Halting all weapon balance changes was a major mistake

[Nitronik 348]

Due to APB's competitive nature, it is important for the game to be well balanced, with no item or weapon being clearly superior to another.

This is currently not the case for a good chunk of weapons - Some are woefully underpowered, while others dominate their range bracket.

 

Following the recent shotgun changes, Little Orbit has seemingly abandoned all weapon balancing efforts, possibly in hopes of not angering the community further.
While I sympathize with the mindset that led to this approach, this is not a healthy way to go on about it - and has in fact caused more harm than good.

 

While the pellet scaling changes were great, the stats given to some shotguns have led to them being underwhelming (e.g. JG, CSG) or extremely annoying to fight against (NFAS, DOW)
Some very good changes (OCA TTK nerf on OTW) were also never pushed to the live servers, contributing to some weapons being further cemented as the best option

 

LO has not communicated at all on the topic of weapon balance ever since.

There are a lot of small changes that could contribute towards a much more varied meta, but if all of them are being put on the backburner indefinitely (as far as we know), at least let us know!

[Weeb TheEpicGuyV2 269]

Was gonna ask where the Nitronik disclaimer is, but this isn't his typical idea thread :^)

 

Putting that aside, I think they left it on the backburner for riot and engine upgrade on otw. We might hear something after these two happen. Don't quote me on that. But yeah, would be nice to hear something on it

[Mitne 724]

Eh. Last thing I need is not having any good option for pointsman weapon right now.

You took away my CSG, now you propose to take away OCA?

It's strange that all this fucking changes litteraly cover up with weapon role I'm doing... and usually are nerfs.

What about OSCAR? RFP? Scratch that... actually all marksman weapons? N-TEC?... Nobody even bother to fix this issues with balance.

 

You can dislike all you like - truth hurts eh? Same was with sniper rifles and even ARs. And honestly I got enough of constant nerfs when "Mitne decide to do that role next" - it's fucking 20k of constant headache.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Mitne

[iSkully 7]

I miss the Improved Rifling changes, having people swapping out modifications in replacement of extended range was entertaining and made the game fresh, got rid of a lot of the IR3 N-TEC's that are too versatile right now as well.

[VanilleKeks 737]

this is an idea i just got in my head and spent around 2 seconds thinking about, but what if they just made IR a orange mod

Edited March 19, 2019 by VanilleKeks

[iSkully 7]

14 minutes ago, VanilleKeks said:

this is an idea i just got in my head and spent around 2 seconds thinking about, but what if they just made IR a orange mod

Well I would meme IR and CJ that's for sure.

[CookiePuss 5378]

When it comes to decisions LO makes, its like my one Italian friend says, "people will fuzzy bunny and moan regardless".

[VanilleKeks 737]

2 minutes ago, iSkully said:

Well I would meme IR and CJ that's for sure.

Well since they both increase the same form of bloom you'd be looking at one hell of an inaccurate weapon.

 

But, what if we just removed the orange mod category, and turned, HS,RS,HMS into red mods?

 

Then you'd have to actively choose and sacrifice one bonus for another. Want more accuracy in marksman (HS)? Well you gonna have to lose out on lesser TTK (CJ) and more effective range (IR). I'm not saying this would be a good thing, but I'm interested in seeing how that would play out.

[GhosT 1301]

I agree.

In my opinion, the shotgun changes should be reverted and stay there.

The shotgun balance was fine and probably the most well balanced weapon class in APB. The shredder could use a tiny buff though.

Right now, only two shotguns are now useful, and the rest is irrelevant.

 

Then only touch the few problematic weapons by slightly nerfing the, such as the OCA (revert the unnecessary G1 buff), the N-TEC, the N-HVR, or the RFP-9.

This allows users to have the option to use other guns that won't put them at a disadvantage for not using them.

 

Then buff all the bad and underpowered weapons such as the COBR-A, ISSR-a, ACT-44, AR-97, RSA, FR0G, H9, Mounties, NCR-762, Norseman, OCSP, R-2, S-247, S1-FA, S1-TIC, SBSR, STAR LCR, SWARM and the VAS-C2.

