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Author Topic: Weapon balancing/finetuning  (Read 10230 times)

Offline tobbe

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Weapon balancing/finetuning
« on: February 15, 2008, 07:18:30 pm »
Hi,

some weapons are quite well balanced right now, but i...was interrupted. PHALANX brought me back.  ;D

EDIT:  ARRGH!! Dont know what happened here, post continued:

EDIT2: I DONT BELIVE IT!! I just sat here for half an hour, editing my post and IT IS GONE THE SECOND TIME. Will try again the next days. Just TOO pissed off right now... >:( >:( >:(
« Last Edit: February 16, 2008, 12:35:45 am by tobbe »

Offline eleazar

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2008, 07:22:01 pm »
.... didn't finish your sentence.

Surrealistik

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2008, 11:03:00 pm »
Alien abductee. Notify PHALANX.

nemchenk

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2008, 12:59:28 am »
tobbe, try drafting your post in a separate program, like a text editor or something :) Maybe the session is timing out, and you are loosing your login.

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And wear the tinfoil hat!  ;D

Offline kracken

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2008, 08:23:28 am »
EDIT2: I DONT BELIVE IT!! I just sat here for half an hour, editing my post and IT IS GONE THE SECOND TIME. Will try again the next days. Just TOO pissed off right now... >:( >:( >:(
Some UTF 8 characters are not recognized by the forum (like some kind of quote). If one of those is encountered, everything after is just deleted. :(

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #5 on: February 16, 2008, 11:51:32 am »
Might want to copy your post to the clipboard before hitting the send button next time, to prevent this from happening.

Offline Kildor

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #6 on: February 16, 2008, 01:06:29 pm »
best idea is fix forum, change it from ugly ISO-8859-1 to normal UTF-8

Offline eleazar

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2008, 08:17:09 pm »
I have noticed that M-dashes (like a normal N dash "-" but twice as long) will cause the message to break off.

Offline Kildor

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2008, 05:51:20 am »
mdash, [l|r]aquo (<< and >> quotes), may be some other symbols.

Offline tobbe

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2008, 12:10:04 pm »
Ok, I start another try, this time I use an editor.

I would like to balance all the weapons in a way, that each has some purpose for the game and therefore can be used. To do this not only for my own personal pleasure, I would like to have some general guidelines, how the weapons are supposed to be balanced. The wiki has some information about some weapons, but I think these informations are partly outdated and incomplete. So I want to gather opinions how the different weapons are balanced against each other withs pros/cons concerning their

Primary factors: Dam/TU, accuracy, Maximum damage, Range, effect vs. armor

Secondary Factors: Ammo, reload, price

I want to have some general guidelines before actually changing the exact weapon values. So if I change lets say the damage of the Bolter rifle, I know that I would have to change the damage for plasma weapons,too, cause plasma weapons are supposed to deliver superior amounts of damage. I try to give some examples:

Close weapons: Right now the only close weapon I use is the SMG and the Flamethrower. All the other close weapons lack the punch and before I use any of them, I rather run for cover. Imho, close weapons should really offer an alternative to primary weapons. So my general guideline suggestion would be:

Close Weapons:

Dam/TU Good: You might want to use them if standing face to face with an enemy
Maximum damage: Low: You will have to hit more often compared to standard weapons
Accuracy: Well they hit.
Range: really only close combat!
This would mean to greatly decrease the weapon range for some weapons. Lets face it: as long I can use my SMG at 45 Meters (that should approximately 30 hexes, if I got that right), there is no need using an assault rifle as 30 hexes covers most of a standard map. I would reduce the effective range of most starting gear to around 15 meters.

Of course this general guideline would have to be extended to each weapon, but I hope I you get the idea.

Alien Weapons:
We all agree on the point that alien weapons should be superior to human weaponry. But they still have to be balanced , so that they do not obsolete all human weaponry, once they are researched.
Idea: Plasma Weapons

Dam/TU: depends on the actual weapon, generally medium

Maximum damage: High

Range: Low

Accuracy: Low

Effect vs. armor: this might be a point to discuss. The way UFO:AI works right now, Plasma weapons are quite effective vs. human armor, but quite ineffective vs. alien armor. Due to the last point I NEVER use them!

Plasma weapons are able to deliver a serious blow, but they need a considerable amount of time to be fired. If you want accurate shots on considerable range, plasma is the wrong way to go. Want to fry your enemy with one shot on close range: Plasma is your friend.

Last point: Which weapons are meant to be a Replacement? Lets take the assault rifle or the MG. Are these weapons are meant to be replaced be simply more efficient weapons (e.g. bolter, laser rifle or heavy laser). Or do we want them to be useful till the endgame. On thing that really bothers me right now is the sniper rifle. There is no actual replacement for this weapon, but e.g. laser rifles are much more accurate than sniper rifles. I would like to see a sniper mode on laser rifles.

edit: i finally managed to post it!  :o

nemchenk

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2008, 12:32:01 pm »
Shouldn't the Spread affect "close" weapons more than their max range? The SMG may have a max range of 45 but, in my experience at least, it is very inefficient at anything over 5 hexes, as shots fly everywhere except at the target :P

Also, if the aliens fought back via Reaction Fire, the worth of "one shot, one kill" weapons would increase. At the moment, it's quite feasible to shoot something 5 times with the MP, but if that generated 5 reaction attacks it would not be such a great idea.

