General Weapon Discussion

[Dribble Joy]

So you have to balance on the average player

No, if you do that then you assume that a person with better than average will only benefit equal to the increase in skill. This is not true, better skilled people will gain a disproportionate advantage.
In a similar vein (as I have allready mentioned), people with below average skill will be at an inproportionate disadvatage.

On top of that, with classes with different relative speeds, the faster ones will be at yet another disadvantage to people with higher skill. Two people playing with near perfect skill, one on a fast char and the other on a slower one, because of the assumed difficulty to hit, their offence/defence balance isn't the same, and the fast one will loose.

Argument ended, replys can only be expected to valid counter arguments

How wonderfully... actually I don't think that deserves reply....

[Terayon]

Sorry if its been said. Didnt read the whole thread becouse most is pointless.

I dont like sniping becouse its only good for killing people leveling or afk. For real pvp its pretty much pointless, exept for interfering with op fights. PVP in neocron consists of people running around eachother as eratic as they possably can while trying to hit the other guy. Your watching this, try to hit one consistantly. Add a few more and it gets even more ridiculous.

I hope these balancing ideas are more of a small guideline. Would make all the weapons in one line way to similar and kind of boring. A dead accurate FL that didnt do much dmg would not be fun to use.

It still remains though however you look at it, Sniper Rifle range is still not very useful. By the time you have spotted an enemy moving across the map and un-stealthed, drawn your weapon, zoomed in, got a recticle lock and fired your sniper rifle which will not always fire straight away... the person you were aiming at has already shortened the distance between you enough to begin returning fire. That is of course assuming you do hit first time It is then at that point its time to run and re-locate or die

When your assasinationg someone, they shouldent see you first.

[Apocalypsox]

i still vote for rifle damage needs to be upped. but i had a thought today.

Make the total view distance 500m, no scope wise. make it so that if you zoom in, the next 500m are un-"Fogged" so that you can see any target in the area within the 1000m. easy fix.

[Terayon]

So you have to use a slot on all your weapons just to take advantage of the range?

[yuuki]

erm when speed doesn't matter for balancing than aim doesn't matter as well as the 'perfect player' will hit everything just as good with a holy lightning as he does with a first love, so why is everyone wanting a reticule for apus? mebbe cause it does make a difference?
the discussion is about weapons balance, so a speed nerf you get when using certain types of weapons should be a part of it. you do not know which class will use a weapon in the end, so it's absolute nonesense to say oh well a spy got these defensive capabilities, let's put these offensive capabilities on pistols. the only weapons that have just one user class are apu modules. and your funny argument with spy/pe speed has got nothing to do with weapons (tho it wouldn't make a difference if you balance this based on whatever skill), while a comparison pistol spy / rifle spy would make more sense and then you (hopefully) will see that 2 chars with the same resists will have quite different combat capabilities as the rifler will definately get hit more often as the faster character has the final say on when to take cover to reload/heal/whatever, as a slow char cannot evade the chasing (faster) one.
just imagine 2 perfect peeps running around a tree, trying to gank each other. we assume perfect skill so both hit the other one with 100% of their shots if there's a line of sight.
both start with 400 hitpoints, each hit does 10 dmg, rifle got 20 shots, pistol 25 in the mag.
they start shooting at 200 hitpoints left rifle needs to reload, pistol continues to fire the last 5 shots while the rifler reloads his gun health of rifler 150 pistoleer 200. now pistol needs reload, but as the pistoleer is faster he can put the tree in between both while reloading, so after that health still 200 / 150. now both continue to fire, end of fight : rifler 0 health, pistoleer 50.
note that both sides used an aimbot, but still speed did give an advantage.
you can exchange the tree for a runner or any other obstacle that you can find, so don't tell me your not running around sthing quite often.
and to mathematics, if you just use something a lil more advanced than a simple summation you can also take things like speed and range and all stuff into account. the only thing you can do to have your 100% mathematically correct balance is to remove all classes but one and all weapons but one. then mebbe the skills altogether and then that is 100% balanced. if you want to have some diversity in the game you need to take other defensive measures (like stealth or runspeed) into account. it really is hard to believe that you don't seem to understand that

[Terayon]

erm when speed doesn't matter for balancing than aim doesn't matter as well as the 'perfect player' will hit everything just as good with a holy lightning as he does with a first love, so why is everyone wanting a reticule for apus? mebbe cause it does make a difference?

