I tried to piece together all the things you were saying and it kinda felt that way.
This change here is something I agree with, without the overheat part. Reduce the clip, making reloading more frequent. If the clip is 1/4 or 1/3 that means around 10 to 14 ammo in the clip. It’s already really short usage, overheating seems a bit too much when reloading already takes enough time.
Would still accomplish the goal of making it harder to use it, but would be easier to handle (Mechanically. You have the reload already on the weapon, less development time to implement it and less exceptions as the overheat mechanic atm is present only on staves).
Welp, you changed what you proposed while I was ending the post. Unlucky.
Still, I would not add overheat. Would limit the clip at 30 instead of 42 and make reloading it a little longer.
Especially this bit here works really well with the reload split over multiple parts that we already have. Since reloading in this game can be split in multiple parts, it becomes harder to use for the guy who just picked it up, but provides growth for a player that wants to actually learn how to use it properly. Also, with a smaller clip size comes less damage capability.
I 100% agree with you. Making reload longer and clip size shorter imo are the best options to accomplish that.
I am strongly opposed to any reduction in trigger time for the flamer. The flamer is the first flame weapon in a game in a long timr this feels good and one reason is the legnthy trigger time.
Acceptable nerfs would be:
Reduced ammo capacity (1 or 2 fewer reloads)
Reduced ammo recovery from pickups
Making some enemy types more resistant to flamer fire
I would point out that since i gained access to the scoreboard and have objective statistics i have found the flamer definitely out preforms but not so much as you might expect. A minimal nerf to ammo supply and ammo regen may be enough to restrict the flamer.
I would also say there are two other reason the flamer is so good right now.
Overheat also exists on Plasma Gun.
On the plasma gun, the magazine is huge and you basically never have to reload because the mag is empty. You always reload to vent the overheat (imo the plasma gun overheats too quick, but that is not topic of this thread).
Same thing i want for the flamer, except without the ability to manually remove the overheat, so that it becomes a passive thing and the player does not constantly reload and still only use the flamer.
The goal would not purely be to make the flamer harder to use.
If you just reduce the uptime by adding more time spent reloading, the player will just spend more time being useless to then use the flamer again.
Having unventable overheat instead of frequent reloads, would make the player swap weapons and go into melee instead.
That is a shame, because trigger time is probably the biggest offender when it comes to explaining why the flamer is completely overpowered.
Some people are against changing the damage output itself.
At least one of the two has to be nerft.
Imo, any flamer zealot just defaulting to using the flamethrower for enemy groups of pretty much any size, is a pretty good argument for reducing uptime.
Points 1 and 2 can completely be ignored.
In a balanced team setup, the zealot can already take almost all ammo drops.
Zealots move around the fastest and even if others would need ammo, the zealots could still pretty easily gobble up all ammo pickups that they find.
I play mainly a zealot… and I support this statement. The ult of the zealot needs to not increase damages of ranged weapons.
Again, the problem of the flamer is that it can kill nearly everything, pretty fast, has a low reload time and has a good range…
Something needs to be nerfed here…
And yes, I have seen that the flamer has a weak point… the fact it cannot permit to kill enemies that are faraway. But, the strong points make it a too good weapon.
I totally agree… for the flamer… even if for Bolter / revolver-shotgun, I would invert values. I really think that it is totally stupid to see that with bolter (caliber .75 - 28mm) has twice the ammo of a revolver (caliber .45 - 11.43mm) or more than a shotgun ( 18,5mm).
In other words, revolver needs 2 - 3 times the ammo of the bolter, and shotgun twice…
The thing is that optimal gameplay is already about switching to melee, then switch back to flamer to do a part of the reload, switch back to melee, then switch back to complete the reload as reloading in this game is split over multiple parts.
Not necessarily, but I can see this happening. I would still place my bets on using the reload mechanic as it is now on the player’s skill to use it efficiently instead of just a flat cd that even whoever just picked up the weapon can manage.
This is also very true now that I think about it. As people previously pointed out, touching ammo balance is not healthy for group dynamics, so longer reload or overheat seems to work best as they do not touch anything but availability.
