Semi-autos and Shotguns: Enforcing Consistency

(INF3RN0) #1

As of the most recent patch, the SMGs, Automatic Rifles, Sniper Rifle, and MGs all feel cohesive and balanced. I still strongly feel as though the semi-auto rifles (redeye/arty/etc) and shotguns are the exception to the consistency of the overall system.

My reasoning;
(1) health being used as a balancing mechanism
(2) lack of punishment/reward for consistency

Foremost health should never be used to balance weaponry, only movement capabilities.

The semi-autos are overly forgiving when spammed, especially when ironsighted. They are meant to reward precise aim and have high reward for headshots, however the variable RoF diminishes the intent. My proposal is to simply lower the maximum RoF on these weapons, which basically nulls the success rate of unloading an entire clip in the general direction of an enemy and coming out on top. This would mean that hipfire would feel more consistent as well without such extreme manual RoF control.

Shotguns are the most obvious violation of enforcing consistency. Instead of trying to balance the raw echo stats, the weaponry itself should be refined to fit into the scheme of the game. We currently have shotguns with improved range capability and movement bonuses, which helps make them much more versatile however those don’t address the consistency issue. I liked the idea of an exponential decay rate on damage, where as the max damage dealt would be dependent on the number of shots that landed in the hitbox. Furthermore, equalizing or even increasing HP for shotgun primaries would reduce the need to have such high damage output. A shotgun does not need to be a consistent high damage output experience for all players even in its comfort zone, just look at the sniper rifle. Also I would suggest a 2second movement penalty after exiting iron-sights with the shotgun to balance out quickscoping it at close range.

So TLDR; I don’t mind the unique weapon types, in fact I encourage them. The point I’m making is that the system of consistency needs to be reinforced across all weapon types.

(Protekt1) #2

We need: weapon - hits to kill - per range chart, again.

(Smooth) #3

Individual Merc attributes (health/speed) are not a factor when it comes to balancing weapons as weapon load-outs aren’t fixed to individual mercs in the long term. As we’ve said before we will be giving each Merc access to a limited number of weapons so players don’t feel entirely locked out of a character just because they have a Shotgun (for example).

Semi-autos and shotguns always tread a very fine line and will be closely monitored, we’re at the point where tiny tiny changes are swinging them from being underpowered and overpowered so we’re fairly close to where I’d like to be.

What is currently missing though is decent hit feedback for shotguns for both the attacker and the victim, since the regular system doesn’t handle multiple-projectiles very well. When this is in I think players will be able to better judge how the shotguns behave by have an idea of how many pellets actually hit the target.

(Smooth) #4

PS. We’ve already had reduced RoF for powerful semi-auto’s on the internal version for a couple of weeks now :wink:

(RasteRayzeR) #5

[QUOTE=Smooth;503690]
What is currently missing though is decent hit feedback for shotguns for both the attacker and the victim, since the regular system doesn’t handle multiple-projectiles very well. When this is in I think players will be able to better judge how the shotguns behave by have an idea of how many pellets actually hit the target.[/QUOTE]

What about pitch reduction of the hitbeeps depending on the amount of damage done or on the health level of the opponent ?

(Smooth) #6

Something like that, plus the red hit indicator scaling up/down properly as well :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #7

The new hitsounds already are a huge improvement. Especially for the loud guns like Rhino’s minigun. You can finally hear that you’re actually hitting stuff.

(RasteRayzeR) #8

I disabled the red hit indicator because I simply don’t focus my view on it (so I never “read” it) and it distracts my eye away from the crosshair. I think audio can be enough for the hit feedback (to be tested)

Agreed, the new hitsounds are perfect imo. Rhino’s gun should saturate your speakers so you lose tactical audio awareness to gain in firepower :slight_smile:

(Glottis-3D) #9

What is wrong with shotgun from, say, quakelive?

the more shots hit, the more damage?

and btw, i hope spread is the same for iron-sighted and non ironsighted shotgun? am i r8?

and, about what Inferno suggested about making a shotgun not from math, but from the gameplay niche of this weapon type.

i agree on this.

for example i’d like shot gun to:

  1. be very difficult to 1shot smbody. but be very damaging neverthe less.
    so i think that in order to make 85DMG (1shot on Proxy) there should be a precise HS+a lot of bullets on the upper body. i mean sideshots (outer circle shots from the spread cone) should not 1shot smbdy even if they HS.

