Power Creep *and Armor Scaling* Is Destroying The Niches Of Older Weapons

[Tyrian3k]

Though, firstly, they should really fix armor scaling. Once that's done, they can rebalance the weaponry appropriately.

 

They might as well fix it by completely removing armor scaling. It makes damage types that ignore armor completely op compared to damage types that don't.

[Rhorge]

They might as well fix it by completely removing armor scaling. It makes damage types that ignore armor completely op compared to damage types that don't.

^ This. I don't know what DE were thinking when they decided to scale ARMOR... By a FLAT rate per level...

[LazyKnight]

They might as well fix it by completely removing armor scaling. It makes damage types that ignore armor completely op compared to damage types that don't.

It would take 20seconds to 5 minutes to change it and a few hours to see if it caused bugs. Armor can have fixed values of just based of the base values the NPC currently have and the NPC and it would STILL scale rapidly with their effective health with just health scaling per level alone. It is why a fusion MOA is a walking tank at level 150 and it only gets more health per level.

Edited July 24, 2013 by LazyKnight

[Eirshy]

^ This. I don't know what DE were thinking when they decided to scale ARMOR... By a FLAT rate per level...

 

 

Armor scales exponentially by EHP Mod.

 

Armor + (level increase)^1.4 * 1% * Armor

 

Each point of Armor is aproximately 1% more EHP (100 = 100% more EHP = 50% Damage Reduction).

 

 

Grineer Troopers break 500 before level 40.

 

 

Simply removing the exponent would make us not be even discussing this issue for another 100-200 levels. A completely new system would be a better idea =P Gotta keep making headshots rewarding, but punishing body hits this hard is not a good idea.

 

One idea I had was to put an elemental weakness (like Fire for infested) on the armor ignore list for that mob. While AI weapons would still be stronger, non-AI weapons wouldn't be nearly as "inviable". It'd also make the elemental pseudo-RPS system more important to follow. Right now if you're going into T3, you really only get mileage out of Cold and AP mods (and Electric ONLY against Fusion Moas and Osprey)- to the point where I won't even slot fire for void missions, and only my Vipers get to have Electric.

Edited July 24, 2013 by TheBlueJelly

[Rhorge]

Simply removing the exponent would make us not be even discussing this issue for another 100-200 levels. A completely new system would be a better idea =P 

Yeah, I know. I'm just expressing my distaste to the current system.

[LazyKnight]

Armor scales exponentially by EHP Mod.

 

Armor + (level increase)^1.4 * 1% * Armor

 

Each point of Armor is aproximately 1% more EHP (100 = 100% more EHP = 50% Damage Reduction).

 

 

Not arguing math, but if something has 740 health and 300 armor it would take 100/(300+100)=.25*(damage)  740/.25 =2960 damage to bring the NPC to dead. Health/damage taken it scales very quickly and I do not know why DE made both scales at once >.>

Edited July 24, 2013 by LazyKnight

[Eirshy]

Not arguing math, but if something has 740 health and 300 armor it would take 100/(300+100)=.25*(damage)  740/.25 =2960 damage to bring the NPC to dead. Health/damage taken it scales very quickly and I do not know why DE made both scales at once >.>

It was for a couple of reasons.

 

One, they supposedly said it was designed to go up to lv60 or so and not farther, which I buy as around lv70 is when it starts being a problem that actually eliminates guns from being useable.

 

Two, they wanted to reward headshots, and (most) heads don't apply armor.

Edited July 24, 2013 by TheBlueJelly

[LazyKnight]

It was for a couple of reasons.

 

One, they supposedly said it was designed to go up to lv60 or so and not farther, which I buy as around lv70 is when it starts being a problem that actually eliminates guns from being useable.

 

Two, they wanted to reward headshots, and (most) heads don't apply armor.

