(Copy and pasted from dev forums) Right, I've been doing the weapon balancing for a while, following the testers' advice. In OB, weapon detection is different, so weapons are pretty unbalanced. On top of that, I don't really like the current weapon balance. It's too fast-paced and luck-based. A lone wolf can take out an entire squad, and one HMG'er can hold back an entire team. Teamwork is not emphasized enough. Hence this "suggestion" thread. This thread is about two versions: - OB 2.2 - OB 2.3 Weapons would be balanced so that players have to focus their fire on a target to gain an advantage. One player may be able to kill one enemy if he were confronted with a 3-man team, but he would not be able to kill the entire squad, no matter if his skill was greater than all those 3 people combined. I really wish to emphasize sticking together to survive. This will also cut back on lone wolves. Main changes: - Lower damage - Lower rate of fire - Code addition: Lower effective range - Code addition: Different ironsight accuracy increases OB 2.2 would be balanced with the aforementioned system in mind, without any code additions. (Unless everyone agrees that it should be balancing with code additions) OB 2.3 would balanced with the aforementioned system, with the following code additions: http://reef.pl:14295/empiresmod/ticket/39 http://reef.pl:14295/empiresmod/ticket/40 I'm open for your suggestions and comments
I dunno...people won't stick to squads and get pretty fustrated with the mod as they can't kill squat. I like the way the weapons are in 2.12, except, as mentioned the HMG, and the fact you can spray too much with weapons ands till get kills.
i would suggest to let the damage untouched (I take 2.12 as basis for that thought) but increase the recoil so you are able to place one perfect shot but not able to kill the entire enemy squad. I suggest that cause I think an ambush should be rewarded. (whole sneaking to an enemy flank and stuff) but you cant kill them all. You have to ambush and fall back. I like that damage lost over distance, you could use it to make weapons like the bear2 very effective at close range but cuting down the sniper quality it has now. Make the iron sight accuracy bonus very low if you move. Because now you can mow down enemys and at the same time dodge their bullets. that are all random thoughts that I have atm
and change the default controlls while you're at it and I agree with mayama with the recoil, when conpared to other games the recoil in empires remains almost non-existant. I'm not exactly sure how resistance and liberation does it, but in that game everyone sticks togther in your squad together most of the time. at any rate we should take out the kills sections of the scoreboard and only display your score and deaths my reasoning for this is that lone wolves are usually scorewhores and go out to get more kills and not help the team (ie: most scouts) and I find that your score (not kills) is a rough represntation of how much you are helping out the team
Weapon Balancing I think the first thing that needs to be done is to remove the commander mass-attack ability, it decreases the chances of pulling off an ambush and devalues flanking attacks. The reason why HMGs are so deadly right now is because HMG gunners have all the targets set out in front of them. We can increase teamwork by having scouts spot targets for HMG gunners instead of the commander mass-attack. Another thing we can do to improve infantry combat is to decentralize the engineer class. Right now, a single engineer is all that's needed to bring down a base. They can heal, give ammo, build structures, and are even deadly combatants with the SMG2 gun with accuracy upgrade. Healing should be given to the scout class as a rank upgrade ability to encourage more class diversity, instead of relying on engineers. Also, this may sound silly, but the engineer should not have the ability to drop ammo boxes. With limited ammo, players will be forced to engage combat in a more tactical manner. This would also solve the problem of lone wolf engineers because they can no longer take out bases by themselves. Engineers should only have the ability to construct buildings. In addition, we can further encourage teamwork by removing passive upgrade abilities, such as health and speed upgrade. These allow single players to outclass enemy infantry by themselves. All infantry should be at an even ground in terms of statistics when in battle. This also makes it easier to balance individual weapons, and not have to worry about over-powered weapons with specific passive upgrades. Squad leaders should have better squad management skills. Move orders should put an arrow at the top of the screen, pointing in the direction that the player needs to go. This may seem annoying, but would make it easier for squad members to work together as a team.
I agree with jephir's points except that if we get rid of speed upgrade stamina (and sprint speed) should be increased why? because as it is the soldiers in empires seem like they eat too much doughnuts and tire very easily which I find espesially weird because these soldiers are supposed to be enhanced by genetic engineering or nanobots (the default speed for not sprinting is fine, its about jogging speed)
Maybee a more equipment dependent movement speed system? Like nfar + nades is faster than hmg + sticky (stickys have alot of explosive and i guess they weight more than nades)
the ironsight shouldn't be a toggle, it should only be up as you hold mouse2, then dissappear when you release mouse2. it's a lot more fluent way of doing ironsights.
