Removing headshot bonus?

Stop lying : lower the impact of headshot won't reduce the impact of other skills. For example, the skill you describe (positioning, reaction time and reflex) will be more valuable since they will be less hard-countered by headshot accuracy. The only skill that will be impacted by lowering HS multiplier is muscle-memory that aim for the head.

About auto-aim, I can't remember anyone but you that bring the idea.

I'm not convinced of that. Proper flanking should mean you beginning laying damage on your opponent before he does return weapon fire on you. Reflexes and reaction time still stand on their own even without headshots.

This.
And you're not even talking about how headshot can counter positioning via the 180 - full headshot skill.

"Let's nerf the game because I'm not good at it. I mean, nerfs are good...right?".

- Forumside

Only this time people discussing the nerf ARE good at the game.

Think of it like hunters.
We want to shoot stuff. We love that.
Only now it's becoming clear that we are hunting our prey to extinction and we are trying to have a healthy discussion about what to do about it.

5:20 and onwards is my exact thinking, it isn't fun when you're dead before you can even react.
insta-death isn't fun, and in a game with no matchmaking it is teeeerible to have such a huge headshot multiplier.
no new player is going to stick around if their first few hours are dominated by pros insta-killing them.

Let's be honest.

Without any matchmaking safety net (which is a default feature of many MMO games) PS2 is the equivalent of a "Multi-Level Marketing" : you get reward for the time invested only if there is a steady stream of newcomers to be accordingly farmed (be it with a tank, an ESF, sniping, knifing and god-knows-what).

Considering client-side lag and server-side latency and human reaction times, three taps to the head is insta-death.

You don't triple tap good players regularly. They are constantly on the move, constantly scanning, watching and reacting. You triple tap newbies who do not know any better or mediocre players who, despite the time invested, aren't that good. Not everybody is equally gifted.

You may triple tap good player from time to time and be equally triple tapped. it is just statistics. I am nowhere near BR100 (not even half) but I kill BR120 and beyond (ASP players) any time. They die like anybody else if you hit them, just like I am killed by them.

Two days ago I sniped the same guy 8 times in a row. He simply kept reappearing like a Lemming. A fellow sniper asked "WTF are you shooting at?" I explained to him and then I stopped firing at that poor guy, it felt only cheesy.

I can already hear the hundreds (thousands?) of veterans who say "I spent years practicing headshots and now it is payback time!!!" however that is killing the player base: those veterans do not even realize that the advantage they have on new players keep growing as time goes by (one year, two years, 3,4,5, ...).

There is no right or wrong here, only choices.

But something has to be done to increase players retention and maybe reducing the HS multiplier may be a step in the right direction.

I do not know about you mates, but personally I am sick and tired to have only one continent active...

You know that you don't need to modify/kill a core feature of the game to bring more newbies in, right? There's way more better/well-thought ways for that.
I mean, we are talking about a "player versus player" game, here -- not a "kill cutesy monsters with a sword" kinda thing. There will be ones with the lack of knowledge/interest to learn how the game "works"... and there's nothing we can do about it.

See videos which cover the history of this a bit. It wasn't always like this. It wasn't ever a core feature of the game. It just got added as a side effect to some clumsy balance changes.

The HS multiplier can be detuned without ruining the game.

Leaving it in though, does sort of ruin things. Those new players that do take the time to learn the game aren't rewarded for years really. They get fairly decent with the guns, figure out battle flow, execute a good flank, then with a dominant position open fire... and the veteran spins and drops them instantly. It's horrible for them.

We've all had it done to us enough that when we are now able to do it to others we know the suck and we feel bad somewhere inside.

Make no mistake, we're *really* talking about nerfing something that is skill based. Something that will harm most of us participating in this discussion. We need sustainability or our "farm" will grow barren.

I would prefer:
More implants that give headshot based rewards. Make these rewards not give an advantage in a 1:1 fight, but give some advantage that chains well. The assimilate implant is a great example. Nothing about it give an advantage in a 1:1 fight, but it still rewards skill. Heck give an "ammo recoup" implant that makes headshot ammo return to you. Make one that accumulates "charges" for each headshot then can be unleashed to do something spiffy.

I was about to start a rant about HS multiplier and how it should be reduced to keep newbs playing the game, but i found myself deleting every sentence i started with.

DarkStarAnubis makes a good point, you dont see Vets complain about getting triple tapped, only beginners. So is the answer git gud?
Git Gud is always the answer.

The question is how do we keep newcomers playing until they do Git Gud?

What incentive do they have to keep running to the battle only to be killed in less than a secoond before they can even aim at somebody?

I am still in favour for adjusting HS multies but probably not by as much as previously stated after reading everyones replies.