 

 

But if you decide to touch the weapon balance again, it needs thorough testing before reaching the live build, and then treat the new live build as the last testing phase where more users can share their opinions about it, as previous OTW-Tests and Prototype-Districts haven't worked at all due to the small playerbase.

[iSkully 7]

3 minutes ago, VanilleKeks said:

Well since they both increase the same form of bloom you'd be looking at one hell of an inaccurate weapon.

 

But, what if we just removed the orange mod category, and turned, HS,RS,HMS into red mods?

 

Then you'd have to actively choose and sacrifice one bonus for another. Want more accuracy in marksman (HS)? Well you gonna have to lose out on lesser TTK (CJ) and more effective range (IR). I'm not saying this would be a good thing, but I'm interested in seeing how that would play out.

That would be very interesting to see if it would work.

[MartisLTU 265]

Tbh, some weapons needs to get re-balance, (semi weapons) maybe. But rebalancing few weapons always have side effect on making other weapon OP. Dats why whole rebalance action should be taked very slow and careful.

 

Btw. some weapons seems like OP cuz of bad/good hitreg problems ( Lo should fix those before any action) and ofc some ppl. who use cheats might make up illusion that this weapon is OP.

[Nitronik 348]

56 minutes ago, Mitne said:

Eh. Last thing I need is not having any good option for pointsman weapon right now.

You took away my CSG, now you propose to take away OCA?

 

I am actually proposing to give you back the CSG

 

6 minutes ago, MartisLTU said:

Tbh, some weapons needs to get re-balance, (semi weapons) maybe. But rebalancing few weapons always have side effect on making other weapon OP. Dats why whole rebalance action should be taked very slow and careful.

There are a few weapons that are a bit too good and a few that are a bit too bad

If they start taking small baby steps in balancing we're gonna be one small baby step closer to a more varied meta. There is no need to completely rework weapon categories - this only results in a balancing clustertruck

 

 

[Nite 261]

36 minutes ago, GhosT said:

Then buff all the bad and underpowered weapons such as the COBR-A, ISSR-a, ACT-44, AR-97, RSA, FR0G, H9, Mounties, NCR-762, Norseman, OCSP, R-2, S-247, S1-FA, S1-TIC, SBSR, STAR LCR, SWARM and the VAS-C2.

COBR-A, ISSR-A, AR-97, S-247 already got buffed though, I don't think you can really buff those any further without making them the new top performers. Same for the S1-FA unless you want them to just make it another NTEC reskin and be done with it....

[GhosT 1301]

10 minutes ago, Nite said:

COBR-A, ISSR-A, AR-97, S-247 already got buffed though, I don't think you can really buff those any further without making them the new top performers. Same for the S1-FA unless you want them to just make it another NTEC reskin and be done with it....

 

Those are still relatively bad though, and nowhere near useful enough to replace a bunch of other guns.

 

The S1-FA won't become another N-TEC unless they drastically buff it, as it has one more shot to kill.

[Nitronik 348]

3 minutes ago, GhosT said:

 

Those are still relatively bad though, and nowhere near useful enough to replace a bunch of other guns.

 

The S1-FA won't become another N-TEC unless they drastically buff it, as it has one more shot to kill.

the S1-FA is pretty much a 7stk NTEC , even the TTK is similar, and that's the problem

It sucks at range which is the only niche where the NTEC can dominate since it has godawful hipfire

[Clowbber 66]

Need fix Ntec. it is too strong a weapon.

[GhosT 1301]

18 minutes ago, Nitronik said:

the S1-FA is pretty much a 7stk NTEC , even the TTK is similar, and that's the problem

It sucks at range which is the only niche where the NTEC can dominate since it has godawful hipfire

 

It also has weird recoil and ghost shots a lot, so there's that.

[TheMessiah 430]

this sht again..last thing i care about

[Knite 158]

LO is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation here.

 

The initial balance passes were a show of good faith, at the very least, but I would prefer waiting until the EU drops for further balance changes.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Knite

[CookiePuss 5378]

Isn't it allegedly a giant pain in the arse to do weapon balance on the current engine?

