Fine Tuning Update v48857 - 19/08/2015

(Anti) #41

[QUOTE=Kroad;537274]so you don’t balance because of that graph… but you use it as an explanation?

http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/45677-How-to-balance-Vassili-101-good-patch-notes-that-actually-make-senes?p=537259&viewfull=1#post537259 best post about this update, would be nice if you didn’t lock threads that people take the time to write long posts in. Pretty ironic that you also locked a thread called “Splash damage, any plans to talk to your top players?” because a top player used a couple words you didn’t like. newb and chicken’s posts were imo very good posts to base discussion off of, pretty hard to do when you lock the thread, really doesn’t make people want to give any more feedback.[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry but we’re not going to let threads where people are rude or abusive towards other users stay open. The thread is still there to be read and their feedback is still present, nothing was lost.

The forums have always worked this way, it’s not going to change now. Be nice to other users and constructive or don’t post at all.

(BomBaKlaK) #42

After 3 fresh instal without any modification it finally works … what happen ? I got no idea !

(Kroad) #43

Then why even post it and say “this is why we did this change”? If they didn’t use the graph then it is irrelevant, don’t understand why it’s there.

it isn’t more accurate than other guns, I guess it makes sense to say that if you personally have never really used it…
SMG9 has always been more accurate, last patch that lowered crotzni’s accuracy made it a lot less accurate than SMG9, M4, etc, idk if SD have maybe considered buffing SMG9 and blishlok instead of repeatedly raising spread, it’s not like no one hasn’t suggested that.

[QUOTE=spookify;537279]
IMO that is just a troll post… There are bigger issues from this patch to worry about but people are being to loud over these tiny little balance fixes to notice other problems! I like how Fubar broke everything down but didnt give any good information to back up his claims and it was basically all sarcastic responses…[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t even have bothered if I was him, seeing how little reaction his first feedback post got and how little reaction other player’s threads get (such as chicken’s about vasilis). It seems to me like all the top players that take the time to talk get ignored, I would love to know who these “pro snipers” and “pro players” that are being talked to are (ocb clan? no offense to them but they are nowhere near pkd/sick6), doesn’t seem like anyone knows (newb is on the 2nd best team in the game and they obviously haven’t been talked to)

[QUOTE=Anti;537281]I’m sorry but we’re not going to let threads where people are rude or abusive towards other users stay open. The thread is still there to be read and their feedback is still present, nothing was lost.

The forums have always worked this way, it’s not going to change now. Be nice to other users and constructive or don’t post at all.[/QUOTE]

Then you should punish the rude user and/or delete his posts, instead of locking down an entire thread because one guy was a dick.

(chickenNwaffles) #44

The real problem with weapon balance, is that this game has no choices when it comes to weapons to pick per merc.

Not once does a someone have to “choose” between two guns; they just go with the better one.

The real goal of weapon balance, is to make a set of several unique weapons that cater to different play styles and preferences; no two gun should be the same.

Take for example the m4 and the timik: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yYDiX77THpjA-hImu2eRLio-ayOvGnDEeorZgHAieVQ/edit#gid=490808091

The only advantage the timik has is ROF (by 14.6), reload time (by 0.10), and max range (by 300).

That’s it!

Of course the spread and recoil have changed slightly since this patch, but that still doesn’t make up for the m4 being an all around better gun.

The timik should shoot slow, accurate (for the first burst of bullets), and hard (it should do much more damage than the m4).

Because the timik and the m4 have the same damage and the m4 shoots like a laser beam, everybody uses the m4; it’s no contest really, and no amount of recoil & spread reduction would change this.

They are essentially, the same gun, but just slightly different stats.


Now, let’s take a look at the BR-16 and the Stark-AR:

These guns are literally copy and paste, except for a few minor stats that ultimately make the BR-16 slightly better and more preferred - these stats are the clip size and recoil.

How would one go about fixing this? By making the guns more unique, of course!

One of the burst guns should be a more spammable faster firing gun, while the other should be a slower firing 2 burst gun that hits much harder.

Now on to the crotzni and smg9:

Another two guns that feel almost the same, the smg9 and crotzni are the most underused and used guns in the game.

These two guns should be mini versions of the m4 and timik, meaning that the crotzni should shoot much slower, and be accurate for a limited amount of shots, and do much more damage and the smg9 should shoot faster and have more consistent accuracy.

The fel-ix and moa are a tricky pair to balance.

Inferno and I have agreed, more or less, that the moa should feel more like a scout - more mobile, less damage, but still potent in skillful hands - and that the fel-ix should be more like the awp - may take less skill to use, but is a lot less mobile and sluggish to use.

