I want to express my opinion of the weapon balance in 1.3

while i understand what the testers were trying to do, i think that they crippled the autos too much. i think self bink was needed, but it should be reduced. it shouldnt kick in until 4 or 5 shots have been fired, in the case of the minimi or AK.

Fair enough. What about the other weapons? Are you fine with those?

correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of self-bink that it doesn't kick in until a bunch of shots have been fired?

try joining the server and telling us what you think of the balance in there. Even if you do think it is binked a bit too much, try using it while playing against others, maybe the other changes to the weapons mod in there will make up for it, make it more fair.

The AK fires slowly compared to the other automatics and i'm pretty sure the self bink 'kicks in' on the third bullet of any gun, regardless of how quickly it fires. So I agree with this but only with the steyr and to a lesser extent, the minimi.
Hrm. Brick has a point there, too.

I think the Ruger and Deagle need some more weakening to balance the AK and Minimi getting weak again.

Personally, I think that self-bink was poorly applied (not to say that it wasn't a great first step). Firstly, the MP5 is still too accurate, in that it doesn't begin to shoot sporadically until the clip is basically spent. And since it's a short range weapon, it makes little difference to begin with. I would propose that this weapon become quickly difficult to shoot accurately, simply because it releases so many bullets so quickly. This can be applied to the other autos as well.

The simple idea is that rather than binking by power of the bullet, you bink by fire rate, meaning that the faster a gun fires, the more bink it gets. This means that autos that fire slower (i.e. the AK and the minimi) would not have such ridiculous bink effects, whereas the MP5 and mini would have sporadic firing rates within 10-15 shots. This means that it would take relatively the same proportional amount from a clip to get the same amount of bink.

As they stand, the order of firing rates from fastest to slowest are Mini, MP5, Aug, Minimi, and AK. Thus the levels of self bink should go from highest to lowest respectively (with the lowest being about where the AK is now). Minimi's and AK's are already burst fire weapons which don't need much constricting to begin with because of their slower firing rates, whereas true "sprayers" (who this feature was meant to thwart) would rather be spraying more bullets in a shorter space of time to begin with.

On another note, I believe that the MP5's bullet power could afford a slight trim to reduce its damage (since I don't think you deserve more than one kill per clip with that weapon anyway), and conversely that the minimi should be boosted slightly to make it truly compete with the AK.

These are all my humble and untested opinions, however, and I'm sure that they will continue to go untested unless someone wants to hone the ideas and then implement them. Thus I invite anyone interested to try my advice and let me know if I was shrewd in my assumptions or not. Or if you see a flaw in these ideas as they are, please explain to me what it is. Afterall, I don't claim to be an autos expert to begin with, I'm just a lowly spas-tard.

~TheRelinquished

You mean, takign "time" as the firing event, not bullets shot?

self-binking is just useless imho

it gives players that mash the trigger the advantage.

but really, self-binking simulates an auto getting less and less accurate from firing continuously, but thats what realistic mode is for and thats where it should stay.

soldat isnt about ultra realistic combat... cmon, you have jets strapped to your boots and can use grenades to boost yourself into the air...

Self Bink starts on the third shot for all autos while standing, and starts on the fourth shot at a slower rate if proned.

What I would suggest, however, is for the self bink to be completely random, now the bullets simply travel up and down unrealisticly.

@ 4 out of 5 Dentists -- Self-bink wasn't implemented so that Soldat would be more realistic, it was implemented so that autos wouldn't dominate the Soldat world as much as they used to, especially in groups.

@ Relinquished -- Nice ideas. I'm interested to see what the beta testing team thinks of those.

Relinquished, I do agree with you that the MP5 does need a bit more bink, as it does tend to be skewed bink-wise compared to the other autos. However, on the same token, you have said it is a short range weapon, and as such, I believe that unless you make the bink shoot vertically, it won't help too much up close. Look at the barret, it binks a bit too when you shoot it, but if you stand right in front of them, all the bink in the world won't save you from having your head ripped off by that huge anti-tank bullet. A bit more bink would be in order, just to keep the mp5 inaccurate enough at long range, while keeping it semi-usable at mid-range.

quote:that the minimi should be boosted slightly to make it truly compete with the AK.

