Weapon Balance - Community discussion

[Songbearer 72]

On 5/27/2018 at 8:37 AM, Necros said:

And the nerf on HVR is the worst, making the weapon a "support" weapon. You cant fight people up close anymore.

 

Wh... what

 

I'm sorry I just started reading this topic but isn't that the entire idea

 

In most games aren't snipers usually relegated to support positions to compensate for their power? Can't you just pack an FBW or uzi for up-close defense?

 

HVR has been my main gun since RTW and even I think it's dumb bullcrap that I wouldn't mind seeing nerfed to the ground. In pretty much every game sniper rifles suck the fun out of any engagement, are only fun for the sniper and it's even less defensible in APB because you don't even need to be skillful enough to land headshots like in every other game. One bodyshot is enough to effectively remove someone from a fight for several seconds and people have to go out of their way to get you in a game that doesn't have much wriggle room for diversions and errors. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Songbearer

[Tobii 346]

2 minutes ago, Songbearer said:

Wh... what

 

I'm sorry I just started reading this topic but isn't that the entire idea

 

In most games aren't snipers usually relegated to support positions to compensate for their power? Can't you just pack an FBW or uzi for up-close defense?

In most games.. Just not COD or APB. :^)

[Necros 0]

1 hour ago, Songbearer said:

Wh... what

 

I'm sorry I just started reading this topic but isn't that the entire idea

 

In most games aren't snipers usually relegated to support positions to compensate for their power? Can't you just pack an FBW or uzi for up-close defense?

 

HVR has been my main gun since RTW and even I think it's dumb bullcrap that I wouldn't mind seeing nerfed to the ground. In pretty much every game sniper rifles suck the fun out of any engagement, are only fun for the sniper and it's even less defensible in APB because you don't even need to be skillful enough to land headshots like in every other game. One bodyshot is enough to effectively remove someone from a fight for several seconds and people have to go out of their way to get you in a game that doesn't have much wriggle room for diversions and errors. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Man i dont want to talk anymore about weapon balance in this community, everyone is so salty when we talk about "balance" here. I just wanna say i miss the HVR before the aim nerf.

Theres a video i recored on Falange server, just watch and you see the type of gameplay we had on the server(The video is in portuguese, you can mute the sound and play a music if you want): LINK

[Valkyrja- 55]

Revert the "buff" that the cobr-a got, or just fix it

[TheAceNinja 38]

1 hour ago, Necros said:

Man i dont want to talk anymore about weapon balance in this community, everyone is so salty when we talk about "balance" here. I just wanna say i miss the HVR before the aim nerf.

Theres a video i recored on Falange server, just watch and you see the type of gameplay we had on the server(The video is in portuguese, you can mute the sound and play a music if you want): LINK

 

So you want the Snipers to be a weapon that you can play super aggressively with and have an incredibly fast TTK with quick-switching? Yeah, let's bring that back. /sarcasm

[Necros 0]

34 minutes ago, TheAceNinja said:

 

So you want the Snipers to be a weapon that you can play super aggressively with and have an incredibly fast TTK with quick-switching? Yeah, let's bring that back. /sarcasm

Theres difference on each sniper, i liked the way HVR was because i was able to help my team in close quarters. But i cant have the same gameplay like i had on Falange, the ping for me here is more than 190ms all the time. This is just one random video i recorded, most the time i did some hardscopes too.

[vsb 6171]

2 minutes ago, Necros said:

Theres difference on each sniper, i liked the way HVR was because i was able to help my team in close quarters. But i cant have the same gameplay like i had on Falange, the ping for me here is more than 190ms all the time. This is just one random video i recorded, most the time i did some hardscopes too.

the entire problem people have with the hvr is that is can “help” in cqc

 

and at long range

 

and at mid range

[Necros 0]

16 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

the entire problem people have with the hvr is that is can “help” in cqc

 

and at long range

 

and at mid range

Man i cant understand what happened to this community. I played on the Falange(Brazil) server for 3 years and i never seen anyone complain about the weapons like people do here. People from Falange played with every weapon in the game, shaw/alig, ntec/cr5, oca/pmg, csg/jg, etc etc...

