The Kotenok & AT-WAD need some heavy work

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Hardly a groundbreaking take, I’m sure.

I’m making this post here so I don’t keep the conversation off topic in the new update’s feedback thread.

Now, I’m aware that these weapons were buffed previously, but honestly, the buffs just weren’t enough to justify the weapons as a whole.

The AT-WAD’s damage is actually respectable, killing a military Tank in about a minute with healing and reloads included. My issue lies with the time spent on the weapon, rather than the time spent firing the weapon. The AT’s reload is far too long to make it viable for anything more than picking off trash machines in the area, something any weapon good for taking out the heavies can also do. It’s competing with the likes of the MG’s and SMGs, both of which have solid weapons in their category, even outside of Experimentals. It needs to either have a slower fire rate with damage raised to match the lower output, or to have its mag improved. We’re far past the point of realism by now, with guns that shoot electricity, or turn into lasers, so I don’t think too many people will get upsetti spaghetti over historical inaccuracy.

As for the Kotenok, no. Just a flat out no. This thing is meant to be a rifle, something with the ability to deal less damage per second than an automatic, but dealing far more damage on precision, and being far more accurate. Not only does this thing recoil like a .44, but the damage is absolutely god awful. Sure, by bullet count, it can kill a military Tank with less bullets than the AT, but it takes more than twice the time to do so with concentrated fire + reloading and support from nearby sniper nests firing .50 BMG’s. This weapon does not provide enough damage to give a reason for anyone to use it. It doesn’t excel in anything that another weapon doesn’t demolish it in. Precision? PVG. Damage? Literally any other weapon. Mag size? Pretty sure the only mag sizes it beats in the rifle category are the bolt actions. What is the point in this weapon? I had to pay for it, yet I never use it over weapons that are both part of the base game, and are objectively better.

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AT-WAD I use often. I have no problem with reload time. I can’t say anything about how it compares to the real life weapon.

Kotenok I don’t use. I prefer Älgstudsare over DMR. But as far as I know the Dragunov have a rather strong recoil. It uses a full powered rifle cartridge that is more powerful than the 7,62 Nato. So it should have more recoil compared to the S21.

In Russia they measured the rifle bore different than in the west. So the 7,62x54 is in western measures actually 7,92x54. So that can explain the recoil a bit more .

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You make some genuinely good points, but I’m not sure realism with weapons applies as heavily anymore. As I mentioned in my post, the devs are starting to steer away from realism with these new experimentals, and there are already many game aspects that put realism to the side for the sake of gameplay.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for weapons that require an upfront payment to be used to at least be on par with other choices from the base game. (Not implying you were saying otherwise, promise. I’m not here to insult anyone, or start an argument)

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I don’t use experimental weapons or ammo because I like the idea of having realistic weapons. So for me if I buy a weapons pack I want them to be as realistic as possible.

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That’s fair, I’m not gonna argue with how you personally enjoy playing the game

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Everybody plays different. It’s difficult to please everyone :slight_smile:

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I like both very much and use them regularly.

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Yes, those 2 sure need a damage buff and one of them larger extendend mags at least to 30 bullets per mag.
Honestly i think the AT-WAD reload time is realistic and should not be changed.

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I disagree a bit when it comes to buffing damage for the WAD. The 9x39 is more or less the 7,62x39 with a bullet twice as heavy. And weapon has short barrel. So bullet is subsonic when it leaves the gun
So even thou it’s classified as an AR it’s more like a heavy SMG. So I think the damage is accurate. After all it’s intended targets are soft bodies not metal.

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The problem is we dont have any soft bodies as targets in the game.
Why introduce the weapon in the game then?
Im not asking for a Terminator Plasma weapon from 2040, just something that does not feel like bb guns from Fallout games.

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Most weapons in the game are designed for soft bodies. And as I stated earlier I like them realistic. And I believe that the WADs damage is fair based on realism.
So we just have to agree that we disagree. If they increase damage then you are happy and I’m not. Unfortunately the devs cant make us all happy.

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It’s funny because kotenok seems to be the transliterated version of the russian word for kitty? Yeah they are both underwhelming and I am not for them being abnormally strong but they are so far off the mark, for the kotenok the comparably low damage for its class and heavy recoil both kinda bring it down, then the AT-WAD is an inferior version of other SMGs in the game, most ammo punches more versus hardpoints and there is no point in it having a silencer, if machines had something like a lower reaction time to it, it would be great, but super small magazine even with extensions and high spread, low damage make it meh at best.

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AT-WAD seems ok-ish to me at the moment. Althought it’s only really competing with the SMGs on my side.
it using an ammo-type nothing else does is neat, and it does ok-damage.
The reload is slow but it feels like the bigger problem is the limited mag-size. You spend as much time reloading as you do shooting. Feels kinda bad.

The Kotenok just sucks. I used the three-crown one that i got with the dlc and it can’t even kill prototype runners in a single hit to the fuel tank. Literally less useful than the hunting rifle you get in your first hour in the game.

It’s a shame, cos I was genuinely excited to have a semi-automatic sniper-rifle after running around with the bolt-action hunting rifle for days.

But it’s damage is so low that you can’t destroy weakpoints in one bullet, and it’s ‘kick’ is so high after every shot that it’s impossible to double-tap to secure the kill.

You end up doing what OP does in the video, which is basically just pointing it at the enemy’s centre-mass and mashing fire as fast as you can. Because that’s the only way to really use it.

If you take the time to steady your aim, the terrible base damage will ensure that your DPS drops to nothing.
But if you mash fire at full-speed then the terrible kick will ensure that your bullets mostly hit armour plating anyway.