I for one do think damage should be decreased. I'm getting frustrated of one hit kills when you haven't even seen the other guy shooting at you. And my kill/death ratio is usually above 1, so the new players will be even more frustrated by this when a vet slaughters them all, all by himself. And i disagree with Jephir. I used to be engineer all the time in earlier versions, but it's been months since i've used that class because rifleman and grenadier have become preferable. You say an engy can take down an entire base? Not even a squad of 5 engies can do that if people are defending it. I eat engies for breakfast, both as rifleman and grenadier. I even outrank them as scout, cause he has the same weapon but can use hide to take them out. An engineer can do much, but defend himself is not one them. It's why i think only the scout is a worse class than engineers. Don't nerf them even more. Yes, the scout should be improved to make him as good as the other 3 classes, but there have been many suggestions and i think the devs have big plans for them. I also think grenadiers should become more effective against medium and heavy tanks. Riflemen and engineers are fine imo. Also the passive upgrades are not worth much. 2 shots of my AR can kill someone even if he has 130 hp, long before he even knows he's being shot at. And the health upgrade is one of the most usefull passive upgrades, still it only helps for a small part. Actually i use it to try to prevent one hit kills ... which is a weapons damage problem. Also + 10% damage etc is barely noticable, so i say keep them, or even make them more obvious. I do agree with removing mass attack order though. In fact, one of my suggestions even was to remove the 'enemy spotted' menu function from all classes except the scout, so a team would need a scout for intel about the enemy. As it is now everyone spots everything, so the minimap might as well show everything. There's no use for binoculars if a rifleman can spot a tank over a huge distance. ONTOPIC: I agree with less damage and both code additions. Not sure about slower rof. Shooting with the smg 1 feels already slow. If it gets less damage i don't think it should be shooting at a slower rate. Also beware: don't 'nerf' the rifles either. Sure you can reduce their effectiveness, but they are the weapons that should be able to defeat any other and should stay that way
Some clarification: 1) I just copy-and-pasted the thread, a few devs had already responded to it before, stating that they would like to see an emphasis on teamwork, but not take away the skill factor so much. Hence I thought of not nerfing damage (just balancing it, but it wouldn't go down by a lot), but still nerfing rate of fire, to emphasize teamwork. (More players = more bullets at enemy = more potential dmg, with a lower rate of fire this will make a very big difference) 2) Higher recoil will piss you off. I swear, it will. I bet Mootant is already pulling his hair when he fires at me with an SMG2 :p Higher recoil will greatly favour any weapons with a lower rate of fire (thus less recoil), such as SMGs, pistols, the NF HR etc. This was a major problem in previous versions, where the BE SMG1 reigned supreme over the NF AR because the NF AR had high recoil. The BE SMG1 also had rather high recoil, but with a rate of fire of 600rpm, the crosshairs had the chance to go back down again on the target and fire another shot. If you really want, I'll make a tryout for it, but I expect a lot of people bitching lol
i think its fundamental how those changes influence gameplay: Less damage: More arcade style, people do not fear a single bullet. Less recoil: Slower, more realistic (i mean css "realism") gameplay Lower rate of fire: same as recoil Its all about how you want the game to be. People that run around each other in close combat with guns or people hiding behind cover for ages... (talking about extreme cases) And the combinations? I guess for example less damage + lower rate of fire would make melee an option EDIT: Without mass targeting the situation will be much more complicated. Try the following. Play canyon, spawn as rifleman at start. Rush the SW chokepoint and hide in the wood. On an average public game you can take down about 5 guys or more bevor they find you. Thats the whole first wave. If you remove mass targeting (i dont like mass targeting, its just an example what will happen) theres a big chance that they need much longer to find you, with other words you would be able to take out their second and maybee third wave too. So without mass targeting riflemans would be much more deadly and on the other hand grenadiers much harder to play.
Maps should have more flank points and strategic areas for cover , which will make people act less rambo, Maybe have it that you can't move or move slowly when at low HP or people are shooting you
Is it a lot of trouble to adjust them and have the testers give it a try? I have a hard time trying to imagine how it would be. I see no difference between reducing damage and keeping rof, or reducing rof and keeping damage. The damage per second will still be the same won't it? I'd say make changes to what can be changed without having to code stuff, and we'll check it out. Edit: i'm still for lowering damage as well though. I alway though in the next version i wouldn't be killed in 1 or 2 shots anymore Although with those code additions at least people won't be able to kill me in one shot from 100m anymore. Maybe that's good enough. Or was your idea about these code additions shot down?
