The devs have said they want to fix range compression in infantry weaponry...

Lets look at the underlying causes of why this all even exists. That way, we can seek solutions to the problem, as opposed to nerfing all CQC, buffing all long range weapons (While reducing their DPS.)

Feel free to add your own bits and pieces, but here is the basic rundown of what I think makes combat in PS2 so CQC.

Mechanical issue 1:
Shields make up half of your health.

Why is this an issue....
Simply put: It makes it very hard to wound someone, very easy to kill someone.
A five minute rifle dual at 120 meters isn't going to result in any wounds at all with 500 shields. Thats 4-6 bullets with most weapons.
It takes 7 in CQC to kill, where landing bullets is much easier.

Frankly, shields make any combat outside of your own weapons ideal range nearly pointless.
This is fairly easy to fix.

Solution 1: Add 250 heath to the player, take away 250 shields.It would now be fairly easy to wound a player, and thus, disadvantage them in a CQC fight if they didn't pull back and find a friendly medic.

Advantages:
1. This would effectively give nanoweave a 50% buff.
2. This would encourage longer ranged fights (Duh,) and make "Ohh crap, I am shot, and this guy got range on me" not "Spend 10 minutes sneaking around, and ambush my foe in an instant kill, "instead its "Ohh crap, I am shot, and wounded.... Lets... Find a medic so I can fight this guy on fair ground."
3. It would increase the value of medical syringes, resulting in less C4-tankmine spam.
-- It would also increase the value of AV grenades, as a substitute for C4.
4. It would improve battlefield diversity, by adding a significant value of having a medic teammate who can keep you combat effective.
5. It would make retaliating against a sniper much easier, by allowing people with carbines and rifles to wound someone (But especially an infiltrator) at sniper rifle ranges (Albiet, not kill.)
6. It would make sniping less frustrating, and it would add value to semi auto snipers (Which would always at least wound their target.)
7. It would justifying buffing advanced shield capacitors to a state where they could be considered useful (By adding a second, small bonus to shield integrity.)
8. Odds are, each life would be more satisfying, you probably at least wounded someone.
9. Long range battles give engineers more incentive to go infantry-ammo pack. Encouraging more cohesive squad play.

Solution 2:
Add anti-shield ammo, does double damage to shields, but is worse against vehicles, and people wearing nanoweave. (Specifically does 2X base weapon damage damage to shields, but (Current damage+2DL)/2 damage to health where DL is a vague unit for damage levels Virtually any weapon would take 2 shots to pierce shields with AS ammo, thus, 2 damage levels to the basic half damage bullets would be needed to preserve TTK's.)

Advantages:
1. Wouldn't alter current metagame.
2. Adds more cert sinks to the game.
3. Would add to range combat for those who use it, but doesn't allow for the other, radical, and gameplay diversity adding changes as the above shift.
- Many weapons would have to be locked out of the ammo.... Greatly quarantining the shift in weaponry ranges.

Mechanic issue 2:
Shields have a long recharge delay.

Why is this an issue....
It makes longer, drawn out fights far more tedious. If you do engage someone in a rifle duel, if they ever hit you, you end up waiting...... 1-1000 2-1000 3-1000 4-4000 err what ushh 7-1000 8-1000 9-1000 10-1000 wWOOOOOPPPP
Thus, people wouldn't bother with them, unless the waiting in cover aspect of them was toned down.

Advantages:
1. The waiting game becomes much less of an issue.
2. Less drama on the battlefield.
3. ASC becomes more valuable, again.
4. People would be more inclined to experiment with long ranged battles.

Mechanic issue 3:
Spread is tied to weapon damage levels, not a weapons intended range.

Why is it an issue...
It makes many intended close range weapons long range weapons, and many intended long range weapons more medium range.

In reality, spread should remain partially tied to damage levels, but lower DPS weapons should also benefit from lower base spreads as well.

It's because TTK goes through the rough at long range.

You get hit by recoil and damage drop off at long range, Which means almost anyone can get behind cover before they die so You have to get in close to start killing people

In theory, killing wounded people at long range is easy.

Its just that making wounding people is VERY hard at ranged due to the shield/health ratios, and aforementioned damage falloff.

You can change the shield and health values all you want as long as the total is the same and I don't die to any less number of shots.

Technically, you will.


You will only regenerate a quarter of your health every time I shoot you three times for 378 damage.

You would die in 11 rounds of long range combat, or 33 bullets.

As opposed to the theoretically infinite number of rounds of ranged combat that would happen in the current system.

This is one of the most practical ideas I've yet to see on the forums.
Bump for you, Walrus.

In reality, our only detractor thus far has made a very good point: In CQC combat, it makes absolutely no difference if you are not wounded.

It still takes 7 bullets to kill with a Trac-5 in CQC on an unwounded target....


Its just that the guy with the T5 AMC has hit you with 4 bullets on your approach, and thus is fighting an incredibly wounded version of you, who is disadvantaged despite their SMG/Jaguar/Lynx.

