Should spread be reduced?

[Roflcopter]

Currently spread is almost three player widths at about mid-range on the AR. It's higher on SMG.

The following picture illustrates the current amount of spread in 1104:
http://postimage.org/image/kgywhtgx9/

I propose we lower the spread across all weapons.

[Mystered]

I am not sure, how you got this image, could you explain, or at least try ? Because maybe you just took a ss and put black points on it just to convince Devs. I dont say it is true, i just want proofs before voting

[ExodusS]

No it shouldn't but it should not be resetable when you clic-clic-clic very fast.

[Roflcopter]

...

I removed recoil and made bulletholes permanent. I also changed my bulletholes to that shape (I can't change the colour because they are decals not images). I kept my crosshair in the center and shot several clips at the wall. The final shot is taken with 80 field of view. I was standing right against the box.

[Ronald_Reagan]

ac_firingsquad gogogog (@ the image)

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Should make a map with some geometry targets and distribute binaries with no recoil and one with proposed spread changes to compare.

And bullet distribution should be circular (at least a diamond shape) instead of square.

[Roflcopter]

Should make a map with some geometry targets and distribute binaries with no recoil and one with proposed spread changes to compare.

I am on Linux right now so most people couldn't use a client I compiled. Be careful not to join any servers with these clients if you make them for obvious reasons. :)

Also, for now it's nice to where people stand.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

You could let me compile it. And I thought you could edit the headers or something to change the internal "version" of the game so you can't join servers unless they match your version.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Change the protocol :>

[Lantry]

And bullet distribution should be circular (at least a diamond shape) instead of square.

it could be that the image is just making it look like a square because of where the shots landed, but if the game actually does do spread in a square area, that should definitely be changed to a circular area.

As for spread being reduced, I don't know. Having though about it for only a few minutes, I think it shouldn't, mainly because that would take away one of the carbine's few advantages.

[Mael]

That is not even close to three player widths. It's just wide enough to call it one.

[Roflcopter]

That is not even close to three player widths. It's just wide enough to call it one.

Your eyesight needs checking. Measure it in pixels.

From the center of the further left spread to the center of the further right spread is about 47 pixels, horizontally. The player width is about 18 pixels wide (the hitbox probably less since it's slightly smaller). That makes the spread about 2.6 times as wide as the player width.

Additionally this is measuring very conservatively and with more bullets we'd probably see a slightly widing spread. So 2.6 is an underestimate if anything.

[bballn45]

I would listen to Roflcopter. He knows what he is doing.

[Nightmare]

My bullets hit my enemy when my crosshair is over them. If I can do it, everyone can.

What's next, taking spread off of the shotgun? -.- instant long range splat woohoo

[Felix-The-Ghost]

If we could at least clip off the corners of the square distribution, we might not need to lower the spread. It's easy enough to distribute in a diamond pattern though circle is probably better.

Currently as I understand it,
say spread value is RANDMAX:

x -= rand() % (RANDMAX + 1)
x += rand() % (RANDMAX + 1)

then y is offset with the same possible random values:

y -= rand() % (RANDMAX + 1)
y += rand() % (RANDMAX + 1)

This results in the square pattern distribution.

If we just made it so XMAX and YMAX are less than or equal to RANDMAX, you'd have a diamond shape distribution. Roflcopter's circle shape is probably better (and probably not noticeably slower with the circle math either)

[Roflcopter]

My bullets hit my enemy when my crosshair is over them. If I can do it, everyone can.

What's next, taking spread off of the shotgun? -.- instant long range splat woohoo

I've seen you make several glib responses. In this case your claim is ridiculous, because it's impossible, unless you always burst-fire three bullets at a time. I think a demo is warranted for such a bold claim.

Shotgun is a different topic. Your argument seems to be a strawman.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Just an illustration of current distribution and diamond distribution:


Say you were aiming in the center of this image.
Currently your bullet can go anywhere in the image,
even the black and brown areas, with brown being the most unacceptable.

For the fix:
If the length of the blue line represents the spread value of a gun, the x and y offset combined should not exceed the bounds of the green diamond.

If we fix bullet distribution to fix this pattern the current spread values would be more acceptable.

[MCS]

smg spread should be more since an smg is considered to be more of a short range weapon.

We would have way too many "pros" if we reduced the spread across the board.

now SHOTGUN shoot distance....now theres a number to change.

[Roflcopter]

We would have way too many "pros" if we reduced the spread across the board.

Quite the opposite actually. Right now players who aim in their enemy's general direction get the same results as those that aim exactly (because the spread square will cover the same amount of the enemy giving the same probability of bullets hitting). So lower spread will differentiate good players and very good players more.

