New Gun Mod Speculation

[Seorel]

Devstream admitted that the gun vs. melee balance will be primarily done through mods. They even stated explicitly there was no mod like berserk for guns, maybe that implies that an increased fire rate triggered by crits will be implemented. Kinda a Meh concept for me, but it gets me excited about what other sorts of balance mods will be introduced. I know there has been lots of speculation (or fear) of a gun CO, or BR variant on these forms. And honestly, that seams likely given what was said. 

My question is then: What gun balance mods do you guys think will be introduced and is this the correct way to go about balancing in your opinion? 

 

I think that many guns are already broken, just not to the degree of the most OP melee weapons. So I think this "balance" could result in some massive numbers. However, I think that the majority of melee weapons are usable rn due to these mods (and riven dispo), if hypothetically they manage to introduce mods that instead of completely breaking the already OP guns actually create more uniform usability, that would really cool. 

Thoughts? Feelings? emotions? Or lack there of? 

[Tiltskillet]

12 minutes ago, Seorel said:

My question is then: What gun balance mods do you guys think will be introduced

A mod that has a chance of inflicting a bleed upon  puncture status.

[Jarriaga]

I kinda have the feeling they'll introduce Berserker/Blood Rush/Condition Overload/Weeping Wounds for guns.

[Reitrix]

16 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

I kinda have the feeling they'll introduce Berserker/Blood Rush/Condition Overload/Weeping Wounds for guns.

Given their decision to "fix" Impact by giving a mod to turn it into Slash, you can bet thats exactly what we'll get lol. 

Hopefully we see more unique stuff, like Mods to add Radial properties to shots fired etc. 

[Seorel]

17 minutes ago, Reitrix said:

Given their decision to "fix" Impact by giving a mod to turn it into Slash, you can bet thats exactly what we'll get lol. 

Hopefully we see more unique stuff, like Mods to add Radial properties to shots fired etc. 

 

Honestly this is the only way I can actually see many guns becoming equally viable to AOE options. I just think they would never go down that route because then while making many guns usable they make them all kinda the same. There are a lot of guns that would be quite fun with a mod like that though, forsure. The  best we can hope for, in my opinion, is augment mods for basically all radial properties I can think of. 

 

[DrivaMain]

• Explosive Rounds.
• AoE damage on headshots.
• Gun versions of melee mods.

What I can say about the aftermath is the meta complaints will change from “MELEE GOOD, GUN BAD, NERF MELEE” to “GUN GOOD, MELEE BAD, NERF GUN”. 

[EnwoQ]

Either increase damage or aoe potentiell, everything else would be a fail.

For instance ego shooter games, whenever you use your whole magazine on trash enemies (enemies which you need to kill dozens of in one mission) feels wrong.
When you are full geared and strong, trash enemies should die in few shots or one shot by headshot. Every explosiv has to kill all trash enemies in one or two blast.
That's the norm for common egoshooter games.

in my view that should be the goal but then in other people opinions everything needs a nerf and we all should shoot one trash enemies for 10 sec each, and 20 grenades till everything is dead in a room.

I even read that some said in this forum everything is too easy and needs a nerf so mission will take longer, because its no fun if a mission takes less than 5 min.

[Zeddypanda]

I don't know if new mods are even needed, there's existing mods with good concepts that just need number buffs. The mod that makes enemies explode when you kill them is exactly the kind of thing guns need, it just needs to be scalable rather than a flat number.

For new mods I'd absolutely start with exploding rounds, then look at Shattering Impact for guns since the balance problem lies entirely in steel path armor values.

[Seorel]

19 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

What I can say about the aftermath is the meta complaints will change from “MELEE GOOD, GUN BAD, NERF MELEE” to “GUN GOOD, MELEE BAD, NERF GUN”. 

 

This is exactly what I think is going to happen. The guns I use are very efficient killers and adding the scaling that they are trying to add will IMO outclass melee. 

9 minutes ago, Zeddypanda said:

For new mods I'd absolutely start with exploding rounds, then look at Shattering Impact for guns since the balance problem lies entirely in steel path armor values.