PS. well done for posting it, finally! :P

Offline tobbe

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2008, 02:08:20 pm »
Shouldn't the Spread affect "close" weapons more than their max range? The SMG may have a max range of 45 but, in my experience at least, it is very inefficient at anything over 5 hexes, as shots fly everywhere except at the target :P

Right now spread works the same way for all weapons. The greater the distance, the more shots will miss. But right now, the spread of SMGs is lesser than the spread of full-auto assault rifles and MGs, while the MG and the Assault Rifle also need much more TUs to fire the full-auto.

I agree to the point, that SMGs become less efficient on medium distances, but than they are efficient enough on at least 10 squares due to their low TU-cost.

The SMG definitely needs most balancing, but before I start to develop specific ideas how to nerf this Uberweapon, I want to gather some general guidelines, where the SMG and all other weapons could fit in.

Example: If we can agree on limiting the range of all close weapons, while allowing them to be efficient in dam/TU, we might only need to restrict the range of the SMG. If we all agree that Standard weapons should be more efficient against armor, it might be a possible tweak to reduce the damage per shot of the SMG and increase the damage per shot of the MG and so on.

Also, if the aliens fought back via Reaction Fire, the worth of "one shot, one kill" weapons would increase. At the moment, it's quite feasible to shoot something 5 times with the MP, but if that generated 5 reaction attacks it would not be such a great idea.

I can only do some work on the current mechanisms. If the aliens use RF more, some new tweaking might be necessary.

nemchenk

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #12 on: February 17, 2008, 02:31:08 pm »
Well, I would rather improve the Snap Shot of the Assault Rifle, to be honest  :D Seems much more appropriate than lowering the max range of the SMG. Having weapons refuse to work just because the target is farther than 15 metres would ruin the suspension of disbelief for me :) Nerf the SMG by having it spray rounds all over the place -- when you are close that doesn't matter, but when you are farther away it certainly does.

Also, lower its ammo capacity: then it's 5-round burst would become more of a handicap. At the moment, it is still 10% of the mag as per other weapons. Make the mag 30 rounds, or even 20, and suddenly the SMG is not so uber -- you need to cart around more ammo, and even spend time reloading!  :o  ;D

Surrealistik

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2008, 07:58:29 pm »
First off, in my opinion there should be no max range whatsoever save for weapons like the plasma series which feature dissipating projectiles, where they would make sense. Let spread naturally determine maximum effective ranges rather than arbitrarily posing needless limitations.


Second, while most human weapons should enter obsolescence, those without an alien equivalent should remain viable throughout the game (e.g. grenade/rocket launcher, flamethrower). Further, it would be preferable if human weapons regained viability with additional research (e.g. new ammo types), so as to maximize tactical and gameplay options without sacrificing the centrepiece concept of an evolving arsenal.


Finally, weapons should match their qualitative and quantitative descriptions and properties as realistically as possible, with an overarcing emphasis on balance.  From what I gathered from the wiki, the average common denominators and properties of the major weapon categories (there are notable exceptions such as sniper rifles) seems to be as follows:

Plasma:

Damage: High
Accuracy: Low/Medium
Max (Effective) Range: Short-Short/Medium
Efficiency (Damage/TU): Very High
Penetration (Versus Armour): Medium

Particle Beam:

Damage: High
Accuracy: High
Max Range: Medium/Long
Efficiency: Medium/High
Penetration: High

Ballistic (Bullet/Kinetic based):

Damage: Low
Accuracy: Medium
Max Range: Medium
Efficency: Medium/High
Penetration: Low/Medium

Laser:

Damage: Low
Accuracy: Very High
Max Range: Very Long
Efficency: Low
Penetration: Medium/High

Offline EuchreJack

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Re: Weapon balancing/finetuning
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2008, 04:49:06 am »
Quote
First off, in my opinion there should be no max range whatsoever save for weapons like the plasma series which feature dissipating projectiles, where they would make sense. Let spread naturally determine maximum effective ranges rather than arbitrarily posing needless limitations.

I kind of like this idea.  I remember hearing that a pistol bullet fired expertly can travel over a mile, by angling the bullet up.  What if projectile weapons had a maximum range, and over that range there would be a 50/50 chance the bullet would hit the dirt?  Then, we wouldn't see bullets disappear into the abyss.  Though, the grenade launcher might be more limited than other projectile weapons, due to it's high mass and low velocity relative to other projectile weapons.  Same for thrown weapons.

Also, the non-projectile weapons generally involve a beam, which would lose coherence with range.  Technically, the beam weapons should lose strength with range, until they can't penetrate the uniforms.