Weapon Balance OTW Tweaks - C/D Testing Values

[Beastie 177]

Thanks so much to everyone for the initial testing on the OTW weapon balance, and the feedback you've given across the forum. We've had enough data to make some initial changes, though again this the changes we've put in are not final, and some weapons that haven't received changes may still be adjusted (we just don't have enough info yet to make further tweaks). With that in mind, here are the changes we've made in the latest patch.

Testing Methodology

For the most part, we're happy that the changes in the first pass are improvements, and don't overpower the weapons (other than the shotguns, more on that later). We've generally picked one of the two sets of stats from the A/B test, and applied these to both C/D versions. From here, we adjust the C variant further, allowing you to compare the new tweaks against the version from the A/B test that we've chosen. This is quite important as we want to ensure if we hit a sweet spot of balance we don't just keep iterating for the sake of it, so having the previous test to compare against is very useful.

We also have enough initial data from the Weapon Prototype districts that we're happy to open up testing of the rebalance on other districts. All districts that aren't weapon prototype districts now default to using the C balance set.

So first, I'll go over which of the previous weapon sets are now the base set (used for set D).
COBR-A: Test A 
Mistery: Test B 
ISSR – Test B 
CSG: Test A chosen
DOW: Test A 
JG: Test A 
Strife: Test A .
NFAS: Test A 
NFAS-Ogre: Test A
Shredder: Test A
Apoc Death: Test B
Showstopper: Test A
HVR-762: Test B
Apoc Curse: Test B
NCR: Test B

You can see the values for these tests here:

Shotguns
I mentioned above that the Test D variants will be the previous test values as a comparison. For shotguns, we're breaking this somewhat as it's clear that for the most part the shotguns needed a range reduction across the board. For that reason, in the D stat set we've taken 5m from the effective range across the board on all of the shotguns.

For the test C variants, the following changes are made (Previous test values are in brackets):

Strife Test C : Effective Range to 7.5m (15m). Min Damage Range 15m (25m)
CSG Test C :  Effective Range 10m (20m), Min Damage Range 20m (40m).
DOW Test C : No Change (it needed a buff, and this gives it one. Note that this means that the C variant has a further range than the D variant, so this still provides us two data-points to compare)
JG Test C : Effective Range 10m (20m), Min Damage Range 20m (30m).
NFAS Test C : Effective Range 10m (20m), Min Damage Range 20m (30m).
NFAS-Ogre Test C : Effective Range 10m (20m), Min Damage Range 20m (30m). PerRayDamageScale 0.94(0.81). Damage 50(80). This puts it closer to its original form, with a damage reduction overall and a slight damage bonus if you hit 7 or less pellets).
Shredder Test C : No Change (Same as DOW, it needed some love).

Other Weapons
Showstopper Test C : Damage 88(75). PerRayDamageScale 0.818 (0.85).
Showstopper 'Thunder' mod:  Reduced Fire rate reduction to 35% (50%).
S-247 'Oblivion' Test C : Walk modifier 0.25 (1.25)
SWARM Test C : Walk Modifier 1.75 (7), Accuracy Cooldown 30 (20). This is a fairly major buff to see if this neglected gun will work well if we move it towards a walk and fire style LMG. 

The remaining weapons we're either happy with the balance of the chosen data set, and want to see if they play well over the weekend, or we aren't entirely sure what more needs changed, and are looking for more data from financial and waterfront before making further decisions. We're feeling the ISSR and NCR at least will potentially need more tweaks, and the Misery needs careful examination to ensure it's ok, but I'm happy to leave the current stats over the weekend to get a better feel of what, if anything further needs done.

Oh, and I realised I've been using developer terminology quite a lot here. Apologies if it's some of the language is a bit obscure. The main one that might be confusing here is Accuracy Cooldown, which is the rate at which your accuracy regenerates from movement modifiers (so when you stop running, walking, etc). The higher it is, the faster you have full accuracy after standing still.

Now, here's two other major tweaks I've made that are related to these balance tweaks...

