The Chainguns' magazines

[yosh56]

Referring to both the Chaingun and the Laser Chaingun (LCG)

I keep seeing a lot of supposed balance suggestions that only focus on nerfing or buffing damage and rate of fire and all sorts of other things that are very obvious statistics that change how the guns work WHILE firing. What I don't get is how nobody has pointed out the fact that the Chaingun has TWO-HUNDRED shots a magazine. WHY?! This is the sole reason that it can kill an Arty/MRLS all by itself. I know RenX isn't a copy-paste of OldRen, which is good, but this is probably one of the most game-breaking changes which now starts to favour the Chaingun over the LCG.

I'm not saying the LCG is now under-powered, but right now the fact that there are more advantages to playing an Officer for 175 than there is for playing an LCG Blackhand for 450 is kind of concerning. After the spread increase and fire rate decrease, the LCG has become a worse option for fighting infantry AND light vehicles than the Officer that costs significantly less. Unfortunately, we know what the LCG was like in beta 3, and nobody wants that again, so instead of bothering to keep trying to tweak damage and rate-of-fire and that god awful spread, why not look at the one thing that REALLY broke the chaingun/LCG offset from OldRen to RenX: that 'Spray all day' magazine.

Having the regular Chaingun as is now might be somewhat too powerful, but I'm fine with it being able to mow through infantry if the person behind it has the aim to do so. The problem is, even the biggest noob can spray for FIFTEEN+ seconds straight. That is literally the longest magazine in the game (which makes some sense), but perhaps it made better sense when the Officer wasn't that great (e.g beta 1-3). Now, he's hit-scan and has no spin-up time again. I think it's time that magazine get looked at and possibly dropped back down to 100-150. If it was dropped to 125, the Chaingun would no longer be able to run through light vehicles in less than one magazine, which I personally think is a bigger problem than their actual damage to light armour. They're supposed to be good against it, but that puts a lot of power in one individual's hands. At least make them have to switch to a secondary to finish it off (or bring a friend).

On the same token, now that the LCG has been put back in its place damage-wise vs infantry, perhaps we might want to look at giving it a similar treatment that the Officer got. The lower rate of fire and spread increase have worked together to make it easier to miss targets more than about 50m+ out, but it got nothing at all to compensate. Now the LCG actually feels kind of pointless, other than the fact that it CAN do damage to heavy armour. Unfortunately, even a Rocket soldier out-damages it, so screw that last part.

Again, I don't personally believe it needs to do MORE damage, or do its damage faster, but I do believe increasing its magazine size will aid in compensating for the shots you're going to now miss due to RNG.

A push to move the LCG magazine to 125 would give it the capability to kill a light vehicle in one magazine, and it would still be several seconds slower than an Officer in current b4 can do it. Even if you up the magazine to 150 it would not change that the TTK would still be a bit lower than the current Officer, which is fine. It doesn't NEED to be better than the Officer at DPS to light armour, as it does have the ability to damage heavy armour. In the long run, being able to fire for longer also helps the LCG vs. heavy armour without just making it do more damage faster, which is GDI's shtick.

People seem to forget that how often a weapon has to reload is a MASSIVE factor to how powerful an automatic weapon is.

TL;DR: Why does the Chaingun still need 200 rounds a magazine to make it better than the LCG vs. everything that isn't a tank. Also, why can't the LCG get a larger magazine to compensate for the higher spread, not to mention help its TTK vs. armour without making it actually shoot any faster or do more damage?

[HaTe]

I personally think that the lcg handles itself quite fine. Its versatile and any good player can still land headshots very easily. The chain gun probably needs 150 mag capacity, but the big thing is that it needs a lower RoF. Decreasing the ROF makes the ttk anything take longer, regardless of the damage.

[RoundShades]

The LCG doing steady damage to heavy armor is good and is it's role in legacy renclassic. Giving it a larger clip would help, while managing it's rof and spread so at close range it does acceptable damage to infantry and at long range it does some less damage. That keeps it from being an omnipotent weapon.

Same with the chaingun as he said, giving it some spread or some damage reduction may be necessary, but if you dropped the clip to 100 then it can still drop most a light vehicle without being able to kill it.

My only complaint, is that 125 is too random a number. The chaingun, given just a slight bit of spread, can still be only acceptably slightly OP for it's cost at 100 rounds a clip. The LCG if given a rof or damage that is worse than the chaingun while keeping it's spread, could get 100-150 rounds which keep it abusing heavy armor over the course of 30 seconds, which is a different flavor of a rocket/rail's 1 hit wonder damage.

