Headshot bonus damage should decrease

So one game out of the list has a lobby. OK, that game still doesn't punish body shots the way PS2 does. Look back at your own numbers. Those games are quite successful. They've dialed in a formula that works, and their headshot multiplier is between 1.6 and 2x. That's not one game, that's what the entire industry has decided works. And then there's PS2, with nanoweave and the HA shield. Just consider the most popular Adrenaline Shield with 450 extra health for now. It takes more than 3x the amount of body shots to drop someone. So what's the highest headshot multiplier on your list? 2x? With nanoweave were talking 2.5x and the HA shield bumps that past 3x. All in a game that doesn't have any sort of match maker. You can argue milliseconds all you want, but this game's population isn't doing so hot, and the frustration caused by this system to new and average players is a big part of the reason why. And like I said, I do well enough the way things are, but I'd like a bigger population, or at least this population to last another few years. Removing nanoweave and lowering the headshot multiplier to industry standards would help accomplish that.

This is exactly what I said in my post and I agree with him 100%.

Some people just don't see the big picture, they're myopic. This guys isn't.

Yeah, nerf the headshots! And add "press F to win" button with donate to make skills equal.

Its comments like these that make me believe we are on the right track.

You treat the headshot multiplier as if its an on/off switch. If its current value or higher you get benefits and agree with it, if it gets nerfed you get nerfed and you proclaim it to destroy the game instantly as if headshots are the only thing people do in the game.

The thing is that headshots give out a reward, but how high that reward needs to be is the question. If the headshot multiplier was 5x, would that be an appropriate reward for scoring a headshot?
Why is 2x headshot multiplier such a perfect balanced solution according to all the pro-headshot multipliers? Simply because it gives you power right?
But if we look at the game, accurate weapons coupled with the singular skill of accuracy blow everything out of the water. So you are 3x more skilled as your opponent in other skills? TOO FREAKING BAD you lose most fights anyway because your opponent uses an accurate weapon and just accuracy to beat you!

Headshots and accuracy get obviously more rewarded than any other skill, which is bad for the game. It shouldnt matter what weapon or skill you pick, you should be able to go toe-to-toe with any player of similar skill on your average battlefield.

No, they all have "lobbies" of some fashion whereby you queue up for a game and are matched with a random assortment of players. They do not all have matchmaking. Planetside is essentially a great big casual lobby. Casual lobbies don't care what rank you are, how long you've been playing, or what skill level your opponents are. Games like Battlefield and Battlefront (and Planetside) are entirely casual, with no way of controlling who you play against. Again, Planetside is not unique in the respect of new players getting farmed by more experienced ones. I'd even argue it isn't the worst offender.

You're trying to draw a false equivalency between gunplay nuances and franchise success. Bad Company 2 had bodyshot TTK's of a half-second or more (like Planetside), even before factoring in Ceramic Plate (Flat +20% HP, just like NWA) while sporting an even higher HSM (x2.1). This is probably the most popular Battlefield title in the last 10 years, and there are still enough people playing it today to fill Emerald. Contrast that with the current Battlefield and its fast TTK which has been what is probably the most disappointing flop of the entire series. Industry standards are worth bupkiss.

I will argue milliseconds when people are trying to play pretend with the numbers like a new player being unable to kill a vet in the time it takes for them to react, turn and return fire. As I pointed out previously if they are not killing their target with an advantage of ~1/3 of a second it is because they are missing. In this equation HSM comes into play exactly never. If you miss shots, expect to lose.

Speaking of funny numbers, lets look at your Heavy Assault.

Default Planetman has 500 Health, 500 Shields
Heavy comes with NWA which adds 20% to Health Pool only, so now we're at 600 and 500
Adren. Shield is +450 to Shields only, so 600 and 950.
(Please note that these two very specifically do not stack with one another)
That's 1550. Over a default of 1000. I'd also like to take this time to point out that the default shield gives exactly the same HP bonus as AS, so the above numbers also apply to literally any Level 1 newbie.

If it's taking you 3x the number of bodyshots to kill a Heavy Assault than a normal soldier you aren't shooting a Heavy Assault, you're shooting a MAX, bud.

Let's put some more accuracy to those numbers.

