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About weapons tweaking

Postby moRtem » Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:45 am

Splitted from: Weapon tweaks on the beta servers
torhu wrote:Let's try out some weapon changes on the test servers. The main goal at the moment is to make people use the rifles more. That means making them more powerful in comparison to the pistols.

All three public beta servers are currently running the settings listed below. The numbers are the spread values, so lower number means better accuracy. These numbers are not meant to be final, but will be tweaked based on feedback and testing.

Code: Select all
Pistols           1.0    beta servers
-------------------------------------
Remington 58      300      400
Schofield         350      450
Peacemaker        300      400
                       
Rifles            1.0    beta servers
-------------------------------------
Winchester 1866   250      150
Colt Lightning    275      200


It's hard to test this properly against just bots, so I'm hoping that people will play some matches on the test servers. Give it a go, then post your impression of the weapon changes in this thread. :)


without having tested it:

PLEASE don't mess with the spread of weapons, it's already more than annoying right now to NOT BE ABLE to hit with a remington/schofield combination on greater distance


why you don't want to regulate the weapon-range by damage-drops ?


is it really necessary to get matches decided by random spread-hits?


by increasing the spread, you aswell increase the power of campers behind boxes who only show their head, since it's already impossible to hit them right now (on medium to far distance) (which is most likely also caused by bad hitboxes)


/quit
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Postby dowoshek » Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:06 am

moRtem wrote:without having tested it:

PLEASE don't mess with the spread of weapons, it's already more than annoying right now to NOT BE ABLE to hit with a remington/schofield combination on greater distance


why you don't want to regulate the weapon-range by damage-drops ?


is it really necessary to get matches decided by random spread-hits?


by increasing the spread, you aswell increase the power of campers behind boxes who only show their head, since it's already impossible to hit them right now (on medium to far distance) (which is most likely also caused by bad hitboxes)


/quit

So maybe we should care about hitboxes firstly? I mean: we shouldn't break one thing because the other thing is already broken ;)
And, imho, changing spread values like suggested above is a good idea, because that's what it should be and what is more realistic. Damage-drops could also work as addition.
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Postby Tequila » Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:23 pm

moRtem, I splitted your posted to another thread as this is more appropriate.

moRtem wrote:by increasing the spread, you aswell increase the power of campers behind boxes who only show their head, since it's already impossible to hit them right now (on medium to far distance) (which is most likely also caused by bad hitboxes)

This is another problem and you should post a feature request about "campers behind boxes who only show their head" problem.
For now, we have the idea to forbid shot if guns are just hidden by a solid and the client will have to show you can't shot in that way. But if think there will be another problem as you maybe won't be able to shoot from some windows...
And about bad hit boxes, I think you're a little wrong as right now they give an advantage to the shooter most of the time.
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Re: About weapons tweaking

Postby Tequila » Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:43 pm

moRtem wrote:without having tested it:

PLEASE don't mess with the spread of weapons, it's already more than annoying right now to NOT BE ABLE to hit with a remington/schofield combination on greater distance

So please, test it before complaining. This is a try and any good try can give you good arguments. By now, you're only referring to SG 1.0 feeling. Still few things has been fixed like shooting through a door. Such fix still can modify the feeling in a great way so let try what torhu proposes.


moRtem wrote:why you don't want to regulate the weapon-range by damage-drops ?

Don't say we don't want, this is completely false. You still participate in that big thread: Weapon damage and range
We first want to provide a stable release with bug fixes and a game play similar to the SG 1.0 one. Btw this beta still can be used to try to tune the game play as many feedback has still been provided with SG 1.0. Remember, this is a try and your opinion will be considered.


moRtem wrote:is it really necessary to get matches decided by random spread-hits?

Personally, I think high range matches should only be lucky ones with pistols. The problem today is to really feel we are only lucky... So maybe we will think to try a high range weapon where we would only be lucky.

moRtem wrote:by increasing the spread, you aswell increase the power of campers behind boxes who only show their head, since it's already impossible to hit them right now (on medium to far distance) (which is most likely also caused by bad hitboxes)

By increasing the spread for short range weapon, we won't increase power of campers only using pistols... These campers will have to move closer or buy a high range weapon.
We are agree this will force you to think more about tactics ;) and even for the campers.
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Postby Tequila » Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:59 pm

dowoshek wrote:So maybe we should care about hitboxes firstly? I mean: we shouldn't break one thing because the other thing is already broken ;)
And, imho, changing spread values like suggested above is a good idea, because that's what it should be and what is more realistic. Damage-drops could also work as addition.

Well, hit boxes have been a little touched but essentially to fix some bugs and removed unnecessary overhead. Right now, hit calculations are not completely accurate and you still can hit legs even shooting between legs...