I mean, for instance, if the chaingun did autorifle stats, then you added 50% more damage and 2x the rate of fire and 2x the spread and the apc-gun's armor value, then it could still melt enemies in combat as well as dent lights and be balanced. Then, if you make the LCG the autorifle stats, then gave it 2x more damage, 50% more fire rate, 3x the spread, and a clip of 150, with heavy-armor damage, then I believe it would do 2 rockets of damage by time the rocketeer is done reloading and would kill infantry worse than the officer.

[yosh56]

I personally think that the lcg handles itself quite fine. Its versatile and any good player can still land headshots very easily. The chain gun probably needs 150 mag capacity, but the big thing is that it needs a lower RoF. Decreasing the ROF makes the ttk anything take longer, regardless of the damage.

At no point did I say the LCG can't land headshots, I just said it's GOING to miss more that should have been now. I still see bars melt at close range, at mid+ though it gets really iffy... like Modern-shooter RNG iffy; like enough to interfere with hitting tanks even at center of mass.

The LCG no doubt still handles itself, but it just never seems like it's worth getting for anything. The Rocket soldier is cheaper and does more against vehicles, as well as doesn't even need to stay exposed.. or aim. The Officer does more against infantry (currently), and can 1-mag a light vehicle like nobody's business. Both of them are also cheaper.

The LCG just kinda... looks cool and is sorta a chaingun that CAN do damage to heavy armour, but nothing about it really stands out. Might as well have a rocket soldier with a carbine/tib weapon and you'd be more effective. Considering Nod is supposedly the infantry faction, it kind of makes sense that they should have a chaingun that's better in more than just 1 way to that thing you could be buying for way cheaper. Again, it's not Nod's field to just be able to output more damage quickly, but consistently pestering an enemy for like 15 seconds, then being able to sustainably fight infantry for longer than a cheaper class is right up their alley.

Just upping the magazine also slightly bridges the gap between Patch and the LCG, but makes sure Patch is still better at dealing out damage fast, which is GDI's thing, as stated before. The LCG will just be able to do more sustainable, annoying damage. Again, all of this without needing to touch ROF and damage which would effect infantry combat way too much, and neither of those 2 units are in need of really changing in that category.

[HaTe]

I don't think a buff and a Nerf are needed when you can just Nerf the one weapon and the balance between the weapons would equal out. Doing a buff too would be overkill. Nerfing the chain gun in turn makes the lcg relatively stronger and more efficient. So the chain gun is more effective against infantry now, and nerfing that will make a buff to the lcg unnecessary

[yosh56]

You're also not including that the LCG got double-nerfed from B3 to B4, PLUS the infantry that it was supposedly better than ALL got buffed in multiple ways, further driving down into a pit of 'cool, but really not a necessary addition': AKA novelty.

[HaTe]

I don't care about past changes, just the current situation and how to fix anythibg not balanced for the future. Right now a Nerf to the officer would balance the lcg relatively as well.

[yosh56]

However... it doesn't. Yes the Officer needs to be knocked down a notch in ROF, but nixing its ROF doesn't stop the fact that we're still looking at a $450 credit unit that:

Is worse at killing vehicles, of both types, than a rocket soldier (which got buffed TWICE for some reason during B4 testing)

-

Is only 'going to be' on par with killing infantry with the normal Officer, which also is probably still going to have a larger magazine and be better suited for it.

--

Is only further put down by the fact that both of the above infantry can just use sidearms (which come out cheaper) to make up for their own downsides.

Actually, as I had to fight for in B4 testing, making a lot of other guns hitscan takes away one of the things Nod's unique infantry had going for them. It's why I fought so hard to keep the Tac-Rifle from staying hit-scan.

[HaTe]

A Rocket soldier is awful against infantry. Its almost entirely made for vehicles.

With a RoF Nerf, the officer wouldn't be as good as the lcg at killing infantry (its barely on par now).

Sidearms are eventually going to cost VP/SP so that they are earned separately from credits.

The advantage an LCG has is that it's versatile. Its good against any unit, so you purchase it when you have the chance of running into vechs or infantry, not just for tunnels. Like on under or lakeside for example.

[Ap2000]

The LCG is out-doing the Officer not only with raw anti-vehicle damage, but always by having more health and thus withstanding more shots from vehicles. I don't think the LCG itself needs any changing.

I think the best nerf for the officer would be a range decrease. He should still be a stopping power in close to semi-mid range, because that seems to be the intention. No need to change the rate of fire or actual damage much.

You've already made an interesting thread over here about how the rocket soldier does a lot of damage, especially against buildings. I guess it's a thing of preference if you want to have a character that is basically a cripple against infantry/CQC, but really strong at a distance.

