Yeah and M42A still kills you faster.
Xenos are in fact balanced around their hp pools and as far as single shot weapons are concerned there isn’t a big issue. It’s also balanced based on caste tier, which are the said exception.
This is the issue with testing thing in vacuum (and not playing the actual game). Sniper is usually not the only guy who shots you. You usually not going to tank more than one of either sniper shots before having a chance to disengage. And AMR deals more DMG (up to half of any T3 health pool), stuns, slows etc, which makes it a lot easier for other people to finish your off. Only thing that is really comparable is flak (deals no damage but slows you enough for other people to fucking kill you) but it’s another story. You usually can afford to lose 140 hp. You usually cannot afford to lose up to 50% of your HP, getting slowed and stunned on top of it.
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Normal sniper deals 210, the per bullet dmg difference isn’t that high, but ye it’s situational.
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personally love this idea speedmerge ts instantly
A small explanation of Effective Health & Problems of percentile damage
Support casts yes… but every* combat cast is very dependent on their armor.
Defender has the same health as drone, but is COMPLETLY dependent on the fact defender has the highest armor of any casts. Being 35 Armor.
*(Lurker/Runner are combat casts, but mainly backline so dont get on my back about it)
Now, to the point wich migth makes one think xenos are entirly balanced around healthpools.
Being that all combat casts, kinda have the same amount of armor. 20-25. (Even queen!)
The main part they diffrent in is health, so one would assume they are balanced around their health.
Wich is correct, their health is very important to the overall game balance.
Problem is, it is their Effective Health wich is important. Not just their normal Health.
Fun fact, Armor = Health.
“oh but its not, it reduces dmg”
Yes, thats just it. It reduces the dmg taken. Thereby increasing the dmg needed to decreses the HP of the target.
Basicly, armor increases the value of each health point.
This is something called Effective Health.
That is why slapping armor on the healthpool of drone, turn into the tankiest cast in the game. Defender.
(im using defender a lot, its a good example)
Another thing that migth make one think armor isnt that important, is the low numbers.
So i like to show some casts that have the same health pool, but all diffrent armor. All of these xenos have XENO_HEALT_TIER_6.
Fromt highest armor to lowest we got:
- Defender with 35 armor (Tier 4)
- Warrior with 20 armor (Tier 1)
- Sentinal 0 armor (Tier 0)
All of them, are combat casts. And all of them, have the exact same ammount of health. Yet, they dont play anything alike. Not just in terms of ablilitys, but by how risky they can be, how much pressure they can withstand and much more. There is barley much alike in terms of base playstyle with them.
Eventhough its just a small number change, especially between warrior and defender.
Those two only have a diffrence between 15 points of armor.
Yet, Defender is incredibly tanky compared to Warrior. Warrior is so little tankie, you get laughed at for even saying they are somewhat. I know so, because i was laughed at for that.
The Effective Health Pool is vastly diffrent between them, even though they have the same base health.
And that is the problem with %dmg. Because it does not deal %dmg based of Effective Health, but base health.
It is by design incredibly strong. It bypasses the mechanics used for dmg calculations.
By design, %dmg is strong. No ammount of nerfs can change that. Ever. It is a futile battle that cannot be won.
There is a reason games dont use weapons that deal %dmg often if at all. % diffrences are usually caclulated from the base dmg of the weapon. Warframes entire combat system is based on that.
It doesnt work to have a weapon deal %dmg that is caclulated of enemy health, especially not for a weapon as common as the AMR. IF one does that, it needs to be by far more rare. Like the Vulture. (legit, it would work on that gun far better with its max 8 or so shots each round, and cumbersome mechanics)
It just doesnt.
No nerfs can change that.
It is broken by design.
Yeah, fun fact: The fancy dmg calulcation was previously caclulated by size tier, and not by health tier.
Kaga’s apperently been shot with an Idiot-inator and thought they should change that.
What is funny though, the %dmg is so bad, the previous way of caclulating dmg is used to try and balance the problems %dmg causes. Wich doesnt even fully work. So yes, the exeptions to the %dmg show how stupid it is.
Thats why Backsea’s rework is a way better version of the AMR with non of the problems.
Cause it dont use %dmg.
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It’s not broken by design because it deals dmg through armor or based on hp. The point of %dmg is to be good against armored or high hp units. It would be an issue if you gave this gun to every marine yes, but that does not occur.
If weapons are to fulfill a niche - they must have strengths and weaknesses that push them into that niche. Simply increasing base dmg to make it a “tank shredder” wouldn’t work - however AP scaling or HP scaling is a way to bypass this.
So imo, there’s nothing wrong with that concept in specific, so long as it’s fightable.
