Hail Hydra o/ 

Nice idea - Having zones you can move into and not retreat from is pretty crucial to a cover based game imho - Think gears of war where you move into new "arenas" - you are forced to deal with what's in that arena. Not slowly run away and shoot it :D 

Great work soldier!

not heard it before but awesome idea! Why not put those pretty system they designed to good use! xD

I would like it if we could lure the enemy towards the floor mines and shoot the mines killing the enemy.

While it's a little cheese for the Crusader classes, who generally have a decent survivability, the ability to backtrack when faced with unexpected/uneven odds is vital for most of the assassins who are... fragile. To put it mildly.

Especially when mob spawn rates are still untuned and you can easily stumble into a room with a dreadnought, several Marauders (who currently have a broken regen compared to the rest of the Nurgle champion mobs), and half a dozen Havocs (who have a bug that has been documented that generally requires pulling one at a time into a safe area to kill them).

This is something to discuss after spawn rates and balance has been worked in, because as it stands there are already issues with players running into Death Rooms and getting frustrated enough to talk about quitting (usually a helpful soul offers to coop and keeps them around, but not always). As I brought up in other threads, one of the biggest concerns is making sure that the barrier to entry is not so high that casual players (a large audience) will not be dissuaded from continuing to play the game, and certainly keeping things tuned enough that the game doesn't get a flood of review bombing. Like Deathwing, which was perfectly playable and rather awesome at launch, but still managed to get review bombed because it wasn't a AAA game and lacked polish. By, I assume, players that never touched EYE: Divine Cybermancy, which was unpolished, buggy, and grindy as all hell (and a love letter to 40k).

Though for that matter, it's a little disingenuous to discuss "tactical thinking" and then totally disregard the concept of disengaging to reposition. You don't bash your face against a superior foe. If cover is disintegrating around you and their numbers are still too great to handle, you disengage and find a position that provides you with better options. Simply removing our ability to move freely removes that element, and removes some of the tactical choices available. Maybe the room is too wide open and their heavy weapons have good fields of fire. Me deploying a trap in the choke point hallway and drawing them into a killzone is then cheesy? How? Why punish players for having a more than passing familiarity with handling engagements with a ranged weapon?

In short, forced arenas are cheesy and do not actually add "tactical elements" to anything. As things are built now, I see more fluid squad level teamwork come naturally (with the addition of obvious sci fi, with things like the thunder hammer) where the ranged players break for cover, check their own lanes of fire, and lay down support for the assault units, prioritizing threats and handling them without the need for intensive squad chatter than I have in... a lot of "hardcore tactical" titles.

Why penalize that?

This isn't a call for every room in the game to lock the door behind you! What you describe as "necessary" should be the cover system and combat system, not "the retreating system" if an implemented arena is too hard, balance what it is in the room?  

Sorry but the notion that you find a forced arena cheesy yet take no issue with the above simply astounds me. I'm lost for words. 

Retreating and taking up a better firing position isn't cheese--especially when cover tends to evaporate like water on a forge under any concentrated attack. Yes, things need to be balanced, but they've as good as stated that a lot of the clump rooms where this becomes a thing are going to remain as-is, and the biggest threat that one might think could be whittled down like that comes in the form of Elites, who have leashes to prevent this from working.

Yes, if you try to lure an Elite out of a room, it will turn around and wander back to where it started, fully replenish health, and you'll have to start the fight over again. So, then it comes down to how one handles the hordes. If someone prefers to shoot and retreat, like, say, a sniper, then they're playing to the strengths of their class and, honestly, tactical wisdom. In the real world, snipers don't get bogged down in melee combat, nor do they do so in 40k.

Honestly this only even becomes an issue in singleplayer, as a sniper generally deploys once in coop and doesn't move until the room is clear anyway.

That being said, the bulk of what I post in regards to your posts, Hydra, are counterpoints. Neocore isn't going to get anything good from just "this is great", or "this thing is bad". The best feedback comes out of long discussions where things are picked apart and laid bare.

