Fast paced weapon balance (1.2.1)

[DePhille]

Hi,

Browsing trough all the topics in the 'Weapon Balance Discussion' I noticed that more than half of the topics refer to 1.2.1's balance.

I'm sure that all that combined means that people want Soldat to be more fast-paced again. In my eyes, 1.2.1 was one of the versions with the least amount of complaints (except for the barret and Desert Eagles). That's because 1.2.1 was pretty balanced except from some weapons mentioned before and yet fast paced.
If I'm taking a look at the recent weapon balance changes, all I'm noticing is how the overall weapon damage is declining. If I had to give it a guess, I think 1.4's overall weapon strength is about 10% weaker than 1.2.1's. This is a gigantic difference in gameplay, anyone who has opened 1.2.1 again recently knows that.

My suggestion is that instead of weakening one overpowered weapon, we should strengthen all the others. Lately, we've only been weakening overpowered weapons, and that's the reason why Soldat is having quite a slow gameplay compared to 1.2.1 . Some of you who have seen me on the old forums know that I already made this suggestion several times before, and it always got accepted but never executed.

I'm taking this suggestion in my own hands now since no beta-tester actually listened to it. If this topic gets enough support I'll be pasting the 1.4 weapon balance here and then we'll try to combine it with the 1.2.1 weapon balance - which I'll also post. This way the beta-testers will have very little work which will probably increase their intrest in this suggestion.

PS: I've also noticed that the Weapon Balance Discussion is one of the most unfriendly subforums around. A few things I'm expecting are that people will start bashing on small items, such as the fact that I'm using 1.2.1 as a reference here. The point is that I'm suggesting a more fast-paced weapon balance, of which 1.2.1 is a good example, not that I want 1.2.1's exact weapon balance again. Since flaming is not my style I'll just leave this topic if oly very little constructive comments are made, to prevent further flaming.

Grtz, DePhille

[Aquarius]

Whatever you do with weapon balance, always someone will be unhappy.

[Duke]

Whatever you do with weapon balance, always someone will be unhappy.

exactly, no matter what you do to teh balance then somone will be pissed off. They would say stiff like "you nerfed the rugar" or something along those lines, it woudl be impossible to win and i think that this balance is pretty good.

[Chakra]

..aye. The way peeps generally gauge the success of a balance is by judging how much/little whining there is after it's release. Whether accurate or not, theres been less and less groans and moans since 1.2.

[DePhille]

It's the difference between a few people being unhappy and alot of them being unhappy. But then again, it's not so simple to predict that as it seems. You also have to keep in account that the community is growing constantly, that means that the amount of people complaining doesn't mean anything, unless you use a pecentage. Looking at that percentage, 1.4 is one of the least popular weapon balances ever released.
I know very well what numbers I'm talking about here, and it's not the usual whining in contrast to what most of you will think.

SoldatPage polls:
1.2.1: 24.1% wasn't happy with the balance (+-75 votes)
1.3.1: 49.3% wasn't happy with the balance (+-200 votes)
1.4: 64.9% wasn't happy with the balance (+-100 votes)

Soldat Forums polls:
1.4: 53.6% wasn't happy with the new balance (28 votes)

* Each poll was started around 3 days after it's respective release date.

I'm not "pissed off" if that's what you think. I'm pretty happy with the new balance too but we can't be blind by just leaving this as it is. I could open up the latest 5 weapon balances released and show you the steep declining of overall weapon strength, but I think you're all experienced and smart enough to notice that without having to open those 5 weapon balances.

At the moment we're staring ourselves blind at how the weapons compare to eachother but what we lost out of our sight is the relation between the weapon balance and Soldat. I could make this hard by giving several examples. Any experienced visitor or fan of the weapon balance will agree with me that when you decrease the overall weapon strength, one-shot-one-kill weapons will have a popularity boost.

I've predicted the fact that the M79 would be one of the most used weapons if we kept on decreasing the overal weapon strength - but that got ignored. 1.3.1 had alot of problems with the M79, as I predicted, and still nobody came to the idea of increasing overall weapon strength. That's the exact reason why I'm making this topic again.

Grtz, DePhille

[6th_account]

Yuh. The old beta crew, dominated by map makers and baised faschists <3, was very inclined on pushing the nerf button. Now that Demonic has been overthrown and no one listens to BugsRevenge the weapons can rise again. 1.4 was a very small step in that direction (heavily decreased selfbink, stronger semis, oldschool minimi & Ak behaviour), but the opinions of the new balance goes against eachother. The general consensus about, for example, deagles is that they're very good or perfect. So naturally I have to make the other weapons just as good as deagles. That means giving the Ak a damage of 103 instead of 117 like in 1.2.1, plus extra moveacc and selfbink. Then people also complain that ruger or spas are overpowered, and wants them nerfed. Completely going against a 1.2.1-style balance.