Default planetman has 500 health, 500 shield, so far so good.
NWA adds 20% to health and shield. It is a flat out resistance. It does not stack with any other bullet resistances like Resist shield, Nano armor cloak and the Safeguard implant. It also does not improve overshields (which is probably where your confusion comes from).
Can we test this? Sure we can! With the Carapace implant that turns your shield into health and thus according to your idea should offer more protection we can see that you don't need any more hits to kill than without Carapace.

So even if we say it does not improve the overshield, it increases your health and shield to 600 and 600, for 1200 total+450=1650 health when shot in the torso by small arms.

Now let's compare that to headshots, which Adam is talking about:
Headshots deal 2x the damage, so effectively your health and shield is cut in half. This means that you go from 1450 effective health to 725 effective health. That means that when engaging the HA, one of the most preferred classes for veterans and newbies alike, you have 2.27 times more health when using an accurate headshot weapon versus someone who uses a non-accurate weapon and requires bodyshots to kill.
But what about when engaging a non-HA?
The effective health of a non-HA class with nanoweave is 1200. The effectiev health of a non-HA class with nanoweave that is getting headshots against him is 500. So the one who gets bodyshots against him has 2.4 times more health at his disposal.

But what about if we look at individual shots?
Let's assume we deal 100 damage a shot.
100 damage against nanoweave deals 80 damage.
100 damage against the head deals 200 damage.
So doing headshots gives you 2.5 times more damage.

Now let's take a look at your examples: The games with longer TTK's are better for player retention than with lower TTK's you say? So if there's a way to short-circuit that TTK by doing, oh I don't know... Headshots then you are nullifying the thing that attracts people.

But even if you are OK with that because you want to reward skill, then why would you only reward accuracy this much? In the current metagame accuracy with specific accurate weapons is so much more valuable than other skills you can learn that it makes other skills redundant. Why learn to play to the environment, to what your opponent holds for weapons, to how the battlefield looks at this moment if you can just pick the same class with the same accurate weapon over and over again because it can handle any situation and requires exactly one skill, accuracy, to use?

I'll say it again and again: The reward for scoring a headshot is too high. Two masters with the exact same skill should always be equal no matter what skills they pick. But currently having accuracy coupled with an accurate weapon is flat out the best compared to anything anything else you can learn. That's not a good system.

Nope, I didn't spend the past few years improving my aim so I could get those damage bonuses to have them taken away. People always say "get gud" and there is truth in that. My "get gud" was to learn how to aim and control my recoil.

I watch my game play vids from years ago and I laugh at my performance. Back then I would say the same thing many new players do today, "I just emptied a magazine into that guy and he still killed me!" When I actually just emptied a magazine into the air AROUND that guy...

For me as a newbie still, it's a good and bad thing!! I get annoyed when shooting heavy assaults in the head or back and then turn around and kill me! Comes down to skill but heavy assaults kill everything. If they had a headshot nerf how would you kill them?

Imagine if the headshot bonus had been 5x. You would have gotten "good" much faster right? Not because you are better but because the game offers a much greater bonus for accuracy skill+accurate weapons than it does for other skills.

If we reduce the headshot multiplier to something more reasonable then other skills become more important. This means that someone who has the exact same amount of skill as you in another skill suddenly actually stands a good chance of winning. Shouldn't his skill be rewarded just as much as your skill?

You can't say "but newbs always miss" as an excuse. This isn't just about newbs, but also average players and even highly skilled masters at certain other skills that simply get wrecked not because they are worse, but because headshot multipliers combined with accurate weapons gives a much greater reward.

One advice for those who wants to reduce headshot bonus: shoot right to the head of your enemies despite what weapon you are with. Boost your skills. And you will notice that headshots are not so bad
Even LMG/assault rifles with soft point amunition module with reduced (yes, already reduced) headshot bonus will be your favorite guns against snipers.

I get headshots quite a lot these days and that's with LMGs. I don't see any problem with the hesdshot bonus, it seems to work just fine to me...

Your math is wrong, be even with your numbers, yes, it takes 3x the hits if you're not landing headshots. You really haven't thought this through. None of the meta options protect the head. A 1000hp target takes twice as long if you're landing body shots as opposed to headshots. A 1500hp target takes 3x as long.