Because I can't edit my comments I have to add a new comment--I hate double posting.

I'll frame it this way: the overwhelming majority of players is ambivalent towards adjusting the cheese that is the Nurgle mark regen (specifically the over-the-top marauders, who out-regen NURGLE ELITES), with a few vocal elements going "it's perfectly fine you just want e-z mode!". So, if one has to channel those cheese-ball (seriously the Marauders are almost as bad as OldKronz) units into hallways and killzones by fire-retreat-fire, that's the effect you get for not tuning a common foe.

As it stands, between the documented Havoc stun-lock bug, the apparent community disregard for the Marauders being utterly broken units (can't move past them with phase/jump abilities, can't knock them down, can't stun them, they heal faster than what are currently stage-end BOSSES while also dealing more damage overall than said bosses) and players largely not caring or saying it "adds challenge" (protip: gearchecks and cheese-ball units are among the worst form of artificial difficulty), and the fairly common flow of "if you disagree you're bad" coming from both sides of the debates, you're going to have to accept the fact that some players are going to defend the tactics that they're forced to use.

Couple that with the fact that cover currently crumbles incredibly quickly against concentrated fire from small groups, the currently buggy targeting, and the fact that there are a rather large number of units that simply ignore cover, and you're left with the obvious solution: disengage, move, and resume firing.

You are just highlighting current balance issues as a means to justify a pretty poor game design :D 

Take issue with the balance! Heck. Presume that it's sorted. The question then remains "what else could make this game better" The ability to copy / paste a single strategy that requires no more than rubbing 2 brain cells together to beat everything in the game - is something that desperately needs addressing. 

I'm hardly justifying lazy design. I'm stating why the tactic is more prevalent with the current build with the issues present.

This would be prevalent even without that, because certain builds are simply suited (and seemingly designed) for guerrilla tactics. Just because a Crusader with a tank build can simply dominate the battlefield does not mean all classes should be built that way, and you need to keep that in mind. Some builds compliment a shoot-and-fade style--and with adjustments to the AI that would become a valid playstyle rather than being complained about on the forums.

As it stands, you can easily pull three rooms at once because of how mobs are apparently linked to those they spawn near. I've had T junction patrols pull the entire rooms to either side while fighting mobs in the junction, which has, on occassion, neccessitated a shoot and retreat. And my build is not what one would call fragile, but with sixty or more normal ranged enemies on screen it's suicide to stand in place.

So keep that in mind before assuming I'm advocating pure cheese, we've had enough back and forth that you should know I generally have a valid point to make.

I'm glad you took the time to respond--I don't think Hydra is fully following my point or I'm being abrasive enough that it's not getting across, 50/50 chance of either... actually I'm pretty sure it's the latter. I'm kind of an ass today.

I'm a very tanky class on my main. I simply do not retreat unless the odds are overwhelming (the aforementioned 60+ enemies with champions and a few traitor marines for good measure), but the idea that route of escape adds variety to my tactical options. Those options are, largely from my experience, usually used on Assassins solo--because assassins are squishy and have no passive mitigation. None. After the adjustment, they're more capable at range than they were, but they still frequently need to fall back to a better position, and having no-pass areas can (and likely would in practice) cause some rage-quitting as single-target burst damage builds were swamped and butchered.

So removing the option, in my opinion, removes a lot of the tactical flexibility and "play your way" from the game. Instead of intentionally shutting down something, I think we should focus more on balancing foes so that this tactic doesn't seem to be "the way" to play, and that way it becomes what it should be: a way to whittle down and ambush foes for "sneeki beakies", rather than what some feel is the cheese-ball "right" way to play.

Cover needs rebalancing, and some of the more broken units desperately need rebalancing, so that this tactic can return to the toolbox instead of being abused--because as I've stated to Hydra in other threads, punishing the broadest userbase to combat cheese used by a small number of players can only hurt the game.

I need to retreat sometimes just for regenerating my own health. Taking away that option(!) would get my character killed some times. I emphasized 'option' because you do not need to do it; if you do not like it, just don't do it.

