Upcoming Release Balance Discussion (SVN)

[X-Ray_Dog]

I don't like the fact that AR only has 15 bullet clip and the sub machine gun hasn't been altered.

AR: 5 bullets to kill, you could kill 3 people with one clip.
SMG: 7 bullets to kill, you could kill 4 people with one clip and damage another player

When the AR has 20 bullet clips: 5 to kill, you could kill 4 players with no additional damage.

My obvious choice would be to use nothing but the smg from the automatic class.

Why did we shorten the clip size?

[Ronald_Reagan]

SMG is right between 1004 and 1104 values right now. iirc it does 15.5 damage essentially.

[#M|A#Wolf]

X-Ray_Dog: You do realize that players don't hit 100% of the shots, right?

[X-Ray_Dog]

X-Ray_Dog: You do realize that players don't hit 100% of the shots, right?

It's assuming 100% accuracy but the smg allows for a lot of error margin.

you could kill

[RCJD]

I don't like the fact that AR only has 15 bullet clip and the sub machine gun hasn't been altered.

AR: 5 bullets to kill, you could kill 3 people with one clip.
SMG: 7 bullets to kill, you could kill 4 people with one clip and damage another player

When the AR has 20 bullet clips: 5 to kill, you could kill 4 players with no additional damage.

My obvious choice would be to use nothing but the smg from the automatic class.

Why did we shorten the clip size?

This is a good point.

If AR has to be nerfed, and the way of doing that is by lowering the clip size, maybe it shouldn't be lowered that much? Try 17 (i know, it's a weird number)?

[V-Man]

I think lowering clip size to nerf AR is not the best direction.
If AR is too powerful, lower its damage.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

I think lowering clip size to nerf AR is not the best direction.
If AR is too powerful, lower its damage.

Quoted for truth.

append:

Though I think I'd enjoy testing a slightly slower fire-rate and the slightly higher damage (Since SMG is the faster, weaker AR, maybe exaggerate/showcase* this difference just a little) Maybe you could direct me to the source file containing gun stats so I can test them, V-Man?

*Not sure what word I would actually use...

[Ronald_Reagan]

server.h, towards the bottom. gunstats guninfo, something like that.

[V-Man]

Trust Ronald, he knows more about the Deep Magic than I do.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Why is it in server.h? :P

[Jason]

X-Ray_Dog: You do realize that players don't hit 100% of the shots, right?

Speak for yourself :>

[Ronald_Reagan]

Why is it in server.h? :P

Dont ask me. It seems (meaning I dont know for sure), that that transition came during 1004 -> 1104, possibly to make it harder to hack, but I really doubt that. It is easy enough to find if you know what you are doing :P

[tempest]

Because obviously the server decides how much damage you do, so it makes sense to have it there.

[Luc@s]

@RR: now SMG damage is back to 15

[Nightmare]

whatttt
*updates svn*

<333333333333333333333 devs devs devs <333333333333333

also @ v-man. the more the ar's power goes down, the closer the gap between ar & smg are, so ;) Kind of hard to call it an "assault" rifle if it was doing like...19 damage or something. :D

P.S: <3 devs

[Ronald_Reagan]

@RR: now SMG damage is back to 15

* Ronald_Reagan checks weapon.cpp
* Ronald_Reagan doesn't need to:

"weapon changes (sg damage, higher sniper damage, lower (and static) smg damage , lower AR magsize) + win32 binaries"

[Synt4xed]

whatttt
*updates svn*

<333333333333333333333 devs devs devs <333333333333333

also @ v-man. the more the ar's power goes down, the closer the gap between ar & smg are, so ;) Kind of hard to call it an "assault" rifle if it was doing like...19 damage or something. :D

P.S: <3 devs

<3

[Felix-The-Ghost]

lower (and static) smg damage

I liked the random damage :/ I wish all guns had a threshold of damage. (A small 0-5 threshold)

[Ronald_Reagan]

The damage was every other bullet 15-16 dmg alternation iirc.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

It was every other bullet, but the first one was always the same (if you stopped shooting)

I wish it were:

[SELECT ALL] Code:

base_damage
+ rand() % 6 //add random number 0...5
- rand() % 6 //subtract random number 0...5

For every weapon.
I think I would enjoy this.

