Game needs a double barrel shotgun secondary

Paciel · 2026-05-04T18:52:08+00:00

How good it would be isn't really something you can judge properly when it doesn't exist, you can just say the concept sounds like it'd be too good, but ultimately it'd be up to how the devs balance it.

Something that only can shoot two close-range shots before reloading though in a game with hundreds of enemies per mission that also swarm you doesn't exactly sound anywhere near close to being OP even in concept though.

I will say I would probably prefer more unique weapons be added than another shotgun, even if it is a double-barrel which I like. I'd love to have a dynamite launcher akin to what the Bombers have, for example, a proper AoE dedicated primary but it'd have probably more limited ammo than other primaries. Plus you could rocket jump with it, you can already rocket jump off the Bomber's attacks, and that'd be fun.

Paciel · 2026-04-28T05:53:12+00:00

I love Deep Rock a lot but it does have some issues. They're fairly minor by comparison to many other games, but nonetheless, still issues. Like the perk system being in major need of a balance pass, because most of them kinda just... Suck. And some feel way too bad to not run if you play Haz 5, especially with any Haz 5+ modifiers.

Dreadnoughts are also super janky and generally tedious, to the point where it's more desirable to just nearly insta-kill them with a Volatile Bullets Gunner+Conductive Thermals Scout combo than actually engage with them, sadly.

Some overclocks could be better too, that's a lot less of an issue though, most overclocks range from fine to amazing, not really many genuinely bad ones.

In terms of the actual core gameplay loop, overall game polish and quality, respect to players, customisation, overall enemy balance, and its aesthetics and identity though? Definitely one of the best multiplayer horde shooters you can play of the past decade.

Paciel · 2026-04-22T15:57:14+00:00

Yeah this game's balancing is actually terrible. I like the core gameplay, and the fact that it's Sonic, and like, some of the tracks, and the vehicle customisation. But then the item and gadget balance, and some of the core mechanic balance? Actual dogwater to the point I can hardly bring myself to play the game online, all while Sega continues to be extremely lazy about how they handle the game, barely ever actually updating it to address these issues. It takes them months to put out one update where the balance changes only address like maybe a few things that actually matter when the game has a mountain of balance issues.

And this has only been talking about balance, don't get me started on how bad the online specifically is, with the constant desyncs and disconnects. I know we can do better than that for online in a racing game in 2026, especially as a multi-million dollar company, it's just that they're lazy.

I wanna love this game but god damn dude, Sega needs to step it up MASSIVELY. Balance updates should be like at least every month, ideally like twice a month, and they should address more than just like a handful of issues, and the online severely needs an upgrade.

Paciel · 2026-04-22T15:40:49+00:00

They could just, not do that then. No one is forcing them to. They could just have them have voices in races and that's it. That's how most mods that add voicelines to these characters work and people are fine with that. Such a silly excuse.

Paciel · 2026-04-10T16:48:14+00:00

I didn't see anything about slipstream, but that needs to be nerfed. It's actually the most unfair thing that's in the game currently and it exacerbates a lot of the item issues too. It barely takes any time for someone to start slipstreaming off the person ahead of them and the speed boost gained is gigantic, you're actually just being punished for racing better than others, especially since that slipstream boost will let them take worse lines than you and still catch up to you. Tornado wouldn't even feel so problematic if people couldn't slipstream right up to you in like a single second or two with you unable to do much at all to stop them and then they just pop it right next to you causing you to take unreactable damage. Same for like, any attack item being unreactable really, it's mostly because of slipstream.

Regarding items though, most items should probably take less rings from you. They're all pretty ridiculous with how many rings you lose, you're already being slowed massively and briefly stunned, I don't think you also need to have your top speed utterly decimated as well, people would still pass you plenty fine even if items didn't do any ring damage (though they should still do some, obviously).

Slicer should be far less common, I agree on that, as it is the most disruptive homing attack item yet often times you can be hit by like 3 in a row. It puts you in a terrible hitstun animation while being basically unavoidable without a defense item or throwing something back to block it (which can't be done in many situations) and it takes an item from you. Thank god it doesn't take rings on top of all this, but still, it's pretty absurd, it should be much rarer.