If this tactic is needed at the moment because of unbalanced/buggy enemy units, then we should probably discuss it later, AFTER the balance-issues and bugs have been adressed ;-)

This is hitting the nail on the head. It's "the" tactic. The only tactic. The option of not having to do it doesn't detract from that fact that it trivialises content and is bad for the game's enjoyment. Just like logging in and out of the game to gear up your character. The fact that it's optional doesn't detract from the fact that it's also detrimental to the player experience. Relying on it to overcome current balance issue? - That doesn't justify it either, it justifies changing the balance issues. 

This brings me neatly on to the next point - Arenas DO NOT guarantee death. Taking current room design and stating that you need to run out of these isn't relevant to the argument no one has said - "Take this room with 50 enemies and please stick us in it with no way out xD"

Arenas are specifically designed and balanced as a separate entity. Instead of running into the previous room there would be other options of retreat within the room, this sort of goes without saying. Perhaps you enter somewhere and you deal with a wave system, perhaps it's just a boss encounter. Doesn't matter. But it's going to be a better and more memorable experience than running away, again. Because who needs a learning curve right? If you feel overwhelmed or that stuff is too hard? - Don't worry - Just run away!

Then we come to the argument of "we need to wait for the game to be balanced, then add this stuff". During an alpha we have features added, some rough balance performed on expectations, THEN balanced based on player experience. It's literally what we are here to do... If everything was balanced before adding a new feature then we wouldn't even be having this conversation in the first place. Arguments should be made with a goal of improving the game, not based on current player satisfaction. If it means the game gets temporarily harder while stuff is balanced? That is what we signed up for.

It seems sometimes that the alpha test / founding thing is forgotten and we discuss balance like it's a "current game issue" with the assumption the staff are sitting there with their hands in their pockets. We can make certain assumptions that things that do not work are getting fixed.. We can also discuss the "what next" part - because the Neocore staff aren't waiting for stuff to be balanced before setting to work on creating the next bit of content either. 

I've sort of addressed your points in my more spam-like comment below. But wanted to address you specifically out of respect.

The point you are making is that if the current tile sets have some artificial walls put down in the middle of them that this will be very hard to complete. Fine. Only no one asked for that.

Adding arenas doesn't mean adding walls to current tiles to make them into arenas. It means (to me at least) adding specific content areas with specific challenges which are built and balanced around what a player is capable of. While assassins do take 20% more damage, this doesn't mean retreat is mandatory. Guerrilla tactics can be performed inside a well designed room. Their dodge function is perfect from moving from cover to cover. Encouraging a player to learn to do this is far more beneficial to the games longevity than encouraging them to run away.

This and the other problem doesn't address issues with balance in the current system as-is, and could seem like an "easy fix" to tide us over before a larger update. That has happened in alpha programs in the past and can be... detrimental.

To the dodge, yes this would work... if not for the currently wonky targeting system. I switched back to my Crusader to continue racking up account levels after reaching 12 on the assassin because I found I was consistently rolling towards my cursor... when hitting dodge in the opposite direction. This kinda thing leads to dying. A lot. There are some comments that can be made towards having two completely different playstyles (wherein Crusader has passive mitigation, while all of the Assassin's are active), but that would be dodging (pun intended) the point.

