The Big Change: IDEAS behind numbers first (Weapon Balance)

[Fremen]

Main concept 1: Rework the damage values of Rares and WoC Weapons
In order to give diversity of weapons in end game.
-by equalizing the damage of TL 82 to TL 100 (rare + woc weapons) into a TL~95 average.
-by equalizing the damage of TL 101 to TL 115 (rare + woc weapons) into a TL~105 average.
(Implants/subskill will still work as intended: add more combat implants for damage output or resists implants for survival instead)


Main concept 2: Extend the weapon mechanics of Fusion and Raygun (Rifle) to Pistol and Heavies
-by changing fusion pistol to works like fusion rifles
-by changing the fusion canons into a single target weapon
(Fusion = more damage with range / Raygun = more damage the closer to target)


Main Concept 3: Tweak a bit WoC to make it more logic
-by moving the actual content to WoC 1 and WoC 2
-by removing the WoC 3, 4 and 5.
(which are imho so high in farming demand that it end up making player use game flaws/exploit to xp)




UPDATED on request as per this post (original remains below)

HEYA ALL ! o/

I love NC, I dream NC and I play it since 2001.
I also love theorycraft and like to keep the balancing on a big scale and try to make every aspect count based on playstyle instead of "best setup of the moment".

A good game is a game with complex mechanics AND diversities.
And what I love about some weapon categories in NC is that they fit different playstyle.
Though today in NC2.2, the weapon DPS is certainly not equal and most guns has became useless even tho their TL is very high (aka judge, exec, first love, dreadfire proto, EoF, etc).

In the last developement update you guys posted a true expression of making the weapon balance better, and here is my personnal thoughts on what could seriosuly improve the game experience while all being possible to do within your technichal and time restrictions (hopefully!).


THE MAIN IDEA:
Get all weapons usable again and balanced so that they each fit a different playstyle and that there is no gun which is the best in every situation.
Also:
-Bring diversity to the weapon bracket so that you might use more than one weapon in your qb.
-Get most "rares" an "woc weapons" a similar dps bracket.
-Similar features and growing DPS for all non-rare weapons too.
-Get lower TL Rares and WOC weapons a similar dps bracket so that PE's are not left behind.

Terms used in the topic:
Alpha = Damage per hit/shot (not including RoF or DPS)
RoF = Rate of fire
DPS = damage per second (including damage, rate of fire & reload time)


IMPORTANT:
It is important to work on the weapon balance in a way that it is doable for the actual team of developers and also technicaly.
All this balance can be done within the game ressources by changing the internal values without adding new gfx effects or new coding.


MAIN IDEA 1: The balance regarding Pistol, Rifle & Heavy weaponry:
Actual facts and improvements

Pistol can't deal damage at long range.
Pistol can do minor AOE damage (mini rocket pistol).
Pistol should be good at picking up targets from "very close" to a maxium of "medium range".
Pistol won't suffer movement speed impairment while holding.

Rifle can shoot from close to very long range (depending on the gun category).
Rifle can't do AOE at all.
Rifle should be good at picking up targets at all range but excel at "long" and "very long range".
Rifle will suffer movement speed impairment while holding (could be 7.5%).

Heavy can shoot from close to long range with most weapons.
Heavy can do massive AOE of all sorts (grenades/rockets/raygun) not fusion see further bellow).
Heavy should be good at picking target at "close" to "medium range".
Heavy will suffer movement speed impairment while holding (could be 12.5%).


MAIN IDEA 2A: The balance regarding some Weapon catergories:
Two categories of weapon are very remarkable: Fusion & Raygun, they deliver a unique playstyle that should be extended to heavy and pistol too.

General idea of Fusion & Raygun:
-Fusion = Alpha damage is growing with distance to impact on target.
Detail : The idea behind Fusion is that the weapon will be better than other guns only if you play it at nearly at its maximum range, prior to this the weapon will be terrible and even non-lethal at close range.
-Raygun = Alpha damage is decreasing very quickly with longer range.
Detail : The idea behind raygun is the direct opposite of Fusion, the damage will be better than other gun at up close ranges, but will fall behind all other guns with range.

