Pending Detective Equipment Tweaks

[Pumpkin]

One of the first to come cause it's the easiest to write down.

Spoiler: Reference

Gonna keep it short, detective equipment is a little polarizing. On one hand you've got the grapple gun and... yeah, and on the other hand you've got pretty much everything else. To fix this issue I've decided to list some tweaks/reworks for the rest of the kit:

Green - No or very minor changes, not a big deal whether or not they get introduced,
Yellow - Minor/medium changes that should elevate an item's viability and/or enjoyment in use,
Red - Major changes that should definitely be considered, because - frankly - this shit sucks.

Radar - No changes.

Visualizer - Move it to slot 8, it's a utility tool that you throw out once and just forget about it in the vast majority of cases. It's just a little annoying being forced to drop something more broadly useful for it.

Defuse Kit - No changes.

Binoculars - Niche, extremely so. However, that being said, it's not inherently a bad thing, but you have to be borderline suicidal to genuinely use these the way God intended. The identification time is too long, even the slightest loss of tracking will result in a reset which forces you to essentially stand still while the progress bar laboriously goes up. There are a couple ways you can go about fixing this:
-A cheap 5 level perk that, at max level, cuts down the identification timer to about 2 seconds,
-Just make the scan 2 seconds instead, no perk required,
-Make scanning instantaneous, instead apply a limit of 3 to 5 scans per funny paper towel.
Any of the above tweaks still keep the tool a niche pick, but should make it a genuinely viable choice in the few cases it actually shines in, also no longer makes you a free credit dispenser for traitors.

Jackhammer - Of the 4 guns, probably the most conventionally good of the bunch, however not by a large margin. It's just average, which is kinda sad since it causes it to get heavily overshadowed by the taser or the grapple hook, hell even the UMP to a degree. This one's probably the hardest to balance but I'd start by either upping the damage by a small amount or its RPM. There's a 3rd option to consider but I'll leave that for the general gun thread.

Teleporter - No changes.

Intervention - Painfully below average, its only saving grace is that there's a much bigger, whiter turd in the detective arsenal. Genuinely doesn't warrant a purchase in any setting unless you want it because it "looks cool" (the weapon model is a travesty btw, why does it take up so much important space?). If you want a sniper rifle, just pick one from the 8417308921 that there already are on the server and use that credit on something actually meaningful.
So what's the proposed solution? Ramp up the damage from 60 to 80, decrease RPM and magazine size if you must. Being able to more or less 2 shot a person regardless of their body armor or its lack there of should give it a nice spot in the arsenal without making it too crazy.

Health Station - No changes.

Taser - No changes.

Smith & Wesson 500 - The aforementioned white turd. This thing blows, tremendously! And not in a good way. There are 3 things keeping this gun down in the gutter:
-Accuracy - it's horrible,
-Firerate - it's awkward,
-Damage - it's laughable.

So how do we fix this? I've considered 3 different options:

-Make it more consistent - Up the accuracy a little bit, increase the recoil and increase damage by 5 (to avoid the dreaded 1 bodyshot + 2 limbshots = no kill scenario - that shit happens far too often and it's not funny).
-Make it less annoying to use - The model looks ready to fire before it really is, that could use a fix. Increase RPM by a little too. Other than that, once again increase damage by roughly 5 points.
-Turn it into a genuine hand cannon - Keep the firerate, increase the inaccuracy slightly, increase recoil greatly and standardize damage multipliers (everything that's not the head hitbox, 1x damage).

Are these solutions perfect? No, but this gun needs some love that Smith & Wesson clearly didn't have for it.

UMP Prototype - No changes other than maybe an ever so slight buff to either accuracy (0.00X type of increase) or damage (1 damage more).

Grapple Hook - No changes, maybe limit purchases to 1 per detective.

Hex Shield - Torn on whether or not it belongs in the 7th or 8th slot, probably better it stays where it is.

As I said, more is on its way. Not sure whether I should tackle traitor equipment or guns in general first, but I'll figure that out later.

 

[Kit07]

Radar - No changes.

Visualizer - Move it to slot 8, it's a utility tool that you throw out once and just forget about it in the vast majority of cases. It's just a little annoying being forced to drop something more broadly useful for it.