 

For us the only "OP" weapons was PMG and Nfas because the great dmg both weapons do in CQC. I never seen anyone complain about HVR being to "strong" or that you can kill anyone at any distance, or NTEC being the main weapon. We just played the game the way it was. Ntec was popular, yeah it was, because its a good weapon, everyone can equip it and play, just try to learn how the weapon works and you are gonna be fine. 

 

Thats why talking about balance here is wrong for me, if i said something people dont like, they are gonna rage at me like im wrong.

[skerblerd 24]

2 hours ago, Necros said:

Thats why talking about balance here is wrong for me, if i said something people dont like, they are gonna rage at me like im wrong.

It's just counter arguments dude. If you want to give your opinion about something, but can't handle any criticisms then you should probably stop posting them. 

[Songbearer 72]

3 hours ago, Necros said:

Thats why talking about balance here is wrong for me, if i said something people dont like, they are gonna rage at me like im wrong.

Like the poster above says, I'm not salty or raging at you for saying the HVR should be a viable up close weapon, but I'm absolutely allowed to give my opinion as to why that doesn't make sense. Discussions work both ways.

 

I understand that at some servers and skill levels there might not be a culture surrounding certain weapons, but with 2k+ hours between APB RTW and APB Reloaded you start to see patterns and the eternal debate surrounding the HVR and NTEC has never had a satisfying answer. Those two guns are simply far too versatile and overshadow every weapon in their categories outside some fringe cases, and if you're not running either gun for "serious" play then you're at an immediate disadvantage.

 

It's simply bad gameplay to have two weapons that grossly outvalue the vast majority of other weapons in the game because you're effectively punishing people for wanting to use anything else. I like a lot of weapons in the game and when I used to play I'd switch up often to entertain myself - but if a match became too one-sided it's time to break out the HVRs and NTECs. This is why most games these days go one of either two routes:

 

A) All weapons feel mostly the same with very few variations such as magazine size, recoil patterns (Call of Duty and so on)

B) Characters are forced into specific roles or characters with specific drawbacks for their skillsets (Battlefield, Overwatch etc)

 

If you want to use the HVR close-up you should definitely still be able to - but since sniper rifles aren't designed for close quarter combat it should reflect this. Rolling up on a sniper to take him down for your team should be a success for the attacker and a punishment for the defender's poor positioning or lack of support, and that's not the case currently where dinging people for maximum damage is as simple as landing a shot anywhere on your target.

 

Personally if we were keeping the HVR at its current stats I'd make it the only weapon you can carry, solving quickswitching and the ability to defend yourself easily up close. It'd still be a behemoth for supporting your teammates, but the reduced mobility and lack of survivability when you're away from your teammates would give you cause to consider it.

[Songbearer 72]

It's been a while since I've played but for the NTEC, its lethality and versatility over a huge variety of ranges completely overshadows the other rifles - some like the COBRA feel like you're throwing pennies at enemies, which is bizzare for a SCAR pattern gun. I'd make an argument that it'd be better to just raise the lethality of all other assault rifles across the board, or follow the same approach as most other games where AK pattern rifles are "high damage, low accuracy" semi-short range weapons and western rifles are higher accuracy with lower damage.

[AgentWatson 85]

Well I think if anything the only thing I know people in this thread seem to have a consensus on is that we should have a seperate server or district where we can test out the new balance changes before they're pushed to live server, however I'll leave it up to Little Orbit to decide the logistics of that and deciding whom they want to play on those districts. I don't agree entirely that it should be restricted to just rank 255 top tier golds, because I think even higher rank silvers or returning players have some pretty good ideas about the balance state of the game as well. 

 

I'm excited to see what Little Orbits approach to balance will be but I'm also nervous because I know that this community can get pretty heated when it comes to touching the very fickle balance in this game. One of the benefits I suppose of having a game that hasn't changed that much in terms of balance is that old friends or old players can just return and immediately pick up where they left off. 