I too miss the pace and weapon strengths of the versions 1.1.X and 1.2.X, but it's hard to keep it the same, yet buff everything. =) Unless there's a huge mob with the opinion "the deagle buff is nice, but it should shoot and reload faster and hit even harder. Same for the other weapons" I can't justify a drastical super-buff for every weapon.

I don't need a copy of a new balance, DePhille. I need even more support for that type of balance. Persuade clanners, MM and beta testers and it will happen. Maybe many already do support it, but they need to be loud and proud over it.

Edit
Oh and aren't those poll stats a bit missleading? The poll questions weren't set up when the versions were released. Naturally people don't like change, and I'd expect 1.4 to be more liked than 1.3 and 1.3.1.

[DePhille]

Thanks for your constructive comment, 6th_account.
You do have a point that 1.4 is already going a slight tad in the direction of making the weapons stronger again. However, what I'm specifically talking about is turning up the damage value. I agree that a certain weapon may seem perfect, but if you turn up the damage and adjust the other values correctly, the weapon will be perfectly balanced again, with a higher damage value. There is indeed a problem with the feedback; more people will complain about one-shot-one-kill weapons than they will about auto's, that's perfectly normal. I count on the experience of the beta-team to pick out what is valuable and what is not and so far I think they're doing a good job.

It's hard to keep it the same but the result - if the beta-team succeeds - will be terrific. Getting support for this idea is what this topic is all about. If it gets enough support we can start moving on to some more targeted discussions on how to actually execute this idea. Since I lost contact with the majority of the clanworld it's pretty hard for me to persuade them too, but I'm sure the word will spread via intrested people.

Those poll statistics are taken exactly after each release, so they're pretty accurate. We have to wait for 1.4 because the number of votes is still increasing, that's why I put the Soldat Forums poll about the weapon balance in there too. I'll edit the quote to prevent further misunderstandings, thanks.

Grtz, DePhille

[GAMEOVER]

I loved the 1.2.1 balance I wish we could go back to it but its like a dead topic now.. so many have posted in requesting it back.

[a-4-year-old]

I think the version after 1.4 should pump up the autos a bit more and relax on the movement acc a lot. Movement acc is what slows down the game and bogs down killing sprees, aiming with the weapon shouldn't be a bitch to learn how to do, just something more difficult to master with a weapon.

[6th_account]

Ak, steyr and minimi has the same ammount of moveacc as in 1.1.5, which was a fast paced version. By your logic 1.3.X would have been just as fast as 1.2.X

[a-4-year-old]

By the beta testing team's logic, coupling it with bink is a wonderful idea

[6th_account]

Is that a random insult at Demonic BugsRevenge or does it have any meaning to the topic?

Bink isn't applied to autos, and selfbink hardly affects them.

[a-4-year-old]

I could try explaining it this way:
Since 1.2.1, values for Bink increased during 1.3, while movement acc stayed the same, and everyone was too busy whining about everything else to actually pay any attention to the balance, in 1.3.1 some more bink values went up, movement acc stayed mostly the same, then in the current version, 1.4, movement acc was added, and some bink was added to some guns.

I realise that not every gun follows this trend but as I see it, as it becomes more difficult for the player to aim every shot, the slower the gameplay becomes, in 1.2.1 only the ruger m79 barrett and the minimi had more then 1 movement acc.

A good example of how aiming affects speed of the gameplay is realistic mode's recoil, realistic mode is generally slower then normal mode, and I think that a part of that is probably recoil and how it throws off aim after every shot.

Again, I know that this is very general, but I think there is a part of 1.4's "slowness" is caused by difficulty to aim.

[6th_account]

... and some bink was added to some guns.

Aye brt +10 only. :Q

Anyhoo, I haven't observed any correlation between the pace of a version and it's moveacc levels. In 1.3.1 and 1.4 bink only affects m79 and barret, which aren't even supposed to be the greatest rushing weapons (though they kinda are.)

A better connection to the pace is "killing efficiency." Sure moveacc plays some part in this, but it's dwarfed in comparison to attributes like fireinterval, damage and reload.

And I'm not sure it's fair to compare the pace with realmode's crazy settings. First of all, low damage will halt your progress a lot, forcing you stop or slow down to fight or whatnot. Increased damage makes it more feasible to kill your foe in the middle of a rush, to a certain point... then you would just die a lot. Second, their anti-aim systems does work all the time for every gun. So good that it doesn't really matter a gun has selfbink on it.

[soulblade]

Just like to say that i agree with the idea of using 1.2.1 as a kind of base for the next wep balance.
Even though i think 1.4 is pretty good (except the spas is overpowered).