Weapon Balance OTW Tweaks - A/B Testing Values.

[Beastie 177]

Hi everyone,

Now that you've all had a chance to test the A and B variants, here's the list of exactly what's changed. I'll list simple stat changes first, then the exact mechanical changes to the HVR and the Shotguns last (since that's a bit longer form). I'll go into the Showstopper in a different thread. 

Please don't use this thread for feedback, instead use the threads CookiePuss has created here: 

and here, 

These changes are not meant to be final in any shape or form. Instead, they're meant to help us bracket where the guns need to be, and we'll keep providing A and B variants that get closer and closer to each other until we're happy to push one of them to Live (or revert them entirely, or go a different route).

Tweaks
Below are the initial changes in each AB test for the weapons we’re looking to balance on our initial pass.

Apoc Famine
Improve damage to give it some overkill, and improve the tap fire ability.

Test A
Increase damage to 220 (from 200)
Decrease recovery delay to 0.45 (from 0.58). This improves tap fire ability.
Remove Yaw Recoil Curve.

Test B
Increase damage to 240 (from 200)
Decrease recovery delay to 0.25 (from 0.58). This improves tap fire ability significantly.
Decrease increment of Yaw Recoil Curve, meaning it ramps up less harshly. Removed minimum yaw recoil. Should now recoil more genly right and left.

COBR-A
Removes the accuracy curve and improves accuracy recovery rates.

Test A
Removed Accuracy curve completely, using linear drop instead, Recovery Delay of 0.204. Recovery Per Second of 9.5.
Removed minimum yaw recoil. Should now recoil more gently right and left.


Test B
Fire interval improved to 0.16 (from 0.17)
Reduced Recovery delay for accuracy to 0.155 (from 0.2). Lower than the fire rate.
Decrease increment for PerShotModifier curve to 0.05 (from 0.1). Essentially takes double the amount of bullets to reach the max bloom per shot at full auto.

ISSR-a
Lowering recovery time for accuracy loss, requiring you to wait less time after taking a shot to fire again.

Test A
Lower recovery delay to 0.335 (from 0.35)

Test B  
Lower recovery delay to 0.32 (from 0.35)

SWARM
Note: the SWARM has both left and right variants, which are identical other than inverted recoil. For testing purposes, we’re only duplicating the left variant (so right-recoiling versions will instead recoil left on OTW).

Reducing horizontal recoil amount. We're also investigating increasing the time it takes to recoil to slightly slightly higher than the recoil time, making the recoil smoother.

Test A
Reduced horizontal recoil by 33%

Test B
Reduced horizontal recoil by 33%.
Double recoil time to 20ms (from 10). Given the fire rate is 18ms this means that the gun never stops recoiling when you’re firing full auto, making for a smoother, less jarring recoil.

SBSR (Rifle)
Gives it a unique recoil pattern that's significantly less harsh than the sniper variant.

Test A
Base Recoil Pitch halved to 1000 (from 2000)
Added unique weapon curve (rather than using the Sniper variant with a lesser increment)

Test B
Base Recoil Pitch halved to 1000 (from 2000)
Added unique weapon curve (rather than using the Sniper variant with a lesser increment)

H-9 'Curse'
New recoil pattern that has heavily reduced horizontal recoil

Test A
New Recoil Pattern. Same vertical recoil as before, but significantly reduced horizontal recoil (-35 to 23 from -118 to 118, now pulls slightly to the left).

Test B
New Recoil Pattern. Same vertical recoil as before, but significantly reduced horizontal recoil (-35 to 23 from -118 to 118, now pulls slightly to the left).

S-247 'Oblivion'
Attempts to make the weapon a lot snappier when using it as a fire and reposition weapon. Heavily improves snap fire by improving time it takes to gain accuracy after moving, and allowing you to switch during refire timer.

Test A
Walk modifier set to 2 (from 3).
Accuracy Cooldown to 30 (from 20 default).
Resupplies 10 rounds at a time (up from 5).
Can now switch weapon during refire timer.

Test B
Walk modifier set to 1.25 (from 3)
Accuracy Cooldown to 30 (from 20 default).
Resupplies 10 rounds at a time (up from 5)
Can now switch weapon during refire timer.
Increased Damage to 325 (from 285)
Decreased Reload time to 2.75s (from 3.2s)

NCR
New crosshair (from existing asset). Removing the accuracy recovery curve that the HVR has. Adjust how accuracy regeneration works (simply removing the regen curve means that its unique effect does basically nothing).