All grineer and all ancients have scaling armor on their heads and they are the ones that primarily effected by scaling as well, ancients are annoying because only their tiny twig legs do not scale. I would be fine if they made the hard cap level 70 and changed how defense mission worked. I do not even want to do mission that have level 90+ NPC that have armor.

 

It was just a lazy method to do scaling and it clear it would have been better not to use a formal for health/armor but give each level bracket 10-20 etc. fixed values.

[Taranis49]

Sicarus. Also: all single daggers, including the alert-only ones.

 

Sicarus  can be used at greater range, the daggers also don't require ammunition.

 

Seriously, Ignis is a melee weapon that uses ammo (and lots of it) and takes up your primary slot.

Edited July 24, 2013 by Taranis49

[NalkorRN]

Armor scales exponentially by EHP Mod.

 

Armor + (level increase)^1.4 * 1% * Armor

 

Each point of Armor is aproximately 1% more EHP (100 = 100% more EHP = 50% Damage Reduction).

 

 

Grineer Troopers break 500 before level 40.

 

 

Simply removing the exponent would make us not be even discussing this issue for another 100-200 levels. A completely new system would be a better idea =P Gotta keep making headshots rewarding, but punishing body hits this hard is not a good idea.

 

One idea I had was to put an elemental weakness (like Fire for infested) on the armor ignore list for that mob. While AI weapons would still be stronger, non-AI weapons wouldn't be nearly as "inviable". It'd also make the elemental pseudo-RPS system more important to follow. Right now if you're going into T3, you really only get mileage out of Cold and AP mods (and Electric ONLY against Fusion Moas and Osprey)- to the point where I won't even slot fire for void missions, and only my Vipers get to have Electric.

Yeah, with this knowledge, I'm going to potato my Boltor and mod it up for Serration, Split Barrels, AP/Cold damage, because at least with AP/Cold, I don't have to worry about the corpses becoming cover, like dying with fire/elec would do.

[Eirshy]

All grineer and all ancients have scaling armor on their heads and they are the ones that primarily effected by scaling as well, ancients are annoying because only their tiny twig legs do not scale. I would be fine if they made the hard cap level 70 and changed how defense mission worked. I do not even want to do mission that have level 90+ NPC that have armor.

 

It was just a lazy method to do scaling and it clear it would have been better not to use a formal for health/armor but give each level bracket 10-20 etc. fixed values.

 

Not so sure on Ancients any more, I tend to headshot them for damage nowadays (does better than body shots)... but then again I also use almost exclusively armor bypass at this point, building AP/Cold and nothing else like 90% of the time... soooo yeah.

 

I also remember hearing that the boot vulnerability was because of mis-aligned hitbox or something, and they found it amusing so they kept it in. Since they got a model update I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it to how it was supposed to be.

 

Yeah, with this knowledge, I'm going to potato my Boltor and mod it up for Serration, Split Barrels, AP/Cold damage, because at least with AP/Cold, I don't have to worry about the corpses becoming cover, like dying with fire/elec would do.

 

Boltor usually launches boddies in random directions XD

Sonar + Snidal tends to make things straight up explode, I'm curious as to if the Lanka will do that as well. I know the Acrid makes them disolve.

 

But yeah, if you're using an innate AI weapon, AP/Cold and *maybe* electric are really the only elements you should consider. AP because it's AI, Cold for slow and anti-shield (deals straight x2 vs it, shields don't have armor), and Electric because Moas are weak to it and don't scale armor. Fire's fine for low-level infested, but they out-armor it around like lv60 or lv70. x4 is nice, but armor makes that x0.4 lol

[Webly]

I completely agree with everything the OP said.  All weapons should be equally viable at all levels of play with proper upgrading, they should accomplish the same goals virtually just as well as one another but in different ways.

[IronRushBR]

Perfect, agreed.

 

Let me also include my sniper thread about it.

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/85614-snipertron-vandal-whats-the-point/

[http404error]

I completely agree with everything the OP said.  All weapons should be equally viable at all levels of play with proper upgrading, they should accomplish the same goals virtually just as well as one another but in different ways.

