Weapon Balance and Gameplay Discussion

[makkE]

We are aware of the issues that separate the players between 1.0.4 and 1.1.x.x. I have already picked up a lot of information from previous threads, and I would like to start a decent discussion about the future changes required. The next release will focus on bug fixes, but after that, we will adress these issues asap.

This is your chance to voice your opinion and discuss the future development needed. Please keep it civil if you can. Make sure you have played 1.1 enough to be able to compare. Please try to structure your posts clearly, that will make it easier for us to filter the information later. Also, please keep this thread clear of anger posts about 1.1 - instead, try to help in a constructive way.

Here are my impressions and ideas that I picked up from recent feedback, mixed with my own impressions:

SMG: I think some points may need revision. First off, it's damage.
I think it's ideal damage would be 15 1/2. (this is not possible yet).
The feel might have changed a bit. Recoil and spread (especially the full blast spread) might need revision, to give it it's original feel back, while maintaining the improvements for long range.

AR: All fine, though we might have made the handling a tad too easy.

Shotgun: Ok, it's overpowered, no denying. I think raising the spread will help. All that needs to be kept is that aiming properly must be the key to this weapon.

Sniper: Since it's gotten quite a bit harder to headshot, we might have to think about raising it's damage again. Not sure about getting it back to the one-shot combo, but something must happen there.

Carbine: Imho it's fine. Maybe a tad overpowered when used in a defensive manner. A bit lower rate of fire might help here.

Pistol: I think it's just fine.

Nades: In my opinion, having just one nade adds tactical depth and makes nades more valuable, thus you will think twice until you shot it. On the other hand, I can understand it feels like less fun.

Armour: Since 1.1.0.3 it has almost the same characteristics as in 1.0 - with the exeption that more armour means more protection (and less actually means less).
Some maps might need revision in helmet placement and numbers.

Remember, these are mostly my personal views and not even all devs' views. Just to start this discussion :)

[Gibstick]

Do not tone down the carbine. If you miss one shot, you're dead, which is punishment enough. Almost all other weapons can kill faster than the carbine at less than 100% accuracy.

SMG: 17.5 damage would let it kill in 400ms - equal to the akimbo. There should not be any spread or recoil improvements if the damage is so high.

AR: slower ROF or higher recoil?

[V-Man]

I guarantee if you make SMG's damage 17 or more, everyone will have to switch to it just to keep their heads above water.
Heck, at 16 damage noobs accused me of cheating solely because they didn't believe anyone could get so many frags in one game. A single point of damage can mean a lot when it is a single point of damage every .08 seconds.
...
Dang, what am I saying?
Never mind, go ahead and give my weapon of choice some improvements! :D

[makkE]

Well, the carbine: I just see myself sitting in a base on shine or depot and it's very easy to cover the area completely, letting almost noone through. It's hard to use in a crowded situation, but it owns (a bit too much maybe) when camping.

SMG: Sorry, got my numbers confused, of course I meant 15 1/2.

AR: The rof must stay the way it is for lag/drop reasons. The recoil might be increased a bit again, yes.

[V-Man]

weapon: A-ARD/10 Submachine Gun
damage: 16

That's what I was going by.

And for a minute I thought, "did I only get 16 damage because of my damage-lowering hack?! Shoulda turned that off!"

[Mael]

AR: Recoil could be increased a bit. It's meant to be mid-long range isn't it? At close range it shames other weapons.

SMG: Perhaps alternate between 15 and 16 damage?

Sniper: I'd like seeing one-shot come back. We could increase the time between switching weapons to gimp it just a bit if it's needed. Pistol isn't used nearly as much with any other weapon.

[Panda]

Everything is fine.


(Except some helmet placements.)

[Luc@s]

I prefer old smg. It was really fun to play.
Rifle had to be more powerful. I think it's a bit too strong now.
Carbine is fine.
Shotgun need a bigger spread than in 1.0.4, but lower than in 1.1 imho.
I think sniper is less powered now. Maybe not enough, I can't tell, I don't use this weapon.

[Panda]

Why was the old smg fun? Because it owned too hard.

[Luc@s]

Why was the old smg fun? Because it owned too hard.

no, because it was between AR and actual SMG. And also, "fun" for the simple reason I liked it. And you had to learn to use it.

[JamJamTheCalcMan]

my main priority is the sniper. i pwned in 1.0.4 and now i feel like a fool with a gun. i liked the older handling better. i like the shotty the way it is now, because i now have a chance at up-close attacks, where a pro player could knife or pistol-whip me in 1.0.4. i think the SMG and AR are fine the way they are, and i agree on the one nade pickup. some people just shouldnt have two nades lol.

