Weapon Balance and Gameplay Discussion

[#M|A#Wolf]

This is what I think would help make the weapons "merge" and also make them a bit more balanced (read Atrimos's post)

- Raise AR's recoil a little more
- Make SMG a little more like 1.0.4
- Raise shotgun's spread to make it harder for it to kill from medium-long distances
- Raise the time between each shot in carbine (you miss one shot against a good AR/SMG player and you're doomed)

Feel completely free to disagree :)

[KN!F3]

Raise time wolf? Looking at your statement I think you mean raise the firerate.

[#M|A#Wolf]

Raise time wolf? Looking at your statement I think you mean raise the firerate.

Yes, I meant that. My gun vocabulary is just quite limited, hehe.

[xxkid123]

This is what I think would help make the weapons "merge" and also make them a bit more balanced (read Atrimos's post)

- Raise AR's recoil a little more
- Make SMG a little more like 1.0.4
- Raise shotgun's spread to make it harder for it to kill from medium-long distances
- Raise the time between each shot in carbine (you miss one shot against a good AR/SMG player and you're doomed)

Feel completely free to disagree :)

mod the sniper too. maybe little marks on the scope lines, so that it's easier to hit targets, or at least add the 1 hit ko area to the chest as well (1 frag only), or at least 85 damage.

[castiel]

This is what I think would help make the weapons "merge" and also make them a bit more balanced (read Atrimos's post)

- Raise AR's recoil a little more
- Make SMG a little more like 1.0.4
- Raise shotgun's spread to make it harder for it to kill from medium-long distances
- Raise the time between each shot in carbine (you miss one shot against a good AR/SMG player and you're doomed)

Feel completely free to disagree :)

mod the sniper too. maybe little marks on the scope lines, so that it's easier to hit targets, or at least add the 1 hit ko area to the chest as well (1 frag only), or at least 85 damage.

I think one hit death to the chest is a bit extreme, I agree with 85 damage for the sniper, but maybe shot time or something could be increased a little so that pistol + sniper combo takes a bit longer? Just to stop the sniper dominance from 1.0.4, as if an accurate sniper landed the first shot in 1.0, you were pretty much dead unless very good at avoiding their pistol, and even if you managed to kill them/avoid it another enemy had an easy job finishing you off.

EDIT: Also, it would be interesting to see how the armour/helmets change things if the sniper was to go back to 85, or even 82, so that one sniper hit + one pistol would kill you without any armour

[KN!F3]

And I think you did a silly move by raising a shotgun's damage from 1.0 to 1.1 because the community in 1.1 already gets really angry when they turn the corner and get popped by a shotty calling them names and rage quitting. By increasing the damage of the shotty aren't you not listening to the community but instead making the game how you like it and not caring much for us. I understand your hard work put into the game but I just think the weapon balance of the Shotgun was not very necessary. If you really wanted game balance, 1.0 SMG, 1.1 AR, 1.0 Sniper, 1.0 Shotty, 1.1 Carbine. Although this might seem biased as I am "pro", I want you guys to understand that the weapon that is the hardest to handle should be the best if trained well. in 1.0, the weapons were the sniper and the smg which resulted in the clan match weapons of choice. However, you guys wanted to make the Carbine weaker and the AR and Shotty competitive weapons too. The less skill gun, shotgun, shouldn't be able to kill SO easily and without much practice or thought. Thank you.

[JMM]

I don't think the damage of the shotty was increased at all, just the number of pellets for a more even spread and the spread was reduced too...

[KN!F3]

Well the ease to kill has been increased

[#M|A#Wolf]

Is there a way to make the shotgun from mid-long rage pretty crap but good at close range only with good accuracy (meaning, not as easy as it is now).

[jAcKRoCk*]

I don't think the damage of the shotty was increased at all, just the number of pellets for a more even spread and the spread was reduced too...

the pellets are the same, just that they spread less that's why the feel of the damage it's increased :P

[castiel]

I don't think the damage of the shotty was increased at all, just the number of pellets for a more even spread and the spread was reduced too...