Shattering Impact for guns is a really good idea, I can see that being one the additions for sure. They mentioned that there will be some nerfs as well in this balancing, while I anticipate that these will mostly be to melee mods I think some of the most used guns will also get the hammer (**Cough**Kuva Nukor**Cough**). That being said, even a nerfed Kuva Nukor with shattering impact will be useful. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

3 hours ago, Seorel said:

Thoughts? Feelings? emotions? Or lack there of? 

on one hand, implementing changes through mods is much easier for DE than making base changes, and having to farm for those mods in the first place keeps players around grinding and/or buying plat to trade for said mods, depending on their luck. on the other though, I feel there are some issues that can't be fixed with just mods alone. damage types being one of them: as long as one or two types of damage are far more viable than others, people will only ever mod for those damage types, restricting modding freedom and variety. mods like Internal Bleeding only further make a mockery of this situation "here, if we turn impact into slash, it'll be good, right? RIGHT?!"

IMO, it's mainly the lower damage per shot, non-AoE weapons that need help the most. look at Tenora Prime for example: as far as hitscan weapons go it's great, maybe one of the best, but who's gonna use it when there are weapons that deal more damage to more enemies at once, and in some cases may even have unlimited ammo, Like Shedu or Bubonico for example? why use regular old bullets when you can use copious amounts of ungodly energy to obliterate an entire group in one shot, with barely any accuracy needed? this was sort of kept on a leash by self-damage, but now that's gone, there's little penalty to just spamming AoEs.

making equivalents of Shattering Impact, Berserker, and Condition Overload that work ONLY for regular bullet guns might help bring them up to par in much higher level content. if these mods were made available for all guns though, it would just be Rivens all over again: people would want to pile them on everything and the weapons that are already at the top of the chart would just get even stronger. the mods should only target the weapons that need it most: non-AoE, low damage per shot weapons, particularly semi auto and burst guns as these require even more finesse to use than an automatic. granted, people who don't like hitscan weapons still wouldn't use them, but the objective is to make sure players aren't punished with inadequate DPS vs high level enemeis if they choose to bring something like a Latron, or Lato. 

perhaps even adding an AoE mod for these weapons could work, but I'd rather that be implemented as a change to a damage type, such as Blast. 

TL:DR: DE can make mods for the weak, regular bullet guns nobody uses that allow their dmaage to scale much higher, allowing a trade off: no AoE, but much higher damage/crit/status against enemies, compared to AoE weapons, which would deal a little less raw damage generally, but can more effectively spread damage and status effects across groups. both AoE and Non-AoE weapons now have a purpose.

 

[Redfeather75]

Would you guys like a mod that increases crit damage for each condition on the target?

[LarenaBot]

I really hope they buff mods like Blunderbuss, in addition to adding more mods.

Also make Split Chamber 100% Multishot instead of 90% so I dont have to slot Vigilante Armaments on every rifle to satisfy my ocd

[PublikDomain]

7 hours ago, Seorel said:

My question is then: What gun balance mods do you guys think will be introduced and is this the correct way to go about balancing in your opinion? 

I think we'll get conditional mods, so stuff similar to Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds, Condition Overload, and Berserker but just for guns. If X, then Y extra stats or Z extra conditional damage. The mods might be type restricted, so certain mods can only be used on semi-auto rifles or burst rifles for example. Maybe we'll get dual-stat mods or new sets. Rebecca also mentioned up that guns don't have Sacrificial mods so maybe a primary and secondary Umbral set? We may also see general buffs to some mods, like maybe bringing Serration to +220% like Hornet Strike.

Whatever it is they're gonna do isn't going to work. Buffing everything hasn't helped in the past so I don't see why buffing everything again is going to come out any differently. ETA: For example, we're only in this mess in the first place because DE buffed the S#&$ out of melee weapons while also nerfing the S#&$ out of enemy EHP - all in the same update. All doing this to primary and secondary weapons will do is take the top dozen or so primary/secondary weapons and thrust them even higher into the meta, while mediocre or bad primary/secondary weapons will continue to suck and struggle to catch up. It's going to make us more powerful and make the game even easier and uninteresting than it already is.

The correct way to go about balancing is to go the opposite direction and reduce the number of multipliers - not increase them. Fewer multipliers means narrower, more consistent amounts of damage across more weapons, making more weapons able to compete on a reasonably similar level. It makes it easier to do further balancing to the base stats of the few outliers on the top and bottom end of the spectrum so more than a handful of weapons see any use. It makes it easier to tune enemies to a well-understood amount of player power, meaning we can actually have content that provides challenges when appropriate.

I'm not expecting much.

[Surbusken]

I don't know what mods you are going to put on my aklex prime, to make them hang with something like glaives?

Ignoring combo building crit and speed increasing mods, you still got instant kill, autoaim around corners, infinite ammo and AOE splash damage through walls.