Improved Rifling

This mod's always been a bit of a funny one. In a lot of cases, the downside has no effect, so it's purely a great mod to put on most guns. While previously this had very limited effect on Shotguns, now it will be very, very good on them. Too good in fact, essentially making them mid-range weapons (we all saw what the test A/B shotguns were like). To counter this, I've switched the downside of the mod from increasing the Shot Modifier Cap to something a bit more drastic. Fire rate. When I first had a look, the plan was to implement this as a shotgun-specific downside, but having more of a think, it could make sense in a more general fashion. The reduced fire rate (9/15/21%) can actually be a help to a lot of weapons with more control of recoil and accuracy degredation at the cost of minimum time to kill. It's certainly worth a test overall before we make a decision on whether to limit the effect to shotguns only. It'd be worth testing across the board, as it'll affect how a lot of weapons lose accuracy. This also affects Burst Fire Interval, so it does affect the burst fire rifles and pistols as well (*cough* Fang *cough*), and it may affect some weapons a bit worse than others (if we want to go this route, it's likely the LCR will need a buff, since 2/3 of the LCRs have rifling built in, and it's already a very slow killing weapon). The fire rate decrease is also quite heavy, so we may want to tone it down (or improve the rifling range effect). We'll see what the feedback is like.

Mountie SF9 'Yukon'
Finally, when adding the new rifling effect for testing, I came across the Yukon bug (fire rate increase of the mod affecting hip fire), so I've fixed that while I was in there. I mentioned previously that this patch is primarily for improving weapons, but considering it's an error that was easily fixable, it made sense to fix that at the same time. This does mean it has an effective full-auto fire rate nerf from 0.045 (which is what it bursts at) to 0.078 (the actual fire rate of the base weapon).

[CookiePuss 5382]

GG

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the yukon just became worthless. 

Edited August 4, 2018 by CookiePuss

[vsb 6174]

18 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

This does mean it has an effective full-auto fire rate nerf from 0.045 (which is what it bursts at) to 0.078 (the actual fire rate of the base weapon).

nice to see orbit is not sponging money off of broken guns

[AgentWatson 85]

Well they've finally done something about Yukon, that completely came out of left field. I was deciding whether to part with 5 mil for one but they've made up my mind for me. I can see a plummet in prices on the marketplace happening very soon. 

[vsb 6174]

42 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

we had sniper silencers that reduced rof for a period and it was pretty bad iirc, i fear that reducing the rof as a trade off for range will just lead to people foregoing rifling in favor of putting more shots downrange faster, at least on weapons that are more accurate than they need to be for x range  

repost from the other thread

[Snubnose 644]

can't wait for heavy barrel to get some tweaking (right after snubnose buff LUL)... it's only usable on very specific guns (like NSSW or DMR if you want to stun), but other than these few guns it's not a good choice.

[Tobii 346]

42 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

CSG Test C :  Effective Range 10m (20m), Min Damage Range 20m (40m).

Did you not change the damage as well?
From my testing it seems to be 60 damage for the first pellet and then 610 in total?
I might've just missed a pellet somehow.. I'll test again

I'm just stupid.. ignore this. Edited August 4, 2018 by Tobii

[TackoGirl 130]

Here is a comparison of the old and new Yukon, for people with no OTW

 

Edited August 5, 2018 by TackoGirl

[CookiePuss 5382]

Kudos on the Yukon... people been crying about that gun since day 1. 
Since you are fixing guns to match their descriptions, can you go ahead and fix the True Ogre too? 
Only diff given between it and the standard nfas is double ammo and mag size with "costs to several other areas" (windup). No mention anywhere of increased rof.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

50 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

NCR: Test B

Greeeeeeaaaaaat....................

Also grats on fixing the Yukon before it got to 2 years bugged. Cutting it close, 23 months. Edited August 4, 2018 by NotZombieBiscuit

[Nite 261]

39 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

but considering it's an error that was easily fixable, it made sense to fix that at the same time.