Test A
Switched Crosshair. Uses existing assets but simplifies, stops overlap and removes top and bottom elements.
Remove Movement Accuracy Recovery curve.
Adjusted recovery rates (4 from 6) and overall shot modifier caps (1 from 1.65) to compensate. Will now never get more than 1-shot's worth of recoil away from full accuracy.
Increased the effect of the pershot modifier reduction as you fire.
Increased Fire Rate to 0.75 (from 0.77), allowing the player a bit of leeway to get himself into trouble with accuracy (otherwise it's actually pretty hard for the bonus to have any effect).
 
Test B
Switched Crosshair. Uses existing assets but simplifies, stops overlap and removes top and bottom elements.
Remove Movement Accuracy Recovery curve.
Adjusted recovery rates and overall shot modifier caps to compensate. Will now never get more than 1-shot's worth of recoil away from full accuracy.
Significantly increased the effect of the pershot modifier reduction as you fire.
Increased Fire Rate to 0.735 (from 0.77), allowing the player a bit of leeway to get himself into trouble with accuracy (otherwise it's actually pretty hard for the bonus to have any effect).

Linking Damage and Accuracy (HVR Only)

We've linked the accuracy of the HVR to the damage it does in an effort to reduce the effect of firing it at players point blank / while moving and getting a kill because you got lucky / were so close accuracy doesn't matter. It's been a major source of frustration for a lot of the player base, and we felt it needed to be changed in order to get the weapon in a better place without trying something more drastic like just chopping a bunch of damage off it (which would also hamper its effectiveness in the situations where it's meant to be good).

When at resting accuracy (standing, unaimed), the HVR will do 40% of its normal damage in Test A (340), and 33% in test B (280). When aimed and stationary, the weapon does 100%. Between these two accuracies it linearly interpolates between the two percentages. This helps us stop situations where players get lucky shots with wildly inaccurate fire.

Pellet Damage Tweaks per Shell
We're adjusting how shotguns do damage, to allow for more damage for partial hits (the first pellets to hit a single target do more damage than the last ones). This allows them to be more forgiving without buffing their overall damage. The current OTW implementation is focusing on checking that the mechanics work as desired, we're aware that this makes the range significantly better and will be tweaking that down in the next iterations of OTW.

This may be seen as dumbing down somewhat, but it's particularly important to give us more values to tweak. Inconsistency with shotguns is a big problem, even for experienced players. Server performance is part of it, we won't deny that, but APB's shotguns are also hampered as we're a very fast paced game with a lot of clutter in close ranges to block pellets. On top of this, in third person games very short range combat gets tricky when the player is within the boom distance of your camera, as in APB the camera is fairly far out from the character. Previously, inconsistency between pellet shots was dealt with by either increasing the number of pellets (bad for performance when it goes too high) or increasing the damage of the pellets (which can only go so far before all of the shotguns one-shot). This allows us to adjust the consistency of each weapon as an individually tweakable value, allowing us to reduce other values such as overkill without affecting overall TTK. This also allows us to essentially set minimum and maximum TTKs much more easily, allowing a Shotgun to kill in 2 hits if you're great, or 4 hits if you whiff most of it but still tag them. Previously the JG would kill in between 2 and 16 hits.

Here's the JG example in graph form, with what's currently in OTW.


For our initial test values, you can see that the JG will 2-hit a target with 6/12 pellets hit with each shell in Test A, and 5/12 hit in test B, down from 8 in Live. In Test-A, we also reduce the damage of the JG (upping the hard damage % so it keeps its vehicle effectiveness), letting us test to see if we can improve consistency while reducing effective damage. Given that the Shotguns on Baylan A are currently performing really well, that's certain the case (and again, we realise they're also overperforming outside of the range, we'll work on that next).

If you're interested in how each of the Shotguns have their pellet consistency currently tweaked, there's an imgur gallery here: https://imgur.com/a/ikTa1LL
 

[Kempington 295]

Good lad. This helps a lot. Thanks so much for this.

[Uqe 17]

[Lign 361]

The new HVR system is so much good imo. I will be still a bit upset when someone do 99% damage to me from 80-90m and his teammate just needs to hit me once, but atleast now hvr is useless enough in cqc.

Btw, I'm wondering why you're not changing ntec, it's the best weapon in the game with insane accuracy at jumpshooting and 60m+ by tapping. It has been meta for too long imo.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Lign

[Beastie 177]

1 minute ago, Lign said:

Btw, I'm wondering why you don't touch ntec, it's the best weapon in the game with insane accuracy at jumpshooting and 60m+ by tapping. It has been meta for too long imo.

