Headshot bonus damage should decrease

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by karlooo, Aug 24, 2019.

  1. karlooo

    The only players who take use of this extreme headshot damage are hackers and very experienced players.
    This extreme damage also forces all players to use Nanoweave armor. You don't have this, you stand no chance.

    A recent example: I've been killed by a Heavy assault using the NS-45 Pilot in less than a second, from full HP while in motion.

    I tried to be creative, picked a different suit slot, played engineer....but in reality I'm a dumb ***. If you don't pick nonoweave (also heavy assault) and aim at head you lost - this is not very engaging.

    You can't even counter this. Basically the whole game is about running around, taking points and shooting ppl in the head with little or no strategy....the only strategy is "ok guys lets redeploy to this base".
    • Up x 6
  2. Demigan

    You realize that Nanoweave does not protect against headshot damage? That's actually another reason why headshot damage should be reduced: It makes high-accuracy weapons far more valuable than low-accuracy one's and makes the large amount of weapon skills you can learn in PS2 redundant as all you'll need is accuracy and nothing else.
    • Up x 11
  3. karlooo

    Aha ok then you’re right.

    The description should be more specific, how is anyone supposed to know this if they don’t search it up?

    If the description had ‘doesnt mitigate headshot damage’ then there would have been no confusion.
    But you’re right with the accurate weapons.
  4. JohnnyWayne

    I have to agree. However, with that you'd have to rebalance all NS weapons.
  5. Demigan

    I actually think NS weapons will be OK. They might look inferior overall, but being easy to use is one of the most powerful ways a weapon can be build, and most NS weapons are very easy to use indeed. As far as I remember NS weapons aren't magic headshot machines for the average player so losing some headshot damage wouldn't instantly grind the weapon to nothingness.
  6. OgreMarkX

    Karloo, I agree. Any game with head shot multipliers caters to those players who are often the worse kind of player. Stat obsessed. KDR obsessed. Very very very likely to exploit, hack and cheat.

    It's also very very very bad for "new player experience" to be instantly killed, over and over. A game shouldn't be hard in this way. Learning a class, learning how to play as a solo or team member, learning how to win, and HAVING FUN, are the proper goals.

    But PS2 was lazily designed from the game meta/flow perspective (but was amazingly designed in that it allowed so many players to fight at once--a remarkable feat).

    But alas, we have a company who's focus is making re-spawning annoying and NS Sanctuaries.

    Oh lordy.
    • Up x 2
  7. Jbeasty

    Nanoweave should just be removed, as well as the leg shot damage reduction.

    Headshots will still be king, which I agree with, as accuracy should be rewarded. But currently, nanoweave simply cripples this game on a few fronts. It is used far too much and playing without it is too much of a disadvantage. Would be much more interesting from a gameplay perspective if you could actually take other options for that slot and remain competitive.

    In the game right now, If you don't get headshots, the level of bullet sponge is just ludicrously stupid. Especially at range with carbines/rifles/lmgs even.

    I've suggested this loads of times and I realize it just falls on deaf ears, but it would be nice to see something sensible done once in a while, instead of things like the planned death cam. Removing nanoweave for instance would do loads more for new and sub par players than a death cam ever will...
    • Up x 2
  8. iStalk

    Just nerf all weapons! Anything that kills must be nerfed. You got great aim and are a head hunter? Well you're OP cause I cant aim at head. Nerf hammer! Nerf skill please.
    • Up x 3
  9. Crayv

    Until they can do something about the hackers I wouldn't mind if they removed it altogether.

    I am typing this post to take a break from a fight where all but one death of my last 10 was from sub BR20 infils with bolt actions (well one was those was a semi-auto because he was BR3). Nearly all of them had a name that either started with no caps, had a 4 digit number at the end, or was started with something like Xx<name here>.

    If they can't do something about the hackers they can at least minimalize the damage they do
  10. SteelMantis

    I like head shots but hate hackers.