[Nitronik 348]

5 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

Isn't it allegedly a giant pain in the arse to do weapon balance on the current engine?

my limited UE3 experience suggests they have to recompile pretty much every ., unless I am mistaken? Shouldn't be any different in the future if that's the case

[Lign 361]

That feeling when ppl think jg is undertuned when it's op and easily outplays oca in most situations. At corners it's literally unkillable, how I suppose to kill the target when I don't see it, when it can twoshot me easily. How can people say it's underpowered when I can kill 4 opponents and stay with half hp because I cornerpop them. How can people say jg can't overshoot oca when at the best time you spend 10+ bullets with oca to kill one target because how bad accuracy and shitty hitreg are.

 

I haven't played shotguns for 3 years, tried it a bit and I got a question. Why am I allowed to two shot everyone by missing half of shot everytime by hitting targets at left or right side instead of the center

Edited March 19, 2019 by Lign

[illgot 379]

3 hours ago, GhosT said:

I agree.

In my opinion, the shotgun changes should be reverted and stay there.

The shotgun balance was fine and probably the most well balanced weapon class in APB. The shredder could use a tiny buff though.

Right now, only two shotguns are now useful, and the rest is irrelevant.

 

Then only touch the few problematic weapons by slightly nerfing the, such as the OCA (revert the unnecessary G1 buff), the N-TEC, the N-HVR, or the RFP-9.

This allows users to have the option to use other guns that won't put them at a disadvantage for not using them.

 

Then buff all the bad and underpowered weapons such as the COBR-A, ISSR-a, ACT-44, AR-97, RSA, FR0G, H9, Mounties, NCR-762, Norseman, OCSP, R-2, S-247, S1-FA, S1-TIC, SBSR, STAR LCR, SWARM and the VAS-C2.

 

 

But if you decide to touch the weapon balance again, it needs thorough testing before reaching the live build, and then treat the new live build as the last testing phase where more users can share their opinions about it, as previous OTW-Tests and Prototype-Districts haven't worked at all due to the small playerbase.

You forgot about the SNR secondaries!! How DARE YOU!

[Acornie 490]

They need to not be scared to make changes while at the same time be very mindful of the changes they decide upon. I know a few games I came back to and really didn't like some of the unnecessary changes that they made *cough* Planetside 2 *cough*

 

I still think they should give all CSGs the IR3 variants dmg distance and replace the IR on those variants.

[Thaumaturge 83]

couple things

 

1: this game needs more accuracy, not less. anyone proposing less accuracy needs to rethink a lot of decisions in their life, especially those i see that have posted this here, but whine about spread RNG in the APB discord constantly. A better solution was already made and implemented for us, called damage dropoff. Get with the program.

 

2. its not that a few guns are overpowered, its just everything else was way overnerfed.

 

its important LO starts small, here are some changes i'd like to see, preferably implemented one or two at a time for feedback so they can be modified before adding more as opposed to all at once.

 

OCA TTK buff from G1 removed.

PMG made more accurate

 

Important that the OCA will always out TTK the PMG, but the PMG remain competitive at that middle "cqc" distance, and will succeed in outranging it.

 

CSG/JG should match the PMG in range, as it used to do.

 

Refraining from comment on NFAS/DOW until observations on cqc are made with the above changes

 

Carbine should have far steeper damage drop off, and should be much more accurate than it is now.

OSCAR should have its damage dropoff steepened as well.

 

FBW/45 should have matching TTK's, and it should be increased just a tiny bit via firerate changes if the below change is added

ACT 44/RSA/Long Range Sidearms in general need to be made much more accurate, but still have damage dropoff occur coming out of medium range so they don't out contest long range weaponry ttk wise. You also want the above change to occur in this scenario, or youd have the modern NTEC problem but with a pistol.

 

all RFP variants need to have damage dropoff steepened significantly, they should not be replacing primaries in their own right, and consider upping the TTK via firerate so they also cannot dominate other close range weapons.

 

STAR should be made a tiny bit more accurate.

 

 

these are the big ones i'd like to see. thank u

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Thaumaturge