What About Battle Rifles?

Just needs a damage tune up to most of the people I work with.

A friendly reminder to everyone to review the weapon mechanics of PS2: http://ps2guides.besaba.com/mechanics

And, my earlier post in the thread on the same subject discussed below: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...bout-battle-rifles.229910/page-3#post-3233641

Your opening statement is absolutely true, BRs are unforgiving, but you strike at completely the wrong reasons.

Recoil angle is distracting from the main issue.
While annoying, yes, one compensates for it the exact same way one compensates for vertical recoil except tilted, that is, fairly easily after a very small amount of conditioning. Don't get me wrong, it'd be great if it was removed too, because it's annoying, but it's not as important as CoF, which CANNOT be conditioned for easily because the feedback mechanisms are hidden and the timing is different for all weapons.

The bigger reason why they can't hit anything is, by far, their massive CoF, CoF bloom, and the need to wait a whole firetime cycle before CoF starts to reset.
High CoF / bloom is the culprit behind 50% of all "I unloaded a magazine right into his back and only hit him a few times" complaints at any range beyond 20 meters, the other 49% is because of the lack of understanding that one inherits maximum ADS spread coming directly out of sprinting.

The simple fact that it was buffed in the past doesn't matter, because the buff was far too insufficient for the nature of the problem related to that cursed mechanic. The BRs still have more CoF / bloom (and lower RPM, as mentioned earlier the need to wait before bloom begins to reset) than the majority of weapons the relevant classes can use.

No, CoF is the fundamnetal issue which makes BRs inferior. Recoil angle is next to nothing compared to this.
CoF mechanics are both far less visible and at the same time much more influential than most people think.

Now, what you suggest by increasing the maximum damage is removing the essential nature of the BR and replacing it with a scout rifle. Which would be fine, I wouldn't mind seeing a scout rifle clone in the BR category.

But it would be taking away the potential of this untapped damage / rate of fire model.

You successfully suggest: A scout rifle clone at 334 damage for non-infiltrators

I propose: A weapon that can output a respectable volume of fire with competent accuracy at ranges past 30 meters, retaining the nature of the BR while filling a virgin niche in PlanetSide 2's arsenal.

I would personally love a bolt action battle rifle for the classes besides the infiltrator, would feel like a rifleman from a later era.

I disagree with the first sentence entirely. I've used all of the BRs extensively, and the eidolon is by far and away the best. Why? Because it is the only one with a stat better than the other two. No bullet drop makes this weapon laser-beam accurate (literally). The loss of 30m/s is miniscule compared to the effective increase in accuracy.

The recoil and refire time on these is too heavy and too long respectively. HVA ruins the weapons even further. I do vastly better taking HVA off as it is a tiny buff to MV for a noticeable increase in Recoil. LowRecoil> High MV for ranged accuracy 99% of the time.

I love this weapon class. But I have no difficulty matching their performance with guns like the Ursa and Corvus, as well as the Tross/Reaper DMR. I recently bought semi-auto scouts for infiltrator, and find them to be essentially a flat upgrade to these if you are looking for a midrange semi-auto rifle play-style.

My advice for changes: pair with LA jetpacks for flanking synergy, without buffing BRs.
OR:
Reduce recoil and make follow up shots more accurate. MV might could use a slight increase, but the Eidolon needs bullet drop as long as these weapons have the same characteristics otherwise. It is not fair to give the VS a BR that -gets- a faction specific benefit trait, while both other BRs do not get any benefit from their factions traits.

Unless we gave the NC a 333 damage per shot Maximum, but a 15 round magazine, and gave the TR a 24 round magazine and a 2 round burst mode (which would incorporate the recent burst fire changes from the T1B cycler). the Eidolon does not need to get no bullet drop. If we -did- do those changes, give the eidolon a 0.25 second faster reload and if we're feeling generous, 0.75x ADS movement speed as well. That would make 3 unique rifles for all 3 factions, with faction benefits.

Again, the current Eidolon should not have it's faction specific trait unless the other faction BRs get a faction trait bonus as well. (I.e. Damage output per shot for NC, and TR larger magazine)

While I agree that HVA is a useless attachment, and would totally like to give the BRs to LAs, you're wrong on the why as to BRs being inaccurate. Rather, in my experience it is because of their high bloom and CoF. I was able to control recoil perfectly and get rounds off almost dead on in a quick manner, but the bullets simply didn't hit because they went wide due to this mechanic.

