#Recon's kit seems kind of random

92 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

restive folio
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IMO recon in general should get a rework. Especially with spotter drone + the whole fire rate thing. I think fire rate seems very out of place for a sniper kit, considering a lot of snipers are low magazine, high recoil weapons. Not only that, minus the 10% reload speed, mastery is effectively useless with the crossbow (considering you take crossbow into lategame since it's an infinite stacking weapon). Hell, it hardly even synergizes with the Nemesis, one of the coolest snipers in the game.

The drone also works against you too, stealing kills that you could be stacking crossbow/target laser shields with. Even skullshatterer kill steals (which I can honestly live with, at least compared to the drone killsteals). Even thematically, having your drone be out there killing stuff, drawing aggro from out of your vision doesn't make sense for a "recon" sniper. Worst part is when you don't notice your drone pop out and it blocks your shot. I imagined sniper being more hit & run, rather than having to play around your drone all the time to get the mark/shield recovery. Labelling the class as "Strong weapon focus, high damage" is very misleading considering how much the spotter drone does.

The drone should be intangible like in S1, and fulfill more of a supporting role. If I wanted to play a summoner class, I'd play Machine Hunter/Eliminator. Perks should have more of a weakpoint/critical focus, recoil/deviation focus, or reload/active reload focus rather than the current drone and fire rate. I think the best case would be for the current stuff to just get moved to a separate kit, with some stuff added to the Runner Kit.

I don't want to sound like I'm ranting, but I just feel like the playstyle difference between S1/S2 is not what I was expecting. I get the classes are somewhat different, but a sniper should still be a sniper. Perks between the other classes feels like they synergize way better with their individual kits compared to the recon's. I'm fine with recon staying classed as a "recon" for the sake of variability, but at the very least the kits should synergize.

Also small thing semi-offtopic, on the UI, recon is the only class that says something different in their class specialization at the bottom (the class name at the top is RECON, until you click "Recon Sniper" at the bottom of the class select, which then changes the class name to "RECON SNIPER". I'm assuming this is an oversight).

acoustic parcel
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Having summons not attack out of combat is generally a good thing to add, I think. I never had a problem with drone stealing my kills, it kinda just hangs out there, occasionally killing stuff and marking them. Starting from the early-middle game I never use drone to get a mark and I forget it's there untill I need my shields back, so I pop it, hug it and be done with it (on rare occasions I use it to distract enemies to make an escape). So I can see the problem with it, but I don't think it's what you've described.

As for the mastery and fire rate - it basically allows to have recon be able to play as a run&gunner, or at the very least pistol gunslinger type. It is very fun indeed to play like that, just as fun as doing sniping, and I'd hate for it to go.

But, that said, I'll touch on a subject that allows for such a playstyle - survivor kit. It's practically the only useful one out of three. It allows for greater variety of builds that work better than their specific counterparts made with other kits, it makes weakpoint hits and kills that much more powerful on sniper which is good as a concept for a kit but not good compared to the other ones. Both of the other kits are useless at that point. Why pick sniper kit, a guaranteed crit on mobility use (and why would that be useful apart from guillotine or RPG, both of which do a lot of AOE damage, which is the only type I can appreciate crits on unless you want to oneshot bosses but then you gotta stack crit damage because there's nothing in this class that stacks it... You see the problem?) over heals and ammo gain on weakpoints, and definitely why pick pistol kit, the only point of which is having super fire rate in cqc but you get super fire rate anyways every... 2 seconds I think, and going in face tanking isn't really the recon's type, he'd rather stay mid range and fire away, because he doesn't care for recoil and deviation, and damage fall off on pistols isn't such that you can't fire them mid-range.

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Overall, I too think recon's ought to be tweaked at the very least, especially his kits and spotter drone (if it needs to stay relevant after early game), maybe incentivise players to kill the spotted enemies first (or within a small window of time), but I doubt it is a viable option when you go guns blazing even with your sniper rifle.

jagged hemlock
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+1 to summons shutting up and being invisible out of combat

restive folio
# acoustic parcel Having summons not attack out of combat is generally a good thing to add, I thin...

