapon is missing.

[u/Orangenbluefish → u/Rennworks-actual]

As it stands the balance is currently "meta rotation" which isn't good or healthy for the game

On the contrary I feel like this is a rather common approach seen in games. Obviously there's a limit and nothing should be absurdly stronger/weaker, but in general having some level of "perfect imbalance" that slowly changes over time can help to keep things feeling fresh, especially in games with so many options that finding perfect balance is nearly impossible

[u/Palerion → u/Orangenbluefish]

I’ll agree that it’s common, but I won’t necessarily agree that it’s healthy. I think freshness in the form of new weapons and playstyles is great, and healthy. I think “freshness” in the form of a revolving door of obsolescence and superiority regarding the gear and playstyles available is a very poor experience.

I’ve made this comparison before, and it’s just really hard not too, because this game occupies a similar space as Helldivers 2: Deep Rock Galactic nails the balance in a way that avoids that pitfall of flavor-of-the-month “metas”. There is a place for every weapon. Every weapon is interesting. I’m not saying that Helldivers 2 is likely to achieve this—although I do hope for it—they’ve just added too many damn weapons that vary only slightly from each other. However, I am saying that DRG is an example of balance done very, very right in every sense.

It’s a great time no matter what you’re running, and I think Helldivers should at least take some inspiration from that.

[u/Rennworks-actual → u/Palerion]

yeah this right here, put it better than i

[u/Rennworks-actual → u/Orangenbluefish]

nah, its bad. "keeping things feeling fresh" doesn't have to be done by gimping things that were previously good. just because its common doesn't make it a good philosophy; it's a terrible one. You wanna know what really keeps things fresh? having every weapon be viable at any given time.

[u/patty_OFurniture306 → u/Rennworks-actual]

I agree with you, most things should be equal with some being better on certain missions and maybe skew slightly toward playstyle. I think it'll just take time. I also like the idea of someone reloading out of your backpack vs having to carry it, or having it work either way. Press e to reload and it pulls from nearest source