Defuse Kit - No changes.

Binoculars - Niche, extremely so. However, that being said, it's not inherently a bad thing, but you have to be borderline suicidal to genuinely use these the way God intended. The identification time is too long, even the slightest loss of tracking will result in a reset which forces you to essentially stand still while the progress bar laboriously goes up. There are a couple ways you can go about fixing this:
-A cheap 5 level perk that, at max level, cuts down the identification timer to about 2 seconds,
-Just make the scan 2 seconds instead, no perk required,
-Make scanning instantaneous, instead apply a limit of 3 to 5 scans per funny paper towel.
Any of the above tweaks still keep the tool a niche pick, but should make it a genuinely viable choice in the few cases it actually shines in, also no longer makes you a free credit dispenser for traitors.

Jackhammer - Of the 4 guns, probably the most conventionally good of the bunch, however not by a large margin. It's just average, which is kinda sad since it causes it to get heavily overshadowed by the taser or the grapple hook, hell even the UMP to a degree. This one's probably the hardest to balance but I'd start by either upping the damage by a small amount or its RPM. There's a 3rd option to consider but I'll leave that for the general gun thread.

Teleporter - No changes.

Intervention - Painfully below average, its only saving grace is that there's a much bigger, whiter turd in the detective arsenal. Genuinely doesn't warrant a purchase in any setting unless you want it because it "looks cool" (the weapon model is a travesty btw, why does it take up so much important space?). If you want a sniper rifle, just pick one from the 8417308921 that there already are on the server and use that credit on something actually meaningful.
So what's the proposed solution? Ramp up the damage from 60 to 80, decrease RPM and magazine size if you must. Being able to more or less 2 shot a person regardless of their body armor or its lack there of should give it a nice spot in the arsenal without making it too crazy.

Health Station - No changes.

Taser - No changes.

Smith & Wesson 500 - The aforementioned white turd. This thing blows, tremendously! And not in a good way. There are 3 things keeping this gun down in the gutter:
-Accuracy - it's horrible,
-Firerate - it's awkward,
-Damage - it's laughable.

So how do we fix this? I've considered 3 different options:

-Make it more consistent - Up the accuracy a little bit, increase the recoil and increase damage by 5 (to avoid the dreaded 1 bodyshot + 2 limbshots = no kill scenario - that shit happens far too often and it's not funny).
-Make it less annoying to use - The model looks ready to fire before it really is, that could use a fix. Increase RPM by a little too. Other than that, once again increase damage by roughly 5 points.
-Turn it into a genuine hand cannon - Keep the firerate, increase the inaccuracy slightly, increase recoil greatly and standardize damage multipliers (everything that's not the head hitbox, 1x damage).

Are these solutions perfect? No, but this gun needs some love that Smith & Wesson clearly didn't have for it.

UMP Prototype - No changes other than maybe an ever so slight buff to either accuracy (0.00X type of increase) or damage (1 damage more).

Grapple Hook - No changes, maybe limit purchases to 1 per detective.

Hex Shield - Torn on whether or not it belongs in the 7th or 8th slot, probably better it stays where it is.

As I said, more is on its way. Not sure whether I should tackle traitor equipment or guns in general first, but I'll figure that out later.

Defuse Kit- make it have limited uses (1-2), but unlimited store usage, would make sense for Traitors to use 1 credit for C4, but then Detective 1 credit to counter act

Binoculars - As said make the examine time much faster, if needed give a use amount (Probably not needed)

Jackhammer - This thing is CHEEKS, absolutely needs a good buff, its ROF is good, but its damage is lacking as well as the fact its only 10 shots, so you are out of ammo before you can even read the name of the guy your shooting at, it needs a damage and ammo count increase to be useable.

