Upcoming Weapon Balance changes

[DeadPixels 253]

Now i will have to buy back Anubis to check it out. I hope the new crosshair is not as bad as the old one is....

[Toasted 9]

9 minutes ago, Fatal1ty Pixels said:

Now i will have to buy back Anubis to check it out. I hope the new crosshair is not as bad as the old one is....

I was going to sell mine until I heard about the buff. The anubis being my only legendary, I hope the market price $kyrockets 

[TheJellyGoo 343]

3 hours ago, Rebelliousness said:

Balancing is working with the gun to bring it into balance with other guns.  Nerfing is removing a buff that a gun previously had without the intention to balance it.  Balances can bring "nerfs" for some guns but also bring "buffs" as well.

1. "In video gaming a nerf is a change to a game that reduces the desirability or effectiveness of a particular game element." Etymology of “Buff” and “Nerf” as used in video-game slang

2. "Game balance is a video game design concept where the strengths of a character or a particular strategy are offset by a proportional drawback in another area to prevent domination of one character or gaming approach." What is Game Balance?

Seriously what are you even trying to say... this is beyond twisted to comprehend. Are you trying to make it impossible to work with your sentences?

 

"Balancing is working with the gun to bring it into balance with other guns." 

What even is this supposed to mean - "working with the gun"? So essentially applying nerfs/buffs?

 

"Nerfing is removing a buff that a gun previously had without the intention to balance it."

Wrong, you remove it because you do in fact have an intention to balance it otherwise there would be no point in decreasing said variables unless you want to imply that developers change numbers just for fun and no intentions whatsoever?

 

"Balances can bring "nerfs" for some guns but also bring "buffs" as well."

Great, we made full circle and you just repeated what I initially said. Balancing is the umbrella term that includes nerfs and buffs!

 

Of course you can keep to belabor on the definitions as much as you want when there are dozens that can all be true under the right context just to make your reply as difficult to work with as any other jurly-burly but it won't change the fact that it is an established slang for the general gaming community. kiss

Edited July 8, 2018 by TheJellyGoo

[Rebelliousness 85]

2 hours ago, TheJellyGoo said:

Seriously what are you even trying to say... this is beyond twisted to comprehend. Are you trying to make it impossible to work with your sentences?

 

"Balancing is working with the gun to bring it into balance with other guns." 

What even is this supposed to mean - "working with the gun"? So essentially applying nerfs/buffs?

 

"Nerfing is removing a buff that a gun previously had without the intention to balance it."

Wrong, you remove it because you do in fact have an intention to balance it otherwise there would be no point in decreasing said variables unless you want to imply that developers change numbers just for fun and no intentions whatsoever?

 

"Balances can bring "nerfs" for some guns but also bring "buffs" as well."

Great, we made full circle and you just repeated what I initially said. Balancing is the umbrella term that includes nerfs and buffs!

 

Of course you can keep to belabor on the definitions as much as you want when there are dozens that can all be true under the right context just to make your reply as difficult to work with as any other jurly-burly but it won't change the fact that it is an established slang for the general gaming community. kiss

Nerfing weapons merely reduces them. Balancing weapons brings a series of adjustments to various weapons which amount to trade-offs to avoid anything being overpowered. They are two different concepts, although a "nerf" might be in order, "balancing" technically implies greater care not to devalue and break the gun whereas an ordinary nerf is applied without consideration of balancing, and simply a knee-jerk reaction to playerbase complaints.  but do write more convoluted essays which are inherently dishonest if it pleases you.  I used basically disctionary definitions of these concepts.  If you have an issue, it's with the gaming community which established these definitions, and not me.

[RodriguesPTF 11]

I have been playing this game since its close beta and i still don´t udestand why ppl want to reduce the HVR damage? Whats the sense of that? its a sniper rifle it is supose to do high damage....i do believe we need to find a way to nerf it to a point that ppl can´t quickswitch to death everytime..that just sucks...no fun in there...but fighting a sniper is easy if he does not have suport...just get in a car a rush him nade him to death....

I am a sniper player +5000 hours across all caracthers...thats why i say this. 

[dett2 64]

6 hours ago, ViIlain said:

Can the 'Scoped' N-Tec variants get a buff? They have bad ads accuracy when moving for seemingly no reason compared to the regular N-Tec. Is there a reason for this, because I don't think it has any other benefit over the regular N-Tec either, just this handicap.

It's already good gun.

 

Scoped means hunting sight.

 

you don't need to get HS3 and IR3 mods , that's a benefit.

