Why does the time need to be reduced? Why should capabilities of a weapon be reduced because its victims don't have the sense to take cover, or the victims were distracted by another weapon?
Will need to monitor, but only to make sure the weapon is performing as the physics would expect. BIG difference from how well it performing in game. Its a huge difference, and not redundant, because my method doesn't "balance" weapons. It sets down a specific performance expectation. How that translates into game is the players' responsibility. I am directly addressing the value of nerfs and buffs. They are horrible as a concept, and they have trained the community to expect that anything that is being used well will be weakened. I said nerfs and buffs were bad, stated why, and then offered a solution. How do you define "Outright Too Good"? What if the weapon's victims were complete lemmings? Is the weapon too good, or the victims too bad? How do you adjust the weapon? How do you adjust the player? The object of games is to produce imbalance to the extent that victory is gained. In the end, the victorious team does this. My system would not be skewed by the players producing conditions of victory (wielding their weapons more effectively thus gaining a nerf), but would instead be instruments that do not respond to lamentation (lamentation being what a nerf/buff culture encourages). Nerf/buff = bad Players accepting when things go wrong without blaming everything they see = good
Cause else it would become a very strong CQC with superior mid-range capabilities. Common sense really.
So one weapon being an airsoft rifle and another being a real rifle, is no problem because they both operate according to the same law of physics? What you have said is "I basically don't care if X works better than Y, provided that both are subject to the same laws of physics." This is not a solution. This is willfully ignoring an unbalanced game, to the detriment of gameplay. That is not a solution... That's just imposing a system and then throwing your hands in the air saying "Blame the system, guys... Not my problem." Statistical analysis of weapon performance in gameplay from a suitably wide sample of players. Lets remember that SOE records kill data for literally every player on every server, and can see weapons which objectively and statisically operate better than others. The data sample here is 100% of the player-base. Fictional example for you. Imagine these statistics are gathered from a sample of 100% of the player-base. - The statistics gathered from gameplay show that 99% of TR players use weapon X nearly constantly. - The statistics show that while using weapon X, TR players achieve (on average) 30% more kills per minute than when using any other TR weapon. - The statistics show that TR players achieve (on average) 30% more kills per minute while using weapon X than any NC or VS player obtains (on average) with any VS or NC weapon. What would these statistics tell the (neutral and non-partisan) observer? Are you seriously suggesting that in this (fictional and admittedly very extreme) example, the problem is that NC and VS players are simply worse than TR players? Because if that is what you're suggesting, then I doubt your capacity for reason.
Yeah, it is no problem. However, I wouldn't model an airsoft. Perhaps NATO ammo for TR, unconventional high caliber ammo for NC, Vanu some sort of laser technology. You're right, its not a solution. It is a beginning. It is the players' job to find the solution in game. Not blame the system. Correct that it isn't my problem. The players got beat. No shame; pick up, dust off, and carry on. Too many variables to measure a weapon's abilities by its performance. A method to measure something specific that is affected by an uncountable number of variables doesn't work. -Wow, TR really like the gun. I have no interest in taking away their fun. -30% more in what context? What was the victim Time On Mission? What was the number of distractions to victim from each angle in every time reference and what level of compounding factors are weighed before the decision is made? You can't discount player abilities when looking at weapon performance. In an asymmetrical gaming environment, the number of variables is massive. There is only one way to gain true balance. Rely on the players to step up and tip balance the old fashioned way: with in-game efforts, not in-forum lobbying.
Nerfing one weapon buffs another indirectly. You "anti-nerf" people seem to think that nerfs happen in a vacuum, and have no impact on anything else.
Ignore all the posts, Drag0. All these people's opinions mean squat. All you know is how "you" feel. And I agree with you 100%. After spending a bit of money and saved up certs, on items that USED TO BE GOOD(until they were nerfed), it really makes one lose interest. It's happened to me a few times now.
We should all just be limited to knives There should actually be knife-only alerts imho Knives and smoke launchers
If you truly believe that statistical analysis from a sample size of 100% of the game's population, which records every kill, every death, kills per minute per user, filterable according to battle-rank, comparable to previous performance for each individual user, even giving the exact number of times a weapon was fired, where it was fired and when... If you believe that is is impossible to statisically determine whether a weapon is over or underperforming on the terms of certain chosen metrics is impossible... Then you are making an extremely foolish assertation. As such, it is completely pointless for me to discuss this with you any further. I agree that forum whining is not helpful in the balancing process... But if you want to also discount the incredible wealth (hell, they even managed to make a heat map for sunderer horn use from their API data) of statistics available to the balance team, then there is no point in discussing this any further with you. If the proof of the pudding (read: weapon balance) is in the eating (read: gameplay), then SOE has access to a real-time feed of the entire digestive tract of everyone that ever ate, and has plenty of data to make sure that hungry-person A's food is of equal nourishing value as hungry person B's. However, I would happily discuss vbalance with someone who is more capable of reason. Edit: Just to address this point; You cannot discount player ability in small sample sizes... However in larger sample sizes (particularly when you can track what happens when the same players use different gear, or different faction's gear), you can make the assumption that there is no discernable difference in overall ability between the factions. In short,... If you have a sample size of one, then yes player ability matters... In a sample size of literally freakin' everyone, then there will be no statistically significant variance.
You seem to be thinking that the laws of physics and reality have any impact over how a video game is designed and balanced (at least one that isn't a simulator). Games are balanced so that they are on the line of enjoyable-but-challenging for the largest number of players. Anything above that line is brought down to it, and anything below the line boosted up. If I understand your logic correctly, Mario shouldn't be able to jump over a Goomba unless he had those stupid spring/rocket shoes from the movie.
And that's why nerfs are bad. Nerfs create a belief that the lowest common denominator defines the game's personality.
