Yeah I don't like it either but we gotta have one. It's like Christmas...tradition!

We all know weapon damage can be modified afterwards, so the importance of the 'base' weapon balance isn't too overall important. However it does serve as a standard, and alot of people will be relying and working around that.


But anyhow, lets keep it friendly this time round, and most of all honest. Just say what ya feel, and what your beliefs are on how it will effect soldat.


Anyhow, my initial beliefs..

1. Ruger. Being a near full-time rugertard, 1.2.1 has been rather difficult with the slight bink it's suffered, rendering the weapon only mostly useful when suprising your enemy or supporting another (ie: having a decoy), which I imagine is alot like the usage structure for m79'rs.

Now the bink's gone from it, and the damage done by it is apparently lowered. However (and i know i've mostly played with bots, but still), I feel it's a little too easy now. Anyone else share this? 2 shots still did it for me from pretty much any angle.

Maybe bring back the bink for it, even though it did feel REALLY satisfying to use it without bink. I'd prefer if the damage was lowered though, or even better, the rate of fire.


2. AK74 'feels' balanced so far. The lower rate of fire is good, though I helped it thoroughly improved my aim. Still, I got ripped apart by augs used by bots. Took about 9-10 shots to kill a guy from torso upwards. Sound about right?

These things usually take a week to get a good idea about though...but I feel very certain on my beliefs towards the ruger. I'm hardly King of the Rugertards, but i've used it enough to know when it's too easy.

This is good way to think about weapon balance. Maybe everyone that is an expert on a weapon will tell how his weapon feels (if it too easy or what). Of course it needs some testing so say it when you are certain. I can only speak for the M79 because it's the only weapon that I find easy and I'm good at.

We haven't really had the time to experiment with the weapon balance because we had large pings in the server we used. Therefore, playing against other players and trying to focus on killing them is sort of difficult.

The non-dedicated server seems to be lag-free for me, though I had a few problems hosting or joining one. Can't really say whats going on there.

Just went mad with b00sta and a few others. Oh yeah, sure, we were gonna test the ruger and AK's new changes. Then he modified the steyr aug to shoot fire arrows with 225 ammo ¬_¬ ...

(great fun though)

Im not an expert to it, but rugerers can play like barreters, so getting some distance, then shoot. Yet they have the advantage of a rather high shooting frequency and fast reload plus 3 rugers proved very effective in clanwars, especially when youre randomly shooting forward from a distance. Unless you spray them with at least 2 automatics, this is almost unbeatable. So I think they should have at least some slight bink.

I'll have a crack at extending my weapon mod to these new variables sometime. \o/

Oh how I wish my precious ruger didn't have to suffer bink ...but it may be the only way. It is a tad too powerful, and i'm not sure a fair reduction in damage or ROF would be sufficient. Worth a shot though....get cracking, Fusion.

I would rather have ruger extended to 3 shots instead of a bink on it, instead of firing rate. But, then it would mean that the shooter would have to have at least 75% accuracy, since he only has one more shot in his clip. So, maybe a bink would be more appropriate.

Can't say i'm truly sure on the ruger yet. The more I play real people the more stranger it gets. But right now we haven't got a decent server so fighting someone with a ruger when we have a 350 ping on someone's humble cable connection isn't the most reliable way to test things out.


Right now though i'm sure it's 1 shot to the body or legs is around 49% damage.
A head shot is 66% damage.
So 1 head shot and a torso shot can get you a 2 shot kill.

So every now and then i'm marching through hoards of troops and getting quick 2 shots like i'm an automatic barret.

And then theres the 3 shot kills (anything but a headshot 3 times). I find the 3 shot kills simply take too 'long', and the weapon feels very feeble and weak compared to others then. It's not a common occasion I can get 3 accurate shots out of 4, too.



So, yeah. Right now i'd suggest bring back 1.2.1 damage, but also bring back the bink. It's a pretty fair weapon in 1.2.1 at the moment, but no match for autos. In 1.2.2 it should be just right.


edit: ugh...just tried numerous modifications to the ruger with some bots. The results were either too powerful, too weak, or just too much like the ruger's cousin-weapons, desert eagles and barret.

Ruger does not make a decent 1 ammo'd 3/4 damage weapon with a long reload, nor a 2 ammo'd 2/3rd damage weapon, nor a 1/3rd damage weapon with shorter reload and faster ROF. Ruger just doesn't work as a mini-barret, or as a Eagle-wannabe.

Conclusion? Once we get a good server, if ruger is still too easy against minimal-lag players, bring back the bink. No real alternative.

i suggest we do expiremental clan wars using tnl and sctfl rules to test weapon balance...if we find an easy way to win...ie 3 minimi, then we nerf that weapon...makes the most logic to me although it may take a bit of time to find what is really effective -.-

Michal, would it be possible for you to post the full 1.2.1 weapon settings? (like you did last time)

It would be good to see what they were like, as they've been used for a long time and I want to be able to compare them.