Yes but the minimi has more bullets? I think you would go back to the days of millions of minimi users who own every weapon by spraying everywhere with a "AK" with 50 ammo. No. Though the minigun is regarded by most as a noob weapon i feel the need to protect it here, because of its fire rate using the Bink way you described wont it be impossible to fire? You cannot tap the mouse button of a minigun because it has start-up time...The whole point of it is to spray down small corridors to provide cover or speed up a player, if the bullets start going vertical it kind of ruins it completely.
For the mp5 yes it needs some editing but...the power is okay i think, i think it needs more bink and a little slower reload time, that would stop people spraying everywhere, and make them more of a siting duck when reloading (like most of the autos).

Having just played against a clan where 3 out of 4 people were using Minimi, and checking my stats (Steyr/MP5 ftw), I believe that autos are fine. If anything, MP5 needs a bit more self-bink. Or something.

I personally think the mp5 'shouldn't' have an effective self-bink, but simply should be weaker. It's nice to have a little variety, and a weak-auto thats easy to use applies to that.

So what do you guys agree with?

1. AerialAssault saying the self bink should kick in a little later (which i'm not sure the weapons editor can do)

2. Relinquished saying that self bink (hereforth called 'SB') should be relative to the rate-of-fire of the weapon (not something that can be 'truly' done with the weapons editor, but we can adjust the SB to higher levels for those with a faster rate of fire)

or 3. ..any other ideas?

How do you think it would affect the balance overall too? A longer time for SB to kick in like AA suggests could be quite significant, as alot of damage can be done with just a few well placed bullets of an auto. And relenquished's idea could mean that slower-autos like the AK74 could become over-dominant.

As I see it, the autos are pretty strong now in their current state: they need a bit of practice, but once you get the hang of one, you'll be slicing through enemy lines like a scythe in the cropfield. As for more SB on the MP5.. the gun has its strenght within spraying, so to speak: once you get close, you just have to fire madly, because all of your bullets will hit, no matter how big the SB is. I'm along with Chakra here: less damage should solve the problem.

And I also concur. The mp5 should just stay the easy weapon it is, it just shouldn't be very strong then, like it is in 1.3. So I guess the way it's nerfed at the moment, it'll be fine.

Whether or not you think the autos are balanced. you cant deny that because of the changes made with 1.3, the number of users has gone down dramatically. which i think is a very bad thing because now there is an overwhelming number of barrett and M79 users. the very same problem that plagued 1.2 and lead to the power increase the autos were givin in 1.2.1.

I agree, AA. Only the truly hardcore auto fans still stick to them, and one-shot-killers seem to be dominating public servers.

For sure. But why did so many people use autos in 1.2.1? Because they were so damn strong, overpowered. Guess why so many people use M79 and Barret nowadays.. :)
But that still doesn't mean any other weapons are underpowered.

Starting from the beginning:

solohan--I understand that the MP5 will remain a deadly close range weapon to begin with, just as a barret, however my goal was to require burst firing in order to get any mid range use out of it, and to altogether lame its long range capabilities. I'll elaborate on that more later.

cheeseman--I too remember the days of lame AKs and whoring minimis, however it seems that the reverse is now true. But I think that the guns should be separated into having two different purposes. More elaboration to come.

Now having taken into consideration all that was said so far, I've reached the following conclusions: The minigun is fine. Afterall, it's not like more than a handful of people other than myself use it anyway (don't try to prove me wrong, I'm being general).

Also, I've decided that to balance the autos appropriately, they can be compared in two groups: the long range and mid range type autos.

MP5 and AK should rule the mid and short range with high damage, decent firing interval, and with the main handicap being that they lack range and grow exceedingly less accurate over time.

The Aug and minimi should rule mid to long range fights with their greater accuracy over time and longer ranges, despite the lower damage and slower fire rates.