Maybe making it so that the fel-ix has only one bullet in the chamber at at time, but one shot body shots most mercs would be interesting and fun to see! - you would have to reduce reload time, of course.

I can think of a dozen ways to balance the guns in this game, but apparently I’m not the “pro” sniper that SD wants to talk to - I swear, I’m not as rude as I type on the forums (I’m just frustrated). If you aren’t talking to linkz, me, surefour, taimou, or guilte about sniping, they you are definitely not talking to the right people, at all.

I love the fact that there is the potential to have a set of guns for many mercs that can contradict eachother!

It can add more depth and choice to the stale and stagnant gunplay that we have.

Buffs/nerfs to recoil and spread are possibly the worst way to go about changing the weapons; that’s something that nobody can argue against, if they want the guns in this game to feel more unique.

Maybe this will be the third thread I close today? :smiley:

(Loki.) #45

[quote=shoe.;537214]

hollunds 880

[ul]
[li]increased effective range by ~25%
[/li][/ul]

remburg 7

[ul]
[li]reduced pellet spread by ~8%
[/li][/ul]

ahnuhld-12 shotgun

[ul]
[li]increased effective range by ~50%
[/li][/ul][/quote]

wait ?
What… ?

(spookify) #46

[QUOTE=Kroad;537284]Then why even post it and say “this is why we did this change”? If they didn’t use the graph then it is irrelevant, don’t understand why it’s there.

it isn’t more accurate than other guns, I guess it makes sense to say that if you personally have never really used it…
SMG9 has always been more accurate, last patch that lowered crotzni’s accuracy made it a lot less accurate than SMG9, M4, etc, idk if SD have maybe considered buffing SMG9 and blishlok instead of repeatedly raising spread, it’s not like no one hasn’t suggested that.

I wouldn’t even have bothered if I was him, seeing how little reaction his first feedback post got and how little reaction other player’s threads get (such as chicken’s about vasilis). It seems to me like all the top players that take the time to talk get ignored, I would love to know who these “pro snipers” and “pro players” that are being talked to are (ocb clan? no offense to them but they are nowhere near pkd/sick6), doesn’t seem like anyone knows (newb is on the 2nd best team in the game and they obviously haven’t been talked to)

Then you should punish the rude user and/or delete his posts, instead of locking down an entire thread because one guy was a dick.[/QUOTE]

I agree with your statements but sort of lost to your point.

Are you not happy with the tweaks or the patch? Do you not feel it was a step in the right direction to feel out where guns are? By your posts you feel the balance is going totally the wrong way?

I totally agree the Crotzni was a weird Nerf… Like I said I never use it because it doesnt fit my aim style but it might fit others? I would like to know more stats on it like body hit % and HS %… That might answer a few questions but from what that data looks like it was 3% overall more accurate which is a little odd. I bet SD had a little more information to go off of then that single chart when making this nerf, or at least I hope so. I also said that this little tweak might not be all that changing anyway. If people like the Crotzni better then the SMG-9 or the KEK-10 I am sure they will still like it more and that sort of the point.

As for Chickens Post about sniper are they OP or arent they. That insta gib gives them a huge advantage however in ranked MM and matches/Scrims that sniper carry that I saw were mostly hackers. Now those players are getting bored or something and I rarely see a dedicated sniper on a team unless they are super good then good for them. I am personally more worried about other mercs that are coming that “might” have the same effect as Val but but easier to use. P.S. Chicken is really good at sniping so his clan uses him as such.

(spookify) #47

[QUOTE=chickenNwaffles;537285]

Take for example the m4 and the timik: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yYDiX77THpjA-hImu2eRLio-ayOvGnDEeorZgHAieVQ/edit#gid=490808091

The only advantage the timik has is ROF (by 14.6), reload time (by 0.10), and max range (by 300).

That’s it!

Of course the spread and recoil have changed slightly since this patch, but that still doesn’t make up for the m4 being an all around better gun.

The timik should shoot slow, accurate (for the first burst of bullets), and hard (it should do much more damage than the m4).

Because the timik and the m4 have the same damage and the m4 shoots like a laser beam, everybody uses the m4; it’s no contest really, and no amount of recoil & spread reduction would change this.

They are essentially, the same gun, but just slightly different stats.[/QUOTE]

I will take the Timik over the M4 and day. Why? It just feels better. I can pop 3 hs more consistently with it then the M4. To me they do not feel like the same gun.

(chickenNwaffles) #48

The thing is, they are the same gun, but the timik is statistically worse.

