My first feeling I had long ago when I first put underbarrel grenade launcher on S weapon was where is that f***ing key to fire it? Second was why is it taking so long, then something about piss-like trajectory and effect being just small firecracker. Those last two are kinda typical Planetside characteristics, but let's have a look at first two. So why does it take an extra button to actually equip the attachment and it takes as long as changing weapons? What is the point of underbarrel shotgun if you can't use it the moment you need? In some other games, these things are secondary firemode of the gun and can be used like quick-knife in PS2. Okay, if the effect was instant, everybody would just run with shotgun on long-range weapon, I get that. But why is the attachment behaving like a new weapon and is not listed on mouse scroll weapon menu? I don't know what you guys use to change weapons quickly, but for me it's mouse wheel and if the attachment is not listed there, I can't use it effectively. I suggest that the attachment should create a weapon in menu, on second position (before pistol) and with equip time same as pistol or lower. Or alternative, attachment creates a new firemode for primary gun - full-auto/burst/single/attachment. Both options require switch, but it is rather quick and there is no need for an extra button. Character just has to move one hand to other trigger and can change view on secondary sights if there are any.
I say we add a ton of class-specific underbarrel attachments to many weapons and put all attachments on a hotkey. Also the use of the hotkey shouldn't interrupt anything you are doing. So you could potentially fire an underbarrel shotgun without ever having to let go of the trigger. If your COF likes it is another question though... Let's say you equip an underbarrel shotgun. You get into a fight, you do the dance and get close to your opponent. Hotkey for a shotgun blast and you got a kill! Press the hotkey again to reload. Ofcourse this underbarrel shotgun would be way less powerful than the current underbarrel shotgun, as it would be too OP as it is right now. Or you add an underbarrel grenade launcher. You get into a fight, your enemy jumps behind cover, you aim a bit higher, press a hotkey and now your AOE grenade will try to flush out your opponent by either finishing him or forcing him to re-engage you. You a medic? There's a guy at the other end of the room who needs a revive? Use an underbarrel revive/heal dart! Hit a dead ally and you'll revive him, hit a living one and he gets a temporary heal that will work for say 5 seconds regardless of full health or damage received. Need a nice alpha-damage shot or a finishing shot? Equip an underbarrel slug-launcher! Need to attract some vehicle attention or damage a lightly-armored vehicle? Use an underbarrel micro-rocket launcher to fire a single rocket into them! Little damage against heavy armored targets, but great against things like MAX's, Harassers and Flashes. Just don't expect to solo anything with that fire rate, it's just an extra. Want to have quicker reloads? Use an underbarrel clip-holder that cuts down your reload time if you use that clip to reload. Great for skirmishers or sustainability in a fight. If it's too good, for instance because grabbing a pistol is now slower than reloading, you can make it a half-clip that reloads only half your ammo. Tired of the long time between using a quick-knife and putting your weapon away? Use a Bayonet! You can simultaneously stab and shoot your opponent! Since you'll be stabbing there's a lot smaller area on your screen where it's a hit ofcourse, but it could have a bit more range and perhaps less damage per stab for balance reasons. Need to simultaneously damage an confuse a small group of people? Use the flame-thrower! It doesn't actually throw flames but it does launch a cone-shaped explosion in front of the player, which immediately afterwards creates a thick amount of smoke to obscure your targets vision and make it tough for him to retaliate. There's ofcourse a ton more you could think off. These underbarrel attachments could also enhance the special abilities of classes or help set classes apart with a few special underbarrel attachments. Ofcourse many of these attachments would need to be more omniversally available on more weapons so that they can actually be useful outside of the S-version weapons. Perhaps you could do it like this: S-version weapons have access to the heaviest and most useful underbarrel attachments, most other weapons get access to lighter attachments and a bunch of weapons don't get access at all.
people have muscle memory to automatically switch to things like pistol etc when they need them, if UBattachments nudged things further down the scroll menu then it would throw off muscle memory, for example: you run out of ammo with your warden and an enemy is upon you in cqc, your instincts kick in and your fingers automatically go to switch to your pistol as they've done a thousand times, but alas, you've just switched to the UBGL of your warden, you die. IMHO it is best that underbarrel options be kept on the "firemode" key where they currently are.