  2. be a close range weapon - the closer you are, the more dmg you deal. the only weapon, that needs falloff dmg imo.

(Smooth) #10

There is a slight bonus when iron-sighting, as there is a penalty when jumping.

Spread for all the other weapons is a game-ism for human-aim being better/worse depending on the player stance and is the main benefit for moving at a slower, more controlled speed or losing your peripheral vision when iron-sighting.

With the shotguns, spread does this in the same way as well as the actual pellet distribution. It’s not a realistic behaviour I know, but we do want to maintain a slight cost/benefit of the different stances when using the shotgun, even if it’s much less than other weapons.

A ‘realistic’ solution would to have the centre-point of a fixed pellet-distribution be randomly offset from the cross-hair by an amount dependant on the stance, but that’s a lot hard to communicate and I think it would feel far too inconsistent for such a massive burst-damage weapon, adding in another ‘lucky’ variable to consider when there’s enough to think about already.

A consistent feel to the weapon is the main reason we went for a fix pellet distribution pattern, as before shotguns were far too luck based.

(Glottis-3D) #11

[QUOTE=Smooth;503700]There is a slight bonus when iron-sighting, as there is a penalty when jumping.

Spread for all the other weapons is a game-ism for human-aim being better/worse depending on the player stance and is the main benefit for moving at a slower, more controlled speed or losing your peripheral vision when iron-sighting.

With the shotguns, spread does this in the same way as well as the actual pellet distribution. It’s not a realistic behaviour I know, but we do want to maintain a slight cost/benefit of the different stances when using the shotgun, even if it’s much less than other weapons.[/QUOTE]
i realy would love to test guns on a small box map, not ingame.
You said that Fletcher’s shot gun is more blunted cone, with less angle.
and Proxy’s one is classical sharp cone(the peak being the end of barrel)

so that they have different Best-use range?

i mean like this:


(Smooth) #12

Point blank they all have the same zero spread, so the pointed cone in your example. The differences between the shotguns are how wide the cone is, and how far the pellets continue to do full damage before falling off.

Fletcher’s shotgun uses Flechette shotgun shells (small darts rather than balls) which results in slightly less damage (as there are fewer of them in each shell) but they will travel further and maintain a much tighter spread at distance.

(rline) #13

I agree with this. There were a few patches where semi-autos were basically useless. I think they are very good where they are now, but could use a slight ROF nerf to address obvious M1 spam in close quarters. If you nerf it too far, we’ll just be back to everyone using full-autos again.

What is the value now? And what has it been reduced to on the internal version? What are your thoughts on the new value?

(Smooth) #14

It depends on the weapon, it basically been reduced so the damage-per-second output of each semi-auto is roughly on par with the fully-auto weapons.

(PixelTwitch) #15

If that is the case I struggle to see why you would use a semi auto over fully auto weapon if I then have to balance out clicking fast while moving and high recoil on hipfire…

I have to admit that I am feeling worried :smiley: lol

(Bitey) #16

I feel that the better option is to balance for clip size of the semi-auto weapons. Rather then lowering their DPS to be closer to the other weapons of a simliar class have you considered lowering the total amount of bullets per clip? Here is some data you can gather with basic math about Redeye and Arty’s weapons.