Also “games don’t use weapons that deal %dmg” is untrue. It’s common in MOBAs.
It kinda is broken. Problem with both AP and AMR and flak and some other stuff is the lack of reasonable means of anticipation. Anticipation is like the cornerstone of xeno gameplay. You need to be able to anticipate how long can you survive in an engagement. For example, if you play crusher, you know your strengths and weaknesses. You know that you have a nice chunk of HP, good armor, you have an invincibility button, you are pretty slow though. You can anticipate that you can survive an engagement against several marines and that you will have enough time to disengage. And what happens next? You need to rely on your armor to fight, but suddenly all marines in the engagement run AP. You have no means to anticipate this and now they shred you and your shield (which honestly needs a buff). Guess you had to assume this, but was it a reasonable assumption to expect everyone to run AP? Situation two, you charge into marines, expecting to survive the engagement. Next thing that happens is you are shot from several screens away by the AMR. You probably could anticipate this to a degree, but you couldn’t possibly know that sniper will be at this flank at this very moment. Now half of your HP is gone, and so are you. Situation three, while you’re pretty slow, you know that you’ll have enough time to get to cover. But BOOM — you’re shot by flak. Now you have walking speed and marines simply kill you by holding LMB as there is nothing you can do. This is just as impossible to anticipate as AMR. Sadar, for example, is at least usually on your screen and it’s reasonable to assume that he always got AT loaded. Although there is an issue with SADAR running in off screen, since marines have binos and xenos don’t. Anyway what was I getting at? Anticipation. This is like the reason I really dislike sniper as a concept. Although with normal sniper the only thing that really annoys me is flak because the slow is unreasonable.
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Im not reading all of that, but armor is worthless to begin with because AP exists to circumvent it. Effective health is literally your health, there’s nothing more to it. AMR operates on max health only because it would oneshot runners otherwise - if it makes you feel better it’d still deal around 260 damage to t3s even without the %, only caste that ends up taking more is the queen
Introducing some kinda delay on the first aimed shot you take within X minutes or after changing your position would alleviate this. Though im more concerned with RPG aids.
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the issue on the marine side of this is that t3s at a certain level of game experience are nigh upon unkillable without hitting them with a “gotcha” of this type. SADAR stuns, sudden flak when they extend, I agree it’s pretty unfun to fight against but just like as a marine a dancer can decide to use it’s instant death combo on you specifically and there’s almost nothing you can do to counteract that, sometimes as a xeno there has to be some kind of factor that makes it reasonable to actually kill them. with Prae and Boiler as an example(base prae), they have to be pretty severely out of position to be truly punished and can generally sit behind cover spamming DPS indefinitely and are tanky enough to survive most surprises.
getting back to AMR specifically, I finally got a chance to play it again for the first time since the TM lately, and I have to agree it is busted as fuck now. It was strong during the TM, but right now it got extra buffs that makes it stupid. The round I played-- the queen was a good player, but they couldnt cap at all, there was nothing they could do because every time they tried to go for a cap I’d just shoot them and break the drag, same with warriors, this led to xenos being giga cap starved until later in the game where I died.
I think the stun mechanic is actually pretty interesting, it doesn’t really guarantee a kill on a xeno like a flak or a lot of damage or a sadar, but it stops the xeno being offensive/saves a marine and encourages a defensive, suppressive playstyle that makes sense for a sniper. the issue in my mind is that it has the stun, and iirc a small slow, AND it shakes the fuck out of the screen, AND does half+ of a xeno’s health, and- and, etc. I’d prefer to see AMR lean more into the team support aspect of disrupting attacks and breaking grabs, shooting down cover, and less into the “I shot you once so now you get to AFK in the back for 3 minutes while the half your HP it took comes back”
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Click on that, cuberound, me, and killfish had a nice talk about our armor system yesterday. Especially cuberound was an absolutle legend and tryd to deciver it. Turns out, our armor system is conveluded as fuck and reduces dmg up to two times for some reason.
Learn how fucked up our armor system is, why armor matters a fuck ton. How Defender and warrior have 1:1 the same healthpool. Wich makes calling normal HP being effective health, you into the class clown.
It is. The part that makes it broken is that health and armor are scaled with dmg in mind that is affected by them. Thats why defender and warrior have the same hp pool. Because their armor is scaled to make it more tanky.
MOBAs are actually a very good example for this.
(Wanted to write “most games” but i couldnt think of one at the time. Thank you for that.)
MOBAs are an entirly diffrent beast. They are games that differ and many parts. (yet eerily similar to CM in many regards.)
Lets take LoL as an example. It has %dmg, and even true dmg. Both forms that just up and ignore armor. And they have those two things present quite often. So how do they deal with that?