Thus the groups are opposites of each other with each gun representing a different effective range, and all having advantages over and weaknesses against the other guns in given situations.

Try this:
[HK MP5]
Damage=98 (changed--decreased)
FireInterval=6
Ammo=30
ReloadTime=100 (changed--increased)
Speed=190
BulletStyle=1
StartUpTime=0
Bink=-35 (changed--increased)
MovementAcc=1

[Ak-74]
Damage=115
FireInterval=9 (changed--decreased)
Ammo=40
ReloadTime=150
Speed=240
BulletStyle=1
StartUpTime=0
Bink=-45 (changed--increased)
MovementAcc=1

[Steyr AUG]
Damage=73
FireInterval=7
Ammo=30
ReloadTime=115
Speed=255 (changed--increased)
BulletStyle=1
StartUpTime=0
Bink=-30 (changed--decreased)
MovementAcc=1

[FN Minimi]
Damage=89
FireInterval=11 (changed--increased)
Ammo=50
ReloadTime=250
Speed=270
BulletStyle=1
StartUpTime=0
Bink=-40 (changed--decreased)
MovementAcc=2

Compare that to the original settings and tell me if you agree with my findings. In the mean time I hope someone will hard test those settings in the game seeing as how I don't have the time. Questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know.

~TheRelinquished

1 shot kills have always been popular in Public servers. Its really difficult to stop that without ruining the balance of clanwars which was the case in 1.2 . This version has been the best I have played in my soldat career clanwar balance wise.

The u13 private servers stats have been reset, it would be interesting following these stats to see if m79 and barret are being significantly overused and which weapons are being overused in pubs. Right now m79 and barret are 5th and 6th respectively, with Knife being the most used weapon(kinda sad eh), followed by ruger, grenades and steyr AUG. Interesting ;p but not much to judge on so far.

the autos werent powerful in 1.2.1, they were balanced. 1.2.1 had perfect balance. if you play any other shooter ever made, assault rifles will always be the standard weapons for killing things. they prove useful in most situations, they are designed to kill alot of people fast. they should be powerful like in 1.2.1.

Is Soldat any other shooter ever made?

Autos were definitely overpowered in 1.2.1, and in my opinion, still are slightly. They're not underpowered - MP5 and Steyr are my first and third most used weapons, respectively.

I agree with Aerial for the most part. I dont think the HK mp5 should deal any less damage from 1.3 to the next version. HK/AK should stay exactly the samewith a minor increase in power for the steyr without taking away in other areas and the opposite for the minimi, less power but higher fire rate (click fire this weapon in its current form).

but not the minime :P

quote:I think the Ruger and Deagle need some more weakening to balance the AK and Minimi getting weak again.

Haha, yea right.

Deagles were already nerfed, if you get owned by them, it's a GOOD player.
Ruger is in fine balance.. A tad off the reload could help a bit, but it's not neccesary.
AK/Minimi when used by a newb will win against a player who missed a bit too much and has to reload. They will win by sheer amount of rounds.

quote:Self-bink wasn't implemented so that Soldat would be more realistic, it was implemented so that autos wouldn't dominate the Soldat world as much as they used to, especially in groups.
And they still do.. 2 or 3 newbs with auto's can kill most players if they start firing early.

quote:the autos werent powerful in 1.2.1, they were balanced. 1.2.1 had perfect balance. if you play any other shooter ever made, assault rifles will always be the standard weapons for killing things. they prove useful in most situations, they are designed to kill alot of people fast. they should be powerful like in 1.2.1.

I agree %100.

quote:Right now m79 and barret are 5th and 6th respectively, with Knife being the most used weapon(kinda sad eh), followed by ruger, grenades and steyr AUG. Interesting ;p but not much to judge on so far.
Many if not most players in the private server are not newbs, and do not choose it as their primary.
Ruger is understandable, and Steyr is just weird.. But WTF KNIFE?


By nerfing guns, fun level goes down.