Upcoming Release Balance Discussion (SVN)

[YourSister]

guys, the new shotgun is totally unuseful

[#M|A#Wolf]

You must use MOUSE1.

[V-Man]

if anything all the automatic guns need less spread, that way players with good aim would be more rewarded and hit more...

o_O
Okay... But don't complain when I start pwning you relentlessly.

@YourSister:
Saying some vague comment about the shotgun is totally unuseful. What exactly is wrong, and what exactly would fix that?

[Jason]

o_O
Okay... But don't complain when I start pwning you relentlessly.

I'd rather be pwned by someone who I actually know is a skilled player due to low spread, rather than some of these no-skills in matches who wave their guns about like wands and get lucky bullets.

[V-Man]

;_;
* V-Man has the wand mod for SMG

...

* V-Man uses luck as a significant portion of strategy for fragging

[Bukz]

Spread is a realism feature, and yes, it's quite exaggerated in it's current state for a few weapons. I wouldn't mind seeing it turned down a bit, as long as it is compensated for in the balance for other weapons.

It's hard to say whether or not the change is necessary, with the new hit reg fixes in SVN it's quite possible that the spread is sane and people will see a higher hit percentage with their autos. A lot more testing is necessary for fine tuning weapon balance, and there are a lot of things to consider. (previous experiences cannot be taken into consideration IMHO, due to the bugs that are in older versions)

[Jason]

Spread is a realism feature, and yes, it's quite exaggerated in it's current state for a few weapons. I wouldn't mind seeing it turned down a bit, as long as it is compensated for in the balance for other weapons.

It's hard to say whether or not the change is necessary, with the new hit reg fixes in SVN it's quite possible that the spread is sane and people will see a higher hit percentage with their autos. A lot more testing is necessary for fine tuning weapon balance, and there are a lot of things to consider. (previous experiences cannot be taken into consideration IMHO, due to the bugs that are in older versions)

I don't think realism is what AC is really going? At least I hope that's not a project goal :L As for fixes, I've been playing with a full set done by rofl for a while now, and at range the SMG for sure, and even the AR is quite hard to hit across the base entrances of Depot RVSF, Power Right Side (as RVSF) or Outpost Middle, just to name a few.

[YourSister]

Saying some vague comment about the shotgun is totally unuseful. What exactly is wrong, and what exactly would fix that?

it seems to be less powerful even at short distance. and it was not powerful enough even in 1.1

[Felix-The-Ghost]

I think it'd be a cool idea for the high caliber weapons to completely ignore armor (sniper/carbine) and stop weaker weapons, kinda like a flak jacket.

By "cool" I don't mean so cool it should be done but it's interesting.

[#M|A#Wolf]

Both the sniper and carbine can destroy any other weapon if mastered correctly. I don't think penetrating through armor would be any good nor necessary; that'll just make them OP.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Well, realistically, the high caliber weapons would have better armor piercing capabilities but eh :)

[Mai Mee Tur]

If anything, only the carbine should.

I've never seen a sniper that was two shots to kill if not a head shot

[#M|A#Wolf]

I don't think the game should make changes to its balance to just make it "realistic".

[Ronald_Reagan]

By "cool" I don't mean so cool it should be done but it's interesting.

[Nightmare]

Carbine + Pierce = <3 Makes it interesting at least.
Carbine without Pierce = "Oh yeah that CharlyMurphie guy is really good with that secondary weapon." "It's actually a primary weapon." "O_O"

And even charly gets quickly overpowered by okay AR'ers with half the accuracy of his carbine in CM's and such. ...and thats with AR's dropping shots like crazy. xD /sadcarbineface

[Roflcopter]

Ignoring shield would balance the carbine perfectly in my opinion. The AR in both 1104 and SVN takes 720ms to kill a player with 100 health and shield. This would mean the carbine only took 720ms too. It would still take longer than the AR for most kills.

I also agree with some others that shotgun can't just be a weaker 1104 shotgun since it's already underpowered in matches.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Rofl, feel free to help test out the new shotty values to see if it is what you want. There is a minor bug (or major :| ) where you do no damage when you splat, but you will get the idea of how it feels. You helped get these values by the way :)

http://pastebin.com/M9Vq1APd

[CharlyMurphie]

And even charly gets quickly overpowered by okay AR'ers with half the accuracy of his carbine in CM's and such. ...and thats with Carbine dropping shots like crazy. xD /sadcarbineface

<3 very true :P

[V-Man]

Aw Charlie.
Carbine will have its heyday.