 

I don't think equality is feasible, but certainly they do have their perks. The MK-1 is the most accurate assault rifle and has good ammo sustainability, but I'm not expecting to be running Outer Terminus with it. I also wouldn't expect the Strun to be as good as a Hek in the long haul, but still it has its place and is not strictly worse.

 

Strict upgrades are more of a problem, although the game is handling that with content restriction barriers.

[Webly]

I don't think equality is feasible, but certainly they do have their perks. The MK-1 is the most accurate assault rifle and has good ammo sustainability, but I'm not expecting to be running Outer Terminus with it. I also wouldn't expect the Strun to be as good as a Hek in the long haul, but still it has its place and is not strictly worse.

 

Strict upgrades are more of a problem, although the game is handling that with content restriction barriers.

Hek has more than one advantage over Strun, as does the Braton (and Braton Prime and Dera) outclass the MK-1 so totally in more than one way.

 

What I'm saying is that everything should be equally viable but in different ways.  Maybe it requires a different playstyle or what not, and of course certain weapons perform better in certain area (large open tiles for snipers vs clustered/cramped areas for shotguns), but at the end of the day I don't think any weapon should be completely outclassed by another for high end play.

 

Keeping all weapons relevant removes "dead" content from the game.  At the moment, I'll never touch a regular Latron again because I have the Prime and there's no reason to use the regular one.  But if that regular Latron had twice the magazine size or slight innate puncture...  Both would see use on different missions.

SIDE-GRADES is all I'm asking for.

Also DE would LITERALLY make more money on weapon slots if every weapon was useful at all stages of the game, people would most likely keep all their weapons instead of selling the old busted version when they build the prime/clantech version.

[LazyKnight]

Hek has more than one advantage over Strun, as does the Braton (and Braton Prime and Dera) outclass the MK-1 so totally in more than one way.

 

What I'm saying is that everything should be equally viable but in different ways.  Maybe it requires a different playstyle or what not, and of course certain weapons perform better in certain area (large open tiles for snipers vs clustered/cramped areas for shotguns), but at the end of the day I don't think any weapon should be completely outclassed by another for high end play.

 

Keeping all weapons relevant removes "dead" content from the game.  At the moment, I'll never touch a regular Latron again because I have the Prime and there's no reason to use the regular one.  But if that regular Latron had twice the magazine size or slight innate puncture...  Both would see use on different missions.

SIDE-GRADES is all I'm asking for.

Also DE would LITERALLY make more money on weapon slots if every weapon was useful at all stages of the game, people would most likely keep all their weapons instead of selling the old busted version when they build the prime/clantech version.

If DE started taking advantage of their weapon skin slot they could do upgrade far easier without eclipsing the older weapon. Some weapon are terrible and always have been(all 1 hander of all types and a few other that are just neglected or eat too much ammo) and are like the toys on the island of misfits toys.

 

I would rather DE make far less weapons but have each weapon of far higher quality. This is just my opinion, I do not need 5 different Bratons I just want one good all-purpose rifle. Same with all the melee weapon I would prefer if they would not make them useable for all content remove them outright. I can't stand to have weapons that are nothing but novelty items and my urge to discard them will not let me keep them in my weapon slots.

Edited July 25, 2013 by LazyKnight

[Blazer-X]

Read the OP post and kinda skipped ahead, so excuse me if this has been readdressed:

 

I like the point about Sobek being ridiculously buffed. For all intends and purposes, its very true. Strun and Boar used to have a somewhat special nitch. Strun carried a decent clip (6-9, depending on magazine mods) and gave slightly lower damage and range than the Hek. Boar was automatic, and had both a fast rate of fire and higher DPS in exchange for eating ammo quickly.

