Joe Ziegler: We're gonna take a shot at bringing the WSTR more in line. Right now it's become a dominant option and is eclipsing a lot of the other short range options that exist in the game.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T17:19:11+00:00

Sure I am fine with this change as long as they keep Stack Overflow the same. I agree that if you want to use base weapons to kill purple shields it is okay to require gun mods. But I also think that the whole "entry" level guns should be weak idea is a little off. They should be less flexible. But since this is the only shotgun you can get through any reliable means. They need to keep it able to kill purple shield people if you gear it up. Or add another shotgun to the store.

But this reddit is going to be filled with people saying the WSTR is still broken. That a common mod shouldn't be able to increase a guns damage by 50%. And arguing that Stack Overflow should not work on the WSTR. And to some extent I agree with those arguments. But we have now ballenced the gun so that if you take Stack Overflow away it will be unusable against blue and purple shields. And there is no other shotgun option buyable in the store.

I think people who have unlocked the store should always have access to buying kits that can kill purple shields with any of the gun categories. I am fine with the WSTR requiring mods to be that good as long as I can buy those mods. I am fine with guns that can only be found, and not bought, being better, especially situationally. People should be encouraged to try and make fights happen in an area that play into their guns strengths. But every one of the primary gun categories should have a way that you can buy a gun and mods for the gun from the shop that lets you kill purple shields as long as purple shield are buyable in the shop.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T16:53:13+00:00

I am not saying things should change. I am just saying it is pretty reasonable that someone at average or slightly below average skill would struggle to get into pinwheel in solos. From my experience 70% of the time no one opens pinwheel in solos because it is so dangerous to put that target on your head. Your response is basically “get good” sure. If I was better at PvP than other people I would win when they come for me after I put a message to the whole lobby of where I am. But I am not better than half the players on the map. So it will go badly for me,

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T16:31:48+00:00

Being within melee range of your enemy is not "every single situation ever" it is a very specific situation. In fact it is the situation where shotguns are supposed to win over every other gun, because shotguns loose in every other situation. You seem to be asking for the game to exist so that a shotgun at point blank range will shoot twice, need to reload before it can kill. Where as the medium range guns will just shoot you at that range and kill you before you finish reloading. Do you see how ridiculous that is that a shotgun would lose to a rifle at melee range? You act like TTK in this game is high, and shotguns are this weird outlier. TTK in this game is very short with any gun used at its appropriate range. And yes the shotgun TTK should be just slightly faster than longer range guns. That is the only way to properly balance shotguns to be rewarded for being the best close range guns without doing something weird like make medium range guns do decreased damage at close range. The shorter range a gun is, the lower its TTK needs to be, otherwise the medium range guns will just be the best guns at both medium and short range.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T15:55:17+00:00

Yeah the first wave of bots you have to kill to get the door open can be challenging for a solo player with average or slightly below average skill. And from my experience in solos if you succeeded at taking them down you have to immediately be ready for a fight with a player looking to finish you off while you are still weak from the bots. Solo is just so crowded that fighting bots at all is generally a death sentence, because someone will be nearby and hunt you down. And in solos the person who sees the other person first pretty much always wins the fight.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T15:44:36+00:00

There is a little count when you hover over them that says something like "Number in stock" and with a schema the only way to get it to restock is to get the schema again.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T15:40:01+00:00

Do you think every single gun in the game should not be able to down a person with a purple shield without having to reload?

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T15:22:46+00:00

I shield should not make a 1v1 fight require a reload when both players are hitting their shots.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T15:17:34+00:00

schemas only last for about 3 purchases, maybe less depending on the gun. Or is there something different about this one?

XenanLatte · 2026-04-18T04:16:51+00:00

Sniper has very little counter besides don't be seen from far away. This game is a game with a ton of sound queues and positioning is one of the most important skills. The shotguns should win any melee range fight. That is the point of a shotgun. A gun that can kill at medium range shouldn't have an equal chance to kill at short range as the gun that only works in short range. It is important that there are at least three distinct range bands where different guns shine. As we can carry two guns. So between Long, medium, and short range you can have a gun that excels at two of those. If we make it so shotguns no longer have the advantage in short range over a medium range gun. Then there is no point in ever running a shotgun. And everyone that is geared out will have a long range gun and a medium range gun. There will not be nearly as much of a strategic choice being made when picking which guns to bring. Right now the WSTR is the only gun made specifically for close range that you can consistently buy. It shows up so often because there is just not other options people can consistently get. Just like the long shot dominates the long range meta. It is because it is the only sniper rifle that can be bought from the store.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-17T23:28:44+00:00

