Can we have a serious discussion about weapon consistency?

(ShotgunRagtime) #21

@Jostabeere reread my original posts more closely and you’ll see why it’s justifiable that only two weapons have a pattern. Again, I’ve said all to be said, not gonna start this up again.

(Jostabeere) #22

Can you name a single game with competitive aspects which is proven to use random and fixed spread pattern for automatic weapons on certain guns as a gameplay mechanic, please.

(Sergeant_Falcon) #23

The M4 is the most consistent.

(sonsofaugust5) #24

What I would have liked to see is the hip fire of 1 gun 2x. Based on what you did, when iron sighted the recoil is vertical and slight right at the end with each gun, very predictable imo. Crouching seemed to tighten spread into a cluster. I don’t understand what you mean by random. If you are crouching the recoil patter should be different, same for iron sighting. If you mean random in that every time you hold the trigger and hip fire you get a different pattern, that would make it more difficult to get consistent with a gun. The m4a1 did the same thing in each of the three situations, which is odd imo. Another shooter I played, crouched or walking meant tighter spread which makes sense because you aren’t moving as fast.

(ShotgunRagtime) #25

@Jostabeere

Red Orchestra 2, Darkest Hour 44-45, early COD games, just a few off the top of my head. There’s plenty of others, but maybe you’ve only played Counter Strike though, and think all FPS games use the same mechanics as an outdated casual shooter that requires as much skill and brainpower as memorizing recoil patterns and smoke placement on de_2?

Any more “questions” please just PM me, no use cluttering the thread.

(bontsa) #26

This is interesting thread, let’s not let it a) die out or b) get fallen into the bottomless void of attacking arguer instead of arguement.

I have no opinion on this, since while I did think @Watsyurdeal did have a fair point in fixed recoil patterns, I think @Ctrix and @ShotgunRagtime do have very insightful approach to the subject too, as in seemingly random pattern can be planned-out developing decision and be actually a balancing attribute for certain weapons. Would love to hear developer opinion on this, any chance @Faraleth could add this to next batch of questions for the upcoming dev streams? If this is indeed a planned out decision and we’re most probably not, or are we seeing more fixed recoils in the future?

I wouldn’t belittle the skill it takes to memorize recoil patterns, but I do see the concern it brings in terms of high level play deepening the issue of certain weapons becoming obsolete. Since at least in CS there is also economy mechanic to be taken into account, some weapons see play despite them being inferior dps-wise because they fit in money-wise. Such thing is not implemented in DB so other means of balance have to be thought out.

(Sir_Slam) #27

My concern here is with making SMGs too powerful. SMGs shouldnt strictly outclass rifles ever. Rifles are designed to be more powerful than SMGs. Who gets rifles? Fire supports and Red-eye. What is the primary job of Fire supports and Red-eye? To give out ammo and kill people, hence why they also have their various forms of artillery. Its what they do.

Medics and Engineers aren’t meant to head into combat like Fire Supports and Assaults. Fletcher skirts around like an asshole and pelts you with sticky nades. Bushwhacker creates killzones with his turret. Proxy runs into combat and dies because shotguns are terrible and she has like 80 HP. And then medics do their medic thing and heal people.

SMGs are kept intentionally worse on that basis. They aren’t unusable by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I think in practice they aren’t terribly far behind rifles, but are still outclassed assuming perfect aim. Giving them some kind of damage ramp-up would be a bad, bad idea.

But giving them a recoil pattern would be fine because unlike CS:GO, this game isn’t complete sh*t and doesn’t punish your aim for existing.

(watsyurdeal) #28

I seriously doubt SMGs having a recoil pattern would make them strictly better than rifles, I think a lot of it comes down to how headshots and damage fall off is calculated.

Obviously Rifles should have little punishment to dropoff with headshots, as well as being more accurate, SMGs however should have lower starting accuracy and less range. Just makes sense.

(Verticules) #29

IMO the Timik needs a rework. Other than that, I feel like the other weapons perform well at their prospective ranges.

Edit: and the ugly green smudge that is the Blishlok’s sight, yea, fix that.

(watsyurdeal) #30

[quote=“VerticallyObese;120861”]IMO the Timik needs a rework. Other than that, I feel like the other weapons perform well at their prospective ranges.

Edit: and the ugly green smudge that is the Blishlok’s sight, yea, fix that.[/quote]

Personally…I feel like all rifles need a dot sight, just my opinion. Let the SMGs have iron sights as a way to balance them.

(cordovanJive) #31

@Jostabeere Every CS game since the original. The even the more accurate rifles have a bit of difference to them in CSGO. Some a lot more than others though.

For example the Famas has a lot more random variance than the AK-47, and the M4A1-S has even less variance than the AK-47.

In the original CS there were a bunch of patterns for every weapon too. No set pattern.

@ShotgunRagtime As I’d said even CS has some variance to the recoil. Especially the original ones where there were a ton of patterns for every gun. And calling the most popular competitive fps game a casual shooter is… Laughable.

(Jostabeere) #32

[quote=“cordovanJive;121490”]@Jostabeere Every CS game since the original. The even the more accurate rifles have a bit of difference to them in CSGO. Some a lot more than others though.

For example the Famas has a lot more random variance than the AK-47, and the M4A1-S has even less variance than the AK-47.

In the original CS there were a bunch of patterns for every weapon too. No set pattern.

@ShotgunRagtime As I’d said even CS has some variance to the recoil. Especially the original ones where there were a ton of patterns for every gun. And calling the most popular competitive fps game a casual shooter is… Laughable.[/quote]

Even if CS guns have more or less randomness, they all have a spray pattern. There is still no game with guns that have a spray patter and ones that has 0 spray pattern and fire 100% random.