Redeye:
Ammo: 15
Damage: 35
Headshot: 70
Damage per clip A*D: 525 w/HS: 1050
DPS (9 shots per second?) 315 w/HS: 630

Arty:
Ammo:20
Damage: 27
Headshot: 54
Damager per clip: 540 w/HS: 1080
DPS (11 shot per second?) 297 w/HS: 594

A semi-auto should trade mag size, ease of use, and rate of fire for range, power, and precision. I think you’ve got the weapons in a good spot damage wise, but in order to complete their role on the battlefield you could likely lower their ammo count by a significant margin to balance out their current stopping power.

Clip size mandates that players ensure more shots land in order to keep themselves effective on the battlefield, with too many bullets you’re allowed to spam the rounds down range. With less rounds you’re required to be more conservative otherwise you’ll always be running on empty. It balances itself by ensuring the you don’t waste rounds on nothing due to the smaller size of a clip.

My suggestion is to lower Arty from 20>16 and redeye from 15>12 and leave the RoF alone for the time being.

As for shotguns, I think their quite fine where they are currently. More damage feedback would be interesting, but I don’t really see any problem with the gibbing power, mostly due to the fact that they’re held by weak puny woman with only 80hp. Glass cannons running around who need to hug your face to blow you away is fine with me :stuck_out_tongue:

Say that you were to lower arty weapon from 20 to 16

(Smooth) #17

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;503714]If that is the case I struggle to see why you would use a semi auto over fully auto weapon if I then have to balance out clicking fast while moving and high recoil on hipfire…

I have to admit that I am feeling worried :smiley: lol[/QUOTE]

When I said on par, I meant closer, rather than the double-dps it has been before :wink:

(rline) #18

[QUOTE=Bitey;503720]I feel that the better option is to balance for clip size of the semi-auto weapons. Rather then lowering their DPS to be closer to the other weapons of a simliar class have you considered lowering the total amount of bullets per clip? Here is some data you can gather with basic math about Redeye and Arty’s weapons.

Redeye:
Ammo: 15
Damage: 35
Headshot: 70
Damage per clip A*D: 525 w/HS: 1050
DPS (9 shots per second?) 315 w/HS: 630

Arty:
Ammo:20
Damage: 27
Headshot: 54
Damager per clip: 540 w/HS: 1080
DPS (11 shot per second?) 297 w/HS: 594

A semi-auto should trade mag size, ease of use, and rate of fire for range, power, and precision. I think you’ve got the weapons in a good spot damage wise, but in order to complete their role on the battlefield you could likely lower their ammo count by a significant margin to balance out their current stopping power.

Clip size mandates that players ensure more shots land in order to keep themselves effective on the battlefield, with too many bullets you’re allowed to spam the rounds down range. With less rounds you’re required to be more conservative otherwise you’ll always be running on empty. It balances itself by ensuring the you don’t waste rounds on nothing due to the smaller size of a clip.

My suggestion is to lower Arty from 20>16 and redeye from 15>12 and leave the RoF alone for the time being.

As for shotguns, I think their quite fine where they are currently. More damage feedback would be interesting, but I don’t really see any problem with the gibbing power, mostly due to the fact that they’re held by weak puny woman with only 80hp. Glass cannons running around who need to hug your face to blow you away is fine with me :stuck_out_tongue:
[/QUOTE]

This is a pretty good post. I think that reducing the mag size would work well in reducing the sustainability of the high DPS provided by semi-autos, which is probably the real problem here. You certainly don’t want to decrease damage per shot, and lowering ROF too much will result in the weapons being strictly inferior to fully-autos.

I like the idea of reliable, sustained damage through the use of full-autos, and high burst damage with semi-autos.

(Protekt1) #19

High burst is snipers.

Semis should be pretty good mid-long range headshot machines. Full autos, depending on the weapon should be reliable in every range except the longest ranges. But certain full autos should be stronger at certain ranges than others.

Anyway, I think I trust SD to balance these weapons fairly well.

I would still like to see a weapon/damage/per range chart again on the new balance patch or a future patch.

(Scarhand) #20

Arty’s gun is a lot better in the latest patch. Not OP anymore with the ROF decrease. Feels good, I like it.