PC Long-range rifles imbalance

[Riamus]

Sure, but no reason you can't do two trees.  Maybe one tree maxes the weapon quickly and the second takes longer, but if you max your main weapon first, it isn't exactly a bad choice to split up your perks.

Few people would choose a rifle as their main weapon in this game, but nothing wrong with it as a secondary weapon or horde weapon.  But people do have choices based on the types of weapons they want to use.  The rifle is powerful for single shots.  It really doesn't need more power by making it shoot faster, have a higher ammo capacity or increased damage directly.

 

[Suxar]

My lever action would like some words! With the bonus headshot damage I can drop a feral weight in like 2 shots and a feral biker in 3. 

You and I have different playing styles. I go hunting with a rifle only because with a machine gun I don’t always get a whole corpse, and I don’t want to lose meat and bones.
I usually work out either through strength or endurance. And the first thing I do is maximize the weapons that are there. And this is either a shotgun and a club or brass knuckles and a machine gun.
A rifle is certainly a good weapon, but if you upgrade your perception. But as a rule, I don’t pump it at first.

 

[seagas]

While I generally go heavy into intellect tree, stun baton, and Robotic turrets, I use multiple weapons from from other trees. Spears early on, bow/crossbow for stealth kills, machine gun and pistols. With the screamer so plentiful, I use a silencer on pistols and SMGs to lower the heat level. I use rifles for long shots when hunting and Demos. I put maybe one point in the others weapons and more after I max out Intellect. I usually buy my other weapons from traders, reward or loot. As to the OP I have a tier four lever action rifle with scope using armor piercing rounds and take out Demos with four or five shots, fewer if I can manage  head shots.

 

[Krougal]

While I generally go heavy into intellect tree, stun baton, and Robotic turrets, I use multiple weapons from from other trees. Spears early on, bow/crossbow for stealth kills, machine gun and pistols. With the screamer so plentiful, I use a silencer on pistols and SMGs to lower the heat level. I use rifles for long shots when hunting and Demos. I put maybe one point in the others weapons and more after I max out Intellect. I usually buy my other weapons from traders, reward or loot. As to the OP I have a tier four lever action rifle with scope using armor piercing rounds and take out Demos with four or five shots, fewer if I can manage  head shots.

I do the same usually, but then our primary weapon is 2 robotic turrets, baton is secondary, everything else is for S&G.

I have died exactly twice in my current game, and both times because I was too lazy to deploy turrets (well, first time I actually forgot them at home) and got overrun by radioactive mutants and wights.

 

[bdubyah]

Here's the thing: I have a level 2 (tier 2) pistol and a level 2 tier 2 rifle. I have 1 point of skill in each.
My pistol deals 38.4 damage.

My rifle deals 61.3 damage.

I can shoot 5 bullets with my pistol by the time I reload my single shot rifle.

So... What's the point of the rifle, exactly? What's the point of taking this rifle, loading a single bullet into the chamber, expectedly waiting for that aim reticle to contract, only to deal barely 1.5 times the damage you'd deal with a pistol? And don't tell me it's the range. In this game, where looting is a core game mechanic, 95% of your zombie encounters will happen inside buildings at 10 blocks away, tops.

The rifle is ridiculously useless as it is, pls fix.

Do you have any suggestions on how they should improve it? 61.3 damage out of a T0 weapon is pretty good, no? How much more damage should it do? If anything, I'd say it and the pipe shotgun should get just slightly faster reloads. Maybe like 15% faster tops.

 

[Krougal]

Do you have any suggestions on how they should improve it? 61.3 damage out of a T0 weapon is pretty good, no? How much more damage should it do? If anything, I'd say it and the pipe shotgun should get just slightly faster reloads. Maybe like 15% faster tops.

I think he means t1, so pistol vs hunting rifle(?)

There is endless confusion around here between tier and QL and then people forget there is a tier zero.