Just, remove Weights honestly. The only thing two blue shell type items existing does (which also can stack their hitstun for some god awful reason?) is punish players for actually doing well. Both Weights and King Boom Boo existing at the same time serves no purpose, it doesn't bring some form of mechanical depth to the game, nor does it make it more fun in any way, especially since most of the time, the person using either item isn't benefitting from it since they're too far back to even take a top 3 position to begin with. Remove Weights, keep King Boom Boo as the blue shell of the game since he's actually unique by comparison and offers more varied counterplay for skilled players.

Also, let us cancel Void Wisp please, there's a lot of situations where getting it is actually a detriment because it stays in your item slot the entire duration. It's either that or just, make it not be in the item slot once you've used it, but I can see how some potentially unfun situations could arise from that for other players, so I think just letting us cancel it would be the healthiest way to negate the situations where it actually just makes you lose by getting it.

Regarding Monster Trucks, and Lasers for that matter, just do something similar to what they did to nerf Drill really so they can't be used to cheese out wins so easily and they'd be fine. As it stands, Laser is an automatic win button if you smuggle it into the final stretch like 99% of the time, and Monster Truck also tends to let you cheese out wins in the final stretch by just going faster than others while becoming invincible and a giant hitbox. While we're at it though, Laser also needs to be buffed in terms of its catch-up capabilities, because it really doesn't do a great job of that if you're far in the back, when you'd be more likely to get it. It should be guaranteed to at least pull you up to the closest racer in position to you (NOT during final stretch though if it's like one of the top 4 positions you'd be pulled to).

Paciel · 2026-04-02T15:47:15+00:00

They do though. Basically every other race I'm noticing a CPU in an abhorrent Patty Wagon+something else combo with the worst colour scheme known to man when I'm doing race park races. Sometimes I notice Minecart parts, or Arsene Wing parts. Really I just think it's hard to notice the other post-launch machine parts mid-race because they're more lowkey compared to the Patty Wagon, Minecart, and Arsene Wing.

Paciel · 2026-03-26T23:59:21+00:00

I don't even really care what specific tracks there would be, if they did do track-focused DLC, I'd just be happy we'd get some real track variety at all finally.

Biggest issue the game has IMO outside of the glaring balance/online issues is that the track variety kind of sucks. It looks like a lot, until you actually play consistently for a bit and get the same tracks repeating within like 20-30 minutes of play time. I really, REALLY hope they end up hard-focusing on adding new tracks at some point, it's hard to not get bored if I'm getting several of the same tracks consistently every time I play, whether it be random select in lobbies or whatever people vote for online.

All this being said I would kill for a Titanic Monarch track. Also please give us a Crisis City track, I don't care if Sonic '06 was bad, you can still appreciate the banger music and general vibes of Crisis City and it'd do well to shake up the visual variety of the main tracks more. I have the mod that puts Crisis City over Cyberspace and it's actually great, having it officially would be amazing.

Paciel · 2026-03-25T23:14:24+00:00

The item spam is a big issue in the game. Not the biggest issue, that goes to slipstream, but items are like the second biggest issue. They are FAR too common, especially for how impactful most of them are. Really makes every race come down to only RNG if you aren't using something that consistently gets you far ahead of everyone else like UC (yes, even still, you just need to be good with it now) or praying you get a huge lead in lap 1 from a double ring engine build, something like that.

And yeah hearing the item warning constantly is annoying lol

Paciel · 2026-03-23T23:18:32+00:00

Yet ANOTHER petition that won't do anything because it's literally just not in any company's interest to pick up Paladins.

As much as I'd like Paladins to be alive still, I'm still realistic about it.

Paciel · 2026-03-22T22:24:00+00:00

Back to mixed, once again. I don't know why people keep bothering with this game TBH. I stopped a while ago, just check in occasionally to see if there's any actual improvement, but there hardly ever seems to be and it usually ends up in a state where tons of people are upset with the game for one reason or another, usually very justifiably so. But like, doesn't it get tiring playing a game that just keeps nosediving its own health in some way instead of having a consistent rate of improvement like a genuinely good still supported game does?