[Bukz]

As far as spread goes, I'm all for realism. If you're sprinting you won't have pinpoint accuracy. If you stand still and have a moment to aim, you'll have better chance of landing shots (reduced spread). That doesn't mean it's impossible to land shots while you're sprinting, its just easier to land shots if you're not moving.

This would also introduce an interesting gameplay mechanic, making people decide on whether or not to stop moving for a moment for increased accuracy and take the increased risk of being headshot/splattered/gibbed/etc.

All hypothetical, of course.

[Roflcopter]

As far as spread goes, I'm all for realism. If you're sprinting you won't have pinpoint accuracy. If you stand still and have a moment to aim, you'll have better chance of landing shots (reduced spread). That doesn't mean it's impossible to land shots while you're sprinting, its just easier to land shots if you're not moving.

This would also introduce an interesting gameplay mechanic, making people decide on whether or not to stop moving for a moment for increased accuracy and take the increased risk of being headshot/splattered/gibbed/etc.

All hypothetical, of course.

Games like this tend to encourage camping. I don't think there should be penalties for moving.

Spread just needs lowering across the board. I'd even be for taking it out all together and making recoil harder. Spread is effectively just a cap on aiming skill and there's alot of players that have reached that cap.

[Fate]

What Bukz described is pretty much CounterStrike.

[Nightmare]

I think some tend to take dropped shots as "crazy spread rage"
:p

[CharlyMurphie]

Games like this tend to encourage camping.

Valid point, but camping exists in every fps I have every played. There is nothing encouraging about it, its the nature of the beast. When we are moving we just have to take advantage of those skilled campers LOL and get the frag. Over and over, they will find a new camp :p

EDIT: The @camper maps encourage it though, POS maps

[Jason]

I think some tend to take dropped shots as "crazy spread rage"
:p

I think rofl and I mentioned sometime on TeamSpeak, "Spread is the new hitreg fail" - followed by some extreme rage by Vault77 :D

[Robtics]

As far as spread goes, I'm all for realism. If you're sprinting you won't have pinpoint accuracy. If you stand still and have a moment to aim, you'll have better chance of landing shots (reduced spread). That doesn't mean it's impossible to land shots while you're sprinting, its just easier to land shots if you're not moving.

This would also introduce an interesting gameplay mechanic, making people decide on whether or not to stop moving for a moment for increased accuracy and take the increased risk of being headshot/splattered/gibbed/etc.

All hypothetical, of course.

That'd be the end of AC for me ... There are enough games with realistic gameplay and imo AC is and should be far from it. Realistic environment - hell yeah but gameplay: NO TY!

[Praedius]

As far as spread goes, I'm all for realism. If you're sprinting you won't have pinpoint accuracy. If you stand still and have a moment to aim, you'll have better chance of landing shots (reduced spread). That doesn't mean it's impossible to land shots while you're sprinting, its just easier to land shots if you're not moving.

This would also introduce an interesting gameplay mechanic, making people decide on whether or not to stop moving for a moment for increased accuracy and take the increased risk of being headshot/splattered/gibbed/etc.

All hypothetical, of course.

That's interesting to think about. But I think there are certain aspects of realism that do fit into AC and some that don't. This game's pacing has been described as slower than Quake but faster than CS. I feel like the weapon mechanics should maintain a Quake-like feel. And yes, there are campers in every FPS these days, but implementing such a mechanic would encourage camping. I'm not saying camping isn't fair, I just believe that the gameplay would be slowed if it were done any more than it is now. This would be very disappointing because one of the key factors that make AC unique is its pace.

[DarkCollapse]

I'm nowhere near a hardcore AC player, since I am more akin to more realistic FPS, but all the same...

The only weapon that the spread needs changed on is the shotgun, which I have heard (Not sure the exact details) is being significantly weakened, but the problem is it never acted like a shotgun should. It had the spread and damage you'd expect from a (fairly inaccurate) rifle, but with the range of a shotgun. This meant not only did you have to be within two feet, they also had to be dead center in front of you.

But I digress.

Spread otherwise, really doesn't appear to be a problem. It is far less than in the other shooters I have played, but not so little that it derails the whole game (For instance, with no spread whatsoever, the Assault Rifle would be extremely overpowered, more so than it is now).

Just my two cents. Again, I am nowhere near an expert on any of this.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

To my knowledge, in the SVN the shotgun guarantees at least one pellet hitting where you are aiming exactly as it shoots one projectile and multiple scattered pellets.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Please be talking about this SVN: http://pastebin.com/M9Vq1APd