Makes the old management look really bad with this comment tbh

Regarding the generalized Improved Rifling rework, I'm a bit nervous about the theory behind it. Sacrificing max fire rate to gain effective range doesn't sound like the right downside for semi-auto rifles such as OBIR/OSCAR/Carbine/ObeyaCR, which have to compete with tap-firing assault rifles at the mid-range in usual showdowns (ObeyaCR vs. tap fire NTEC for example).
Would personally prefer added recoil (vertical and horizontal) as a downside, especially so for the Fang (to somewhat cripple it at farther pistol ranges)

[tennogrineer 71]

50 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

Improved Rifling

This mod's always been a bit of a funny one. In a lot of cases, the downside has no effect, so it's purely a great mod to put on most guns. While previously this had very limited effect on Shotguns, now it will be very, very good on them. Too good in fact, essentially making them mid-range weapons (we all saw what the test A/B shotguns were like). To counter this, I've switched the downside of the mod from increasing the Shot Modifier Cap to something a bit more drastic. Fire rate. When I first had a look, the plan was to implement this as a shotgun-specific downside, but having more of a think, it could make sense in a more general fashion. The reduced fire rate (9/15/21%) can actually be a help to a lot of weapons with more control of recoil and accuracy degredation at the cost of minimum time to kill. It's certainly worth a test overall before we make a decision on whether to limit the effect to shotguns only. It'd be worth testing across the board, as it'll affect how a lot of weapons lose accuracy. This also affects Burst Fire Interval, so it does affect the burst fire rifles and pistols as well (*cough* Fang *cough*), and it may affect some weapons a bit worse than others (if we want to go this route, it's likely the LCR will need a buff, since 2/3 of the LCRs have rifling built in, and it's already a very slow killing weapon). The fire rate decrease is also quite heavy, so we may want to tone it down (or improve the rifling range effect). We'll see what the feedback is like.

 

while i like this downside for most weapons that certainly need the downside (ntec being one), it does also affect the two guns that have a strong reason to use it: OBIR (already has a high ttk), Obeya CR762 (though the CR762 is more flexible in red-mod choice). to really test this, we need mods in OTW. i am open for this change though, on paper its a great downside for almost everything that previously benefited way too much. Edited August 4, 2018 by tennogrineer

[MikaSobaka 8]

Why is it that everyone thinks the Yukon will suddenly be useless once its bug is fixed? It will simply become like the other mounties, which are pretty decent secondary weapons already. They strike a nice Middle Ground between the best melee weapon in the game, the Nfa9 (knife), and the much higher accuracy SAS PDW.

It only needs 11 out of the 20 shots to kill, thats a lot of wiggle room for something so accurate out to 20m. compare that to the nfa 9 which needs nearly 15 out of 24 and is FAR less accurate.

 I see a ton of people using it to great effect, including myself. People really need to calm down about this change because frankly it doesn't need a ttk of .04

Not even the nfa gets that fast a ttk, and it has to trade accuracy and range just to be able to get close to it.

Edited August 4, 2018 by MikaSobaka

[SuperToaster 78]

Welp I'm glad I just sold both my yukons in time lol

[Lord Cashpoint 269]

56 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

 

Mountie SF9 'Yukon'
Finally, when adding the new rifling effect for testing, I came across the Yukon bug (fire rate increase of the mod affecting hip fire), so I've fixed that while I was in there. I mentioned previously that this patch is primarily for improving weapons, but considering it's an error that was easily fixable, it made sense to fix that at the same time. This does mean it has an effective full-auto fire rate nerf from 0.045 (which is what it bursts at) to 0.078 (the actual fire rate of the base weapon). 

I think I know which tears will be used for the next Christmas event.

[Tobii 346]

So this would be the new CSG stats https://imgur.com/a/GC7IzQ5 

[Kewlin 692]

Isn't the purpose of these changes buffing shotguns? So why in the world are you nerfing them? I don't know for other shotguns, (except the Shredder,) but I've tested the CSG's range before and on the live servers the CSG can easily 5-shot at 20m or 25m with IR3, so why are you testing a "buff" that reduces the damage done by 5-shots at 20m to 976.5 if you land EVERY PELLET. Please, if you plan on entirely reworking shotguns, just don't touch them. Shotguns are intended to be skilled guns, and you're just trying to make them easy to use, and in doing so making them way worse for players who already use shotguns.