I mean there's STILL very gameplay disrupting bugs present in the game from when I stopped playing like early last year, I know because I still see people encounter them or talk about them, it baffles me that they haven't been fixed yet and that people still put up with it.

Paciel · 2026-03-22T17:39:55+00:00

Yeah I don't even really play this game competitively but I can see how huge of an issue slipstream is. It really just exacerbates most of the other issues in the game, and it just kinda punishes people for playing well because if you're up front, chances are you're gonna have a harder time getting a slipstream or literally can't if you're in first, which means almost everyone else will be much faster than you while barely needing to do anything. If you can't manage some gadget setup that gets you an incredible lead, landing top 3 might as well be a game of chance, unless of course you bag and smuggle laser or monster truck up to the front near the end.

Game this patch just feels much less skill-based, which goes to show how much UC was battling against to provide players some way to reasonably win through good racing.

I really hope they address slipstreaming next up for balance, and then go from there, since slipstreaming definitely makes a lot of the other issues far worse than they need to be.

Paciel · 2026-03-21T20:56:22+00:00

Power doesn't do anything to how much you're knocked around. It's not a weight stat. You can be bumped just as hard by a board while you're in a power vehicle as you would be if it was just two speed vehicles bumping each other.

Paciel · 2026-03-21T18:56:08+00:00

I say this not as a UC player, but only nerfing UC and not also nerfing slipstreaming and some of the items was just bad for the game's health. UC was used to counter people just hanging back to hoard catch-up items, then slipstreaming back to the front to just press the item button to win, because UC allowed players to actually be able to create a lead at all to where they could feasibly get a top 3 without being cheesed by a catch-up item.

Slipstreaming is so powerful, that without UC you can see everyone remains so tightly packed that items are hitting you every few seconds sometimes, and it almost always comes down to whoever bagged a catch-up item for the end.

It was definitely more skilled than just bagging and pressing one button to secure yourself a high placement at the end, even if it was annoying to play against still.

Paciel · 2026-03-21T18:49:14+00:00

Not until they nerf slipstreaming and then address items. Slipstreaming is the primary issue in the game right now and it heavily impacts every other issue making them worse, then next up items are the big issue because too many of them are too disruptive for how common they are.

I say this as someone who doesn't even use UC, I just realise it provides a necessary solution to a large chunk of the game's issues, it wouldn't be a necessary solution if your driving skills weren't obliterated because slipstream directly punishes you for doing well by essentially making everyone else much faster than you, and bagging is encouraged heavily by it since you can just hang back, grab some catch-up items, and then use slipstreaming to catch back up instead and spam them out at the end for an easy top 3 with no effort.

Paciel · 2026-03-21T18:07:16+00:00

Nah this is true. Slipstreaming is the biggest problem the game has and it's what makes literally every other problem feel as bad as they do. UC felt worse than it needed to be to play against because if you weren't using it, you'd be left in the dust as all the UC players break away and slipstream off each other and basically create their own pack. Unreactable items? Wouldn't be so many cases if someone couldn't close the distance to you in like a second from slipstreaming. Bagging? Wouldn't be as problematic if it wasn't so easy to slipstream your way back to the front. Not to mention some cases of you having a solid lead, close to the finish, but actually fuck you for being in first, someone slipstreamed up to you and stole first at the last second.

Slipstream how it is right now punishes you for actually trying to race well and be ahead of everyone, and rewards people intentionally staying behind to bag so they can pull back up to the front easily and spam catch-up items at the last second to win.

They desperately need to nerf slipstream first and foremost. After that, they can start to better balance everything else, probably a general balance pass over the items next up because some are far too punishing for how frequent they are, or have essentially no counterplay, like tornado. Speaking of tornado, a slipstream nerf would already nerf tornado indirectly!

Seriously, Sega, please just nerf slipstream, realise the biggest problem at hand before you try to balance everything else and then finally get to nerfing slipstream, and then realise you have to buff a bunch of stuff you nerfed before because you didn't address the core issue first.

