Projectile Rifle

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This gun seriously has too much going for it at the upper echelon's of play (which aren't that hard to get to once you figure out the basics).

Any connect with this weapon is going to cause severe/lethal damage to any class it hits. It's projectile speed is obscenely fast. Everyone's been on the receiving end of an impenetrable hall due to the presence of 3, 2, or even 1 sniper. There's no counterplay other than avoidance given how fast the weapon fires in addition to it's damage.

This weapon has been the best gun in the game for as long as it's existed, and that was pushed over the top once projectile speeds were ramped up. While it used to be powerful it was at least workable to dodge and erratically move towards a sniper when the projectile was slower, now it's "see model, click fire, player dies" because the bullet travels that fast.

There's a couple of things that could be done to alter the rifle:
1. Reduce accuracy, require some stabilizing mechanic that isn't negated by a frame's release of movement keys
2. Reduce damage
3. Reduce projectile speed

1a: MB2 is naturally arcadey as it's base is quake, and snipers are meant to be powerhouses rewarded for accuracy and timing. This is good, and the current accuracy of the rifle reflects this mentality well, it's just a little too easy to be accurate with the weapon. Not to mention adding a stabilizing mechanic would really shaft the already harder to operate offensive side of any map. Ultimately I think this is in a fine state and wouldn't touch it.

2a: The damage of the rifle goes hand in hand with it's style of weapon, it's the AWP of MB2, and sniper rifles notoriously do tons of damage. I wouldn't want a sniper to ever feel cheated from landing a good shot (headshot) they should be instant kills. Body shots and below though also happen to be instant kills a large majority of the time, which I don't necessarily agree with. It'd feel weird to go in and add specific modifiers to the modifiers for projectile rifle to favor headshots and diminish returns on lower body shots. So again I wouldn't touch this.

3a: In the past the projectile rifle's bullet speed was quite a bit slower, you could peek, fire a shot in return and dip into cover (if the corridor was long enough) that you wouldn't end up with your brains splattered on the wall behind you. You could also rush snipers with some semblance of confidence that if you jumped, bobbed, or ducked at the right time you wouldn't end up splatted again. Nowadays rushing down a sniper leads to the image we all know well of a goofy barrel wobbling around a corner scope pressed to lando/greedo's eye before we end up toasted. The effectiveness of a snipe beats out other weapons in the first instant of combat every time, at any distance.

3b: All other weapons feel very good on their projectile speeds at this stage of the game, but proj's seems excessive, it's too fast now which greatly reduces the ability to interact with it's latent weaknesses (single shot, meaning they get a single chance vs your rapid fire). Reducing projectile rifle's bullet speed would return some measure of interactivity between sniper and opponent as far as movement goes, further promote their role as a marksman role, and won't hinder their lethality when landing shots. They would still be kings of the instant a fight starts but they'd be avoidable or moreso than currently. This change would ultimately help bridge the gap between offense and defense by allowing offense a better chance in corridors, in addition to bringing the weapon back into line.
 

Tempest

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I've talked with a few people about proj and how to address its issues (as well as actually truly identifying its issues).

Main issue:
Projectile rifle is supposed to be a sniper weapon but you can basically run around with it like any other weapon and pop-shot any and all gunners down with basically 0 possible reaction time. Sitting in one spot and being able to shoot someone (like ruptor does) is fitting for a sniper weapon and is more of a map design issue than problems with the weapon design.

Possible solutions (mix and match, not entirely exclusive/independent options):
- Slow movement speed down while proj is equipped (removing the ability to move while scopes would be a bit more fitting for it but might be too much of a nerf, idk)
- Increase incoming damage while it's equipped/scoped
- Reduce armor damage at close range (so you can still land those hard shots close range but it won't be nearly as dominant as it is where you can just keep firing and reloading and taking down everything at any range).
- Don't allow for scoping while still in the duration of a dash
- Tweak multipliers so that you can't clip people's arms/legs and take away 80-90% of their health+armor by default && have head shots always be kills/what you should be aiming for

Probably more possibilities but these are the main ones that have come up.
 
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I'd really shy away from pigeonholing snipers into a campy playstyle considering snipers are on both sides and camping is not an offensive tactic. I'm glad people are looking into this though.
 
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Nearly all of my deaths from a projectile rifle have come from being shot in the back, or body. I can't name once where I died from being shot in the head, that usually comes from the pistol. I think all of Tempest's solutions are wonderful, but something really should be done about the actual speed of the bullet.
 
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ughhhhhhhhh now I have to do a long response again jesus....