 

Then, Sobek got buffed. Now we've got a shotgun with a double the clip size of the Boar, same range as Hek (damage fall-out wise), over 75% damage of the Strun, and a fire rate, that although slower than the Boar, is still relatively fast and eats ammo at a more appropriate speed for a shotgun. It suddenly became this amazing shotgun that immediately makes the Boar practically useless. The Strun also no longer looks as good in comparison, as it is easier out-DPS and outranged by the new Sobek, which is only slightly less ammo efficient.

 

Even the great Hek, long considered to be the king of shotguns, is given a run for its money, as the Sobek can keep up with the same range and holds a higher sustained DPS thanks to its huge clip. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the new Sobek, and I've been using it for the last few days. But like OP said, its a great example of the current power creep that is focused almost entirely on the new weapons. Buffing the Sobek by as much as almost 150% (I say almost because its reload got nerfed in exchange) also mean that other shotguns should gets a look.

 

Now, DE has been relatively good at making most weapons side-grades in the past, with the only notable exceptions being the Prime weapons (for obvious reasons) and the Melee weapons (where most daggers and one-hands are just unfortunately screwed). I kinda hope they can go back to that model of weapon tweaking instead of "hey, this new shiny weapon, let's buff it to infinity so more people buy it".

[Taranis49]

Hek has more than one advantage over Strun, as does the Braton (and Braton Prime and Dera) outclass the MK-1 so totally in more than one way.

 

What I'm saying is that everything should be equally viable but in different ways.  Maybe it requires a different playstyle or what not, and of course certain weapons perform better in certain area (large open tiles for snipers vs clustered/cramped areas for shotguns), but at the end of the day I don't think any weapon should be completely outclassed by another for high end play.

 

Keeping all weapons relevant removes "dead" content from the game.  At the moment, I'll never touch a regular Latron again because I have the Prime and there's no reason to use the regular one.  But if that regular Latron had twice the magazine size or slight innate puncture...  Both would see use on different missions.

SIDE-GRADES is all I'm asking for.

Also DE would LITERALLY make more money on weapon slots if every weapon was useful at all stages of the game, people would most likely keep all their weapons instead of selling the old busted version when they build the prime/clantech version.

 

It sounds good in theory, but not in practice.

 

As said, equality isn't really feasible - you basically acknowledge this fact that certain weapons should perform better under certain conditions than others. That knocks true equality right off the table from the get-go, since the weapon that performs best (or atleast better) under the most likely circumstances is going to win out in terms of performance (and thus probably win a space in the average player's armory). This is particularly true due to the random nature of the maps - in those cases a general purpose workhorse weapon like the Braton, Boltor or Hek is probably going to win out unless you know in advance that you're going to a map with big open spaces that will allow a longer-ranged rifle to actually shine - that has to do with the conditions, not the weapon itself.

 

It also ignores this thing called "personal preference" and "expectations" - if someone doesn't care to use a given weapon-type like single-shot rifles, shotguns, or what have you, odds are they aren't going to use them even if it might get them more bleeding-edge performance, they're going to use whatever weapon they feel most comfortable with or the one they like the look of most, or what have you. It'd also require that no weapon is any more or less difficult than any other to obtain; otherwise people will ask the sensible question of why is that a weapon that's significantly more difficult to obtain than a starter weapon not significantly better than that starter weapon (hell, it already happens).

[Webly]

It sounds good in theory, but not in practice.

 

As said, equality isn't really feasible - you basically acknowledge this fact that certain weapons should perform better under certain conditions than others. That knocks true equality right off the table from the get-go, since the weapon that performs best (or atleast better) under the most likely circumstances is going to win out in terms of performance (and thus probably win a space in the average player's armory). This is particularly true due to the random nature of the maps - in those cases a general purpose workhorse weapon like the Braton, Boltor or Hek is probably going to win out unless you know in advance that you're going to a map with big open spaces that will allow a longer-ranged rifle to actually shine - that has to do with the conditions, not the weapon itself.

