Hi, I am galbatorix and this is my CIU weapon balance program in which I talk about current issues with weapon balance and I propose solutions for them. More info about what my deal is you can find in my original post: CIU weapon balance program by galbatorix I strongly suggest checking it out, if you haven’t seen it yet, so you will fully understand what my goal is. Today I want to talk about two weapons: Plasma Rifle and Positron Stream.
Plasma Rifle and Positron Stream are weapons that may seem nearly identical on the first glance, but in fact function very differently. Positron Stream is exactly what it looks like: an autoaim auto-firing beam weapon. Plasma Rifle on the other hand, looks like the same thing, but is in fact spam-nuke gun similar to the Laser Cannon. Because of that and the autoaim mechanic, balancing those 2 is definitelly not an easy task. We do not want to end up with two identical weapons(that would happen if plasma rifle got gameplay update to match its visual design). But I have an idea how those two can be fixed/balanced. Both guns have several issues and bugs that have to be adressed. Let’s start with Positron Stream.
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Positron stream has insanely bad performance on high power levels compared to other weapons. It has the worst damage in the game, overheats fast and obstructs vision. It makes Positron unusable on higher difficulty levels.
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It is not able to push Henterprise’s feathers enough to make beating the boss possible without losing lifes or special weapons. It performace against supernova debris is similar.
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Whole idea of this weapon is flawed, because it seems to be designed as a noob-gun. The in-game description implies it is “strong on low power levels and weak on high”, which is a terrible idea in general. There are a lot better ways to make easy-to-use weapon for newbies.
So as you see, Positron Stream has some really complicated issues that are not that easy to deal with and require drastic changes. It seems tho, that this gun is supposed to be a weapon for unexperienced players, so I decided to stick with this general idea in my calculations and ideas. Anyways, with Positron’s issues pointed out, let’s go to Plasma Rifle.
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Visual design of Plasma Rifle doesn’t match its gameplay. It looks like auto-firing beam, but is in fact fired manually.
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When automatically fired, it’s beam is often bugged. For example kills enemy without locking on him, or without touching him whatsoever.
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Plasma Rifle doesn’t inflict enough damage on higher power levels to compete with meta weapons(Utensil Poker and Neutron Gun).
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Just like Positron Stream, it is useless against Henterprise’s feathers. In fact, way more useless than Positron in this case.
So yeah, there is a lot wrong with this gun. The gameplay=/=visuals problem can be solved in two ways. By remaking the gameplay to match visual design, or the other way around. First option would be good, but there is a problem. We already have Positron Stream. If Plasma Rifle’s gameplay was changed to match its visual design, we would end up with two identical guns with different statistics, and this should never be the case. So the only option left is to rework visuals to match gameplay. I have an idea how it could be done.
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When in automatic mode, Plasma Rifle now fires single shots instead of the constant stream. Fire rate remains the same(5/s). Only thing that changes is visuals.
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Single shots are no longer moving. Right now even when you spam click plasma rifle, every shot is animated, this is no longer necessary. (shots will have different forms, random frame of the animation can be chosen with every click, but the beam is no longer moving)
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Two variants of the beam are still in use. When not locking-on and missing the target, version 1 will be shown. When hitting the target, version 2. It would be pretty much the same as it is now, but less buggy.
Basically, after such visual rework, Plasma Rifle would look similar to Laser Cannon. Every click is a single shot. Beam is not animated, but have different forms. Auto fire looks like manual fire, but slower. Such changes would fix problem number 4(visuals would match gameplay) and problem nr 5 (If beam is no longer automatic, current bugs regarding automatic fire will not exist) -
Aditonally, firing sound could be changed to better match the characteristics of the weapon. Something similar to Laser Cannon should work.
So with those issues out of the way, let’s talk about problem number 6, which is insufficient damage on high power levels. To fix that, I suggest changing scaling of the Plasma Rifle’s volley:
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On power level 0, damage of the volley is 200. (nothing changes)
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On power levels 0 - 4 plasma rifle’s volley gains 150 damage per level.
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On power levels 4-10 plasma rifle’s volley gains 200 damage per level.
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Max power volley deals 2300 damage now.
