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Powerpunsh
31-08-12, 00:11
Hi there

Since NC is going back to the roots i want to discuss the weaponbalancing. I did some research in the past and analysed the inflicted damage of most rare weapons on a runner.

First of all, the data:

EDIT: Not that easy to read but u'll get in it. :)



Rifles R-C
DmgtypeDmgtypeDmgtypeEfficiency in %



Disruptor
Energie 231/177,265
Fire 99/75,974

76,7381/76,7414


Ionic Shotgun Rifle
Piercing 404/193,806
X-Ray 330/158,568

47,9718/48,0509


First Love
Energie 159/91,138
Force 39/22,784

57,3195/58,4205


Silent Hunter
Piercing 1111/531,408
Force 277/132,847

47,8315/47,9592


Ray of God
Energie 433/202,730
X-ray 185/86,882

46,8199/46,9632


Ronan Sniper
Piercing 202/96,909
Poison 135/64,606

47,9748/47,8563


Dex 113 AK
Piercing 45/30,323
Poison 45/30,303
Stack 11/9,132
67,3844/67,34/83,0182


Dex 108 AK
Piercing 42/43,009
Poison 42/28,673
Stack 10/5,736
102,4024/67,269/57,36


Libra
Piercing 63/48,800
Force 15/12,206

77,4603/81,3733


Healing Light
Energie 393/225,067
Xray 98/56,261

57,2519/57,4092


FAR-6000
Piercing 66/44,395
X-ray 29/19,917

67,2652/68,6793


HEAVY WEAPON H-C
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Efficiency in %


Cursed Soul
Energie 118/90,024
Xray 29/22,502

76,2915/77,5931


Ravager
Energie 190/127,200
Fire 47/31,805

66,9474/67,6702


Devourer
Fire 283/176,762
Poison 141/88,381
Stack 70/17,864
62,4601/62,6816/25,52


Ionic Shotgun
Force 136/64,094
Piercing 346/162,735
X-Ray 204/97,641
47,1279/47,0332/47,8632


Equilibrium of Forces
Piercing 50/38,798
X-Ray 12/9,709

77,596/80,9083


Creed
Energie 511/243,504
X-Ray 127/60,884

47,6524/47,9402


PISTOLS P-C
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Efficiency in %


Crossbow
Energie 155/148,605
X-Ray 207/99,074

95,8742/47,8618


BHG-9mm
Piercing 262/125,844
Fire 175/83,891

48,0321/47,9377


Slasher
Energie 125/83,967
Fire 53/35,999

67,1736/67,9226


Ionic Shotgun
Piercing 558/286,321
X-Ray 358/171,793
Poison 239/114,529
51,312/47,9869/47,9201


Liberator
Piercing 63/48,395
Force 21/16,142

76,8175/76,8667


dreakfire Prototype
Piercing 53/40,850
Force 13/10,207

75,472/78,515


SWAT Backup Gun
Piercing 114/54,669
Fire 38/7,328

47,955/19,284


Ray of Last Hope
Energie 350/166,082
X-Ray 150/71,175

47,452/47,45


Craftmans Dream
Piercing 313/149,228
Poison 104/49,732

47,677/47,819


MELEE M-C
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Efficiency in %


TsuTsu
Piercing 200/95,296
Fire 66/31,770
Force 13/6,360
47,648/48,136/48,923


Devils Grace
Piercing 139/66,672
Energie 83/40,000
X-Ray 56/26,672
47,965/48,193/47,629


Knuckles
Force 85/41,104
Piercing 51/24,665
Fire 34/16,439
48,358/48,363/48,35


AGGRESSIVE PSI USE
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Dmgtype
Efficiency in %


Fire Apoc
886/411,931


46,493


Holy Frustration
Energie 701/328,339
Fire 175/82,085

46,839/46,906


Holy Lightning
864/402,753


46,615


Toxic beam
217/101,402


46,729



All values are done on headzone

Since KK said they have balanced everything through the Techlevel of the weapons and added bonusdmg on hightech/epic/rare and Woc weapons i wonder why some weapons do way more dmg on player than others. This is the explanation. Disruptor and AK do way higher dmg based on its TL and bonusdmg than other cause their efficiency is much higher.
On the other hand it explains why there are kinda no meleetanks or apu anymore. They just have no weapon which deals based on its TL that much dmg. The efficiency on their given weapons/spells are just too low to be compared with weapons/spells from other weapontypes.
One question i ask myself is: Why do we have these unbalancing between the weapons? I mean the balancing was given due to its TL and bonusdmg but behind the scenes we got an efficiency of every weapon which creates the true inflicted damage on players.

ps: some of you may know now why i prefer the EoF that much. :P

Grogor
31-08-12, 04:21
I hate guessing when it comes to numbers with that much post point digits. How you calculate your "efficiency " is quite obvious. But that input data leaves some questions. I assume the first number of a damagetype is the value stated on the weapon information, whereas the second one is the one found in the damagelog of the runner who got shot.
So your efficiency is the coefficient between damage a weapon is said to do and the damage it actually deals. In my opinion that is truely not a value to use for balancing reasons.