Some hit boxes refactoring here may occured at some time.

About Damage-drops, I think we should provide a cvar to give to admins and/or mappers the choice of the formula.
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Postby moRtem » Mon Oct 26, 2009 3:33 pm

Tequila wrote:This is another problem and you should post a feature request about "campers behind boxes who only show their head" problem.


I just put this as an example. Another problem caused by high spread is that you often shoot at head and hit legs then, or shoot at the legs and hit neck.

Thus all aiming gets some sort of "random". Someone is lucky and hits the head altough aiming somewhere totally else. Someone else would have aimed at the head, but doesn't even hit, because the spread moves the bullet elsewhere.

A game should stay a game. It's not necessary, yet also contraproductive, to make it as realistic as possible. You are not creating a gunfight-simulator, you are coding on a game. And games are meant to be intuitive and fun, rather than having a surprise-effect every time you fire a bullet.

For now, we have the idea to forbid shot if guns are just hidden by a solid and the client will have to show you can't shot in that way. But if think there will be another problem as you maybe won't be able to shoot from some windows...


hmm - not sure if that's such a good idea .. it will feel weird to not be able to shoot at things altough they are in your vision - having accurate guns and accurate hitboxes are helping more imo

And about bad hit boxes, I think you're a little wrong as right now they give an advantage to the shooter most of the time.


if you are sure about this (and it also counts for moving - animated - models), then the effect of not hitting shots which are supposed to be clear hits is caused by the current spread already - anyhow, it feels buggy and annoying

So please, test it before complaining.


i can say without testing that making hitsystem even more random ain't the solution for the problems we experience.

This is a try and any good try can give you good arguments. By now, you're only referring to SG 1.0 feeling. Still few things has been fixed like shooting through a door. Such fix still can modify the feeling in a great way so let try what torhu proposes.


as long as it stays a 'try' i don't mind - but the randomness of a spread-system that ain't visualized in any way is annoying in first place

and of course weaker players won't notice this effect as much as people who got nice accuracy

By increasing the spread for short range weapon, we won't increase power of campers only using pistols... These campers will have to move closer or buy a high range weapon.


campers got a whole body to shoot at, when an opponent is running by. While the camper itself only offers his head. And of course it is easier for the camper to hit your body than it is for you to hit his head. And of course, the higher the spread, the more impossible it gets to kill someone by headshot.

We are agree this will force you to think more about tactics Wink and even for the campers.


i rather expect the other way around .. force ppl who attacked fast right now to move slower, since they lose more bullets due to spread, and therefor need to reload more often and being out of bullets faster.. so it's rather a 'sneaking' so that you are close-up to the opponent

Right now, hit calculations are not completely accurate and you still can hit legs even shooting between legs...


if that would be the only problem, you could say "hitsystem is fine" -- but it just feels wrong as a whole (and of course it's not possible for me to say if it's just the random spread, or buggy unlagged, or models not fitting onto the hitboxes)

About Damage-drops, I think we should provide a cvar to give to admins and/or mappers the choice of the formula.


And i think a stable balanced hitsystem should be provided with the default config first, before giving serveradmins the ability to mess with those settings.


/quit
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Postby torhu » Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:52 pm

I get the impression you are unhappy with the whole idea of having random spread, instead of having completely accurate weapons. If there was no spread, people would be running around with what's basically akimbo railguns with a pretty high rate of fire. You can try it out if you like, just use the spread command that's in the beta to set spread to zero for all weapons.

To see the effect of different spread values, just shoot at a wall and look at the bullet holes.

As for removing spread and having damage decrease more with increasing distance instead, I have my doubts that would be better. If you hit or miss - the difference is pretty clear. Because you know when you hit, and you know when you miss. If damage inflicted was the only difference between short and long distance shooting, that sounds like it would make it less clear what's going on.

When that's said, I agree that the hit detection seems a bit buggy. ;)
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Postby moRtem » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:28 am

torhu wrote:I get the impression you are unhappy with the whole idea of having random spread, instead of having completely accurate weapons. If there was no spread, people would be running around with what's basically akimbo railguns with a pretty high rate of fire. You can try it out if you like, just use the spread command that's in the beta to set spread to zero for all weapons


Only setting spread to zero doesn't do the trick.

I just want to express that the random part of the game (spread) should be replaced with something non-random (e.g. damage-drop).

There are always more solutions to fix one thing. But i think it is wrong to base hitsystem on a random effect.

And i aswell understand that ppl who have bad accuracy tend to welcome such things as spread, since it relativates the 'power' of accurate gun-slingers, while weaker players just hit the same as before due to having half their shots anyway which magically hit now.