A rocket soldier nerf and gunner buff (who is currently more or less useless, despite the bigger HP), would probably be good in putting the ~500 credits units back into the game.

But yeah, that's already been discussed.

There have been a lot of rebalancing suggestions on the forums after b4 and the latest patch, but unfortunately the devs didn't really comment on any of them yet, so we'll have to see what their opinions are and what direction they want to go with everything.

[HaTe]

I think its smart that the devs observe before making a decision.

Also, the chaingun is too op close and mid range too. That's why the ROF Nerf would be best

[RoundShades]

I still barely think the chaingun's damage is that bad. The laser chaingun is still useful.

If it had a tighter shot group, i.e. less spread and recoil, and the officer had more recoil and spread, i.e. they meet in the middle, and then the officer had a 100 mag clip but the same ROF, then at shotgun range the officer would still be able to kill as quick as current but that is good because everyone hates shotgunners and likes to use shotgunners so you get both with the officer (lol), the officer would begin however to have trouble hitting all bullets on an infantry head sillouette much less the center of gravity down the distance of the island short tunnels, and the laser chaingun at max range won't miss shots out the edge of it's spread on tanks because it's spread is literally larger than the broadside of a mammy...

I literally think the officer chaingun is stronger than laser chaingun now is the only problem with the chaingun, and the only reason that is is because the officers chaingun is a tighter shotgroup. If they both had the same spread, between where both are now, and the same clip, then the laser chaingunner would be equal besides heavy tank damage. Now, you can then add to the laser chaingunner another clip i.e. 500 round reserve, or 20% more damage and 20% less rate of fire, or 200 round clips for the laser chaingunner instead... something like that.

And the officer would STILL be useful against infantry and light armor, and especially infantry at close range but even infantry at max range would probably drop 1/8th a health a second.

So...

>>Lower officer chaingun to 100 rounds

>>Give officer and laser chaingun same spread, between both current spreads

>>Keep both their damage and rates of fire

>>From that point, choose some miniscule buff to give to the laser chaingunner, like an extra clip of ammo.

[Canucck]

Officer is not OP because of RoF. It's the new hitscan, and clip size to 150 should be the first check if it's staying hitscan.

Problem with making so many things hitscan is if something is made easier for newer players it's made twice as easy for better players. But it kinda makes sense for this game since players are so spread out with only 1-2 servers. Need to find creative way to balance, just being reactionary and always nerfing/buffing the obvious stats is a horrible approach that is almost always guaranteed to backfire.

[SFJake]

There's a very serious discussion we need to have about hitscan VS hitscan weapons.

Making a weapon non-hitscan (aka have actual bullets with a noticeable travel time) doesn,t just mean its harder to use. It means its far weaker.

Making a weapon hitscan is a huge buff.

A non-hitscan weapon is far less effective at range vs any opponent that is harder to predict, while hitscan weapon have a naturally easier time hitting things.

This is important because the chaingun should not be hitscan.

This is what stops weapons like it to be less effective at range.

"But why not just nerf the spread?", you say. Because nerfing the spread is horrible. Because the chaingun should still be able to kill careless target at long range and take skill & prediction into account. Spread is nothing of that, spread is pure roll of the dice and should not exist.

While if you simply nerf the chaingun to a non-hitscan weapon, it can still skillfully take people out at range but is still weakened at range overall, quite massively.

The short version is:

-Chaingun should not be hitscan.

-Laser Chaingun should have 0 spread.

If we were really going my way, chaingun would have 100 bullet max, wouldn't be hitscan and would have no spread (but then most weapons would have no spread either).

The marksman going hitscan was good because it was utterly useless as a counter-sniper.

That solution should not be used for every weapon. Hitscan chaingun is bad.

The advantage of the Laser Chaingun is SUPPOSED to be that its hitscan. This is true over the chaingun, and is true over the tactical rifle as well (which should have a higher DPS).

[Canucck]

Hitscan chaingun should be a bad idea, and would be if the game had lots of players with relatively close servers for everyone to play on with great pings. But it's not, there's 2 servers that have players most of the time, often less. These servers are supposed to accommodate everyone from australia to germany to south africa to california. They're all located in EU because that's where like 60% of players are from, and for everyone else it really fucking sucks to use anything but hitscan because trying to use projectile weapons on UE3 with more than 60 ping is a painful experience.

[Handepsilon]

...and for everyone else it really fucking sucks to use anything but hitscan because trying to use projectile weapons on UE3 with more than 60 ping is a painful experience.

