Viability of Primary and secondary weapons (rework suggestion)

[HolySeraphin]

I think there's enough consensus in the community that damage-wise melee weapons perform a lot better than guns, be it primary or secondary. After all, melee weapons have access to powerful mods like condtion overload, blood rush and weeping wounds, and the mechanics of the combo counter only boost them further. Therefore, it raises the questions: 

1: Are guns too weak or are melee weapons too powerful?

For normal content in the star chart both are good options, but it is in Steel path or long endurance runs that the difference becomes evident. Enemies soak up entire magazines  until you run out of ammo, while a sword, which has no such issue, gets stronger with each hit due to combo counter. For this content it is clear that guns are weaker.

2: Is the current situation ok?

Personally, I think this issue is only evident for those who seek harder enemies in steel path or endurance runs. For casual players it doesn't matter too much. But it still makes some completely disregard any gun that doesn't has high status proc rate or something similar to melee mods like Cedo, which has condition overload built in.

3: How do we fix it?

There's always 2 ways to fix this type of situation: nerf the powerful or buff the weak. There are always two main groups in these discussions: those who wish full fantasy, disregarding any sense of balance in favour of their fun in being a god; and those who wish balance so they might experience other things and get fun from variety and some decent challenge. You can't ignore either side in this game, because they're both sizeable chunks of the community. So I thought what could be done.

Option 1: Put a stamina system on melee. Wait, don't start typing yet. I'm not saying something like the previous stamina system where you needed stamina to swing. I'm talking about reduced damage if your stamina reach certain tresholds like 50-0%. 75% damage if stamina is 50%, and 50% if you reach 0%. It is kinda of a mix of Dark souls's stamina and durability system. Other method is to tie attack speed to stamina, with the same tresholds as above. One of the problems we have is that guns have reload, while melee has not, but I don't want to prevent players from swinging their swords. 

 

Option 2: Put a combo counter in primary and secondary weapons. We already have a combo counter for snipers, but not for the rest of the weapons. As for the combo counter numbers, they would probably need to have specific values for different weapon types. Semi-automatic rifles would have numbers close to Snipers, but weapons like Grakata would need several bullets to even reach 2.0x. Of course, that would make a bit of problem for hybrid weapons, and would require a lot of work. Another way to mitigate  is to make headshots count as 2-3 hits and give slower weapons bigger numbers for normal hits, so that slower weapons may get a boost a bit faster, and the combo counter penalty of losing 1 hit per miss would at least reduce the stack rate of weapons like Grakata.

Of course, DE may even put both options, and yes I know some will say they will likely choose option 1, but it is still an option. So, what are your thoughts?

[Leqesai]

9 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

1: Are guns too weak or are melee weapons too powerful?

 

Melee weapons are currently more powerful but I wouldn't say the disparity is near as problematic as people on the forums make it out to be.

9 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

2: Is the current situation ok?

 

Yeah it is fine. I have never had an issue with the current gameplay flow.

10 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

3: How do we fix it?

 

Reduce the effectiveness of condition overload.

[ShortCat]

11 hours ago, HolySeraphin said:

Are guns too weak or are melee weapons too powerful?

Melee is definitely too strong. First thing to understand is, that not the entire Arsenal should be viable on higher dificulties. This is simply not how gear based games work. You want to face "endgame"? Gear up!

11 hours ago, HolySeraphin said:

Is the current situation ok?

No.

11 hours ago, HolySeraphin said:

How do we fix it?

There's always 2 ways to fix this type of situation: nerf the powerful or buff the weak. There are always two main groups in these discussions: those who wish full fantasy, disregarding any sense of balance in favour of their fun in being a god; and those who wish balance so they might experience other things and get fun from variety and some decent challenge.

Power and balance are not mutually exclusive. It is more work though.

1. CO, BR & WW should be weaker. Conditions to reach peak performance from those mods are too flimsy to justify such power.
2. Melee offers seizable AoE capabilities against groups of enemies at no cost or danger for the user. To balance it out DE could take a look at the follow through stat. This would limit AoE but not compromise single target performance.
3. Add more enemy types which punish melee, like Grineer Guardsman with their blocks & Ghouls with their Toxin/Cold clouds on death -> more risk for melee playstyle.
4. Guns tend to support melee playstyles, but it is seldom the other way around. Add more incentive(s) to switch from melee to guns.
5. Adjust enemy nubmers.
6. A good number of players have no idea what they are doing, thus they will blame the game. Don't be afraid to let players fail a mission.