Rifle-Butt
Laosh'Ra
Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
<div class="IPBDescription">what about the other weapons?</div>this might sound crazy, but i sometimes pick the assault rifle for the sake of its melee attack even though i could easily afford all the other weapons. here is why:
vs shotgun: the shotgun is nice against structures, fades and gorges, but i lack aiming to properly take down skulks at close range. either the first shot kills them right away when they are closing in or... i'm screwed! sometimes, i need 3 hits to wipe them out (because i dont hit properly), which takes ages with a shotgun. sure, performance is an issue there. but i figure a shotgun should be superior at close range compared to a rifle (which can knock a skulk back for a rather easy kill).
vs grenade launcher: i really miss the melee attack a lot for this as it feels kinda lame to have this powerful attack removed (by spending 25 p.res!). i often see people shooting a grenade on the ground as a desperate attempt to take the skulk with them...
vs flamer: well the flamer obviously works nicely against skulks. still, the slow movementspeed makes you quite vulnerable even to burning skulks.
so here is what i'd like to see:
1. minor nerf to the rifle-butt in terms of damage and/or hit-detection
2. similar attack for shotgun, a "shotgun-butt"
3. similar attack for grenade launcher attachment (if introducing a 3rd attacktype is troublesome, it could be activated whenever the grenades are empty)
4. MAYBE similar attack for the flamer
vs shotgun: the shotgun is nice against structures, fades and gorges, but i lack aiming to properly take down skulks at close range. either the first shot kills them right away when they are closing in or... i'm screwed! sometimes, i need 3 hits to wipe them out (because i dont hit properly), which takes ages with a shotgun. sure, performance is an issue there. but i figure a shotgun should be superior at close range compared to a rifle (which can knock a skulk back for a rather easy kill).
vs grenade launcher: i really miss the melee attack a lot for this as it feels kinda lame to have this powerful attack removed (by spending 25 p.res!). i often see people shooting a grenade on the ground as a desperate attempt to take the skulk with them...
vs flamer: well the flamer obviously works nicely against skulks. still, the slow movementspeed makes you quite vulnerable even to burning skulks.
so here is what i'd like to see:
1. minor nerf to the rifle-butt in terms of damage and/or hit-detection
2. similar attack for shotgun, a "shotgun-butt"
3. similar attack for grenade launcher attachment (if introducing a 3rd attacktype is troublesome, it could be activated whenever the grenades are empty)
4. MAYBE similar attack for the flamer
Comments
This is the wrong thread for such a topic, however:
My opinion on this is probably not what you would like to hear,
I find that the purchasing a shotgun you are replacing butt with damage. In all fairness, that's an amazing change.
If hit detection is the concern, i suggest waiting for the next few patches.
As for flamethrower, reckon you could swing 20-30 kgs so fast it would send a skulk flying? :P
Cheers,
-Scott.C
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I find that the purchasing a shotgun you are replacing butt with damage. In all fairness, that's an amazing change.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i get your point, but i think the problem is the low firerate. when using a rifle, you can always interrupt your current attack if you feel like you might land a nice hit at exact this situation. when preparing a new shot with the shotgun (or even worse, your clip is empty), there is nothing you could do except switching to the pistol which takes quite a while.
to be honest i think i have 3x the chance to kill a skulk in melee with a rifle than i have with a shotgun. considering you are an experienced playtester you might blame it on me, this is why i posted this in discussion to find out if other people have similar or different oppinions about this.
anyway, what about the grenade launcher? it really seems like a downgrade in terms of melee capabilities. i guess this might be intended in order to encourage teamplay (requires better cover for marines with grenade launchers) but the fact that it is actually the same weapon doesn't make this very intuitive.
as for flamer, i put the MAYBE because i agree on your thoughts: it's just too heavy. the only reason to implement it there might be for "fairness" compared to the other weapons as it is the most expensive weapon, but i guess the flamer is effective enough without it.
A Suggestion is just a suggestion, which is what this is.
For example:
Discussion: The rifle-butt does too much damage.
Suggestion: The rifle-butt should do less damage.
:P
Suggestion: The rifle-butt should do less damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
QTF. Need to be fixed.
Personally, I'd suggest adding some sort of melee weapon to the basic rifle, a bayonet or spike plate on the butt or something so that you have a reason why it makes an effective melee weapon, and then you can also explain why it doesn't work on other guns.
I do agree that a melee for the shotgun might be a good idea too, it is a melee weapon after all, being able to choose between perhaps waiting longer for a shot or bashing with it to hit sooner, but with a longer downtime afterwards, that'd be an interesting dynamic for the shotgun.