I love the timik too, but sadly, it wont see much use outside of pubs. It probably has worse augments too, but I’m not sure about that one.

I’d just love to see the two guns have a much different and more unique feel to them, sot that it’s actually a choice on whether you want to use the timik or the m4; both guns should be viable.

(Anti) #49

[QUOTE=chickenNwaffles;537285]The real problem with weapon balance, is that this game has no choices when it comes to weapons to pick per merc.

Not once does a someone have to “choose” between two guns; they just go with the better one.

The real goal of weapon balance, is to make a set of several unique weapons that cater to different play styles and preferences; no two gun should be the same.

Take for example the m4 and the timik: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yYDiX77THpjA-hImu2eRLio-ayOvGnDEeorZgHAieVQ/edit#gid=490808091

The only advantage the timik has is ROF (by 14.6), reload time (by 0.10), and max range (by 300).

That’s it!

Of course the spread and recoil have changed slightly since this patch, but that still doesn’t make up for the m4 being an all around better gun.

The timik should shoot slow, accurate (for the first burst of bullets), and hard (it should do much more damage than the m4).

Because the timik and the m4 have the same damage and the m4 shoots like a laser beam, everybody uses the m4; it’s no contest really, and no amount of recoil & spread reduction would change this.

They are essentially, the same gun, but just slightly different stats.


Now, let’s take a look at the BR-16 and the Stark-AR:

These guns are literally copy and paste, except for a few minor stats that ultimately make the BR-16 slightly better and more preferred - these stats are the clip size and recoil.

How would one go about fixing this? By making the guns more unique, of course!

One of the burst guns should be a more spammable faster firing gun, while the other should be a slower firing 2 burst gun that hits much harder.

Now on to the crotzni and smg9:

Another two guns that feel almost the same, the smg9 and crotzni are the most underused and used guns in the game.

These two guns should be mini versions of the m4 and timik, meaning that the crotzni should shoot much slower, and be accurate for a limited amount of shots, and do much more damage and the smg9 should shoot faster and have more consistent accuracy.

The fel-ix and moa are a tricky pair to balance.

Inferno and I have agreed, more or less, that the moa should feel more like a scout - more mobile, less damage, but still potent in skillful hands - and that the fel-ix should be more like the awp - may take less skill to use, but is a lot less mobile and sluggish to use.

Maybe making it so that the fel-ix has only one bullet in the chamber at at time, but one shot body shots most mercs would be interesting and fun to see! - you would have to reduce reload time, of course.

I can think of a dozen ways to balance the guns in this game, but apparently I’m not the “pro” sniper that SD wants to talk to - I swear, I’m not as rude as I type on the forums (I’m just frustrated). If you aren’t talking to linkz, me, surefour, taimou, or guilte about sniping, they you are definitely not talking to the right people, at all.

I love the fact that there is the potential to have a set of guns for many mercs that can contradict eachother!

It can add more depth and choice to the stale and stagnant gunplay that we have.

Buffs/nerfs to recoil and spread are possibly the worst way to go about changing the weapons; that’s something that nobody can argue against, if they want the guns in this game to feel more unique.

Maybe this will be the third thread I close today? :D[/QUOTE]

It’s maybe more of a result of the way we have distributed some weapons on Loadout cards rather than the differences themselves. Certainly some guns initial direction was set before the cards, might be worth us looking at it from that point of view (where certain Mercs maybe lack variety more than others).

I would say some of your stats look wrong there, but not miles off. You are missing all spread/recoil/recovery/stance/fall-off and IS attributes as well though and they do have quite an impact on some of the combos you mentioned.

On publics the weapon usage isn’t quite as polar as you suggest, people tend to go with what they like not the absolute optimal. I imagine that’s different for players like yourself and in comp but that is one thing I believe we’ve not checked in a while, worth doing again.

(ragnak) #50

[QUOTE=Anti;537291]
On publics the weapon usage isn’t quite as polar as you suggest, people tend to go with what they like not the absolute optimal. I imagine that’s different for players like yourself and in comp but that is one thing I believe we’ve not checked in a while, worth doing again.[/QUOTE]

Did i misunderstand you or you really didnt check comp stats before making balance changes ? That would explain a lot and kinda strange when you market your game as competitive shooter.

(Anti) #51

Weapon usage (as in time played), no, not in the last week or two. Older data for it, just not recently updated that particular one as it’s less relevant compared to stuff like accuracy distributions, DPM, kills, assists, engagement distances etc etc.

