proper veiwable weapon stats?

[SKYeXile]

I dont know about you guys but when im looking to buy a weapon with money or even ingame aurxiam, its nice to know what to expect from it. the typical:

Damage: ===
Fire Rate: =
Accuracy: =====
ammo: ==

Is rather weak. I started playing blacklight retribution recently and im amazed at the level of customisation and details they tell you ingame.


This video shows off what it does, also when slotting a mod it tell you how the weapon will be effected.

Herp Derp Guide To Blacklight Retribution | Part 2 - YouTube

Hopefully if the dev's havnt seen this or planned to do already they can now, get on it. :) ...and if you have a chance play it, then play it, its no shitty port.

ps: if somebody can fix my typo in the heading, that would be tops.

[GreatMazinkaise]

Real numbers > abstract bars. I'd love it.

[DirtyBird]

That dude sounds like Captain Koons to me.

Carry on.

[lMABl]

Ive never seen any other game have more detailed weapon stats than BlackLight, would love to see PS2 emulate it.

[Electrofreak]

As soon as you start giving out numbers, elitists start min-maxing, and then you're considered an idiot because you use X gun instead of Y gun.

It'll probably happen anyhow with some people testing out weapon damage in-game and plugging it into spreadsheets (I'm one to talk, I discovered the Guassian curve formula for how missile damage works in EVE Online back in 2005) but in a game like PlanetSide I'd rather not see it become a mainstream thing.

I've been part of the elitist spreadsheet-humping crowd, and in games like EVE Online it's fine, but I'd like to be able to retreat from that in PlanetSide and just be able to go with whatever weapon "feels right" instead of spending hours crouched over a calculator. I get OCD about numbers and I can't help it... so ignorance is bliss.

[SKYeXile]

Ive never seen any other game have more detailed weapon stats than BlackLight, would love to see PS2 emulate it.

yea, feel like an idiot now though, i brought the premade heavy assault rifle and im like "yea 66 dmg per shot and 500ROF gonna pwn me some bitches" get inagme and im like "arg wtf, scope" fire at something... "ARG RECOIL, ITS SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL!" Im now in love though and would like this weapon to be an LMG for the VS HA.

As soon as you start giving out numbers, elitists start min-maxing, and then you're considered an idiot because you use X gun instead of Y gun.

It'll probably happen anyhow with some people testing out weapon damage in-game and plugging it into spreadsheets (I'm one to talk, I discovered the Guassian curve formula for how missile damage works in EVE Online back in 2005) but in a game like PlanetSide I'd rather not see it become a mainstream thing.

I think it all comes down to preference and playstyle too...what im good with might not be what somebody else likes or is good with. Im sure though there will be weapons or combos that do just kickass, and hopefully SOE will be resilient in keeping on top of fixing stuff. but either way, yea people are gonna find shit out, may as well just not make it painful and give people a proper clue on what they're buying since they have said there is no VR.

[mintyc]

Real numbers, yes please.

bars are all well and good for sizeing up things at a glance but real numbers are much better in my opinion.

also if the devs dont give real numbers the players will find a way to get to them, and it will just end up being annoing to everyone (seen it happen in other games, they ended up giveing real numbers after all).

[Electrofreak]

I think it all comes down to preference and playstyle too...what im good with might not be what somebody else likes or is good with. Im sure though there will be weapons or combos that do just kickass, and hopefully SOE will be resilient in keeping on top of fixing stuff. but either way, yea people are gonna find shit out, may as well just not make it painful and give people a proper clue on what they're buying since they have said there is no VR.

Well, you make a good point about the no VR. If I don't have much of an option of trying a weapon before I buy it, we might as well have as much info as possible.

Ugh. I really wanted to avoid the numbers game in PS2. A virtual firing range or a weapon trial option would be optimal.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

As soon as you start giving out numbers, elitists start min-maxing, and then you're considered an idiot because you use X gun instead of Y gun.

It'll probably happen anyhow with some people testing out weapon damage in-game and plugging it into spreadsheets (I'm one to talk, I discovered the Guassian curve formula for how missile damage works in EVE Online back in 2005) but in a game like PlanetSide I'd rather not see it become a mainstream thing.

I've been part of the elitist spreadsheet-humping crowd, and in games like EVE Online it's fine, but I'd like to be able to retreat from that in PlanetSide and just be able to go with whatever weapon "feels right" instead of spending hours crouched over a calculator. I get OCD about numbers and I can't help it... so ignorance is bliss.

