1-19-6 Weapon Prototype District Changes

[Beastie 177]

Thanks again to everyone that participated in the Weapon Prototype A testing on Friday. It was incredibly useful getting to play against you all and getting a feel for how the weapon balance worked in a live environment.The hands on experience and your feedback, along with the data gathered, will help us make further changes. Below are the exact balance changes that are in the Prototype environments. If you've been keeping track of the OTW changes, these will be fairly familiar to you, though there are a few changes. We also are aware that the PvP unlock that's in the Weapon Prototype districts are not really suited to large scale playtests (it's in there to help testing with small player counts). We'll switch it off for later tests.


Assault Rifles
In general. The standard-ranged ARs have received a 5m effective range reduction across the board. Combined with an increase in the range of rifles, this allows rifles (and LMGs, to an extent) to shine at longer ranges where previously most players would just take an NTEC. Min Damage Range stays the same, so you'll see a more gradual falloff of weapon performance over distance. This also promotes taking Rifling if you want to increase your range (more on this in a bit), at the cost of reducing your TTK at close range. This affects the following: ATAC, COBR-A, FAR, Raptor, S1-FA, STAR. The AR-97 'Misery' has been switched to use the long-range AR ranges. 

NTEC
The NTEC is a fairly difficult challenge to tweak, as it's by far the most popular weapon in APB and thus any changes will affect near our entire playerbase, but it does need some changes. There are two effective ways we can go about this without drastically changing the feel of the weapon, so we're investigating both simultaneously and we can compare side by side.

Test A - Increase the fire-interval of the NTEC very slightly (from 0.14 to 0.145), adjusting accuracy stats so the accuracy over shots stays the same. This helps increase the perfect TTK slightly so it's closer to its contemporaries. At the same time we also reduce the Magazine capacity a little, to 30. It has a very high Kill to Magazine capacity as it is (and a relatively fast reload), so reducing this helps in a few ways: It makes missing slightly less forgiving, it makes the choice of blue mod more interesting, and gives players another comparison marker when choosing to use the weapon over the STAR (which now has more ammo than it).

Test B - Reduce the effective accuracy of the NTEC, making it a little worse in terms of pinpoint effectiveness than other ARs, giving space for weapons like the ISSR, LCR and AR97 to get a look in. This reduces the base accuracy of the weapon to 28cms at 10m (from 24) and the Marksmanship modifier to 40% (from 35%). It also decreases jumping accuracy to 18 (from 12) to see if we can reduce jumping spray at close ranges a little. Minimum accuracy is 'improved' to stay the same as in live (since it's a multiplier on base accuracy). With this test, we also reduced ammo in the weapon to 28.

Rifles
In the same vein, we've increased the effective range of non-carbine Rifles by 5m, giving them a bit more oomph at ranges where they'd previously fall off. This affects the following:, FFA, CR-762, OBIR, SBSR. This is also important as a lot of rifles were relying on Rifling to make them valid for long distance engagements, and we're moving Rifling to be more of a trade-off than it was.

Shotguns
The range-reduction we made at the beginning of the week on Live for Shotguns was a stop-gap solution to help reduce the problem while we look at further reducing the power of shotguns. Their now very consistent kill-rates at close range allows us to change them in other areas to reduce their power while still making them the best choice at point-blank. We can also start dropping the effect of the pellet bonus damage in some cases where it's resulting in the weapons being too effective (note that this has the side-affect of increasing their total damage, this isn't a buff when you consider the 2-shot requirement goes up).

Strife Test A - Total Damage increased to 931, 2-shot pellet count changed to 11 from 9 (Reduces Pellet Scale to 0.926 from 0.933). 

CSG Test A - 2-shot pellet count reduced to 16 (from 13) (Damage 40 from 70, Scale 0.97 from 0.9). Fire Rate down to 0.77 (from 0.68).

JG Test A -  2-shot pellet count reduced to 7 (from 6) (Damage 85 from 140, Scale 0.95 from 0.82). Fire Rate down to 0.73 (from 0.68)

Shredder Test A - Increased fire interval to 0.42 (from 0.37). This is a revert of a buff from the previous patch. We buffed it in a number of ways, this one was a step too far.

SMGs

OCA
The OCA fire-rate buff a few years ago was a bit over the top, but it did need something at the time to make it viable (it was overshadowed at the time by every other SMG other than the Norsemen). As such, we want to pull back the buff, but not remove it entirely.
Test A - 0.095 fire interval (from 0.092). Accuracy stats adjusted so that it's the same as the faster fire rate.
Test B - 0.098 fire interval (from 0.092, very close to its old 0.1 fire rate). Accuracy stats adjusted so that it's the same as the faster fire rate.

Note: In some cases where weapons that are derivatives (such as the Whisper), they use the stats from the base weapon for initial testing, so don't worry; we're not planning on removing their unique features, it's purely to avoid data-duplication while tweaking.



Looking forward to hearing your feedback from the playtest .

[Keshi 436]

Interesting. Thx for the post Beastie. 
Will be diving into it after work!