For balancing I rather use damage dealt in a minute or second as a starting value and take into account what players could do against that type of damage and if it's single target (with or without the need of a closed reticle) or aoe.
And that are only basic thoughts.
I do agree that some rethinking and rebalancing of weapon damage would be cool, but it has to be done in a proper way.

1198429
31-08-12, 07:43
Balancing all classes will be a long task, I'll be the first to admit. Its a lot of numbers and calculations, there are a lot of factors in balancing weapons, armor and mobs. I will help in any way I can with whatever data I can provide but fixing of major game world bugs is first on the list (or so I've seen).

Also, just a reminder let's keep this thread nice clean and neutral. Everybody will have their own opinion on balance and I trust we will all respect that :)

Powerpunsh
31-08-12, 13:32
@ Grogor: You assumed it right. sorry forgot to explain it. :(

In my opinion weapons are balanced for PVE because they recieve the dmg showed up in the info reduced by some resis the monsters have. It means = highest TL kills fastest. Damage with its frequency is fine. Thats why i just picked 2 information to calculate the efficiency.

Singleshot/aiming and protection of the classes are points to consider. Just my thoughts:

Singleshot weapons: If i would compare singleshot and burstweapons im a bit slutty with fireing burstweapons. On singleshot weapons i try to aim with best precision. On burstweapons sometimes i give a shit and think "RAWRRrrr, so much plasma, next burst will hit". As faster the frequency is as more i become slutty with aiming sometimes. Means: If i aim my burstweapons just as i do with my singleshot weapons i would the same damage.

Aiming: The Aiming is fine at it is. Push enough T-C/WEP to reach aimcap and its fine. If you wanna be faster skill less T-C and dont get the reticle closed that fast.

Protection: This can be an old discussion like "A tank needs the best protection, cause every other class has enough INT to become a tradeskiller". This is still true but the current resis of all chars are too low. As a spy/monk apu you get barely over 50% resistance. As a PE somewhere between 50-60%. A Tank comes over 60% and thats not as much as we had before 2.2. If there would be more armor and maybe with available slots if build it could be very nice. I just want resistance which goes up to 70% without haveing resistance leaks. Fights get longer and you dont have to focus just with 2 aks/disruptors on shielded target. I dont even understand the recalculation of the armor/basicresis if you get a ppu shield. The shield always give 30% but on my tank i get an overall bonus of 5-6%. Armor and Basicresis are just reduced but thats another topic.


The current state is just that CS/DEV/EoF/Dissi/AK fubar because of their efficiency. :)

Dribble Joy
31-08-12, 19:43
OK. What exactly is the efficiency value the efficiency of? I kinda got lost there.

Also there's numerous other factors affecting this:

Clip size - A Judge would out dmg/time an xbow if it weren't for the fact the Judge spends around 30%+ of the time reloading.

Aiming - Many weapons take longer for the reticle to close and/or will miss frequently without full-lock. The xbow and beam weapons have always been notorious for requiring little lock.

Skills, Implants and Resists/Armour - Most 'offensive' implants also grant mainstat bonuses, you not only have higher skills, but can use a higher TL weapons. People using lower TL weapons also have less skills; it's invariably better to use a higher TL weapon. The changes in defence going from a standard setup to a more resist/armour heavy one are minimal, wasting any choice of a high defence/low offence setup in comparison with going for the high TL setup mentioned above. Low TL setups are therefore losing out doubly, affecting how people perceive the weapons they use, when it could be quite possible that they are not unbalanced.

slith
31-08-12, 20:56
Do not forget who shot at you millions of times for you to get the data :P

Dropout
31-08-12, 21:29
Theres many factors in balancing IMO. The difficulty-to-use of the different weapons is a big factor aswell.. And even the need for constant aim (AK and those very fast freq weapons) VS. Weapons like CS and Dissy, where you actually only have to aim once every 3-4 secs.

Im "kinda" biased though.. I love the fast freq weapons, and hate the slow freq ones. Mainly because I find the slow freq weapons pretty boring to use heh..


I am looking forward to some balancing though, since Theres only a very few "viable" weapons out there.. But obviously its gonna take quite a lot of time to get it even close to right.

Chuck Norris
31-08-12, 22:05
no one even brings up APU modules some of the non-rare ones out dps much higher TL rare modules

Biglines
31-08-12, 22:18
no one even brings up APU modules some of the non-rare ones out dps much higher TL rare modules

ye, the poison halo actually is far more viable than every single rare spell except the fire apocalypse.