(chickenNwaffles) #52

[QUOTE=Anti;537291]It’s maybe more of a result of the way we have distributed some weapons on Loadout cards rather than the differences themselves. Certainly some guns initial direction was set before the cards, might be worth us looking at it from that point of view (where certain Mercs maybe lack variety more than others).

I would say some of your stats look wrong there, but not miles off. You are missing all spread/recoil/recovery/stance/fall-off and IS attributes as well though and they do have quite an impact on some of the combos you mentioned.

On publics the weapon usage isn’t quite as polar as you suggest, people tend to go with what they like not the absolute optimal. I imagine that’s different for players like yourself and in comp but that is one thing I believe we’ve not checked in a while, worth doing again.[/QUOTE]

I neglected some of them - like recoil, because it’s too easy to compensate - because they hardly set the guns apart from each other; these mechanics simply balance the guns (sometimes poorly).

Don’t you think that it’s kind of bad to balance guns based on what kind of augments their loadouts get? Idk, I just want their to be more options per merc, rather than everybody (in the comp scene) using almost the same thing - people in pubs just play what they want to play, hell, I use default redeye.

This, of course, is very optimistic, as balancing is harder said than done, but I still strongly believe that every gun in the game should be unique and equal.

(Phantomchan) #53

I’m very very very happy with this update. This is one of the updates I looked out for and luckily for me it arrived sooner than I thought. Amazing work! I quit playing for a few days due to some troublesome hackers and such and started to play Nosgoth instead, but seeing this neat update to roll out makes me wanna play Dirty Bomb again. I’m really very grateful for this update.

To show my gratitude, here is some Duane (also how I feel atm).

EDIT : Just seen that NGS means Nexon Game Security. This alone makes me really skeptical considering the past regarding Nexon’s anti-cheats.Guess we will have to see the results of this.

(montheponies) #54

What kind of pedigree does the Nexon Game Security have?

(BMXer) #55

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;537240]…

As for making it ‘Brinkish’, that leads me to believe you didn’t play Brink or you don’t play DB, one of the two. Brinks spread and bloom was bloody massive, wayyyyyy higher than any SMG in this game.

…[/QUOTE]

The point is that spread was used the most to “balance” the weapons in Brink. Players used one weapon a little more than another and their solution was to add spread! Adding more spread was their thing in Brink and they got a ton of flack for it. So when SD goes and uses spread to try to get people to use other weapons more, the smell of Brink starts to waft into the room. Yuck!

(Violator) #56

I can hereby report that balance doesn’t seem to be any better :frowning:

(Smooth) #57

I’d like to point your nose towards the SIX reductions in bullet spread, versus the ONE increase in this update.

We can’t always keep on reducing spread for everything because it would slowly but surely lower the overall TTK and it would tend towards all weapons becoming ‘laser’ like - removing one of the differences they have between each other.

Bullet spread is a part of Dirty Bomb, yes to a much lesser extent than when compared to Brink, CoD, Battlefield or CS, but t’s definitely here to stay.

I’d also like to point people towards this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dirtybomb/comments/3hctsb/splash_damage_any_plans_to_talk_to_the_games_top/cu82irv?context=3

(Anti) #58

Not quite what I meant.

I meant many of them had their direction (e.g. Burst fire semi-auto AR) set before Loadouts when they were specific to a single Merc. With Loadouts they got added to smaller pools of guns for each Merc that would fit the combat style we wanted for them (we didn’t want the full autonomy of Brink as it resulted in some poor consistency in combat).

I can definitely see how through that process we’ve probably ended up with a few Mercs where the choice in their pool is negligible and I think we’d agree having meaningful choices is a must.

(Raviolay) #59

[QUOTE=Anti;537309]Not quite what I meant.

I meant many of them had their direction (e.g. Burst fire semi-auto AR) set before Loadouts when they were specific to a single Merc. With Loadouts they got added to smaller pools of guns for each Merc that would fit the combat style we wanted for them (we didn’t want the full autonomy of Brink as it resulted in some poor consistency in combat).

I can definitely see how through that process we’ve probably ended up with a few Mercs where the choice in their pool is negligible and I think we’d agree having meaningful choices is a must.[/QUOTE] Probably going to be shouted down for this but I believe the set weapon loadout should of stayed. No different weapons for each merc, as I think you have make a rod for your own back by doing this. As balancing has more elements to it than it had to have. The old system of fixed weapons also made the game more constant. You saw a merc you already know what they can do and they should play. In my humble opinion you should keep the loadout cards. Yet restrict the guns, but have higher tier cards have different attachments. The attachments could compliment the augments.

(chickenNwaffles) #60

I still think it would be interesting to lock each merc to a specific weapon.