Headshot bonus damage should decrease

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

  1. Beerbeerbeer

    You think this game attracting new players? It’s swimming in a evaporating pool. Most of the new accounts/players are likely hackers or smurf accounts.

    One of the biggest problems, in my opinion, is that these newer players get curb stomped so fast from veteran players. They don’t understand that there’s a mechanic in this game that allows others to have more health. As minuscule as that may be, it’s an advantage, plain and simple.

    Lowering the headshot modifier and making nanoweave universal will go a long way in helping newbies stick around long enough where they may actually stay and learn some of the finer details. Nothing in this game should give players an advantage over others, and that’s exactly what nanoweave does. This hurts newbies more than anyone else. Headshot multipliers also hurts newbies more than anyone else.

    These things are gigantic speed bumps for player growth in my opinion. It’s one thing when the entire population is new and we were all progressing at the same rate. It’s not like that anymore; the disparity between veterans and newbies is too great for player growth and getting rid of and changing the aforementioned will help.
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  2. iStalk

    Reducing the headshot bonus would be a buff to headshots? Lol wtf you're talking about. Yeah it'll be a buff in developing that skill because you'll have more time in live practice but other than that it favors inaccurate aim. And idc about the change because I hardly play infantry anymore. I've moved up to esfs and libs. But the fact that you're saying it'll buff headshot game play is completely bs. Do you know how many guns were created around that headshot bonus alone? Nsx daimyo for example, 1 hit for headshot for a kill. But a full clip for body shots wouldn't even drop a naked infiltrator. And imagine the other nightmares tied to that, changing weapons stats etc. You know these developers are not good at balancing? Lol we all know what happend to vehicles when they tried to balance. What about maxes? The NC one is trash now from what I hear. The only reason people are even agreeing with you is because of these hackers. DBG just need to get off their a**** and fix the dang anti cheat system. Headshot bonus favors skill, why should I make it easier? What's next, aim assist? Where the game automatically moves your crosshair next to the hitbox? Lol players like you that come up with trashy ideas are why this game is dying. People cry about being killed and they make changes that effect people who worked hard to learn the curve.
  3. adamts01

    Heavies being OP was "balanced" by removing head protection. But that "balance" is only enjoyed by maybe the top 30% of players. For everyone else, the HA is still easy mode. This conversation has absolutely nothing to do with combined arms. It's entirely about limiting a performance ceiling in a game with zero match maker.



    I think many vets left because of all the crutch weapons that let noobs compete with little to no skill (air locks, flak, unstable ammo, Lasher, Sundy balls, rep gal balls,coyotes...) That's a mechanic problem more than a balance problem.


    Why not let nanoweave give a 90% reduction? Seriously. The top 10% of players would be able to go 1 vs a platoon. You see the problem, right? It's a real problem when someone with decent aim gets a jump on a vet from behind and can't secure a win. Like Demigan pointed out, it would be considered a nerf to aiming skill, but a buff to situational awareness, teamwork, and positioning. I think the ttk at range is a little too long, so a headshot reduction isn't the only alswer. Removing nanoweave would be critical, or at least reducing it to 10% protection. Maybe that plus reducing headshot damage to 1.8x and lowering total health to keep the same headshot ttk. HA shields should get reworked or removed. I think letting HAs pick 2 or even 3 suit slots would be a good compromise. It's all about giving players a kill when they deserve it, and in the end the better player would still win.
  4. Campagne

    I completely agree with only reducing the headshot damage multiplier (of most weapons) down to 1.2x and even with the removal of nanoweave. However I don't think it should be made the default values as nanoweave inherently punishes higher damage weapons significantly more than low damage weapons. This results in high damage/low RoF guns losing more DPS and receiving longer TTKs unfairly. Especially so if they cannot use headshots to even the distance against bodyshots.

    A 0 CoF for the first shot if completely stationary. If moving like most players will when fighting it has a terrible CoF of 0.4. Furthermore, a sniper rifle only needs one bullet and can be aimed while cloaked whereas a SAW needs a minimum of three and has a 0.07 bloom per shot.

    False comparison.
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  5. FateJH

    I think that line of thought is over-emphasizing the systems at work at the backend. I think it's also belittling new players, acting as if everything bewilders them and will never stop bewildering them. If they ask a question, give them an answer, not smack (against them or the game).