This patch focuses on positive improvements to weapons rather than reductions in their efficiency (with the exception of the HVR-762, which we needed to look at sooner rather than later). We'll be looking into making further tweaks in later patches, likely including reductions in power of several weapons.

[Lign 361]

7 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

This patch focuses on positive improvements to weapons rather than reductions in their efficiency (with the exception of the HVR-762, which we needed to look at sooner rather than later). We'll be looking into making further tweaks in later patches, likely including reductions in power of several weapons.

True, but you haven't improved weapons that is counterpart of ntec. Edited August 1, 2018 by Lign

[BlatMan 656]

Just nerf the N-HVR 762's max damage. That's the problem with it. Lower it to 640 soft damage, and increase the hard damage so it's a free alternative to the DMR-AV. Having damage linked to accuracy is just stupid. A hit should be a hit, not a guessing game as to how much damage you dealt.

Edited August 1, 2018 by MrsHappyPenguin

[SKay 207]

12 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

ISSR-a
Lower recovery delay to 0.32 (from 0.32)
 

Pretty sure that was meant to be to 0.32 (from 0.35)

Also I noticed the NFAS has no curve for it's old stats, I'd quite like to see how they would've shaped up to the balance districts stats.

Overall very nice work

[Frosi 719]

35 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

 It's been a major source of frustration for a lot of the player base, and we felt it needed to be changed in order to get the weapon in a better place without trying something more drastic like just chopping a bunch of damage off it (which would also hamper its effectiveness in the situations where it's meant to be good).

 

Would it really tho? 720 Damage will still ensure a 2 shot at all ranges so I fail to see how this would mess with the HVR's effectiveness. The majority of the community agrees that the HVR does too much damage considering a lot of things that APB offers such as open space areas, large hitboxes, no headshots, hitscan weapons, regen timers and even things such as core game mechanics such as movement speed. It takes roughly / 15 / seconds with Clotting Agent to regenerate an HVR tag which is an insanely long time considering most guns in APB kill you in under a second and also will be able to 1 shot you after being HVR tagged, again the issue isn't the regeneration timers being too long, it's the fact that a weapon can apply 850 damage with little to no effort required on the users end and barely any counterplay available other than to pull out an HVR yourself. 

720 Damage will allow the HVR to still 2 shot on all ranges but would give players some more counterplay to someone pushing them after they got HVR tagged. It would also eliminate quickswitching with Meta secondaries (.45, RFP, FBW) entirely as its still possible to effectively do so by using cover such as a corner or car. Edited August 1, 2018 by Frosi
Edited post for more clarity on what part of the quote I am talking about.

[Nite 261]

1 minute ago, Frosi said:

Would it really tho? 720 Damage will still ensure a 2 shot at all ranges so I fail to see how this would mess with the HVR's effectiveness. The majority of the community agrees that the HVR does too much damage considering a lot of things that APB offers such as open space areas, large hitboxes, no headshots, hitscan weapons, regen timers and even things such as core game mechanics such as movement speed. It takes roughly / 15 / seconds with Clotting Agent to regenerate an HVR tag which is an insanely long time considering most guns in APB kill you in under a second and also will be able to 1 shot you after being HVR tagged, again the issue isn't the regeneration timers being too long, it's the fact that a weapon can apply 850 damage with little to no effort required on the users end and barely any counterplay available other than to pull out an HVR yourself. 

720 Damage will allow the HVR to still 2 shot on all ranges but would give players some more counterplay to someone pushing them after they got HVR tagged. It would also eliminate quickswitching with Meta secondaries (.45, RPF, FBW) entirely as its still possible to effectively do so by using cover such as a corner or car.

This change is more targeted towards Jumpshot kills and similar hug-distance max bloom kills, and yeah it will more or less neuter those.

[Frosi 719]

42 minutes ago, Nite said:

This change is more targeted towards Jumpshot kills and similar hug-distance max bloom kills, and yeah it will more or less neuter those.

I am talking about the HVR's overall damage here, not the 340 damage you deal by jumpshooting / moving / hipfiring. 

The 340 damage inaccuracy nerf is brilliant, it forces people to be a lot more stationary while quick switching but quick switching was only ONE of the HVR's issues. Edited August 1, 2018 by Frosi

[SuperToaster 78]

I haven’t been home to test the new patch but apparently the CSG is back to being a sniper shotgun. I hope that isn’t left that way because it was pretty much the do all CQC weapon back in the day. 2 shotting people at 20-30 meters shouldn’t be a thing anymore 

[Excalibur! 207]

Getting a lucky shot is something bad... ok lmao.

