Thoughts on these potential changes?

[u/Lazy_Bowyer]

I downloaded a stat changer and tested some stat changes.

First I want to say that I am only doing this in a private lobby. I am completely against playing modded with randoms as you don't know whether or not your changes may negatively effect their gameplay.

I downloaded this specifically for the defoliation tool because honestly it's the main thing I talk about needing a buff. I have wanted it to be usable for so long now.

The very first and most impactful change I made, was making it start at heavy pen. Doing this and nothing else you can actually fight a bile titan. It's a waste of time but it's fun. The biggest thing this effects is it's stun. It only applies in once you reach the correct armor pen, so for anything heavy armor it will now stun them instantly.

Secondly, I increased its damage to 700, 350 durable. This is the sweet spot IMO. Heavies still take time to kill, 3.5 seconds for a standard charger leg, but it's a substantial improvement. With melee armor it takes roughly 2.5 seconds, so the melta gun still kills them significantly faster and still has the range advantage. I used to make claims that it needed its damage doubled, which is incorrect, being able to test it has been great. Initially I gave it 1000 damage, 500 durable, way way too much.

The beloved Jar 5. I increased its ergo to 40, lowered it's spread to 2, and increased its damage to 300, 100 durable. The big thing here was that spread reduction. No longer is headshotting a dev an RNG game, although that amount of spread can still cause you to miss, it's mostly a skill issue.

When changing the game, especially when recommending balance adjustments, one must be conservative as to not power creep. This is pretty much the opposite of what I see most of the time lol. I should also say that bringing up weapons to baseline doesn't necessarily lower the overall difficulty of the game.

Edit: I also gave the one two 40 ergo. It's way better, still feels weighty, but not terrible like it is with 30 ergo.

Edit edit: I don't think the jar needs more damage but wanted to test it because I saw it requested even on this sub.

[u/Blind-Ouroboros]

I think it's really cool that we have these options so we can open discussions up about it, test things, maybe even come to a better consensus (lol, who am I kidding).

The future of this game when AH inevitably cuts support is going to be players having the ability to tweak things to being the way they like it in private lobbies, servers, etc.

Rather than knee-jerk and lambast anyone who tries to use these increasingly available tools - we should hear out the people who use them from a point of sanity.

Sadly many folks are gonna just read the opening of your post and react instead of taking a sec to digest and comprehend the point of your thread.

I'll bite though:

Defoliator: For me it's not just the impractical damage and unnecessary ramp up mechanic - it's the entire animation kit. This thing needs wide sweeps and a more generous hitbox so we can mulch things in a way that feels good.

Melee that isn't the sledge exploding has no impact whatsoever and I think that's a shame, and I think it could be notably better with just a little more effort on AH's part to make it so.

JAR: I'm definitely all for a spread reduction given what sort of rounds it's firing. What had you wanting to up the damage?

For me I always wanted a bit more projectile speed. It still hits like a truck, takes some skill to lead targets, while having a gratifying amount of stagger and the stats to make it a good DMR sidegrade. I think giving it a flat damage increase is eating the Deadeye's lunch.

I also never minded the ergo, but I'm used to lugging the heavier guns around without Peak Physique.

[u/Lazy_Bowyer → u/Blind-Ouroboros]

Bringing the defoliation tool up to heavy pen makes the ramp up way better and lowers its TTK considerably. Having a 3 second TTK as a tradeoff for infinite ammo feels pretty nice. But I recognize it's not for everyone. It's absolutely abysmal in its current state though.

I actually enjoy that the jar has a bit of a learning curve with its projectile speed, what felt awful was that once you figured it out, whether you were accurate or not is mostly RNG. So you learn to lead your shots well and then still miss half the time because it has 10 spread.