 

It also ignores this thing called "personal preference" and "expectations" - if someone doesn't care to use a given weapon-type like single-shot rifles, shotguns, or what have you, odds are they aren't going to use them even if it might get them more bleeding-edge performance, they're going to use whatever weapon they feel most comfortable with or the one they like the look of most, or what have you. It'd also require that no weapon is any more or less difficult than any other to obtain; otherwise people will ask the sensible question of why is that a weapon that's significantly more difficult to obtain than a starter weapon not significantly better than that starter weapon (hell, it already happens).

 

None of that means that making all weapons useful at all levels of play is impossible.  Like you said, "personal preference" and "expectations."  People want to use whatever weapon they want, so, for example, I think the unique playstyle of the Vulkar should be just as viable as the Snipertron Vandal, or the Afuris on par with the Kunais, Strun should compete generally with Hek but in a completely different way.  Really the only thing holding all of this back is damage stats.

They should all be on par with eachother, but they accomplish this in different ways.  I'm not suggesting they all become carbon copies or anything like that, but just have the unique ways in which a weapon works be what sets them apart not raw dps.

[theangelbelow88]

If you think about it, most of the top damage weapons for high level content are mostly armor ignore and anything that doesn't ignore armor becomes crap or obsolete, good example: my Supra(4xforma'ed) starts doing pretty bad after wave 15 on high level defense mission but all my armor ignoring weapons are still going strong even with them un-forma'ed, the really issue is enemy armor and elemental resistance scaling, once enemies start going over the level 50s, most damage on starts to suffer greatly except armor ignore and piercing damage, if the weapon doesn't have ether of these its pretty much going to become worthless when enemies hit around level 70.

 

If anything I think DE needs to re-work armor and elemental resistance scaling for enemies, even at a point corpus crewmen become completely immune to electrical damage, same with infested chargers to fire, and normal damage becomes extremely low when most enemies have over a thousand armor, a simple fix would be to cap enemy's armor and elemental resistance and increase enemies hit points, this would help put a lot of weapons on equal ground.

[Taranis49]

None of that means that making all weapons useful at all levels of play is impossible.  Like you said, "personal preference" and "expectations."  People want to use whatever weapon they want, so, for example, I think the unique playstyle of the Vulkar should be just as viable as the Snipertron Vandal, or the Afuris on par with the Kunais, Strun should compete generally with Hek but in a completely different way.  Really the only thing holding all of this back is damage stats.

They should all be on par with eachother, but they accomplish this in different ways.  I'm not suggesting they all become carbon copies or anything like that, but just have the unique ways in which a weapon works be what sets them apart not raw dps.

 

It actually does, atleast insofar as equally useful goes, simply due to map conditions and with how enemy resistances work and scale. For example, at current, most maps don't allow for combat any farther than about 50 meters, at those ranges, there's no real reason to bother using a sniper rifle. The higher you go in levels, e.g. with the end waves of T3 Void Defense where the enemies hit level 130, the resistances are so stupidly high that (barring a handful of exceptions) only "armor ignoring" weapons tend to be effective - and I consider that a fault with the enemy design, not necessarily with the weapons themselves.

 

Additionally, I have to restate the sensible question here: Why shouldn't the Hek be better than the Strun? It's far more difficult to obtain, especially now; you don't need 4 Mastery, 5 Neurodes, 900 circuits, 1,000 Rubedo, etc. to build a Strun, all you really need are the credits to buy it. You do however require all those materials to build yourself a Hek nowadays. After that kind of farming, a newer player has every right to expect their Hek to outperform their old Strun.

 

Beyond that, it's not even Strun's raw damage that holds it back from being on par with the Hek (though I'll grant it doesn't help) it's the fact that its accuracy sucks compared to the Hek and its pellets have a much larger spread. It's the same reason I considered the Hek and now the Sobek  to be better than the Boar, not because they have better raw DPS (the Sobek definitely doesn't, last I checked), but because they're useful at better than point-blank range - and I doubt I'm alone in that opinion.

