[Normal] Overall damage is too high?

[CheeSeMan.]

So I just want to know what everyone feels about the overall damage weapons are dealing in 1.6.4. I feel that everything is killing way too fast now and that this does not have a positive effect on game play at all, seeing as we are spending way more time re spawning. For example, in competitive 3v3 CTF in most matches during 1.6.3 35-40 would probably be the average kill count of a player with players that focus a lot on aim reaching 60+. Now the average seems to have jumped up to 50+, with some players even achieving 70+ kills per map. This to me at least seems like a pretty huge jump, some players are mentioning that they feel like they are playing realistic mode and I can't help but agree with that.

What I feel has not been taken into account correctly in this weapon mod is the following: Bullet registering hits have been significantly improved due to the amount of netcode fixes that the dev team have been able to provide, which is great news. Also bullets now register more correctly the damage on the different hitpoints in terms of shooting at the head/torso/legs. Also the whole game is a lot smoother now which is allowing players to run faster and give their bullets higher velocity when they shoot, not to mention the focus on training faster movement abilities(like prone cancels, slides, cannonballs etc..) this all has an effect of making the damage dealt by all the weapons much higher.

This is why I really can not understand that a lot of guns were added damage, take the mp5 for example it was just added +1 damage which does not sound like a lot at all but if now we say 30% more bullets are registering correctly then this has a much greater knock on effect. I think we can apply this to most of the weapon changes... however, I do not think we can just stick with the 1.6.3 weapon mod either due to the fixes the dev team have made. I believe damage should be reduced, what about you guys?

Well really I want to know how other people feel about this, please don't just mention that we should have been testing this throughout the release candidates and betas(of course we should have) but nobody did! This is to discuss what you feel about the current weapon mod and to offer some solutions if you can!

[ginn]

Yeah, this is a better thread... I couldn't delete mine.

I was already not too happy about how high the damage was in 1.6.3, but it was mostly fine (except for ruger and spas), I doubt it had been possible to really put it any lower without going overboard, since the current variables work on such low values.
Now there is supposedly more regs (which I'm not really sure is true, seemed to be true in rc2 though, now there are a lot of eats again, especially boost eats) and higher damage, the wm went the opposite direction of where it should have. There's also another concern, the weapon push, this has been far too high for a long time, and never got changed.

I think what the wm needs is less bullet push and less damage.

Another thing is the inheritance is not quite what it should be, it's 50% (i.e. the least intuitive) instead of 0% or 100%, I think it should be changed to 100% (this may need some getting used to, but it wouldn't take many days for most players to adjust to).

[14th_account]

I usually lurk and let these types of threads collect opinions for a few days before I respond. But screw it, I feel like mixing it up.

I did notice that for the ~25th time in a row, the new version's weapon balance does indeed not seem to achieve perfection. The WM changes were relatively minor though compared to some previous versions, at least in terms of damage output. It would be fun to imagine that zakath, Fry Fry and I made so many improvements to the netcode that the classic gameplay which wasn't designed for it just couldn't cope.

Oh, and it seems that at least the #soldatladder and #soldat.gather servers weren't patched to 1.6.4 correctly (see bug #341, comment 3), making them send data to the players at a quite much lower rate. I know at least the #soldatladder servers were patched ~24 hours ago. So the networking should improve further compared to any previous games there.

Anyhoo... a 1.6.5 within a few weeks is a likely outcome, so there is time for some WM tweaks. But let's say the increased kill count is an actual trend and not just fluke. Okay... is this a bad thing though? Maybe you're just bored by spending so much time waiting for respawn? An idea then would be to lower the default spawn times that have remained the same since the first versions.

Elaborate and enlighten me as to why an increased kill count would be so bad. Does it actually bother you, or are you just being a curmudgeon stuck in your old ways?

[DutchFlame]

Nothing is wrong with an increased kill count. Soldat is a fast paced game after all.

The current weapon mod is not too bad. It's just that a few weapons are standing out on others. (mostly because bullet registration is improved alot)
For example Steyr Aug and Desert Eagles.

And some that are currently well lets say has lost its touch after the latest version:

FN Minimi, Ruger

The minimi was already tweaked for having too much spread, but it seems it was not enough, Im sure this will get looked at for the next version.
As for ruger.. the weapon itself is fine except for that it now requires 4 shots at the feet to kill. (and I also believe because of the big scaling cursor issue people can't aim or something like that)

It might not be the thread for whining about why the weapon mod wasn't tested earlier in beta version, but it's still sad threads like these come up after the game is released. (I don't like some of the changes aswell, but I'm just dealing with it)

[ginn]

There's less room for good play, since you die so quickly.
Lets just take Guardian as an example, as it's a relatively simple map.