For your first point, I did mention the fact that you have to play around your drone for the mark; it is a very forgettable part of sniper, especially when I want to play lone wolf vs being a summoner.

Fire rate really only works for run & gun with a pistol/dmr (in context of precision weapons). Trying to do the same with a sniper feels way more clunky since the recoil often leads to having to back off very far while waiting for it to reset. The fact that the mastery really only supports a specific playstyle is the problem.

In regards to the survivor kit, I do agree with a lot of your points, but that’s exactly it— recon’s kits in general are everywhere. His base perks lining up with survivor kit would be very strong. However, at the same time, the current perks don’t provide any (or minimal) benefit. Hence why I say to alter the base perks, but buff/move things to his other kits.

It seems like recon was made in such a way to be more “interactive” or more “interesting” mechanics-wise at the cost of any synergy his kit has. Once again, nearly every other class’s kits are very viable with their own class perks. Drone focus should be a separate kit, and recon in general should be more self-sufficient, both for gameplay reasons and thematic reasons.

acoustic parcel
# restive folio For your first point, I did mention the fact that you have to play around your d...

Actually, regarding your idea of moving passive drone spawn to a kit from a perk makes me think of having perks give more general type of stats and stuff, while specifics would be moved to different kits. For example, that super fire rate every few seconds can be moved to the pistol kit, so that you could have a passive lesser version of the super fire rate and a full version within 10 or so meters from the enemy. But also the sniper kit maybe should give 100% crit not on mobility use but instead work like super fire rate perk, so it procs every few seconds, and it would be basically the same because his mobilities recharge within 4 seconds aside from guillotine, but it won't necessitate the actual use of the ability. And surv kit... Well, it's a surv kit, what else is there to change or add. The only thing I can see for it is a buff that would give +5 or +6 max shields of weakpoint kills instead of +4, so the surv kit would be like a tanky sort of subclass. And that would make recon be able to be a sniper, a tanky midrange kinda guy, and a pistol run&gunner (especially if pistolero perk gets tweaked so that it wouldn't require constantly switching weapons to keep the buffed stat increase, I'd be perfectly content with it giving half the power it gives (when swapping to a pistol) but passively, it would make pistol builds that much more enjoyable and less tedious to play).

peak chasm
acoustic parcel
jagged hemlock
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Crits being evaluated on hit may make things work differently than expected. It's not applied when the attack is starting.

peak chasm
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i tested it and guillotine wasn't consuming the guaranteed crit and was sometimes not critting which im pretty sure is clear evidence it doesn't work

meager island
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@peak chasm @acoustic parcel

Guillotine should (and in the cases that I can create, does) apply the guaranteed kit from Sniper Kit. If you're seeing cases where this doesn't happen even though it should, you should probably record it and post it in the related bugs channel

Note that Sniper Kit has a 2-second cooldown, and it is triggered both "On ejection" and "On Guillotine" - the condition for the Mobility Skill. It may also be consumed by damage sources other than your guns, preventing Guillotine from benefitting. So check very carefully if the buff isn't consumed prior, or not granted due to it being on cooldown!

acoustic parcel
meager island
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You mean whether it procs on that item?

acoustic parcel
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oh nvm

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i wasn't thinking properly

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like u-235 spawns it's damaging cloud entity on the last entity attacked, which checks every entity and every attack, so it can spawn clowds on you if it's used and enemies shot you

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and i was thinking that the guaranteed crit might work analogously in that it gives a crit chance not only on weapon or guillotine but also on ANYTHING that can fire and is friendly

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like drone for example or a summon

meager island
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The tldr is, any damage caused by you - the holder of the buff - will consume the crit

acoustic parcel
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i had enough of that with u-235

peak chasm
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the crit buff was generated by pressing the mobility button (its a mouse button for me but that's irrelevant) and timed out rather than being consumed

jagged hemlock
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Don't 1-time things delete themselves with a delay to be more visible? Soneone check in UEdit. A delay would be funny with stats that are factored in on hit, since anything that happens during the delay would also get it.