CoF is hidden, and recoil is a lot more apparent and its feedback mechanisms are visible, so, I can understand why you'd suggest that.
And, I'm partially being an idiot with my statements above.
If, in your experience, you have a hard time with getting the crosshair on for follow-up shots, a recoil reduction might be a better buff for you, but I think you'll find that you still won't hit people at all with the increased volume of fire you'd be outputting. Because of CoF.

I forgot to mention the terrible COF/bloom issue. Not that I wasn't aware of it, I just wrote this rather early this morning... Thanks for bringing it up. If they added it to LA, even in present form, I would be overjoyed.

But the weapon class desperately needs some TLC.

I have to disagree with these suggestions.

Removing horizontal recoil and raising max damage are not solutions to the problems of BRs, they're only band-aid fixes. They'll turn BRs into mock full-auto rifles which have to be spammed to work (mouse macro ftw). But if you try to use them like a true DMR (i.e. let them settle after each shot), they'll still perform badly.

If we really want to make BRs work DMR style, we'll have to get rid of the BRs underlying problem that is...

...the LACK of INFANTRY INERTIA in Planetside 2!

Just ask yourself, why are BASRs so powerful while semi-auto rifles are lackluster at best (sniper rifles) and just plain bad at worst (BRs)?

The short answer is that you don't need follow-up shots with BASRs. You hit the target and it goes down, but hit the target with a semi-auto rifle and it'll start to dance around. And at that point - no matter how godlike your aim is, no matter how accurate your rifle is - you are going to miss shots randomly.

No amount of skill (heck, at a certain distance not even an aimbot) can compensate for player's ability to change their movement direction instantaneously, and as a result to 'dodge' your bullets before you can react to that change (or while it's in the air). With full-auto weapons you just burstfire and accept that some of your shots miss and some hit. And, while you can do that with semi-auto rifles as well it means you're playing a glorified spray-and-pray game with a low-DPS weapon, and we all know how well that works. Right? Right?!

But, enter infantry inertia and players can no longer dodge your shots, and skilled players might get a chance to use semi-auto rifles with superior accuracy to their fullest potential - as a DMR.

And then we can talk about removing horizontal recoil to make them spammable/lower their skill floor.

Then we can talk about buffing the damage on all semi-auto rifles if they still underperform.

Then we can talk about tightening the Still ADS COFs of BRs and semi-auto scouts to the same level as the Blackhand pistol.
(OK, scrap that; that is a necessity. A pistol can't be more accurate than a rifle!!)

The skillful interplay between dodging shots and predicting / reacting to movement is simply not worth sacrificing for the sake of BRs. The hyperbole in your claims and the belittling or outright denying of the existence of this interplay is, frankly, ridiculous.

Look, I understand you have an agenda: I have one too, most people do, however, we shouldn't sacrifice honesty or act hysteric, either unintentionally or not.

Anyways, that's a large assumption on my part. It's more scholarly to assume the other person is merely in intellectual error.

So, you are in error, sir. Predicting / reacting to engaged enemy movement is possible at range, and does not severely hobble BRs any much more than it does automatics. While it is true that the increased volume of fire from automatics is superior in regards to more consistently pegging the enemy at range, a fact which you acknowledge, you then must admit that some degree of tracking is possible, otherwise all shots from all weapons would go unfortunately wide because the ability to hit cannot be explained away by luck since CoF is gosh dang high, and it's a cone, and range affects it more and more, that next to no shots would hit without direction.

Again, I believe you, like others, strike at the wrong reasons for why BRs are bad, but at least we all agree that they're bad.
And, admitting there's some element of truth in your statements, you've helped me formulate new ways to present the same buffs I've been suggesting, which are unlike the two you listed at the start of your post.

1. CoF and recoil on nearly all small arms is low enough to the point where tracking is still an important skill at medium ranges, where high RoF weapons gain the aforementioned inherent advantage of an accurate enough high volume of fire.
2. CoF and recoil on nearly all small arms is unfortunately high enough that, at long ranges (very close compared to ranges like ARMA presents, mind), the ability of tracking to compensate for this general inaccuracy begins declining steeply.
3. Battle Rifles have no compensation for its volume of fire disadvantage BECAUSE they suffer from not being able to direct their volume of fire any more accurately than high RoF weapons. In fact, they have LESS ability to direct even at close range.