While you are in the red angle you'll die, or at least can't really do anything. Once you're in the blue area, you're "safe", or have some time to act and make teamplays on.
The issue when you die fast is that there's no way you're going to make it to the blue area, unless it's completely clear. Thus decreasing the teamplay and making the game a lot more DM dependent.
With how it's now there's really no room for good plays, or "solo efforts", like clutch play... there's really just about good DM, which is imo the boring part of the game.

If there's less damage, there's more time to get to those "safe" areas, and there's more possibility to make teamplays and clutch plays. Basically DM skills also becomes less important, as you can make up for that in other areas of the game.
Previously you could win by having superior DM skills even if you have horrible teamplay, but you could also win even if you didn't have especially good DM skills, just as long as you were good on other aspects. Now there's less room for the other aspects, and honestly, an objective based game mode shouldn't be completely reliant on DM.

Nothing is wrong with an increased kill count. Soldat is a fast paced game after all.

The higher kill count slows down the game, soldat won't be as fast anymore with the current wm.

Does it actually bother you, or are you just being a curmudgeon stuck in your old ways?

I'm very open to changes, like the new knife, simply this new wm is going in the wrong direction.

[DutchFlame]

Nothing is wrong with an increased kill count. Soldat is a fast paced game after all.

The higher kill count slows down the game, soldat won't be as fast anymore with the current wm.

Lol what, the faster someone dies the more action, instead of camping into your "save areas"

all you have to do if you don't think it's fast enough is to change your respawn time.

[ginn]

So you think realistic is faster than normal mode?
The game speed isn't determined by death/kill count, it's more about how much you can do in the game, how fast you have to make decisions and change up your play. The faster you die the more conservative you have to be, it's promoting camping rather than rushing.

Edit:

Lol what, the faster someone dies the more action, instead of camping into your "save areas"

all you have to do if you don't think it's fast enough is to change your respawn time.

Actually, why don't we just have a 0 delay brt with 1 fireinterval, 255 ammo and 1 reload time? That'd make the game fast as hell, especially if with a respawn time of 1 sec.

[Bonecrusher]

It also occured to me for instance DE are 2 shots for a  kill now which makes it easy really weird, cause all of a sudden you can see it being used all over the place .Try to provide a weapon config with decreased dmg output and we can run it on one of the publics I hostto see how players react and how it actually feels in game.

[Petterkowski]

 [......]

 Moving away from digressions , modifying the current weapon balance is really redundant. I believe there's only one developer who is responsible for this , so it's strictly directed to him. On first sight , those seem to be the minor changes , but how significant.. Most of the weapons work fine. There is no need of improving each one of them with every new release. Small changes are always welcome , but there should be a reason for it , like ' this weapon is totally useless , it doesn't help at all , let's make it more usefull ' , or ' this weapon is far too strong ' . We can't change the weapon balance just because we got bored of it. That's not the way. The current demand is very important too. We have to consider people's expectations. Motto for today : Leave it when it works pretty well.

Barret and Deagles are fine now , tho. Barret : New changes make it harder to use, i get it cause it was too easy. I still believe , long reload and delay is the thing we should stick to. Same with deagles. But the rest of the weapons were really okay. No need to change them. Especially mini and hk. Mini is pain in the ass now , and adding a damage to already opped hk , was not a really wise move

I have not received any support back then. If it hadn't been for your laziness maybe we could have achieved something together..
Anyway , maybe we can do something now. Better late than never. That's all truth. Damage should be reduced. Players are right. The developer that is responsible for the current weapon balance should swallow the pride and fix it. I'm not talking here about bringing back the old mod (or maybe i am). Some of the weapons are fine , but the rest should be switched with the old balance. Hk , mini , steyr. The most significant weapons. It's really more like realistic now. I'm afraid that the tactic might not be that usefull now. It's unacceptable.

[CheeSeMan.]

Yes I believe the higher kill count is bad, like ginn has pointed out its making CTF too reliant on solid DM abilities and not leaving as much room for teamplay/tactics. And, I don't believe it makes the game faster Dutchflame its going to make a more camper friendly hover spray gamestyle which will slow it down(to survive longer players will need to out position the enemy which is done easier when camping.)