Intervention - Only complaint I have about this gun is how big it is on my screen, but other than that, its a good gun if you know what your doing and its 60 damage shows compared to the other snipers

Health Station - WHY IS THERE SO MANY DAMN POINT UPGRADES FOR THIS DAMN THING THERE'S 10, also should be given two of these to use considering the C4 and Jihad tends to destroy these things since they're in a populated area. Lower the upgrades to 2 for the Amount of HP in a station +50 each, and 4 for the Amount of HP you get from the station (+1 for the first +2 for the others)

Tazer- No damage on initial impact, if they're on the ground and you're trying to kill them, they ain't living anyway

Smith & Wesson - As stated this things dookie ass, a possible buff would be 60 damage like the intervention and more accurate like the python and the remmington 1858 had a child, a fire rate change could be something like the R8 Revolver from CS2 (a slight delay before shooting with right click a spammable inaccurate shot)

UMP Proto - This thing is pretty bad, terrible damage, mid recoil, and its ability is practically the only reason you would use it, and even then you would need someone else with you to be shooting at the victim to make it viable to use

Grapple Hook - unless I'm just unaware there's no way to take the hook off without getting 100 meters close to it, a key to take the hook off and use the grapple somewhere else would be much convenient to use

 

[pigeon]

Visualizer - Move it to slot 8, it's a utility tool that you throw out once and just forget about it in the vast majority of cases. It's just a little annoying being forced to drop something more broadly useful for it.

Fully support this. Too many detective items are in slot 7.

Binoculars - Niche, extremely so. However, that being said, it's not inherently a bad thing, but you have to be borderline suicidal to genuinely use these the way God intended. The identification time is too long, even the slightest loss of tracking will result in a reset which forces you to essentially stand still while the progress bar laboriously goes up. There are a couple ways you can go about fixing this:
-A cheap 5 level perk that, at max level, cuts down the identification timer to about 2 seconds,
-Just make the scan 2 seconds instead, no perk required,
-Make scanning instantaneous, instead apply a limit of 3 to 5 scans per funny paper towel.
Any of the above tweaks still keep the tool a niche pick, but should make it a genuinely viable choice in the few cases it actually shines in, also no longer makes you a free credit dispenser for traitors.

I could go either way on whether this should be a perk or default behavior, but binocular scan should be instant. It costs a credit, this isn't too strong.

Jackhammer - Of the 4 guns, probably the most conventionally good of the bunch, however not by a large margin. It's just average, which is kinda sad since it causes it to get heavily overshadowed by the taser or the grapple hook, hell even the UMP to a degree. This one's probably the hardest to balance but I'd start by either upping the damage by a small amount or its RPM. There's a 3rd option to consider but I'll leave that for the general gun thread.

I've always seen the jackhammer as an easy to use "oh fuck I'm gonna die" button when you get caught off guard. I don't think it needs to be much better, but I think it could get a slight buff and still be fine. I'd be in favor of adding one pellet, which I would expect to raise the damage floor and raise the damage ceiling in a way that also makes the damage ceiling more difficult to achieve. Would definitely need testing though.

Intervention - Painfully below average, its only saving grace is that there's a much bigger, whiter turd in the detective arsenal. Genuinely doesn't warrant a purchase in any setting unless you want it because it "looks cool" (the weapon model is a travesty btw, why does it take up so much important space?). If you want a sniper rifle, just pick one from the 8417308921 that there already are on the server and use that credit on something actually meaningful.
So what's the proposed solution? Ramp up the damage from 60 to 80, decrease RPM and magazine size if you must. Being able to more or less 2 shot a person regardless of their body armor or its lack there of should give it a nice spot in the arsenal without making it too crazy.

I like the identity of it being a really high damage, low fire rate sniper. I would not mind exactly the change you mentioned. I also don't think it's needed. To me, the strength of the T and D snipers are that they give you the option to snipe without needing to give up your primary weapon. I would pay a credit to be able to equip the default rifle in slot 7, the actual stats of the sniper are secondary to the utility it provides.

Smith & Wesson 500 - The aforementioned white turd. This thing blows, tremendously! And not in a good way. There are 3 things keeping this gun down in the gutter:
-Accuracy - it's horrible,
-Firerate - it's awkward,
-Damage - it's laughable.

So how do we fix this? I've considered 3 different options:

-Make it more consistent - Up the accuracy a little bit, increase the recoil and increase damage by 5 (to avoid the dreaded 1 bodyshot + 2 limbshots = no kill scenario - that shit happens far too often and it's not funny).
-Make it less annoying to use - The model looks ready to fire before it really is, that could use a fix. Increase RPM by a little too. Other than that, once again increase damage by roughly 5 points.
-Turn it into a genuine hand cannon - Keep the firerate, increase the inaccuracy slightly, increase recoil greatly and standardize damage multipliers (everything that's not the head hitbox, 1x damage).