 

If it get more accurate when moving , it will be a broken gun obviously.

Edited July 8, 2018 by dett2

[professionalgamer 32]

1. HVR | The proposed changes will encourage waiting 1.0 seconds for maximum accuracy. A 'perfect' quickswitch would min ttk in around 0.7 seconds, now it may be 1.7 seconds or less.

 

Does this fix anything? No not really, ttk has never been the over arching issue of the HVR. Note: 2 shots for an hvr to kill someone is not 1.75 ttk because the initial shot requires a max of 1 second to be accurate. Therefore quick switching would still be superior to hard scoping. The issue with the HVR is that health regeneration in APB is a big deal. Being 'lit' ensures that you will be hunted and be unable to defend yourself. The HVR will still destroy anything in its path by its huge damage. This mechanic is unrealistic, there needs to be an indicator so that the gun is intuitive, if we end up adding so many new mechanics then new players will be completely clueless as to why their guns are operating oddly.

 

2. Shotguns | Effectively reducing spread size and increasing damage output. The proposed method does not resonate well with me because it introduces an unrealistic mechanic. 

 

 

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8  -> The stats on apb db and vault are uncertain... please provide these.

 

Its too soon to rebalance anything.

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by professionalgamer

[Cr0 328]

7 hours ago, ViIlain said:

Can the 'Scoped' N-Tec variants get a buff? They have bad ads accuracy when moving for seemingly no reason compared to the regular N-Tec. Is there a reason for this, because I don't think it has any other benefit over the regular N-Tec either, just this handicap.

Scoped N-Tec has better accuracy than the normal N-Tec when not moving, which is why it's compensated that way. Scoped N-Tec also has a little bit less recoil and slightly more zoom.

Edited July 8, 2018 by SilverCrow

[kukki 27]

Sniper changes sound good, shotguns sound ok on paper. I guess that's it, for now.

[thelinux 51]

Linking accuracy to damage on the HVR is not a bad idea and something I suggested a long time ago, however I have my doubts it will stop quickswitchers entirely.

 

 

Buffing or even touching shotguns is always a bit risky but I'm very keen to see them being more consistent than they are now.

 

 

Some of the remaining weapons were my "tried once - found them trash" guns, so I'm hyped to see if those might become less underwhelming to use. To be honest though, the Cobra and especially the H-9 were fine in my opinion. 

[Revoluzzer 274]

On 7/6/2018 at 10:39 PM, MattScott said:

1) Linking accuracy to damage on the HVR 762

Reducing the damage of the HVR 762 when it's not perfectly accurate allows us to reduce the ability to fire it at close range / snap shot and still be effective.

Gotta agree with @Dopefish here, this is an unintuitive way to balance the amount of damage the HVR is able to dish out.

Ever since the "advanced weapon characteristics" were introduced more weapons fell victim to mechanics which a player will normally not expect. This makes gunplay as a whole less fun, because knowledge from other games doesn't translate well into APB and vice versa.

 

Reducing the HVR's damage to sensible levels which reduces the comfort of combining it with allrounder-secondaries like the .45 or FBW would do a great deal against quick-switching, while also raising other sniper rifles to a competitive level at ranged play.

As it stands your proposed "fix" will probably still render the HVR king at long range support, while other snipers are still only acceptable in their intended role and at best bearable outside of their supposed niche.

 

 

APB's original gunplay was great because it was simple. Guns behaved as you would expect and legendaries featuring oddball mechanics didn't exist. Having the latter isn't much of an issue, because new players won't immediately be confronted with them. But having those mechanics on the most common type of arsenal other games offer sets up new players for a bad experience.

[professionalgamer 32]

10 minutes ago, Revoluzzer said:

Gotta agree with @Dopefish here, this is an unintuitive way to balance the amount of damage the HVR is able to dish out.

Ever since the "advanced weapon characteristics" were introduced more weapons fell victim to mechanics which a player will normally not expect. This makes gunplay as a whole less fun, because knowledge from other games doesn't translate well into APB and vice versa.

 

Reducing the HVR's damage to sensible levels which reduces the comfort of combining it with allrounder-secondaries like the .45 or FBW would do a great deal against quick-switching, while also raising other sniper rifles to a competitive level at ranged play.

As it stands your proposed "fix" will probably still render the HVR king at long range support, while other snipers are still only acceptable in their intended role and at best bearable outside of their supposed niche.

