Beta - Publish the weapon hitpoints

[MonsterBone]

For weapon balancing in beta it would really help to publish each weapons hit points and drop off with ranges.

Its nothing we can not get by shooting each other and pacing things off. But a page full of information like this is very helpful.

http://www.cod7blackops.com/weapons/sub-machine-guns/

[ThGlump]

NDA.

If it forbids publishing information, you cant set any public page with weapon info.

[DayOne]

NDA.

If it forbids publishing information, you cant set any public page with weapon info.

But SOE could publish it.

[Whalenator]

NDA.

If it forbids publishing information, you cant set any public page with weapon info.

I think he's asking the developers to do this.
But since it's beta and damage tables will be changing alot, it's not necessary.

[CutterJohn]

Publish, nothing. I want numbers right where you select weapons. Damage, rof, dps, min/max cof angle, the works.

[Coreldan]

The thing is that such lists have to someone quantify stuff like the CoF spread, how fast said CoF regenerates to it's most accurate position, etc, stuff that are very hard to measure in such lists.

Without that information, stuff like rate of fire or shots to kill are nearly irrelevant when you only have half of the information.

[Vash02]

I doubt they will, they'll keep us guessing...


and we'll love it.

[VioletZero]

Publish the actual weapon stats in game.

Don't be like Call of Duty and have the weapon stats lie to us.

[ThGlump]

I dont think they want us to play the game by spreadsheet. Picking a gun, modifications and attachments just because that combination do 1 more dmg per clip than anything else, throwing every other combination away.

I rather pick/modify gun based on how it feels, how it suits me rather than by math. For that is some bargraph for dmg, rof etc enough.
With exact numbers there is always too much rage, especially with minor balancing thats not significant in how weapon feel, but its seen in numbers.

[Geist]

This

+2

[BloodySoul]

It might just be me but, I think this may take the game into the wrong direction. Gun balances through empires would be pretty trashed. I mean, everything should be close to the same level of kill time, depending on a persons skill. Pulsar and Cycler, for example, would have a relatively similar dps. And like in PS1, any gun at range will most likely deal an amount of armor damage instead of life. So having gun info like that would be pointless because you don't have armor in cod or FPS's like it. I like the idea of just getting use to the guns and learning when to use what. Keeps things more interesting than just being handed a How to kill with this gun source. But that's one persons perspective at least.

[Trolltaxi]

OK, it is not a war simulation, but what do you know about a RL weapon?

Caliber, weight, dimensions, rate of fire (theoretic and real), the mechanics, velocity of the ammo - things like this.

I'm all against exact numbers in any games, be it an RTS, FPS, whatever. Relative scales might be OK, like "cycler hits harder than repeater, but MCG hits even harder and 2-3 mcg bullets are about the same as a sniper".

So I'd keep these statistics under the hood.

[VioletZero]

It might just be me but, I think this may take the game into the wrong direction. Gun balances through empires would be pretty trashed. I mean, everything should be close to the same level of kill time, depending on a persons skill. Pulsar and Cycler, for example, would have a relatively similar dps. And like in PS1, any gun at range will most likely deal an amount of armor damage instead of life. So having gun info like that would be pointless because you don't have armor in cod or FPS's like it. I like the idea of just getting use to the guns and learning when to use what. Keeps things more interesting than just being handed a How to kill with this gun source. But that's one persons perspective at least.

You're afraid that this will oversimplify things for balance sake.

But I don't think that the Planetside 2 devs will be so simple minded as to fall into this trap.

[Bags]

Publish, nothing. I want numbers right where you select weapons. Damage, rof, dps, min/max cof angle, the works.

Agreed.

[Neksar]

I'd rather the weapons be playtested for balance. People are going to whine about ES weapons being overpowered regardless. Giving them numbers to back it up with is going to be a bad idea, IMO. I like the idea of a relative scale, or some non-numerical statistic bar on the weapon select screen like the weapons in Mass Effect, but exact numbers is a no-no, methinks.

[Vancha]

I agree to a point, but I can't help but feel people would try and do stupid things with the information, like trying to argue weapon balance from stats on paper rather than practical effectiveness.

[Synapses]

For weapon balancing in beta it would really help to publish each weapons hit points and drop off with ranges.

Its nothing we can not get by shooting each other and pacing things off. But a page full of information like this is very helpful.

http://www.cod7blackops.com/weapons/sub-machine-guns/

Monster I dont know if maybe this will help, its not exact numbers but its close, but the PC Gamer Mag article shows a table giving sort of a circle line graph of the damage outputs, rate of fire, accuracy ect of the 3 factions. Maybe itll help put your mind to rest on this.

[VioletZero]

I agree to a point, but I can't help but feel people would try and do stupid things with the information, like trying to argue weapon balance from stats on paper rather than practical effectiveness.

It always comes down to practical use in arguments from my experience.

Just that the stats help people use it better.

[Erendil]

If the PS1 boards taught us anything it's that people will say stupid things about weapon balance either with or without hard data. :p But without any quantitative data in front of you, all you have is your own skewed perceptions of how each weapon feels compared to the others, which can be greatly infuenced by framerate, net lag, ploss, etc. However, if the devs publish all the data for us, you have a good solid starting point with which to base your comparisons.

It also helps you see why the Devs designed weapons the way they did, and allows you to see weapon balance on an empire-wide basis across all weapons and not just piecemeal one weapon at a time. And that can be vital when discussing weapon balance but quite difficult to see without solid weapon stats.