In NS, giving marines an effective melee weapon is sort of a major thing. Because aliens have to fight in melee and do so the same way marines do, so a marine with an effective melee weapon is quite possibly better than an alien in close combat.
So, either you would have to have the melee damages be all over the place for all the weapons to make the melee attack balanced when combined with all of their primary attacks, which would mean some weapons would suck in melee but you'd still have the option, which is kinda silly. Or you'd have to make the melee generally very weak, which makes it kinda pointless.
Basically a melee attack in NS2 is a major feature, and you need to treat it as a major feature of any weapon it's attached to, which means it can't be on every weapon, and it probably shouldn't be on any weapon that already has a secondary attack because that weapon already has a lot of major features.
skulks have a hard enough time as it is to get close to marines .. only to get riflebutt stunned and shot to death...
Lmg Rifle-Butt (in theory you should be able to do this with every weapon => feels wrong that you cant)
But since i dont want to riflebutt kill structures - i would love to get rid of rifle butt and use the axe against lifeforms an structures.
How could we make it better?
- Remove riflebutt.
- Make Gl into its own weapon.
*while i leave the following stuff in - my real suggestion is at the bottom of the post.
- Only main-weapons should have an altfiremode. (remove pistol altifire, and make it a mix, dmg/RoF are in between both modes)
- Main-weapons should come with its altfiremode into the game. (increase weapon research cost, or other tech if necessary)
- Altfiremodes shouldnt be better than the main mode, it should be an alternative/situational. (up/downsides)
Problem:
Making interessting and nice altfire mechanics... nearly impossible...
Lmg
- Zoom = cheap, can be useful, but most of the time not
- Riflebutt = cheap, we already have an AXE(even tho it currently does less dmg to lifeforms for whatever reason)
Shotgun
- Slugs = op "snipermode"
- double shot = op, instakill fades is already possible, this will make it even easier. (with 2 instead of 3ppl)
- chargeable shot = op as above
- dragonbreath ammo = not very useful (less direct dmg but flame dot)
GL
- sticky nades = easymode - possible to half dmg per nade - still not cool.
- remote explosive nades = op since your team could spam it = insta kill all teh things.
- mines = op since your team could spam it = super turtle
- more distance shots = plausible if RoF is very slow (but not really interessting or nice mechanic => cheap like riflebutt)
- toxic gas = useless (why use this instead of explosive nades? also cheap since its same as lerk spores i guess)
- napalm = we already have a flamethrower
- cluster nades = doesnt sound very useful.
Flamethrower
- Canister = spam, also we have already nadelunchers
- Spray liquid then ignite = spam... usefulness is questionable.
- shorter but stronger flame, with higher ammo drain... op.
- longer weaker flame + higher ammo drain, usefulness?
Minigun
- Spinup + slower movement = Yay first good one.
Plasmarifle
- no idea if it even comes and how it works
Conclusion:
Before we get some more cheap stuff like riflebutt i rather have no altfire modes at all.
<u>Forget the "every weapon needs an altfire" crap!</u>
Remove all altfire modes.
I kind of like the LMG rifle butt as a concept myself but it does abit too much damage, even if you increase axe damage to equal level and remove rifle butt, most of the time you just don't have enough time to swap weapons.
skulks have a hard enough time as it is to get close to marines .. only to get riflebutt stunned and shot to death...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Skulks have a hard time because for some utterly stupid reason UWE decided to model skulk speed from snails.
i get your point, but i think the problem is the low firerate. when using a rifle, you can always interrupt your current attack if you feel like you might land a nice hit at exact this situation. when preparing a new shot with the shotgun (or even worse, your clip is empty), there is nothing you could do except switching to the pistol which takes quite a while.
to be honest i think i have 3x the chance to kill a skulk in melee with a rifle than i have with a shotgun. considering you are an experienced playtester you might blame it on me, this is why i posted this in discussion to find out if other people have similar or different oppinions about this.
anyway, what about the grenade launcher? it really seems like a downgrade in terms of melee capabilities. i guess this might be intended in order to encourage teamplay (requires better cover for marines with grenade launchers) but the fact that it is actually the same weapon doesn't make this very intuitive.
as for flamer, i put the MAYBE because i agree on your thoughts: it's just too heavy. the only reason to implement it there might be for "fairness" compared to the other weapons as it is the most expensive weapon, but i guess the flamer is effective enough without it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In a 1vs1 skulk with a shotgun i always lose, even if i manage to shoot 8 times at it. For me the flamethrower is the best for now, as the rifle also stops me from keep moving the aim because of the lagg it makes
Be patient, celerity upgrade is coming at some point.