    Aside from hackers if your aim is worse than the other guys you should lose and I like a game that rewards skillful play. I like being able to kill three guys alone if my game is on. (I also get killed a lot when my game is off, usually two or three hours in and that's fine too).

    However it is worth considering how reducing the headshot multiplier would affect hackers/aimbotters.
  11. Demigan

    No, reducing headshot damage would buff skill.

    Let's imagine two players of equal skill. One uses a not so accurate CQC weapon and the other an accurate automatic headshot weapon.

    The skills the headshotter needs:
    • aim accurately at the head.
    • Minimal skills in situational awareness, positioning and movement.
    The skill the CQC user needs:
    • High situational awareness in order to close the distance
    • Solid knowledge of what ranges his weapon becomes accurate
    • Accuracy is still important, if not more so than for a headshotter because of the 2.5x damage a headshot does versus a nanoweave target compared to a bodyshot
    • Higher COF control and trigger discipline whenever you have to compensate for fighting out of your ideal range
    • Solid knowledge of terrain, paths to take and the likely places enemies are positioned
    So while the CQC user is mostly screwed whenever he's in a ranged fight, the accuracy user isn't punished half as much for fighting in CQC in return. On top of that you get 2.5x the damage output, is that a fair amount for the skill you put in? No not really. With for example 1.75x you should be fine and it would mean that other skills and other weapon types become almost as valuable.

    So while accuracy with these headshot weapons gets nerfed, every other skill gets buffed.

    And ultimately if two masters of equal skill go up against each other, It should never matter what skills those are. They should simply have the exact same chance to win (on average over all situations you could find yourself in) by using their chosen skill and chosen weapon.





    And if you can't handle a change to headshot damage like that, perhaps you should consider that you might actually not have as much skill as you think you do...
    • Up x 4
  12. Demigan

    I think you posted the wrong link there Mantis... But if you want to talk I'm not against it ;)
    • Up x 1
  13. SteelMantis

    Lawl
    Where did the edit button go when you need it?

    I'm not convinced reducing headshot damage would buff skill, for one thing it would make it harder for a high skill player to drop more than one low skill players at a time. Which in turn could make battles even more about which side has higher numbers than it already is. And the other skills (map knowledge, use of cover etc.) are already valuable, sometimes more than being able to land headshots.

    In a perfect world where there where there were less hackers I'd definitely want to to stay as is. Even with the hackers I am happy with the general infantry game play. However I do run into aimbots regularly and it would be easy to deal with them with less headshot damage. Not for or against but it's worth thinking about.
  14. Demigan

    This is actually a more complex issue, it's not just about headshot damage, but also about hitbox sizes.

    The game Renegade has very very small hitboxes compared to most games. Even if you were practically standing against someone they would rarely fill your screen until you started clipping into them.
    Renegade also featured some of the longest TTK's I've ever seen. The basic weapon was the Raptor, which dealt between 5 to 7 damage per shot at 600RPM. The lowest health unit in the game had 200 health total spread over health and bodyarmor. It took 40 shots to kill a single person, and hitting them consistently even on the torso was hard. Even with a 5x headshot multiplier it was fully possible to win battles against opponents with simply hitting them in the chest.

    The game was fun and I played it in that fun teenager time when your reactionspeed is amazing and you can have shot someone while rounding a corner before you even realize it. But despite the long TTK's and not using headshots that much with automatics due to the miniscule hitbox and how trippy the game's netcode could be a skilled player was more than able to handle multiple opponents, even opponents with superior weapons and health.

    But PS2 has more to offer than just hitbox sizes and headshot damage, it also has many other weapon stats. And why should someone who's a master at a low-accuracy weapon be at a disadvantage compared to someone with a high accuracy weapon if they both have the same skill level? Equal skill should reward an equal chance to win on average no matter what weapon you pick. And while that is a hard thing to achieve, currently weapons that can reliably headshot are head and shoulders (heh) above the other weapon classes that cannot do that. Is that really a fair situation? Should a weapon that relies more on your positioning skill really be worse off than a weapon that relies on accuracy?