This is because the CoF and bloom on BRs are too dang high.

And, sir, I can tell you from playing ARMA, that the ability for DMRs to overpower higher RoF weapons at range is NOT due to player inertia. I've seen some pretty crazy zigging and zagging even in that game.
Rather, recoil compensation is manual in that game, so higher RoF weapons would often be forced to fire just as fast as DMRs, which have more damage and higher velocity, and many other intangibles when they're both at range at play which can't be properly translated to PS2.

SO, that gives me an idea for another buff!
ACTUALLY HOLY CRAP
This one may be better than all the ideas that came before!
Make it so that high RoF weapons are less effective at bursting due to recoil by pushing the auto-reset timing back.
Or make low RoF weapons recoil reset far sooner.
AND OR
Make low RoF weapon's bloom start to shrink sooner so they don't have to wait a whole 'nother firetime for it to start resetting.

My only issue with the battle rifles is that I don't use them and I wish to have an Auraxium Scout Rifle.

I think it's too hard to use it effectivly at long ranges. If I had to try something, I would remove damage drop off. That's all

Yeah, Iridar's site is awesome! His Beginner's and Gunplay Guides should almost be required reading for anyone who wants to post here.

No, it's not. There isn't just one main issue with BRs. IMO, there are three: Damage, Recoil, and COF bloom, although I would rate damage well above the other two. I didn't mention bloom in my initial post because I believe it to be the least of the three and I didn't want to get too greedy with the buffs.

IMO, the BR's initial COF is fine. It's tight enough that if I slap a 4x on the Eidolon and let it settle between shots:

• If I don't move I can get 100% HSR on a stationary target at 150m, and 100% body shot rate well passed 200m.
• If I strafe, I can get 100% body shot rate to ~180m, and 100% HSR to ~125m (where scope sway from your footsteps starts to make it difficult)

I think those are good distances for a DMR, so I don't think any changes are needed to the initial COF.

That said, yes, I agree that the COF bloom does make it harder to hit at high ROF and it probably should be buffed. I even suggested not too long ago on Reddit that it be reduced.

And you're correct that you can learn to compensate for most of a BR's recoil fairly quickly. But you'll still miss long range shots at high ROF due to its inconsistent recoil that is due to its variable ROF.

OTOH, COF bloom can EASILY be compensated for on a BR as well: Simply lower your mouse click rate (ROF) slightly. If you fire at ~275-300 RPM or so, the bloom issues almost completely disappear. If you can't or don't want to do that, a micro-pause every 5-6 shots will accomplish the same thing.

It is for these reasons that I don't put as much weight on the recoil or bloom issues as the BRs low damage output, as both can be largely managed with skill.

Of course it matters. It lets us witness firsthand what a bloom reduction can do, thus letting us project into the future and extrapolate the potentials effects of a second reduction.

FWIW, here are the COF buffs introduced in GU07 back in May 2013.

• Aimed accuracy loss per shot: 0.125 changed to 0.1
• Hip accuracy loss per shot: 0.25 changed to 0.2

Will a second reduction help? Absolutely. Depending on the amount of reduction, it could potentially let users maintain accuracy at MAX ROF out to maybe 125-150m, esp if coupled with a recoil angle reduction.

The problem is, so can long range automatics, and almost all of them out-damage BRs by a wide margin. So even if you land 100% of your shots at MAX ROF, you're still at a disadvantage against long range automatics at anything but sniper ranges, where OHK cloaking Infils reign supreme. So a simple COF reduction will not be enough to keep BRs from being anything but subpar in the hands of the majority of players.

First, the "essential nature" of the BR is in its action: i.e. - how it handles. It's not in its damage. A higher-damage BR will still be a BR because it will still feel like a BR in the firer's hands.

I might agree with your untapped potential statement if Nanoweave and the HA Overshield didn't provide as much protection as they did. But as they stand, they break the 250-damage model.

