Agreed.
The game is currently light body type + CARB-9 + hold left mouse button + unscoped + strafe spastically = kill.
If both people do that then it’s down to buffs and teammates nearby. Marksmanship is a non-factor.
The more I play the more I hate it.
OK in order to analyze this properly I think you need to look at distances of engagement. The SMGs are designed for close range combat (~2-10m in this game); you can see it in their accuracy/spread/recoil properties. Generally the SMGs have a poor accuracy rating, large initial spread, small added spread from spraying, and quick recovery time. This means that in order to be successful with the SMGs you need to use it in cqc only situations(which, granted, is most of the time in this game), you need to burst until it becomes inaccurate, then you need to let off just a tiny bit then burst again.
The ARs have a high accuracy rating, small initial spread, large added spread from spraying, and slower recovery time. This means that in order to be successful with the ARs you need to use them in longer (10-30m) range engagements, burst fire only (most guns 3 rds max), and let off alot more before letting loose with another burst.
Then we talk about the light rifles and shotguns, which seem pretty balanced from what I can tell. The Drognav and Barrett are good at picking people off from a distance, while the shotguns are great at melee distance fighting (beating the carb-9 in ttk in most cases I should add), and neither seem good at much else. Props to you if you can survive with a light rifle or shotgun in their off-ranges in this game.
The Carb is no doubt the best gun in the game: why?
Because it offers the best balance of damage per shot, rate of fire, stability, accuracy, and bullets per mag/reload value. The Carb simply seems to be the best DPS in the game at the most common engagement ranges around most objective areas. Its spread, rate of fire, and damage per shot characteristics are second to none in close range combat. If you look at the numbers at http://denkirson.xanga.com/738334226/brink/, you will see that all of the SMGs have the same ROF, yet the Carb has the highest damage per shot as well as a decent accuracy rating for an SMG. This means that at anything less than ~10m, the Carb simply wins when the players are assumed to have the same aiming skills/opportunities in a given situation. There are other SMGs with much better accuracy (galactic, kross, bulpdawn in order), but at the ranges they are normally employed the added accuracy is not nearly as beneficial as the Carb’s added power. The only SMG that comes close to the Carb in power is the Tampa which has poor accuracy but better reload time comparatively.
You all may be right in your contention that the ARs are underpowered compared to the SMGs, only time will tell. If anything needs changing, it is NOT an overall reduction in spread to all weapons. There are guns that are plenty accurate if that’s what you want. What would genuinely work to improve gameplay would be an increase in spread added while firing to SMGs only, especially the Carb (yes nerf it), and perhaps a boost to the spread reduction of ARs after bursts. The idea is to reward players who can control their fire (and range to target) a little better than just holding down the LMB while keeping their crosshair on the opponent’s head/chest.
[QUOTE=burawura;325308]OK in order to analyze this properly I think you need to look at distances of engagement. The SMGs are designed for close range combat (~2-10m in this game); you can see it in their accuracy/spread/recoil properties. Generally the SMGs have a poor accuracy rating, large initial spread, small added spread from spraying, and quick recovery time. This means that in order to be successful with the SMGs you need to use it in cqc only situations(which, granted, is most of the time in this game), you need to burst until it becomes inaccurate, then you need to let off just a tiny bit then burst again.
The ARs have a high accuracy rating, small initial spread, large added spread from spraying, and slower recovery time. This means that in order to be successful with the ARs you need to use them in longer (10-30m) range engagements, burst fire only (most guns 3 rds max), and let off alot more before letting loose with another burst.
Then we talk about the light rifles and shotguns, which seem pretty balanced from what I can tell. The Drognav and Barrett are good at picking people off from a distance, while the shotguns are great at melee distance fighting (beating the carb-9 in ttk in most cases I should add), and neither seem good at much else. Props to you if you can survive with a light rifle or shotgun in their off-ranges in this game.
The Carb is no doubt the best gun in the game: why?
Because it offers the best balance of damage per shot, rate of fire, stability, accuracy, and bullets per mag/reload value. The Carb simply seems to be the best DPS in the game at the most common engagement ranges around most objective areas. Its spread, rate of fire, and damage per shot characteristics are second to none in close range combat. If you look at the numbers at http://denkirson.xanga.com/738334226/brink/, you will see that all of the SMGs have the same ROF, yet the Carb has the highest damage per shot as well as a decent accuracy rating for an SMG. This means that at anything less than ~10m, the Carb simply wins when the players are assumed to have the same aiming skills/opportunities in a given situation. There are other SMGs with much better accuracy (galactic, kross, bulpdawn in order), but at the ranges they are normally employed the added accuracy is not nearly as beneficial as the Carb’s added power. The only SMG that comes close to the Carb in power is the Tampa which has poor accuracy but better reload time comparatively.