Remove, or severely reduce the damage from it, so it only can be used to kick the skulks away+ a small disorient(like now?).
Pistol is much more effective and faster then trying to get a melee hit.(also it works against every lifeform relative good... dmg pretty good)
<u>So you are switching weapons around anyway</u>.
And since we got a dedicated melee weapon THE AXE (its a sharp metal AXE, you can tell me what you want but a rifle butt should actually be less dmg than a hit with an axe) that is available to every marine no matter which weapon he has - why not use it?
Why switch from lmg to pistol and then back to lmg instead of switching to the axe if you think you need to melee and have no chance to dodge and reload?
We dont have to give every fps CoD mechanics...
the point is that you lack overview/aiming in melee. i sometimes use pistol but i find the rifle-butt MUCH more effective because it hits so easily. so i often use up my pistol clip for a burst damage against a cyst or whatever without reloading it right away. as for the axe, the damage is indeed lower (except against structures) and it has no stun-effect: this is why i also want a nerf of the rifle-butt. but even then i will still prefer the rifle-butt because i can use it immetiately e.g. before emptying my clip because a skulk has gotten into melee range, it allows me to easily finish him off with the rest of my clip. when i score a melee-hit with enough rifle bullets left, i think i have about 80% chance to kill the skulk provided he is not attacking in a group. alternatively if your clip is empty, you can still switch to the pistol right after hitting with the rifle-butt as it buys you some time.
You might want to practice this, dodge jumps + pistol first(works in every situation and against every lifeform) > going close to a melee unit(usually there is a time window you are doing nothing then trying to get a riflebutt hit without getting bitten, - in this timewindow you could have emptied a whole pistol mag which doesnt require you to be in specific range and position to the skulk) + try to riflebutt.(only works against 1v1 skulks)
Especially if the riflebutt-dmg is lowered.
For me riflebutt is cheap alt fire, that only came into the game because devs didnt have any good ideas for altfires... and to be fair, i dont have good and balanced ideas either.
(riflebutt as an altfire for only one weapon feels wrong, since you know this from other games, and i dont see any sane reason why you should be able to do it with other weapons - especially if they are big and heavy)
The main reason why riflebutt and axe no aiming doesn't have much effect to the gameplay is that pistol has so much higher dps which makes meleeing pretty useless unless you're totally out of ammo.
However it's still annoying to get killed by a marine that is axing a cyst while you're chewing his back and he hasn't even seen you.
that explains why i keep getting axed to death even when i was sure i was chewing on their back :(
thought it was some sort of ping + insanely accurate marine melee guy
my problem with riflebutt is not the dmg (well ok the dmg sux too) but that a marine can trade a hit with you to freeze you in place and finish off with the lmg
(lmg vs stationary target is.. quite powerful)
btw, can anyone answer this question?
riflebutt work on other lifeforms? (fades comes to mind)
That is why it is not too hard to hit something with it right now (I guess the rifle-butt's box is even bigger than the alien melee attack ones, didn't check ingame) and why it might even hit something behind you.
It is also the cause of the really annoying thing that it can be pretty hard to chew on one power node (or really anything) together as aliens as you will frequently hit your fellow alien, because it is often closer to you than the enemy unit.
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Lmg Rifle-Butt (in theory you should be able to do this with every weapon => feels wrong that you cant)
But since i dont want to riflebutt kill structures - i would love to get rid of rifle butt and use the axe against lifeforms an structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The axe does more damage to structures, it has a special damage modifier to make it better against them,
Also there is no way that a box can go trough your body hitting something behind you... that would be some mega server lag its not like the box is floating in air waiting a few seconds until something runs in...
edit: i know that chris thank you, the point was - replacing axe with riflebutt would be stupid(ppl talking of making an extra melee button that attacks with your main weapon= riflebutts on all weapon), but the other way around it would be ok => using our melee weapon we carry around all the time, as melee weapon in all situations (my post was about getting rid of riflebutt)
Also there is no way that a box can go trough your body hitting something behind you... that would be some mega server lag its not like the box is floating in air waiting a few seconds until something runs in...
edit: i know that chris thank you, the point was - replacing axe with riflebutt would be stupid(ppl talking of making an extra melee button that attacks with your main weapon= riflebutts on all weapon), but the other way around it would be ok => using our melee weapon we carry around all the time, as melee weapon in all situations (my post was about getting rid of riflebutt)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Huh? Are you saying that whatever weapon we have up, we'll melee with the axe? Like... CoD-style? I actually think that's not a terrible idea, as long as we still get the option to use the axe exclusively.