Balance thread: The Berry shooter. [ Edited ]

[Theonze]

A few hours into the latest release... And I can already state the berry shooter is the worst thing to ever occur to this game along with the (gladly now nerfed) camo cactus. His infinitley spammable cannon of delicious death breaks the flow of the game just as the camo cactus' massive all-range burst damage once did or still does.

For you information, I am a seasoned level 233 xbox veteran along with newly moving on to PC, this post is entirely made from my own experience and opinions. But I do hope you can see it from a balance standpoint. Anyhow, lets cut the talk and get down to business. I am going to put this in point-to-point form. 

Summary, why he is broken:

1. 20 damage on splash hit from any range.

This one is self-explanatory. No efficient aim required, just mindlessly spam fruits in the general direction of a zombie across the map and see as their health goes -20 -20 -20 by the second. Along with seemingly increased splash range.

"But the Plumber can(Could?) basically do the same thing!" Every peashooter says... Which brings me onto the next point.

2. The Peashooter is not the Engineer.

This is the important issue. Peashooter has no arcing projectiles, Peashooter is not in base-form a very slow and very big target and the Peashooter does have direct access to high-ground. Not to mention the infamous chili bean bomb.

The Peashooter is unlike the engineer very direct-combat oriented with his small size and speed and should definitley not have a spam cannon along with his very powerful skills.

3. Has no bigger tradeoff towards other variants.

The only real downside to the berry shooter is its somewhat reduced clip size, the firing speed decrease is barely noticable and the reload is practically the same as the other Peashooters... Which negates the first downside by a larger margin. 

Suggestions, if any:

What would I suggest to this broken piece of nature?

Well, as it stands I would already from start suggest to remove the Berry shooter as a whole. The Peashooter is already way too powerful and combat suitable to get even more powerful splash spam hits. Aside from that though, the berry shooter can use some tweaks to stay in the game and fit its flow... Somewhat. 

So, its clearly obvious that the berry shooter was made for spam. But that does not make up for the fact he is still very, if not more, combat-able in all ranges. How to do balance that? Well, as it stands he his very comparable to the engineer in form of that he is very effective at laying down "suppresive" fire in form of splash damage. But yet again, the peashooter isnt the engineer. 

1. Give the Berry shooter a reduced damage disadvantage on closer encounters

 The engineer does lack somewhat in close combat due to his big size and lack of vertical movement aka hyper. So why not do the same to the berry shooter, but in form of giving him *reverse falloff*. Yes, the berry shooter does less damage (or rather more importantly his splash damage) on close ranges with this.

Why? This somewhat makes up for his spaminess with a disadvantage in direct combat. So as a berry shooter you would prefer to stay behind and be the dirty spammer you always are anyway. Although with this change you are now punished for being caught closer up, alike the engineer.

2. Give the Berry shooter an arcing projectile.

Simple as it sounds, giving the berry shooter an arcing projectile could be for better or worse, but it does give him a somewhat more unreliable weapon. And it does give him some sort of aim-requirement, which he currently absolutely lacks.

3. Reduce the Berry shooters max health down to 100/75.

Along with suggestion 1, I have alredy stated that I believe the Berry shooter needs a greater lack in direct combat. So why not do the simplest thing of +/- stats, this case in form of less maximum HP. The Berry shooter still regains his annoying spam cannon, but now lacks even more when caught close-up. And fruit is squishy, so it all makes sense! mileyvery-happy:

X. Lower the splash damage to 15 per shot.

Lets face it. The splash is too powerful as it is at the moment. It outclasses the newly nerfed Toxic pea... Pre-nerf at the moment. This shouldnt be. 

Last words.

I hope you agree to my opinions, I havent fully tested out the numbers versus toxic/fire yet due to laziness, but as far as it stands I am already aware that this variant needs a tweak or two. Feel free to add in your own arguments this thread and I will try to answer accordingly. 

And yes, great way to start a forum career, isnt it.

~Theonz.

[xcrimsonlegendx · Accepted solution]

Berry shooter nerf eminent.

https://twitter.com/cjopant/status/484508000120369152

[eternaldragonx]

Reduced damage at close range is just a ridiculous thought. Its quite simple....just make him do a bit less damage and problem solved.