(I am reffering to TOBAX.)

His comment is more positive, then negative, in its effects.

I am on the fence with this one.

What has you on the fence?

I mean, I am sure I am missing some drawbacks.

Just remove the damage dropoff. Its only there to make long range less dangerous anyway. They could keep it for specific weapons when they're having a hard time balancing them using other stats, but it really serves no purpose right now other than to bog down long range.

I feel that making long ranged combat viable without eliminating dropoff would be better.
Especially since it is also the main factor limiting CQC weapons at longer ranges. (Albiet, making it a +800RPM/1700DPS+ weapon feature would preserve this.)

As, It would make distant battles a haven for people who want fights with longer TTK.

More importantly, even in CQC fights, you are still more likely to kill your opponent then wound them, because legitimately wounding someone takes a quarter of a second longer then the quarter of a second you have already shot at them for.

I appreciate feedback on an important issue but I don't think these idea's would help.

What they need to do is give people +200% health then what we currently have to raise the TTK.

The core problem is TTK is too fast. Way too fast.

Joshua Sanchez must of had the gamasutra award go to his head because I havent seen many good balance passes on small arms. The vehicle weapons have all had sensible balance changes done, but trying to get Infantry weapons in order is SLOW and NONEXISTANT.

How many months do we need to complain about MAX's? How many more months will we need to complain about shotguns? About the TTK? About strafe speed being too fast?

CQB is too prevelant and weapons suited for CQB are too beneficial. Certain attributes like strafe speed, ADS speed, rate of fire, are so much better then other attributes. Certain weapons that SOE charges money for are at huge disadvantages to other weapons. That is not fair to whoever purchases them.

Design team = FAIL. I wish more people had the gall to speak up.

Just remove damage drop off at range. It's a stupid mechanic that single handedly ruined ranged combat in Battlefield and it's an awful mechanic in PS2 ESPECIALLY with recharging shields and the massive ranges the game can handle.

I seriously don't understand why it's even present in the game.

Well, Lets say we cut the damage of all guns in half.


It now would take most of a second to get past an enemies shields with most weapons. There would be no long ranged combat then, at least as long as we didn't make any serious changes to the health structure of player characters first to make combat more wounding-oriented as opposed to mass-murder/killing oriented.

AKA: My suggestion predates any large TTK revamp, currently.
Without it, long range combat would become impossible with longer TTK's. When the wounding oriented tactical metagame arises, we can talk about longer TTK's (Which I do want...)

It started in COD4, I think.

You saw what happened in THAT franchise.

I hate the health system. It should be WAY harder to burst someone down, and much easier to slowly wound someone.

Armor for the medium and heavy classes would be a welcome addition. You spawn with 500 armor. Any damage that gets through your shields is mitigated by armor, by a large percent, until it runs out. For example, you get shot for 200 damage, the armor would reduce that by half, you would take 100 health damage and 100 armor damage. Engineers can repair armor up to half max, but if you run out of armor, you need to resupply to fix it.

Perhaps tieing damage falloff at range to armor classes, with certain weapons being blocked by certain armor classes.

Ultralight (SMG's, pistols, and shotguns falloff a single damage level against this armor. Infiltrators only.)

Light (800+ RPM carbines falloff against this armor. All of the above falloff an extra damage level. Given to light assaults, and engineers.)

Medium (All of the above falloff an extra damage level. 800+ RPM rifles falloff one damage level against this armor, as do all carbines. Given to medics, heavy assaults as a default piece of equipment, and light assaults as a perk of certain armor certs.... Maybe advanced shield capacitors.)

Heavy (All current weapons that falloff fallof against it one level. All of the above fallof an extra level. (Available as a perk of certain armor certs to heavy assaults/medics. Maybe advanced shield capacitors.))


This would at least smarten up damage falloff to make certain classes more survivable at range.


While I would like PS1/CS Armor mechanics to make a return, I don't think squads (Or medics) would appreciate players themselves needing repairs occasionally...

Albeit, giving those old school armors as a certification would actually be quite interesting.

same. It would have drastic effects on the game, good or not i'm not sure. people would dire more, biodomes would be more important for regen over time, med pack would be much stronger, medics would be needed more than they are now....

would change a lot.


I would like to see damage drop off not effect health but retain its current mechanic against shields though. I get kinetic energy lessening not hurting a shield as much.. but flesh it doesn' t matter.

I loathe the near instant TTK's and at this point would suggest they simply boost health and shield levels a good deal revamp weapon stats to where a fight at close range is longer than 3 seconds.

If you are a lone wolf, the game would get a lot harder if you packed C4/mines.
However, we could buff certs like advanced shield capacitor to help offset this.

Say, make advanced shield capacitor the +125 shield cert, with its current bonuses, and inflating the nanoweave armor to be a +250 health cert.

This is one of the better ideas I've seen on this board. You have my sword.