They've done something to make it beast, I've never played with it until a few days ago, and in the few minutes ac_mines match we played, I found it very easy to obtain a splatter/instakill, sure it's in a tight tunnel and is very suited to the shotgun, but to somebody who just picked it up it shouldn't be that easy.

Is there a way to make the shotgun from mid-long rage pretty crap but good at close range only with good accuracy (meaning, not as easy as it is now).

Maybe make spread exponential to the distance away from the person?

EDIT: Some stats from 1-2 games I played in a pub with the shotty, not all good players but still.
- Shots taken: 117
- Shots hit: 108(~92%)
- Frags: 67
- This means 62% of the time I shot the shotgun and hit the target I was getting a kill, which to me is ridiculous for somebody who has just picked up the weapon, again the skill of the other players may be called into question, but I think it's still kinda dumb

[$hield]

Take the Ar's damage down a bit, get rid of that splatter crap from the shotty, make the hitbox a tiny bit bigger for the sniper, not as big as the 1.0's hitbox for it, too many hs's :P

And KABAM

everythings fixed
everyones happy

Oh, and make the points from a nade gib back too 2 ;D

[Vermi]

Oh, and make the points from a nade gib back too 2 ;D

YES! either 2 nade pick up OR 2 point gib

[makkE]

All we did to the shotgun, was evening out the spread and concentrating more pellets to the center of the aim.

The shotgun's spread pattern in 1.0 was very, very random. Aiming dead on in close range would lead to a random damage from 5 - 80 or 90.
We tried to change that, so the gun would become more reliable and predictable.
With only 5-6 people actively testing this during the development of 1.1, it was simply hard to make out if it was overpowered or not - wich has now shown to be.

I am positive we will find a solution for this, don't worry. My other plans involve giving the SMG a bit of it's power back and changing it's spread to the original value again.
AR must be balanced to this, probably by a bit harder handling again. Sniper - I am thinking about raising the damage a bit again, and maybe lowering it's unscoped spread a bit to compensate for the smaller head hitbox.

I don't think anything needs to be done about the carbine. I personally think it might even be too strong already, since you can cover long corridors almost 100% if your aim is reasonably good.

[Darkbee]

This is what I think would help make the weapons "merge" and also make them a bit more balanced (read Atrimos's post)

- Raise AR's recoil a little more
- Make SMG a little more like 1.0.4
- Raise shotgun's spread to make it harder for it to kill from medium-long distances
- Raise the [rate of fire] between each shot in carbine (you miss one shot against a good AR/SMG player and you're doomed)

Feel completely free to disagree :)

I agree, I think you've pretty much nailed it. With the inclusion of possibly increasing the damage on the sniper rifle slightly, and also maybe doing something with nades, although I don't know what. I do think they seem a little weak compared to other weapons but perhaps that is the psychological factor again. I wouldn't lose too much sleep if nades didn't change, unlike other people who are very unhappy with the current nades.

[castiel]

All we did to the shotgun, was evening out the spread and concentrating more pellets to the center of the aim.

The shotgun's spread pattern in 1.0 was very, very random. Aiming dead on in close range would lead to a random damage from 5 - 80 or 90.
We tried to change that, so the gun would become more reliable and predictable.
With only 5-6 people actively testing this during the development of 1.1, it was simply hard to make out if it was overpowered or not - wich has now shown to be.

I am positive we will find a solution for this, don't worry. My other plans involve giving the SMG a bit of it's power back and changing it's spread to the original value again.
AR must be balanced to this, probably by a bit harder handling again. Sniper - I am thinking about raising the damage a bit again, and maybe lowering it's unscoped spread a bit to compensate for the smaller head hitbox.

I don't think anything needs to be done about the carbine. I personally think it might even be too strong already, since you can cover long corridors almost 100% if your aim is reasonably good.

All of this sounds good :)

[Atrimos]

I am positive we will find a solution for this, don't worry. My other plans involve giving the SMG a bit of it's power back and changing it's spread to the original value again.
AR must be balanced to this, probably by a bit harder handling again. Sniper - I am thinking about raising the damage a bit again, and maybe lowering it's unscoped spread a bit to compensate for the smaller head hitbox.

