The game models weapons simply. None of it is meant to be a simulation, anyway.

As far as "Is this weapon OP? Shouldn't .50 cal do more damage?" -- Not really. In an effort to keep the discussion from starting all over again (you've basically gone back to page 1 posts here), others have posted quite a bit of info and quality links that prove the .44 round packs much, much more punch than a .50. In this regard, the game is not wrong to make .44's the superior round. It also explains the relative rarity of .44 ammo in the game.

What I think needs to be discussed is whether the .50 cal fills a meaningful role in the game. What sets it apart? What are the pros/cons of using these weapons? What advantage does it offer that nothing else offers? If the answer winds up being that it can be out-classed or out-performed in every category by something else, then there's something for Beth or the modding community to take a look at.

I think that's what it looks like. I would simply add a base level of AP (say 10%) to every .50 weapon (above and beyond what can be added by mods). That seems to be exactly what the round was designed for IRL, and since most .50 cal weapons fire so slowly in the game, having a fully modded .50 rifle, near 100% AP, even with "meh" damage, would definitely make them worthwhile to use.

Just to sum up my thought cause there seems to be a lot of confusion

I compare the weapons fully modded with the highest damag mod and 5 points in their respective perk (which isnt relevant cause its the same % gain but nevertheless)$

I also clearly said that the realism comparison is one way too look at it but that i was aware this is a game and im also looking at gamemechanics, and there it doesnt make sense either - imo every weapon in the game should have a This but This kind of balancing (or rock paper scissors). Why do i think this?

A) Cause assets will be wasted otherwise since no one will use them after the initial period and i always hate that - wasted assets means wasted content for me

Due to the perk system which kinda needs to balance weapon types out

Then lets look at gameplay mechanics:

a .44 vs. a .50

the .44 is stronger by about 30%

the .44 has a faster fire rate and reloads faster

the .44 costs less point in vats

the .44 lets you look like rick grimes (dont argue)

the .44 has a range of 180 vs 215 ; but range isnt that important cause a) lots of indoor / close environments and even from 180 distance enemies rarely detect you; and the difference is relatively small

the .44 has an accuracy of 82 vs aprox 110 in the .50 with a long scope

the .44 is lighter so you can carry more shinies

The only advantage a .50 has is a bit more range and accuracy - but from my experience there are nearly 0 game situations where you need that range - without 1 point in sneaking i can easly walk up to enemies half that range and shoot em in the head without them noticing me, its really not that hard - besides, if you use a silencer it drastically reduces range.

I just think the .44 is an overall better weapons - why do i compare those? Cause they are both kinda the heavy hitter. Sure you can just not care about it and say, well its worse - but as said, i think a healthy balance would make sense even if we dont care about realism and i think a hunting rifle especially doesnt make enough damage - at least with other rifles you can say, they have less recoil than a .44 does (which has 0 impact in vats so....).

Maybe that is the problem and they need to find a better balancing system for both in and outside of vats...

All im saying is that the .44 is a beast; the .50 is very weak in comparison and has nothing speaking for it (the other rifles have less damage but little recoil and fire much faster which is much better in the end). To contribute for the drawbacks of a sniper/hunting rifle i think its damage should be on pair with a .44 cause otherwise i have no scenario where i would want to carry around one with me... not even as a long range sniping option where i can just use the highger damage plasma or others...

You will find less bullets for your .44 than for many other calibers, so even if it's unbalanced it's balanced with the number of ammo you'll find, or the money you ll need to spend to deal such damage.

In a game where the .38 pipe rifle, with its weakest receiver and the right perk, in the hands of a level 13 player character can pin a glowing deathclaw to the ground until it dies I don't think the term 'balance' has any real meaning.....

If Bethesda put any thought into balance in FO4 it must have been under the MAO doctrine (mutually assured overpower), where balance is maintained by having everything easily become absurdly OP so no-one misses out!

I don't think the actual effect is any gun overpowered in-game, really. Consider that in life, I shoot somebody in the head with a .22 and they are dead 95% of the time. In the game, I shoot a raider or a gunner in the head with a .45, and he turns around and lobs a grenade or a molotov at me...

Thinking about that, the question is not balancing overpowered weapons, as it is nerfing weapons that should be far more deadly so the game can be playable in an enjoyable fashion.

The main design point, if you want to call it that, is that pretty much any calibre in the game is usable from start to finish, with modding.

The game design doesn't follow simplistic FPS mechanics of 'find better weapon, must use better weapon'. It actually provides a choice in what you can use effectively, the difficulty being that many players don't want, or can't accept, a situation where all calibre firearms have a superiority over all enemies....they would, apparently, prefer to be forced to use more powerful weapons, in a simplistic rock/paper/scissors damage vs defense equation (i.e. this gun kills that enemy, but not this enemy).

Keeping in mind, the game is not a simulation, and the inclusion of 'legendary' weapons is basically the equivalent of giving players magic weapons.

I dunno, I think the .38 would be hard to stay with through the entire game. I just got a couple of those "magic weapons"... a "Violent Automatic Pipe Rifle" that does 25% more damage the flag on it says it does 22, I don't know if that included the 25% or not. Using it on supermutants at level 14, it took 12 or more rounds to drop him. I'm having trouble envisioning using that to fight a mirelurk king.

The second weapon is a "Crippling Hardened 10mm Pistol" that does 50% more damage to limbs. Flag says it does 27 damage base. What I don't know, is if the head counts as a limb in all cases. Mirelurk King for instance. However, I used it against a crowd of ghouls, and it took a leg out from under each of them in one shot. It's kinda fun. I can tell I'm gooing to use it a lot.