That spreadsheet min/max thing is very dangerous in the wrong hands. I generally fire 5-7 shot bursts. My recoil needs to be adjusted for that number of rounds. If my outfit leader uses full-auto for 30 rounds then any min/maxing they do on my behalf will be useless.

So the whole outfit rule of "You must cert level 4 in recoil dampening and level 3 of accuracy before you're allowed to join" just makes me want to join another outfit.

[Crator]

Well, from the video, they said they give the real cash mods a week rental. I know that's been asked for on PS2. Not a bad idea. The amount of customization they show in the vid is crazy! I'd defiantly use the week rental when 1st starting to figure out all that crap... Also, I really liked how the showed the graphical image of the mod on the weapon. Really nice touch!

[Otleaz]

"The reason to go for bars instead is because numbers scare people away" says a variety of different sources with several years of research backing them. Even if it is unfathomable that there are people like that, there is no denying it.

Normally you wouldn't want to touch people like that with a 10 foot pole, but since this is a F2P game you need those people.

The best course of action is to do what Diablo 3 did. Have the normal options on by default, and allow the min/max options to be enabled in the option menu.

[SKYeXile]

"The reason to go for bars instead is because numbers scare people away" says a variety of different sources with several years of research backing them. Even if it is unfathomable that there are people like that, there is no denying it.

Normally you wouldn't want to touch people like that with a 10 foot pole, but since this is a F2P game you need those people.

The best course of action is to do what Diablo 3 did. Have the normal options on by default, and allow the min/max options to be enabled in the option menu.

Yea you make a good point and i would totally believe that those stats are right and having 2 options is a good compromise.

i think highlighting the tradeoffs in red and green help though.

[Tsunami]

personally I love the more info you get. I'm really big into TheoryCrafting and when devs put shit like increase rate of fire "substantially" with more certs would seriously piss me off.

[PhoenixDog]

Keep just the bars. Having the 2nd option like in Diablo 3 is all and good for a game like D3 which is *about* min/maxing. In Planetside we don't want that. We don't want there to be a "perfect gun", because then everyone will use it and there goes the variety and customization for the game. Having arbitrary bars prevents that sort of attitude and allows people to customize the guns to their own liking...Which is how the game is intended.

[Mechlord]

Technically, all we need is numerical health values. With these, all else can be determined.

Example (TF2) (http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Scattergun#Damage_and_function_times)

Even without these, numbers can still be put to everything through testing, they will just not be in the same units used by the developers.

I love numbers. (http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Damage#Damage_vulnerability.2C_resistance.2C_and_b locking)

[infected]

i'll just repost this here as it pertains more to this topic that the other thread i posted it in

the p90 is accurate and effective at medium and short range, has very little recoil at all, and does respectable damage considering these traits. not a good example of a TR style weapon.

for a better example of a TR style of weapon, try the M249 SAW. bullet deviation is horrible but it has high rate of fire and large magazine (and suppression which i think PS2 should add). this weapon is also a poor example because it has high recoil, but this is real life, SOE doesn't obey this. only in the fact that TR is supposed to have low recoil but also low accuracy.

that's an oxymoron folks!

the 2 problems with PS2 is
1: how it displays traits to weapons. as another thread was recently started about this subject. the display bars are not enough info. horizontal recoil, vertical recoil, initial recoil, sustained fire recoil, bullet damage, rate of fire, effective range, etc... those are weapon traits.

and 2: "accuracy" is not a "weapon trait". CoF is trash stat as it is implemented with no regard to recoil (cursor location is displaced between shots fired). with CoF the bullets go do their own thing and has nothing to do with recoil, making the weapon RNG in terms of accuracy. to remove the RNG you need to remove COF and replace it with Hrecoil and Vrecoil.

i hope SOE change the way they give us details on how each weapon performs, and they need to get rid of COF and use Hrecoil and Vrecoil instead.. i honestly think they might fail at this as they need to look to how bf3 handles weapons. each one feels and performs slightly different (coin PS2 sidegrades) and each difference comes down to changes in the weapon's above mentioned traits.

[SKYeXile]

Technically, all we need is numerical health values. With these, all else can be determined.

Example (TF2) (http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Scattergun#Damage_and_function_times)

Even without these, numbers can still be put to everything through testing, they will just not be in the same units used by the developers.

not really, planetside 2 should have much more complex stuff going on. like it should have all the stats as listed in the blacklight video you cant determine all that stuff with just base damage.

