need so bad the bolter buffs

please, just give bolters a headshot stagger.  Think of stagger as a long range parry.  The enemy is way more mobile than 2/3 of the space marines.  A headshot stagger can get you into malee range, counters long range majoris.  Headshot stagger.

7.0 PTS seem to increase the Bolter Guns effectiveness, but I still baffle why they can't give Auto Bolt Rifle more good perks. Instead it has this weird hoops to get damages increase. Like the current new perk call Elite Headhunter, or the existing perk called Rampages.

IMO post patch 6.0, all the bolters could still use a 5-10% buff across the armory, especially on higher difficulties the enemies are still pretty bullet spongy.

We are on patch 6.0

 And I think that the Bolters have really become good compared to before.

 There is no need to increase them even more.

 In my opinion they are good like that!

Bolters don’t need a buff they need a rework… they need a headshot stagger effect.  The worst part about the bolters is the best part about the melta.  The stagger can stop an attack and give you a chance to close the distance for malee attacks

agreed, even after the buff bolters are underpowered and need more utility like others have said

@Mzulft Bolters from Astartes Overhaul are fine ;)

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dactyr wrote:

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Xen113 wrote:

Instead of a straight number boost, what they need is extra functionality imo. There should be small splash damage and a supression mechanic for the fully automatic weapons to make exchanges of ranged fire feel less like an unfair slog. it would also promote a little more team play this way. Supress groups of ranged enemies to make the approach easier for melee focused characters. 

I think they need a 10-15% buff against majoris and stronger, but need a MAJOR buff vs minoris. Relic bolters on Ruthless and Lethal should be 1 shotting for the most part (maybe not termagant's - they tend to be sorta resistance to ranged damaged)  at last hormagaunts that arnt empowered. Mastercrafted and such doing the same for the respective difficulties. Maybe you can choose an ammo loadout too with the ability to trade out normal bolt rounds with kraken rounds at a cost,an they do more damage to majoris and bigger but can hold less or something , and sorta scale it with armor thickness, i mean it would track with toughness vs strength checks for the table top power scaling too. 

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Xen113 wrote:

Instead of a straight number boost, what they need is extra functionality imo. There should be small splash damage and a supression mechanic for the fully automatic weapons to make exchanges of ranged fire feel less like an unfair slog. it would also promote a little more team play this way. Supress groups of ranged enemies to make the approach easier for melee focused characters. 

I think they need a 10-15% buff against majoris and stronger, but need a MAJOR buff vs minoris. Relic bolters on Ruthless and Lethal should be 1 shotting for the most part (maybe not termagant's - they tend to be sorta resistance to ranged damaged)  at last hormagaunts that arnt empowered. Mastercrafted and such doing the same for the respective difficulties 

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Bebacer wrote:

Forgive the taboo, but piggybacking on this thread since it's been Green Lit and is getting Dev attention, pulled from my recently created thread - https://community.focus-entmt.com/focus-entertainment/space-marine-2/ideas/7521-bolter-ammo-damage-improvement?page=1#post-7521:

​In my personal experience of the game and understanding of the lore, all the weapons that fire bolter ammo are under-powered (except maybe heavy bolt pistol) for 2 reasons. 

 1) Lore wise, it's described in ways such as "acting like a miniature rocket" and "designed to penetrate the target before detonating within, maximizing damage to the target and leaving little chance for survival". I get that, lore-wise, there also lots of crazy things stated about the enemies of mankind that might mitigate the lethality of regular bolter rounds, but on the whole they are represented in text and visually as being highly penetrative and destructive. 

 2) and more compellingly, I think, the kill to ammo spent ratio for bolter ammunition is making the game more challenging than a lot of other reasons, and virtually unbeatable under certain conditions. The most common in my experience is running out of ammo when a large enemy arrives, or if you get some particularly bad "rolls" and have multiple waves between ammo crates. I think ammo scarcity in general is in need of re-balance, but to stay focused on bolter ammo, when it have to use 2,3,4, or more rounds on the smallest enemies of each faction, the compounding total ammo needed to get through waves of enemies is just not available a lot of the time, and you wind up getting stuck between the choice of just fleeing the zone until ammo appears, or slugging it out with the melee mechanics, which are still somewhat janky for dodges.

Increasing bolter damage significantly while reducing overall ammo reserves, or even slightly reducing magazine size, would (I think) maintain difficulty as intended by the devs, but open up a lot of parts of the game that feel stifled (arbitrary/random difficulty, balance of weapons that are fun to use, increase in amount of viable team strategies, ammo fatigue/famine, "power fantasy",etc.). In my perspective, that would look like a 100-200% damage increase (1-2, maybe 3 hits for minoris enemies) and a 20-33% reduction in ammo reserves. If magazine reduction was needed, maybe 10-20%. 