[Ronald_Reagan]

What about making the spread more centralized, more likely to hit in the center, but keeping the amount the same. So instead of a random distribution

[SELECT ALL] Code:

-----------------
| .     .   . . .  |
|   .   .   .      |
| . .   .   ..   . |
|.    .  ..  .   . |
|.         . .     |
| .    .  . .      |
-----------------

You get something with more shots in the middle:

[SELECT ALL] Code:

-----------------
|    .           . |
|     .   . .   .  |
| .   . ... . .    |
|    .  .. .  .    |
| .   .    .     . |
|  .     .         |
-----------------

(Hope the graphics help)

The new shotty works like this somewhat.

[Habluka]

the only thing that needs less spread is smg

edit: along with less spread, it needs more recoil

[Roflcopter]

...

Well, I don't think it's enough myself but it'd be far better. It would remove spray and pray shooting completely because a perfect aim would be rewarded better (even if not much) for shooting the center of a player. We could also fix the other issues along the way (non-circular distribution, no weird effects of integer arithmetic).

Here's some basic code that would achieve that

[SELECT ALL] Code:

#define randf 1.0*rand()/RAND_MAX
#define RNDD spread*randf*(randf-0.5)*f
vec r(RNDD, RNDD, RNDD);
to.add(r);
#undef RNDD
#undef randf

It has the same maximum spread but centers it better. It would be a nice compromise if spread is really seen as desirable.

[MykeGregory]

now SHOTGUN shoot distance....now theres a number to change.

And short controled bursts control spread, right?

[Joe Smith]

when people say there would be more pros, if spread is lowered it doesnt just affect the better players it also affects everyone, so lowering the spread would just mean everyone would die quicker, both "pros" and "nonpros" so kills would go up but everyone's kills would go up not just a certain group of players.

@ Roflcopter did you try burst firing ? when you shoot an assault rifle in real life, the spread ( if you havent mastered the gun ) is really worse than that.
So if players can get less spread than that cuz they learn to burst fire or do not spray then thats were skill comes in.

@ felix the ghost @ image, makes sense very nice.

[titiPT]

Roflcopter, is there a way to compare the spread of the AR to the 1.0's with a picture like the one you posted?

[Roflcopter]

when people say there would be more pros, if spread is lowered it doesnt just affect the better players it also affects everyone, so lowering the spread would just mean everyone would die quicker, both "pros" and "nonpros" so kills would go up but everyone's kills would go up not just a certain group of players.

It doesn't "just mean that". Consider if spread was completely random and aiming played no part. We'd all get the same results. As you lower spread you begin to distiguish players more. In fact very few people can actually aim well, many are currently riding on the fact they only need to aim close to enemies. Basically, the spray-and-pray bunch of players would decrease in skill.

@ Roflcopter did you try burst firing ? when you shoot an assault rifle in real life, the spread ( if you havent mastered the gun ) is really worse than that.
So if players can get less spread than that cuz they learn to burst fire or do not spray then thats were skill comes in.

Of course I've tried burst-firing. Burst firing only help on the first three bullets which is not enough. And in SVN the first three bullets of an AR burst are even less accurate.

Roflcopter, is there a way to compare the spread of the AR to the 1.0's with a picture like the one you posted?

I'm sure there would be for whoever can be bothered to do it but that's not me, sorry.

[tempest]

@ Roflcopter did you try burst firing ?

Well, that's what he forgot the mention. With some proper burst firing (and mind you, I'm neither an experienced AR player nor any good in general, and this was with recoil), it looks somewhat like this.

[Roflcopter]

Well, that's what he forgot the mention. With some proper burst firing (and mind you, I'm neither an experienced AR player nor any good in general, and this was with recoil), it looks somewhat like this.

Your rate-of-fire will be very low if you're doing three-bullet bursts. Chances are that someone holding down mouse1 would have killed you before your burst-fire killed them. AC is a run and gun game, not UrT. I've played AC for a very long time and watched a lot of matches between the best teams and I've seen how random fights are. Most people only semi-burst-fire when they notice that the last few bullets aren't hitting.

[macm]

I haven't seen a good player burst, according to these posts, its all we have to do to beat "pros" /:D
A script to burst fire doesn't sound so bad after all.

[MCS]

Quite the opposite actually. Right now players who aim in their enemy's general direction get the same results as those that aim exactly (because the spread square will cover the same amount of the enemy giving the same probability of bullets hitting). So lower spread will differentiate good players and very good players more.

lower spread means the target gets hit more, aka "dies" more, aka more frags points, aka more bullets actually hit the target. Yeah firing AR at full blast would spread like that. Thats why you don't shoot long range on automatic