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Reduce a bit overheat time from 15s to 13s.(15s is way too long for this weapon)
Such changes would give Plasma Rifle 13000 DPS on power level 10, and 14950 DPS on max power, so it would be weaker than Utensil Poker and Neutron Gun in terms of damage per second. Max power 3000 dps difference comes from the fact, that Plasma Rifle has auto-aim mechanic so it has to deal significantly less damage than Neutron and Utensil. I think, that’s a fair deal.
With all that, there is only one issue regarding Plasma Rifle left, which is its inability to push feathers in Henterprise bossfight. This problem is very specific, so it can be really easily fixed. Giving Plasma Rifle ability to destroy feathers on hit would be enough. It wouldn’t affect its general performance, but would make Plasma Rifle viable against Henterprise. Plus, it would kinda make sense, because feathers can be destroyed by missile and mine, and Plasma Rifle is already a weapon with the highest single target damage of all conventional guns. (It could be added to the in-game description, which should also be rewritten together with this rework.)
Ok, so with Plasma Rifle covered, we can go to the Positron Stream and its issues number 1 and 2. (horrible damage at high power and inability to deal with feathers and supernova debris) To fix those problems i suggest following steps:
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Increase automatic fire rate from 10,2 shots/s to 20 shots/s.
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Change damage of the lvl 0 volley from 200 to 50.
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Change scaling of the volley on the levels 0-9 from 40 damage per level to 50 damage per level.
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Make transitions to 10 and max power levels add 100 damage to the volley.
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Increase overheat time from 5s to 7s.
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Make the beam more transparent, because right now it blocks a lot of vision, which is not a trait that easy-to-use weapon for unexperienced players should posess. It could look something like this:
With such changes, Positron Stream would become a easy-to-use weapon on all power levels. Having 12000 dps on power level 10 and 14000 on max power, it would inflict less damage than plasma rifle, for an exchange of high automatic fire rate(less damage would be wasted on finishing enemies with small amount of hp left), wider auto-lock range and little vision blocking. High fire rate also solves the feather and supernova debris problem. All that should make Positron Stream suitable for new or unexperienced players, even on harder missions. Though more DPS oriented weapons should perform better on elite missions in hands of experienced player, Positron Stream should still be viable. In some situations, where there are bullets everywhere and vision is important, I would consider taking it over other guns with higher damage output.
Here you can see results of the proposed changes:
To summarize,I think that Plasma Rifle could be improved by:
- Changing visual design of Plasma Rifle to match its gameplay.
- Changing scaling of Plasma Rifle’s volley on power levels 0-4 to 150 dmg/level.
- Changing scaling of Plasma Rifle’s volley on power levels 4-10 to 200 dmg/level.
- Changing Plasma Rifle’s max power volley damage from 1600 to 2300.
- Decreasing Plasma Rifle’s time to overheat from 15s to 13s.
- Giving Plasma Rifle an ability to destroy Henterprise’s feathers on hit.
And Positron Stream could be improved by:
- Making Positron Stream’s beam more transparent.
- Increasing Positron Stream’s automatic fire rate from 10,2 shots/s to 20 shots/s.
- Changing Positron Stream’s 0 power volley damage from 200 to 50.
- Changing scaling of Positron Stream volley on levels 0-9 to 50 dmg/level.
- Making transitions to 10 and max power levels add 100 damage to the volley.
- Increasing Positron Stream’s overheat time from 5s to 7s.
Such changes would:
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Give both guns enough damage to compete with Utensil Poker and Neutron Gun on higher difficulty missions. (Problems nr 1 & 6 solved)
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Fix Plasma Rifle’s gameplay-visual inconsitency and elliminate bugs regarding its automatic fire.(Problems nr 4 & 5 solved)
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Make both guns able to be used against supernova missions and Henterprise bossfight. (Problems nr 2 & 7 solved)
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Make Positron Stream easy-to-use and noob-friendly weapon, without making it absolutelly useless for experienced players.(Problem nr 3 solved)
So yea, that’s it for now. Remember to share your thoughts in the comments below. If you think, that I forgot about something, or you have a different idea, feel free to tell me. I am interested in all kinds of feedback. Soon I will make a post about next weapon, so stay tuned. You can also check out my previous posts:
Thanks m8, your post is exactly the type of reply I wanted to see in those threads.
Idea