The current issue, and what is causing a very small group of players to feel like it's "the only way to win", is that unit balance is completely out of whack. Very common units have statblocks that I am now almost positive are not statted as intended (fighting them alongside Elites and having the Elite die first and hurt you less) causing a need to retreat quite frequently, especially if you're not raw flat out DPS. Yeah, for the most part my sader can tank rooms without breaking a sweat, but eight units that deal 1500 damage a swipe will get past my mitigation (that's 6,000 damage by the way, just a hair under my total--AFTER DAMAGE MITIGATION), and they show up more than the chunky heavy stubber ranged mobs. Oh, and they've got (an estimate from active play, not a hard number) what appears to be a 90% chance to ignore stun, knockdown, etc... and you cannot jump over them, phase through them, or dodge through them, they act like impassable terrain in terms of movement effects. So when they show up, your options are "retreat or die". Right, and they also outheal everything else that has the Nurgle Mark. Even Nurgle Hellbrutes and Dreadnoughts have about a third of their regen rate. Those ugly, high regen elites that pop out of the box in Spoils of War missions? Yeah, one of those two CR higher than my PL has a lower regen (doesn't out-regen my cleave unlike Marauders) and damage mitigation (my cleave actually damages it) than a single Marauder a CR lower than my PL. That means that the mission modifiers, the penalty to damage I take and deal... still doesn't push the big specialist units anywhere near the base Marauder's stats. For that matter, even with the active Nurgle champ healing auras none of the other critters reach that rate of regen.

And that's from one very broken unit. It's worse than the Havocs, who are managable but can break the game if 2 or more of their rockets hit at once (a fairly "easy" situation to avoid normally as you aggro one and pull it out of the room and kill it until all of them are dead) which is a documented bug now. It contributes to a lot of unconscious fall-back instincts.

So, like I said before, there's every chance that when the broken unit is fixed this won't even be an issue. After that? Yeah, special arenas would be an interesting thing to see, and might make for a nice change of pace. But until Havocs and Marauders are fixed, they'd just be maps largely ignored because, well... do you want to get stuck in a room with clumps of units that either lock down your UI for up to a minute (not working as intended); or a clump of units that can lock you in place, are almost totally immune to CC, and are more durable and deal more damage than the daemon engine sitting in the center of the arena? Because I don't. That would probably cause an immediate alt+F4... and I didn't ragequit when I first encountered the rocket havoc staggerlock UI bug.

I understand you don't like seeing cheese. And I get that, I've been playing the tabletop off and on since before the unleashing of the OldKronz. I know cheese. Hell, my pen and paper players try to sneak cheese past me constantly. But... my reaction is not to come up with ways to change it that punish the players that aren't using the cheese. I figure out what is causing them to resort to that aged cheddar and fix it in a way that is beneficial to all of the players. Which is how it should be.

It would have saved me a chalk board, three calculators and an abacus if you had just said "its could be an interesting idea as long as it is balanced" 

I would think by now you've realized I'm "one a dem talky gitz". :P

My focus here, is still trying to ensure that what are currently broken units are fixed as a priority before coming up with ideas on how to make fighting them different. And, well. The Marauder dead horse deserves to be beaten.

Depending on the spawn, I see between 6% and 12% max health per second regenerated. The specialist elites have what mikes out to about 4% to 6% at the highest end. With my 70% damage reduction up (from 50%), Marauder attacks still deal between 500 and 1500 damage directly. They're almost entirely immune to CC. They can't be jumped over. They can't be phased through. They can't be dodge-rolled through. So the instant a pack of more than two spawns, if I don't play the bugout boogie I'm toast. And that's on a character that receives 30% of damage dealt and has a 25% chance to totally block the damage. So... I mean... on an assault-Crusader? Or worse yet, an assassin?

Now, the only other unit in the game that deals that much damage to me through my DR? The Decimator. And it only manages that during the charged pieplate, if I decide to "stand in the bad". And Decimators don't spawn in large groups of six to ten.

So, yes. Continuing to beat the drum to fix the broken stuff before implementing more challenge content is gonna be my stance. And I'm going to continue to be wordy about it, because I'm not a fan of "this thing sucks" with no reasoning behind it.

well I commend you for your persistence :D

But it's not like the whole development team have paused what they are doing while we wait for "that guy" to modify those units. We gotta keep all 30 of those pesky Hungarians busy!

I swapped characters over to my assassin just to make sure I was, in fact, not blowing hot air when it came to how solo sniper plays. It pays to make sure I'm not just being grumbly, ya know?