Your under-barrel ideas are fine. What I don't agree with is your little animation about COF. Real guns absolutely have a COF, it's called accuracy. I've spent a little money on my bolt action and with hand loads I can easily shoot about 3/4 MOA. A better shooter could probably keep that under 1/2. If I'm standing, my shots would probably be within about 8 MOA, and if I'm walking at a brisk pace I'd more than likely triple that. At 1,000 yards, the best my rifle can do is put a bullet somewhere within a 6" circle, and where it lands within that circle is completely random. Not saying I can do that, but that's it's maximum potential in laboratory conditions. That's exactly what happens in this game, and exactly what a COF is.
I think he meant it differently. Currently you have to switch to it by pressing the same button twice. He wants to have it with a simple hotkey similar to knifing. Besides that, so what if someone's muscle-memory is temporarily thrown in chaos? Learning to cope with changing stuff is also part of the game for me.
I don't think the underbarrel attachments are confusing, u just press 1 again to access them, and if the bothers u, go to the keybinding and change the assigned key. How else are you supposed to use them. The problem is not the attachments themselves, IT'S THE FACT THERE ARE ONLY A FEW WEAPONS THAT HAVE ACCESS TO THEM, AND THEY ARE ALL WORSE VERSIONS OF THE DEFAULTS!!! Sure, u have an underbarrel shotgun or grenade launcher that might come in handy once in a while, but the primary weapons is a piece of $h^t that costs 1000 certs. For the VS, the default weapons are awesome, so even when they are worsened, they still perform ok. The track5S for TR is a poop shooter, that cost 1000 certs, like the trackshot, u need to go to a special needs server if u like the weapon or think its good. Just because the weapon has an underbarrel atachement does not mean its good. Ir u don't want to be creative, then just take the default weapon and buff it to make it a little better and actually worth the 1000 certs you have to pay if you want to get it so you can pay another 100 certs for the underbarrel attachment.
Its not about confusement but ease-of-use. Underbarrel attatchments should be easily accessible snd useable. Currently you have to switch to the attatchment before a fight or not use it at all. Well you could duck behind cover to switch but its not exactly a nice situation. Attatchments should be useable on a whim. Even just a quicker switch time would be good. But it would be better if it was as quickly useable as a quick-knife. Imagine if that knife had to be switched to like an attachment... A hotkey would simply be nice and Spice up how these can be used.
If you made things as accurate as RL no one would hit a dam thing. The difficulty measure of firing a sniper rifle is beyond any 15yo comprehension. Hence the reason why real snipers undergo rigorous training. Under barrel attachments in this game are worthless and should be removed. All attachments should be OHK because of reload speed and accuracy should they stay in game.
To the attachment discussion: that's it, you have to rebind an extra button closer to the group you are already using, and yes, that is already a problem to find a fitting button for it. The when you press it, you have to wait for the character to 'change weapon'. That's what I meant. I just want the attachment to be more accessible. Firing mode is much quicker to change. And no, I meant no instant effect @Demigan. I understand that if there was a key for shotgun like it is for knife, I would just run with shotgun on battlerifle all the time. The other reason why I was thinking about this is that these attachments are present on directive carbines and also there is a discussion about medic directive rifle with UB revive grenade/darts. Then it would definitely be handy for users to have a quick access to the attachment. To the discussion of my signature and accuracy: true, weapons have some inaccuracies. But not any close to what is in PS2, consider the ranges. My friend's AKM is laser precise on 70m, now in PS2 you get a Marksman ribbon for kill at that range. 70m is no distance in real life, even shotguns are effective on longer range than that. @adamts01 if you talk about your MOA with your weapon, you have two inaccuracies there. First is the gun, which is minimal compared to second, your way of aiming. Put it into clamps to hold it tight and fire few shots. You'll see the gun itself is very accurate. At least it should be, if it's not a rusty Mosin made during war and dug from ground 20 years after WW2 end. Now let's not talk about bolt-action, but carbines. Carbine, especially TRAC5 in PS2 has minimal recoil, your sights are pretty much just vibrating on one place, but the bullets go all around your red dot. That feels like shooting very small caliber from rubber tube. Shooting a burst from AKM means you hit the first bullet and the recoil makes pretty much loose your contact with target, but second bullet still travels where the gun aims with it's little inaccuracy. PS2 has very little in common with real life, but still I would be happier if the bullet traveled where the gun is pointing and whole gun should be moving by recoil. Have a look at Red Orchestra 2, or Insurgency (though Insurgency got a lot more 12yo compatible than it originally was, including the recoil). Rounds from battlerifles and scout rifles like Vandal are kinda behaving the way I described. The gun itself is accurate, but it has recoil to prevent you from landing another shot on exact same spot. Yeah, the recoil is ridiculously small, mechanic that sets your sights back is a **** and the bullet doesn't kill, but that's just planetside.