It's simply frustrating to not hit opponents altough you aimed perfectly. If you make damage drop to zero at some point and change crosshair-color to visualize it, then that's oke, since everyone knows what he is dealing with.

But having a spread-value where you hit when you are lucky and miss when you're unlucky is just odd, even if it is more "realistic".


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Postby mLy! » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:19 am

Havent tested this either, and havent read the ntire topic yet.
But this is so wrong!

I have to agree with mortem here.
Lower spread for the rifles, yes please.
But dont use higher spread for the pistols !

The colt_peacemaker obviously needs to be reduced in damage, but keep the accuracy!
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Postby torhu » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:38 am

moRtem wrote:Only setting spread to zero doesn't do the trick.

No, but it lets you to see how easy it is to hit if there's no spread. ;)
moRtem wrote:I just want to express that the random part of the game (spread) should be replaced with something non-random (e.g. damage-drop).

Well, if someone wants to run a server with a modded version of SG that works like that, it could be interesting to see what it would be like. Not sure what else to say about that one.

moRtem wrote:And i aswell understand that ppl who have bad accuracy tend to welcome such things as spread, since it relativates the 'power' of accurate gun-slingers, while weaker players just hit the same as before due to having half their shots anyway which magically hit now.

This is just wrong, it doesn't work that way. If you want to hit something, the best way is to aim directly at it. Not beside it. If you aim well, you have a better chance of hitting what you are trying to hit. If you aim poorly, you have a lesser chance of hitting your target.
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Postby CoolHand » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:53 am

spread is the only answer. the 'randomness' simulates real life factors affecting the shot that causes 'randomness.' These factors include how tight the tolerance on rifling in the barrel (if any), barrel heat, wind, nerves, fatigue, sweaty palms, etc.... If this was a 'simulation', it might take all those factors into account, but as it is a game, a random spread for each weapon seems an appropriate compromise to me :)
Reducing damage at distance doesn't make sense, except for shotguns (as there are less pellets hitting you with it). All other weapons have the same size slug hitting you no matter what the distance, so should do equal damage...
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Re: About weapons tweaking

Postby CoolHand » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:00 am

torhu wrote:
Code: Select all
Pistols           1.0    beta servers
-------------------------------------
Remington 58      300      400
Schofield         350      450
Peacemaker        300      400
                       
Rifles            1.0    beta servers
-------------------------------------
Winchester 1866   250      150
Colt Lightning    275      200


It's hard to test this properly against just bots, so I'm hoping that people will play some matches on the test servers. Give it a go, then post your impression of the weapon changes in this thread. :)


I tried them out with Red.
I like the more accurate rifles, but they may be a bit too accurate. I especially don't get why the Winchester 1866 is so much more accurate than the Colt Lightning when it's cheaper (and not much slower to reload).
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Postby torhu » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:00 am

mLy! wrote:Havent tested this either, and havent read the ntire topic yet.
But this is so wrong!

I have to agree with mortem here.
Lower spread for the rifles, yes please.
But dont use higher spread for the pistols !

The colt_peacemaker obviously needs to be reduced in damage, but keep the accuracy!

Let's see how this works out in testing first. Dual pistols are really powerful weapons at all ranges now. And they're still pretty good even if you increase the spread a bit. The effectivness gap between rifles and pistols is quite large, so something has to give if we want to close that gap.

Maybe it turns out that we can keep the pistols the way they are now. Or maybe the whole idea has to be scrapped. Testing will tell us that. ;)
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Postby CoolHand » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:37 am

I think it's crazy that dual pistols (shot from the hip) have any accuracy over about 20 yards - no matter what the make. Even if it's a very accurate pistol, it should take more time to hold it up and aim down the barrel to achieve that accuracy. I personally don't think even the peacemaker should be as accurate as the lowest rifle at long range, although it should be close. I think the damage is ok, but the accuracy is what is off. A gun (pistol) with an 8 inch barrel is not going to be as accurate as a gun (rifle) that has a 26 inch barrel (or whatever the lenght is). Rifles are weak close-up compared to pistols, so why not let them have the strength of long range, so they aren't useless.... If you want to shoot accurately @ long range, then buy (or acquire) a rifle.... That's my humble opinion :)
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Re: About weapons tweaking

Postby torhu » Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:16 am

CoolHand wrote:I tried them out with Red.
I like the more accurate rifles, but they may be a bit too accurate. I especially don't get why the Winchester 1866 is so much more accurate than the Colt Lightning when it's cheaper (and not much slower to reload).

I did more or less just to try out both those values, 150 and 200.

Let's look at the numbers. The Colt has a 20% higher price and a 20% faster rate of fire, but the same damage and range. So they should probably be closer when it comes to spread. But let's first see if 150 really is too accurate.
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