And that's with your wonky math. In reality body shots take more than 3x as long. As Demigan pointed out, with a meta HA build we're talking 1650hp, or 1700 with asc.

You mentioned another game offering a 20% ballistic vest. OK. You've been shown that PS2 offers 65-75% extra health. There's nothing even in the ballpark of that anywhere else.

I agree to lowering headshot multiplier.
I myself am only a decent player (not helped by the fact that my 2 main shooters are Planetside and Eternal Cursade, and their handlings are...different, which throws off a lot of experience in the other game), but I think I am definitely above average in positioning, especially with LA. Problem is, as soon as the top pixel of my head pops out of hiding, chances are I die almost instantly. Fact aside that often enough they should not know I am there in the first place, but whatever, maybe they just happened to look up or something.
Being in a great position gives you NOTHING. When they move down there, headshots from a roof aren't easy (especially if you personal aim is not always pinpoint accurate to begin with), but those who are shooting up seem to constantly have the easier time. This makes thinking and use of class mechanics redundant, and frankly, that's a bad thing.

Speaking of EC I mentioned above: It had EXACTLY the problems mentioned in the video above (great stuff, I'll keep that link around). It is a lobby shooter with some palyers who can almost solo matches, and NO MATCHMAKING SYSTEM because player count is too low these days. And one fo the reasons for low player count is that new players don't stick around that often, more often than not because they just have too hard a time and don't consider playing the game fun. And noone plays games for the purpose of getting frustrated.

I stand corrected, I should have read my source more carefully. Thanks for clarification.

So that's what he meant, then. First off can we agree not to use theoretical 100% headshot ratios as a basis for forming arguments? A player with 100% headshot accuracy is so far removed from in-game reality as to make further discussion meaningless. For the one on the receiving end of such a player there is no practical difference between a 2.0x and a 1.5x or whatever modifier you're talking about. While they might perceive a difference, it isn't significant enough that they can do anything about it.

Please don't put words in my mouth. The point was that there is no relationship. Adam said that there wasn't any other games out there that had the same high HSR as Planetside. When I showed examples he said that no other games had a high HSR while also having high bodyshot TTKs, hence my next example. This will eventually terminate with the conclusion that using other FPS titles as barometers for changing this one is a non-starter, because examples exist of successful games with all manner of gunplay mechanics*. There is no 'industry standard' or mathematical equation to show why games should have long/short TTK or high/low HSM to gain or retain players.

*Three of the most popular titles in the Battlefield franchise have TTK values that range from 'COD-lite' to 'basically Planetside', and HSM values starting at 2x. Two of these games have their own version of NWA. Yet all three were incredibly popular and retain respectable playerbases to this day.

I am 100% proof that this is a false assumption. I am pretty average in 1v1 firefights, so I play the positional game, and I'd like to say I'm good at it. If you have been playing long enough to know how to position yourself well then you have been playing long enough to know to aim for the head. Being able to position yourself well and being able to aim well are not mutually exclusive skillsets. The combination of 'good-enough' positional and aiming skill is more deadly than a surplus of either in isolation.

This is false even in real life. Not all skill is of equal value. A person who has trained for 10 years with a sword is not equal to a person who has trained 10 years with a rifle. A worker who has 20 years of experience on a manual mill is not equal to a worker who has 20 years of experience with CAM software and a CNC. That isn't to say that there is never a case where the latter is preferable or superior, but in terms of raw effectiveness in most cases the winner is clear. These are admittedly extreme examples but so are your presumptions that player skills exist in a vacuum.

On a separate note, your above scenario is flawed. Firstly, 'two masters with the exact skill' does not exactly describe the new player experience. Secondly, if there is any area where a new player may have equivalent "skill" to a veteran player it is in aiming, not positioning. Aiming is broadly the same across multiple FPS titles and thus can be adapted relatively quickly, while positioning requires knowledge of the map and mechanics that can only come with time and experience.

A player with 100% accuracy at any point of the hitbox is suspicious. But the thing is that coupled with higher accuracy weapons you can far outstrip the DPS of bodyshots, and compared to other skills the reward is far higher and less situational than most other things you can learn. Seems like a double-win for the accuracy skill which shouldn't be there. Why shouldn't you be rewarded just as much for other skills, like using a less accurate weapon that requires more trigger discipline and can't be used as a chain-headshotter as much?