Its positive makke, i think this is the correct way because actually the weapon balance is not fear and changed too much the game.

---

about the nades: The players dont die even if they are hit in the face, so, what can i do carrying 3 nades in my pocket if that dont help me to almost nothing?

Sometimes i feel like im playing assault cube against "superman" or "wonderwoman" :P

Even taking armor a player must die.

[wolfbr]

my suggestions;

carbine> have much ammo, maybe decreasing the ammo clip( 10 to 8)
sniper> 1 shot kill(no bulletvest), but, long fireinterval and sniper is relatively inaccurate without scope
pistol> add more fireinterval and damage, and remove 1 ammo(7 ammo clip, kill in 3 or 4 shots)
shogtun> more spread

[titiPT]

1 shot kill to the sniper is nonsense, it would turn survivor in osok.

[*SMG*_3m]

my suggestions;

carbine> have much ammo, maybe decreasing the ammo clip( 10 to 8)
sniper> 1 shot kill(no bulletvest), but, long fireinterval and sniper is relatively inaccurate without scope
pistol> add more fireinterval and damage, and remove 1 ammo(7 ammo clip, kill in 3 or 4 shots)
shogtun> more spread

if you change sniper to 1 shot 1 kill i will rape your base

[JMM]

I still think 160ms attack delay with 25-33 damage should be tried out on the AR.

[wolfbr]

my suggestions;

carbine> have much ammo, maybe decreasing the ammo clip( 10 to 8)
sniper> 1 shot kill(no bulletvest), but, long fireinterval and sniper is relatively inaccurate without scope
pistol> add more fireinterval and damage, and remove 1 ammo(7 ammo clip, kill in 3 or 4 shots)
shogtun> more spread

if you change sniper to 1 shot 1 kill i will rape your base

read it > (no bulletvest), but, "long fireinterval" and sniper is relatively "inaccurate without scope".

it help to balance this gun, would be very difficult to hit someone without using the scope, and with more fireinterval you could die if you miss the shot.
and,if the enemy has bulletvest, he did not die with one shot(headshot would still be useful), in short, would be a good weapon for long range, not for rush.

[makkE]

Here's a little late night dev report:

We had a long meeting tonight, discussing several things. Here's what we will start testing with soon:

Recoil: I have worked out some new values to start off from - basically concerning AR and SMG. These values are for now a middleground between 1.04 and 1.1.04. We'll see how that's gonna feel. AR and SMG both a little harder to handle, basically.

SMG: Spread will be set back to 1.04 value, without dropping the "first few shots more accurate" behaviour. We will experiment with a 15 1/2 damage too.

Sniper: We will test with less unscoped spread, to make up for the smaller headshot hitbox. We'll try out 83 damage (83 + 18 = 101) - this will guarantee a 1/1 shot behaviour on the combo, and beyond it - I think having the combo work untill 26 armour is reached would be a good middleground. No changes to recoil settings, they are most crucial for autos anyways.

Pistol : A tiny bit more accurate, a tiny bit harder to handle, and a mag size of 10. Should make it more valuable to snipers for combo-ing, and overall more useful as a backup.

Shotgun: This will probably take a while. We will be testing a whole new approach, with 3 diffrent hitzones, each dealing diffrent damage, while using more pellets in total to reduce random distribution a bit. The goal is: A shotgun that is very effective up close, but does less damage the farther away the target is. Still, on long range, a certain amount of basic damage should get through, if aimed nicely. I am not sure yet how this will work out, especially concerning the splatter thing. In the end, I hope we will find a proper middle between 1.04 's ultra randomness and 1.1's overpower :)

We'll first concentrate on these guns, possible nade changes will be tested at a later stage,

We _might_ be able to do our first testing session on sunday night. Stop by and test the svn with us, if you have the time. I will try to keep you updated about the whens and hows.

[#M|A#Wolf]

Nice to hear that makke :)

[makkE]

Wolfbr, don't get me wrong, but you don't seem to have understood the pace of this (or other) games yet - an instant kill weapon with a longer ROF than 1500 - that has never exsisted, and never will, I hope. The closest to this is the q2 rail, and everyone hated it.