Practice on pistol:
Fusion = reach his maxium Alpha damage at medium range then fall-off drop the damage to zero at longer range to respect the range rule of pistol combat.
Raygun = Maxium alpha at very close range, dropping very quickly past the first 5 meters.

Practice on rifle:
Fusion = Alpha is nearly null at very close range and reach its peek at very long range.
Raygun = Maxium alpha at very close range, decreasing less quickly than pistol but still reach null damage at medium-long range.

Practice for heavy:
Fusion = Change the actual AOE to a long range solo target weapon, similar design and gfx (with 75% decreased flash effect).
Fusion = Alpha is close to null at very close range and reach its peek at very long range.
Raygun = AOE which deal extended damage on the point of impact but quickly lose damage with radius.

Practice in general:
"So if fusion is so good at long range, everyone will use it on PvE Firemobs for exemple ?
-Not necessarly, if firemobs are getting closer to you, your fusion will become nearly useless. A laser rifle/canon would deal less damage than fusion at very long range but the damage would remain the same if the mobs get closer."

"What would change for the Pistol with fusion ?
-The fusion pistol would be their best option to attempt hunting warbots or firemobs in PvE."

"Everyone's gonna use rayguns in pvp to max damage and buttpown you !
-Raygun fall-off damage is extreme and by gaining a couple of meters away from the target even for a few seconds can negate the offender's DPS so bad that he fall behind in the combat. Whereas other guns like lowtech or laser/pulse/plasma won't lose damage with range."


MAIN IDEA 2B: The balance regarding some Weapon catergories:
The changes made in 2A imply changes in heavy AOE by removal of fusion AOE.
Therefore, regarding the heavy AOE weapons balance:

-Greande launchers = Average DPS / Good accuracy / Ammo moded for DOT effect (Damage Over Time).
-Rocket launchers = High Alpha / Bad accuracy / Large radius
-Raygun canon = High Alpha / Average accuracy / Small radius


MAIN IDEA 3: The overall damage balance for rare and woc weapons

As the game is now, all weapons: non-rare, rares and woc weapons damage are set on a big damage growing curve which is directly related to the TL.
This is a great and required design for all non-rares weapons: a TL 61 gun is more lethal than a TL55.

This rule needs to be set aside for all the rares and woc weapons.
Here is my explanation:

We can distinguish 2 kinds of rare weapons:
-The "Low rare tier" starting at TL82 up to ~TL100.
-The "High rare tier" from ~TL100 to TL115.
And finally the woc weapons which TL could also define them as Low tier of High tier.

While there is a need to have attributes requirement for balancing which gun can be accessed by which class/implant set.
The damage needs to be equalised so that each tier of rare weapons and woc weapon are getting compared depending on their playstyle rather than brut DPS.

CHANGE 1: We equalize the damage of the "Low rare tier" + "Low tier woc", this gives an opportunity for [PE's] and [Tank PC/RC] to pick guns according to their playstyle rather than picking the highest TL possible within the low tier pool. This would bring diversity in their gameplay.

CHANGE 2: We equalize "High rare tier" + "High tier woc", damage to a little higher values than the "Low tier".
This gives us a large pool of guns to pick depending on your playstyle.
This mean that the Slasher TL102 & Exec TL115 will have the same DPS but the Exec will suck at close range and beat the slasher at medium range (cf fusion in 2A). A player would pick a slasher for more stable dps @ all range or an Exec for maxed damage at max range only.

CHANGE 3: Wether it'd be in the "Low tier" or the "High tier" of WoC weapons need to be equalized with rares the same way and shouldn't be "better" than the rares. They are just different, just like the way we obtain them.
Rares are obtained by trading or hunting rares for a long time.
WoC are obtained by farming the WoC and then doing a quest.


MAIN IDEA 4: Rework WOC

Wisdom of Ceres is a very exciting feature, but it never really achieved its end goal, and currently it sounds broken to all.
Though with a few changes we could make it much more logic and exciting.

Change 1: Remove WOC 3, 4 and 5.