Besides, we know people are going to go out and figure these stats out and publish them anyway. Just take a look or these (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000017283)three (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000021414) threads (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000017338) in the official boards. That's just a tiny sample of the myriad of stats that were published over and over on those boards. There are even whole websites dedicated to PS1 stats, like this PS1 site. (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww5b.biglobe.ne.jp%2F%7Edds250%2Fp s%2F&act=url) Greyfalcn's site (which no longer exists) even had stats for CoF size, expansion and contraction rates both standing and crouching, etc.

Stat information is going to get out there, and IMO it would be in the Devs' best interest to publish the stats so that the information we use in our discussions is accurate.

[Graywolves]

We're all going to get a buddy and see how many shots it takes to kill each other anyways.

[VioletZero]

Just give us all the info straight up like in Armored Core.

[Bags]

http://i.imgur.com/b86e7.png

Like we need to know anything more than that the Jackhammer does 4 blocks of damage.

[BorisBlade]

I know its somethin ill test the crap out of. In PS1 I did full breakdowns of every single weapon, infantry and vehicle, in the entire game and at multiple ranges, versus all types of armor. Every value of damage, degredation, rate of fire, reload time, damage over various time periods, CoF info, armor values, etc etc. It was key at showin us how awesome the deliverer was before the final massive tank buff. And was why we used it so much and could dominate so well. (really wish it was still that good) I used to be able to rattle it all off on the spot no prob too. Still remember alot, esp the main stuff but definitely not all of it anymore.

I'll definitely do a bunch more testing again, there will be a lot more to test as far as weapons and stuff esp with the various upgrades. However, i'll prob wait til some of the balance stuff settles down a little bit. Dont want to have to retest all day long after every little patch. This time i'll post it up on PSU when i get it all done, dont think i posted it outside of outfit/ally forums in PS1.

[cellinaire]

If the PS1 boards taught us anything it's that people will say stupid things about weapon balance either with or without hard data. :p But without any quantitative data in front of you, all you have is your own skewed perceptions of how each weapon feels compared to the others, which can be greatly infuenced by framerate, net lag, ploss, etc. However, if the devs publish all the data for us, you have a good solid starting point with which to base your comparisons.

It also helps you see why the Devs designed weapons the way they did, and allows you to see weapon balance on an empire-wide basis across all weapons and not just piecemeal one weapon at a time. And that can be vital when discussing weapon balance but quite difficult to see without solid weapon stats.

Besides, we know people are going to go out and figure these stats out and publish them anyway. Just take a look or these (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000017283)three (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000021414) threads (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000017338) in the official boards. That's just a tiny sample of the myriad of stats that were published over and over on those boards. There are even whole websites dedicated to PS1 stats, like this PS1 site. (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww5b.biglobe.ne.jp%2F%7Edds250%2Fp s%2F&act=url) Greyfalcn's site (which no longer exists) even had stats for CoF size, expansion and contraction rates both standing and crouching, etc.

Stat information is going to get out there, and IMO it would be in the Devs' best interest to publish the stats so that the information we use in our discussions is accurate.

Ditto !

(as if you can read my mind....huh? ;) )

[Traak]

I dont think they want us to play the game by spreadsheet.

Then we don't need kill stats, as they are just more numbers to crunch?

I think having the stats of each weapon listed right beside it in the menu at an EQ terminal is a great idea. A clickable link to a map of damage versus distance would be good too.

[ThGlump]

You are right that we dont need kill stats. Adding k/d to ps instantly increased killwhoring and reduced cooperation from some ppl as they had some number to care about instead of progress of empire.

[Trolltaxi]

Well, I can provide you the essentials to choose your weapons.

1. Fighting inside - ES HA
2. Fighting outside - ES MA
3. Out of resources (prolly no ES weapons) - NS MA

Don't forget that we will both have skill trees and weapon modifications. The sheer weapon basics won't mean anything as everyone will have a different skillset and weapon mod preferneces. You can still calculate whatever you want (provided you receive the data about skill and mod modifiers) it will just require a bit more work in excel to count all the combinations.

But these calculations won't mean anything anymore in terms of arguing about weapons. You cannot state that JH is overpowered because there are so many ways to tweak it. Someone may be uber with his weapon, his matching skills and wisely picked modifications. But it is not only the weapon anymore.

And on K/D. I'm against it too, but I cannot blame only K/D for increased killwhoring and reduced cooperation. Higher battle ranks meant more "one man armies" who didn't rely on teammates anymore, they became self-sufficent... and that lead to killwhoring for those preffering this playstyle.

[Erendil]

Ditto !

(as if you can read my mind....huh? ;) )


Who says I can't...? ;) you'd be surprised at some of the gifts Vanu has bestowed upon his more enlightened followers.... :D

Oh, and before any of you TR/NC get any ideas about opening me up to find out how I tick or try to steal my psychic abilities, don't forget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfcdqzHyTM0&feature=player_detailpage#t=155s

[StumpyTheOzzie]

You are right that we dont need kill stats. Adding k/d to ps instantly increased killwhoring and reduced cooperation from some ppl as they had some number to care about instead of progress of empire.

In a game with infinite respawns and no penalty for death, K: D ratio is irrelevant. Maxing numbers of kills just means you're not a team player. You'll do something like hold off your sniper round till they are 50% or less, then steal the kill. Or won't get out of your gunner's chair when we just need 1 more body to break through to the CC and cap the base.

I'd like to see no K: D information, but a lot of "Missions completed" vs "Missions rejected" stats. Or even "resource nodes defended" if there could be such a thing.

Then we'd know who the team players are and who are more likely to actually accomplish more than doorway dancing.