(3N1GM4) #33

I’d be interested to know who’s actually fired different types of weapons in real life.

In the real world, a weapons accuracy is determined by a plethora of factors:

  • Barrel length
  • Twist rate of the barrel
  • Weight of the bullet
  • Length of the sight picture (distance between the front post and rear sight)
  • Muzzle devices
  • How the weapon manages recoil
  • Does it fire from an open bolt or closed bolt
  • How the weapon is held
  • The caliber of the weapon

As you can see, there are many factors that induce randomness and many that reduce it.

AK vs M4
An M4 in real life is more controllable than an AK because of the recoil buffer in the stock, the smaller caliber round, a smaller bolt that is moving, a muzzle device that reduces vertical climb and longer sight picture.

The AK is less controllable because the shorter sight picture (the rear sight is all the way up on the barrel), the round is considerably larger, the fore grip is shorter, and it has a massive bolt that is slamming into the shooters shoulder unbuffered causing a lot of randomness.

SMG vs Rifle
An SMG usually has a very short barrel, and are very short weapons, making them very inaccurate with random bullet spread. But, because they use a smaller caliber with less kick, they are more easily controlled and kept “on target”. While the recoil is more easily managed, the shear nature of an SMG is inaccurate.

Translation: The weapon is inaccurate, the shooter more in control. More random spread, but more easily kept pointed at target.

A rifle generally has a longer barrel which improves the accuracy of the weapon, longer over length also make it more stable for the shooter (left, right, first shot). But because they use larger caliber rounds, they generally have higher recoil amounts.

Translation: The weapon is accurate, the shooter has a harder time controlling it. Less random spread, harder to keep on target (vertically because of recoil)

Now I know, this isn’t a realistic shooter yadda yadda yadda…
But why even have recoil and spread? It is a shooter… where you use guns… based off of realistic weapons… and realistic guns have RANDOM recoil.

(watsyurdeal) #34

[quote=“3N1GM4;124507”]

Now I know, this isn’t a realistic shooter yadda yadda yadda…
But why even have recoil and spread? It is a shooter… where you use guns… based off of realistic weapons… and realistic guns have RANDOM recoil. [/quote]

Because this is a GAME, and games have rules that layout how the player should be expected to play.

We have weapon switch times, raise and drop times for running, speed, health, all that stuff. So why should a gun have random recoil? Spread is one thing, it encourages players to fire in bursts at longer ranges to maintain accuracy, and that also lowers the ttk of a given weapon. But to have the gun kick you in a random direction when you fire is not something I agree with.

The majority of the guns have consistent patterns as it is, the M4, Timik, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Burst Rifles, all kick in the same direction, and all have predictability in how they function (the shotguns being the oddball as the have a star shaped pattern for spread, for each gun).

So I do not see the issue with giving SMGs and the Machine Guns similar treatment, if you’re worried about these guns overstepping into rifle territory, etc, then maybe the problem is the distinct differences in how certain guns function is not distinct enough.

Maybe the range and drop off penalties for SMGs aren’t harsh enough, and the Machine Guns honestly are pretty much where they need to be. They bloom faster than anything else, so hipfire is all about control while aiming down sights is suppressible fire at it’s finest.

(Sterling) #35

SMGs should work better at close range, with more damage falloff, decreased starting accuracy and better handling.

Assault rifles should have less falloff, more accuracy, but a more wonky handling.

As it is currently, you can snipe someone with a Crotzni like it was nothing. While the Crotzni is based of the AKS-74u (which is a tiny AK-74), it should work more like an SMG here (that would also help the whole meta thing about the M4 and Crotzni being THE ultimate choice).

(TheAcidpiss) #36

there should be a recoil pattern for all weapons for shooter games,and there should be a minor amount of random recoil only for the purpose of negating scripts ‘macros’ whatever you wanna call them, the give them lazer like accuracy

(syku) #37

[quote=“Ctrix;118978”]Regarding the recoil pattern. How recoil works in games is by random number deviation. Each shot has a certain degree in which the recoil will reallign the gun. Let’s take Battlefield 3 guns because I can use actual numbers and not guesswork. It’s fairly similar. (Credit to Symthic.com)


This is the recoil pattern of the M16A3 in Battlefield 3, which is a very close approximation to the M4A1 in this game.
What these numbers mean is that after one shot, the recoil will move the gun to anywhere between .1 degree to the left, and .4 degrees to the right, as well as anywhere up to .26 upwards. The other two numbers are the recoil “settle” and the first shot multiplier. First shot multiplier means the first shot in an automatic burst is multiplied by this amount.

The reason the M16A3 was the top tier gun for the majority of people was the very predictable recoil. Which was designed like this on purpose. It makes the gun good at medium range, because you can do long, accurate bursts.

Now let’s take a look at one of the more “close quarters” guns in BF3
AEK: Considered “the” definitive close quarter assault rifle. But still an assault rifle, and by that definition, considered a medium to close range weapon. Considere “unique” in that among all the rifles, it is the only one which pulls consistently to the left

A-91: Carbine for the Engineer class. The weapon of choice for close proximity urban maps, akin to the AEK. Engineer weapons are more Personal Defence weapons than anything else, they are lighter and through that, more close range focused. They occupy a middle ground between Assault Rifles and SMGs

MP-7: Classed a PDW in the game, really they meant SMGs. Specifically designed for fighting inside buildings. Longest ideal engagement range is a hallway.

Do you see how the recoil patterns in Dirty Bomb make sense?[/quote]

It works the same way in this game, the weapons have a vertical and horizontal XY/-XY numbers that determine the spread and the recoil + more.
I used to have those numbers + more(i lost them when i reformated my pc and now the devs made it impossible(afaik) to get those numbers)