Change 2: Rework WoC 1 & 2:

Widom of Ceres is not related to a unique attribute anymore but still requires experience in the main class attributes to unlock.
Monk: PSI // Gentank: STR // PE & Spy: DEX

Wisdom of Ceres 1 = Require 50M xp over cap in the main class attribute + 1x WoC Disc +2Mil Cash
Gives access to WOC Low Tier of WoC weapons.
Gives access to WOC Silver PA.

Wisdom of Ceres 2 = Requires 100M xp over cap in the main class attribute + 2x WoC Disc +0 Cash
Gives access to WoC High Tier of WoC Weapons.
Gives access to WoC Gold PA.

Runner needs to get WoC 1 prior to get WoC 2.
Once unlocked it shows "Wisdom of Ceres 1 or 2" in the F5 window.

Change 3: Rework WoC weapons/PA requirements:

According to the changes in "Change 2":
WoC Weapons and WoC PA requirements are changed by a simple:
"WoC:1" or "WoC:2".

This mean that a Tank Could potentialy use a WoC PA with STR implants or a Lowtier WoC pistol/rifle if implanted with DEX.

"Why lowering the xp values of WoC 1 & 2 ?
-This gives more chances for a PE to access his WoC Weapons while he can't use higher-end weaponry like spy or tanks to get more xp faster."

"Why not giving all WoC Weapons in WoC 1 ?"
-It gives a more RP values inside the WoC system, the further you seek in the WoC Disc, the more knowledge you will acquire therefor building higher tier weapons and PA."



As a conclusion:

I would like remind everyone that this game has a huge potential already and there is no need yet to add more feature.
What would get the game much more fun and without the need a trendemous efforts and time is to fix what we have now.

This light sum-up of improvements could bring a lot of excitement to the game and would make things way easier to balance the PvP overall.

-Exoteis

[Satan2k2]

Your 2A idea is already implented, except the fusion cannon Rays do more dmg in close combat than in far combat and vice versa for fusion.

The rest sounds nice, except the thing with equalize. There should be a small difference in TL at rares and wocs. It don't must be the dmg, it can be the accuracy or RoF or whatever.

[Fremen]

Yeah it's partially implemented, but not completely and not on a scale where the fusion would be doing higher damage than other guns at the optimal range.

Think the point of equalizing is to bring more diversity in the weapon pool. If you keep a small diference in DPS with higher TL, then you ruin all the point of the diverse weapon category and you just end up picking the highest TL. Which is not fun imo !

[William Antrim]

Range goes out of the window in PvP so that renders a lot of your proposals useless at that point. Most of what you said is already in game anyway so I am not sure if you realise that or are trying to educate others. It's a huge post that doesn't really say a lot it seems.

[Dribble Joy]

If you keep a small diference in DPS with higher TL, then you ruin all the point of the diverse weapon category and you just end up picking the highest TL.

Which is (in theory) where subskills come in.

Unfortunately most of the imps/PAs that increase the subskills also increase the main skills, so not only can you use a higher tl weapon, you can use it better.

[Fremen]

Range goes out of the window in PvP so that renders a lot of your proposals useless at that point. Most of what you said is already in game.

Not sure what you mean about range.

Yes most of what I said are minor changes to make the game better, as I said in the post, it's not about adding features but fixing what is in game.

About the balancing, the damage scaling is not "in game" at all, did you compared the damage output between a Disurptor and a executioner ? Same TL.

[Fremen]

Which is (in theory) where subskills come in.
the subskills also increase the main skills, so not only can you use a higher tl weapon, you can use it better.

Yes subskill can increase how you use weapon, but that has nothing to do with what I was talking about: the weapon as they are raw, without the skill influence.

[William Antrim]

Do you PvP at long range?

[eNTi]

Do you PvP at long range?

snipers do.

as for op... it's far too long to really respond in an adequate manner. most changes don't seem very thoughtful or fun.

[Netphreak]

If a slasher and Exec do the same dps (regardless of range as pistol aiming at range just doesn't really work), then why would anyone even attempt to spec the extra dex etc required to use the Exec.

Exec should do more damage simply because it's higher level. The trade off being it's far harder to aim, you have to sacrifice defense in order to use it.
Also it's far harder to cap but then I think the current virtually impossible weapon damage capping system also forces people to just go for the highest TL weapon they can.