 

 

APB's original gunplay was great because it was simple. Guns behaved as you would expect and legendaries featuring oddball mechanics didn't exist. Having the latter isn't much of an issue, because new players won't immediately be confronted with them. But having those mechanics on the most common type of arsenal other games offer sets up new players for a bad experience.

I agree about the mechanics, however I do not think altering the damage will improve game balance.

[professionalgamer 32]

On 7/7/2018 at 8:57 AM, MattScott said:

Hi all,

 

We will be putting these changes on OTW  soon for players to test.

 

This system is updated every time you boot APB. We also make small tweaks to our own internal systems every patch.

 

Thanks,

Matt

Can OTW have both the pre-patch and newly balanced guns? The majority of players have never used any of these guns for more than 15 minutes.

[Kempington 295]

Here's my main concern.

 

You're introducing a lot of intricate mechanics to these weapons, that an average player in the game will have no knowledge about, because it isn't explained in-game at all. It's all well and good us knowing about these changes, in a brief sense, but what about the average joe who plays this game, but doesn't necessarily reads the forums. How will he know how the weapon behaves? Sure, you could argue that he could work it out as he goes along, but what if he gets frustrated by it and refuses to use the gun because it doesn't work like he expects? Just a thought. I'd say make sure these changes are documented appropriately in-game, not just in the intro-screen patch notes.

 

Let's talk about the elephant in the room, the HVR.

 

From a balancing perspective, I have to paraphrase what the previous weapon balance guy once told me. This was during a discussion we had to make the HVR-762 not have the ability to equip purple mods on. Essentially, changing the way one weapon behaves in a category with a limitation that the others don't have will confuse players when using the weapon, since they'll have certain expectations on how the weapon will perform.

 

This suggested change isn't much different from banning purple weapon mods on the HVR. Since no other sniper is going to have this accuracy-damage penalty, the HVR will feel clunky and weird. Veterans won't really care, but newer players who expect the weapon to be dishing out tons of damage, won't understand why it's so inconsistent, if they choose to fire just a moment before minimum accuracy is achieved.

 

However, conversely, this change might not do anything at all to the HVR. I would ask kindly that we know more about how this damage penalty will perform and what sort of damage will be lost when the gun isn't fully accurate. I admit, I'll be making an initial reaction to these values, but I will also make an additional post after testing, so you can see the before and after thoughts on this change. I don't want to condemn it now and say it's a bad idea, but it might be nice to see what our thoughts are from the way its described.

 

My honest fix for the HVR is to make it behave more like a turret. It's a big, heavy sniper that can remove players from a gunfight for up to 15 seconds at a time. It's an area-of-denial weapon. In a sense, it can be compared more to the SHAW, than the Scout or other snipers. With this reasoning, make it take longer to setup and acquire accuracy,

 

Let me jot this into notes:

 

• Take longer to acquire minimum accuracy when first equipped. Increase the delay from 1 second to 1.5 seconds?
• Increase the maximum bloom of the weapon. Since you can control its snap-in rate and accuracy recovery rate, this shouldn't be a limitation anymore.
• Larger accuracy penalty if the player moves at all, even in marksmanship mode. Focus the emphasis on being completely still when taking the shot. It's not a mobile weapon.
• Add a 1 second delay to the HVR regaining accuracy from any source. This includes, running, moving in marksmanship mode, jumping, etc.
• Maybe add a small accuracy penalty to the HVR when players change stance from standing to crouch?
• Remove the crosshair when hipfiring the weapon.

 

Sounds harsh? It should be. The gun is the second most powerful hit-scan weapon in the game and can change the tide of a gunfight in a single shot. I feel the above changes would force players to play a little more carefully when using the weapon and would potentially allow players better options on closing the distance against these players. As it currently stands, it's risky to close the distance on an HVR, due to how mobile it is and how easy it is to snap-fire shots in with it. If you slow this process down and make it more defensive (like the SHAW), I feel this may encourage other long range options, without making the HVR completely useless.

 

 

Now then, the shotgun changes.

 

I don't know if this is necessarily a good idea. I understand that players may feel the weapons are inconsistent at times, but I don't think that's a fault of the design. I think that's more the hit-registry on the server that's screwing them. With this in mind, is this change meant to be balanced around the server's inconsistent hit registry with shotguns? I want to hear why you felt this change was necessary.

 

Again, this issue revolves around not have enough information to go on. IF we could get an idea on how much extra damage we'll get from "grazing shots" (how much extra damage the initial first pellets will deal), that might be beneficial. As it stands, this will either make shotguns the kind of CQC again with very little options against them, or make no change to them whatsoever.

