Not sure what it’s like now, but back when Legend was the highest difficulty V2 definitely had times where weapons were so strong that gameplay was boring. It’s not always the weapons’ fault, mind you. It’s usually a combination of game features push them over the edge.
The thing to consider is that no weapon works in isolation. They’re all affected by class buffs, perks and blessings. It’s easy for a weapon’s weaknesses to be overcome by building into it and that’s definitely a thing with the bolter.
It’s fun. You have to go for a high crit accuracy and pay attention to enemy armour if you want to do well with it. Weapons that just roll over everything are fun at first, but after a while they’re boring as hell.
Thats a horrible way to design weapons in game entirely reliant on RNG rolls for everything. The only thing the player controls atm is 1 single weapon trait, if he spends enough materials and time to roll it the way he wants. While i disagree with 1Cakes somewhat hyperbolic statement some weapons do needs buffs because they are an unfun hassle to play.
We’ll see how it looks when the rest of the crafting system rolls out. Either way, every weapon can function at a high level with the right drop. Not all that different from many other looter shooters.
I have to disagree. Just like you can’t overcome a flamer’s range limitations, it is impossible to overcome a bolter’s mag size, recoil, total ammo. When you bring a bolter, your effectiveness vs shooters is reduced. That’s the trade off.
People figure out the ways to use fun weapons even when they are “suboptimal”. Hand cannons are fun. They are not the strongest weapons out there but people bring them regardless. I’d love to bring out my laspistols one day too, they just need to not be useless.
You can overcome the flamer’s range limitations in most situations using the environment. It actually has a longer range than many give it credit for anyway, given that most firefights happen, or can be made to happen in the midrange.
I disagree that the bolter’s mag size and total ammo are even low enough to be considered weaknesses, especially on vet. Like recoil, they’re only problems if you primarily use auto fire. Reload can be addressed with the many reload speed buffs that are out there. Its most impactful drawback is how long it takes to switch to.
What makes you say it’s bad against shooters? I feel like you’re probably using it with auto fire most of the time, which is definitely not the way to do it. Use ADS and treat it like a semi-auto rifle and all of the issues you describe disappear. Auto fire is only really for when the tankiest enemies are at very close ranges.
"Suboptimal* just means you have to play thoughtfully, which I see as good design.
I’ve been screwed over by the flamer’s range limitations more than I care to count. I refuse to bring one any more. The horde clear is great, but it’s an absolutely horrible experience to play with the other 80% of a run.
I’m not saying the flamer is great, just that the range issue can be worked around most of the time. I think it’s pretty weak overall because of how long it takes to kill anything bigger than trash.
If the ‘tool for a job’ factor plays a primary role in your choice of weapons, using a ranged weapon mainly for its horde clear capability is a bit questionable anyway IMO. You lose too much value against enemies at range if you do that. The flamer definitely falls into the “use it because it’s fun” group.
Oh, it was really fun at first when I first had access to it, but that access came before I was allowed to play higher difficulties where nearly everything is a shooter, which the flamer is trash against. Most of my games with a flamer was me waiting for everybody else to shoot at everything else. I just use an agripinna braced auto now. It clears hordes well enough too, but doesn’t sacrifice responsiveness to ranged threats.
I never said that bolter is BAD against shooters, but there are weapons that deal with squads of shooters and stalkers faster. A lasgun can also deal with ranged specials and non-ogryn elites faster. A bolter is not so good in extend firefights with multiple ranged enemies, which are very common on T5.
It’s great to have one bolter in the team, but if the team only has one veteran I’d rather have him bring a MG12.
Not what I meant. No matter how skilled you are or how good your aim is, the flamer’s range will never extend past 25m. You must play around the limitations of a flamer and move closer. Different weapons have different limitations, some of them are more severe than others. A bolter doesn’t need a nerf because it’s limitations are severe enough to balance it’s power.
Suboptimal is anything that is not the best in slot. I too enjoy playing with fun weapons, I also like to be able to pull my weight in a group. A laspistol is not even working properly at the moment.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. As I said to Rainman, I don’t think the flamer is all that great, but the range isn’t really the main factor there for me because the range is something you can work around a lot of the time.
If we’re talking purely about maximising the player’s potential output, I’d go the other way. The MG12 is strong, no doubt, arguably stronger in certain niches, but the bolter does everything that gun does plus more and with less skill/effort required from the player. The limitations you mention are so slight that they don’t counteract that.