You all may be right in your contention that the ARs are underpowered compared to the SMGs, only time will tell. If anything needs changing, it is NOT an overall reduction in spread to all weapons. There are guns that are plenty accurate if that’s what you want. What would genuinely work to improve gameplay would be an increase in spread added while firing to SMGs only, especially the Carb (yes nerf it), and perhaps a boost to the spread reduction of ARs after bursts. The idea is to reward players who can control their fire (and range to target) a little better than just holding down the LMB while keeping their crosshair on the opponent’s head/chest.[/QUOTE]
there is actually a two issues really; first, making other weapons more useful, and making spray weapons (carb) less useful.
First, lets address the carb9. The problem is two fold. First, it has a really high rate of fire; and second, it does a good amount of damage for an smg. Yes, there are weapons that have higher damage and accuracy, more on those next, but with the high rate and decent damage of the carb, you dont have to aim for the head. The cone gets larger and when you are in a medium to short range area, as long as the head is partially in the cone of fire, you are going to get a headshot due to the saturation of bullets with the high fire rate. so most people aim for the upper chest and get the cone enlarges to include the head and with so many bullets flying you are getting headshots. Burst firing isnt really the full answer. Skilled players will still aim for the head and burst for better accuracy, but they don’t have to be as exact as it should be; just get the head kinda in the circle and fire a quick burst. So for the carb, there are really 3 means to fix it.
First, lower the cone to increase accuracy for both min and max scale - so that when you do spray you must aim for the head more, especially in short range. This works as a general easy fix but may not necessarily the best fit. This makes all weapons more skillful but it doesn’t necessarily fix the issue of making the assault rifles more effective as long range battles are rare in this game due to the map design (there are a few spots though) and the smgs will still have a better DPS and also get an accuracy boost.
Second and Third (Ill just combine them) for the Carb9 at least, you can either lower the rate of fire or lower the damage. lowering the rate of fire makes it more like any other weapons and removes some of its uniqueness, but would nerf it back to reality. Lowering the damage works fine as well since you would essentially have to spray a bit longer giving the enemy more time to react or take cover or get a more accurate shots in - but it may have a bit of a spray feel to it.
Next, theres the problem globally of all weapons. Carb9 shows what happens when you have high rate low accuracy weapons - it doesn’t necessarily make them any worse than high accuracy high damage, just different. But for the skilled players, they prefer high accuracy. The assault weapons right now don’t reflect the proper damage ratio for lining up the headshots. Making a good 1 sec. burst fire all hit the head perfectly when in sighted mode would be a means to do this. The FRKN does ok, but not at very long range which its designed for; You will get 1 or 2 out of the long range burst at extreme long range but not every time will you get all 3. If its going to work, all shots in the burst at extreme long range need to hit the head so that it only takes 2 bursts to take down a light. At medium range it does, if they are standing still and doing nothing and have no buffs. So IMO, adding more accuracy to the assault weapons, even if its just using the ADS, should be as well - and effective, as spray and pray weapons in the hands of a skilled player. A note on the FRKN, a slightly higher ROF in the burst could be the fix for that weapon.
Maybe nerfing the Carb9 will be enough, but the weapons in general still feel ‘off’ to me. I would rather have more effective weapons all around than just one thats slightly less useful.
The problem that I see with this idea is that by buffing all the weapons you run the risk of making the SMGs even more dominant than they already are.
That I agree on. simply buffing all the weapons means that smgs will still dominate since they all get buffed. But nerfing the carb9 so its worse doesnt make the other weapons any better, it just means now all the weapons feel bad. I would rather see buffs on the other weapons and a slight nerf to the carb9 than a just a nerf to the carb9.
There are only two things in this game that need fixing, one Carb 9 is a ridiculous absurdly overpowered weapon that breaks any skilled gameplay/gun fights, since once one person in a server begins using it, EVERYONE is forced to use it since no other gun can compete with it.
The second is medics ability to self buff, I’m sure everyone here can attest to the fact that 95% of people run around as medic with a carb 9 and spray and pray once they start losing to a clearly better player.
Many MANY games I’ve been in start out with no players using the carb 9, then once they start losing in gun fights to others they immediately switch to carb/medic and just roll over people until the others switch to the same to counter it. There have been countless times where I’m using my bulp silenced and rolling kids and then they get pissy and switch to a carb 9 and suddenly the balance tips, then I’m forced to switch to the carb as well and oh look I’m back on top again.