[Panda]

The old SMG had a very attractive learning curve combined with raw power and spraying abilities. It was second only to pro snipers, which required much training (and/or tricks), so it was less widely used.
That's why I and many others played SMG. It was very strong (too strong), the AR was no real option and the shotgun was too limited.

Now you have to use different weapons depending on the map and mode and they are all pretty well balanced unless you use the wrong weapon on the wrong map. The only all-around halfway decent gun is the AR now, but it loses vs. SMG on a few maps and vs. sniper on other maps and in very full games the reload time is way too high and you will get shotgunned. So it's balanced.

Unless you think about changing weapon (or better pickup) stats depending on the number of players, the balance cannot be improved much imo.

[bballn45]

my statement is this. You guys have just shut down 1.0.4. Who wanted all the weapons to change in power? No one but the devs. Who wanted the sniper weaker? No one but the devs. Same as smg, no one had a problem with it. 1 shot kill sniper and then pistol is hard. It took hours of practice. Now anyone on 1.1 can be good if they use shottys. And when everyone uses shottys, the game is boring. SMG should go back to 1.0 settings. Sniper should go back to 1.0 settings. AR 1.1 settings. Shotgun was fine in 1.0. Carbine is fine as is in 1.1. Pistol, who cares lol. Nades are fine either way. Thats my opinion. Feel free to edit it if you think its attacking the devs cause it is in a way.

[Bullpup]

Bring back the 1.0 masterserver and add the hack detection.

call it a day.

[GunZ|Maj.Hillis]

I would love to see map restrictions that can be toggled by a server switch...


Also the shotty seems over powered. Now most maps are small and shotties are annoying as all get out.

EDIT: Am I the only one who notices the slightest delay when trying to fire the sniper?

[bballn45]

am i the only one who notices the sniper sucks shit in 1.1 and now all the good people in 1.0 suck cause they took the 2 best weapons, the sniper and smg and made it into trash?

[Zarjio]

IMO the only weapon that is unbalanced is the shotgun - and that is only in pubs.
From what I have seen of clan matches, people choose weapons fairly evenly. However, it is annoying to have over 9000 people with shotguns running around during pubs. We've gone from nade spamming to shotty spamming :(
I think JMM has made a good point - reduce the clip on the shotty (maybe to 2 or 3) and the balance should be good.

[GunZ|Maj.Hillis]

Also requring someone to wait like 10 secs between team switches would be nice....its really easy to spam that way...

[makkE]

my statement is this. You guys have just shut down 1.0.4. Who wanted all the weapons to change in power? No one but the devs. Who wanted the sniper weaker? No one but the devs. Same as smg, no one had a problem with it. 1 shot kill sniper and then pistol is hard. It took hours of practice. Now anyone on 1.1 can be good if they use shottys. And when everyone uses shottys, the game is boring. SMG should go back to 1.0 settings. Sniper should go back to 1.0 settings. AR 1.1 settings. Shotgun was fine in 1.0. Carbine is fine as is in 1.1. Pistol, who cares lol. Nades are fine either way. Thats my opinion. Feel free to edit it if you think its attacking the devs cause it is in a way.

That's not true. Weapon balance has been discussed throughout 1.0, with the conseus of smg and sniper being too dominating, and AR falling behind, while shotgun being useless exept for very special situations.

As I wrote in my initial post: Shotgun needs a change, definately overpowered, you are right on this - no question.

And no, you're not really attacking us :)

[V-Man]

Who wanted all the weapons to change in power? No one but the devs.

You have obviously never seen, let alone contributed to, this.

[castiel]

My issue with the SMG in 1.1 is accuracy. In 1.0 once you learned to handle the recoil if your aim was true, this weapon was a beast. However in 1.1 even if you master the recoil the weapon is still weak as accuracy/actual hits of the enemy when aimed at them seems to be alot lower(I may be confusing this with something else, but from the hitsounds this is what I've noticed)

This is annoying as it means you can't really 'improve' with skill/mastering the weapon, rather you have to improve your movement so that you're not getting killed in next to no time by a shotty.

People say its a short range weapon in 1.1 but when compared to the shotty it pales in comparision, and in long range the carbine/ar/sniper are much more effective.

Clearly as an smg user i'm not overly fussed about the other weapons :P But from what you're saying about the smg I'm going to like the new version :) Thanks for all your hard work!