Personal experience [72 ping]

Rocket soldier

1. Fires a rocket

2. Wait for a second

3. Rocket comes out

[yosh56]

While it is true that using non-hitscan weapons is a bitch without an exceptionally low ping on every UE3 game, I just have to point out the fact that making the tier-1 Officer hitscan actually breaks Renegade's infantry balancing.

Basically, what made Nod's 2 unique infantry feel like they were 'better' is the fact that only Nod had hit-scan infantry at tier 2 (sans the sniper rifle, which is sort of its own thing). GDI had splash damage over Nod, but with a bit of clever positioning Nod could take that advantage away and exploit being able to pick off GDI infantry from mid-range as little more than a point-click-and-hold adventure.

NOW, GDI has the hit-scan Officer, the hit-scan McFarland, AND the only infantry units with splash damage, so if they don't feel like aiming they can just use that instead. (The rocket soldier's splash is meh). In truth, GDI's infantry are actually significantly better now that one of Nod's major advantages was rendered null and void by GDI gaining 2 extra hit-scan options, let alone the Officer which already mimics the LCG.

[HaTe]

If we're using renegade as an example (which we should), the chaingun has the same velocity as the autorifle. 350 velocity, when the max (you all like to term it hitscan) is 400.

That doesn't change how op it is mid to close range though, as that very slight travel time would be negated by how close you are to the enemy. Its the ROF that balances these weapons. This is coming from someone who has studied the renegade damage charts extensively. You say that changing ROF is the obvious thing, cannuck? How? Changing the damage would be obvious. Changing the rate of fire makes automatic weapons less useful without editing the damage.

[Canucck]

Changing the rof is absolutely changing the damage lol

[HaTe]

2 separate calculations. Damage is per bullet. ROF is how many bullets per second are fired. Both attribute to TTK, but they're entirely separate...

[SFJake]

Is the chaingun being strong at close range considered a problem? I don't see it as such. Thats not to say the rate of fire doesn't need a change, though, but the chaingun -should- be an effective close range deterrent, when most anti-infantry weapon can be very effective at longer ranges.

the hit-scan McFarland

Right, I forgot that was done because I never use him, but that was also a change I don't agree with. Whats up with the hitscan-ization of the game.

[HaTe]

Yeah perhaps a higher recoil could help that. It already has a slight recoil at range, but increasing it could make range fighting much harder too. The rof thing is important to me though cuz it's just too strong close range. Even with that being its main advantage, it does it far too well as is.

[RoundShades]

Is the chaingun being strong at close range considered a problem? I don't see it as such. Thats not to say the rate of fire doesn't need a change, though, but the chaingun -should- be an effective close range deterrent, when most anti-infantry weapon can be very effective at longer ranges.

the hit-scan McFarland

Right, I forgot that was done because I never use him, but that was also a change I don't agree with. Whats up with the hitscan-ization of the game.

Well, as HaTe said, 350 was the old projectile speed, and 400 is practically hitscan. Well, I don't mind hitscan or not, but a lot of times there is no good velocity given besides hitscan. If the Devs used 350 i'd bet the autorifle and officer would be fine given it would only affect the travel time against the target for the last 25% of their range, anything close the bullet is unavoidable at that speed.

Also, the devs have been treating the tac rifle and chaingun as symmetrical. If symmetrical, tacrifle does need to become hitscan, but I don't agree on that. However, asymmetrically, one has to have advantages the other doesn't. If the tac rifle had the same damage, but did it fractionally faster, let's say 60 round clip, does same damage as 80 rounds of a laser chaingun, but the laser chaingun did more damage overall, let's say 100 round clip and thus more total ammo as well, then they would be balanced. Patch would be a 3/5 against infantry and 5/5 against vehicles, LCG would be 4/5 infantry 4/5 vehicles.

You need only adjust the tac rifle to have 15% more damage and less ammo, and the laser chaingunner to have less spread really. Again, to diversify gunner, he needs basically tank round damage for his gun, at a slow travel speed, to make him bad at anything but point blank range infantry as he can be dodged, but great at the pyles of vehicles sitting outside base as well as equal or slightly better to volt rifle against structures.

Lastly, about the ROF and the officer at close range. The SHOTGUN is FREE and it is STILL STRONGER than the officer depending on just how close. Barreltap, shotgun wins, 1 hit kill. reasonably farther away, officer wins, shotgun starts to take 3+ shots to kill. Too far away, shotgun wins again, especially with cover, as it can still kill with 5 shots as ridiculous as that is while the officer only has 5 split seconds to hit the shotgunner when he emerges from cover. No, spread would be plenty, without the damage, he is worth negative credits because the free shotgunner and free autorifle are better.

Too nerfed, I would only get him if he was free and I needed to soak some landmines for teammates to get inside a base.