Well the damages are in the dedicated server weapons.ini. I could write down the rest sometime.
Ruger shouldn't be a 3 head hit kill weapon, it isn't fun. Maybe change some other ruger settings like rate of fire or reload time?

I mean you've changed some of them since 1.2.1, so I just want to see what they were before. :)

I don't think changing the rate of fire would be enough if it's really too strong now. At least in duels it wouldn't make a real difference I guess. Perhaps would it be possible to make rugers only be affected by bink when being attacked by specific weapons? So that for example deagles bink the ruger, but steyrs don't. This way the anoying spraying of auto-users wouldn't make it impossible to win for the ruger, but then again a good aiming with deagles would be a great advantage for the deagles-user.

As I see it, if we want to test the weapon balance, we have to give it real, 'field testing'. That'd be forming beta clans, and play some test wars. Every war would give us more information about the balance, and thanks to the weapon editor, we ourselfes could modify it. In the end, we may find the best weapon balance ever, and that could be implemented. First we'd need a server though.

am i the only one that still thinks minimi is a tad too strong? with its huge clip, moderate speed rate and high damage bullets?

I think ruger is fine now, but as some say, it's true that 'spamming' with it gets annoying. Maybe a new sort of 'auto-bink' could be added (not only to ruger) that works like this: firing at the weapon maximum rate of fire causes very slight inaccuracy. This would represent in part recoil (adding full recoil like in real mode would be excessive) and the fact that some weapons aren't very accurate in long bursts. Realistically speaking, this value would vary for each weapon.

I have tinkered with the weapon balance, and at the moment, I find these to be the best:

(only added modification):

Deagles: damage lowered to 185
Ruger: set bink to 17
Minimi: movementacc set to 7

This kind of nerfes everything that might be overpowered at the moment, but like I said, it requires testing. I'd like to ask server owners to set their weapons.ini to that, so we can test it that way. Default ruger is a bit overpowered, minimi is (Please refrain from swearing)ic, and de would get overpowered if only those two are weakend.

I had a thought, its somewhat different so bear with me.

Lets say that every weapon started out with the same damage and kept their rate of fire and other special intrinsics. So every weapon would do, lets say, 25 base damage.

Over a period of time, you could simulate weapon balance by creating a sort of handicap system. Obviously if the MP5 does 25 damage with each hitx30 , and the ruger does 25 damage with each hitx4, then there are going to be some balance issues there.

You could, over time, have players fight and use the different weapons, and as the weapons with the least kills are more and more neglected (or used unsuccessfully) they'd recieve a handicap. So, the barrets kills would be less, so it would recieve a certain percent bonus compared to the highest-damaging weapon, while the highest used weapon recieves a percentage less damage. Over a month or so, you'd essentially have the same general weapon damage we have now, and it'd be decided by the players. All you'd need to do is log the kills/weapon and create a system to adjust the weapon damage.

Obviously there are a few minor flaws, such as players abusing a weapon to raise or lower its power, but I think that if the test was done without the players knowing, or perhaps on past-made stats (Flies?), then a fair system could be made.

Just my two cents worth.

Lapis_Lazuli: A dynamic system wouldn't be good, if you train with a weapon hard and then after a week it changes its settings it's not that good. Unless it would happen every couple of months, like a new Soldat patch. Also, parsing logs to see which weapon made more kills isn't the best solution. What if the weapon was just popular, but not overpowered?

DeMonIc: You're right, we should form teams and try to beat the crap out of each others. So, the question when? We should meet on the IRC channel and then join the Selfkill beta server.

Most of us are there every afternoon, europian time.

We must set a time in the weekend or friday and fight seriously.

Can I get those 1.2.1 weapon settings now? :o

After an hour or so of testing the weapon balance, which had the minimi nerfed, we have came to the following conclusions:

DE : Less damage, around 185, like I pointed out before.
Spas: Who'd have tought? It should have more time between two shots, because it's evil.
Ruger : Needs bink, definetly. Currently it eats everything.
Minimi: 7-8 on the movement affecting acc. is too much. Either it needs less on that, or it needs more damage.
Law: Don't have it almost loaded at start, have the player run around with reloading it for a bit.

That's all for now, stay tuned for more :)

I've only tried the Deagels yet.. from close range they'r kinda too powerful without the bink.
I guess it used to be this way.. whatever..

By the way, in my oppionion we'd better open a topic for EACH weapon
like we did about the machinegun.
and then we will talk about every weapon and make sure there's no lefts out like I guess most of us wouldn't check the Spas or such weapons which we'r not used to it.
Each weapon has adv + disadv in it. but it gotta be equal for all the weapons..
I think the M79 should be discussed , the barret, the DE and the ruger.
coz those r the most problematics guns after nerfing the minimi + ak.