[William Antrim]

snipers do.

as for op... it's far too long to really respond in an adequate manner. most changes don't seem very thoughtful or fun.

only the first shot. You can't balance an entire game on that. Tear drop in a thunderstorm comes to mind here. The question was rhetorical by the way.

[Fremen]

If a slasher and Exec do the same dps (regardless of range as pistol aiming at range just doesn't really work), then why would anyone even attempt to spec the extra dex etc required to use the Exec.

Exec should do more damage simply because it's higher level. The trade off being it's far harder to aim, you have to sacrifice defense in order to use it.
Also it's far harder to cap but then I think the current virtually impossible weapon damage capping system also forces people to just go for the highest TL weapon they can.

heya netphreak,

I see what you mean, but what i'm proposing is to change this, the fact that the higher TL is the best weapon.
And in a scernario where we would apply the said changes, a runner would pick up the exec which require more DEX simply for the fact it would be the pistol with the most range and that enough would be a good reason (farm firemobs/Wbs).

And Even if you say today the highest TL weapon is the best, well everyday life in NC shows that it doesn't work, do you see any pistol using Exec ? :-/

The main point of my topic after all is to equalize the rare weapons and the woc weapon into two pools (low tier tl 80-100 and higher tier 100-115) so that all rare become usefull.
Currently I see only BHG9 played by pistol, CAR 47/ Disssy for rifle and CS for tank (eventually devo).

[Fremen]

Do you PvP at long range?

Who talked about doing PvP at long range ? Only two weapons are based of range anyway, the raygun which would be more used than today, and the fusion which would be, like you said, inappropriate for PvP.
All the other weapon remain with similar DPS at close or long range.

[Dribble Joy]

do you see any pistol using Exec ?

This is due to individual weapon balance and factors such as the WoC bonus as opposed to the tl scaling. DPS by weapon type is completely out of whack in many cases.

My earlier point was that the whole point of using a lower TL weapon is that you either have higher defences or use it better with the use of more sub-skill implants.
The problem as I mentioned is that those sub-skill implants are invariably also the implants that increase TL as well.

Back in NC1 you had one dex based rare chip, the SF; All other implants were the level 3 non-rares and generally were split into main-stat and sub-skill. Even with the MC5s you still had a huge variation as there was only one for each main-stat and you still had to fill the other two slots.
Now we have four rare dex implants, the Swat, SF, DIP and CCP. All give high main-stat and sub-skill bonuses.
There's no reason to use a low tl weapon, because the best sub-skills generally come from the rares, which then increase the tl that you can use.
This is compounded by the fact that the dps/sub-skill gradient is much shallower than it was back in the day; An old Judge setup was SA (old dex MC5), SF, Moveon and PPR. You would get 165rpm. Swap out the Moveon or PPR for a targeting 3 (which gave around +15 pc) and it would jump to 178rpm. Almost a 10% bonus and the equal of the loss of defence.

[Netphreak]

Back in NC1 you had one dex based rare chip, the SF; All other implants were the level 3 non-rares and generally were split into main-stat and sub-skill. Even with the MC5s you still had a huge variation as there was only one for each main-stat and you still had to fill the other two slots.
Now we have four rare dex implants, the Swat, SF, DIP and CCP. All give high main-stat and sub-skill bonuses.
There's no reason to use a low tl weapon, because the best sub-skills generally come from the rares, which then increase the tl that you can use.
This is compounded by the fact that the dps/sub-skill gradient is much shallower than it was back in the day; An old Judge setup was SA (old dex MC5), SF, Moveon and PPR. You would get 165rpm. Swap out the Moveon or PPR for a targeting 3 (which gave around +15 pc) and it would jump to 178rpm. Almost a 10% bonus and the equal of the loss of defence.

^ This. You've nailed the previous defense vs damage balance we used to have.

Maybe once weapons are balanced we need the subskill bonus of the implants mentioned reduced (10 instead of 15 p-c), or give the pistol implants -r-c equivalent to the +p-c they give (not sure about this idea tbh),
but I'll leave the finer details to the devs. (and ofcourse forum debate)