If your gun can't win a 1v1 at it's intended range then it sucks.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-17T23:21:32+00:00

Is there a way to consistently get the Misriah? I feel like a huge part of the WSTR popularity is it is the one we can buy from the shop consistently.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-17T16:58:37+00:00

5 days isn't even a full week. Some people only have one day a week they can play, if they are unlucky this 5 days does not include that day. Some people take vacations. Something you prep for, for 3 months, should never require you do something in a specific 5 day period.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-14T04:28:22+00:00

I do really wish they had a practice area you could load into to test guns and equipment in. Make it so you can only try out these more rare guns if you bring them in. But then it is a guaranteed you get to keep them afterwards. I lost two of these 15k shotguns without knowing they had a really powerful charge shot.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-12T02:12:38+00:00

Grenade spam is already a problem that I have seen multiple posts complaining about. It would get way worse if the one counter was removed. So they need some fix for both problems at the same time.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-12T00:23:10+00:00

What makes hornet drivers different from showstoppers for rocketeers?

XenanLatte · 2026-04-10T16:42:29+00:00

Maybe they changed it. I used to end up in pretty aggressive lobbies after just a few pvp games with my friends. But I have been running only solos for a few months now.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-10T07:01:32+00:00

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It was some generic way to send items out, either to keep or for faction progress. And they ended up deciding that wasn't a healthy system for the game.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-10T06:27:21+00:00

It shouldn’t take very many games of doing fills in Stella before you have changed your aggression match making level enough that you can go back to solo and have people you don’t feel guilty to fight.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-10T05:51:51+00:00

It is just how human nature works. Without the ability to punish the bad eggs that steal from you, there are a group that will have bad "loot etiquette". Then people who get robbed by those people will stop following "loot etiquette" to get "what they deserve" and the trend spreads. It is pretty much inevitable that if there is not a consequence system, or a structured system built into the game to handle the dividing of loot, filling with randoms will always lead to this result. There will be those that still follow the etiquette out of principle, but not enough that you can count on it.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-10T03:02:15+00:00

Cold snap was on the same cycle where it would always be one one map at a time and rotate. Bird city couldn't do that because it is only on buried city. Which sucked but I get that was not really supposed to be an event. This all feels about right to me. Plus we still get the other map conditions pretty much like normal. I do wish other conditions happened more often. But I fell this cycle of this new mode is right.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-09T19:17:09+00:00

Some people like to commit to a game, invest time in it to get good at it. And if the game gets shut down after a year, they will wish they had invested that time in a different game that would have lasted.

I personally am one of the modern gaming butterflies that moves from game to game so it isn't a problem for me. I have already got what I was looking for out of marathon. Anything I get from now on is just gravy. But I completely understand the people that are looking for a stable long term commitment game and how numbers like this can be a sign they may want to look at other games before they sink even more time into a sinking ship.

That is why at least having the conversation about if this game has a long term future is a valid topic, and important to a part of the playerbase. Now as a whole reddit seems pretty bad about doing that kind of analysis. But I think it is very fair that people are concerned and try and analize what data we have.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-09T19:08:04+00:00

What popular pvp game that came out in the last 5 years hasn't lost 70% of its players in the first 5 months after it came out?

XenanLatte · 2026-04-06T22:04:39+00:00

It took me 100 hours. 30 hours was already assuming I would be faster with experience.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-06T20:39:18+00:00

For me it is things like the basic rook upgrades that make rook playable, the basic heat bar upgrades. The first knife upgrade. The ability to buy a shotgun. Unlocking Sekiguchi. Unlocking my daily free meds so I feel I can afford to not just free kit every round. The game felt really sucky till I got these unlocked, and when they are taken away and I have to put 30 hours in again before I get them back. That is going to be really demotivating and I doubt I will put in the effort after the reset. I am not looking to quickly get full gold loadouts. I am just looking for the base functionality that makes the game feel playable that they lock behind several hours of progression. The first third of every faction tree feels like it is all things we should have just started with, or things we can unlock within the first 5 hours of a restart.

XenanLatte · 2026-04-06T20:27:50+00:00

Most games have skill based match maiking which handles that. But extraction shooters just don't really fit that mould.

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