[Mechlord]

not really, planetside 2 should have much more complex stuff going on. like it should have all the stats as listed in the blacklight video you cant determine all that stuff with just base damage.

Planetside 2 seemingly has no form of damage ramp-up (http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Damage#Distance_and_randomness_modifier), making it less complex rather than more. The only stats which are difficult to quantify are recoil and accuracy values, but that is a given.

My point it, once the game is released, there will swiftly be a solid community provided source of information. People who want these details can go looking for them, while people who prefer bars do not need to be intimidated.

Yes, I would prefer detailed statistics, they would require less work on my part. I am just stating that a lack of them is not an incredible issue, if intimidation is a large concern.

[TAA]

As soon as you start giving out numbers, elitists start min-maxing, and then you're considered an idiot because you use X gun instead of Y gun.

It'll probably happen anyhow with some people testing out weapon damage in-game and plugging it into spreadsheets (I'm one to talk, I discovered the Guassian curve formula for how missile damage works in EVE Online back in 2005) but in a game like PlanetSide I'd rather not see it become a mainstream thing.

I've been part of the elitist spreadsheet-humping crowd, and in games like EVE Online it's fine, but I'd like to be able to retreat from that in PlanetSide and just be able to go with whatever weapon "feels right" instead of spending hours crouched over a calculator. I get OCD about numbers and I can't help it... so ignorance is bliss.


You are absolutely correct. Players will calculate it themselves before beta even finishes. Guns will be tested under controlled conditions at all ranges, and if at all possible that information will even be lifted straight out of the game code.

Lets make up a few different categories of players:

Players who would not use stats even if they were available
Players who would use detailed stats if they were available in-game
Players who will use detailed stats even if they are not available in-game


Not making the numbers accessible by everyone in-game gives an edge to players who bother to search for and find this information on the web. The elitism will still happen. The most powerful weapons will still get abused.

Someone will test every weapon from their faction against every vehicle and trooper of the opposing factions at every range, with every attachment and from every angle (important for vehicle combat). Once obtained those numbers will be made accessible to the entire faction that bothered to do it, giving them the edge in the field.

In fact, I just changed my mind on this. I dont want detailed stats on weapons shown in the game at all. I dont care what the TR and NC do. I know that the VS will have detailed spreadsheets being disseminated to every player before the beta is even done.

[SKYeXile]

Not making the numbers accessible by everyone in-game gives an edge to players who bother to search for and find this information on the web. The elitism will still happen. The most powerful weapons will still get abused.


Changed my mind, you make a good point, stick with the bars.

[Neurotoxin]

More stats and metrics are great. Draw time, put-away time, reload time, recoil reduction speed, anything and everything should be listed and available.

[Accuser]

We don't want there to be a "perfect gun", because then everyone will use it and there goes the variety and customization for the game. Having arbitrary bars prevents that sort of attitude and allows people to customize the guns to their own liking...Which is how the game is intended.

As others have mentioned, people will still find the stats for each gun on their own. The only question is, do you want that data to be available to everyone in-game, or only to people who go to the PS2 page of ElitistJerks.com?

[GreatMazinkaise]

personally I love the more info you get. I'm really big into TheoryCrafting and when devs put shit like increase rate of fire "substantially" with more certs would seriously piss me off.

Welcome to a new world of MMO gaming... it's called Theoryside, not Theorycraft...

[Xyntech]

I'd be in favor of bars by default with detailed numbers as an alternative option. They are already going to be tracking and releasing so many statistics, why not include hard weapon and vehicle data among that?

[infected]

I'd be in favor of bars by default with detailed numbers as an alternative option. They are already going to be tracking and releasing so many statistics, why not include hard weapon and vehicle data among that?

i laughed. somehow this reminds me of the diablo 3 tooltips (and their elective mode). by default the skill tooltips don't tell you jack. you have to go into the options and turn on details tooltips in order to actually get any useful info on all your spells.

veteran players will do this, but the casuals will have no clue because going in and finding these kind of features hidden in the options before playing is not second nature to them like it is to veteran gamers.

[Phantomdestiny]

maybe we should have both set the standard to be bars and then if the need arises then go to options to replace the bars by numeric values

[xnorb]

If weapons are balanced, you don't need to hide your numbers ...

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/5426/weaponst.png

(DICE of course didn't reveal those, as they are NDA junkies - but what
else got we reverse engineering for ? *g*)

[Dreamcast]

LMFAO....I got this game like 3 days ago and I was thinking about doing this thread.