peak chasm
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are you saying i could possibly get multiple crits from the one guaranteed crit if there's enough damage instances quickly enough? and speaking of multiple damage instances, do dual/triple/multicast upgrades count as multiple casts for the purpose of 1 power per use? i cant seem to tell

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and on the topic of the original premise of the thread: time limited crits work pretty good for a bullet hose but not for a slow sniper that can only get out one shot, or no crits at all if it needs to be aimed/movement stabilized

restive folio
peak chasm
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yeah

peak chasm
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cute cat btw

meager island
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Back on topic, I agree with that Recon Sniper's Runner kit and Super Fire-rate feel out of place. However the rest seems fairly good to me conceptually.

It could also be that we need to step away from the mental image of a sniper. But in that case FFG should consider changing the name or changing the associated perks

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But, I think your experience is currently biased due to inconveniences and bugs rather than the entire design - like the drone getting in the way or effects causing kills to not contribute to your stacking. There are good points, but some of them fall under the "bugs to fix" category rather than "class changes"

acoustic parcel
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I think the class could rather be named recon for that matter. And so there would be sniper recon, survivalist recon and solid snake type pistol recon

restive folio
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I do admit the drone getting in the way is biased by my experience, but effects & drone taking kills & not stacking stuff seems more intentional design

acoustic parcel
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It wouldn't necessitate changing it up completely, it would just mean you'd need to relocate already existing stuff in him and tweak what he has

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Did you get credits for drone kills in s1?

restive folio
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which again, makes sense so as to not force the class into a sniper playstyle

restive folio
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Also, the drone firing was optional aswell, as there is also a separate perk in which you can stack something else on weakpoint hits (in S1)

acoustic parcel
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Yeah because other classes like breacher, demo, chrono, and to an extent eli all can play differently according to a kit whereas recon sniper can have that flexibility but not via changing kits but only by changing playstyle because the surv kit allows for any playstyle

acoustic parcel
restive folio
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ironically enough, all 3 of recon's kits seem better suited with automatic weapons vs. snipers

meager island
jagged hemlock
acoustic parcel
peak chasm
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it did move from sniper in s1 to recon sniper in s2, obviously sniper is still in the name but there seems to be an intention there

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that's supposed yo be a reply w/e

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the shot reload of survival is better with slow semi small mag but the healing is a large part of it too and that works pretty alright with autos too, plus like. "autos are good" and everything else

peak chasm
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might just be me but getting a good auto (or spammable semi, or burst, all the same) up and running feels easier than getting a good single shot up and running

acoustic parcel
# peak chasm might just be me but getting a good auto (or spammable semi, or burst, all the ...

yeah, a good single shot requires a good aoe or AP attached to it. But that said, a good auto doesn't, and if it had aoe or AP it would not be a good auto, it would be a great auto. So, yeah. Unless sniping can fill some gap (like for example in some RPGs you can have someone who's great at clearing out mobs, but bad at single target damage and vice versa) that doesn't exist right now, it's just be a lesser version of playing any other weapon on recon specifically (because of targeting laser), except for nemesis which is always the best option out of all the guns (ESPECIALLY on surv, having so much ammo gen)

jagged hemlock
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The gap is safely destroying pulsar defenders.

acoustic parcel
jagged hemlock
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A high firerate gun would make them teleport into their target.

acoustic parcel
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so, the only enemy that probably wasn't even designed for that exact purpose

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i mean like, yeah you can two shot or even one shot certain bosses if you stack up crits, damage and AP on your rifle

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but most bosses don't even have weakpoints

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as far as i've experienced it

meager island
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Hard disagree. Low-capacity guns are extremely impactful

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X1000 will absolutely shred any armored enemy and can be used as a marksman weapon if you can control it

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Launchers are extremely powerful against mobs

jagged hemlock
jagged hemlock
acoustic parcel
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i have never heard a dink

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i've heard a dink only on arena masters (obviously they have heads) and spider

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and on spider i have no idea what counts as a weakpoint, but it exists somewhere between his legs

jagged hemlock
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It's center. Easier to tell how to adjust with a laser pointer since it's as offset by camera perspective the same as everything else.