Outside the length of a Harasser, Nano5 increases the BR's STK/TTK by 50%, and an HA's Overshield increases it by 100%. To my knowledge, no other weapon is hit quite as hard as this. And when you consider that BRs already have the lowest DPS and TTK of any primary AI weapon in the game, it should become obvious that this damage model simply doesn't work at the BRs ROF.

No, I propose a Battle Rifle that keeps it's unique action at 313 damage, not 334. The difference between the two may not sound like a lot, but:

• It's the difference between 2-headshot kills at any range, and 2 headshot kills only out to 55m
• It's the difference between 3 body shots on unarmoured targets vs 4

Those are huge differences.

No, you propose a weapon that's slightly more accurate at medium/long range that will still be out-damaged by long range automatics that are just as accurate but with much higher DPS, and a weapon that will still get outclassed by cloaked, OHK snipers at ranges past that. COF bloom reduction is not enough.

And, 30 meters? Current BRs can maintain accuracy out to three times that at max ROF with proper attachments.

I believe this is already the case.

Nakar's source was the data feed that SOE/DBG provides us, which contains all weapon stats.

One of the bufffs BRs rcv'd in GU07 was a Recoil Recovery increase from 5 to 15, and it made a big difference in making med/long range ollowup shots. Perhaps a further increase to 18 (to match ARs) might be in order? That would certainly help at extreme range (150m+) where you have to let the recoil settle between shots.

So here are my current thoughts on BR buffs:

• Reduce the bloom per shot from .1/.2 ADS/Hip to .08/.16 (to compare, the SAW is .07//14)
• Remove its recoil angle. change the bias to 0|0 so it kicks straight up like almost every other semi-auto weapon.
• Increase its Recoil Recovery to 18

Then increase its damage in ONE of two ways, either:

1. Increase their maximum damage to 313 and extend their maximum damage range to 20m. Or,
2. Increase the Max AND Min damage to 313, and decrease the headshot multiplier to 1.5x.

My only real problem with battle rifles is that there don't seem to be enough of them, I love using them but there aren't isn't too much choice when it comes to battle rifles.

But the skillful ability to compensate low DPS by aiming carefully and leading your target carefully IS worth sacrificing for the sake of... ADAD-dancing?

Then please enlighten me and my fellow ignorant brethren on how exactly you're leading a target which moves unpredictably.

Assuming our target is strafing in one direction, we'll have to aim for a point - let's say - 1 m in front of it (regarding current movement direction). But at any point in time it is equally likely that we'll have to aim for a point 1 m behind the target, because it's entirely possible that it'll strafe in opposite direction in the next split second (lack of inertia).

So, ignoring movement patterns, COF, our own ability to aim precisely, counterfire etc., that's a 50% chance to miss on every single shot fired.

50% miss chance

In fact this is not correct. Only Crouching Still and Standing Still ADS COF on BRs are bad (average actually - 0.1). Bad enough that I highly doubt the validity of this claim:

However, those COFs are only relevant when we're firing while not strafing, and that usually means our target is not firing back. If both we and our target are firing at each other, then we're usually both strafing as well. Looking at the Crouching Move and Standing Move ADS COF of BRs we see that they are indeed very good (0.15 and 0.25 respectively).

But, despite BRs being very accurate weapons for 1v1 engagements at medium distances they still underperform drastically compared to other weapons (which even have worse COFs). So, unless the numbers are skewed by large numbers of other kinds of engagements, BRs COF-advantages mean pretty much nothing.

And, that is - I guess - the reason why some people (e.g. Erendil) suggest to remove horizontal recoil and/or increase the damage. Because if we're already intrinsically missing carefully placed shots too often despite great accuracy, then we can just throw the whole aiming-carefully thing over board, and instead simply fire more, roughly-aimed shots. The chance for an individual bullet to hit goes down, but the chance for just enough bullets to hit goes up.

There again, if that's the way we want to use BRs, then why bother - let's just make them full-auto and call it a day.

Admittedly, I do have an agenda, but it damn sure is a justified one.

If I wanted to drown my opponents in bullets, I would pick from half a dozen carbines, half a dozen ARs or half a dozen LMGs. The reason why I pick up a high-powered, accurate semi-auto weapon is that I want to down my opponents with a few well-placed (head)shots.