For myself though, I prefer the idea that more powerful weapons are needed from time to time.

In life, I don't hunt bear with a .22 pistol, eh? I wouldn't expect to in-game either.

Mine definitely fires slower than the .308 combat rifle and is less accurate at range. It does do more damage per shot but the rifle is the choice for medium to long range encounters or multiple tough opponents. I haven't seen a .50 non sniper/hunting type rifle yet though.

Its powerful but not so much its my weapon of choice.

@Neildarkstar, I don't disagree. In FO3, unique weapons became the weapon of choice for players, in FO4, even basic perked up and modded up standard weapons are pretty usable all the way through. Some legendary weapons are simply 'fight over' insurance though, such as the 'increased stagger' weapons. I modded up an irradiated 10mm pistol to auto, and per burst it churns out 168 damage, with 75 radiation per shot on top of that...if that radiation damage is per round, rather than per firing, then that gun pumps out 393 damage per burst, which is massive for a quick firing (in VATS) weapon.

We're not talking about a combat rifle though, since you can't mod it to have .50 ammo. The whole point of this thread is that the .50 rifle is underpowered.

But it is NOT underpowered. The argument in favor of it being underpowered depends on ignoring its (significant) strengths. The .50 rifle has a better range, can be silenced, and boasts a larger magazine. With Sandman & Rifleman maxed out, the damage from the .50 sniper totally destroys that of the .44 pistol, and that completely disregards the range advantage.

I said that was the point of the thread, not that it was underpowered. A guy earlier provided the same argument you did and I agreed with him, that's about the only situation the .50 comes on top though.

sorry, I thought we were talking about the .44 being overpowered and some folks were just obsessing on the .50. Seems they're both pretty good in their own way but if I had to carry only one, it would be the rifle. too many situations where that range advantage is vital

Doesn't the gunslinger increase the range on all handguns by x2, thus the .44 revolver would have a (reasonably) huge range? Or are we just talking about the basic weapon, no perks?

If the .50 is supposed to be .59 BMG, it is seriously UP......if it is supposed to be something like the .50 AE round from the Desert Eagle, it's more or less OK Personally, I'd prefer a .44 rifle along the line of the Lincoln Repeater in FO3....lots more versatile than the .50. A .50 is for top tier enemies like Sentry Bots, Deathclaws. Behemoths and people in power armor.

I'm not sure why you quoted my post as I was saying more or less the same as you and did not argue with real world gun performance. The .50 is lacking ingame when it is meant as a top damage end game mod for powder weapon sniping and general use (you can not always snipe). The damage increase compared to the .308 is too small. For me the problem is solved however after I installed a mod to buff the .50 receiver mod.

You omit two things:

A. Rifleman perk adds armor piercing effect. In case of maxed perks you are using in your comparison, it's 30% of armor reduction.

B. You need to be level 39 to obtain Gun Nut lvl. 4 which is needed for top modifications you are using. Weapon perks you referee to are also obtainable only at very high levels. That means for good part, if not the most part of the game your comparison will be irrelevant.

As for game, balance, there is no reason at all, why every weapon in the game should have being balanced in a rock scissor paper way. There are clearly weapons which at any given moment in the game will be less and more powerful. Weapon modifications are there to extend usability of weapons, but they are not designed to give them equality or immortality. There are several weapons in the game which including their various modification are more powerful then either .44 revolver or .50 sniper rifle. That's not broken mechanic, some weapons are supposed to be more powerful then others.

And last, there are other things then damage or range which affect choice of weapon. I rarely choose weapons I am using solely based on damage. Among other things, availability of ammo makes large difference too.

In other words, there is no reason from the point of game mechanic, why fully moded .44 revolver should not be doing more damage then .50 sniper rifle.

I was agreeing with you, expanding on it, and suggesting the idea of "filling a unique role" rather than worrying about simple "damage values".

Never said that in so many words, though.

I think we're all largely splitting hairs, actually. We're talking about a damage spread that is separated by a number of different factors:

1.) The base damage of the weapon/ammo.

2.) Any weapon mods installed that increase/decrease damage.

3.) Perks that add a rather arbitrary increase in damage. (Works for the game, but makes no real sense as a point of either realism or weapon balance.)

When it boils down to it, .50 cal rounds seem to have fallen into a no-man's-land category -- they cause middling damage, fire at a middling rate, and offer middling range (considering any LR weapon). They're not useless, but they offer nothing special.

But does this really affect anything gameplay-wise? By the time you reach the perk/mod levels where the disparity in damage becomes really clear, you can cause decent damage with any of your chosen weapons. Whether you can kill a 500 HP super-mutant in 2 hip-shots with a .44 causing 348 / 152 damage, or 2 hip-shots with a .50 causing 280 / 220 damage...the results are the same: super-mutant soup.

When you take into account .50's role as ammo for long-range weapons (plus initial sneak damage being far more likely at range)...it's not really that unbalanced. It's just nothing special. Up until these higher levels, .50 rounds are fairly more powerful.

Is it wise to cook that thing? Do you know how much Forced Evolutionary Virus is floating inside?

The FEV will simply enlarge your stomach capacity and introduce mutated strains of digestion-assisting bacteria as needed. No worries.

Tastes like crap, though.

Are you sure? Look at those super mutants, sure it makes for nice spacey stomach, but look what it does to your skill color?

Mine is flashing. "I like it, but I don't know what it means." (-Jaden Smith)

Your cuisine sir is disgusting! You even make paste from gloving ones! I mean, there should be some standards even for apocalypse!

I had standards once. I scrapped them to make recon scope.