First, we need to clear what a MOBAs combat strategys are designd around. Wich we will talk about.
One thing. Counter picking.
Both in terms of champions, and builds.
Lets focus on items/builds for this.
In LoL, everyone can build Liandry’s Torment. Its an Item that ads %dmg to every ability that causes dmg. And it works on every champion. Giving everyone the ability to deal %dmg.
How the fuck is that even remotly fair?
The thing is, you have more things you can do against them then just avoid them.
There are items that are specificly made to counter %dmg. Magic %dmg in this case.
Adaptive Helmet for example, reduces magic damage by 20% of the source that gave you magic dmg via abilitys or effects before.
It’s a direct counter against %dmg. And there are more ways to go against %dmg like attack speed reduction and more ways people that play comp LoL should be able to tell you. We got one of those scrubs on the discord, ask em.
True dmg is the same.
Just its a bit more obvious to build against it. True dmg ignores dmg reductions you migth have, but you can easily counter that by just increasing your base health instead.
You can build activly during your round to counter the enemys strategy.
Thats why %dmg and true dmg works in MOBAs. The game is build with those things in mind.
Players have the ability to activly work against it. The enemy relys on one thing to deal dmg? You can build against that.
Of course, then comes the argument “But why do you NEED to be able to lessen it? Why do you need to trow a wrench in their strategy?”
Simpel, because %dmg and true dmg trow a wrench in YOUR strategy. %dmg and true dmg are a solution to a specific problem. That problem being that your to tanky. They dont work well against a problem they arent made for.
And thats the main reason why it works in MOBAs. They allow players to activly do something against such big problems. We dont. Players cant do anything to counter %dmg in CM. They can run away, and thats it. But thats not a counter, thats avoiding a problem. Having to run away isnt fun gameplay.
CM is not designed with %dmg in mind. It’s balanced around players having to respect each others Armor values. A mechanic that ignores it, breaks the game balance.
So either we will need to introduce ways to counter %dmg, wich will impact other dmg forms, wich basicly means we need to rebalance almost everything. (HvH already needs to do that, and their change is smaller)
Or we remove %dmg.
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I think both of these things are true (especially as someone who has been maining dancer a lot lately), exeperienced xenos tend to know when to engage, how long to stay, and when and how to disengage to maximum effictiveness. Everyone makes mistakes of course so anyone can have a cheap death but for ancient/prime t3s the health pool tends to mitigate minor mistakes.
Anyway I agree with the second statement that those “gotcha’s” are important for marines, Gl firing behind a prae to prevent them disengaging, SADAR posing a real killing threat etc. etc. The problem with AMR is the lack of counterplay. If i see SADAR on one part of the front I can relocate elsewhere, marines benefit on one flank because that’s one less t3 and I’ve managed to avoid the threat. With AMR I can reposition all I want but it’s very easy for them to continue tracking me and there’s nothing I can do about it
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nothing in this thread is worth reading because goldendarkness55 doesnt know how the game works ^_^!!!
dps on a sniper rifle doesnt matter when one of them (amr) can dish out over half your health in a single shot + microstun + apply a slowdown. This will easily get you killed. Both weapons are telegraphed, none of them are getting multiple shots on you unless you’re genuinely afk. dps does not matter!!!
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AMR can easily get 2 or even 3 shots on you at a time with the current firerate if you’re not like literally 4 tiles from cover
Forces xenos to never push/play the game, consequently marines don’t get to shoot anything
One thing worth reading: The AMR is broken, it’s stagnating the game for both sides, and I don’t care if or how it’s fixed, but UNTIL IT IS, JUST REMOVE IT FROM THE GAME
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AMR only deals that much on max health, meanwhile M42A outputs the same damage max stacked AMR does (350) in 2.8 of a second (aimed+2 bullets) including the aimed shot timer (which is 1.5 second for AMR), regardless of your hp bar. If you’re not a t3 M42A needs even less time lol
You can check frames for bullet timing yourself if you download since I didnt bother trimming.
Doubt there’s a single situation where AMR kills you but M42A doesn’t besides ignoring how the gun works and suiciding into 3 stacked aimed shot which is getting removed anyway.
you got the guns mixed up.
pretty sure the pr just needs approval from smbd responsible for balance now, otherwise a week since being made any contrib can iirc
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- The AMR is easier to use in gameplay.
Realistically, players take the easy approach when possible. AMR is easy to utilize for its strengths, meanwhile m42a has strengths in other aspects - Flak is still consistently powerful though for getting kills, followup shots, and pressuring xenos.
I believe though the idea of suppressing a queen permanently… is not terrible. If a front over-relies on a queen it should be punishable, I don’t really like queens soloing the game.