    If you purchase all the same gear, rank it to the same levels, and toss it into the correct slots, the outcome still isn't comparative. You can't give a completely deck-out ESF to a new player and they'll suddenly encroach upon a veteran pilot; he still won't break much a sweat over the encounter. Though the new players puzzle over the overwhelming meta, as you might call it, even some middle-teir players can struggle to milk the results you may feel as automatically produced by it. Even if no one could ever have that advantage, and all our extra slots were empty, the disparaty will be the same in terms of outcome.
  6. Demigan

    Since this is basically all you are saying I deleted the rest. Could you point out in this post exactly where I say that it buffs headshots, even though the entire post is dedicated to how it buffs other skills than accuracy and headshotting?

    (Now I actually already know the answer, you read the first sentence and nothing else meaning you lost the context and meaning, that's the only way you could misinterpret my post).


  7. Demigan

    Too low I think.

    Going for headshots means you lose some DPS in missed shots. The bare minimum headshot multiplier would mean that on average your DPS remains the exact same when going for headshots on all ranges within your effective range limit. You don't want people who go for headshots punished and lose because of what they did, just like we don't want players to lose because they picked an inaccurate non-headshot weapon.

    Actually when they removed headshots from Nanoweave protection the HA was the only class still capable of resisting headshots. With a nanite mesh overshield of 850hp (if I recall correctly) and the best sniper right now having 750 damage per shot at 2.1 headshot multiplier (and that's for the directive weapons which didn't exist back then I believe) the HA had enough health to survive a headshot. (1850 health for HA while the headshot in minimum range deals 1575 damage).

    The move to remove headshot damage from nanoweave protection was purpose build to enhance HA's for the MLG scene they tried to attract. We still have a lot of things from that time that are screwing the game, all aimed at single-skill gameplay.

    Don't bring realism into this, realism isn't a good idea in games.
    The 0 COF for the first bullet is exactly that, for the first bullet. The Gauss SAW require's more shots to kill than 1 bullet, and it's COF grows after that. The DPS of the SAW is similar to that of other long-range automatics (1.16 Bloom Per Second (BPS) for hipfire and 0.58 BPS for ADS) while it's DPS is also that of an accurate weapon: 1666 DPS maximum and 1491 minimum.
    You can compare it to some Carbines here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...-game-designer-a-message.252341/#post-3535825
    But beware, these are Carbines I calculated and Carbines have more damage degradation at range. Someone would need to do the same calculations for a bunch of LMG's for better comparison.
  8. TobiMK

    Forumside advocating for nerfing skill? This is truly surprising.
  9. TobiMK

    The meta in this game is DPS, not accuracy. The best guns throughout the entire game are high-DPS CQC variants. All the accurate, but low DPS guns are often redundant and overall just bad to use. Reason for this is that there are no infantry weapons in PS2 that present such harsh recoil that it can't be controlled with some experience and practice. Any decent player would choose a GD-7f over a Razor, if the goal was to kill enemies as effectively as possible. The Razor is far more controllable than the GD-7f, but the higher DPS on the GD-7f is not held back by any increased recoil. The GD-7f still handles just fine and being out of effective range can be avoided with fundamental positioning skills.
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  10. SteelMantis

    I don't see the problem, if they got the jump on them and didn't get a kill before the ambushed player could turn around, locate them and then kill them they got out played. If the ambusher is a master of positioning and wants to kill a master of aiming they should stick to shotguns and a more difficult positioning game. (or LA on rooftops, HA with cover to duck behind etc.) But if a player who is only average at positioning and only has average aim gets outplayed by someone with great aim that seems fine to me.
  11. Demigan

    This always returns to the question: If high DPS CQC weapons are so superior, why are they among the least used weapons of the game?
    The answer is ofcourse exceedingly simple: no one uses CQC weapons when no CQC combat is available. And with how little an accurate mid/long range weapon is punished overall for CQC combat there is much more reason to pull a mid/long range weapon over a CQC one for general combat.

    Also if it is about DPS, then isnt the weapon that trades in 10 to 30% of its DPS for 250% damage increase with headshots pretty much superior in every way until you stumble close enough that it becomes possible for the CQC weapon to chain headshots as well?
  12. adamts01

    You don't see the problem of buffing nanoweave to 90% resistance? Good lord. Why not make the head hit box 1/4 the size while we're at it. There's a limit to what you can reasonably expect people to do in a video game. Some of us actually have lives you know.
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  13. SteelMantis

    90%? I thought that was a joke and the rest of your post was about the current rules.