And SFJake, spread isn't "just" a dice roll. it is programmed for a max and min. Unless flawed programming, which I sometimes severely suspect the shotgun of having, it literally prevents it from making full use of it's damage on a small target at longer range, but not a large target like an arty, or a small target at closer range. Nobody can do it, lucky or skillful, it is an actual limit. At close range, the weapon should have a spread the size of their head, meaning every bullet should hit no luck involved. I do not want flawed spread where the bullets hit the top right corner of it's spread 8 times in a row killing someone with headshots that weren't centered. I want real limiting spread, and in the chaingun's case it can be algoritmic or patterned if it has to be, like a spinning motion. On the shotgun or assault rifle I rather no pattern because it requires memorization, but sometimes on the shotgun I rather it choose from 1 of 3 evenly spreaded patterns at random so 6 random bullets don't hit the left side of the spread and decimate an enemy 40 meters away...

[HaTe]

Spread has a maximum, but the minimum is zero. There is then a spray count that means each bullet has its own spread (for guns like the shotgun). So it measures anywhere from 0.0 spread to the maximum spread number. That's how it works in renegade. The only clear difference in X is that the spread remains the same over distance. The shotgun had a spread that increased over range (the bullets didn't come straight out, but instead shot out in angles, which meant they increased over range), but X's appear to shoot out in a set angle (straight out).

[RoundShades]

Spread has a maximum, but the minimum is zero. There is then a spray count that means each bullet has its own spread (for guns like the shotgun). So it measures anywhere from 0.0 spread to the maximum spread number. That's how it works in renegade. The only clear difference in X is that the spread remains the same over distance. The shotgun had a spread that increased over range (the bullets didn't come straight out, but instead shot out in angles, which meant they increased over range), but X's appear to shoot out in a set angle (straight out).

I mentioned that specifically, because it is controllable. You can make pattern-spreads. You can make spreads where it doesn't hit the center anymore than 1 out of 3 bullets, or the "top side" any more than 1 out of 3 bullets, or the "right side" any more than 1 out of 3 bullets. Often, games that do this, normalize spread to reduce luck. Games that don't do this, gives the weapon user "happy accidents" like 3 bullet headshots from the farthest left edge of a shotgun blast.

In the chaingun's case, giving it a spread a certain angle from the center and in a spinning pattern, would be "understandable" i.e. not obscure or hard to learn the pattern, realistic in a way, and limit how many headshots or bodyshots you can get on a target from so far away as one of the edges or the shoulders would have to miss for the other edge to hit.

If not a pattern, and the laser chaingun can take note of this as well, then you can make it to where it can only be so wide of a spread and so far away from the immediate last bullet fired. This gives benefit of burst and releasing the trigger occasionally, as well as making the pattern reliably able to do damage and be predictable and not as random, as it basically "draws a trail of bullets across a wall". One bullet is milimeters from the next, the next moves a little more, none of the bullets are hitting opposite sites of the reticle of each other, but they also aren't all hitting the guy. This is a little luckier if it chooses to sweep him or not, more bullets may hit one time than the next time, inconsistent results, but the damage per range would always be the same fraction which is particularly good.

I don't do TF2, but a lot of TF2 take this into consideration like the Minigun and the Scattergun and Shotguns, even the hanguns often make sure the bullets are fairly spread. The problem with TF2, is that it is evenly spread, but a lot of guns have obscure patterns so you try to predict where their head will be when the bullet comes out or what shape the pattern fires to make their body fit it if it is right-side-heavy.

[GatsuFox]

Chaingun is fine leave him alone. Actually his magazine pool should be 600 not 400 (unless we can get ammo drops from dead bodies).

[HaTe]

This is why I made my point about only skilled players should be taken seriously about balance issues

[RoundShades]

This is why I made my point about only skilled players should be taken seriously about balance issues

That walk back to base, if it weren't for sprint I would agree. I mean, vehicles don't have to return to base, and one could argue it would present a higher team coordination and skill level to have an ammo limit to vehicles. That would just place unreasonably high expectations of players though. Heck, it might even be fun to add ammo to vehicles, along with an "ammo pack" that drops ammo a vehicle can pick up.

As is though, I don't even want to open that can of worms. We now have sprint, and vehicles are fine enough given tentative objectives that they miss like the tunnels and silos. Infantry refill is acceptable given travel time on foot is generally faster.

Gatsu was joking though, right? Anyway, the point is how much ammo per clip, not how much ammo per unit, although some units need more than others. I never NOT run out of marksman ammo, and that I believe was buffed, and laser chaingun which spends clip after clip and holds the line pretty well.