Nerfing Shooters 101

[isaac4]

machine isn't bad per se. its pretty good.

No one is saying it's bad though. It was just a small point being made on whether or not the nerf itself was too harsh.

 

[SAMICOM]

No one is saying it's bad though. It was just a small point being made on whether or not the nerf itself was too harsh.

I think it's good enough. but I don't play machine idk

 

[OnePotWonder]

You're right, there are other things that separate those weapons. They aren't the exact same thing.


But let's do a comparison between them. Your nerfed version of .52 gal and non-nerfed .96 gal.


Just looking at the raw data according to inkipedia, here is what nerfed .52 gal has going for it.

• 52 shots per ink tank instead of 43
• Can act after shooting 1 frame sooner
• Strafe speed of 0.06 instead of 0.04
• 3-10% less likely to shoot towards the outer reticle (depending on how long you have been firing)

That's it. These are small differences. Not completely insignificant, but still relatively small. Now let's look at what the (regular) .96 gal does better.

• 35-62 damage instead of 30-52
• 15.77 units of range instead of 11.94

Out of all of these differences, one is much, much bigger than the others. It's not close at all. If you had to choose between these two weapons, no reasonable person would ever choose nerfed .52.

Right now, according to Chara's tier list from 2 months ago, .96 deco is around top 25% of weapons, and the vanilla kit is around bottom 10%. I didn't analyze the kits, so let's go the conservative route and just compare to the deco kit, which Chara placed in A tier. It's very hard to overstate how huge of a difference 30% more range makes, so nerfed .52 would be 3 tiers lower than that, at the very least. Which puts it as worse than 50% of weapons, if not much more. Which is extremely harsh since regular .52 is near the top.

Excellent. I will admit it is a bit harsh, but I definitely think .52 belongs in the bottom half of weapon power. Of all the shooters here, it's easily the most hated by the community, and for good reason.
I might consider toning it back slightly in the future. Depends on how generous I'm feeling.

So you acknowledge the problem is already solved then?

If you want a meta with no Shooters, then that means you want Shooters to not be played. I don't care how you want to spin that, what you're asking for isn't reasonable.

I do. Machine got hit way too hard.

Obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't have made this post. Many shooters fully retained their power level from Splatoon 2, the only one to get hit particularly hard was Jet Squelcher, not counting .52 losing its Kensa kit. Most of the changes to alleviate the absolute dominance of S2 shooters were buffs to one-shot weapons and slow backlines through the removal of Ink Armor and String Ray.

Are you serious? Competitive level play is not the entirety of the game.
You are singlehandedly dragging your side of the argument through the mud with these awful justifications. You think Goo Tuber and Dapple Dualies are unplayable? No? Then the nerfed shooters definitely aren't.

Fair enough, though Machine is still in a good spot. My nerfs aren't as drastic as Machine's, so the shooters would be fine.

 

[missingno]

Are you serious? Competitive level play is not the entirety of the game.

Do you or do you not want the entire weapon class to be so bad that it can't be played in comp? Just answer that with a yes or no.

Fair enough, though Machine is still in a good spot. My nerfs aren't as drastic as Machine's, so the shooters would be fine.

Assuming you hit directs, Machine went from 45f->50f TTK, an 11.11% increase.
Pro-with-significantly-worse-range is going from 15f->19f, a 26.67% increase.
.96-with-significantly-worse-range is going from 12f->15f, a 25% increase.

These nerfs are more than twice as severe as what Machine got.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Do you or do you not want the entire weapon class to be so bad that it can't be played in comp? Just answer that with a yes or no.

No. Most of them shouldn't be viable, mostly niche picks with options like Forge Pro and Squeezer on the fringe of viability. The Nozzlenoses, ZAP '85, and vSplash can be meta. Good support shooters that enable more diverse comps are allowed to stay, so long as their fighting power is kept reasonably in check.

Assuming you hit directs, Machine went from 45f->50f TTK, an 11.11% increase.
Shot is going from 15f->17f, a 13.33% increase.
.52 is going from 12f->15f, a 25% increase.

These nerfs are more than twice as severe as what Machine got.

I changed Splattershot's nerfs such that it only has one extra frame between shots a while back. I've humored you for this long but if you're going to try and bring stats into the mix, then I will correct you. Splattershot's nerf relative to Machine's is barely greater.

You are also only considering the percentage difference in time to splat. The actual frame difference matters just as much.

 

[missingno]

Yes, I'm aware you tried to walk Pro-with-much-worse-range back, but for how long you tried to insist it was fine I'm still going to keep hammering you on the fact that you ever thought it was reasonable to begin with. And I'm going to keep hammering you on .96-with-much-worse-range too.

Percentage is what matters, that's why I'm doing the math in terms of percent. When something is already very fast, any change will have a much bigger relative impact than the same number of frames on something that is slow. When speed is supposed to be a weapon's defined strength, nerfing that is a much bigger deal than on a weapon that is already slow as its defined weakness.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Yes, I'm aware you tried to walk Pro-with-much-worse-range back, but for how long you tried to insist it was fine I'm still going to keep hammering you on the fact that you ever thought it was reasonable to begin with. And I'm going to keep hammering you on .96-with-much-worse-range too.

It was reasonable to begin with, as far as nerfs to kick weapons out of the meta go. I changed it so you and Cephalobro would get out of my hair about it, and I thank you in advance for doing exactly that.

Percentage is what matters, that's why I'm doing the math in terms of percent. When something is already very fast, any change will have a much bigger relative impact than the same number of frames on something that is slow. When speed is supposed to be a weapon's defined strength, nerfing that is a much bigger deal than on a weapon that is already slow as its defined weakness.

