The Big Bad Pistol Thread

sorry about that, i was mainly refrencing this for the AMP (the red line) but the others (clumped together) include the Repeater, the inquisitor, the emperor, and the 2 NS revolvers

We know what you are talking about. No one is disagreeing with the fact as they are based in reality. But a computer is dumb as dumb can get. It only knows one thing: Whether a switch is on or off. Nothing else.

But this is a game. A computer game, so numbers have to be present. They don't have to represent energy transfer, they represent points. As in Hit Points as they were commonly called in the 80s (derived from D&D and other games). Think about it like Dodgeball. You have 1hp, the ball does 1pt of damage. When your hit, your out.

Of course the ball doesn't hit hard enough to knock you down or anything. You could probably take a 100 hits no issue. But that's not the rule of the game.

The rule of the game of PS2 is a pistol shot does 450 to infantry. A AA round does 300ish damage. Does it make sense? No. Not really. But we accept it because its the rule of the game. A very complex game with a ton of rules, many if not all we don't even worry about and let the computer handle the scoring on.

Another good analagy is Football (the American version) You have the quarterback who knows the rules of the game as far as passing, running, pitching, and so on. He doesn't need to know the particulars of the kicker. Both of which can score points. He needs to know how a kicker functions only in the aspect to get him into a favorable position if a first down seems hard to attain. But no one is going to compare a Quarterback and a Kicker side by side.

Same reason you wouldn't compare a Pistol next to a Skyguard or Walker.

As for simulating warfare... PS2 does that about as much as American Football does (which is also why the first Final Fantasy devs decided to mimic football to simulate combat on the NES). It looks more like it because of the guns and vehicles look like warmachines compared to unarmed pad wearing athletes.

To change that now would be to just scrap it and make Planetside 3. Which is a pipedream and sort of pointless to wish for. I say sort of because they can mimic more aspects of warfare. But actually simulating it isn't going to be possible.

And trust me, you don't want to simulate warfare too much. There's a reason soldiers are paid salaries and not by the hour. And that whole 'hurry up and wait' even when you're actually out and about doing something, is boring.

lmao you always try so hard and I never read any of it. Stopped here.

I don't expect nor do I think weapons should scale realistically.

I asked for what 40mm weapon in game does less damage than commie which does 40% damage direct hit to the chest.

Any I can think of is 2HK.

amd also, AV weapons are often given lower damage because they'd often be stupidly good if not.

Saron and Enforcer used to OHK when they first changed them to mutli round magazines, and they were hilariously broken.

You know those "pistols" are really just stockless carbines. You can thank the 1934 NFA for the nonsense...

Anyway, I do agree that empire specific pistols need a slight bump to be put on par with the NS weapons. NS weapons are supposed to be inferior weapons making use of all empire traits with that also being the reason they're ever so slightly worse at everything.

I love my mag-scatter, but man oh man could it use just 1 more round.

Its actually not much longer than the two .44 Mag's that I have. Weighs less too. Though I use a 20rnd magazine instead of a 30rnd (which I have 2 of, and keep with my AR15).

They could at least try to have the damage hierarchy in tje right order. Small gun < big gun < bigger gun. Whhat numbers to throw in is a different matter. Appearance and description should match performance. Kobalt has the damage of lmg but looks way more powerful. It could be raised 1 damage tier. I think that would in every way be more fun. Do the same for basilisk. Currently it hits as hard as a battle rifle. :L

The reason AV weapons with proper damage would be OP is because weapon lethality is overall so much down scaled from real life. What would be overkill (rocket) is proper kill and what would be proper kill is underkill (AR bullets).

Bur devs could simply not give weapons the wrong appearance and description to begin with. Cant have proper light tank cannon (viper)? Make it a low caliber auto cannon in looks and name.

Btw your post is a tier above most others here.

I used to have one of the AR pistols, I got rid of it for a ruger SRH 454 casull. They're too much of a novelty to me, and even with decent ear protection a 7.5" barrel with a 5.56 is just too loud. Anyway better not get off on that track, the armory has taken over almost every room in the house rofl.