Using the heavy class heavy bolter as an example (what I'm most familiar with), I don't need to carry around 400, 500, 600 rounds of ammo just to have to chew through (what feels like) 3, 4, 5, or more rounds on each minoris enemy. That's like only 100-150, maybe 200 enemies per magazine, assuming they are all minoris. Being able to carry even just 300 rounds, but knowing that proper application is going to allow me to chew through 200+ enemies would feel way better, and line up a lot better with where we typically seem to be encountering ammo.

Lore wise, if devs care about there being a good reason, just say they were converted to Kraken Penetrator Rounds or whatever (at this point I think they are just not performing for what they should be as standard, but whatever it takes to convince the Devs, PLEASE....   PLEASE).

I second this and mention it in a separate idea as well. I think this hits correctly. If they want to introduce a big change like this and incorporate it in lore they could say that it was a bad batch of bolter rounds, found that there was a conspiracy of heresy that was discovered orchestrated by imurah to make the bolter rounds weaker and it was rooted out by the inquisition and now we have less but the bolter rounds are now functioning properly. 

Frankly the bolters feel like a bit more than pebble throwers. Nowhere near we need to get rid of large number of enemies or heavily armored enemies. Only the fully upgraded heavy bolter feels like it's somewhat useful on the first 3 difficulties.

Forgive the taboo, but piggybacking on this thread since it's been Green Lit and is getting Dev attention, pulled from my recently created thread - https://community.focus-entmt.com/focus-entertainment/space-marine-2/ideas/7521-bolter-ammo-damage-improvement?page=1#post-7521:

​In my personal experience of the game and understanding of the lore, all the weapons that fire bolter ammo are under-powered (except maybe heavy bolt pistol) for 2 reasons. 

 1) Lore wise, it's described in ways such as "acting like a miniature rocket" and "designed to penetrate the target before detonating within, maximizing damage to the target and leaving little chance for survival". I get that, lore-wise, there also lots of crazy things stated about the enemies of mankind that might mitigate the lethality of regular bolter rounds, but on the whole they are represented in text and visually as being highly penetrative and destructive. 

 2) and more compellingly, I think, the kill to ammo spent ratio for bolter ammunition is making the game more challenging than a lot of other reasons, and virtually unbeatable under certain conditions. The most common in my experience is running out of ammo when a large enemy arrives, or if you get some particularly bad "rolls" and have multiple waves between ammo crates. I think ammo scarcity in general is in need of re-balance, but to stay focused on bolter ammo, when it have to use 2,3,4, or more rounds on the smallest enemies of each faction, the compounding total ammo needed to get through waves of enemies is just not available a lot of the time, and you wind up getting stuck between the choice of just fleeing the zone until ammo appears, or slugging it out with the melee mechanics, which are still somewhat janky for dodges.

Increasing bolter damage significantly while reducing overall ammo reserves, or even slightly reducing magazine size, would (I think) maintain difficulty as intended by the devs, but open up a lot of parts of the game that feel stifled (arbitrary/random difficulty, balance of weapons that are fun to use, increase in amount of viable team strategies, ammo fatigue/famine, "power fantasy",etc.). In my perspective, that would look like a 100-200% damage increase (1-2, maybe 3 hits for minoris enemies) and a 20-33% reduction in ammo reserves. If magazine reduction was needed, maybe 10-20%. 

Using the heavy class heavy bolter as an example (what I'm most familiar with), I don't need to carry around 400, 500, 600 rounds of ammo just to have to chew through (what feels like) 3, 4, 5, or more rounds on each minoris enemy. That's like only 100-150, maybe 200 enemies per magazine, assuming they are all minoris. Being able to carry even just 300 rounds, but knowing that proper application is going to allow me to chew through 200+ enemies would feel way better, and line up a lot better with where we typically seem to be encountering ammo.

Lore wise, if devs care about there being a good reason, just say they were converted to Kraken Penetrator Rounds or whatever (at this point I think they are just not performing for what they should be as standard, but whatever it takes to convince the Devs, PLEASE....   PLEASE).

Right now bolters are a joke and using them is practically pointless. No need to buff them in pvp just buff them in PvE another 30% damage increase should be enough.

Stagger.  Bolters shoot literal bolts, large pieces of metal that explode?  Then they should be able to stagger any target if you shoot it in the face.  

agree , they have to buff them

Bolter damage still trash across the board. Saver doesnt understand that percentage based increases don't do anything with the extremely low numbers we have to work with. Good job devs, now our boltgun does 1.6 damage per shot instead of 1.4. Amazing buff. You guys clearly aren't nuckle dragging apes.

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SgtRorschach wrote:

The damage of the Bolters is no longer the problem, now it’s their utility. Meltas offer self sustain and a reliable stagger, and Bolters not only lack those traits but also any other traits that could make up for that. The Bolter weapon archetype has no unique identity in Space Marine 2 and that is what needs fixing now.

agreed!!

The damage of the Bolters is no longer the problem, now it’s their utility. Meltas offer self sustain and a reliable stagger, and Bolters not only lack those traits but also any other traits that could make up for that. The Bolter weapon archetype has no unique identity in Space Marine 2 and that is what needs fixing now.