[Texml69]

wow they are out for 4 hours and people are already crying like 3 year old's

 this is why company's nerfing anything is a bad idea after the first nerf everyone wants to cry till every class is the same and its a boring game

my god people get a life

[xcrimsonlegendx]

He's an advertisement, he's got to be better than the rest of the lot. I wouldn't doubt it if it was in the Aquafina deal contract that he's got to be OP for a certain amount of time. A crappy character isn't going to promote their products.

[NEPORTREID]

I honestly agree with the OP. I know its early but if you play it you will see the berry peashooter completly broke the game. I dont mind him having splash damage but he has access to areas no other character can get to and the damage is unreal. Which just throws of the balance of the game. I didnt mind the plumber because he is a big target and you dont have to worry about him being elevated. For example if the berry peashooter is at the first garden on the golf club map he can get all the way up on the canyon and shoot down and deal crazy damage. You cant really challenge him simply because of the splash damage. They nerfed the plumber so bad he cannot even splash off the wall unless they are sitting right up against it. The old plumber may have been a counter to him but since the update he has no counter. I was playing on one map and as soon as I spawned a berry peashooter was at the other garden shooting at me and 2 shots dropped me to 48. I probably will not play this until its fixed,but I guess the important thing is they have their product placement.

[ACactoos]

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@NEPORTREID wrote:

I honestly agree with the OP. I know its early but if you play it you will see the berry peashooter completly broke the game. I dont mind him having splash damage but he has access to areas no other character can get to and the damage is unreal. Which just throws of the balance of the game. I didnt mind the plumber because he is a big target and you dont have to worry about him being elevated. For example if the berry peashooter is at the first garden on the golf club map he can get all the way up on the canyon and shoot down and deal crazy damage. You cant really challenge him simply because of the splash damage. They nerfed the plumber so bad he cannot even splash off the wall unless they are sitting right up against it. The old plumber may have been a counter to him but since the update he has no counter. I was playing on one map and as soon as I spawned a berry peashooter was at the other garden shooting at me and 2 shots dropped me to 48. I probably will not play this until its fixed,but I guess the important thing is they have their product placement.

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The Berry Shooter is in all ways op. I try to murder it with a Chemist and am either at 20 hp left or am dead before I know it. I use a far range character to take down the Berry Army, but no use, they're too strong. I need at least 75%+ hp to survive a head to head encounter with one Berry Shooter. Usually, you have a chance to kill a full hp plant even if your half, but that doesn't apply to the Berry Shooter. No, not one bit.

(Keep in mind, I am a Level 233 and been playing for more than 280 hours)

If you think that Berry Shooters aren't op then your either drunk or playing against drunken little kids. Probably drop off from the game for a bit until the "Berry Horde" is gone.

Update: nerf the Berry Shooter and please no more nerfs that involves characters. Just buffs for characters in the future...

[AWMaxSterling]

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@Texml69 wrote:

wow they are out for 4 hours and people are already crying like 3 year old's

 this is why company's nerfing anything is a bad idea after the first nerf everyone wants to cry till every class is the same and its a boring game

my god people get a life

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Sorry, but the simple fact that his splash damage does more damage than most character's direct damage is screaming that it's overpowered. My understanding was that this character had a wider blast radius, which is fine if he was doing 5-15 damage per splash given his fire rate. The Tank Commander has a powerful attack, but his fire rate is extremely long.

If they insist on keeping the Berry Shooter, the least that they can do to keep him in line with other peashooters is to severely slow down his fire rate.

[ACactoos]

Think of the Berry Shooter as a small Plumber that does more damage with a direct hit and has faster fire rate than the Plumber.

On the bright side, this is the PERFECT time to get the crazy achievement for those that lack the necessary skills to do it. Remember, you must do it alone since it's the easiest way to do it and choose your garden carefully.

[reasonmj]

Berry shooter isn't OP, I just suddenly got much better at the game today

[dsehrioh]

Well, if they don't Nerf the Plumber, Berry Shooter will not have a chance.Plumber is our only hope to match with Berry Shooter.  Too bad, Plumber is useless now and Berry Shooter is dominating... After the Nerf on the various Zombies, it is really no fun playing as a Zombie now.. I can feel for those whose favourite characters suddenly become less "powerful".

In my opinion, just don't touch it. Put in more maps or characters.Fixing glitches, mic issue, etc. This will be more attractive.