[Weaboos 89]

As long as dmg of NHVR and bugged fire rate on Yukon is fixed I'm happy

[Spheri 66]

There'll always be a meta, some guns will always outshine others, nerfing x and y will just make Z more popular. I don't think nerfing NTEC is an option, buffing the guns that don't see much spotlight for obvious reasons seems like a more viable option. 

But HVR, HVR is always Z. It needs reduced damage on every range, because the alternative, damage value's changing depending where you've hit your target, would be impossible.

 

[Vace 2]

Unpopular opinion but playing games like Overwatch with some heroes like McCree or Soldier that have little RNG made me dislike weapons too much RNG... I'd like to get increase of accuracy and less bloom on all the weapons.

Feels unrewarding use weapons like N-TEC that sometimes miss shots because the gun is way too inaccurate and RNG.

 

I'm ready for the dislikes

[Descure 0]

Why is no one mentioning the yukon?

[CookiePuss 5378]

49 minutes ago, Descure said:

Why is no one mentioning the yukon?

Maybe because it is garbage beyond 7m and if you die to a Yukon more than once in a match, thats on you?

[Bornstellar 108]

I, personally, do not think the NTEC should be able to range a marksman rifle such as the Obeya or OBIR. It would be nice to see the NTEC's range drop off around 50 or 60m. It currently dominates in close to long range combat and there is little to no reason why anyone should use any other weapon.

[Nite 261]

The biggest difference between the N-HVR and other multiplayer FPS games with one-shot/near-one-shot snipers is that in those other games the sniper rifle comes with a default scope that cuts off nearly all your peripheral vision with large black periphery borders. APB doesn't do this even with Hunting Sight 3, so the best players have enough vision to quickly switch into HVR (especially with 3PS) and still pan to a target that's not center of frame and land the killing shot (exacerbated by the damage being so high that nearly any other single shot + HVR is enough to empty a bar).

 

A slight damage reduction (to maybe 770) and a mandatory sight mod that adds black borders to the field of view could bring it more in line with how other games handle heavy snipers (without radical alterations like headshot vs. bodyshot or something equivalent)

[Jukin 13]

If you nerf sniper damage, bring back jump shooting back then, i was a scout main anyways.

[CookiePuss 5378]

2 hours ago, Bornstellar said:

I, personally, do not think the NTEC should be able to range a marksman rifle such as the Obeya or OBIR. It would be nice to see the NTEC's range drop off around 50 or 60m. It currently dominates in close to long range combat and there is little to no reason why anyone should use any other weapon.

Damage dropoff for the ntec is like 50m (57m IR3).

[Bornstellar 108]

35 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

Damage dropoff for the ntec is like 50m (57m IR3).

Weird because at 80m I'm still taking full damage from an NTEC.

[vsb 6171]

7 minutes ago, Bornstellar said:

Weird because at 80m I'm still taking full damage from an NTEC.

you're not

[Spheri 66]

2 hours ago, Jukin said:

If you nerf sniper damage, bring back jump shooting back then, i was a scout main anyways.

As far as I know people want the regular HVR nerfed, not the scouts. They also don't need any buffs. Jump-shooting was originally an "oversight" I'd rather not see back.

[Kino 1]

I would appreciate an ATAC rework/nerf of some sort. I haven't played on PC in forever so I don't know how it is there. But it's pretty much all you see on console. It's tiring and boring always playing against it.

 

HVR probably should be looked at. It's not a problem on console since nobody really uses it. Most likely due to poor aiming skills or the poor sensitivity settings for console. Even on max ADS sensitivity it is still slow. HVR can be a pain because readjusting for 2nd finisher shots just takes too much time. Dragging the crosshairs down while still ADS takes too long, and the only way to counteract it is to stop ADS (MM mode, I know) and drag down with the faster hipfire sensitivity, then return to aiming again. Most likely you wont be on point and will still have to  fine adjust while aiming. The few people I've seen that use the HVR consistently tend to use the silenced one for the recoil reduction, since you could get back on point faster and not have as much downtime for the whole dragging explained above. It is still pretty stupidly good though, so I'm down with it being looked at balance wise.