[Tobii 346]

Thanks for this.

[Similarities 226]

13 minutes ago, SuperToaster said:

I haven’t been home to test the new patch but apparently the CSG is back to being a sniper shotgun. I hope that isn’t left that way because it was pretty much the do all CQC weapon back in the day. 2 shotting people at 20-30 meters shouldn’t be a thing anymore 

As explained already, they're going to be tweaking shotguns still because they're too effective at all ranges, they just want to do things little by little.

[Ebola-Chan 59]

43 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

This patch focuses on positive improvements to weapons rather than reductions in their efficiency (with the exception of the HVR-762, which we needed to look at sooner rather than later). We'll be looking into making further tweaks in later patches, likely including reductions in power of several weapons.

Dont promise things to this community
 they will eat you up sooner or later on theae promises

good job not making huge changes to all of the arsenal and doing it step by step
maybe these changes will change the META so much that the ntec will become under powered so who knows Edited August 1, 2018 by Ebola-Chan

[SuperToaster 78]

10 minutes ago, Similarities said:

25 minutes ago, SuperToaster said:

I haven’t been home to test the new patch but apparently the CSG is back to being a sniper shotgun. I hope that isn’t left that way because it was pretty much the do all CQC weapon back in the day. 2 shotting people at 20-30 meters shouldn’t be a thing anymore 

As explained already, they're going to be tweaking shotguns still because they're too effective at all ranges, they just want to do things little by little.

That’s good. Because before weapons would get tweaked and left that way for months 

[NotZombieBiscuit 3145]

I feel like the A version of the NCR Anubis performs better than the B version. The issue is in gameplay you never really have the chance to gain benefit from its increased accuracy from firing it except in niche circumstances that are quite rare. Because of this the A version feels far more consistent and in line with the 'mobile' sniper trope. However as I said before A could use a bit more tweaking but is certainly in the right direction and making the gun fun to play again.

[Keshi 436]

1 hour ago, Lign said:

True, but you haven't improved weapons that is counterpart of ntec.

use a carbine for mid range
oca/pmg/shotgun closerange
obeya longrange. easy counter

12 minutes ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

I feel like the A version of the NCR Anubis performs better than the B version. The issue is in gameplay you never really have the chance to gain benefit from its increased accuracy from firing it except in niche circumstances that are quite rare. Because of this the A version feels far more consistent and in line with the 'mobile' sniper trope. However as I said before A could use a bit more tweaking but is certainly in the right direction and making the gun fun to play again.

+1

[speee 90]

Very nice write up. Thank you for posting this.

[Aeronaut 647]

@LO_Beastie
this absolutely blows G1 out of the water in regards to any informational post they've made their entire time with APB.

i appreciate you. alot. you and everyone else involved in the process. all of you are amazing people.

[Lign 361]

26 minutes ago, Keshi said:

use a carbine for mid range
oca/pmg/shotgun closerange
obeya longrange. easy counter +1

Or I can just use ntec for all ranges and situations

[Nite 261]

Has anyone gotten kills with Oblivion Test B yet? Those stats give it one hell of a buff vs. the base gun, I wanna know how that plays out in practice

[Tobii 346]

Just tested the CSG just for the sake of it.. And I feel like the biggest issue now is the distance.
Right now you can 2 shot up to 18 meter! 18! METERS! With a shotgun... Oof.
And I believe we managed to 3 shot up to 25-30 meters.

Problem is that you have to find a place where it can be in the same spot as the OCA but not be A LOT better.
OCA has a TTK of 0.64 while the CSG is 0.68 if you get the PERFECT fire rate.
But the OCA can't corner pop like the CSG can, so in a one on one battle the CSG is most likely to win because you expose yourself less compared to the OCA.
If that is the case, the TTK will go up quite a bit for the OCA.

It's hard to make up something that is realistic, but I did make a graph to show some possible changes to the CSG dropoff that would keep it in it's own place. e.g. super CQC.

This would make the CSG VERY dangerous in CQC, even against the OCA.
But at distances past the 10 meter mark the OCA will slowly gain the upper hand. As it should be?

I am in no shape or form a master when it comes to balancing. I would personally to it over multiple revision to find the sweet spot.
So take this with a grain of salt.

A shotgun is hard to balance, especially in a 3rd person game where you would usually have the upper hand against pushing enemies.
If you have any better suggestion @ me.

[TackoGirl 127]

I wish they would leave the shotguns as they were