Sure enough, the only way I can clear most of the content is to trip off a mass charge by picking off a mook, and then fall back to previously chosen cover points. If I try to engage in place, I end up swamped before I finish my first aimed shot. There are some balancing issues with the sniper rifle to work out, as well, but largely it comes down to needing two charged shots to down a single marauder and then, of course, the cluster of other things that'll kill me just as dead.

This is a tactial game, Falling back is a tactic. I can't see big changes to that. I have noticed that the biggest waves i find are near the start where falling back is not possible. As for forcing players on to a 'tanker' toon or making them run through mob's to get away. That won't end well.

No game will ever be fully balenced. There will always be better spec's to play for different jobs. Whats more important is that the 'jobs' are there for those that enjoy them to play. Eg. In WoW removing traps from hunters made the useless and unwanted in groups. An Aoe setup should not do the single target damage as a single target set up. Hate the nerg's the most :S.

That's what I was saying as well, good to see someone agrees with me. I was starting to worry that I was applying too much real world to my vidya game time.

From what i am seeing so far that's the way the Neocore are taking it. That's why i am so looking forward to full game. No other reason like 'O.o it's 40k'. You are not the only one. 

There is a middle ground between making weapons single purpose - ie having Snipers having 0 aoe capability, and simply making the argument to increase the cooldown on their AOE to make them less cersatile. To me at least i've seen more arguments for the former, rather than the latter.

With the Exitus, I finally have a reason to swap to my second weapon and employ tactics other than "spam explosive shot until everything but the champions are dead, then use charged headshots to clear them out". The AoE forces me to think about when I use it, the piercing shot, likewise. So in a tight scrape, it works out the way that it seems intended--in that I have to choose the tools to use for the job at hand, rather than running through mission after mission not changing to my second weapon at all. The Exitus is far better at single-target than the other sniper rifles, as well... so I think tweaking the long-las and SP sniper rifle more towards that than the current "assault rifle/grenade launcher with a scope" thing isn't totally a bad idea.

As it stands, the SP sniper rifle and long-las just don't feel like precision engagement weapons at all, they feel more like the $5,000 Omen rifle that the idjit at the range decided to slap a slidefire on "for the lulz". That is my own personal thing though, I tend to feel like anything issued as a sniper weapon should require a little more thought in its use as opposed to spraying and praying; especially when the fire rates of both the long-las and SP sniper rifle are in both crunch and fluff.

Basically, it's not that I don't think it's interesting that I can employ burst munitions... it's that the single target damage feels like it lags as a result with the SP and long-las, and that it doesn't feel like I have to plan as carefully when I breach a room as it does when I have the Exitus on hand.

Tangent: the Mars Exitus Rifle is a gem. Only packs four rounds, but the single target damage makes up for that. Still have to swap to a secondary to clear crowds, but it definitely feels like a precision weapon; and the extra planning before a breach feels more gritty.

I'd agree with the longlas rifle - it's a little underwhelming. Imho mostly because it doesn't have any of the "knockback / pen" of the exitus counterpart.

As for the standard sniper rifle it's an interesting one. The primary ability is a bleed based and very low initial damage. If you spam that no wonder it's going to feel weak. The RB however is the explosive round and on a much shorter cooldown. To me at least this means the two rifles have clear identities. Fair enough some people might not like the identity of the latter rifle which excells at clearing small and lightly armored packs - but i'm personally happy seeing variety within snipers rather than having all snipers move towards a single role. The advantage is that a sniper player can fill many roles with each weapon etc. 

I'll give you that on the SP rifle, partly... the left mouse feels worse than I think it should for the bore size, with aimed shot taking a fair amount of time to really deliver, and the very short area of effect cooldown feels more like a payload rifle than a sniper rifle or DMR. Could solve it by raising the LMB's 0.8 second cooldown and increasing the damage a hair though.

But then there's the needler sniper rifle. Crunchwise, they're bad at armor pen (worse even than a lasgun), and are essentially superpoison weapons. Fluffwise, largely the same. In Martyr... They're basically DoT-based assault rifles. That are also very good at very large AoE. It just feels off, more like a Dark Eldar splinter rifle (now there's an idea for Radical Inquisitor gear!) than a proper needler sniper rifle.

