[2020] OCE long ammo players

Watch the next devstream! :)

From a developer perspective, we try to give the players options - as many as we can. It's one of the strong sides of Hunt that there isn't really any clear right or wrong equipment (with maybe a few leftovers, we need to clear out still, ok!)

What we also try to push more for is that no single equipment category should be able to fully dominate the game. We've had this before during various stages of the game (both during early access and after) but it's getting better with every update. Our data suggests that long ammo weapons are still the deciding meta, but others have caught up a lot.

It should all be about a healthy mix of equipment, so that your secondary and your tools can help make up for the shortcomings of your primary, giving you flexibility. If you play in a team, ensuring that between you and your mates there is a healthy mix of short, mid and long range weapons usually works well in your favor. Ideally, you can fight at distance, you can push, you can suppress and you can go stealth.

The moment your equipment choice falls short in a match is the moment you lose tactical options. Depending on your playstyle, this is when the game can become stale and static. Either you cannot safely leave an area, or you cannot easily push in. Or you simply cannot respond appropriately to a team far away or very close to you. This is the typical "we have rifles, let's wait until they come out" vs. "we have shotguns let's wait until they come in" clutch for example.

It's too easy to pin this on the weapons only however. Parts of this is also dictated by the game mode that has a clear, fortified center point and the need to convoy your prize to the extraction point. It's only natural that you try to use the path of least resistance and that often means attacking when the other side is most vulnerable.

We can only try to fix this further with some of the things we are cooking up for 1.4 and talk about in a devstream very soon (oooh!) as well as future improvements to exit spread distribution for exmaple, to make it less likely to guarantee intercepting a team on their way out.

However, long ammo in general still remains the most powerful of equipment choices. In a game with long view distances and forced traversal (i.e. to an exit), having reach on your gun really seems to be more viable than short-range firepower domination most of the time. Penetration is a secondary, but also not unimportant factor here as well.

Running a long rifle gives you a lot of flexibility to respond to what happens in the game, like taking shots at that team you missed and is running for the exit, where your shotgun wouldn't help at all.

Even the latest Winfield levering changes have not mixed this formula up much. Of course, a lever rifle is a lot more flexible now and can allows you to stand your ground in CQC and still engage up to medium distances, but statistics show that it's still just a minority of players that use them, when they have the chance to run an long rifle instead.

But......but! Things have improved and overall we see a lot more diverse set of gear being used compared to before 1.3. So we are moving in the right direction at least. It's not about nerfing long bullets, but allow other options to step up and become more viable. Either through weapon balance or by giving them more opportunities to shine during a typical mission.