Aside:

That incidentally also means that I'm probably well experienced in this kind of playstyle, so I probably know what I'm talking about.

End Aside

And, all of that leads us back to...

The fact that your posting in this tread tells me that you do care for BRs in some way.

Now, you either want BRs to be used with a drown-in-bullets method in mind - in which case I'd politely point you towards the half a dozen full-auto alternatives readily available - or you want to use BRs like a DMR - in which case I argue that this is impossible without infantry inertia, because you can't lead something that moves unpredictably (see above).


And, if you still disregard my remarks about the importance of inertia when it comes to hitting with single shots, there is a nice precedent in this game: the magrider.

Non-VS tanker argues: "Magrider is OP, it can dodge my shots!"

VS tanker counters: "No, it can't. It's way to clumsy!"

See the similarities?

AMR-66 was the second weapon I aurax'd and I really like it. But then again I really like using semi-auto weapons and I'm wondering why there is only one BR/empire. Really wish there were more and even something empire specific.

I also find it silly that to get the auraxium variant BR for my engineer I need to grind kills on scout rifles as well and on different character. Atm 600 kills on HSR-1 and 800 on SOAS-20, haven't touched my engineer for a long time :l Merging the scout and battlerifles under one category could be one solution.

I can't really say anything about buffing the battlerifles though. It kinda depends on what kind of role they were intended fill. As a support weapon they work well and I'm not really afraid to fight inside of the buildings 1vs1 cqc either.

well i for one am hopeful. they turned the useless burstfire carbines/assault rifles into a great midlongrange alternative. hope they'll do the same for battlerifles too!

Yes, I know that. In fact. I referenced the moving COF (strafing = moving) in the very next sentence. And in both the sentence before and after I said that the initial COF (standing and moving) was fine:

"IMO, the BR's initial COF is fine. It's tight enough that if I slap a 4x on the Eidolon and let it settle between shots:

• • If I don't move I can get 100% HSR on a stationary target at 150m, and 100% body shot rate well passed 200m.
  • If I strafe, I can get 100% body shot rate to ~180m, and 100% HSR to ~125m (where scope sway from your footsteps starts to make it difficult)

I think those are good distances for a DMR, so I don't think any changes are needed to the initial COF."

So, I'm glad we're in agreement.

I would agree since:

• Their COF advantage only applies when moving, and only applies to the first shot.
• The BR's bloom per shot is higher than any automatic weapon in the game (although the bloom over time is somewhere in the middle) so the COF quickly blooms to huge size.
• Long range automatics have comparable accuracy to BRs at medium range but much higher damage per second/ lower TTK so they will kill you faster than you can kill them. And since they fire a larger number of lower-damage bullets, they can even miss a bullet or two and sill kill faster than a BR can.

You guessed wrong.

I want to increase the damage because even if you land 100% of your shots, at all but extreme range (>150m) you will still get outshot and killed by opponents with Long Range Automatics (LRAs) simply because their weapons are just as accurate but have significantly higher DPS / lower TTK. I will reiterate, Battle Rifles have the worst DPS and TTK of any primary AI weapon in the game.

And at ranges where BRs have any accuracy advantage over LRAs (>150m), cloaked OHK snipers reign supreme.

In addition, outside 8m, Nano5 and the HA Shield increase a BR's STK/TTK by 50% and 100% respectively, which is a greater increase than for any other weapon in the game (except I think SA Scouts) due the BR's unique 250/225 max/min damage model (250 also equals the EHP increase of Nano5). That's why my damage buff suggestions specifically target the STK against Nano5 and HA-Shielded targets.

I'd like to remove the recoil angle (not horizontal recoil, that's a different stat) to make it more accessible to newer players since the pull to the right makes it more difficult to land followup shots at high ROF due to the variable ROF inherent to semi-auto weapons. Plus, many people find it harder to correct for recoil that goes up and to the right or left rather than straight up.

I use the Warden and really like it in the right situation.

You can be a complete nuisance to the enemy at medium to long range.