I'm not, I'm pointing out that since the successful games on your list have a long TTK as an important factor, that offering a hefty shortcut to that long TTK is a bad thing. One of the most awesome aspects of longer TTK's is that you need more knowledge of the weapons and environment to succeed because you can't just drop a few enemies in one go.

There is a relationship... But we also see that game developers seem unwilling to change something that actually needs changing. Having such a high headshot multiplier is a sin for games with longer TTK's because it makes all the extra skills you require to play redundant. You might as well go back to arena-style gameplay. I love to play Unreal Tournament for example, it's great gameplay. But when it comes to a game like PS2 that has longer TTK's the game should be about all the other skills that you need to succeed. PS2 is probably the game that needs this the most, because it has both COF and recoil simultaneously and a large variety of weapons available along with longer TTK's it would be perfect for the large variety of skills that you could learn. I would even say that removing the headshot multiplier altogether would be better for the game than keeping it. But even better than removing it altogether is finding the sweet spot where a headshot-oriented player is rewarded just as much for his skill as someone who learned to use a less accurate weapon.

It is not a false assumption. While the combination of the two is naturally more powerful, you'll gain far more from using an accurate headshot weapon than from the positioning skill. You can even see this in-game fairly easily.

It is not false. In real life different skills are rewarded differently because of what it gives us. But this is a game, and in the game we have control over how much you can reward something. As said previously we could make the headshot skill have even more value by increasing the headshot multiplier. How does 10x headshot multiplier sound? You might not have said so outright but according to you going for headshots is of more value than any other skill in the game. So why don't we reward it with a 10x headshot multiplier?
Why not a 100x multiplier? There's other games out there where a headshot is always a kill right?

But that's not the point, the point is to find a fun and balanced way to reward skill. There is no reason to reward headshots more... The only reason that comes to mind is "I'm good at it so I want to have it easier and be rewarded more than others who learned other skills".
Why should someone who learned a different skill be rewarded less? In fact, why should we keep a headshotmultiplier that obviously devalue's a large portion of the in-game weapons because they simply don't offer the same accuracy?

Why is my scenario flawed? Because you assume this is about newbies only? Why would it be about newbies only? I've always made a point about this being about every single player. It is about how headshots pay out far more reward than any other skill you can learn. There is no reason for this to be true in a game, and rewarding all skills as equally as possible should be one of the most important things we have in the game. Yes if possible I would want to see a way for dodging skills (without abusing the netcode) to be rewarded just as much as COF control or going for headshots. It should be the combination of all these skills that make you win a battle, not just the fact that you learned to pick the right weapon and go for headshots.

Already discussed in my reply to Demi above. The math error was mine and it was not apparent to me that you were comparing all bodyshots to all headshots.

Every soldier on the battlefield is not a shielded Heavy Assault. When I brought up the TTK of different shooters I quite specifically avoided abilities because I wanted to capture the average scenario a person playing either game might face. I brought up Ceramic Plate in comparison to NWA because they fulfill the same role and have the same availability. This is not the same as jumping straight to the worst case scenario and trying to use that as your baseline, which is 1) dishonest and 2) moving the goalposts.

Best to learn more before posting next time?

But overall, yeah. The 2x headshots on full auto weapons took a middle of the road skill ceiling and shot it upward. The vets bumping against that skill ceiling will massacre noobs coming in who struggle to body shot.

It might be too late in the game lifecycle to make this change. The people keeping the game afloat are the paying members and many of them have been around long enough to have a shot at that ceiling.

I'm a headshotting vet myself and I would be cool with reducing it to like 1.5x or something (don't remove altogether...kills fun). Others though are likely to up and quit over such a severe change.

The HA is the most played class in infantry combat. By a large margin. It's not a "worst case scenario", it's the mostly likely scenario you'll face.

I think most people are reasonable when it comes to changes. I also think that if something like this went to pts, the vast majority of players would actually do a little better with the system. I don't know about a 1.5 multiplier. 2.0 works great throughout the industry. It really is nanoweave and the HA shield that throw things out of whack.

