Upcoming Release Balance Discussion (SVN)

[titiPT]

Your guys are implementing the luck in a FPS game...BAD IDEA.
The un/lucky respawns are enough for this game.

I agree with exodus, randomness in damage is not the way to go in AC.

[Roflcopter]

Yeah, let's turn the AR into a full-auto sniper rifle. Great idea, seeing how extremely underpowered it currently is.

It affects all weapons equally. Sniper no-scopes would also be much reduced -- and should be.

I just do not see how you guys can justify having spread of 2-3 player widths at mid-range. Clearly it's extremely random who will get a kill from that range. Spread needs to be a player width or less at mid-range even if it means that we need to lower automatic weapon-damage still more or change other balance characteristics.

The existing code is poor because:

• The distribution is square not circular
  
• The bullets group due to use of integer arithmetic instead of floating-point arithmetic
  
• There's as much chance a bullet will spread far at the side as it will spread only slightly
  

Right now aiming involves simply having your crosshair close enough to a player that the imaginary spread square covers your enemy entirely. You can still have the same optimal chance of your bullets hitting even if your crosshair is completely off your target. That is, players who aim perfectly on the center of their enemy are rewarded no more than those that shoot constantly at the side slightly because the spread square will still cover their enemy completely.

[tempest]

What I would really like to know is how you managed to get that (AR!) spread on your screenshot. If I do the same (removing recoil and kickback, shooting from the same position right in front of the box), I get this. Left is the result from 3-shot bursts, right is an entire magazine fired in one go. Here is the result of 3-shot bursts with recoil.
What's in your screenshot looks more like SMG spread to me tbh, and that would be perfectly reasonable, given that the SMG is a close-range weapon.

[Roflcopter]

What I would really like to know is how you managed to get that (AR!) spread on your screenshot. If I do the same (removing recoil and kickback, shooting from the same position right in front of the box), I get this. Left is the result from 3-shot bursts, right is an entire magazine fired in one go. Here is the result of 3-shot bursts with recoil.
What's in your screenshot looks more like SMG spread to me tbh, and that would be perfectly reasonable, given that the SMG is a close-range weapon.

I tested again and I got the same results -- it's defninitely with AR. And the spread is definitely that wide.

Can you shoot from right against the box firing several clips at the center section without burst-firing? Then compare the furthest left and right bullets as the maximum spread. Even in your screenshot, and despite that you fired fewer bullets, one can see spread is over a player's width.

As for burst fire, it's currently 3 shots of low spread and the rest high spread in 1104 and in SVN it's not quite even that. But burst-firing three shots in a row is not really practical especially because your opponent may just hold down mouse1 and get lucky spread.

[tempest]

Well, if you fire an entire mag at once, don't be surprised that there's a huge spread. You have to control it, and that's the motivation behind the burst fire thingy.
And if your opponent gets a "lucky spread", next time maybe you do. This is nothing like a lottery where one in several million people wins the big prize, and it's very likely that you'll never win anything big.
On the other hand, it's really unlikely that an opponent will get "lucky spreads" several times during a game and you won't get any at all.

[Roflcopter]

Well, if you fire an entire mag at once, don't be surprised that there's a huge spread. You have to control it, and that's the motivation behind the burst fire thingy.
And if your opponent gets a "lucky spread", next time maybe you do. This is nothing like a lottery where one in several million people wins the big prize, and it's very likely that you'll never win anything big.
On the other hand, it's really unlikely that an opponent will get "lucky spreads" several times during a game and you won't get any at all.

Show me a player that can play well using three round bursts. I am sure there isn't one.

The lottery reference appears to just be a straw man argument; I never implied it was anything like that. But you're actually wrong that you'll "never win anything big". It happens very frequently in fact. Considering engagement between good players in even positions are pretty much 50:50 right now it's completely wrong to assume it will even itself out. Indeed if it is 50:50 the expected number discrepancy assuming 40 engagements in a match is about 10 kills.

Even better than theoretical arguments is the fact that fights ARE extremely random right now. I watch alots of clan matches and I've seen first-hand that aim relates only loosely with results.

I don't know how to make my points better. The kills feel very random for good players and practically everyone I know agrees. Every other competitive game has lower spread.

[Nightmare]

tempest <3

That spread seems very fair. Use carbine instead. <3

[Felix-The-Ghost]

The distribution is square not circular
The bullets group due to use of integer arithmetic instead of floating-point arithmetic
There's as much chance a bullet will spread far at the side as it will spread only slightly

That sounds like the way it should be (assuming they are distributed from the center in a circular pattern)

Devs would be wise to consider your patches

My only idea is to severely reduce spread or remove it entirely and replace it with random horizontal recoil.