 

You say they should have unique ways to make them comparable, but you haven't really suggested any beyond what the game already uses.

[Webly]

 

Additionally, I have to restate the sensible question here: Why shouldn't the Hek be better than the Strun? It's far more difficult to obtain, especially now; you don't need 4 Mastery, 5 Neurodes, 900 circuits, 1,000 Rubedo, etc. to build a Strun, all you really need are the credits to buy it. You do however require all those materials to build yourself a Hek nowadays. After that kind of farming, a newer player has every right to expect their Hek to outperform their old Strun.

 

A flat out Upgrade removes the usefulness of "lesser" weapons, especially since newer/harder content is made with player damage in mind.

 

Do you think it is acceptable that the Ignis, with its extremely unique playstyle, to be useless in high level missions and, especially defense?

Better weapons that are more difficult to acquire already exists so it's ok for Ignis to remain a "starter area" weapon in terms of damage?  

Or should it be viable everywhere?

 

What I mean is, AKLatos are damn near hazardous to use in high level areas that were made with high end weapons in mind.  You won't be able to use THAT weapon's unique features in all aspects of the game, it basically becomes lost content.  Don't care about the AKLatos?  Understandable.  What about the AFuris, Twin Vipers, Braton, Lex, Sicarus, or Dual Broncos?  Not to mention every "single" variant of dual pistols that have literally no purpose outside of Mastery.  The older weapons are really starting to show their age in high level areas and defense, and as this continues they will become completely worthless in newer high level areas.  Virtually all "veteran" players play is high level areas unless grinding mats, and now we have weapons that are on (or over) the verge of useless in those high end areas.   Again this is essentially "lost" content for the player, you'll never really revisit those weapons or be able to use them again.  The unique playstyles as well as aesthetics are effectively removed from your game.  

Why do that when everything could be side-grades (different but, generally speaking, equal)?

 

Is this a fault with the weapon or the way enemies are made more difficult?  You could argue either and really both are true.

 

 

Now why would I want Strun to be as useful as Hek?  What justification is there for a more difficult to obtain weapon to be plain better is what I'd ask you.  All that creates is weapon homogeneity, why use anything different when it isn't the best?  Now you're stuck in the playstyle of whatever the "best" weapon is because it's eventually all that's useful in new content.  See the problem?  I want everything to be viable at all levels so we can play however we want at all levels.

It's totally fine for Hek to have it's unique playstyle, it shoots tighter and at longer ranges.  Strun has a different playstyle, it shoots in a wider swath, has a larger mag, etc.  So their playstyles are superior for different things.  What upsets this is Hek having such a large damage advantage over the Strun, or a better example the Acrid has such a huge damage advantage over the Lex that we lose the playstyle of the "lesser" weapon because it can't be used in high level play (100+ ancients looking at you).

 

You're also to be stating that so-called "general purpose" weapons are just plain better than everything else.  Sniper always are at the bottom so who cares?  I'm saying that Snipers are at the bottom because the damage they're able to put out just doesn't compete with say a Braton Prime, not because they playstyle is too niche or bad.  Snipers aren't for me, but I know people who can play it right even in the smaller tiles of this game.  But currently alot of those weapons are just plain worse because of their stats.

 

How would I make the Strun and Hek side grades to eachother?  Damage (overall and per shot) far off would favor the Hek, close up the Strun, and mid would be more or less equal.  That's an extremely shortened jist of it at least.  

Why is this fair?  Because the weapons are not the same, they have unique attributes other than their damage.  Many different weapons literally play differently, but eventually, if power creep continues, you'll HAVE to play with the "superior" weapon and whatever playstyle comes with it.

 

And to say it even plainer, have all content in the game relevant (but unique) and people will have more options for how they want to play (and buy more slots).

[Mikki79]

If there were no upgrades in this game I'd make my favorite weapons, forma the heck out of em and be done with the game. Just like I don't play Guild Wars 2 anymore.