The absolute worst thing you can do as a game dev is destroying a gun or estranging its current users in an attempt to buff it, so please consider that before going further.

Also, if you're going to go through with this buff you don't need to buff the LCR, just remove IR3 from it, because the gun doesn't actually need it because its range only increases by 1-STK at minimum damage, so IR3 already has very little effect on the gun anyways. I would, however, very strongly suggest against entirely reworking a mod that's totally central to the game's current meta. And BTW, can you give us the actual numbers please instead of the amount it reduces the RoF? I.E. the amount it increases a gun's fire interval?

[Similarities 226]

2 minutes ago, Kewlin said:

I would, however, very strongly suggest against entirely reworking a mod that's totally central to the game's current meta.

 

I think the fire rate nerf is a bit much, I think if it had the same downsides as CJ (bloom per shot is increased, rather than max bloom), then they'd be rather on par with each other.

Please for the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY rework Heavy Barrel, it is SO BAD.

[3D_fobia 1]

Mountie SF9 'Yukon'
Finally, when adding the new rifling effect for testing, I came across the Yukon bug (fire rate increase of the mod affecting hip fire), so I've fixed that while I was in there. I mentioned previously that this patch is primarily for improving weapons, but considering it's an error that was easily fixable, it made sense to fix that at the same time. This does mean it has an effective full-auto fire rate nerf from 0.045 (which is what it bursts at) to 0.078 (the actual fire rate of the base weapon).

0.078? Is that a typo?
Or it kills in less than 1 hundredth of a second?

[Kewlin 692]

11 minutes ago, Similarities said:

I think the fire rate nerf is a bit much, I think if it had the same downsides as CJ (bloom per shot is increased, rather than max bloom), then they'd be rather on par with each other.

Please for the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY rework Heavy Barrel, it is SO BAD.

Agreed and half agreed.

And I love how they're trying to say it like decreased RoF could even be a good thing, as if not everyone who plays APB knows how to tap-fire correctly.

[tennogrineer 71]

improved rifling changes (on marksman weapons). for the most part, semi auto weapons stay the same.

• obir/ffa and oscar - OK way since those are burst weapons
• cr762  - fine, pretty much the same firerate you would do for optimal range ttk
• joker carbine and vbr temptress/huntress - okay

however, since they still are hit...it makes the issr (dogear  especially) uncontested. that weapon will certainly be way too strong (more than it already is)
 

[mynd 120]

Welp, all the Yukon complainers can find something else to complain about now.  Gun was only viable in super CQC, and was never OP at all.  For being so "OP" I barely ever encounter one, and haven't bothered with mine in quite awhile either.

I do hope they do a proper balance pass on all Legendaries; they all deserve to be viable and desirable, especially if they want to sell JMBs.

5 minutes ago, tennogrineer said:

however, since they still are hit...it makes the issr (dogear  especially) uncontested. that weapon will certainly be way too strong (more than it already is)

Hard damage on that thing is just stupid.  Fortunately don't see them much either.

[Chinook 144]

1 hour ago, Nite said:

Makes the old management look really bad with this comment tbh

Sums about right, when you consider they had like a handful of devs left working for them... No amount of ability can overcome the ginormous size of the task they had to tackle.

[Similarities 226]

9 minutes ago, tennogrineer said:

improved rifling changes (on marksman weapons). for the most part, semi auto weapons stay the same.

• joker carbine and vbr temptress/huntress - okay

 

 

dear god no, new IR3 on the carbine will be horrendous.

[GhosT 1301]

1 hour ago, CookiePuss said:

Kudos on the Yukon... people been crying about that gun since day 1. 
Since you are fixing guns to match their descriptions, can you go ahead and fix the True Ogre too? 
Only diff given between it and the standard nfas is double ammo and mag size with "costs to several other areas" (windup). No mention anywhere of increased rof.

Can we not ruin the ogre now that it's okay?

But they should fix the description.