Dueling Ranged Weapons [Beta] [Flintlock Pistol]

[Conan]

Ah. You should do whole team tests like all melee vs all ranged to see how well they match up. Ideally all weapons should have an even 1v1 matchup

missing the point again. these weapons are meant for both team and solo play, not 1v1 in all cases. musket wins with team play (someone close enough to back you up, or cover you while you're reloading, or keep the melee people busy with their sword and parry abilities) but is pretty luck-of-the-draw in any 1v1 situation.

you're trying to balance the bows against each other, and the musket with the bows, while i'm trying to make these weapons applicable in multiple scenarios, whether it be large team based sieges or ctfs, musket-only duels, colonials vs zulus, etc. the way its set up now, the host of the server can adjust the power of the weapons by changing the mobility, tankiness, loadout, or even spawn area of the enemies.

Also sorry if I'm coming off as nagging or complaining. I care about u a lot and I care about these weapons and I want to see them evenly balanced. All this is just theory but once you test it you'll know the way cobab

and yeah i get it, but i base my decisions on ingame play, not on theory. if there's a clear problem with balance ingame, or reported to me by someone who actually hosts these weapons, i look for ways to fix the situation. but sometimes its part of the design that one weapon is super powerful in certain scenarios, otherwise the gameplay would be really stale. in this case, its bows at 50-120 stud range being more consistent and stronger while falling off at farther ranges, and musket being being equally strong at 50-500 studs but fairly inconsistent.

this would have been a good discussion to have before making the weapons, not after they've been made and playtested. i did originally have crossbow at 2 seconds, and that stuff basically made the hunting bow useless. there was no practical difference other than damage - if i nerfed crossbow damage, people would just use hunting always for better mobility.

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[Shift Kitty]

Ideally all weapons should have an even 1v1 matchup

no they shouldn't
this isn't even true in any game ever

[IdeTheBird]

I like them the way they are!

[PhantOS]

@conan ok

no they shouldn't
this isn't even true in any game ever

uh yes? If one gun is objectively better than the other, nobody will want to use the worse gun.... That's true in every game. If you had the choice to use gun or guns akimbo, you'd choose guns akimbo, because it's better.

All games should have weapons that are an equal match. Equal being if you use your weapons advantages the way they are meant to be then it will be equal against an enemy that does the same

[Not an alt]

@conan ok
uh yes? If one gun is objectively better than the other, nobody will want to use the worse gun.... That's true in every game. If you had the choice to use gun or guns akimbo, you'd choose guns akimbo, because it's better.

All games should have weapons that are an equal match. Equal being if you use your weapons advantages the way they are meant to be then it will be equal against an enemy that does the same

so a sniper that does the same damage as a pistol? ok!

[PhantOS]

so a sniper that does the same damage as a pistol? ok!

yes! Because damage is the only factor ever in all guns! Of course there aren't things like range and ammo, absolutely not!!!!!

There are things called advantages and disadvantages. They add variation to gunplay. A sniper has a long range advantage. A shotgun has short range advantage. A shotgun and a sniper can have different damage values and firing speeds and still be balanced. All weapons should be evenly matched.

There are games where snipers and pistols are an even match. See halo and battlefront 2015. The snipers and pistols don't do the same damage. In fact, the pistol does more DPS than the snipers. And they still are balanced

[Conan]

have a gif of monday-lovers killin an innocent white boy

[Mega-Bear]

Justice was served

[gr8dayseth]

looks like the 5th guy will be getting a stern talking-to later

the expert on gr8 themself

<3

[PhantOS]

looks like the 5th guy will be getting a stern talking-to later
<3

that was probably nal

[Conan]

that was probably nal

it was jam jar

[Shift Kitty]

uh yes? If one gun is objectively better than the other, nobody will want to use the worse gun.... That's true in every game. If you had the choice to use gun or guns akimbo, you'd choose guns akimbo, because it's better.

All games should have weapons that are an equal match. Equal being if you use your weapons advantages the way they are meant to be then it will be equal against an enemy that does the same

that's not really the point.
you said they should be even in 1v1. i'm not saying one should be better in all situations. there will be obvious mechanical advantages one has over another, but not all. this alone makes it impossible to have every 1v1 situation be equal without sacrificing their unique characteristics. you can't just look at raw dps either. assuming both players are perfect, sure, two weapons of equal dps will be equal. but both players wont be perfect. if two weapons of varying speed had the same dps, the faster one will win because it's less punishing to miss and puts more pressure on the enemy. if you give the slower weapon more dps, it becomes more powerful in skilled players hands, which makes the other one more useless in that level of play.
in none of these situations are things ever even. this is what i mean.

[Conan]

its ok nul let phantos debate me in game design, ever since i owned him that one time in that doriyaki launcher ak-94 thread hes learned to begrudgingly respect my arguments :^)

[PhantOS]

that's not really the point.
you said they should be even in 1v1. i'm not saying one should be better in all situations. there will be obvious mechanical advantages one has over another, but not all. this alone makes it impossible to have every 1v1 situation be equal without sacrificing their unique characteristics. you can't just look at raw dps either. assuming both players are perfect, sure, two weapons of equal dps will be equal. but both players wont be perfect. if two weapons of varying speed had the same dps, the faster one will win because it's less punishing to miss and puts more pressure on the enemy. if you give the slower weapon more dps, it becomes more powerful in skilled players hands, which makes the other one more useless in that level of play.
in none of these situations are things ever even. this is what i mean.

ok DPS is a bad example Imo, I don't look at guns based on their stats more or less but wholistically, their requirements for how you navigate the world and use the weapon. What you're talking about is the difference between cheap and complex mechanics - fast guns are cheap, in the sense that they are extremely forgiving but your peak performance is limited. A complex gun' like a slower firing high damage gun (it can get more complex) are hard to use but rewarding when you use them correctly.

What I'm referring to is just a general 'equality' in 1v1 scenarios with guns. Obviously a meta will always exist and some guns promote higher reward for skilled players, but theoretically, all guns should match up evenly when in the hands of perfect players. A sniper and a shotgun should be equal in a balanced map, despite the fact that the shotgun is leagues stronger in raw damage. The difference is that they have their own playstyles. Sniper has to take careful aim and keep their distance, utilizing predictive aim as well as tracking where the enemy moves out of sight. Shotgun has to Sprint from cover to cover until they enter an effective area. Both weapons have a domain in gameplay where they have the advantage, and the perfect player will seek that field so that they have the advantage. But in general, they are equal.

This is what I mean that all weapons should have an even matchup. The line for what counts as even is generally open to interpretation, but you can still get pretty darn close.

[Conan]

basically the argument is over the misunderstanding of what 1v1 means. nul didnt realize you also implicitly included how 1v1 situations are dependent on environment and so corrected you there.

any weapon is very environment-dependent in its performance and the design of weapons focuses on filling these niche situations, some more broadly than others.