What makes matches gain a faster pace is more capping. For there to be more capping players need to be able to escape more often and currently like ginn's pointed out its much harder to do so. In realistic mode, players die way faster and therefore the cap limit is only 6 because there is less capping. I don't want to see normal mode become like that!

I think we need to get some "Alternative" weapon mods going and start testing some tweaks!

[Dusty]

I haven't played enough matches to form a proper opinion on the WM but I can see where people who find it too strong are coming. I agree with Cheese and ginn that being dead all the time isn't making the game faster, CTF is becoming even more DM heavy than it already is and it's caps that bring the pace into the game. Also like it's been said, it gets nearly impossible to make clutch plays all by yourself when there's no hope of surviving.

What came to my mind on publics was that stronger weapons take away skill from the game. The gap between new and experienced players is definitely smaller than it was cause kills are easier to get than before. I've always thought of Soldat as a hardcore game with an insanely high skill cap so seeing the more dominant players struggling with clearly less experienced players doesn't really fit into that image.

I mentioned this on irc but I'll say it again here: You shouldn't tell us to "live with it" because nobody complained earlier, that's just not how it works. Even though late for 1.6.4, the community's opinions are not even slightly less valid than they would have been during the RCs. People generally aren't very interested in betas, not even mentioning how badly the beta lost its momentum when it took more than half a year to get the final release out. I don't think there's much you can do to make the betas more appealing to the community. This is a big problem that, hopefully soon, the auto updater will address.

[ginn]

I think it's smarter to consult to experienced players when it comes to wm, like inviting them as beta testers, rather than relying on input from the betas/rcs.

[Vos]

I think it's smarter to consult to experienced players when it comes to wm, like inviting them as beta testers, rather than relying on input from the betas/rcs.

Agreed


I dont disagree at all when the developers say: ''live with it''  ''should have tested'', I mean it's the only reason beta is here for, but it's indeed something that is just not working as intended.
But I guess we(the dev team mostly) just need to live with it, there is not really another good choice.

[homerofgods]

Guns like hk and steyr, maybe spas and deagles does indeed look a bit op.
You could say that in a more fast paced game (more overall demage) you have less need for many bullets in your clip, and more need for a gun that can kill fast.
I would like to see some demage decrease for 1.6.5.

[gor]

I completely agree with cheeseman,now the bullets are registering much better and the impact on killing speed of each weapon is huge.
In the past I barely saw 60 kills in competitive scene and nowadays in every map at least 1-2 players getting 60 kills(with others not being far behind).
My suggestion would be decreasing dmg back to 1.6.3 settings or even remaking the damage according to the new hit settings.
In the past you had to shoot 7 bullets in order to kill(4-5 bullets would register) but now 6 bullets are registering leading to much better kill ratio.

[Atomic]

I agree with the OP and other players in this thread.  The damage increase has really hampered the game and made it so that even newbies can play as good as the pro players.  It's really not fair and I think the weapons need to be fixed.

In my opinion, we should switch back to the 1.4.2 version because in that version all the weapons were perfectly balanced.

Just my two cents.   

[Falcon`]

The damage increase has really hampered the game and made it so that even newbies can play as good as the pro players.

That is my friend a good thing. Killing newbie is a happy newbie, which means he'll most likely stick around, which means new fresh blood for us.

[Atomic]

The damage increase has really hampered the game and made it so that even newbies can play as good as the pro players.

That is my friend a good thing. Killing newbie is a happy newbie, which means he'll most likely stick around, which means new fresh blood for us.

Yeah but the newbies shouldn't be able to play as good as the pro players because the pro players have been practicing their aim, movement, and other skills for years.  This game has become very messed up due to the fact that people that have never played this game can just come on and own the pros like it doesn't even matter.

[ginn]

That is my friend a good thing. Killing newbie is a happy newbie, which means he'll most likely stick around, which means new fresh blood for us.

Except that all veterans will just quit, since there's no point in playing it anymore (as there's little to no skill involved atm). Also, a newb won't be playing vs a good player, very few of the good players ever play on publics.

[Crimson Goth]

I think it's smarter to consult to experienced players when it comes to wm, like inviting them as beta testers, rather than relying on input from the betas/rcs.

Agreed, perhaps sctfl winners?