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I like the AT WAD as it is. You just have to learn how to use it in the best way. Fighting with cover and empty the mag. Take cover and reload and do it again. It’s an awesome weapon for that kind och fighting. And it’s round is the same as 7,62x39. Just with a bigger bullet. So the damage it does seems fair to me.

The only sniper i use on a regular basis is the Älgstudsare. It’s the best one but slow. Many say the 50cal but the bullets are heavy and the recoil to.
I’ve tried the Kotenok but I think it’s better to use the AG4 as a dmr if you need one.

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I like the Älgstudsare for plinking fuel-tanks of runners, but the moment Tanks started showing up suddenly a hunting rifle wasn’t cutting it anymore.
It feels like the first zone of the game and every zone after that are completely diffrent games. I hit the farmland and 90% of my kit went into the storage box, never to return.

For anything bigger than a Hunter, it’s .50cal if i’m even bothering to bring a sniper-rifle at all.
I might just show up with a rocket-launcher and the M60 Light Machinegun.

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I absolutely agree.
When I was at this point, I just walked through farmlands for getting to south coast. What a difference!

The greatest problem is that in all regions, except archipelago, you cannot just take down the targets one by one.

It’s not just that the machines are stronger there. They often are many. The weapons you got in archipelago (there were no DLC weapons when I was there and for my new attempt I recycled all the DLC stuff of the plundra and just use what I find) were good to take down the prototype machines.

The first tank and harvester took a while and I needed more ammo than I had to take them down.

But the TTK completly changes after that and until you reach lvl 25 and get your first 5c and 6c weapons.

Archipelago is good to learn the basics. About using basic weapons against basic enemies, looting, crafting, first rivals… After that you’re still weak, but free to go anywhere. But everywhere it’s much more dangerous than in archipelago.

A region for the 2nd step would have been good. Fighting military machines and more machines but with much stronger weapons.

Well, southern farmlands once was a good place for that, but as soon as you reach the airport, you can now meet lots of fnix hunters, tanks, a harvester and even apocalypse hunters and tanks. No way for a low level character. Just northern there is the crater and now additionally soviet machines including firebirds.
Too heavy.

When I was about leaving archipelago I followed the coast line and went to southcoast first. I must admit, that it was harder than expected, because of fnix machines at every corner. I expected military as the 2nd class of machines there.

When I went on towards mountain region, I got the military class enemies and wondered, why they did it that way… And I was surprised that mountain region was and is even much harder than southcoast although there almost just are military machines… But they came and come in almost endless waves.

I really love the game.

But this point of balance is something you have to deal with. It’s not just unbalanced and therefore bad, but as you said, there are some points where it feels like you’re playing a differrent game.

In my eyes it’s cool, but I felt a bit unprepared for the massive battles…

Maybe there could be an early mission after leaving archipelago, maybe at överby control point, where you come to the last stand of a swedish/resistance base. You have to help defending the base for some waves of proto and military machines where you learn to fight greater amounts of them.

The missions ends with giving up the base. It gets destroyed (finally by a bombardement like at Masskär).

But, this mission would of course require “some” swedish or resistance npc soldiers that fight the incoming machines, but get killed.

The last survivors flee in different directions and could be met again in later missions… Or least you could find signs of them.

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I think generally they need a cartridge revamp which would fix a lot of their balance problems.

If they insist on keeping the 7.62x51 and 7.62x54R nerfed then they really need to tone down the recoil on the Kotonok and the S21. Both of the DMR’s should have a simialr fire rate and recoil to the AG4, but they sacrifice full auto mode for precision and a higher muzzle velocity (i.e. retained damage potential at range).

At the moment, if I need to pick between the AG4 set up DMR style and the Kotonok then I’m picking the AG4. It’s less accurate, but when the robots are moving quickly then volume of fire takes priority over precision.

I like the AT-WAD right now, I feel that it fills it’s niche (close range firepower) quite well and passes the “Hunter Test”. It can blast off a Hunters arm at close range with one magazine before the Hunter can shoot me back.

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The AT-WAD can tear off a large chunk of a level 2 prototank rival’s health pretty easily (I’m not the best at the game so I get rid of rivals before they hit a point I can’t kill them without serious expense) and one of few guns I’d say did more damage when I was working on tank cleanup was a well-positioned flamethrower, but the AT-WAD did destroy the fuel tank much faster, in exchange for the long reload I keep seeing mentioned, which actually feels pretty good, as it gives me time to focus on dodging railguns or missiles, as it’s magdump lines up pretty well for that.

The Kotenok, on the other hand… well, it didn’t make a proto-runner go kaboom until the third fuel canister hit, at least in my testing. It was legitimately outdone by a Volkov (1 hit in my test), and even by a decent sledgehammer, in terms TTK.
(my runner tests were at ~30m range, excluding the hammer, on a runner who kept getting stuck)

All in all, I think that these guns were done well, apart from the Kotenok dealing lackluster damage (all other aspects about it are pretty good though IMO)

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AT-WAD could use the buff but its fine. Its incredible for burst damage up close and can down FNIX heavies in a couple of extended mags with no damage upgrades. I would like to see a stock and scope upgrade for it so i can do an improvised VSS build for it unless the devs add that one into the game. Also while the round the AS uses was intended for soft target they were built for increased armor penetration to reliable go trough body armor(at the time of their inception ) up to 300 meters.
I think the AT-WAD also shines in its handling because its very good at unaimed fire , probably the easiest weapon to hip shot fuel tanks on the move with.
Kotonok and S21 need work but that goes for most base(machineguns especially) DLC weapons in the game, they really need fixed spawns for variants and to be added into more extended loot pools along with rebalancing and maybe experimental variants.
I will say that MGs atleast more viable solonow since they can one mag any firebird variant turning an ok enemy into an absolute joke.