[#M|A#Wolf]

The distribution is square not circular
The bullets group due to use of integer arithmetic instead of floating-point arithmetic
There's as much chance a bullet will spread far at the side as it will spread only slightly

That sounds like the way it should be (assuming they are distributed from the center in a circular pattern)

Devs would be wise to consider your patches

My only idea is to severely reduce spread or remove it entirely and replace it with random horizontal recoil.

I think we can come up with better solutions than *random* horizontal recoil. We should try and make the game reward those will actual skills, with no randomness nor luck involved. I don't think spread should even be reduced, compared to other games this one has none and would be wiser to fix it instead.

[Roflcopter]

tempest <3

That spread seems very fair. Use carbine instead. <3

I find it amazing how this community drags its feet at positive changes that make things more skilled. Why should I use carbine? Are you saying I shouldn't expect sensible results from AR, SMG, sniper and shotgun? Do you prefer that shooting perfectly is no better than shooting in an enemy's general direction?

I don't think spread should even be reduced, compared to other games this one has none and would be wiser to fix it instead.

The spread square covers about 3 players bodies which means after just three shots you are reduced to 1/3 chance of hitting with perfect aim. Tell me any competitive game with such appalling statistics.

This is what is known as spray and pray and it's not even fun in public matches.

[tempest]

I find it amazing how this community drags its feet at positive changes that make things more skilled.

Maybe because some people don't like your supposedly positive changes?

The spread square covers about 3 players bodies

And I thought we already came to the conclusion that this is nonsense? If you handle the AR like it's supposed to be handled, i.e. not spray an entire mag in one go, you get far less spread. If you can't handle burst firing, the AR is simply not a weapon for you - you might want to try the sniper or (not kidding) the carbine instead.

Tell me any competitive game with such appalling statistics.

I'm not sure what qualifies as a "competitive game", but if you view spread as relative to the usual engagement distances, I assume most games I've played yet would qualify. ET-series, for example. Or ArmA, if you just hold down the trigger (although I'll admit that game is just not comparable with AC). Or Sauerbraten (esp. chaingun), to stay within the cube universe.

This is fairly pointless anyway. Even if we assume for a moment that winning is the most important aspect of a game, there are literally hundreds of factors involved in winning a match, and I'd say most of them are more important than weapon spread.

And either way, I'm not the gameplay guy in the team, so I'm outta here.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

I think we can come up with better solutions than *random* horizontal recoil. We should try and make the game reward those will actual skills, with no randomness nor luck involved.

I was trying to think how an AR would handle in real life (I don't really think a person can keep their aim precise, but I'm not sure if recoil is solely vertical or not either)

In short, trying to emulate realistic gunfire, not trying to randomize or give luck to it.

From what I hear (and I could be hearing wrong) the AR is coded to have different spread after 3 continuous shots. I just think that should be visually represented in the game (with the gun jerking left to right, explaining the bizarre spread since bullets don't just fire out of guns in wildly random directions to the degree in Roflcopter's screenshots)

[Roflcopter]

And by the way, no one has explained to me what benefits spread provides. If it's used to make weapons less effective over range why not simple decrease damage over range? Cuts out the luck factor while keeping the same effect.

From what I hear (and I could be hearing wrong) the AR is coded to have different spread after 3 continuous shots. I just think that should be visually represented in the game (with the gun jerking left to right, explaining the bizarre spread since bullets don't just fire out of guns in wildly random directions to the degree in Roflcopter's screenshots)

You're right, the spread goes like this: 20, 20, 20, 60, 60, 60, 60, etc which in itself is retarded (and worse still in SVN). I don't think real guns do fire like that but the project's goal is fun not realism. Shame high spread provides neither.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Roflcopter, really you should just go play a different game. If you want to make spread like other games, why not branch or just go play other games?

[Roflcopter]

Roflcopter, really you should just go play a different game. If you want to make spread like other games, why not branch or just go play other games?

Because everything else is good. Is it really a different game I want or just an improvement of AC? I think low spread is very fitting for AC as it's essentially a run-and-gun game.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

You're right, the spread goes like this: 20, 20, 20, 60, 60, 60, 60, etc

Eww. :P

What do you propose? Spread that increases by 5 after each shot or what?

Oh, and I still agree with bullet distribution in a circle and not a square.