[quote="Taemien, post: 3303983, member: 103700"]I'd have to agree that the ES pistols do lack some punch that the NS ones have. And they don't really give anything in return other than suppressor compatibility.

But I like that the NS pistols are revolvers. I really do and like the others have said.. don't nerf them. Just give the ES ones their own niche as Semi-autos (minus the repeater of course).[/quote]


yes, except for the repeater and the amp nearly all sidearms have more damage per mag than the revolvers but those two TR weapons can compete in ttk with the revolvers. and thanks to the fact that these weapons have more dpm means they are more spamable while you have to have a lot more patience and are not allowed to miss shots. also the ES sidearms have a lot less recoil and are a lot easyer to handle than the revolvers.
dont get me wrong a stalker with commie can be a beast (done it myself often enough) but i also had some good runs with my suppressed beamer or my beloved crossbows. yes, 99% of all people seem to prefer the revolvers over the es sidearms but there are also so many people out there that managed to miss all 6 shots on my while i killed them with my beamer because the beamer (and other es siderarms) with lasersight on it is extremely accurate out of the hip and thanks to the spamability a few missed shots dont hurt (pun intended).

Beamer and Repeater are in pretty decent shape. I don't think many would argue that. But Rebel, Magshot, Emperor, Inquisitor, Cerberus, and Manticore... not so much.

I'd wager this is due to DPM not being much of a factor in sidearm usage. Well outside the stalker infiltrator. And to be honest I really can't think of a time when I drew the sidearm and was bested because I had to reload.. reloading just simply wasn't an issue. Either the threat was dealt with, or I'm at a respawn screen.

I don't think others have had much different situations. But its a delicate balance act. What can be done to bring the aforementioned sidearms up to par with the well performing ones?

Kobalt and Bassie and dedicated AI weapons could use some minor buffing, I will agree to that.

Viper is perfectly fine as is... honestly when it was a 6 round OHK it was OP. I'd give it some more splash however, but I agree with the direct hit nerf on it. I don't think they need to make the weapon look smaller either, seeing as it's already a pretty small barrel on the tank.

EVERY pistol should be nerfed . I mean BIG NERF . To the people out there that hate realism in a game ..go play FANTASY not SCIENCE FICTION . People who play SCIENCE FICTION expect there to be some SCIENCE there .

Planetside 2 failure list
Planes that are hit with Tank rounds flying away
Unlimited ammo , wire guided , high velocity , long range Engy AV turrents
Every Airship HOVERS .
Pitiful AA I mean absolutely pitiful
NO BALANCE between the factions
Solider carriers that out damage TANKS LOL
Dunebuggies that jump off cliffs and survive
PISTOLS THAT OUT DAMAGE LONG GUNS !!!!!!
etc.
etc.
etc.

Not suggesting they remake models, was just a note when designing a game. Looks like cannon, shoots rifle bullets.

Well, like I said, needs splash.

Also, when designed, it DID OHK... it was changed after the fact for balance.

But some pistols in real life out damage long guns

Yeh if a buy I Thompson Encore with a 30.06 barrel then yes it will out damage a .223 M16 ....for one shot with a massive reload time and over shorter distances . You can make a 50 BMG pistol but if it don't have long enough barrel it will never reach true 50 BMG power .
During Vietnam some U.S. soliders did carry privately owned firearms so there is a history of exotic firearms in modern day battle . The commonly carried sidearms of the more elite branches of our military like the 9mm or 45acp in no way compares to the power of a .223 . The common solider doesn't even carry a sidearm now .
When SWAT breaches do they carry S&W 629s or AR and Shotgun type weapons ? Large caliber high power cartridges like 44mags are extreme recoil makers they don't have the weight to dampen recoil making follow up shots difficult where as AR actually have a better TTK

Believe it or not a revolver can fire more rounds than a AR in the same amount of time . But to hit the target it has to be a customized , small caliber gun with a highly skilled ( as in the best in the world ) doing the job .

The funny thing is... 5.56 has more muzzle energy than a 44 magnum, and by a fair margin.

Rifles are rifles and handguns are handguns.

Well you aren't going to get tread hits with an APS in place... all enemy munitions will be disabled before they can do damage to any part of the tank, including the treads.