Maybe something like 1.9x, nanoweave being nerfed to 15%, and the HA shield being replaced with the ability to run 3 suit slots. If everyone is landing as many headshots as they claim then no one should even miss that shield.

Only one of the games I mentioned has a TTK similar to Planetside. The other two are much lower, yet still successful. The point continues to be that there is no discernible relationship between TTK and success. For a more extreme example, see COD and HALO.

Unless you're talking about something else, there really isn't. Please see above. Only one of the games has a long TTK, the other two are quite short, yet all three are popular. If you see a relationship here between Popularity and Time-To-Kill please share it with the class.

This is opinion. That does not make it wrong, but it is also not fact. A counterpoint would be that game developers exist to make a profit, and therefore no stake in the 'status quo' design. Thus Occam's Razor suggests that if the issue were as significant as you suggest there would be no issue in making changes, as the community would push for it and the developers wouldn't have an issue with changing it.

You said aim made all other skills redundant. That is false, and you admit as much in the sentence immediately after telling me it isn't false. That it is weighted more heavily is a point I never contested. Positioning acts to supplement aim. When aim supplements position, you are no longer playing an arcade shooter, you are playing ARMA.

Equal in skill is not the same as equivalent in skill. Equal implies the same time investment, energy, resources, etc. invested in developing said skill. Equivalent means they achieve the same effect. A swordsman and a rifleman may be considered equally skilled if they have both been training for the same amount of time, but the only way they are going to be equivalent barring some extenuating circumstances is if the gunman is incredibly bad or the swordsman is a superhuman.

Quite the opposite actually, as I was the one to point out that the combination of skill was far more dangerous than any one individually. I only noted that as a first person shooter, the shooting part was allowed to have precedence over other skills. Not once here or anywhere on this forum have I suggested that other skills are useless. They are in fact critical.

Why have a bull's eye on targets when we can give you the same reward just for hitting the thing? Simple, it isn't fun. Can you imagine how boring it would be if all you had to do was hit the other guy anywhere? Fighting at a numerical disadvantage would be even more difficult.

My most used weapons are scout rifles, battle rifles, and sniper rifles. So unless you're figuring on breaking these weapon types altogether, I don't see how I would do anything but profit in your scenario.

Why did that someone only learn that one skill and nothing else? Skills aren't developed in isolation. As a rebuttal I'd like to point out that a reduced or removed HSM will not just devalue, but invalidate a significant portion of the guns in this game.

No idea.

90% of the time when this topic arises (as it does like clockwork) the 'new player experience' is the casus belli. Your position notwithstanding, it is still what most readers will be thinking.

If it isn't a new player, it's a player that knows what they are doing. If they know what they are doing, they know to aim for the head. If they ambush someone, then knowing what they are doing as they do, and aiming for the head as they should, there should be no way for their victim to turn the tables on them unless they mess up. That is how skills combine to win you the battle. A new player at least as lack of skill / lack of experience as an excuse.

If it makes up less than half of a given server population then no it isn't. If you can offer proof to the contrary be my guest and I'll concede the point, but the stats here for any given server suggest that I am correct.

As for the Heavy Assault in particular I just don't see them as the problem you do. The jetpack and the cloak are both superior since they let you define the engagement.

As for NWA as I have suggested before at least once I would have liked to see them add a modifier that uses the same slot that instead increases weapon damage by the same % that NWA increases protection by, forcing you to choose between offense and defense. Which would basically fix it as a soft-counter to 200-dmg weapons that it currently is.

- Using your data, we can agree the industry standard is a 1.6 to 2x multiplier. One game offers a 20% resistance as an outlier, while that 20% is basically universal in PS2. Our most used class bringax the headshot multiplier to over 3x. You have to admit that PS2 goes well above and beyond anything else. And I wouldn't have a problem with that except for the fact this game is dying and has abysmal new player retention. There isn't much else to say on that.

- +20% damage would be a huge mistake. Enough people already claim the HA shield doesn't matter because headshots. If body shots don't matter, then why would someone ever choose a 20% resistance over 20% damage? They wouldn't. Just as nanoweave is the only real option, +20% damage would become the new default choice for every class.