    I am happy with the current game mechanics, my opinion is skills of various kinds are fairly rewarded and if it ain't broke don't fix it.
  14. adamts01

    The 90% was just an example of how sometimes "nerfing skill" is in the best interest of the game. People act as though going from a 2x headshot multiplier to 1.9x would make the sky fall. I do well enough with the current system, I just think it could be tuned a little for the betterment of 70% or so of the blayer base, especially new players. It's just like the ESF game. You're basically trash tier until you make it to that top 10% of players. I'm at or around that top 10%, but I still argue for making air more approachable with medium-skill weapons and some refining of flight controls. It's not in my best interest, but it would be good for the game.
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  15. That_One_Kane_Guy

    I'll pass, thanks. Aside from the fact that we're really, really late in the day to go messing around with core weapon mechanics, I just don't see the hacker excuse as a valid one to tweak headshots. Maybe I'm just lucky but the amount of times I've seen an actual hacker in this game could fit on one hand.

    I also find it slightly ironic for people to be supporting both the lowering of the HSM and making NWA default. Hopefully they aren't an NC main.

    Also quick number check:
    Battlefront 2 HSM: ~1.6 (varies based on gun)
    CoD BO4 HSM: ~1.6 (varies based on gun and mods)
    Battlefield HSM: ~2.0 (basically all titles)
    HALO Series HSM: OHK (when shields are up there is no HSM)
    Overwatch HSM: ~2.0
    Planetside 2 HSM: ~2.0

    The high modifier for Planetside is hardly an extraordinary outlier in FPS titles. A skill gap is a skill gap. The same new player that just got dunked on in Planetside and ragequit would get dunked on in any contemporary FPS title out there, and in many quite possibly even worse.
  16. adamts01

    I'd like to add, no other game that I'm aware of has such a drastic ttk differegmce between headshots and body shots. Which wouldn't be an issue except for this game's lack of match maker. That combination just leads to frustration.

    Those games not only have a match maker, they also have drastically lower bodyshot ttks.

    You're right that a lower modifier and default nanoweave is an absurd position.

    As for this being too late in game, it doesn't have to be a drastic change. Removing nanoweave wouldn't be game breaking. And lowering health to keep the same headshot ttk with a 1.9x modifier would also be a minor change. The single difference felt by a minority of ayers would be their ability to solo a room of noobs. It would basically be how the air game is now that Coyotes are a threat. A vet can easily solo 2 or 3 noobs with nose guns, but 2 noobs with Coyotes would take some skill, and 3 noobs with Coyotes would make even the best pilots sweat if not die. There's no reason this would make the sky fall on the infantry scene. The better player would still win, and vets would simpmy have to play smarter.

    Edit: Every si gle one of those games has a drastically lower headshot multiplier when you consider nanoweave, and an insanely lower headshot modifier when you consider the HA shield. And like I said before, they also have a match maker. PS2 is an outlier by a very large margin.
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  17. Demigan

    And wildly different TTK's and LPK's compared to PS2, your point?

    Also I dont understand why people would feel that skill would go unrewarded in case the headshot multiplier gets reduced. So you now need more skills in positioning, situational awareness and cant turn around to overcome an ambush as quickly meaning you have to have the skill to forsee the ambush rather than use accuracy and the proper weapon to overcome the other person's skill in ambushing.
  18. karlooo

    I believe too that the person with the better aim and gun control should win but hitting the head is very random unless you have a very accurate gun and are a sweaty tryhard too lol, or you're cheating.

    Also low graphics setting make it easier to hit targets, hit heads, it makes them more visible.
    The player with the lowest settings will always win against someone with highest settings.

    I believe recoil should increase with damage and head shot damage should decrease to something like x1.4 (off the top of my head)...depends.

    Some classes would prob need a small rework after this.
  19. karlooo

    This is a very nice video:
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  20. That_One_Kane_Guy

    You're confusing a lobby system with matchmaking. BO4's 'matchmaking' will quite happily throw you into matches with max-ranked players as a Level 1 newbie, and Battlefield hasn't had anything but casual matchmaking in years. Planetside 2 is not some special flower regarding the interaction between vets and new players.

    The average TTKs of BO4, BFV, and PS2 are within a quarter second of one another. Calling them 'wildly different' is being economical with the truth. Human reaction time is ~250ms. Server connection adds maybe another 50ms on top of this. If a new player starts a fight with a vet with almost a third of a second of advantage and loses, that is on them.