Rework the select-fire rifle nerf

Suggestions Other
1

Hello bajtársak and fellow forumdwellers,
Most of us have agreed that something has to be done against the select-fire rifle meta that dominates BR V, makes almost all other BR V weapons redundant and makes BR IV borderline unplayable.
Everyone had a slightly different opinion on how select-fire rifles should be balanced, but ultimately the devs went with the laziest possibility and attempted to balance them by decreasing the recoil control.

In a nut a shell

The recoil control is a control value that is used to calculate the effective recoil from the base recoil. The base or statcard recoil is what you can see on a weapon’s stat card while the effective recoil is the game recoil you have to wrestle with in game.
It’s important to note that other factors can also influence the effective recoil, like soldier perks and deploying the bipod.

Lets say for example that a gun has 20 vertical and 20 horizontal statcard recoil, with 40% recoil control, that means that the effective recoil will be 12 vertical and 12 horizontal recoil (without any perks).
This is how its calculated: 20x0.6=12

The problem with the change

Every weapon that is getting nerfed with the change is going to get the same 50% recoil control without taking the gun’s characteristics into consideration.
The goal of the change was obviously to force select-fire rifles to fire in bursts but these weapons currently have significantly different statcard recoil, fire rate and even non-identical recoil control compared to eachother.
The reason Gorov LMG is not getting a nerf is because its recoil control is 45% while most rifles in this category have 75%,
BUT Gorov LMG has only half the statcard recoil other select-fire rifles have so the effective recoil is about the same.

Currently

Select-Fire / Automatic Rifles Damage Statcard Recoil Effective Recoil
Weapon Name Obtained 10m 100m Magazine Rate of Fire Vertical Horizontal Recoil Control Vertical Horizontal
AVT-40 20 124000 RP 15.3 12.5 20 (+1) 660 81 27 0.25 20 7
Gorov LMG BP/Silver Chest 15.3 13.7 20 880 40 14 0.55 22 8
Fedorov rifle (25) Silver Chest 15.1 13.6 25 (+1) 1100 96 11 0.25 24 3
M2 Carbine 120000 RP 8.8 6.8 30 (+1) 750 46 14 0.3 14 4
T20 124000 RP 15.3 12.5 20 710 74 25 0.25 18 6
Type Hei Automatic Rifle 124000 RP 13.9 10.8 30 (+1) 790 51 19 0.25 13 5
FG 42 II 126000 RP 15.3 12.5 20 (+1) 830 67 22 0.25 17 6

With the planned changes

Select-Fire / Automatic Rifles Damage Statcard Recoil Effective Recoil
Weapon Name Obtained 10m 100m Magazine Rate of Fire Vertical Horizontal Recoil Control Vertical Horizontal
AVT-40 20 124000 RP 15.3 12.5 20 (+1) 660 81 27 0.5 41 14
Gorov LMG BP/Silver Chest 15.3 13.7 20 880 40 14 0.55 22 8
Fedorov rifle (25) Silver Chest 15.1 13.6 25 (+1) 1100 96 11 0.5 48 6
M2 Carbine 120000 RP 8.8 6.8 30 (+1) 750 46 14 0.5 23 7
T20 124000 RP 15.3 12.5 20 710 74 25 0.5 37 13
Type Hei Automatic Rifle 124000 RP 13.9 10.8 30 (+1) 790 51 19 0.5 26 10
FG 42 II 126000 RP 15.3 12.5 20 (+1) 830 67 22 0.5 34 11

Gorov LMG getting nearly identical recoil to M2 carbine…
At this point, I no longer believe that the developers understand the game mechanics.

Why nerf something that is already working as intended?

As I said, the point of these nerfs is to force the select-fire rifles to fire in bursts at medium and long ranges rather than constantly in full-auto.
However select-fire rifles that were already forced to fire in bursts in every scenario except in close quarters combat like the FG42 I and Fedorov rifle (25) are also getting the same nerf, with zero regards to their monstrous fire rate.
All select fire rifles are one hit kill so fire rate is just a trade off for better CQC performance but being worse at longer ranges, but now having higher fire rate is a clear disadvantage.

But the most mind boggling is the Breda PG (CR) and (Carcano) nerf.
Why on earth does the rifle that already fires in bursts by default, need a nerf?
Even better question, why does a rifle that can only fire in semi-auto need a recoil nerf?

These changes are not even historically accurate since these weapons were designed to be fired fully-automatically and absorb the recoil really well; looking at how they are fired in real life, I would say that the current select-fire rifles have too little recoil while the planned changes have too much recoil.

How to get the nerfs right?

It’s clear that changing the recoil control alone will not solve the issue, only create more.
Each rifle´s characteristic must be considered and both its recoil control and statcard recoil value changed at the same. Naturally this would take a lot of time and work so I propose that the select-fire nerf is postponed for a little while and an entirely different solution is introduced.

The select fire rifles in-game were historically designed to fit the role of battle rifle, automatic rifles or light machine guns so it would be most logical to introduce a nerf mechanic similar to what machine guns have.
If you run around with a machine gun then you get a debuff to your dispersion, making you very inaccurate, however once you stop and stand still, this debuff decreases and you will be as accurate as before.