Player skill should be rewarded IMO, so I would go with longer reload that NEEDS to be performed exposing the player to dangers. A good player will split it in multiple parts so to not be useless/exposed, while a bad player will need to learn how to split it or be useless (And ultimately either drop the weapon or fail). Overheating with venting would be the same, just less difficult at this point (I did not now the plasma gun had it, I swear I will play vet at some point. Thanks for pointing it out!) and overheating without venting would be IMO the less skill rewarding which I think it’s a pity considered the kind of game this is.
But most people don‘t do that.
Especially during hordes it is very obvious that many if not most flamethrower users just dump a mag, retreat to reload and then dump the next mag.
As long as the flamer just deletes enemies, people will do full reloads mid combat so that they can keep using the flamer. Reloading for a few sec mid combat is not really a skill. It just means that you are not effectively doing anything in the time that it takes you to reload, while your teammates are fighting.
But Reload is a mechanic and Downtime is a dynamic. Each class, on each weapon, has it (Even the plasma gun, as it has active venting) so removing it from the flamer would just be dumbing down the weapon. What I mean is that everybody is reloading mid fight, zealot and flamer should not be an exception (Venting is a reload, just skinned in another way).
Also, with the overheating mechanic, there is the possibility of just never reaching the overheat by spacing your shots.
I think we agree that bad players should not be clearing damnation and that reloading IS a part of the game that players should have control on. The fact that most don’t use the reload correctly is their problem. If the zealot is lagging behind and the group fails I am pretty confident the zealot would end up thinking that the flamer has “too long of a reload”. At that point, we can collectively tell them to “git gud”.
The reload split in multiple parts is a smart mechanic that rewards skill. If that is not being rewarded enough, it should be increased in clarity (I bet some people don’t know it exists) and in the rewards it gives.
I agree it should be like a walking turret mode, probably same thing for bolter. You trade your mobility and defence for power, it is a common way how heavy weapon balanced in any game. Also full armored flak enemies should have some fire resistance.
Not addressed at anyone in particular but I’ve seen fixing the Zealot ranged Ult interaction raised a few times as a method of nerfing flamer and I’m not a fan of that TBH. Generally I think that nerfs a lot of other guns on Zealot a lot more than it nerfs flamer. Do I think flamer should be able to benefit from the armour degrading effect? No, but ideally I’d rather see flame dots specifically fixed to not interact with rending/brittleness/Zealot Ult in general.
Should probably make a general thread at some point about potentially unintended interactions generally, which ones might be good to keep, which should go etc. For the purpose of this thread I’ll just say I think Zealot ranged interaction does more good overall for build diversity than it does harm for overall balance. I foresee a wall of bolter Zealots in the future if that interaction is changed. You just push weapons that don’t deal with Carapace well even further out of the meta. Do I want to play with heavy sword? Welp probably gotta bring bolter or I’m largely defenseless against crushers. Same with a lot of other good melee choices.
The boltgun (the one is the game) is 3.5kg (7.7 lb) (but a bolter is 7kg (space marine))
I don’t think this would explain that someone can’t move as this is the weight of a simple shotgun or an assault rifle.
What I say is… it is has no coherence… if the bolter has this amount of ammo, shotgun and revolver should have a lot more than the bolter (+50% for the shotgun and x2 for revolver at least).
And I add, there is a real ammo problem for revolver and shotgun. Several here always write about the “lore” to justify that we don’t need to nerf OP weapons.
I say, that lore speaking, the revolver should have 2 times ammos of the boltgun and shotgun 1.5 times.
Back on topic, reducing ammos for flamer is… not a solution.
I’m not sure where this numbers come from, but 3,5 kg is near AK74 weight so it sounds strange. And considering that space marine armor weight is near 200 kg if i remember correctly, i doubt that SM bolter weight is just a 7 kg. It is more like human bolt pistol - 3,5 kg. bolter - 7,5 kg.
Well this makes more sense, that it’s a bolt pistol 3,5 kg. Anyway, i think best option to balance bolter - remove/nerf shattering impact and maybe nerf pinning fire without this blessings bolter not so OP.
Aaand if it’s 7kg, than it’s a lot for a human bolter, it’s more like light machine gun weight. But look at bolter mobility caps and at mg12, the only difference is moving spread.