Humanoid heads are hurtbox centers too.

acoustic parcel
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if only the "center" was obvious on a jet for example. Or a saw. Or on any boss and entities that are not humanoid

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the only robot i've seen that has a weakpoint and it is obvious that it's a weakpoint is a drone with a big red eye

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that flies around the first floor

peak chasm
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bosses are lmao on recon b/c target laser ion cylinder and or guillotine ends single targets and bosses are single targets

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is x1000 the red charge up ion sniper or the (uncommon?) other one

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they're both ion all ion eats armor for breakfast, but don't remember the names

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actually that reminds me, does adding armor pen do anything for ion? like do you get more damage for overpenetrating or let you pierce repeatedly or smth? im unsure if im reading the in game mechanics pate correctly

acoustic parcel
peak chasm
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no yeah i know it does that. idk if that continues above 100

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penetration chance is armor pen minus armor

acoustic parcel
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i do know however that with 150 or 160 ap you can wallbang steel walls

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which means that theoretically if you had say 200 ap, long damage fall-off and you shot in a general direction of an enemy two screens away, you could just kill it

jagged hemlock
peak chasm
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so adding AP to an ion gun will lower ST damage?

jagged hemlock
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A bit(-25%?). Unless it's used exclusively as a boss killer the pierce will be worth it.
Post-pierce damage gain can help ST damage if there's a wall/friendly AI to pierce.

lime cedar
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I'd have to agree that the drone feels like a weird fit for sniper
even in S1 it kind of had awkward interactions (it made often made stuff like tacmode a nightmare due to clipping through a wall and making a multiple group alerting shot)

but then it was at least more passive, and had the money gimmick, which made it kinda work as a fun little shooting contest
(make the skillshot and get paid before your drone gets impatient and shoots the marked target)

Now it's even more aggressive, the mark doesn't really feel thematically impactful or mechanically rewarding like the old one did, and it actively blocks your shots which is a huge pain

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recon already spawned Machine Hunter due to the need to break down different stuff it was doing
and it honestly feels like it could be split again into this weird summoner angle and Recon

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I think there's a few ideas you could play around with

-Have the drone's "automatic" behavior be entirely passive, and have Recon's active abilities cause it to take offensive action

This gives players full control over the drone's engagements and makes it feel more in tune with the idea of Support Drone following the you around and fighting in tandem

It also makes the drone scale with ability upgrades(faster abilities mean more drone actions) which could be cool for long term recon progression

-Restore some kind of longer term bonus to the spotting effect
despite being kinda core to the whole "sniper" idea thematically, spotting right now is only really a thing you even appreciate on bosses and a small number of elite enemies

For everyone else, it more or less is entirely ignorable, since they get gunked pretty much instantly regardless of a 30% dmg bonus mod

There was a really fun thing to the "reward if you kill the enemy in 1 Hit" element in s1, i wouldn't mind if it came back

peak chasm
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agree with all of that. tbh i wouldn't mind if drone entirely lost offensive abilities

lime cedar
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also the whole "super low shield recov but you can touch your drone to replenish" mechanic the most recent rework introduced is.
It's just. I don't really have like, a complex thing to say about it, it just doesn't work.
Drone spawns in front of you while you're firing and instantly dies, or spawns and glides into you and spends the shield regen pointlessly, or immediately runs away from you into a melee enemy and gets stomped before you can nab shields
so you end up just running with the low shield recov, which gets especially rough when it's combined with escalation mods.

I found myself having to do a lot of "run a few screens away from enemies (since drone will actively go over to them and aggro them if they're nearby) then wait standing still for 5-10 seconds" which really broke the flow of sniping

uneven stratus
safe salmon
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Yeah the drone sucks.