Nerfing Shock Ammunition (discussion)

General Discussion
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Hey folks!
So during todays stream Pontus mentioned he had brought up nerfing shock ammo to the team and I actually wanted to bring this around as a discussion here.
It’s totally fair to view the shock ammo specifically as overpowered, especially because all the other experimental ammo are rather tame in comparison.

But in my opinion, nerfing things isn’t always the best solution when something in a game is overpowered.
Sometimes, heck yeah, a thing is broken af and it totally needs to be toned down, but in generation zero’s case I don’t think this is the best way to go about things for a couple of reasons.

Firstly the meta (to me) feels much better and open now. Ever since their introduction exp weapons have been the standard in generation zero and currently now we aren’t forced to use exp weapons and have the chance to really choose a gun for ourselves without suffering for it.

And secondly in terms of difficulty, I think with us gaining new advantages it brings around the opportunity for some positive change in GZ.
Death has never had a repercussion, either you have so many adrens you don’t need to care about it, or if you run out its kinda a win still because you get a full heal.
This personally to me has never felt entirely right.

Instead maybe with our new and improved capabilities we could see an introduction of a penalty system, when you go down from a machine with no adrenaline left that machine gets everything you had that wasn’t currently equipped (excluding ammo) and if you die before destroying and looting that machine everything you had one your character will be lost.
Now a days with the difficulty system, exp ammo and meds and then looking forward for when new strong weapons and equipment are added, we have enough advantages to be able to handle some losses.

Now i know some people might look at this and be like :thinking: hmmm dark souls basically then
And i’m not gunna lie yeah its similar to the tried and true method of souls-like, but i think it would sit really well in GZ. :smiley:

As for anyone concerned for early game, there are WAY better weapons sitting around the archipelago now than there were back in the early days, there are difficulty options, and there are weapon packs too! Early game is much easier now a days.

Anyway long post but maybe some of you will agree and those of you that don’t please voice up and say shock should be nerfed.
For me, i just wanna see things built up instead of removed/nerfed.

Quick TL;DR
Shock ammo shouldn’t be nerfed, the machines are actually just controlled by gnomes in outer space, and maybe dying could mean something now that we’re beefy.

Cheers, and thanks for reading. :v:

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My nitpicking, that there’s two topics in one longpost.
I’d “nerf” the shock ammo by reassigning it to “slow-burning” calibers (bolt-action rifles and shotguns, revolver) along with quantity crafted tweaks. It’s main immense power comes from the rate you deploy “shock strings”.

About death penalty, I’d turn it to “tombstone” mechanic, as old as Diablo (2nd for sure) - your currently equipped gear dropped as your corpse/backpack (ammo is what left in the magazines, items slot loose 1kg worth per slot - 1 gas can, 1 radio, 5 flares/nades, 20 SimFAKs). It’ll behave as any dropped backback within session, except for when session is ended - backpack poofs, instead of teleporting to you on next start.

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It’s the current proposition of nerfing and the counter proposition of death penalty, in regards to balancing the shock ammo, but apologies if that was kinda lost in the lengthy post man. :smiley:

Definitely that’s a way of going about it that wouldn’t upend things too badly. Even though the old meta would still be there, it wouldn’t be too harsh if 7.62 got an alternate ammo type and the other weapons that need the boost would still get it.

As for the death penalty, i think i’d be fine either way and my death penalty maybe would be viewed as harsh to some people. like losing everything for dying twice is maybe a bit much on my end. :sweat_smile:

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Nerfing is indeed not always the solution.
They nerfed the recoiless rifle and it was no longer a useful weapon for most of the players.
There is no better ingame example than that one.

The Death Penalty would be interesting on Skirmish and Guerrila.
But one thing should really be different from Dark souls.
You die, Machine keeps your stuff, you die again Machine still has your stuff.
You should not loose your stuff from dying again (Dark souls/clones).
Instead the machine could be buffed and roam around the map if not found, being a max level Rival.

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Yeah man I can’t help but have vietnam flashbacks to the grg nerf and explosive nerf in general… Which it hopefully wouldn’t be that much of a nerf if that’s ultimately what’s done.

And totally fair again, probably way too harsh on my end :sweat_smile:
I don’t mind that idea too much either my dude!
But the rival thing i don’t like too much myself, just because I think people could maybe abuse that and I’m heavy against games promoting death abuse in them. But definitely having them be trackable like a rival would probably be some good QoL if it ever did become a feature :smiley:

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It does not need to be a real “Rival” just something similar.
A mini boss.
“You want your stuff back?
You will have to fight Hell to get it back”

That kind of thing, it would make the game more interesting, but you could always get your stuff back.
Considering RNG is quite unbalanced, loosing loot after falling from a cliff or being killed on the Way to get it back from the Boss/Super machine that previous killed you would be quite unfair.