 

PvE games need some way to improve your characters, problem with Warframe is some of the best weapons sometimes need no mastery rank (Despair) or are cheap to build (Orthos) while expensive high rank weapons can be worse than stuff bought with credits.

 

It should be, Higher mastery rank weapons > lower rank weapons and Expensive hard to get weapons > Cheap and easy to get ones. Also a rank 7 weapon should not make a rank 6 one obsolete, instead it should be a smaller but noticeable upgrade. All clan research weapons are very time consuming to max out since they come with no polarity slots.

 

You shouldn't feel like you wasted your time maxing out your standard weapon when a prime version gets released. You would know the max potential of the standard version is a bit less but they handle the same so who really cares.

 

Doesn't seem like DE cares much about balancing weapons, Rank 0 vs Rank 7 who really cares which one is stronger, credit bought vs farm materials for a month, ye let the credit one be better. That's DE way of balancing weapons. Sad. I hope they fix this eventually, but doubt it.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Mikki79

[Vaskadar]

This isn't some MMO, it's more of a dungeon crawler, but still tries to maintain some semblance of balance (at least on the earlier levels). When you reduce the insane armor scaling, then suddenly all the other weapons are usable again on higher level play. I really don't think it should come down to AP/AI weapons only on high-level play. That's just flawed design, which was made even more obvious with the past update, raising all the levels of the enemies on all the planets.

Yes, there should be weapons that are locked past masteries 5, 6, 7, and 8. It incentivizes using all of the weapons and playing with each warframe. That's fine.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Vaskadar

[Taranis49]

A flat out Upgrade removes the usefulness of "lesser" weapons, especially since newer/harder content is made with player damage in mind.

 

Do you think it is acceptable that the Ignis, with its extremely unique playstyle, to be useless in high level missions and, especially defense?

Better weapons that are more difficult to acquire already exists so it's ok for Ignis to remain a "starter area" weapon in terms of damage?  

Or should it be viable everywhere?

 

First, the Ignis always sucked because of its "extremely unique playstyle" and the fact it has a third the range of the flux rifle, its damage/damage type are totally secondary to that. It's the fact it's basically a melee weapon that uses ammo (and lots of it) and occupies the primary slot that make it non-viable in higher level missions and defense. The fact that it requires you to be close enough that you'll get knocked down/shield-drained by ancient tentacles along with the fact that the enemies deal enough damage to kill you before you ever get the thing in range do a hell of a lot more to make it non-viable than its damage.

 

And it's the same story with the strun/boar when compared to the Hek and Sobek, which is incidentally a point you failed to respond to; the fact their range sucks is what keeps them from being viable (particularly at higher levels), not their raw DPS - this is especially true in the case of the Boar, since it definitely has a raw DPS advantage over the Sobek and possibly the Hek too.

 

If a new player can't expect their far more difficult to obtain weapon to perform better than their old one, what incentive do they have to even try obtaining it? None. It's a factor in the game already; there's probably quite a few players that will never bother with a shotgun or bow period.

 

Hell, we even see as much today with real weapons: Do you know why guys like me were issued M16s that dated back to the Vietnam War? Do you know why guys are still issued what is basically the same weapon? Because none of the potential alternatives offered a big enough increase in performance to justify the effort and expense of replacing it, even after nearly half a century.

 

Even in the case of good Snipers like the Vandaltron, unless you're actually on a map that allows for long-range sniping, odds are they're going to lose out. That's an issue with the maps generally being too confined which would allow those weapons to really shine, not with the weapons themselves (and the snipers are still perfectly useable in tighter quarters, they're just not ideal). I also don't have a problem with that either. I use all but one sniper weapon in the game: hint, I don't try to snipe targets across the map with a Supra, if you're expecting to out DPS a Braton/Braton Prime at short/medium ranges (i.e. the ranges most combat occurs at) with a sniper rifle, you apparently don't grasp the whole concept of snipers and sniping.