Any connect with this weapon is going to cause severe/lethal damage to any class it hits
Okay first of all it literally kills only ET, sold and jedi/sith with a perfect torso shot. Anything lower than that it doesn't kill at all. I had soldiers tank proj shots in the leg. (with Jedi/Sith its 50/50 cos of the 20% dmg reduction on block)
There's no counterplay other than avoidance given how fast the weapon fires in addition to it's damage.
Again, you can prefire heros so incredibly easy because they will fall dead after 5 e11 shots. Proj is incredibly easy to dodge due to its travel time so you can just run around manually dodging shots and prefire. This should be common knowledge for everyone.
This weapon has been the best gun in the game for as long as it's existed
wrong
While it used to be powerful it was at least workable to dodge and erratically move towards a sniper when the projectile was slower, now it's "see model, click fire, player dies" because the bullet travels that fast.
wrong

Every other sniper outshines Proj atm.
EE3 for example has: Double snipe, quickscope, perfect accuracy while using jetpack, full running speed while scoped, very little accuracy drop when jumping/running

I don't know if you play a lot of proj, but the weapon itself is so awkward to use it requires a lot of training to get decent with it. Especially the firedelay, heavily reduced movementspeed and various scope bugs fucked me over too many times to count.

The feeling you get when you hit 6 people in a round with proj and get 0 kills is not very nice I can tell ya

edit: Looks to me as nobody in this thread really play proj at all.
 
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Gotta love how these people hardly defending proj. are also always the ones who connect to the game only to use that all night long...

Pweeze!!! Dunt nurwf my favo gun. Iz totally fair n balanced
 
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Where is this discussion going, lmao.
This is pure: People who never play a gun want it to be nerfed cos they die to it discussion. I could open 10 of those per day for the EE3 but I have little hope it will get fixed cos the devs love to play mando
 

Tempest

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This is pure: People who never play a gun want it to be nerfed cos they die to it discussion. I could open 10 of those per day for the EE3 but I have little hope it will get fixed cos the devs love to play mando

Pretty much everyone I talked to (in regards to the suggestions I listed) are people who use proj extensively (I also use it a lot and have for years). Kind of an ignorant statement to make.

EE3 has issues too. So does bowcaster. There's a long list of any number of things that are problematic.
 
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Pretty much everyone I talked to (in regards to the suggestions I listed) are people who use proj extensively (I also use it a lot and have for years). Kind of an ignorant statement to make.

EE3 has issues too. So does bowcaster. There's a long list of any number of things that are problematic.
Statement was made to be controversial. I don't know who you talk to about these changes but all the good BH/Hero players I know say that the proj is sub par when compared to Disruptor for example.
Those changes you propose would kill rebs long range control and people(including me) would have to change to M5 cos its just the better weapon .
 

k4far

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Statement was made to be controversial. I don't know who you talk to about these changes but all the good BH/Hero players I know say that the proj is sub par when compared to Disruptor for example.
Those changes you propose would kill rebs long range control and people(including me) would have to change to M5 cos its just the better weapon .

I am getting killed by being hit in the back or from side most of the time. As I am fighting someone and get picked in an attempt to kill steal.

Then M5 is next, then Bowcaster.

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No one needs pesky snipers if you ask me. But they should be, just not as I know 6 underdogs going for what is easy to play with. That is no ability of yours this is genuinely going easy and pissing people.

*Something could be done with Heroes/Bounty Hunters using E-11 too (I am okay with level 3 pistol.)
 
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Lessen

pew pew
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I think NA just has better snipers than EU based on this thread.
AOD James Harden honestly makes me want to leave the server, cuz if I'm on his team I know I'm getting carried hard, and if I'm off his team I know there's no way I can outjuke his aim. I don't know any other sniper who I find THAT intimidating, though. I wonder if EU has any.
 
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only sniper i ever have a hard time with is paradine everybody else is too terrible to pose any threat to my practiced force whore juke skills
 

GoodOl'Ben

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If I recall correctly Projectile Rifle deals a maximum of 150 base damage.

Toning this down to 140ish could be sufficient nerf without making the gun feel significantly less impactful. It will not stop headshots from killing, but it will greatly lessen damage received from non-headshots. This would mean 280 vs 300 on a chestshot (note this does not account for armour). This would be a nice way of decreasing sniper impact without making it worthless.

For contrast EE3 sniper mode deals 100. So the Projectile Rifle would still remain a top dog and Disruptor would get a nice unique factor of being the weapon that deals the most damage.

Another direction would be increasing reload times by 1s or so to increase sniper safe intervals and commitment for the sniper.

Changing the weapons too much would be a gross overreaction.
 
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