I think the need to make a weapon unique currently > the need to make things fit the lore. 

I've been considering dusting off the mic and doing my own, at first I thought I'd be stepping on your toes but I think at this point multiple viewpoints wouldn't be a bad thing.

There are a few things going on in my thought process, above and beyond the lore. One of them is that a sniper rifle is... a sniper rifle. It fits a specific role in my toolbox. A lot of that is drawn from the real world--I wouldn't bring a bolt action rifle to a shoot house, they're too unwieldy for that kind of close quarters work. Likewise, I wouldn't use an assault rifle to try and take a 2,000 meter shot; nor would I try and use a pistol for any kind of range work past about ten. That forms my opinions on how things feel in a game with firearms--I spend time in the guts of the real thing, so they lack the arcane mysticism that a lot of people seem to think they have. No, really; even members of the shooting community think what I do is sorcery half the time (which makes my decision to use the AdMech cog as my bench mallet rather appropriate) but that strays from the topic at hand.

So it feels really strange to take an Assassin specced out for sniper work, and then spend most of my time using pieces from that toolbox that don't actually do what it says on the tin. The needler is frenetic, fast paced. I roll about, getting shots on high priority targets, and do very little actual thinking--just reacting. With the Exitus, I think more carefully about shot placement, I consider the biggest threats and take them down in order. It's calculating and methodical, which is what playing a sniper should be. And when it drops in the pot, I switch to a more suitable weapon for crowd control.

Any rifle can use different rounds to do different jobs. There is no issue to me to have a sniper using explosive, poison, hollow point or anti-amour rounds. I can't see a need for a needler or Exitus. We should be able to just choose the ammo(powers) we can use on the SP rifle. The longlas is a great idea but. The issue is the more choices we get the harder/worse balance gets.

With the way the Exitus plays, it feels more like taking the step up from an Omen to a Light Fifty. It's glorious, and really fills the role of a dedicated sniper weapon. With that out of the way, I too would like to see the ability to load up specialist munitions--potentially slotting up our rifle's "loadout" with the skills used.

That said, a .22 caliber round is always gonna be a .22 caliber round--that's why I almost never recommend the 5.56mm for anything beyond pest control. It really doesn't matter if you load it with frangible or squash-point rounds, it's still not going to cause the same terminal wound channel that a .30 or .40 bore solid round will, and definitely won't perform terminally nearly as well as the specialist loads of a .30 or .40 caliber rifle. At the moment, even though visually it looks like the SP is in the .50 range, it's performing like a 5.56mm; which is where my issue firmly sits.

The need for exitus or needler is the same as the need for any other weapon. To represent the diversity of the lore and the arsenal and provide as many variants as possible. It's the only advantage of a very simplistic and easy to balance system - that variety can be introduced easily.  

With your point on balance - Because every weapon is independent. It's probably the simplest form of balance one can imagine. With each weapon taking 4 of a total of 25 ish abilities (ranged weapons) assuming that pool of abilities are balanced then any weapon you create from it will be of a very similar range. Not perfectly balanced but similar. IF anythign is too good you have very small tweaks to make to CD's which won't impact any other weapon. It's both the strength and glaring weakness of the system.

I have more issues with the AoE (explosive shot) doing more single target damage (with no points in area, all points in single target) to a elite/boss than the single shot.

That's where the question has to be asked. Should snipers be either

A - Similar playstyle - Single Purpose - Varied in execution.

B - Similar playstyle - Multi Purpose - Varied in execution. 

Clearly though there is some friction with rapid fire and mobility not fitting some players vision of what a sniper should act like in addition to some players preferring A over B. 

If you think of it like this - 

• A Character represents overall strengths and weaknesses in terms of survivability / maneuverability. 
• A Weapon category represents a subclass of sorts 
• A specific weapon represents a specific execution of a subclass.