So pipeys, primitive bow, bone knife, leather wraps, stone & wood weapons are all tier 0.

 

[BFT2020]

Do you have any suggestions on how they should improve it? 61.3 damage out of a T0 weapon is pretty good, no? How much more damage should it do? If anything, I'd say it and the pipe shotgun should get just slightly faster reloads. Maybe like 15% faster tops.

I recently modded the T0 firearms in my game.  Made all of them have equivalent damage to the T1 weapons, but also made it so they break after 20-40 shots (all except machine gun which is 50-100) and non repairable.  I also switched the pipe pistol to 44 cal and the pipe machine gun to 9mm.  Machine gun has a larger clip size and faster fire rate compared to vanilla.  In addition to that, T0 equipment I removed the ability to add mods to them (since they are junk weapons to begin with).

So far I been loving the changes but it is still a WIP regards balancing.  Nice having a single shot shotgun that can do a fairly decent job of taking down zombies in a pinch, but still have its other weaknesses and the inability to be repaired so I have to either replace it or eventually get up to the next tier.

But not sure if everyone would like something like that.

 

[bdubyah]

I recently modded the T0 firearms in my game.  Made all of them have equivalent damage to the T1 weapons, but also made it so they break after 20-40 shots (all except machine gun which is 50-100) and non repairable.  I also switched the pipe pistol to 44 cal and the pipe machine gun to 9mm.  Machine gun has a larger clip size and faster fire rate compared to vanilla.  In addition to that, T0 equipment I removed the ability to add mods to them (since they are junk weapons to begin with).

So far I been loving the changes but it is still a WIP regards balancing.  Nice having a single shot shotgun that can do a fairly decent job of taking down zombies in a pinch, but still have its other weaknesses and the inability to be repaired so I have to either replace it or eventually get up to the next tier.

But not sure if everyone would like something like that.

I did the ammo swaps in Wasteland back when they first added the pipe weapons. I did have my original pipe weapons break but changed that as it's just an annoyance.

I think he means t1, so pistol vs hunting rifle(?)

There is endless confusion around here between tier and QL and then people forget there is a tier zero.

So pipeys, primitive bow, bone knife, leather wraps, stone & wood weapons are all tier 0.

Ah, yeah, maybe he did. He said single shot and complained about reload times so I immediately thought pipe rifle. Hunting rifle reload isn't that bad so not sure the issue there. Would have to open the game and look at damages to see his issue better. 

 

[Krougal]

But not sure if everyone would like something like that.

Yeah, I still wouldn't use them.

Seriously though, I mean they suck to bad to bother with and you made them worse lol?

You really are a masochist.

 

[bdubyah]

I mean, everything can't be great. There have to be drawbacks. And if a rifle is all you've managed to find then it's better than nothing. Plus while you can rapid fire a pistol I'd think the higher damage of the rifle gives you a higher chance of either an instant decap, or just knocking them down. And that can prove invaluable in certain situations. You can dump 5 rounds out of a pistol into a zombie's chest and they may not even flinch. 

 

[warmer]

Hunting and a quick zoom for scouting if you have a scope. I'll take 50 frames with me and nerd poke up and then scope out the area. 

The biggest issue is the view distance making the rifle nerfed. The games draw distance is way less than a rifles range and in that sense they suck for long distance sniping.

 

[Suxar]

The biggest issue is the view distance making the rifle nerfed. The games draw distance is way less than a rifles range and in that sense they suck for long distance sniping.

When you use the sight, the game draws further.

 

[Misamor]

Do you have any suggestions on how they should improve it? 61.3 damage out of a T0 weapon is pretty good, no? How much more damage should it do? If anything, I'd say it and the pipe shotgun should get just slightly faster reloads. Maybe like 15% faster tops.

Read again. It's not for the T0 rifle, but the T1

 

[meganoth]

The technical limitations have hurt long range weapons for as long as I have been playing the game. The solution the game designers seem to have employed is to make "long range"  very very short. Sometimes I stand (not crouch) in a room and a zombie in the same room hasn't noticed me. Crouched I can often do insta-kill headshots without any points in stealth if I can see a zombie from the door which is quite often. 