I genuinely think that you could implement all three of these changes and it still wouldn't be worth a credit. This needs to be able to compete with the jackhammer, intervention, taser, and UMP. I would propose making it at least as accurate as the deagle as a baseline. Then I'd say tweak the damage numbers so it always kills in 3 non-headshots regardless of body or limb, and finally move it to slot 8. I don't think you can make the smith & Wesson ever be more desirable to use than the intervention, which is a straight upgrade in damage profile and accuracy, and has no penalty at close range but also can be used at long range. The only way to make it competitive would be to make it kill in one body shot, which I think would be too good. I can't imagine this ever being relevant unless it's both accurate and not directly competing with slot 7 weapons.

Defuse Kit- make it have limited uses (1-2), but unlimited store usage, would make sense for Traitors to use 1 credit for C4, but then Detective 1 credit to counter act

I agree with this in theory, but as it stands the defuse kit is never worth buying. There's no reason to nerf it. If you wanted a limited use defuse kit, I'd say it should be a grenade that destroys traitor equipment in a certain radius.

Tazer- No damage on initial impact, if they're on the ground and you're trying to kill them, they ain't living anyway

The point of the damage on impact is so that it's RDM to randomly tase people. It could be a rule adjustment to make it RDM to tase people independent of the damage, but I think it's a bit more intuitive this way.

UMP Proto - This thing is pretty bad, terrible damage, mid recoil, and its ability is practically the only reason you would use it, and even then you would need someone else with you to be shooting at the victim to make it viable to use

I really don't want this thing buffed. You cannot fight back as long as you're getting shot by this. I'm surprised it's not used a lot more. I'm very okay with this underperforming on the damage side, because this thing is going to be oppressive to play against if it's any better.

Grapple Hook - unless I'm just unaware there's no way to take the hook off without getting 100 meters close to it, a key to take the hook off and use the grapple somewhere else would be much convenient to use

Reload key unhooks. This should be added to the tooltip, but we're looking into different grappling hooks anyway so w/e

 

[Chipp]

My two cents:
There's no reason for any "gun that shoots bullets" to exist in the D shop. Why would you ever buy the S&W, Intervention, Jackhammer or UMP when so many of the base guns are so good? I'd take a PSG, HK or honeybadger every day over spending a credit on one of the D weapons.

This is not to say "nerf the map guns, they're too strong", more so - I don't think D needs any 'unique' weapon which is basically just a regular gun. I'd give only the UMP a pass because it does something very minor in addition to just firing damaging bullets.

I think some people might be against removing these because it'll leave the D shop nearly empty, but to that I say we should instead populate the D shop with other more interesting items.

 

[pigeon]

My two cents:
There's no reason for any "gun that shoots bullets" to exist in the D shop. Why would you ever buy the S&W, Intervention, Jackhammer or UMP when so many of the base guns are so good? I'd take a PSG, HK or honeybadger every day over spending a credit on one of the D weapons.

This is not to say "nerf the map guns, they're too strong", more so - I don't think D needs any 'unique' weapon which is basically just a regular gun. I'd give only the UMP a pass because it does something very minor in addition to just firing damaging bullets.

I think some people might be against removing these because it'll leave the D shop nearly empty, but to that I say we should instead populate the D shop with other more interesting items.

I don't really agree with this. I think there's a lot of value in being able to have a sniper or shotgun without needing to drop your AK. I do think this is more true as a traitor where you get to be proactive rather than reactive, but there are still situations where I'm going to want to have a sniper as a detective without giving up a primary weapon to use if someone gets close to me. I just don't think detective weapons need to be markedly better than base guns to be worth buying.

I'm all for adding more things to the detective shop. But I'd be careful about adding too many things or things that are too interesting to the point where detective rounds become too complicated. In general, the detective weapons do exactly what they're supposed to do right now. The traitor shop is full of powerful toys to make traitors more lethal, while the detective shop is full of gadgets that add utility to the detectives' kits. Detective weapons are not meant to be more lethal than base weapons, they're meant to add utility to detectives by being a second primary weapon.

