Hidden Firearm nerf?

[Larger 7]

So, I logged in after the v10 patch, and gave it a go, when I realized that pistols now no longer perform headshots, and deal half the damage hey normally did. Nowhere in the patch notes or highlights did the mention a global decrease is Flintlock or Firearm, or Pistol damage. I find that they would take away a key survival factor very dishearting. Never was this mentioned before or discussed, and suddenly, it was a balance change that was warranted? Why the stealth change? Why even consider that this was necessary? Was the pistols damage equal to something else? If so, why not buff the other things damage?

I greatly relied on the pistols damage, and approved of it because of it's incredibly long reload speeds. It provided a good balance between damage and consistency. You miss the shot, you need to adjust your strategy. Now, I need to craft, carry, and rearm myself with more pistols to equal survivability. I do not understand this change, and I do not approve.

I understand the developers have been under a lot of stress from all of the feedback, but it's feedback necessary to the games longevity. What I would like to know is, why was there no transparency about this change and what was the reasoning behind it? 

[MagicPuncher 29]

I was also very surprised when I shot a snake in the head and it didn't die. Then I tried a croc with my blunderbuss at point blank and it didn't die either. Not even close. Didn't take me long to figure out that they nerfed the guns and didn't tell us. Also pretty disappointed.

[Warspectre 141]

I was able to do a head shot on a Giant Snake after the patch, so maybe lag or wonky hit registration?

Other than that, 100% agree, I don't care for the PVE ramifications of the firearm nerfs. Our island is overrun by snakes and crocs. What gave us a fighting chase was being able to one shot crocs at extremely close range with a blunderbuss, but now they only take half a crocs health.

So imagine being chased by 3 crocs, (this actually happens to me quite a lot), and now your extremely long to load blunderbuss will take 6 close range hits to take those crocs out, close enough they hit you back before they die and take 1/2 to 1/4th your health. Guess what, you're gonna die taking out the first croc now. Thanks, devs! I like this new mutually assured destruction approach to PVE, it really gets the blood pumping. 

 

[MagicPuncher 29]

33 minutes ago, Warspectre said:

I was able to do a head shot on a Giant Snake after the patch, so maybe lag or wonky hit registration?

Yeah, after more testing I've determined that it can barely one-shot low level snakes, but not enough to get higher level snakes. Not sure what the cutoff is exactly.

[Hodo 147]

I dont think they nerfed guns but the buffed the damage resistance on the animals.    Because a couple of my company mates were still shooting each other to death and the numbers were the same as before.. but on animals guns was doing about half of what they did before.

[gadefence 148]

They probably added the same "guns do 70% damage to dinos" buff that dinos receives in ark to animals in this game.

Which honestly makes no sense. Guns were anti player in ark, and bows anti dino.

Now guns are anti player, and bows are HAHA FUCK YOU AND DIE TO CROCS

 

[Pink_Floyd 29]

43 minutes ago, MagicPuncher said:

I was also very surprised when I shot a snake in the head and it didn't die. Then I tried a croc with my blunderbuss at point blank and it didn't die either. Not even close. Didn't take me long to figure out that they nerfed the guns and didn't tell us. Also pretty disappointed.

I’m not happy at all with the change, but I do find some humor in a fellow named MagicPuncher upset about firearms nerfs. Laughing with you, not at you, and all that.

[Ransurias 36]

5 minutes ago, Hodo said:

I dont think they nerfed guns but the buffed the damage resistance on the animals.    Because a couple of my company mates were still shooting each other to death and the numbers were the same as before.. but on animals guns was doing about half of what they did before.

I don't think that's entirely true -- bows seem to be the same as they were before, so their resistances against firearms specifically must have been buffed. The question is why. Guns didn't need to be nerfed against animals, as many animals were already unrealistically resilient to firearms (bears, for example, could survive shots to the skull because they didn't have headshot multipliers).

 

I'm obviously being speculative here, but if it was the developer's intention to render firearms dramatically less useful in PvE to make them pure PvP implements, I disagree with their concept of game design. It's just plain silly and ridiculous that a little snake or scorpion should be able to survive a pistol or rifle shot.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Ransurias

[RogueLdr 46]

They nerfed the damage against "armored targets" which was meant for pvp, but apparently animals wear plate as well.

 

Once again PVP ruins PVE. When will devs learn toi use dif rulesets. it may be more proggraming in the short term, but will make their lives easier in the long run.