But yes, Perception is one of the more difficult attributes to play early game, similar to INT, you have to know what you are doing. The early rifles are definitely one of its weakest points, but don't forget that every attribute is supposed to be balanced against other attributes, not single weapons against single other weapons. Perceptions strengths are in materials gathering (with looting and wrenching combined probably even outclassing mining) and the explosives for horde night (IMHO).

 

[warmer]

When you use the sight, the game draws further.

it doesn't draw in zombies from my experience. A 7.62 rifles range is EASILY 400m and the game can't even draw in zombies 400m away. That is what I am getting at. The rifles range is massively nerfed because the game can't actually make use a realistic range. Even 400m would be great, but it can't even do that.

 

[BFT2020]

Yeah, I still wouldn't use them.

Seriously though, I mean they suck to bad to bother with and you made them worse lol?

You really are a masochist.

Yes Yes I am  

 

[8_Hussars]

it doesn't draw in zombies from my experience. A 7.62 rifles range is EASILY 400m and the game can't even draw in zombies 400m away. That is what I am getting at. The rifles range is massively nerfed because the game can't actually make use a realistic range. Even 400m would be great, but it can't even do that.

The range of each firearm is somewhat different and presumably they are scaled against each other out to render distance. 

In that case does the actual rifle range even matter?  The rifle's range just needs to be better than the rest.

If a player can hit any zombie in render distance with the rifle; it doesn't matter how far the rifle could reach in real life.  Especially when balanced against other firearms in game that can see to render distance (like the pistol) but never hit at render distance.

 

[BFT2020]

The range of each firearm is somewhat different and presumably they are scaled against each other out to render distance. 

In that case does the actual rifle range even matter?  The rifle's range just needs to be better than the rest.

If a player can hit any zombie in render distance with the rifle; it doesn't matter how far the rifle could reach in real life.  Especially when balanced against other firearms in game that can see to render distance (like the pistol) but never hit at render distance.

100%

Best thing to look at is damage fall off range.  You get max damage with a rifle further out compared to the handguns.

 

[Pernicious]

You just know that someone is here to vent rather discuss/learn when they say "tell me why this is any good, and don't  say <reason it is good>". It's a bit like coming in here and saying "What's the worst game on the market, and why did you say it was 7d2d?" 

Rifles are great in all stages of the game, not just late. @Misamor set up one scenario where the pistol shines, how about I have a go?

51 block range - Rifle damage 58 - Pistol damage? 0

A bit too contrived? (As if somehow comparing a side arm and long arm at point blank wasn't, but anyhow) Let's try another one.

Say, at around 30 blocks. Assuming you have your aimbot on and hitting every shot, due to effective range, you're still doing about half damage of a lower damage gun, or needing about 4 hits to do the same damage as one round from a rifle. That means you're chewing through the party's resources pretty fast compared to a rifle user. 

Balance is both an art and a science. The only time I think you can conclusively say that balance is out, is if either nobody is using a weapon, or everyone is. Shy of that, preferences will come into play. Not everything has to be perfectly equal in all situations, or there might as well be no variations at all. We all just get one firearm called "gun".

 

[weldabar]

In the late game, the sniper rifle is pretty OP. I once had a sniper horde base with a long, straight path and electric fences running across. Combined with the Penetrator perk, it was one of the most ammo efficient bases I ever had. Especially when dealing with Demolisher Zombies.

I came here to say exactly this.

Plus put a roof over the Zs to make them crawl and head shots line themselves up. 1 bullet through 4 zombies = very ammo efficient.

Easy horde night. The Zs have never once reached me.

But it's now (1.0) difficult to put all the skill points into sniper because it's not very useful up close, IMO. Late game the M60 MG is unavoidable.