E.G. if Sniper's base damage is 80:
Sniper damage: 75 - 85

It's be really interesting with rapid-fire weapons :D

[ExodusS]

cheaters will use it to have the +5 all the time, and nobody will see it.

[SiL3nT]

Make the server do it then?

[ElCrema]

My thoughts exactly. I imagine that figuring it out if the amount of damage each client inflicts and detect abnormalities seems like an easy task for the server, can't see how one could circumvent this with raising a big red flag for the other players, I mean sooner or latter you gonna realise that player X ALWAYS gets you for higher damage values. Someone who knows about server side issues please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Offline would still need to be local (for bots)

Aside from that, I don't think designing a game expecting hackers is really a good mindset to have.

E.G. "Oh, I won't release my album -- everyone will just pirate it anyway" :P

Or a more relevant example: "Oh, don't put critical hits in your RPG game. Everyone will just hack it to always get criticals" :P

[#M|A#Wolf]

You have to expect hackers in this type of fps when developing, otherwise you'd be leaving it too easy for them. Your example doesn't really have anything to do with this situation either, I see it more as a way for making it harder for them. Expecting hackers doesn't mean you won't release your album, just means you will be more prepared ;)

[ExodusS]

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

[Felix-The-Ghost]

Your guys are implementing the luck in a FPS game...BAD IDEA.

Random != luck. It's also a very small degree. I think it's a good idea to have variable damage.
Diehards... will die hard :P

The un/lucky respawns are enough for this game.

The spawns are at least set to certain places... different than a -5/5 damage boost/reduction.

You have to expect hackers in this type of fps when developing, otherwise you'd be leaving it too easy for them.

If what everyone says is true, hackers will hack anyway. I fail to see why that prevents us from having good things, or why we must over-complicate code (further) for devs :/ If the hacker's goal is circumvention, and the developers, to develop efficiently, I think we should just stick to our goal here and let the other take care of itself.

[Roflcopter]

Random != luck. It's also a very small degree. I think it's a good idea to have variable damage.

By that I think you mean that randomness can be managed somewhat similar to how professional poker players manage randomness. It's somewhat true, but it still breaks too many things (e.g. the classic one: a single sniper shot may require three medkits to recover; makes all fights more random still). And then there appears to be no real benefit to it...

While I'm here, I'll add that spawns should also be more deterministic... i.e. the game should aim to always give one of the spawns closest to the flag if it's been picked up or otherwise the center of the base.

And please, please lower spread across all the weapons. I tested this today by removing recoil, making bulletholes permanent and firing with my crosshair completely still on a moderately far wall. The bullet spread is two to three player widths after about three bullets with AR and even worse with SMG!!!

Example of common engagement range in ac_outpost.
(In case it's not clear because of the low FOV, I took the shots from right back against the box.)

---

And here's a small patch that would make things a lot nicer:

In weapon::attackphysics change:

[SELECT ALL] Code:

#define RNDD (rnd(spread)-spread/2)*f
vec r(RNDD, RNDD, RNDD);
to.add(r);
#undef RNDD

to

[SELECT ALL] Code:

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

Here's what it looks like with this (all bullets within one body width):
http://postimage.org/image/w2nbe4nit/
The shots were fired from the same location as in the first screenshot.

The new code has the benefit of distributing the bullets to the center more rather than uniformly within a square. Notice also that the shape is circular instead of square. It also uses floating-point arithmetic in entirety so the function is continuous.

Better still would be modeling using the normal distribution. That way spread could be customised by changing the variance while giving extremely realistic results. I'd be happy to work on a patch if it would be considered for inclusion.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

I barely looked at any of the code :P
I thought it was kinda gross.

[tempest]

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