However you can do the same with normal sniper, by just flakking the queen everytime she pokes her head out or overextends. Or using normal sniper bullets, which also chunk over 200 hp every shot…
AMR is stronger though with its aimed shots, because it pierces through enemy. However this also lowers the dmg (if what goldendarkness said earlier is true).
Really, there is imo, not a major difference between the two in terms of pressure and situational utility they can output - AMR a bit more because it’s more bursty, although it is also much more predictable since you need to charge it beforehand. If you die to a AMR it’s like you went into a GL front after they just naded you away…
A gun that is powerful in pressuring a single target is beat by the effects of teamwork, a gun that can pressure many targets at once but with slightly less power is able to beat teamwork.
While this thought process would be a best case scenario - I am unsure how true it is in practice as I haven’t faced AMR enough. But I do think it holds merit, and most people here are biased as queen or t3 players.
We have SADAR for this. The difference is as usual the lack of counterplay. You can outplay SADAR. You cannot reasonably do anything to AMR/sniper. Just suppressing a queen for free with no risks is extremely dumb, granted that xenos are supposed to rely on queen.
Honestly I don’t think sniper spec can really work in this game. Having IFF, extremely safe range, constant coverage by friendly marines makes sniper the most safest spec. You can only balance this by making sniper really weak. And just like someone put it, AMR is just powertripping. A gun that can do everything at the same time.
I mean, you can make this argument, although people here who don’t main xeno but played AMR also found it busted as fuck. Personally, I am biased, this is why I haven’t put a nerf PR. But you cannot really convince me that losing half of my HP from offscreen is something I should appreciate. Or something that is earned by my opponent. Or that waiting for the sniper to change targets so I can finally play the game is engaging.
Fun fact, AMR WON’T lose focus before hitting you. Even if it misses. Even if it shoots another target with regular shots. This is dumb as fuck, just think of it. There are zero risks involved and you literally CANNOT fail even if you try. Even if a fucking lurker pounces you, breaks your head, pushes you in a hugger trap, kills you, you will come back from the fucking surgery and STILL have the FUCKING focus. Like imagine if you could at least bait AMR into missing the shot, so you can remove stacks from yourself. It’s almost like this would be some kind of counterplay? Some kind of weakness? Yet the gun’s author never even tried to think of it, to put themselves in xeno shoes. They just made some tests like DOR did and figured that AMR’s TTK in vacuum is a bit higher so it’s fine and balanced (although this is only because after the second shot you have a sliver of HP left, which won’t really happen in real combat where even one full charged AMR shot is basically a death sentence). Honestly, I get it that you are trying to act in good faith towards the gun, but it is in fact infinitely stupid and has no redeeming qualities.
UPD. I almost forgot. Even if you decide to say “fuck you” to AMR and just keep your head low, it will still keep utility. AMR can use regular shots to break grabs without losing focus. And this was added in the update, not in the initial PR. So you get how fucked this is? This was added exactly to circumvent the need to change targets if your target decided to stay low, so now you can keep your focus against priority target and still annoy the fuck out of everyone else. Truly, the more I think about AMR the worse it gets.
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No, it was balanced around the fact it’s one of the worst guns to finish off targets with.
Look, this is almost the same damage you’d take from an M42A - 210, and this is the 2nd (220) and 3rd (190) stack of the bullseye. If this was a caste with less max hp it would be outdamaged by M42A in these cases with a way faster aimed shot.
I assume people die to it and whine about it so much either due to bug abuse or not knowing how the focus fire mechanic works in the first place (why does it let you fire 2 max charged shots???)
Its also more noticeable than normal sniper I guess, even though the knockdown does literally nothing besides drag prevention
It was the nivrak’s band-aid nerf we discussed earlier, which by itself speaks volumes really.
Yes, its very shit at actually getting kills with the AMR.
But Sniper Spec, is not there to get kills. Never was.
The big gun migth make you think that, but sniper spec is a support role.
Sniper Spec can get kills yes, but “preparing” kills they can do like no other.
There is no gun, no role, that comes even close to snipers ability to prapare a kill.
Incredibel range, IFF, basicly hitscan, NVG. They got imesne battelfield awareness, allowing them to pick and chose their target.
And the AMR, is fucking amazing at just that.
Allowing any sniper spec to turn xenos that chose to engage into an easy kill for the horde of PFT.
Top of that, the Wallbanging makes it an even better weapon to hit fleeing xenos as well.
It also has the slow of flak inbuild + interupt, wich scales for some reason.
It doesnt have Incen blind… but got screenshake.
It literally is the M42A but… well…
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oh no i see them as well, its a normal thing im pretty shure, but alot of the times peeps dont notice it
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