BIG RED LETTERS A problem with lowering damage and rate of fire and such, is that a gun is meant to fucking kill you. BULLETS WILL KILL YOU! Every rifle should kill anyone within 4 shots(in the chest) or 2 in the head if health is at 100%. That's with armor(at least current US armor, however we won't go to dragonscale, so we must pay for it in lives...but I digress) SMG's should less for the chest(like half a clip), but 2-4 for the head. Mortars should kill anyone without decent armor in 1 shot as well(if they are within around 5 meters) I mean, I can accept the story, and the fact that this is a game world, but creating weak infantry weapons in an FPS doesn't give me a suspension of disbelief. I'll give a good example of 2.1 about my suspension of disbelief. I once went down the sewer on district, only to meet eye to eye with someone with an HMG. He killed me on 3 shots, but not for 1 second did I think that it was not possible within the confines of reality the game portrays. Another major problem with a change like this is, it takes away from the FPS element. Remember, an FPS is meant to be fast paced, or at least feel fast paced. This is achieved by someone being able to take out 2 or 3 guys with 1 clip before he hits the bucket. That is, if he has the element of surprise. The problem is also not about lone wolfs. Sometimes it's nice to have 1 really good person get behind the lines and have him do what you need him to. Also, If someone really wants to fight alone, he will do it no matter what. The problem is keeping people from becoming a rambo. Rambos are different in that no matter what weapons you give him, he will still play like a dumbass. Empires handles lone wolves reasonably well already. There are no special items/achievements based on personal score/rank. The most people will have is the highest score, but we need the score for unlockable skills. If there is truly a problem with damage, then add new research items, like better infantry armor, armor piercing bullets, etc. Another thing, damage over distance is useless. You can fire a bullet the distance of the largest map in empires, and by the time it reached from one of of the map to the other, the bullet would not have slowed down enough to be any less lethal. Once again, suspension of disbelief. When I play empires, I don't want to get the same feeling I got when I finished Indigo prophecy(I.E. WTF IS THIS?!) If this turns into the grand theft auto multi-player style of damage, then I hope the mod burns in the deepest pit of hell. (until then, keep up the good work :D) And finally, this game is skill based, like all games. Trying to give stupid players more of a handicap BECAUSE they are stupid is quite frankly...stupid. LOL PETER MOLYNEUX BUTTON MASHING BIG RED LETTERS
That's where i disagree. Rifles fire fast enough to hit someone 8 times before they realize they're about to die with no chance to do something about it. Sure they should be the most effective infantry killers and remain that way. With a rifle you should be able to defeat any enemy, especially if you're behind him. But as it is now they're just too effective. I know you've done it as well: running around while 4 guys are shooting at you, and all you have to do is turn around, fire 3 short burts for each enemy, and 4 seconds later all are dead except you. I think a little less damage will be well received by the players (people complain about it often). Most importantly I'm pretty sure it won't interfere with the fast paced action either. In fact i think it will improve this. The other classes might actually fire back for a change instead of just dying. This means they'll have more fun and you'll have more of an adrenaline rush cause you know you'll probably die when rushing towards a group of people. You'd still own all of them (better damage/accuracy/ironsight/armor) but you have to think before running towards a group of soldiers and you can't expect to win by just spraying and running in the middle of their base.
What Silk said. For me, this weapon balancing has three main goals: * Slow down infantry finding by just a bit (like, from 2 seconds to 4 seconds) * Balance the classes a bit more (no more SMG2-/pistolsniping you from the distance) * Emphasize teamwork (through lower rate of fire, damage I'll see)
If you do that you'll just see a lot more radar spam. until the scout is 'fixed' so to speak (god, why dont they just give him an AR with lower ammo capacity, call it a compact AR, lol) If they want more teamwork the easiest way is to (like silk said) increase the effect of the squad auras and possibly reduce the range of them. A closely working squad SHOULD be rewarded more. If my squad got a 30%-40% accuracy bonus from me being a riflemen i think they'd be much more likely to want to stick together.
That's actually a good idea bitchslap, the scout should get a weapon that compares to the rifleman's standard MG like the XM8's compact setup compares to the standard variant. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/XM8-Poster.jpg
If you want people believe weapons with less damage you have to adjust the player models so they look more armored
long before this thread, back on holiday, i was thinking about empires, and i was thinking about the gun battles. empires is quite unique. in empires, a standard rifle battle can last a minute or more. you see each other, get into range, lay down some fire to hurt the person, move closer.... until you're right next to eachother. when you take damage, at mid range it can take 5 or 6 seconds of sustained fire to bring a person down. so no, I don't thing in general the battles are too fast. it's important that we don't make weapons do less damage (than 2.12). this WILL: make it easier for veterans, because with the advantage of a split second surprised reduced, both members of the fight. take halo for example. when i was good at this, playing on LAN quite a bit, it wouldn't matter in any way if i was ambushed by a mate, i just had better accuracy and the half a second of reaction time made almost no difference because it takes about 4 seconds at close range to kill people for those of you that still do have halo1, try turning the shields up to 200% so the battles are longer, and see who wins out of two different skilled players. 90% of the time the more accurate person will win, which means it's really really difficult for the less experienced player. make it absolutely impossible to ambush groups of people. in so many old games, you sneak up on some people, start to fire and then they have enough time to turn around and blow you away before you can do real damage. it's an utter pain in the arse.