The carb 9 is the main issue here, not CoF or headshot damage (seriously, increase headshot damage? what kind of moron started that idea? the game already ends up in way too many random headshots from people with piss-poor aim, if anything remove or significantly decrease headshots from all but sniper rifles). Nerf the Carb 9 and the game is perfect.
Rahabib and burawura, thank you for elevating this thread to a wonderful and insightful discussion. People seriously need to read, re-read and then contemplate all that is said in these two posts:
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showpost.php?p=325308&postcount=81
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showpost.php?p=325663&postcount=82
As far as where I land with my opinion: I wouldn’t mind other guns getting a very slight bit of love while the Carb9 needs to be tweaked for balance with its counterparts.
I was thinking about the Carb this morning and it seems to me that it would make sense to have the Carb9 be the least accurate (and/or have the quickest damage dropoff over range) of the SMGs as it has the highest damage output.
I’m up for this as a patch change or mod.
I had been thinking the damage was too low but it’s really not that bad. It’s the accuracy that makes most guns weak.
I would be concerned about breaking the game play but as is the gun play is so unsatisfying that I can’t see myself sticking with it for very long despite liking every other aspect.
g_playtestBalanceWeaponRecoilRateScale “0”
g_playtestBalanceWeaponSpreadAngleMaxScale “0.45”
g_playtestBalanceWeaponSpreadAngleMinScale “0.25”
g_playtestBalanceDamageScale “0.85”
wut
Okaaay, I haven’t read the whole thread trough… Anyway, CS does have spread you know… It’s just that the first few shots from your weapon are accurate. Has anyone tested how the spread works in Brink? Are the first few shots accurate? If not, you can start with that to begin with.
But increase headshot damage? This game is supposed to be about teamwork! There’s a reason why grenades doesn’t damage you too severely and why so many weapons takes more than a split second to kill someone. Contrary to popular belief, skill is not solely about good aim!
I can go with a tighter cone, but I don’t agree that an increase in headshot damage is needed.
I have to ask though, how many here actually use SMART during combat? And not just gliding, mind you. I’m talking about trying to quickly jump across various obstacles, walls and such while trying to aim and kill the person you’re up against. I’m mainly asking this partly because of the focus this topic has about aim and how it’s somewhat implied that skill is all about aim. I may not have perfect aim, but I try to use the SMART system to my advantage at least, which has proven to be effective at times.
EDIT: Ps, The Kross has a crazy tight cone but less damage.
I mostly agree with the OP.
I think the carb 9 isnt overpowered. I think the other weapons are underpowered though o.o
I like guns like RTCW and W:ET had.
Edit actually scratch the overpowered/underpowered stuff. just something isnt right with the feel/aim of the guns (I think the opening post addressed that).
21 days and no repsonse from a dev about any issues regarding the game.
I’ve already quit; by time this game gets some form of support that it needs, it’s gonna die out.
I posted elsewhere but this game barely hit 3500 yesterday (it drops almost daily)
thats less than W:ET a game released in 2003 (the fact W:ET is free has little to do with it as their are paid games like CS, Cod, etc where the population numbers are higher).
I think sadly that SD cant possibly fix significant issues magically over a short enough time.
I was gonna make a team or join one but Im afraid its ‘almost’ to late.
More on topic…
Fix the damn guns.
Well I agree that the lack of an open beta has hurt the game, and the game feels like a beta now.
However, I do think this game has potential, but it may be several months before its fixed to a decently competitive state. I too have stopped playing - but I haven’t given up on the game. Ill continue to check for patches and posts from devs. Once an SDK is out, Ill do my best to make the game more competitive friendly without banning everything. I honestly dont think this game can be fixed with small patches and the ones planned just make it more console friendly (new weapons, new XP levels, more grind) than competitive. So yea, check the forums every couple of weeks at least. Its not like theres any good new games coming out for a while anyway.
I play with a medium built in my first days i would use the gerunt but in close combats vs a smg is just fail, so i also started to use the carb wich is good to spray and pray even at long distances.
Brink is all about spray and pray, a light with a smg can pwn a medium or a heeavy just strafing fast left right left right, i think the strafe speed for all builts should be the same(speed at wich u strafe left righ) and defenetly the guns need some balancing in general,if they just nerf the carb all people will start using the kross.
So, how about no headshot damage unless you iron sight? :V I dunno, just a simple suggestion.That way lights can’t just spaz around and spray against “better” players. And Heavy gets a passive buff that way since it’s headshot damage that can really screw a heavy over.