I used to think the same thing. Your not taking into consideration reloading and when people walk into your recticle. Basicly the more people your fighting the harder it is to aim with slow lock recticle weapons. Its why a FL spy is alright against a xbow spy but in a op fight situation the FL spy gers slaughtered.

As for the rest of what you said, i dont feel like decyphering exactly what your trying to say right now.

[yuuki]

well you should have read the posts b4

and i just wanted to point out exactly what you have said in your post

[Deus Ex Machina]

No, if you do that then you assume that a person with better than average will only benefit equal to the increase in skill. This is not true, better skilled people will gain a disproportionate advantage.
In a similar vein (as I have allready mentioned), people with below average skill will be at an inproportionate disadvatage.

On top of that, with classes with different relative speeds, the faster ones will be at yet another disadvantage to people with higher skill. Two people playing with near perfect skill, one on a fast char and the other on a slower one, because of the assumed difficulty to hit, their offence/defence balance isn't the same, and the fast one will loose.

Since expected doesn't mean I won't give one if I feel like...

You still lack an explanation why an advantage is disproportional... These are Statements, backed up by nothing.

Let's see we have a skilled player with a fast class vs. the average player in comparison to the skilled player with a slow class vs. the average player... The slower one will be hit more often.
If they are both very good - "perfect skilled" being nonexistant - The Advantages for the fast people are still there as Yuuki pointed out.

If not balanced on "perfect skill" the players that have "perfect skill " (nonexistant as they are) only have an greater advantage from a slower class if they go up against a similar good player, as one that doesn't hit 100% is bound to hit the slower class more often.
A player that hits the slower with e.g. 90% of the shots will hit the faster maybe only with 80% - ergo it adds to the defence. Don't say that isn't so, first find someone who hits a fast Char with the same percentages as a slow one.
The only one that gains maybe more advantage is the one that hits the fast one 100% - but to take full advantage from this situation he himself has to play a fast Char so he can't be evaded (or something else).

[Okran]

So you have to use a slot on all your weapons just to take advantage of the range?

Sure thats the whole point of one of the advantages only Rifles have... a scope.

[Apocalypsox]

So you have to use a slot on all your weapons just to take advantage of the range?

its ment to be used for snipers. SH all the way.

[Okran]

When your assasinationg someone, they shouldent see you first.

How did you extract that from what i said? Read again please.

I was mearly stating that it takes time to do - from first being un-stealthed the enemy has a chance to see you.

So if visible targeting range is less than it should be (as it is now), the less time it takes for the enemy to get into return-firing range. Do you see now, or so I need to explain more?

[Safunte]

i still vote for rifle damage needs to be upped. but i had a thought today.

Make the total view distance 500m, no scope wise. make it so that if you zoom in, the next 500m are un-"Fogged" so that you can see any target in the area within the 1000m. easy fix.

Agreed with the exception that scope should then be made rifle only with few exceptions such as laser cannon.

[ edited ]

[Terayon]

How did you extract that from what i said? Read again please.

I was mearly stating that it takes time to do - from first being un-stealthed the enemy has a chance to see you.

So if visible targeting range is less than it should be (as it is now), the less time it takes for the enemy to get into return-firing range. Do you see now, or so I need to explain more?

So ya according to you by the time you unstealth at 500m from your target, then take about 3 seconds (im being generous) to zoom, lock, and fire, your target has already both spotted you nearly instantly (becouse everyone is always looking for snipers at 500m) and crossed 450m so their pistol can get a lock and fired upon you?

If you exagerated and just made a small paragraph to show you think low draw distance is bad, then yes, we all know that.

As for increasing draw distance with the SH scope and stuff, not a bad idea. I remember reading it somewhere else. Still though i would rather the normal draw distance was increased first. I just think it would be dumb if you had to buy a laser pointer for every smg out there to get its total frequency or somthing like that.

[Rabiator]

For balance, you have to base offense/defense on the fact that someone has 100% perfect skill.

If you start taking things into account such as 'this is balanced but that person might miss a couple of times or that person might move slower then him' thats when mathematical balance of point skills becomes a near impossibility.

True, but people will have less than 100% perfect skill. Plus some numbers will be hard to compare: How much advantage in range do you need to compensate an advantage in damage output?

So the mathematical balance can only be a first step, and you have to adjust based on real world results. Which means that some tournament events on a test server are probably necessary to try out things.

[yuuki]

True, but people will have less than 100% perfect skill. Plus some numbers will be hard to compare: How much advantage in range do you need to compensate an advantage in damage output?

just take the speed of an average pistol user, take the time he needs to close the gap between the rifle range and his range and you'll have your number