Well, yes, but actually no. .52 does have the more significant nerf, but that's because Machine has far more room for error than it.
Machine will very consistently be dealing with a 5-frame kill time increase, whereas .52 will be dealing with a 3, 6, 9 or what have you kill time increase depending on how many shots it misses when it goes for a splat. Additive is what really matters for weapon strength.

 

[missingno]

It was reasonable to begin with

As long as you're going to insist that, then I'm not going to stop telling you that it isn't. You can't say you walked it back while simultaneously insisting you're not walking it back at all.

Machine will very consistently be dealing with a 5-frame kill time increase, whereas .52 will be dealing with a 3, 6, 9 or what have you kill time increase depending on how many shots it misses when it goes for a splat.

Translation: Machine will very consistently be dealing with a 11.1% kill time increase, whereas .52 will be dealing with a 25%, 33%, 37.5% (I hecked up my math, below is correct) or what have you kill time increase depending on how many shots it misses when it goes for a splat.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

Translation: Machine will very consistently be dealing with a 11.1% kill time increase, whereas .52 will be dealing with a 25%, 33%, 37.5% or what have you kill time increase depending on how many shots it misses when it goes for a splat.

It's 25%, 28%, and 30%. It can't go above 33.3% because that's the amount the time between shots was increased by.

Not like that makes the change more reasonable.

 

[sevenleaf]

ok actually i will say something that isn't a joke

Yes, I'm aware you tried to walk Pro-with-much-worse-range back, but for how long you tried to insist it was fine I'm still going to keep hammering you on the fact that you ever thought it was reasonable to begin with. And I'm going to keep hammering you on .96-with-much-worse-range too.

genuinely if this is your attitude between onepot changing a specific nerf, what are you trying to accomplish? you gave feedback (in questionable faith) and onepot made changes, whether out of a genuine place of rethinking the proposal or to try and get y'all off his back. do you want him to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness or something? for making hypothetical balance proposals you don't agree with?

i don't agree with all this either tbh. honestly i disagree at least partially with everyone arguing here but that's not my point. my point is that, yes, if you post hot takes like this whole thread you should expect to be disagreed with - but it is fair to expect constructive disagreement. none of you are doing that; you're just arguing to argue at this point, whether you're just reacting to each other's aggression or... because you really do think hypothetical rebalancing with no chance of getting in a real patch is That Deep and you have to be at each other's throats about it. this whole 'discussion'/argument is far past the point of recovery. you're never gonna agree, and i can't imagine this is fun for any of you. onepot's even expressed wanting this to end.

it's too late for this now obviously, hindsight's 20/20 and all, but @OnePotWonder you probably shouldn't have responded to missingno in the first place. "i'm not reading all that because of this one line in your post" is not a good faith response and can - should, really - be ignored. now we're six pages in and you've been arguing an endless argument for like a day straight. it's not admitting defeat to recognize that an argument is going nowhere and your energy is best spent elsewhere.

and as a general note:

preemptive defenses against bad-faith readings of this:

• no i don't think shooters are inherently bad and deserve to be bottom tier trash, reread my post
• i am not siding with onepot on the actual argument (honestly i agree that the whole class doesn't need harsh nerfs), i don't even think anyone's blameless in the escalation of this argument
• no this isn't a "why can't you all just agree and get along " plea, reread my post
• i DO think tetras should be at the top of the meta because it'd make me specifically happy. thanks for asking.

alright peace out

 

[OnePotWonder]

I will be completely honest, I did make this post in an effort to prompt an argumentative reaction. As much as I do genuinely want these changes to happen because I despise shooters' ability to function as well as any other class despite being so simple an ocean sunfish could win with one, I do recognize that they're unreasonable and far from realistic.

I am used to a much more active and argumentative sort of forum, so do pardon me for taking a moment to recreate one.
A more reasonable version of this post will come out soon, hopefully with more of a light on my better balance ideas.

 

[sevenleaf]

I will be completely honest, I did make this post in an effort to prompt an argumentative reaction. As much as I do genuinely want these changes to happen because I despise shooters' ability to function as well as any other class despite being so simple an ocean sunfish could win with one, I do recognize that they're unreasonable and far from realistic.

I am used to a much more active and argumentative sort of forum, so do pardon me for taking a moment to recreate one.
A more reasonable version of this post will come out soon, hopefully with more of a light on my better balance ideas.

sorry for speaking for you a bit there - some of your posts made it seem like you were getting sick of this argument. regardless i do think this thread's gotten a little out of hand; i can see the value in coming out with bold takes to encourage passionate conversation but i think the fact that this argument started with a bad-faith response to your original post kinda doomed it from the start. i mean, just the fact that by your own admission you tweaked your changes just to get folks off your back tells me that this isn't constructive. yknow?

 

[OnePotWonder]

sorry for speaking for you a bit there - some of your posts made it seem like you were getting sick of this argument. regardless i do think this thread's gotten a little out of hand; i can see the value in coming out with bold takes to encourage passionate conversation but i think the fact that this argument started with a bad-faith response to your original post kinda doomed it from the start. i mean, just the fact that by your own admission you tweaked your changes just to get folks off your back tells me that this isn't constructive. yknow?

It's a gamble, and I'm not much of a high roller. As evidenced by my distaste for weapons with RNG problems.
I'll leave this one be from here, and start on the better one.

 

[Lisku]

Delete them:3

 

[Cephalobro]

I was going to type something out as a form of resolution, but then I decided not to because I'd rather not have the chance for the argument to start again. Though, I do wish that disagreements aren't looked upon as a bad thing. Considerations are important to think about after all.