 

I feel that the pump shotguns require the player to be skilled and keeping their target in the centre of their cross-hairs, but will still allow for some yield, due to the spread. I don't necessarily disagree with the change, but I'm more concerned about the repercussions that this may bring to some of the other shotguns.

 

Let's take the NFAS "True Ogre" for example.

 

The true ogre, in some cases, feels like it breaks the hit registry in the near vicinity. This causes opposing forces to potentially miss more shots than expected, while the nfas spams them down. If this "grazing shot" comes into effect, this might inadvertently buff the true ogre to silly levels, where trying to kill this guy will require out-ranging them.

 

Let's not forget the CSG.

 

The CSG and the JG I feel are pretty well versed against each other. The JG has a higher potential to 2-shot up close and is slightly more forgiving in that category, whereas the CSG has the ability to comfortably poke players slightly further out. This change might make the CSG's "poking" ability that much more potent, meaning SMGs might get short changed here when trying to oppose these players.

 

I agree that shotguns are difficult to balance, but I feel that they're in a pretty good spot presently and this change isn't necessary. However, I'm still interested to see how much of a difference it makes.

 

 

 

I will not make an intial thoughts post about the specific changes you're making to the list of weapons below. I'll reserve that for after I've tested them.

 

However, could you clarify the H9-Curse change? It doesn't have any horizontal recoil. It has practically no recoil at all. Is this an error?

[Randodom 9]

55 minutes ago, Kempington said:

However, could you clarify the H9-Curse change? It doesn't have any horizontal recoil. It has practically no recoil at all. Is this an error?

Yeah I was wondering too.. The Curse is pretty fine as it is, blooms a bit much when full autoing, but I don't remember it having recoil 

[Senodus 49]

It would be amazing if the guy making these changes made a post commenting on every change and explaining his reasoning behind every change. 

[vsb 6171]

1 minute ago, xSagittiSx said:

It would be amazing if the guy making these changes made a post commenting on every change and explaining his reasoning behind every change. 

lowkey trying to see who the old weapon balance dev is i see

[Pedroxin 107]

1 hour ago, Kempington said:

Here's my main concern.

 

You're introducing a lot of intricate mechanics to these weapons, that an average player in the game will have no knowledge about, because it isn't explained in-game at all. It's all well and good us knowing about these changes, in a brief sense, but what about the average joe who plays this game, but doesn't necessarily reads the forums. How will he know how the weapon behaves? Sure, you could argue that he could work it out as he goes along, but what if he gets frustrated by it and refuses to use the gun because it doesn't work like he expects? Just a thought. I'd say make sure these changes are documented appropriately in-game, not just in the intro-screen patch notes.

 

Let's talk about the elephant in the room, the HVR.

 

From a balancing perspective, I have to paraphrase what the previous weapon balance guy once told me. This was during a discussion we had to make the HVR-762 not have the ability to equip purple mods on. Essentially, changing the way one weapon behaves in a category with a limitation that the others don't have will confuse players when using the weapon, since they'll have certain expectations on how the weapon will perform.

 

This suggested change isn't much different from banning purple weapon mods on the HVR. Since no other sniper is going to have this accuracy-damage penalty, the HVR will feel clunky and weird. Veterans won't really care, but newer players who expect the weapon to be dishing out tons of damage, won't understand why it's so inconsistent, if they choose to fire just a moment before minimum accuracy is achieved.

 

However, conversely, this change might not do anything at all to the HVR. I would ask kindly that we know more about how this damage penalty will perform and what sort of damage will be lost when the gun isn't fully accurate. I admit, I'll be making an initial reaction to these values, but I will also make an additional post after testing, so you can see the before and after thoughts on this change. I don't want to condemn it now and say it's a bad idea, but it might be nice to see what our thoughts are from the way its described.

 

My honest fix for the HVR is to make it behave more like a turret. It's a big, heavy sniper that can remove players from a gunfight for up to 15 seconds at a time. It's an area-of-denial weapon. In a sense, it can be compared more to the SHAW, than the Scout or other snipers. With this reasoning, make it take longer to setup and acquire accuracy,

 

Let me jot this into notes:

 

• Take longer to acquire minimum accuracy when first equipped. Increase the delay from 1 second to 1.5 seconds?
• Increase the maximum bloom of the weapon. Since you can control its snap-in rate and accuracy recovery rate, this shouldn't be a limitation anymore.
• Larger accuracy penalty if the player moves at all, even in marksmanship mode. Focus the emphasis on being completely still when taking the shot. It's not a mobile weapon.
• Add a 1 second delay to the HVR regaining accuracy from any source. This includes, running, moving in marksmanship mode, jumping, etc.
• Maybe add a small accuracy penalty to the HVR when players change stance from standing to crouch?
• Remove the crosshair when hipfiring the weapon.

