I'm currently at my third playthrough...
The first one was with tech weapons. It was fun in the beginning. But wall hacking an entire building in seconds became stale pretty quickly. There was no thinking or tactics involved. The enemies stood still for me to pick up one by one.
By the way, who thought it would be a great idea to have a sniper rifle (Nekomata) shake a little bit while it charges and shake extremely/uncontrollably when fully charged. I mean, it somewhat fits the theme of a gauss-like type of weapon. But why is it so pronounced at the end of the charging process and specifically on a sniper that should be precise? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Nobody who's interested in sniping would think "let's buy a sniper rifle but not a regular one but a really powerful one that misses almost all shots at long range, yeah, that sounds reasonable!".
Widow Maker: 2x6 pellets per charge is insanely powerful and therefore extremely boring. Six pellets should be more than enough, especially when you consider that you can get it very early in the game and uses the huge rifle ammo pool instead of the sniper ammo one (like the other precision rifle "SOR-22" in the game). There is no drawback. It can easily replace any sniper rifle. The Nekomata/Breakthrough can technically hit higher numbers but in reality you can't overkill an enemy.
To end on a positive note, I love the DR12 Quasar. An automatic revolver isn't something you see often. Well done!
The second playthrough was with smart weapons. I decided to go for a more glass cannon, close quarters and gun'n'run kind of build to keep it interesting. It was okay, definitely more fun than the tech one but it felt somewhat lacking. Recoil, accuracy and its compensation was completely irrelevant therefore I could skip all recoil and accuracy perks and mods. The L-69 Zhuo was my absolute favourite. The other ones felt more like peashooters.
When I did a lot of gigs that involved Tyger Claws it felt odd to centre a build around a weapon type while a huge portion of the enemies are "immune" against those.
But I loved the designs of those weapons except for the pistols.
Recently I started the third playthrough with power weapons. Oh boy, I'm glad I didn't use them in my first playthrough. Otherwise I wouldn't have used any other type anymore. They look and feel (the "kick" and sound) great and I have to use tactics more often. And the best part is there are a lot more variables involved which makes the build crafting process so much more engaging. I can't easily overcome enemies under cover. There are no wallhacks or magic bullets that curve around cover and automatically hit the head. I can use ricochet for that and it's a lot of fun getting both the timing and angle right, especially in dense combat situations.
Some of the iconic power weapons are way more powerful than their non-iconic counterparts but they still feel more fun than most of the tech and smart weapons.
So, that's enough from my end. What do you think? What's your experience with those three weapon types?
The first one was with tech weapons. It was fun in the beginning. But wall hacking an entire building in seconds became stale pretty quickly. There was no thinking or tactics involved. The enemies stood still for me to pick up one by one.
By the way, who thought it would be a great idea to have a sniper rifle (Nekomata) shake a little bit while it charges and shake extremely/uncontrollably when fully charged. I mean, it somewhat fits the theme of a gauss-like type of weapon. But why is it so pronounced at the end of the charging process and specifically on a sniper that should be precise? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Nobody who's interested in sniping would think "let's buy a sniper rifle but not a regular one but a really powerful one that misses almost all shots at long range, yeah, that sounds reasonable!".
Widow Maker: 2x6 pellets per charge is insanely powerful and therefore extremely boring. Six pellets should be more than enough, especially when you consider that you can get it very early in the game and uses the huge rifle ammo pool instead of the sniper ammo one (like the other precision rifle "SOR-22" in the game). There is no drawback. It can easily replace any sniper rifle. The Nekomata/Breakthrough can technically hit higher numbers but in reality you can't overkill an enemy.
To end on a positive note, I love the DR12 Quasar. An automatic revolver isn't something you see often. Well done!
The second playthrough was with smart weapons. I decided to go for a more glass cannon, close quarters and gun'n'run kind of build to keep it interesting. It was okay, definitely more fun than the tech one but it felt somewhat lacking. Recoil, accuracy and its compensation was completely irrelevant therefore I could skip all recoil and accuracy perks and mods. The L-69 Zhuo was my absolute favourite. The other ones felt more like peashooters.
When I did a lot of gigs that involved Tyger Claws it felt odd to centre a build around a weapon type while a huge portion of the enemies are "immune" against those.
But I loved the designs of those weapons except for the pistols.
Recently I started the third playthrough with power weapons. Oh boy, I'm glad I didn't use them in my first playthrough. Otherwise I wouldn't have used any other type anymore. They look and feel (the "kick" and sound) great and I have to use tactics more often. And the best part is there are a lot more variables involved which makes the build crafting process so much more engaging. I can't easily overcome enemies under cover. There are no wallhacks or magic bullets that curve around cover and automatically hit the head. I can use ricochet for that and it's a lot of fun getting both the timing and angle right, especially in dense combat situations.
Some of the iconic power weapons are way more powerful than their non-iconic counterparts but they still feel more fun than most of the tech and smart weapons.
So, that's enough from my end. What do you think? What's your experience with those three weapon types?