Powerpunsh
31-08-12, 22:40
Sorry slith. :P
Credits to slith who worked out the data with me somewhere in the past. :p

Im lvling as a pistol spy at the moment. Not just the clipsize is too small. There are so much disadvantages compared to a rifle.

-less dmg
-less clipsize
-less range
-bad aiming (at the first lvls you have to kneel infront of your target to hit)

But aiming on low lvl weapons is a general problem. Its a pain in the ass trying to kill a cock roach or something with a build "perfect" lazar pistol. Not to mention lowlvl drones.

Dribble Joy
01-09-12, 00:46
Range has a big impact on aiming at lower levels. Beyond a few metres when your PC/WEP is low you do have to get quite close.

LiL T
01-09-12, 02:24
The one thing that never made sense to me is the fact that weapons with the greatest range cap will always have a faster closing reticle, that means rifles have always been very easy to aim compared with pistols, because the reticle closes faster. At least that's what I've always observed, maybe I'm wrong in this assumption but if I'm right they need to unlink the reticle closing speed from the range of a weapon and instead just have weapon law and weapon skill effect it directly. That will mean you would be able to balance the weapons aim speed easier imo.

Well I hope people know what I'm talking about.

LiL T
01-09-12, 02:31
Range has a big impact on aiming at lower levels. Beyond a few metres when your PC/WEP is low you do have to get quite close.

Yes which is really silly because if you're using a pistol and stood well within range of the target it should lock very fast, all new characters are pre gimped, like they have severe mental retardation...

In my opinion reload times should be affected by weapon skill also, but maybe some won't like that, but I would see it as temporary thing for lower levels because no body can reload a weapon fast that they've never used before right?

MadMeleeFreak
01-09-12, 12:00
Hell it's all so long past. I know quite a few people did in depth research on all this back when damagelogs were enabled during and after the rebalancing.

There were excell sheets and stuff to be found.

Anyhow as for the result of the OP's research: Asuming you did your experiments correctly (meaning you had no armor or resist on the target, SI was 0% and the target always was fully healed), the higher "efficiency" of some weapons indicates that there is some bug in those weapon's PvP dmg. calculation. If I remember correctly only 66% of dmg dealt by a weapon will go into PvP dmg calculation. Off of that goes shield, armor, resist in that order by a rather complicated formular (it's not simply additive).

So actually your experiment should have shown a efficiency of 66% for each weapon.

Note: I'm not sure about it completely, possibly there were different initial PvP dmg. mali for each hitzone and the headzone should be reduced to 50% PvP dmg.

Anyhow: When shooting on a runner without any shield, armor or resist every weapon should have the exact same efficiency otherwise the system is simply broken at base level already.

Another note: I again do not know for sure, but I remember that the dmg numbers shown ingame in the weapon info were off by quite a bit on some weapons/ammo types. In contrast the dmg log should show the initial DMG if I remember correctly.

Dribble Joy
01-09-12, 12:35
Another note: I again do not know for sure, but I remember that the dmg numbers shown ingame in the weapon info were off by quite a bit on some weapons/ammo types. In contrast the dmg log should show the initial DMG if I remember correctly.
Indeed. The indicated damage shown in the info screens is completely off as far as I am aware.

Biglines
01-09-12, 13:25
this might help in the discussion:

http://desperate-programmers.com/2008/07/25/neocron-resistance-calculation-and-how-it-really-works-part-i/ (it's also about damage calculation)

Powerpunsh
01-09-12, 13:41
@ Madmeleefreak
I had armor, resistance and basic resis but this did not affect on the inflicted damage.
If all weapons would have an efficiency of like 66% its fine. Just sort out the woclauncher. If i go pure on damage i get about 2500 damage @ info. Would result in like 1500 inflicted damage in PVP. The woclauncher is not in the list but ive tested it and it was around 25%. Remember the time when it comes out? It dealt heavy damage. :D

MadMeleeFreak
01-09-12, 14:43
@ Madmeleefreak
I had armor, resistance and basic resis but this did not affect on the inflicted damage.
If all weapons would have an efficiency of like 66% its fine. Just sort out the woclauncher. If i go pure on damage i get about 2500 damage @ info. Would result in like 1500 inflicted damage in PVP. The woclauncher is not in the list but ive tested it and it was around 25%. Remember the time when it comes out? It dealt heavy damage. :D

Ah I see. So you took the dmg value before any armor, shield or resistence was applied. As I said it's been a while since I've messed around with that stuff my self and I didn't remember that the log actually would show raw damage and raw PvP damage prior to any reduction through shields armor and resistence.

So this kind of proves my point that this is not simply a balancing issue but a serious bug. As far as I remember John Does plans it should work the same way on each weapon: In PvP raw damage is reduced to 66% and after that the further reduction per shields, armor and resistence is applied. If the numbers show that the damage reduction in PvP is not the same for each weapon then the game is a lot more messed up than I thought or the numbers are wrong.