[TheJellyGoo 343]

There are some 0s missing at OCAs fire intervals

Edited September 3, 2018 by TheJellyGoo

[Nitronik 348]

I think NTEC Test B is way too inaccurate, it makes it really easy to miss shots at longer ranges even if your aim is on point

I did not notice the shotgun fire delay increase, but I reckon it's probably the best way ahead for those guns, given that you can offset long cycle time with cover popping

[Landsfaderen 12]

I feel like the ATAC shouldn't have it's range nerfed, as it was only mediocre to begin with.

[Nemoss 2]

Good update for JG. Now u cant land shots so ez. Felt like old JG with more range but lower damage and rof.
CSG is still bad, i dont see any reason to use csg instead of jg. PR-1/PR2 versions are completely useless.

[Tobii 346]

48 minutes ago, LO_Beastie said:

CSG Test A - 2-shot pellet count reduced to 16 (from 13) (Damage 40 from 70, Scale 0.97 from 0.9). Fire Rate down to 0.77 (from 0.68).

JG Test A -  2-shot pellet count reduced to 7 (from 6) (Damage 85 from 140, Scale 0.95 from 0.82). Fire Rate down to 0.73 (from 0.68)

This is pretty much what I would do, so I am happy.

[swft 356]

I like the Test A N-Tec, but I'd also add the jump-shooting nerf that Test B has and call it a day for now.

[vsb 6174]

i like the ttk increase on shotguns, they shouldn’t have high burst damage and the raw ttk to face tank other dedicated cqc weapons imo

[Shini 251]

6 minutes ago, swft said:

I like the Test A N-Tec, but I'd also add the jump-shooting nerf that Test B has and call it a day for now.

I would second this regarding the Jump shooting nerf that is present on test B

[Keshi 436]

@LO_Beastie since the csg is getting some love
How about the tasz20? (specially the tasz20stock which most people have)

[Speedz 147]

7 minutes ago, Keshi said:

@LO_Beastie since the csg is getting some love
How about the tasz20? (specially the tasz20stock which most people have)

CSG = TAS20

[Keshi 436]

Just now, Speedz said:

8 minutes ago, Keshi said:

@LO_Beastie since the csg is getting some love
How about the tasz20? (specially the tasz20stock which most people have)

CSG = TAS20

it is, but it still feels like there is a difference between them when i use them tho
Maybe it's just me .-.

[Nitronik 348]

11 minutes ago, Shini said:

18 minutes ago, swft said:

I like the Test A N-Tec, but I'd also add the jump-shooting nerf that Test B has and call it a day for now.

I would second this regarding the Jump shooting nerf that is present on test B

And third. It's honestly a no-brainer

[Keshi 436]

21 minutes ago, swft said:

I like the Test A N-Tec, but I'd also add the jump-shooting nerf that Test B has and call it a day for now.

Should make it as accurate as the misery on hipfire while walking Edited September 3, 2018 by Keshi

[Spheri 66]

Jump shooting shouldn't be possible with an AR, this is not something that could be implemented, it should be implemented. 
Are you sure the shredder shouldn't receive a range nerf instead? 

[Keshi 436]

54 minutes ago, Ignas / qsn said:

Isn't Misery a rifle which was wrogfully put into AR role?

i think they considered it AR instead of Rifle because it's automatic(Same for the cobra),which i kinda don't agree much with.
but the misery bloom opens so big after the 5th shot tho. You are pretty much screwed if you miss 1 of the first 6shots on full auto

50 minutes ago, Spherii said:

Jump shooting shouldn't be possible with an AR, this is not something that could be implemented, it should be implemented. 
Are you sure the shredder shouldn't receive a range nerf instead? 

i second this Edited September 3, 2018 by Keshi

[MartisLTU 265]

Misery and Strife needs some LOVE !!!

[Keshi 436]

3 minutes ago, MartisLTU said:

Misery and Strife needs some LOVE !!!

a lot of love

3 minutes ago, Ignas / qsn said:

4 minutes ago, Keshi said:

well, it levels up marksman role anyway

Which explains why most of us don't know why they are considering it as an AR

EDIT: Would that make the shredder an AR as well? Edited September 3, 2018 by Keshi

[Lato 188]

cool.

[CookiePuss 5382]

GG

[Keshi 436]

Oh btw. The admin tracker needs some love too!

[Inquitoria 108]

2 hours ago, Nitronik said:

I think NTEC Test B is way too inaccurate, it makes it really easy to miss shots at longer ranges even if your aim is on point

I did not notice the shotgun fire delay increase, but I reckon it's probably the best way ahead for those guns, given that you can offset long cycle time with cover popping

That was kind of the point. To make rifles more viable, and assault rifles less appealing for long range engagements.

Which is a good change imo.

[Parthian 344]

whats going on with the shredder and the thumper my dudes why arent u guys nerfing them?

[Nitronik 348]

12 minutes ago, Inquitoria said:

That was kind of the point. To make rifles more viable, and assault rifles less appealing for long range engagements.

Which is a good change imo.

I think you should be able to hit semi consistently at 50-55 with an AR - you just shouldn't be able to straight up outgun anything else, which the drop-off change should take care off rather nicely. Either that, or have a TTK that's on par to that of rifles, which is where the new IR comes on