 

Sounds harsh? It should be. The gun is the second most powerful hit-scan weapon in the game and can change the tide of a gunfight in a single shot. I feel the above changes would force players to play a little more carefully when using the weapon and would potentially allow players better options on closing the distance against these players. As it currently stands, it's risky to close the distance on an HVR, due to how mobile it is and how easy it is to snap-fire shots in with it. If you slow this process down and make it more defensive (like the SHAW), I feel this may encourage other long range options, without making the HVR completely useless.

 

 

Now then, the shotgun changes.

 

I don't know if this is necessarily a good idea. I understand that players may feel the weapons are inconsistent at times, but I don't think that's a fault of the design. I think that's more the hit-registry on the server that's screwing them. With this in mind, is this change meant to be balanced around the server's inconsistent hit registry with shotguns? I want to hear why you felt this change was necessary.

 

Again, this issue revolves around not have enough information to go on. IF we could get an idea on how much extra damage we'll get from "grazing shots" (how much extra damage the initial first pellets will deal), that might be beneficial. As it stands, this will either make shotguns the kind of CQC again with very little options against them, or make no change to them whatsoever.

 

I feel that the pump shotguns require the player to be skilled and keeping their target in the centre of their cross-hairs, but will still allow for some yield, due to the spread. I don't necessarily disagree with the change, but I'm more concerned about the repercussions that this may bring to some of the other shotguns.

 

Let's take the NFAS "True Ogre" for example.

 

The true ogre, in some cases, feels like it breaks the hit registry in the near vicinity. This causes opposing forces to potentially miss more shots than expected, while the nfas spams them down. If this "grazing shot" comes into effect, this might inadvertently buff the true ogre to silly levels, where trying to kill this guy will require out-ranging them.

 

Let's not forget the CSG.

 

The CSG and the JG I feel are pretty well versed against each other. The JG has a higher potential to 2-shot up close and is slightly more forgiving in that category, whereas the CSG has the ability to comfortably poke players slightly further out. This change might make the CSG's "poking" ability that much more potent, meaning SMGs might get short changed here when trying to oppose these players.

 

I agree that shotguns are difficult to balance, but I feel that they're in a pretty good spot presently and this change isn't necessary. However, I'm still interested to see how much of a difference it makes.

 

 

 

I will not make an intial thoughts post about the specific changes you're making to the list of weapons below. I'll reserve that for after I've tested them.

 

However, could you clarify the H9-Curse change? It doesn't have any horizontal recoil. It has practically no recoil at all. Is this an error?

none of these mambo jambo would be necessary if they added a high mag scope to all HVRs as a preset, this way they would behave the same way a sniper rifle should do.

[Eixo 33]

56 minutes ago, Pedroxin said:

none of these mambo jambo would be necessary if they added a high mag scope to all HVRs as a preset, this way they would behave the same way a sniper rifle should do.

i agree with pre-moding them with high mag scope but special purple one for HVR 762 only + reskins and leave normal orange mag scope available sometimes i use it for fun on shaw when i am bored

[Unclean 45]

Still hoping they're putting the COBR-A and the Artemis back to where they were before G1 added the curves system bloom to them.. they used to be full bloom recovery guns like the LCR, but with a tiny bit higher ttk than the average rifle

[Virgil 55]

I'd love to see pre-nerf OG Carbine, pre-nerf scout, pre-rework shotguns make introductions again. The current shotguns are laughable, hopefully the grazing shot mechanic addresses that to an extent.

 

Basically i'd just love to see the gunplay how it was in the G10 era again, talented players truly shined.

 

 

 

 

On another note, sad the Yukon wasn't immediately bulldozed, and I still find it funny people are still whining for OCA nerfs when they still get bulldozed by the average gold player who uses nothing more than FBW or RFP.

Edited July 8, 2018 by Virgil

[Creedh 7]

Finaly some love for the COBRA tho  

[Faunblut 0]

And... where the F is the needed N-Tec nerf? Would need less damage or accuracy.

[indi 175]

Delete the HVR from the game tbh.

[Kat 27]

1 minute ago, indi said:

Delete the HVR from the game tbh.