Something needs to be done because

If I were king:
Leave HS multiplier for battle/scout/sniper rifles.
Reduce it to a 1.5 multiplier for carbines, LMG, shotguns, SMGs and the like.
Eliminate it for vehicle based weapons.

Crank out lots of headshot based implant boosts.

But first I would: Fix the frickin' faction uniforms. The #1 complaint I hear from people that I introduce to the game, "Dude, how do you tell who to shoot??".

Right, you think my desire to help rather than just say no is about ego... But then write a useless wall of text.
All you need was the go for it part.

Let's make you happy though. Who cares OP, no.
Better?

Dude, my 5yr old picked that up pretty quickly......
Its not hard to tell who is the enemy and who is not.

I've heard the complaint from multiple experienced (and adult) gamers.

Are you playing devils advocate here or do you actually think that three factions wearing identical pink camo are easy to distinguish? It will take a noob some milliseconds to determine who has what color/shape shoulder pads and by that time the TTK of most guns has elapsed.

It's incredibly hard to tell enemies apart. Heck most of us don't tell them apart at all, we've just become super battle-saavy and our situational awareness tells us when someone is moving/facing the wrong direction.

View it through the eyes of a noob, not your own.

Well ive never had that problem. I do play on PS4, maybe its different? As soon as I look in someones direction, if its a friendly, a blue triangle is above their head. If its an enemy, they have no info displayed.

I have never honestly had any problem with this and after explaining what to look for to my child, he doesnt have a problem with it either.

How very bizarre..

I like the idea of having more variation in HSMs depending on the weapon used. But I'd take it a step further.

I would give higher HSMs to long-range automatics and lower HSMs to mid-and short range automatics. So something like the Orion or Serpent would only get a 1.4x HSM, but the Ursa and Pulsar C might get 1.8x or thereabouts. You'd obviously have to try to tweak the different HSM values so that it makes a tangible difference in the number of HS-to-kill.

So for example, using the above weapons you'd get:

• Orion, 1.4x HSM, kills in 5 headshots at max damage range (1001 damage)
• Ursa, 1.8x HSM, kills in 4 headshots out to maybe 25-30m (1202 damage point blank)

That would also give MLG players more incentive to use mid/long range automatics due to the higher HSMs / lower headshot STK requirement on those weapons.

These Forums:

"Let's tune down this over-performing thing."
"Nah, git gud. All these scrubs trying to nerf skill. Sacrifice your social life to PS2 like me, then you can land 100% headshots too. Just look at these stats, you don't get stats like these by having a girlfriend"

"Let's slightly buff this under-performing thing."
"Nah, git gud. If you can't kill with that (statistically bad) gun then you need to just uninstall."

"This gun feels balanced, it's right where it needs to be."
"Git gud. That thing's so OP. If you're not leading the scoreboard with that gun then you should try trucking simulator."

The TTK part gets a little tricky, and it's where I disagree with Cyrius. Longer TTKs heavily favor the better shot. And longer TTKs also favor numbers/zergs, as focus fire means much more than a single person's effort. I do want to lower the headshot multiplier, and I love Erindil's proposal of balancing it on a gun by gun basis, but I want to lower health to keep the same headshot TTK that we currently have, so this would essentially only raise the effectiveness of bodyshots. Latency and TTK is annoying, but this game already has a crazy long TTK compared to most, and in those cases where you don't have time to react, even if health were doubled, you'd almost certainly still lose the fight, especially if headshots were tuned down.

TLDR: A shorter TTK favors new players, as their body shots have a better chance of getting a kill, and it favors vets fighting against mobs, as they can chain-kill opponents.

The better shooters will always have an advantage. Likewise, the players who know the bases like the back of their hands, know how to read a minimap and have better SA, know how to handle recoil, how to burst fire or can exploit things (e.g. jumping on Biolab roofs without being an LA).

But that has nothing to do with reducing the HS multiplier. That is ON TOP of all those advantages who veterans enjoy, because only good shooters can benefit from it.

"Git Gud" will always be true, just to a lesser extent. My simple proposal:

(1) Headshot multiplier of 2.0 for bolt-action weapons (e.g. sniper rifles, crossbows)
(2) Headshot multiplier of 1.5 for semi-auto weapons (e.g. sidearms, battle rifles, scout rifles, or things like the SABR-13 ...)
(3) Headshot multiplier of 1.25 for auto weapons (LMG, SMG, Assault Rifles, Carbines, the Emissary, ...)
(4) Re-think abominations like the unstable ammo

That's much too punishing. Semi-autos could probably stay the same. Autos should get dropped to 1.75 at the least. Think about it, at 1.25 4 headshots are the same as 6 body shots (including nano-weave). It just wouldn't be worth going for the head, not when 1/3 of your bullets are likely misses.