Now the question is this - Should each subclass be specialized? If so then you funnel each weapon type towards a "purpose" and have to provide variation in terms of execution of that purpose. Like with most FPS games. If this is the case then changing category of weapon is the only way to change your strengths and weaknesses. Changing subclass within inquisitor is certainly possible but it's not as user friendly to achieve due to weapon unlocks etc.

Apologies for the very long response - but figured it might explain why the AoE does more damage than single shot - because it's the only 1 of the 4 snipers with an AoE centered rotation. While clearly it goes against what people visualise of these weapons - it at least allows players to pick a weapon category they like, then pick a build suited towards the playstyle they like. 

It is possible to obtain B while still retaining the fit and function of the thing it is supposed to be.

Most FPS games long ago gave up "purpose", because the accepted design meta is "the assault rifle is king because the rest is too 'hard' to balance properly". Once upon a time, if you picked up a submachine gun in a game, it did what subguns do. It was faster to put on target, but it did less damage. Shotguns did what shotguns do... work well as a breacher's primary, delivering (and this is something developers seem to forget) up to twelve .30 caliber balls in an 18" or smaller area (yeah, the silly cone thing is a huge myth, shocker), and if you ran into the shotgun guy in a hallway he was going to wreck your face. That required too much thinking to work out how to defeat. So they whined, and whined, and nowadays subguns are worthless bullet hoses while shotguns turn to confetti past about three paces, with a cone so large it would make Baskin Robbins proud to boot.

The issue, then, again... when your AoE ability does more damage to more targets overall than your single shot (and on some variants, comes close to a fully charged sniper shot), that is a mite unbalanced for a sniper weapon--it starts to catch up to the role the grenade launcher fills. In most games (and even in Martyr, with most of the area effect weapons), area of effect damage is lower per target to account for the number of targets.

Don't get me wrong. I do so love me some endgame skills where my area of effect damage is absurdly huge (GD's Arcanist, for example), but the SP rifle is the one you start with, and it continues to be in the category of "this is the only thing I'll use this entire play session" up until you unlock the Exitus, which is when you start actually having to think a bit.

Look, I'm not saying that they all need to force the player to sit down and calculate out local gravity, planetary rotation, wind condition, humidity, and air pressure. All I'm saying is that the category should be set up to require more thought--you equip a sniper rifle, you should think about what you're going to do before executing a breach. As it stands, the only difference between my 'sin with a needle rifle or SP rifle and my Crusader with a boltgun or grenade launcher is that the latter has a much higher health pool and much higher survivability, while the former (in the case of the SP rifle) has larger ammunition pools and lower cooldowns.

If this was intended to be raw, unthinking action ala Diablo, rather than being (on the tin, in fact) intended to be more tactical and require more thought, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Correct me if im wrong but im getting mixed vibes. something between the following two statements but i'm not entirely sure which.

1 - Sniper rifles aoe shouldn't > it's single target 

2 - Snipers shouldn't do aoe damage. 

Just to start by pointing out that 1 is flat out false. The standard sniper rifle which is the AoE of the pack, has 3/4 of its abilities being single target and the highest damaging attack being single target on a 3 second cooldown. Within a basic rotation you will alternate your RB and Aimed shot with occasional LB to keep up dots for bonuses etc. At most it's shifted 30-40% of its standard rotation to an "anti pack" ability which is still competent single target - However given the strength of aimed shot its more like 20-30% of the guns overall damage which is effected. (I really think you underestimate the aimed ability which is meant to be the defining sniper trait here, not having a single fire left mouse button).

So when we have 4 different snipers why shouldn't one of them favor AoE in place of other variables? - Having it's LB do lower damage in place of a bleed is just the trade off that is paid in order to make space for it to excel at something else. Should you buff LB and nerf the RB, you have an exact replica of the exitus rifle.

With utmost respect it seems like people don't like the idea of a single weapon class being versatile - ergo there is going to be at least 1 weapon in every category which certain individuals won't like simply because it isn't in line with how they want the gun to behave?  