[Roflcopter]

You're right, the spread goes like this: 20, 20, 20, 60, 60, 60, 60, etc

Eww. :P

What do you propose? Spread that increases by 5 after each shot or what?

Oh, and I still agree with bullet distribution in a circle and not a square.

My patch seems quite nice against bots so that's my suggestion for now. Even if they don't want lower spread, I think the devs should fix some of the issues I raised above (one of those, like you said, is making spread circular).

[bballn45]

I agree, if your crosshair is on him, it should hit him.

[#M|A#Wolf]

I agree, if your crosshair is on him, it should hit him.

Not always, some weapons are made to be long or short ranged and they should be kept that way. If you're using your SMG from the middle of depot where the health is at a guy that is at the top of the base's stairs you should barely be able to hit him even with your crosshair on him.
However, if you're close to the player and your crosshair IS on him it definitely should hit, like it sometimes doesn't.

[Stranz]

Not always, some weapons are made to be long or short ranged and they should be kept that way. If you're using your SMG from the middle of depot where the health is at a guy that is at the top of the base's stairs you should barely be able to hit him even with your crosshair on him.
However, if you're close to the player and your crosshair IS on him it definitely should hit, like it sometimes doesn't.

Burst should, no matter what distance is.

About AR, this of the fast clicking thing may sound silly for some but can be done as quickly as auto and work better, I would suggest increasing the recoil a bunch when fast clicking so it can be more reliable to use full auto or just burst instead (with the only purpose of making them useful).

[Nightmare]

1) Are the current SVN weapons the final product for the next release?
2) What is currently holding up this release from being released? Just curious.
3) <3

[Nightmare]

[Wunderkind]

I agree, if your crosshair is on him, it should hit him.

Not always, some weapons are made to be long or short ranged and they should be kept that way. If you're using your SMG from the middle of depot where the health is at a guy that is at the top of the base's stairs you should barely be able to hit him even with your crosshair on him.
However, if you're close to the player and your crosshair IS on him it definitely should hit, like it sometimes doesn't.

In a computer game the cross-hair ideally serves as the sights that a person shooting an actual gun would look down. If you wanted to go for a life-like experience:

1.) Kick-back would be incremental. I.e. the more shots you fire in a burst, the more recoil you get the next shot.

2.) Bullets would be handled as projectiles rather than lines. This would mean you'd have to aim above your target depending on how far away you are.

3.) If you aimed the gun perfectly after each recoil and took the time to make the perfect correction for distance, you'd hit every time.

But come on, this would take way too much time and it's not what online FPS are about. If I wanted to have a real life experience, I'd be in active-duty. And there would be no re-spawn points =(

Just an outsider's pov.

[Ronald_Reagan]

The kick-back is incremental :)

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Is the spread incremental?

[Cleaner]

excremental?

[ProSmoke]

The sniper is massively over powered. It's actually received rather a lot of improvements:

* Now does 84 damage instead of 80
* Now has 47 spread down from 60 (I mean the sniper isn't supposed to be accurate unscoped but it's almost as accurate as the SMG with 45 spread)
* The scoped FOV can now be set to a max of 60 (instead of 50 in 1.1.0.4)
* Pistols now have a clip size of 10

And in comparison all the stats for SMG appear to have decreased except damage (ie: more recoil and spread). AR is largely unchanged with just a slight increase in starting recoil. So, according to my attempt to understand server.h: sniper is far better and AR and SMG are worse.

And in an hour or so of playing it feels that way too. Sniper is so overpowered that even with 100 health and shield two shots kill.

.

I love how you call 2 shots over powered on a sniper. To even it up less recoil on the full auto guns but don't need a sniper.... Especially if it's at 2 shots even if you hit them in the chest

[#M|A#Wolf]

ProSmoke: Remember that any average player wouldn't use the 2 sniper shots to kill someone (at least not consecutively), but use the sniper + pistol combo. I'm not sure when Larry posted that, but I think that since that post was made, the sniper has been modified and its stats are different from what Larry described.

[ProSmoke]

I understand but its not over powered if it takes a pro to make it over powered. Yes for sniper masters it will be over powered but think of most games where sniper is osk not saying ac should have 1 shot snipers because obviously that would completely mess the balance but the sniper shouldnt be nerfed.

[CharlyMurphie]

I understand

No offence but all ur posting in such short period of time... Reminds of Murmer ARE YOU'S RELATED :) not trying to troll just a.....cute or an obtuse observation