 

I just don't know what you see happening to some tiny singleshot pistol with 6 rounds, that is going to turn it into a winner.

The only option really, is making melee so terrible people give up on it.

 

But this is a problem that should have been dealt with in pre-production, doing ABCs of video gaming. Rock, paper, scissor. Shotgun vs sniper. Counter balances with trade-offs.

It feels like a few weapons got special treatment and everything else got shafted, including any considerations for a goal or concept.

I think they need to redo the entire concept, but first they have to come up with an actual idea for it, lol.

All those pointless mods added over the years, no one asked for, and one one uses also feels similar off beat and lost in the woods.

But even that is way too unambitious and uncreative. Why have 23 handguns, that are just handguns? Weapons can be anything, any type of tool or feature, who said it had to be about damage.

What about a grappling hook secondary gun to add to parkour, or shooting healing soap bubble, or spawn an interdimensional vortex that gets everyone to extract fast. A champagne bottle as secondary, when you click fire, you make a toast and everyone gets +12% affinity for 2 minutes.

It's fantasy sci-fi, you can literally do anything you want, unlimited imagination and fun. And if you have no ideas, you can copy-paste from comic books, video games and movies dating back 40-50 years.

I am sitting there going, oh, another handgun... shooting pistol rounds, hm.

 

[Redfeather75]

I hope DE folks saw my Tactical Mods topic and it got them thinking of cool stuff to add. I am no game design but I was excited to share such an idea.

[Skaleek]

I think we'll get mods that buff our damage if we dont have a melee equipped... because.... reasons.

[xcrimsonlegendx]

They'll probably make it so damage, status and crit mods to more and call it good.

[TARINunit9]

8 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

• What I can say about the aftermath is the meta complaints will change from “MELEE GOOD, GUN BAD, NERF MELEE” to “GUN GOOD, MELEE BAD, NERF GUN”. 

I frankly doubt that. Melee just has so much higher base damage and is a functional AoE thanks to follow-through. Even before the big melee 3.0 rework, the meta guns were all things like Arca Plasmor, the Catchmoon, the original Tonkor. Close-range AoE crit weapons -- just like melee. I don't see headshot rifles or bullet hoses managing to dethrone any of that

[Elenortirie]

and here I thought they have learned that bandaiding issues with slapping new mods on it won't work.... three years ago.

[FURYDANCE]

give punch through to all hitscan rifles

[Vahenir]

What I'm expecting is basically blood rush, condition overload and weeping wounds for guns. The combo for the combo dependent mods will probably still scale on the melee combo however as this forces someone to use both melee and guns to get the most out of said guns. Condition overload for guns will get nuts however if its as good as it is on melee weapons.

[Aldain]

I expect them to fully miss the mark and just go for obnoxious "combo bloat" type mods that cause things to spiral hysterically out of control for a handful of options (most likely preexisting AoE weapons) while precision/bullet hose weapons STILL remain less effective due to only hitting one thing at a time unless you have excessively costly punch through mods and the enemies happen to be in a straight line.

Hey if I have basically no expectations then I can only be surprised right?

...Right?

[SheikaVoid]

6 minutes ago, Aldain said:

I expect them to fully miss the mark and just go for obnoxious "combo bloat" type mods that cause things to spiral hysterically out of control for a handful of options (most likely preexisting AoE weapons) while precision/bullet hose weapons STILL remain less effective due to only hitting one thing at a time unless you have excessively costly punch through mods and the enemies happen to be in a straight line.

Hey if I have basically no expectations then I can only be surprised right?

...Right?

Certainly, maybe they'll do something really uhm... surprising... and just give primaries melee mod equivalents, making the system as broken and grind-dependent as the others.

[0_The_F00l]

Honestly I have very low hopes, 

We already have a downscaled condition overload ranged weapon (cedo) and though fun I haven't used it as often in recent times or made any dent in my usage of ranged weapons.

And since they are going all in for mods and not going to change any mechanics I wonder if any of the new mods will actually be worth using over what we already have.

The generic build has been 1 Damage, 1 Multishot , 1 crit chance , 1 crit damage and 2 elements by default , leaving just 2 regular and 1 qol slot to actually tweak the weapon to your playstyle (of course exceptions exist along with rivens) 

So will any mod that comes up be worth replacing ?

We will wait and see for the official workshop I guess.

[(XBOX)Obi Wan Dandobi]

Ditching self stagger would be a good start