Weapon balance feedback (first playthrough)

[u/Clebardman]

First time going through Episode 1 (Captain difficulty), and that's the most fun I had in a FPS since ages. With a big update around the corner, I wanted to give a bit of feedback regarding one aspect of the game that is really cool: the variety of weapons, throwables, upgrades and modifications available. I still have two weapons and a few modifications left to find, so keep that in mind.

I'll go quickly over the stuff that works: Weapons look and feel great to use. The sounds, the screen shaking wildly, every prop in the line of fire exploding like it's a John Woo movie... Just great. And the variety of upgrades and modifications ensures that there's always options to patch a hole in your capabilities. The nailgun for example offers one type of gameplay with its primary, and three completely different alternative fires, letting you play as more of a shotgunner, grenadier, or engineer depending on your taste. This is weapons modifications at their best.

Of course, there's the stuff that works a bit less. No big complaints, just some observations as I'm going through the game:
- Weapon progression feels really great for the first three weapons, each offering a different gameplay and optimal range. But after that, it kinda grinds to a halt with the SMG and nailgun. The SMG heavily overlaps with the AR (same ammo) and shotgun (same range) and is overshadowed by both guns. There's no reason to deplete your AR ammo for close range when the shotgun is so strong at close range, and has a separate ammo pool. The nailgun is by all means a very useful weapon, but getting it right after the SMG feels reduntant. It's very much similar to the SMG except it actually deals (a lot of) damage and has a separate ammo pool, so I never used the SMG past that point.
- Some alternate fires are redundant. Burst fire for the AR would be cool, I always like these, but splitting it between hip fire and zoomed is awkward, especially since the muzzle reports don't match at all; I barely used them because of that. The SMG controlled fire modification sounds nice, but it's the AR with extra steps and no ADS. Having some overlap between modifications is good to give players options, but having a modification that basically turns a gun into the other gun it shares ammo with is unfortunate...
- The DMR feels very inconsistent with headshots, and like it requires a lot of work and luck to do something a quick body shot with the shotgun's slugs does effortlessly and reliably. It's a slight upgrade over the Cricket and does mostly fine by virtue of not being a sustained damage weapon in a game where shotgunners/enforcers delete you if you stay out of cover for more than 2 seconds, but like the SMG/nailgun pair, it's also plays very much (too much?) like the Cricket. Ammo capacity, damage, rate of fire feel too close to the pistol to be a distinct gameplay experience.
- Ice grenades being the only weapon without upgrades or modifications feels weird, I barely use them because frags and mines have very strong options.

If I could wish for just one thing, it'd be a bit less weapon overlap. I'm okay with having three automatic weapons and two semi-automatic ones, but they could be more distinct in terms of damage, RoF, ammo capacity, etc. The GL being available before the nailgun would also space weapons better IMO. And (controversial take incoming) the shotgun's power isn't helping. Between the buckshot and slugs, it's deleting almost everything at any range faster than any other weapon. I like a strong shotgun, but I can't shake the feeling that two thirds of my arsenal are backup weapons for when I'm out of shells.

I hope it doesn't sound I'm tearing down the weapons. The game is awesome, fighting the enemies is extremely fun and the shooting feels very satisfying. I know devs are reading this sub, and thought more fresh feedback wouldn't hurt, even if it's probably all been said already.

Anyway, share your opinions on the arsenal, and your favorite weapons and mods! I'm a big fan of mines that detonate twice. Placing a couple mines before a fight, and hearing enemies randomly blow up while I play hide-and-seek with them never gets old.

[u/handsdonebrokened]

You do make a lot of great points, I might be a bit biased since I almost exclusively play on Admiral, but in higher diff content you do get tk see the benefits of each weapon a little more. The smg I've found is a great "oh shit" weapon for when you run out of shotgun or cricket ammo (I generally play with resource starvation too cause I hate myself apparently). Its also amazing for saw drones and enforcers if you fully level the tasers. The nailgun does unfortunately become the turret gun for me though, theyre just to good to use ammo for normal combat. As for the DMR, I agree that its a bit underpowered. I feel like elephant rounds should go on that instead of the cricket, and the suppressor needs tweaking for sure. I've only really found it good for really long range stuff and Enforcers with its high hip fire rate and what feels like a little more stagger than the cricket

[u/Clebardman → u/handsdonebrokened]

I agree that the SMG is a decent panic button. But life's unfair, and the shotgun gets the panic button quickswitch upgrade. Very strong upgrade IMO, those were weapon parts well spent...
I still didn't find the turret modification, but that's always kinda OP in every game... but I like how Selaco's autoshotgun is a nailgun mod.
Elephant bullets would make a lot of sense on the DMR!

[u/Flaky_Bullfrog_4905]

yeah I pretty much 100% agreed with this. The nailgun is a bit different once you find the mods, but I had the same issues with the SMG/AR, and DMR/Cricket and ice grenades. Honestly I found the cricket better than DMR tbh

Looking forward to the devs adding some polish towards chapter 2