Hi there fellas, I have some qustion for you: What do u think about weapon balance in the game? Right now Im level 32 (at least as I remember) and have buffed only non-auto rifle once (20% buf.) As far as now it was pretty comfortable to play with semi-auto combat rifle w/scope, 100 pistol, combat shotgan, Gauss rifle and laser. But now Im thinking to play with auto rifles. I luv conventional weapons, so Im trying to find a use for Assault rifle-pretty expansive, rare weapon. BUT in compression with plasma rifle(which cheaper) it svcks. It has more weight, less damage, less accuracy and range, and, mainly, half of plasma rifle's damage. So am I doing something wrong or bethesda really failed to balance?

Plasma Rifle is the strongest weapon in game and always has been. Should it be more balanced? Ammo is rare for plasma and you get them late. Kind of like getting obsidian blades or daemon armor at the end of a game. You can make the Plasma automatic if you like. You can make most anything automatic. waste of ammo but more fun and easier if you're a bad shot. Automatics also have a much higher rate of fire and shoot 3 bullets in vats for one shot of a rifle making the damage even or better than a one shot rifle (depending on the gun, .38 is weak either way).

well, I got plasma rifle almsot simultaniously with assault rifle (maybe 1-2 hours later) and right now I have equal amount of 5.56 and plasma ammo. So it feels like I just missed such guns as assault rifle, magnum 44, tommy gun 'coz when i found them it waas already too weak or I had no ammo for it

I pumped up semi auto rifles and pistols until level 32 as well. But then i found a laser weapon that doesn't ever need to reload. So the per shot damage is much lower sure, but the damage per second is phenomenal and damage over time without needing to reload is amazing. Its great enough that i keep it on hand and have started investing perks into commando to pump up the damage even further. it helps that fusion cells are the 2nd or 3rd most common ammo type so i had ~2000 on hand when i found it and even after the initial glee of wildly spraying lasers everywhere i have around 1800 cells left. I wouldn't do it with a plasma weapon though even if i had an endless magazine simply due to scarcity of plasma charges. Also, i hate plasma weapons in general for how slow the blasts travel, enemies at long ranges will just walk out of the line of fire before impact. maybe they have a niche as a close to medium range shotgun type weapon?

Since I chose to put my points in Pistols, my .44 is a monster. It hits for 90+ and fires fast enough to not be annoying. I got the one off of Kelogg and it has been my favorite gun ever since.

LOL..........its supposed to be weaker than a plasma rifle.

Bethesda has "failed to balance" them, but not really. Its not a multiplayer game so it doesn't matter all that much. Ammo is harder to find and more expensive because it is flat out better.