My only gripe with it, considering it's a battle 'rifle', the accuracy is a bit lacking

Generally,I like semi-auto rifles though I never wanted to use one becouse Personally I don't think they have a notable role in this game,when it comes to point defense or teamwork actions,it's almostly useless.all what you do is throwing some bullits to kill/kill assist your enemy but no general benefit comes from it

The only class that really do this rule properly is the cloaker since he can hide and seek,I see it's useless for other classes (especially HA) becouse they already have other alts (archer for engie,slug shotguns,long range full autos)

Frankly, the why doesn't matter in the end.

Based on your suggestions I think I can guess how you're using BRs. I assume you're making BRs work by operating them close to max ROF, you increase DPS by maximizing damage output. I on the other hand prefer to pace my shots with the BR (basically the settle-method), I increase DPS by maximizing accuracy.

I guess we can agree that both of these playstyles are fine.

I also guess we can agree that both of these playstyles should be reasonable and legit.

I further guess we can agree that neither of these playstyles do really work atm.

Naturally, we both propose changes that help our respictive playstyles. If we want to maximize damage output, then no horizontal recoil, less COF Bloom and less STK will make BRs better (admittedly the latter would also help my playstyle, not sure if it's necessary tough). None of those, however, would help maximize accuracy. For that we either need infantry inertia or almost-hitschan bullet velocities (and I don't like this option, because it'd be less skill intensive).

I totally think that BRs deserve buffs which enable both playstyles. Now, it might seem arrogant from my side to propose to help me first, that is to implement infantry inertia before implementing other buffs. However, since infantry inertia is a gameplay change which would also affect other semi-auto rifles and other long-range weapons, I would refrain from tinkering with balance at the same time.

That's what I don't want to believe - that it's impossible to kill opponents at mid to long ranges with sufficiently high accuracy (~50%, ~30% HSR) even when not firing at max ROF. Of course I can't know for sure, therefore I suggest these changes:

• Implement infantry inertia (come to think of it, removing horizontal recoil in this step shouldn't be an issue)
• Monitor the performance of BRs and other long-range weapons
• Implement further necessary buffs such as damage or bloom

At the risk of harming my cause - call it BR Revamp Phase 1 and 2.




Are BRs really worth a gameplay change?

First of all, I doubt that implementing inertia is a big technical problem: MAXes already have notable inertia so the code must already be there (I also think that infantry inertia was on PTS for a short time - but correct me if I'm wrong).

Secondly, there's only one downside to inertia, namely exchanging one skillset (ADAD-dancing) for another skillset (aiming/leading).

On the upside the paced settle-method becomes valid as a playstyle, and we should ask ourselves: why are semi-auto rifles in this game in the first place if they were always meant to be used like full-auto weapons?

A minor advantage would be that inertia makes warping slightly less likely. Also, inertia would be a slight indirect nerf to 0.75 ADS weapons (instant direction changes are more pronounced with faster movement speed).

I use both playstyles, and the whole range in between. You can think of how I use BRs as an ever-changing scale where I try to balance max accuracy on one side and max damage output on the other.

How I decide to balance the two depends on a large number of factors, including target range, if they're moving or stationary, their proximity to available cover, how quickly they can locate me once I open fire, if they can effectively fire back, etc. And it can (and does) change in an instant, even against a single target in mid-engagement.

That kind of flexibility is one of the things I love about semi-auto weapons.

Agreed. The whole spectrum of accuracy vs DPS that semi-auto weapons allow are valid playstyles.

It's not so much that they intrinsically don't work. It's that no matter how you use them, there are multiple better options available. Toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh, I suppose.

I don't think changing inertia will have the effect you want it to. You already inadvertently touched on the reason why: inertia will improve the accuracy of all weapons, not just BRs. So all weapons will be able to perform closer to their theoretical best DPS and TTK. And BRs have the lowest DPS and TTK of any AI primary weapon in the game.

The end result will be that long range automatics will be effective at longer ranges than before,further squeezing out the range where BRs can be competitive options.

It's certainly possible, even now. I've probably done it literally hundreds if not thousands of times. But that's not the issue, IMO. The issue is that in any given situation, I'd have been better off with either a long-range automatic, or a sniper rifle.

The thing is, IME the vast majority of players don't dodge back and forth trying to evade shots once I start shooting at them w/ a BR. Most of them make a bee line for the nearest cover, which makes followup shots quite possible. So I'm not sure that an inertia change will even make that much practical difference TBH.