[Warspectre 141]

5 minutes ago, Ransurias said:

The question is why. Guns didn't need to be nerfed against animals, as many animals were already unrealistically resilient to firearms (bears, for example, could survive shots to the skull because they didn't have headshot multipliers).

 

I'm obviously being speculative here, but if it was the developer's intention to render firearms dramatically less useful in PvE to make them pure PvP implements, I disagree with their concept of game design. It's just plain silly and ridiculous that a little snake or scorpion should be able to survive a pistol or rifle shot.

Well, if the intention is to make encounters with aminals play out like some bad horror B movie where they're all escaped genetic experiments gone horribly wrong, then I'd say they're right on course. I don't know about everyone else but I'd like them to be less B movie more true to life. Like no eating houses, no biting players through walls/sides of boats/etc, being killed by a sane amount of bullets, things of that nature. 

Turning every croc and snake into unstoppable killing machines is not fun for any player I've talked to. Maybe I've just happened to meet up with the minority and most players like this sort of thing, I don't know. 

 

[Barm 1]

They also nerfed firearms damage to naked players. Thus I actually don't see any benefit wearing armor, rifle and pistol. Since naked bowman with fire arrows will easily kill you. They move faster than you, they do devastating damage compared to you, they can shot 20 arrows while you reload your rifle... and NOW you can't one-body-shot them with RIFLE!

Edited January 9, 2019 by Barm

[Ransurias 36]

Rifles can no longer one-shot many level 20+ predators.

[Naviss 25]

Ya, was some big gun nerfs. This is a reddit post showing all the unmentioned changes. 

 

 

[Larger 7]

How do buildings prevent resource respawn in claimed territory? I don't know the mechanic.

[Warspectre 141]

10 minutes ago, Naviss said:

Ya, was some big gun nerfs. This is a reddit post showing all the unmentioned changes. 

 

 

I can imagine why these changes were undocumented, they range from merely ill-conceived to beyond obnoxiously bad ideas. Except for the fiber in the Tundra Zones, I can get behind that. The rest, at best need to be either rolled back or toned down. Bad ideas, so many bad ideas in one patch. 

[ave 4]

it helps if you guys read the comments of the captains log before you complain:

 

Jatheish 224

Posted 3 hours ago

3 hours ago, Nightstrasza said:

@JatheishWhat about the exploding ships on borders and guns/meele damage nerfs to animals?

Aye, we're looking into the reports people have put in on the forums/discord, etc. The gun changes were made so that they would be more impactful versus higher armoured characters and as a result, their base damage was reduced. However, our gameplay team are investigating an issue where some damage multipliers may be impacting wild creatures as well as tamed.

3 hours ago, Pappy Green said:

Thanks for the reply. I'm am hopeful (I have 216+ hours in the game since release) that this game lives up to it's potential.

No worries! We will get there and I understand it's frustrating at the moment, but once we've had some more time to flesh out these systems we'll be taking a pretty firm stance against cheaters, BattlEye and the ticketing system will just be the beginning -- albeit, tickets are handled manually and by a human so they're not dealt with as rapidly, and we want to be confident before issuing a ban / wipe against a player. Which is why the sooner BattlEye and our other tools are in, the better -- and therefore a priority for us

[Warspectre 141]

6 minutes ago, ave said:

it helps if you guys read the comments of the captains log before you complain:

 

Jatheish 224

Posted 3 hours ago

Aye, we're looking into the reports people have put in on the forums/discord, etc. The gun changes were made so that they would be more impactful versus higher armoured characters and as a result, their base damage was reduced. However, our gameplay team are investigating an issue where some damage multipliers may be impacting wild creatures as well as tamed.

No worries! We will get there and I understand it's frustrating at the moment, but once we've had some more time to flesh out these systems we'll be taking a pretty firm stance against cheaters, BattlEye and the ticketing system will just be the beginning -- albeit, tickets are handled manually and by a human so they're not dealt with as rapidly, and we want to be confident before issuing a ban / wipe against a player. Which is why the sooner BattlEye and our other tools are in, the better -- and therefore a priority for us

I disagree, I think it helps them to know just exactly the level of bad some of these 'balance changes' were. So maybe next time they'll put more thought into it and consider the broader implications of things. 

[ExplodingYeti 17]

I hope they will patch this asap, thanks to who ever posted the dev team comment, at least we know what's going on.