Can't edit - Just to clarify i''m not saying don't balance the AOE capacity of the sniper rifle - i've also used it for a good 20+ hours and would confirm that it is very strong at clearing trash. But the Exitus is Very strong at killing armoured elites, the needler is very strong at killing non armoured regen based elites. 

Maybe it's just been the sniper rifles I've had, but largely the overall damage output of the RMB has outshone the damage of the aimed shot, not just the LMB attack. Yes, the burst damage is higher per shot, but the overall damage output of Explosive Shot has largely been (in my experience) higher than Sniper Shot--again, not the burst damage (though in the case of one SP rifle, the stats adjusted burst damage to be on par with Sniper Shot, which was odd), but the sustained damage output.

Really, it's not that I don't want it to be versatile, it's that Martyr is the first game that gives one a real reason to use a second weapon set for something other than passive stats. Everything from Diablo 2 to the modern Grim Dawn has never given me a driving reason to use my other weapon when, really, my main set does it all. And that really becomes obvious when you take a sniper rifle and it's the same story, blazing away with the one piece of equipment. That's why I've been digging the Exitus so much. It provides a good reason to switch, and my second set isn't just useless passive stats.

I've been having a little trouble with coherency the last few days (the TL;DR: pain makes me groggy), and I apologize for any confusion it's caused.

Trust me you are more coherent than most. Probably more than myself. 

Re the aimed shot - are you charging it? - If you aren't you need to go back to sniper school. The spike damage is the only way to live. Standing still for 3 does come with it's challenges though..

Could also be build related - i've often gone for crit based buits and emphasised single target shots / + single target etc on weapons. Fairly sure you could do the opposite though and make the AOE disproportionate with + ranged damage etc and aoe spec.

One thing that you have highlighted is that "some" weapons make you want to swap - But actually that's limited to just one type - Weapons that lack sufficient AoE - The ability to kill lots of mobs quickly. As you say the Exitus is a classic eg of that - its an amazing gun while there are 10 mobs on screen, but once you hit 30-50 - Get something else out. For me at least that's kind of a drawback of the current combat. AoE is the strongest thing to spec into right now because it makes trash clearing so dramatically fast. Any weapon with AoE seems far better, any weapon without it seems far worse. Somethign to do with mob placement tbh - they stand so densely together - perhaps lowering all aoe splash a little is a viable thing to consider here. 

Yup, I've been charging my aimed shots up to full.

The Heavy Bolter also needs swapping at times--especially when your modifier is -25% to -50% damage dealt--to take on tougher foes; and that's a good thing in the long run. Having a reason to change weapon sets will give us a reason to use that second weapon set (which actually ties into your commentary on people not changing equipment out to try other things, too). There's been an "off set" for a long time, but outside of obscure builds I've never had cause to swap in most ARPGs. So anything that gives us cause to swap out, and actually think before engaging, will be beneficial in the long term--something that again, in practice, does not happen in most ARPGs.

Basically... If our weapons are just that good at doing a little bit of everything, why have an off set at all?

Disagree on Snipers shouldn't do AoE. Ever build needs a Single target/AoE(rapid fire)/Dot and anti-Armour. But the AoE should not be the best bet on elites/bosses.

I guess there is a fairly fine line here. First it needs to be decided if the guns that make you want to swap are too weak or alternatively if the guns that make you not want to swap are too strong. Depending if Neocore wants 2x Mainhands with varying bonuses or if they want to feel more role specific. 

As you say, the latter makes more sense - There might be a danger though of going too far by making weapons niche. Because ultimately we have two weapons, but a potential wide array of specialisms. I think having each weapon capable of completing 80% of a map but swappable for a few occasions is probably a good place to aim for.

Take our sniper rifle with high AoE - Reduce it's damage vs armored targets or give the right click a -30% damage to medium size and above - Yes it'll frustrate some players who don't want a sniper to be that way inclined, but it'll still be swapped out more frequently and still retain it's identity.