P.s on the sniper issue, what if it went back to a 1 hit + 1 pistol combo but if the 'recoil time' from the sniper was longer so it would take them longer to switch? I dunno if this is do able, just a thought.

[V-Man]

you have to improve your movement

Now you're catching on! :D

[Gibstick]

The progressively increasing recoil of the SMG seemed to work well, why not do the same with spread? Have little spread for the first shot and let it CRESCENDO into something like the Halo 3 AR.

[bballn45]

Just change sniper back to 1.0 settings. Or do something to make it somewhat stronger please :) My questions in this. How many people do you see on a server with someone who does good with a sniper. Barely no one. With the hs only counting as one frag and the 2 shot pistol, the sniper has become almost impossible to do good with. I am not trying to complain but trying to make the game fair. The game isn't fun without a lot of snipers. Would AC be fun if everyone was walking around with a shotgun, AR, and smg? I don't think so. What about shine on that big narrow part down the middle? What if you were doing a match and the enemy is spraying there way with the AR(everyone uses this gun now) to get to make the last score? Forget it, you have a sniper and you need 2 pistol shots so now you lose the game. See what I mean. All the people that practiced for a long time has lost the skill.

edit: also i think people wouldn't have a problem with the one shot combo because all the other weapons are equal basically. Shotgun gets places from close. AR gets ranges close to a little far but takes awhile to kill. SMG gets ranges close and not that far. Sniper is now only far range.(it is far range only because by the time you hit them with the sniper you are already low hp, then you have to hit em with 2 pistol bullets? I don't think so.) and carbine is good pretty much anywere.

[JMM]

Sniper +5 damage

Shotty spread somewhere between current 1.1 and 1.04

...IMO the new SMG is good, I just couldn't handle the recoil of the old one. As for the damage, maybe the first bullet should cause extra damage, e.g. 20 then drops down to 15? Maybe even more radical like reduce the damage to 12-14 and make the first bullet cause double damage, maybe make second one cause 50% extra or so... something like this would allow keeping the (IMO) excessive 1.04 recoil down and allow reducing the (in some people's opinion) random spread without making it too powerful.

AR and carbine are pretty good now. More AR recoil sounds good. I think the carbine should be left untouched for now.

[bballn45]

like stated in a different thread. Use the AR, Carbine and Shotty from 1.1 and use the smg and sniper from 1.0. I think this would make the game fair instead of making everyone use AR and shotty. It basically is AC 1.0 all over again except new weapons. Show your opinions people! I think that if we make the smg and sniper back to 1.0, the shotgun and AR will not be as overpowered as they are now. All the guns will be good in an amazing way. Thats my opinion. I hope some people agree this time. Please write what you guys think. Every time someone writes something, it gives me more and more ideas how to even this out but it ain't my decision, it is the AC devs.

[castiel]

With the hs only counting as one frag

Headshots are still 2 frags.

I'm liking the idea of reducing damage from the SMG the longer you shoot, I guess it would reward accurate shooters over sprayers.

[bballn45]

oh maybe they change it :/ it wasnt like that on 1.1.0.1

[ElCrema]

My two cents:

Hated the new scope values for sniper, couldn't play with it, after I changed it back to 1.0 numbers, all became, oh so much better. Now with less armor protection and more accurate pistol, the sniper/pistol combo is fine, but sniper/knife is by far the best combo on AC :)
Took me awhile to get used to the new scoping all the time to reduce spread and to the new head hit box, now its working fine to me, my best kill ratios were always done with sniper rifle.

AR, well I got used to the mad recoil of 1.0 and that made de 1.1 AR feels like a wild bloodthirsty beast, almost all the good sgm players in 1.0 are now mowing peps down with it. The handling should be a tad harder, imo. It feels too easy to kill at short ranges with AR and on enclosed spaces since kick back makes you move erratically and therefore, a very hard target plus easy handling and those cool extra bullets, well, like I said: a beast!

SMG, well, as a smg player in 1.0 I had mixed fellings about it. For pubs works just fine, but this whole less spread at first and short bursts thing made it feel kinda slow, now I kinda got used to it, but yes, it could use some work.

Shotty: bit too strong, but not that much as ppl are saying. It can be a tad annoying in pubs and now that the nade spamming is over, the shotty spawn kills are the best easy frags around, needless to say: a pub plague.

Carbine is wicked fun and all the rest is 0k

Much better game, overall!

[KN!F3]

Knife has an idea. If you don't raise sniper damage back up to 85 to compensate for the incredible skill and aim needed to effectively pull of a sniper double pistol combo, make a pistol head hit count for 20 damage resulting in a sniper single pistol combo.