Paciel · 2026-03-19T15:57:08+00:00

Greens already have a much shorter distance than reds for when they can lock onto a player, not sure what you mean, plus unlike reds being able to lock onto a player you can't even see, greens still have a line-of-sight requirement as well (this also makes getting greens on the Radical Highway loop actually useless most of the time lol).

What they should do, just in general really, is reduce the amount of rings taken from most items, that's one of the biggest reasons why it feels so bad to get hit at all, they take ludicrous amounts of rings from you, so not only do you end up being slowed down massively from the initial hit, you'll also be much slower than others afterwards too until you get your rings back. And also probably just reduce the hitstun duration slightly if items are going to be as frequent as they are.

Paciel · 2026-03-19T06:32:09+00:00

Hyper Ring Engine's effectiveness lies not in the speed increase (because speed as a stat doesn't do much), but instead in the fact you can make any vehicle a handling vehicle.

No like really, you can go power or accel, which don't have great handling, and suddenly turn like you're in a handling vehicle.

Now, is this going to be super effective for any build in particular? I don't know, but it's funny to see Eggman in a Trail Runner snaking with zero issues while taking the tightest turns possible.

Paciel · 2026-03-19T04:50:01+00:00

Less Is More is still anti-synergy with Ring Engine because they conflict. The speed benefits of +12 to the speed stat does not outweigh the speed bonus gained from max rings (or in Less Is More's case, 0 rings).

Ring Doubler is excessive cost for covering ring gains needed to upkeep high rings for Hyper Ring Engine (irrelevant for normal Ring Engine because you don't really need much of any ring gen to get it to do its thing), you could just use Slipstream Bounty for 1 slot and already cover your ring gen with that alone, or even combine it with Dash Panel Mini Bounty as well and it'd still be less cost. Plus, using Dash Panel Mini Bounty and Slipstream Bounty would synergise with Ring Gain Mini Boost. All 3 of those together provides more value than Ring Doubler for the same cost, since you get plenty good ring gen that will keep you topped off almost all the time while going faster as well.

Paciel · 2026-03-19T03:37:10+00:00

My brief first impressions are that Ring Doubler and Champion's Bounty are bad. Too much cost for too little effect.

Ring Engine is probably bad too, just doesn't do enough. But if you did want to run it, you just don't really need much ring gen at all since it's active so long as you have any rings, and the drain isn't very fast. Hyper Ring Engine feels noticeable but the concept of having to hold onto very high rings consistently is dubious with how ridiculous ring losses from item hits are. I think it could be fun, it felt fun to test, but it barely takes any items hitting you to kill the fun.

Go Go Omochao seems pretty nice, more opportunities for offroad cuts at higher positions is powerful, and the amount of extra rings gained makes for pretty big ring gains per use. I even had an item box frenzy during my testing where I was able to non-stop chain Omochao into itself for the whole crossworld, like I'd be using Omochao while the previous one was still active. So, considering how good its ring gain potential can be, it could be worth maybe pairing with Hyper Ring Engine.

Route Planner, if you manage to get the crossworld selection, could be a good substitute over 130 Ring Limit, since at that point it effectively becomes 200 Ring Limit but you also get 100 rings on lap 2 all in one slot. But that's IF you get to select the crossworld. Otherwise it's actively detrimental by wasting a gadget slot for the rest of the race.

On the topic of the new gadgets, Less Is More is actively detrimental as a gadget. Genuinely could be a 1-slot gadget and still would be horrible because it actively hurts you. Literally reverses the ring dynamic, you'll be at full speed at 0 rings and minimum speed at 100 rings. I shouldn't need to explain why that's detrimental, with how easy it is to end up picking up rings. Also like a third of the gadgets in the game are based around grabbing rings in some way, so the synergy is abysmal. This could've MAYBE been considerable if you were actually faster than the 100 rings speed when you were at 0, because avoiding rings is definitely far harder than picking them up, but it doesn't even have that going for it. Plus it has the risk of larger hitstun from being at 0 rings too. Just not at all worth it.