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Ah for sure, as long as it wasn’t like a benefit for it. I dig that in games where its like you die to progress things or get better stuff when it works narratively, so like if there was a way to do that in game with justification they hey I’d likely be all for it knowing myself. :joy:

And yeah man, i was just thinking it’d be fun and add healthy pressure to players to make the death “mean something” but its probably not the best way of going about it, and even though it’d be easy for experienced players to not die twice it’d probably not fly over well with the casual player base…

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Thus my proposal, of not having a limit.
The player would just need to destroy the machine that killed him (who would now be much more stronger and guarded/followed by other machines).

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Well, all I can say is, I’m having a lot of fun with the shock ammo.

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100% agree with you on that one my dude shock ammo and exp ammo in general has totally bumped the fun level up a notch or two :grin:

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Hi Tene. Shock ammo is expensive to make. I like having it as a backup in my pistol for those desperate moments. i haven’t tried it in 7.62 because no one has given me the plan yet. I must admit, there are a lot of things I’d change before that. I think dying should cost you skills. You lose one every time you die and have to earn it back.

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The shock ammo i have, is 9mm handgun and .270. I haven’t unlocked the 7.62mm yet. Also, i’ve only used 9mm handgun ammo with experimental Klaucke.

After using it, i also see why some may consider it OP since when it comes to the damage dealt, the electricity arcs are constantly dealing damage over long period of time and you can dispatch even the largest of machines very easily and fast. :astonished:
Due to that, it has the highest damage potential of all experimental ammo.

Should it be nerfed? :thinking: I don’t think so.

If shock ammo would have the same ease of availability as regular ammo, then Yes. But it does not.
Instead, you have to first complete several base defence missions just to get the crafting schem. Once you have the schem, you need to spend quite a lot of resources, including Uranium to craft it. And only way to gain more Uranium, is to complete more base defence missions. Severely limiting its availability.
On top of that, you can’t use Ammo Packs to duplicate it either, at least that’s what i’ve heard of. :face_with_monocle: Haven’t tested it personally.

So, if devs would nerf the shock ammo, what that leads to? :roll_eyes: For one, it reduces the fun of using it since it doesn’t produce the same level of satisfaction anymore. And for two, most people would be going back to the 2nd best option: experimental .50 cal. :unamused:

Should devs nerf the experimental .50 cal as well? :thinking: Because it is (probably) the best weapon in the game? Well, experimental weapons have been around for almost 2 years now and while there have been some folks who have asked nerfing it, nothing has been done as of date.

In the end, i view the shock ammo and experimental .50 cal as optional. There is no requirement to use either of the two and if you think it’s too OP for you, just stop using it.
That’s what i’ve done with experimental .50 cal and shock ammo as well. :slight_smile: Haven’t crafted any more from the initial amount, to test it and while i do carry experimental .50 cal with me, i rarely use it. I keep it as a last resort, when :brown_circle: hits the fan and i need to get out of it. :sweat_smile:

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I hope you guys are not being serious when proposing things like losing skills and taking all player’s items. Please don’t forget player base consists not only of supergods, but many inexperienced casual players as well, and things like this would scare them enough to run away from this game forever, particularly after seeing their skill tree reduced to zero. And I am pretty sure that’s the last thing developers want.

The way I see it, there may be certain unlockable features after you reach some level (e.g. 20 or 31) in form of permadeath or dropping your stuff so you’d need to get it back (Diablo 2 style) if you like, but these features must be strictly optional.

And about Diablo 2 - yeah you lose some money after each death as well, so people just throw money on the ground before the hard fight to avoid this :smiley:

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Seems a little harsh to be wanting to change things already considering 1/3 of the community are still waiting for release.

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:rofl: Yes, good point. The devs should stand behind their development decisions, and don’t get intimidatated by all the personal requests but look what is best for the game.

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What do you mean with this? The features of shock ammo is obvious, but heat ammo pointing out back packs?

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Shock Ammo is one of the best additions to the game in a good while. I wish the other experimental ammo types had more of an impact like the shock ammo has. It is genuinely fun to use and while it is indeed powerful I feel that nerfing it (i.e making it weaker, do less damage etc) would take away too much of what makes it so desirable.

As a balance issue though, it can tip the game difficulty severely in your favour if you hoard lots of it, especially for machineguns like the Exp Kvm 59. The only solution I can think of, would be to adjust the cost of crafting, or perhaps the amount recieved from crafting, rather than nerfing the effect of the ammo itself.

As for death penalty, I can recommend continuing the discussion in this thread.

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But the crafting cost is already high, making it even higher might lead to the same loss in enjoyment.

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And here in lies the fundamental issue with anything…balance.

Nerf the shock ammo, keep the GRG glitch. Problem solved

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Indeed, it’s tricky. But keep the Grg glitch? Nah, we can do without it. Rather, make the weapon more powerful. But that’s a discussion for another topic.