Heavy Kornet ATGMs, advanced RPG-29s, these were all used against the Israeli Merkava IVs equipped with the Trophy APS. How many made it through?

Zilch. Nada. Not one. Out of the 15 projectiles that Trophy decided to intercept, all 15 were destroyed with no damage whatsoever to the tank. That's 100% effectiveness against all sorts of infantry-carried AT weapons, many of the best and most advanced out there.

Not only that, but Trophy (and equivalent Russian systems) allow for "slew to cue", which is essentially an aimbot for tanks. You light up a tank with any targeting system that it can detect, and you're likely to be exploded in short order.

We need that sort of upgrades for tanks in PS2. To actually make them tanky and immune to all but the most concentrated of infantry AV fire.

Well then I'm arguing for a change of the rules, which are arbitrary in the first place. Base damage off of what they should be.

And from a gameplay mechanic, there is a strong need to greatly increase the lethality and utility of vehicles.
In competitive play, tanks account for less than a single percent of all kills.
In regular play, all tanks account for less kills than 3 LMGs.

There is something greatly wrong with tanks, when the Orion, Gauss SAW, and CARV get more kills than HE, HEAT, AP cannons for all three MBTs, the HE, HEAT, AP, Viper, and Skyguard cannons for all Lightnings, and even all of the MBT secondaries!

Having Skyguard cannon fire able to OHK would greatly increase the lethality of vehicles, making them both more popular and more useful. Ideally, tank lethality should be buffed to the point where it can account for at least 30% of all kills.

Like I said, I'm quite reasonable. A 90% damage nerf to all vehicle-mounted weapons would be fine.

Apart from that, a 40mm Skyguard cannon does 200 damage per hit against infantry. Since most infantry have 500/500 shields and HP, that would be a 5HK, not a 2HK.

Ideally I believe that if a 12.7mm sniper rifle bullet can be a OHK, then so too should a 40mm shell (and then some).

And that's all that really needs to be said about that.

Didn't realize Skyguard was 40mm, but then, it's also got the RoF and magazine size that it would be an absolute terror @ 2hk, let alone 1, with even a slight incline slope to use to aim lower.

I've said before and will again that I believe AI focused vehicle mounted weapons need some buffs. Nothing major, but some definite improvements are warranted for them.

If one is going to give up that much AV power for increased AI power, and in the process make themselves more of a target to AV specced enemy vehicles, then they should get an appropriate gain of AI killing power.

That said, I definitely don't think they even need to be as effective as you'd make AV weapons for killing infantry.

For many of them, I'd increase non-lethal splash and splash min damages to be more consistently threatening (without mega uber EZ mode farming OHK splash)

In fact, in general that's what I'd do, exceptions being bullet AI weaponry which I'd just increase min damage and perhaps acc.

The funny thing about your suggestion is that while extreme, it isn't enough to fix vehicles. You could make it so that the Skyguard gibs all infantry in LOS within a 120 degree cone for 800 meters per shot. And it still wouldn't be used in competitive play. Well in some cases it might. But it'd still be useless for the majority of fights, especially in organized play.

The issue is and always will be the role of vehicles.

This is what I would do and you've seen me post this before, but for those who haven't seen it:

A Base Overhaul.. or at least a base asset overhaul. The idea is to make walls, ceilings, floors, bridges, tunnels, obstructions, ledges, small buildings, alcoves, and so on be able to take damage and be destructible. Doing so allows for friendly infantry an easier way to objectives or denies defenders easy access to certain areas. Make these assets have high resistance to infantry based explosives, practically requiring vehicles to destroy them. Of course destroying such assets isn't required, but makes things alot easier. Engineers can repair such assets, but the repairable section puts them at risk of being killed, requiring protection to repair.

Unnerf HE and HEAT. Allow HEAT to do its max splash to 2.0m. Allow HE to do its max splash to 2.5m and swap its Direct hit damage with its max indirect (what this does is increases its lethality out to 3ish meters, depending on MBT with Vanguard having largest and Prowler having smallest, while nerfing its ability to damage vehicles).

Open up some of the windows and now we have a reason for organized play to use ground vehicles. And that's about as far as I want to go in a pistol thread