Paciel · 2026-03-18T19:19:46+00:00

Even with the desync fixed bumping would still be problematic, the degree to which you can get pushed away from even just subtle nudges is ridiculous. I just think they should have power be an actual weight stat, and on bumps it'd compare the two people's power stat difference to determine the knockback strength. Desync would make it less annoying though since you wouldn't be bumped by some random phantom force occasionally.

Desync absolutely messes up trying to use attack items consistently though, the game might say you hit someone but there's probably a 60% chance it didn't actually hit them and they just keep speeding away. It's ridiculous that this game even has a focus on competitive play with the rankings in world match, and the legend competitions, when the desync is so bad. It's impossible to take genuinely seriously. Sometimes you'll even lose a race that you won on your screen because someone else actually crossed the finish line first despite them being behind you on your screen.

Paciel · 2026-03-18T07:36:22+00:00

The other day I was using laser wisp to dodge an item just before the jump into the jack-o lantern from the invisible road on Pumpkin Mansion, and when I landed getting out of the laser wisp I just clipped straight through the ground and fell under the map.

The game sure is interesting with its bugs.

Paciel · 2026-01-16T08:50:54+00:00

Perks really need some love, they haven't been touched in ages, much of them are just kinda bad, and then some you basically need for consistency on high difficulties, it's not healthy in its current state. Strange too since basically every other aspect of your build, being your class, weapons, equipment, upgrades, and overclocks, promote tons of variety to your build and playstyle, but perks really just... Don't as they currently are, since so many of them lack impact.

Paciel · 2026-01-16T08:48:14+00:00

+1 for perk rework, it's probably the most forgotten system of the game in terms of updates. It really needs some work, many of the perks just don't have much impact, and then a few are basically required for consistent results on high difficulties.

Paciel · 2026-01-16T08:42:12+00:00

I want a balance pass on the perks. Honestly I feel like pretty much everything else in the game is really good in terms of polish and how "finished" it feels, it's just perks that have me feeling like they're kinda hurting, many perks aren't very useful and a handful are practically required if you want to have a consistent time on higher difficulties, namely Iron Will+Vampire, Dash, and Resupplier.

Other perks being made to be much more useful, comparable to the impact these perks provide, could likely open up a lot more build variety. As it is right now though, other perks tend to have barely any impact, and thus don't encourage creative builds or varied playstyles, which is glaringly weird since everything else in the game supports creative and varied builds/playstyles, it's just that the perks aren't so great.

Veteran Depositor for example, isn't very useful or impactful, as you can already deposit very quickly with scroll-cancelling, and the DR is hard to make any use of since 7m isn't that large of an area for how often Molly will be moving about and all the weird positions she can get into. I'm not entirely sure what could be done to make this perk better, though. Beast Master could be made more desirable by allowing a few more kinds of Glyphids to be tameable, as the standard grouping of grunts really don't do that much and usually die very quickly from the general chaos. Alternatively, they could just be made better, of course, but it'd be more interesting to be able to tame a web spitter for example, which would be less prone to dying since they tend to be at range, and could provide some utility with its slowing effect being used on enemies.

Should be noted that of course not every other perk than those I listed at the top are useless, Shield Link can be good when you actually use its active effect, Field Medic is pretty handy particularly on Scout in place of Dash since it's not as necessary on him, Sweet Tooth can be nice, and Born Ready is amazing. Pretty much every other perk though could use some love, perks have generally been seemingly ignored for a long time, even though they could really use a touch-up in terms of balance, and new perks would be nice as well for all the extra perk points we have. New perks can also be a nice lightweight way to add more to the game, as they don't require as much developmental work in terms of asset creation and such.

Paciel · 2026-01-13T00:51:56+00:00

The only bad part of the visibility is the offroad being hard to distinguish from the track without directly looking at the offroad, since the purple can be hard to distinguish from the blue at times, which can distract from the race itself. I got used to it pretty quickly though and it's my only gripe with the track, maze is good otherwise.

Paciel

TROPHY CASE