[wolfbr]

Wolfbr, don't get me wrong, but you don't seem to have understood the pace of this (or other) games yet - an instant kill weapon with a longer ROF than 1500 - that has never exsisted, and never will, I hope. The closest to this is the q2 rail, and everyone hated it.

before adding the carbine, a sniper was perfect, kills with 2 shots, sniper + pistol combo, ok?
but, now much easier to shoot 2 times with the carbine, sniper is good only in some situations compared to carbine.
the difference between the two guns would be:

carbine> more ammo, you can miss one shot, kill in 2 shots, no zoom.
sniper > less ammo, you cant miss, but, you kill in 1 shot, has zoom.

shotgun kill in one shot, would be interesting to other weapon that kills with one shot, but, need a good precision.

q2 rail is cool : D, however, in AC,Rail gun would be weaker(more fireinterval, reload, scope, but, one shot kill). something like the cs AW or urban terror's sr8.
soldat's barret have longer ROF, to be balanced with the other weapons.

[Panda]

I think you're making two mistakes here. First is bringing back the overpowered sniper and making it even stronger if I understood correctly (having the combo work until 2 helmets, wtf?). A two shot combo will make everyone even remotely good with the sniper use it as the only weapon in all maps that are not awfully bad for sniper and you have your old 2-gun-society back, especially when improving the SMG's damage while making the AR weaker (SMG with more recoil will not hurt anyone, stronger AR recoil most likely will).

The second is the shotgun with hitzones. I'm assuming you mean hitzones on the body, which is not a bad idea in general, but should then apply to all guns. What about you keep everything as is but make "hitzones" depending on distance to the object, or rather just make the damage attenuate with an f² function? That is probably not too hard to do, but I don't know all the code :)

Btw. I think you should keep all current properties of the nades, except maybe make it a bit stronger (say 15% more radius, 10% more damage), so people will feel its power AND use it wisely but don't need 100% precision to take out a camper.

[Alien]

@Panda
the name of the thread is weapon balance so it means 2 or more balanced societies, i would test it and then would protest :)

[castiel]

I think you're making two mistakes here. First is bringing back the overpowered sniper and making it even stronger if I understood correctly (having the combo work until 2 helmets, wtf?). A two shot combo will make everyone even remotely good with the sniper use it as the only weapon in all maps that are not awfully bad for sniper and you have your old 2-gun-society back,

To be able to snipe you HAVE to hit the target first shot, if you miss you're pretty much dead, how many people do you currently see sniping in 1.1? Next to nobody, they've all switched to overpowered weapons, shotgun or ar.

especially when improving the SMG's damage while making the AR weaker (SMG with more recoil will not hurt anyone, stronger AR recoil most likely will).

How does recoil affect the AR but not the SMG? IMO unless the recoil is crazy you can always learn to account for it, with due practice and skill, which is what it should take to get good at a weapon. Rather than those noobs you see bouncing around with their AR's that nobody can kill and take you out with a few inaccurate sprays.

@Makke, the proposed changes sound awesome :)

[Panda]

The AR already has very considerable recoil. The SMG has next to none. If both increase, the SMG will be slightly harder to handle (but still easy) and the AR will be a lot harder to handle (probably pretty hard).

I see plenty of people sniping in 1.1 on maps or modes that are great for snipers. I don't see many snipers on maps and modes that don't support snipers in the first place. IMO that's the way it should be, even tho, yes the current sniper or the current pistol might be a bit too weak versus current armor.
And no, with the 1 shot combo you will not be essentially dead if you miss the first shot. I'm more than happy to demonstrate that to you if it really gets implemented. Currently the problem with missing the first shot for me is, that I don't hit 2 pistol shots in the meantime, or if I try to land 2, I'm too late switching back too sniper and then really am dead. In 1.0 I had plenty of 2nd shot kills with sniper. (About 30-80% success with the 2nd shot without dying myself, depending on opponent experience.)