Like I said, the underbarrel attachments would need rebalancing. But they still wouldn't overpower other attachments like laser sight, especially if the shotgun has a far larger pelletspread and is really just something to finish or start a fight. Is it laser accurate when you are walking and using continuous fire? PS2 is for a large part an arcadey game. You can run for miles with full gear on and still be as accurate as you were before you started running. You can walk backwards up a stairs and fire a continuous stream of bullets at an enemy without accuracy loss. You can actually hit people with more than 1 out of 100 bullets if you discount suppressive fire (it's more around 250.000 bullets to kill a single soldier during the Afghanistan war, try that with your 30 bullets per magazine eh?). So what you see in the game could be an accurate representation of the future of warfare. In RL your accuracy on the gunrange matters relatively little, your psychology does. Of the entire army roster across the world an estimate of only 2% will fire to kill. 1% is sociopaths/psychopaths who joined the army and the other 1% is people who had a ton of responsibility for family or other people, those last people kill because they love their army brethren so much and will do anything to keep them safe and alive, even murder other people. In PS2 however everyone gets killed and the people they kill simply return to the battlefield. Their bodies are build up from the ground and have gotten a few modifications so they have the strength and stamina to keep running for almost indefinitely and be more accurate while running&gunning. When you run&gun or ADS and fire what you see is a representation of the recoil and the ability of the PS2 character to keep their enemy position known to themselves. While your weapon might seem to still look straight at your enemies head, it's actually just a representation of where your character thinks he's aiming while the actual crosshair is somewhere else. Keep in mind that you'll usually be walking and doing continuous fire on your enemy while likely getting shot at and hit yourself, so he might not have the crosshair right in front of him anymore, offering the COF that you see. Add to that the fact that almost every single soldier will be a psychological mess after murdering, dying and rebirthing so many times that everything you see on your screen has to be nothing more than a representation of what you see. The game could even have a large distance and time compression build-in, or did you really think that continents were only 6 by 6 km and day and night really only last for an hour or so?
The weapon is always accurate. It's me getting shaked by recoil and therefore aiming all around. But the bullet always travels on the trajectory given by position and angle of barrel in the moment when bullet goes out. With it's small inaccuracy given by non-ideal characteristics of real life. Yes, it is. And there are games that have many aspects of what you listed simulated somehow. No I won't get PS2 realistic, that's unthinkable (starting with 4x4 km continent). But back in time I made that image in my signature, I wanted to get a bit closer. This feels like repeating myself... In the end, I spent some time using AMR, which is the weapon that actually shoots to the middle of crosshair and has recoil working. Since it's single shot, the second shot will also go (almost) to the center of crosshair, not where the game decides with it's RNGeesus.
I kinda was hoping they'd get rid of quick-knifing when they introduced proper knife weilding, but that's just me, and an aside unrelated to the rest of the thread.
So let's assume that the COF is based on how well you can hold your weapon. If you can't look straight through your crosshair/scope you might be thinking that you are going to hit, but your actual bullet will fly off-target. Also the game barely simulates the weapon's sway and bob while walking and ADS, so if you add both together you could say that the COF is just a representation of the amount of recoil you experience, while the recoil that is seen allows the game to simulate recoil and offers the players the chance to do both recoil control and trigger-discipline for COF control at the same time. All in all PS2 COF+recoil is actually one of the better choices considering the gameplay. Just like the lack of COF and recoil (for most weapons) in the Unreal Tournament series is pretty perfect for the fast-paced gameplay it represents. PS2 combines the skillful requirements for both recoil and COF control into one package. UT lets the players do high-speed gunplay without having to bother with having to control either, allowing for full jumpy-runny-floaty run&gun gameplay. I think that chance calculation is a massive part of combat, especially in real-life. There's a reason why most battles will end with around 10% of one side dying when they lose, but 90% surviving. Even in uneven battles the combattants themselves will alter their behaviour based on this, even though the soldiers themselves don't keep direct score. The same for shooting someone else, you want to be certain that you kill them and not they you. So you aren't going to wait around until you've dialed in the shot perfectly because there's a chance your enemy is faster or there's another enemy going for you. Using COF to partially simulate that is fine with me. But keeping the game from getting to real is also fine. Imagine how tough a stairway fight is if your aim would be constantly jarred by a 'recoil' coming from stepping up the stairs, or if your entire body would jaw left or right when a few bullets slam into your armor there. It would simply not be fair or playable.