    The game would be so much more fun if any skill can get you to the top. It offers the game a vast amount of tactics and variety to pull off on each other, and switching between them quickly based on what you have and what your opponent seems to have should be a key part of the game's gameplay cycle!
  15. Trebb

    In a perfect world, I would argue the headshots should stay as is.

    But there are way too many one hit kills in this game, and headshots are a huge part of it. You do have to think of the new player experience, or all of our servers will end up like Briggs.

    But there's too many problems that are compounded by, or encouraged by the headshot bonus:

    1) Low BR bolt action snipers that are amazingly accurate, pinging headshots while I'm falling 200m a second.
    2) Try hard HAs who, even if you attack from behind, can insta 180 and 3 headshots later you die.
    3) Peek around the corner, run back in and die 2 seconds later to more headshots despite constant movement
    4) I SWEAR TO GOD MY NSO FACTION HEADBOX SIZE IS DOUBLE! It really feels like I'm pinged more. Keeping the #Pay2Lose alive!

    With all that, you never know. Was it luck? Aimbot? Subtle modification of the games files to increase head box size? The obvious hackers are not the major problem. It's the people that are good at the game, positioning, weapon / class choice, then decide to mod game files to get more headshots. Until they fix it, I feel the game would be more 'fun' if they reduced the bonus a bit. See how it plays out.
  16. Zizoubaba

    yup I definitely agree !

    Also, most new players get absolutly thrased because they don't iimagine how much more damage headshots do, so they don't bother even trying to aim the head.

    That's because "most" fps games don't have such a huge difference between body and head shots.

    I may be dumb, but when I started, I must have played for more than a year before realising this !
  17. Beerbeerbeer

    I agree, the damage modifier should be drastically reduced. Not eliminated, but maybe to a level where it is a 1.1 to 1.20 modifier.

    Nanoweave certifications should be removed from the game, and the bonus added by default to all classes.

    Anything that slightly raises the TTK is good imo.
    • Up x 1
  18. OneShadowWarrior

    The game is as balanced as it’s ever going to get.

    They added the headshot feature because once upon a time heavy assault dominated the game, no other class mattered. Even when a sniper did shoot at you, you just clicked your shield on then bullet hosed the sniper and gave him the middle finger. The click my shield on with nanoweave was the ultimate savior. All the light machine guns as well as heavy assault got the nerf bat, deal with it.

    Now? A person regardless of class can throw the bones and score a lucky headshot if they can aim or have accuracy.

    This is not Call of Duty, it’s combined arms FYI.
  19. DarkStarAnubis

    The problem may not be the head-shot multiplier per se, but the easiness of achieving it due to PS2 weapon design.
    Classical example - this weapon:
    https://planetside.fandom.com/wiki/NC6_Gauss_SAW
    Has 0 CoF for the first bullet so it is perfect, just like a sniper rifle.

    This is a silly design decision, because IRL a cheap LMG, whose barrel is supposed to be replaced every X shots because it wears out, firing cheap and low-precision bullets, getting hot due to sustained fire can be as precise as a dedicated, expensive, single-shot rifle firing very expensive and high-quality ammunition.

    What is the consequence? It is dirty cheap to get head-shots in PS2 hence the proliferation of kills using auto and semi-auto weapons and the diffusion of weapons like the NS-44 with a 450 dmg/hit at close range. Spray a lot of bullets since your magazine allows it and you will be rewarded with one or two head-shots and that's all you need to win the duel.
  20. OneShadowWarrior

    I didn’t like the changes either and was a Heavy Assault User that loved my TMG-50, but running around with that class hoping to bullet hose everyone and win is gone. There is a reason why many Veteran players left, they worry to much about balance at the cost of fun.

    So now they are banking on the new players experience or mentorship. It’s a step in the wrong direction, like beating a dead horse.

    6 years later, still only 4 maps.