Select fire rifles should have a mechanic similar but with recoil debuff instead of accuracy.
If you standstill, you can control the recoil like normal, since you are prepared (braced) to fire the gun. If you take a few tactical steps forward or to the side that won’t really throw off your control, but running with a select-fire rifle will decrease the control to 0 and you will have to deal with the full statcard recoil of the gun for a few seconds as your control will continuously improve until you stay still.
Even after a long tiring sprint, you can still fire in semi-auto, but the aggressive run-n-game gameplay would become impossible with select-fire rifles and instead reserved for assault rifles and submachine guns.
Another reason I believe that this mechanic is superior than just increasing recoil is because BR 4 rifles would be far more competitive in BR V since they are not penalized for aggressive play.

Please keep in mind that further nerfs could always be applied if necessary.
I for one would not mind a minor recoil nerf alongside with this mechanic, but a fair and proper recoil nerf is going to take a very long time to develop.

What is your opinion on the select-fire rifle nerf?
  • I support the mechanic suggested in this post
  • I support the planned recoil control nerf presented on the test server
  • I don´t believe select fire rifles need a nerf
  • I want nerf, but I believe that both recoil (planned by devs) and the mechanic proposed are bad.
0 voters

thank you for your time and attention!

6 Likes
2

Agreed.

I’m not certain it is the most efficient way, but certainly the best, to date.

To nerf everything with a flat 25% (75 to 50) without considering other stats feels rushed, imo.

Gorov, Fedorov being mostly unaffected while the carcanos are, even thought they should not, are a good example of this.

7 Likes
3

my thoughts too.
Im very happy that the developers are admitting and working on game issues, but I would really prefer if they did a proper job even if it takes longer.

5 Likes
4

Ian needs a horizontal recoil control perk

4 Likes
5

The man plays with sub-optimal perks, clearly.

6 Likes
6

If only this admittance wasn’t so… selective. (Armours, cough cough)

4 Likes
7

All of the problems that SF’s bring to the game could have simply been avoided by not allowing players to bring 3x 9 man squads all equipped with SF’s. The best nerf to SF IMO is to restrict the amount of them that you can bring to battle.

2 Likes
8

The blanket effect is a lazy attempt or at very best a failure of understanding how the weapon should properly perform for SF weapons. It’s like taking the ppsh and removing recoil control entirely and doing the same with another smg with 500 rate of fire. A enemy is 25-30m away, what’s going to seem more effective?

My point is they can’t blanket effect and expect there not to be problems, some weapons that were good (maybe to good and could have used slight recoil control nerfs like 10% in combination with something else like damage or reload speed) now most will either become abandoned equipment not worth obtaining or become ineffective collectors items that are hard to use.

My personal opinion is we should have just had BR6 and locked 5 and 6 to play together and 4/5 together without the SF rifles then called it a day but it’s way to late to add a BR. having a new BR would have solved all the whining BR4 players have done, stretched out the TT so more items have a chance to shine and not been to overly damaging to the que times.

This entire update was rushed, that much is clear. Lack of equipment, no new map, heavy blanket effect nerfs, etc. What have they been doing since the last update? Did the limited time sabatours really take 3 months to make? It’s a waste of development resources and time for a class we already filled with gorillas.

1 Like
9

I hate this, I aim my gun by strafing left and right, too sharp movement penalties ruins every gun for me.

10

Never really considered run n’ gun as the core problem with SF rifles.
Rather the fact that its OHK and is essentially easy as SMG to control.

Which simply lead to problem that it being the universal do everything without 0 downsides it simply just outshadows every each other weapon system.

Id say in this exact case the recoil increase is more than welcome change, you can still do run n’ gun or what ever suits your style but atleast have a notable downside to your gun aka increased recoil.

Lets be real here, the SF rifles with full dmg currently are ridiculously easy to control.

2 Likes
11

If you look back older select-fire rifle discussions, I was on the opinion that SF rifles should have machine gun damage (less than 13.5 damage) but ultimately gave up on that idea as it would make balancing even worse.
How do you balance FG42 I with 900 rpm fire rate and AVT-40 with 600 rpm fire rate?
How do you give Type Hei auto anykind of disadvantage?

Looking back, it would been best to act before merge and reclassify M2 carbine as assault rifle.
FG42 as a machine gun and make it a counter to the BAR instead of copy pasted KE7.
AVT and AVS moved to BR2 machine guns and function like a slightly nerfed BAR.
But there is no point in dwelling on the past now, is it?

5 Likes
12

I… Would have loved this setup of gear…

3 Likes
13

…

:sob:

2 Likes
14

What they could have done instead of the recoil nerf is that nerf the damage of SF across the board i think. The core probem of SF being too good is that it one shots almost every soldier(Even the ones with 35% vitality perk) within like, 99% of situations and range you’d fight in Enlisted maps. This is the same reason that AKT-40, despite being a SF and on BR 4, reasonably balanced(Only 10 rnds mag too, i guess). Making all SF deals sub ~13 damage or even 12 ish damage might fix the SF dominance on BR 5, rather than half-baked recoil nerf.

That doesn’t mean that i don’t support the recoil nerf presented on the test server ofc. Something clearly had to be done with SF. It’s just that there’s some head scratching decisions that Darkflow has been made that needs fixing. Recoil nerf on both Breda rifles and Gorov LMG/Fedorov LMG not getting the recoil nerf for example.

15

It was postponed for the time being

16