Ionic Canon seems BiS by far on Vedeena

[Fremen]

Hello there,

I've spent the last days on vedeena checking on everything that's been updated, and I'm very excited about the changes you've made ! I love everything about the implants, amors, and PA.

So back to topic, I tested all Heavy guns with various builds and I see the ionic canon as BiS and, by far, way above the other weapons, even higher TL ones.

The damage is insanely high, the RoF is also very high, 12 shots per mag and a pretty fast reload time. I don't see any weakness expect very long range sniping.
If we consider EoF for a moment, which is 2 tech level higher, and would fit in the same "low tech CQB" category, we can see it peforms very poorly compared to the ionic canon.
Ther other HC rare weapons seems to scale pretty well from their non-rare lower tier ones, and are between each others pretty balanced DPS-wise. Except for the ionic.


What I'm suggesting here is a straight up nerf in damage output. The RoF (frequency) and magazine size seems fitting and make it fun to use. basically you want to get a good aim timing and then unload all the bullets in a short time frame. Pretty exciting gameplay. But the damage output has to be nerfed. By reducing by a fair amount the damage per single shot, we could put it in par with other weapons.

Also, considering the very low requirement to be used, it definately need to see its alpha damage rebalanced.


On a seoncond note, I would love to see the EoF be a competitive weapon ! It's always been a pretty bad weapon compared to others even though the looksof it is great !
Being a single shot weapon with a huge mag and a decent freq, this one could be a serious contender in the lowtech class. Yet it lack the firepower to really do something. A single shot of devo equals 3.5 shots of EoF in alpha damage. and a 5second burst of ionic canon equals 3x times the damage output of the EoF in teh same bracket of time.

Tested on different type of armors, the numbers remain the same, ionic canon is way above the other HC non aoe weapons. And EoF needs a little bit of love (just a little bit of extra alpha)!

[Drachenpaladin]

Well, the entire Ionic series is supposed to be stronger than their normal Rare siblings, simply due to the PITA of acquisition.

[Fremen]

I feel you, tho if we take it from two point of view:

1/ From a new player perspective, both rare and ionic are hard to get, remember the early age of new servers ? It takes time to gather all to parts for a rare weapon.

2/ From a veteran perspective, you can get both rare and the ionic pretty easily. Most of us have all the weapons we want in couple of days, either by trading, or getting them ourselves or getting it with friends.

The whole point vedeena was to bring balance and therefor disversity in builds, not getting one gun better than all others ?
Also WOC has been stated that it should be scaled as rare weapons, yet it's a major pita to get WOC too.

So we should balance all rare, ionic and woc on the same bracket (considering TL ofc), otherwise the tomorrow of NC vedeena is all heavy will play with a ionic.

[Drachenpaladin]

I can see people already bitch and moan about their Ionics becoming a luxury article rather then an advantage... boohooo game has no content! speshul guns are crap! boohoo gibe new gunz plox!

[Fremen]

I can see people already bitch and moan about their Ionics becoming a luxury article rather then an advantage... boohooo game has no content! speshul guns are crap! boohoo gibe new gunz plox!

I never meant to suggest making the ionic useless.
Currently it is way above the other heavy guns, so I suggest to lower the damage value a little bit to make it in par with others.
It would still be a valuable weapon with a unique gameplay: fast shooting capacity, decent mag, fast reload, unique damage type...

I don't see why would anyone moan about game having no content, what do you mean ? the game has more content than any mmo up to date, except SWG EMU and EvE online and that is to be proud of !

[Drachenpaladin]

I never meant to suggest making the ionic useless.
Currently it is way above the other heavy guns, so I suggest to lower the damage value a little bit to make it in par with others.
It would still be a valuable weapon with a unique gameplay: fast shooting capacity, decent mag, fast reload, unique damage type...

I don't see why would anyone moean about game having no content, what do you mean ? the game has more content than any mmo up to date, except SWG EMU and EvE online and that is to be proud of !

I know what you suggested. But that will sadly be the overall reaction.
Ionics are still harder to get than rares because of the crappy hacknet part, even for vets. So, if it isn't a I-win button then people will complain that the gun is pointless.

Also, if it retains any justification for being worthwhile to obtain like you say, then people who prefer this gunplay style will prolly complain that they have to work harder for being competitive then others.

[Fremen]

Aye I got that. If we can achieve that ionic is 5% to 10% better DPS wise than the rare counterparts, then it rewards you for getting this "hard to obtain" weapon with a slight better damage.

Currently it's around 200% to 250% better (DPM) than other TL100 heavy ! depending if you cap the stats.

I think this comes from the fact the ammo mag size and frequency was tweaked while retaining it's high alpha damage.

Even then I think having a unique weapon (skin/shooting mechanics) is good enough of a reward by itself and should remain balanced with other rares.

[Drachenpaladin]

Even then I think having a unique weapon (skin/shooting mechanics) is good enough of a reward by itself and should remain balanced with other rares.

Ofc. But i've seen how people around here tend to react in such matters.
But yeah, with such a discrepancy a nerf seems appropriate. Although I'd rather favor a different approach.

Out of the bunch of different guns and weapons find those that are currently good and fun to play, like the Ionic Canon right now and elevate all the other guns up to its level instead of dragging the maverick down to the unfun level.

[Fremen]

...
Although I'd rather favor a different approach.

Out of the bunch of different guns and weapons find those that are currently good and fun to play, like the Ionic Canon right now and elevate all the other guns up to its level instead of dragging the maverick down to the unfun level.

There is no difference in nerfing ionic to the same level as others, or boosting everything up to the ionic... Execpt that if you boost everything, then you have to also boost the armors so that you don't get instagibbed.

I know that by experience to gaming "nerfing" ended up making OP/BiS stuff useless. But nerfing just mean reducing.

Let's try to reduce a little bit the ionic damage, then let's make tests again. See if it's good !

Also how could we "kill all the fun" when this has not yet reached retail lol

[Model192]

Style > Stats

nerf that shit

[OLD No.7 BrAnD]

You guys do realize that none of the weapons are yet balanced or even close to a final state?! The only thing they did with the ionic shotgun cannon was to rework the mag size, which was absolutely neccesary because you reloaded it longer than it took to clear a full mag (feel free to test that on "retail"). Just wait for the announcement that the weaponbalancing is finished (or ready for testing) and than you can complain about damage.

[Bragi]

Yep, weapons haven't been altered on vedeena for a long time, but the background stuff has been subject to a lot of reworking. As such they are a bit of a mess.

[Fremen]

You guys do realize that none of the weapons are yet balanced or even close to a final state?! The only thing they did with the ionic shotgun cannon was to rework the mag size, which was absolutely neccesary because you reloaded it longer than it took to clear a full mag (feel free to test that on "retail"). Just wait for the announcement that the weaponbalancing is finished (or ready for testing) and than you can complain about damage.

I am completely aware of that, and that is the reason why I posted that, in order for the team to get aware the ionic needs to get the damage value lowered.
I'm not complaining, this is a discussion about balance and tweaking on the test server.
As you can read above, I posted that on the "testing and developement" part of the forum.

If we follow your suggestion, we should not post anything on the forum until devs balance the game by themselves ? Don't you think they need feedback ?