 

[Pumpkin]

Defuse Kit- make it have limited uses (1-2), but unlimited store usage, would make sense for Traitors to use 1 credit for C4, but then Detective 1 credit to counter act

The defuse kit is a fairly niche utility option, it really does not need limited uses just because some traitors are too lazy to properly hide their c4s.

Health Station - WHY IS THERE SO MANY DAMN POINT UPGRADES FOR THIS DAMN THING THERE'S 10, also should be given two of these to use considering the C4 and Jihad tends to destroy these things since they're in a populated area. Lower the upgrades to 2 for the Amount of HP in a station +50 each, and 4 for the Amount of HP you get from the station (+1 for the first +2 for the others)

https://imgur.com/fYTa2Vy

All that really does is consolidate the capacity into 2 upgrades instead of 5 (which would need a price readjustment) and increase the health regen per tick from 6 at max to 8, making it even more obnoxious to fight. I'd be willing to reduce the maximum healing upgrades to 2 or 3, 3/4 hp per tick is plenty enough. Two healthstations per detective is also a big no-no.

UMP Proto - This thing is pretty bad, terrible damage, mid recoil, and its ability is practically the only reason you would use it, and even then you would need someone else with you to be shooting at the victim to make it viable to use

The ability is specifically why you want to use it and why it has such pitiful TTK. The shock effect makes it very difficult for the other person to fight back, I'm kinda surprised it's not used that often.

I genuinely think that you could implement all three of these changes and it still wouldn't be worth a credit. This needs to be able to compete with the jackhammer, intervention, taser, and UMP. I would propose making it at least as accurate as the deagle as a baseline. Then I'd say tweak the damage numbers so it always kills in 3 non-headshots regardless of body or limb, and finally move it to slot 8. I don't think you can make the smith & Wesson ever be more desirable to use than the intervention, which is a straight upgrade in damage profile and accuracy, and has no penalty at close range but also can be used at long range. The only way to make it competitive would be to make it kill in one body shot, which I think would be too good. I can't imagine this ever being relevant unless it's both accurate and not directly competing with slot 7 weapons.

Buffing the revolver and making it a slot 8 weapon is certainly a fun idea to entertain, could honestly work, but I believe it should retain its inherent inaccuracy.

I don't really agree with this. I think there's a lot of value in being able to have a sniper or shotgun without needing to drop your AK. I do think this is more true as a traitor where you get to be proactive rather than reactive, but there are still situations where I'm going to want to have a sniper as a detective without giving up a primary weapon to use if someone gets close to me. I just don't think detective weapons need to be markedly better than base guns to be worth buying.

I'm all for adding more things to the detective shop. But I'd be careful about adding too many things or things that are too interesting to the point where detective rounds become too complicated. In general, the detective weapons do exactly what they're supposed to do right now. The traitor shop is full of powerful toys to make traitors more lethal, while the detective shop is full of gadgets that add utility to the detectives' kits. Detective weapons are not meant to be more lethal than base weapons, they're meant to add utility to detectives by being a second primary weapon.

But they do need to be markedly better, how often do you see people actually use one of the 4 guns the detectives have access to? 2 of them are underwhelming, 1 is unusable and the other is admittedly just slept on, probably because it doesn't cause an ethnic genocide with the click of a button and you actually have to shoot at your opponent for a bit. I've already touched upon the revolver and the UMP, and the way I see it the jackhammer is meant to be a CQC option for when you expect to deal with multiple opponents at the same time. It somewhat gets that job done as it is but it feels a little lackluster in that department.
I'm also surprised that the intervention gets a positive/neutral rep? Considering I never see you or any other person use it, ever. It genuinely has nothing going for it and comparing it to the dragunov only makes the case for it worse. The dragunov on top of being stealthier (crazy) also has a very quick recovery between shots when compared to the other sniper rifles and the standard 50 dmg shot is no big deal when the large majority of your targets are innos with no armor. If you really want a long range option as a detective why not pick up any of the offered sniper rifles and use the jackhammer or the ump as your cqc option? Not to mention the auto snipers in most regards cover both close range and long range combat a little too well.