I loved the customization they showed in the game, Is amazing....and the gun combat is a mix of hip fire and ADS depending on the gun I guess.


I say they should put something like this is with a graph and perhaps pictures illustrating what it all means instead of just words like blacklight

[Accuser]

If weapons are balanced, you don't need to hide your numbers ...

Man... You're really making me miss decimating people on hardcore with the PP2000. And you're right, if the weapons are unbalanced, the FoTM gun will quickly reveal itself regardless of whether SOE releases the official data or not. Giving us the data just lets us understand which weapon we will like more or less without having to spend hours with every one in every configuration.

[Kran De Loy]

I also see a problem with this when the devs change some value by .01 or whatever that was on a super popular item because too many people were focusing on that one weapon mod then the community explodes.

[SKYeXile]

I also see a problem with this when the devs change some value by .01 or whatever that was on a super popular item because too many people were focusing on that one weapon mod then the community explodes.

well they're following the LoL model, release a gun thats awesome, nerf it after everybody has brought it, repeat.

[Traenor]

well they're following the LoL model, release a gun thats awesome, nerf it after everybody has brought it, repeat.

Have you played LoL recently? Of the last 10 champs, only 3 has been close to OP at releases (Darius, Lulu and Nautilus). The 7 rest are either balanced or UP.

Also, something i respect in RiotGames is that they dont bow down to power creep but actually nerf properly. Instead of a lot of other games, where they take the easy path and buff everything bad, instead of nerfing the OP.

[Pyreal]

Gimme bars; I aim for the head.

[xnorb]

I also see a problem with this when the devs change some value by .01 or whatever that was on a super popular item because too many people were focusing on that one weapon mod then the community explodes.

People get over it when they lose their noobgun.

SoE's goal needs to be achieving a balance inbetween the weapons so
none is better than than another in an overall sight.

I hope they don't make the mistakes forgetting RoF, handling, reload times
and such and only balance by damage.
"Oh, shotgun is SOOOOOO OP, it's a OHK !!!" well, idiot, of course it is in
close quarter combat ... but what does the shotgun guy do when he's
encountering you and your assault rifle over a distance of 60 meters ?

[Xyntech]

i laughed. somehow this reminds me of the diablo 3 tooltips (and their elective mode). by default the skill tooltips don't tell you jack. you have to go into the options and turn on details tooltips in order to actually get any useful info on all your spells.

veteran players will do this, but the casuals will have no clue because going in and finding these kind of features hidden in the options before playing is not second nature to them like it is to veteran gamers.

Considering that a lot of casual players get freaked out by information overload, this is actually probably for the best. Casual players get a nice and simple layout, advanced players get easy access to all of the information, and everyone else gets a choice on how deep they feel like going at any given moment.

Best of both worlds is rarely a bad thing in a game like this.

[Dreamcast]

Considering that a lot of casual players get freaked out by information overload, this is actually probably for the best. Casual players get a nice and simple layout, advanced players get easy access to all of the information, and everyone else gets a choice on how deep they feel like going at any given moment.

Best of both worlds is rarely a bad thing in a game like this.

Put them side by side......and put a little gif showing what spread hip and spread aim mean.


Casuals and pro will use the system

[Gonefshn]

Numbers are always fun to toy with and see.

Planetside 2 aims to be one of the deepest and most persistent shooter experiences ever. A robust system of weapon stats and numbers fits perfectly.

[Arovien]

Visible weapon stats are a great start. Over time, they will be obsolete as hardcore players get to know the feel for things and invest them certs.

[maddoggg]

Hehe it's interesting how many people noticed bl after the release on steam.
TB said it and i would agree with him that a big + for that game is just the amazing amount of detail it gives you for each gun.
It's a nice feature to have for us FPS guns junkies :).

[Bags]

"If numbers for guns are too confusing for you how are you even on a PC" -- what I want to ask people who are scared of numbers.


...

I was gonna make this thread a day ago then my power went out.

[Rbstr]

I'd prefer numbers.

Or, at least, a bar graph that is actually representative and can be compared between guns. BF:BC2 and BF3 seem to do that fairly well...but sometimes I wonder.

[Palerion]

As soon as you start giving out numbers, elitists start min-maxing, and then you're considered an idiot because you use X gun instead of Y gun.

It'll probably happen anyhow with some people testing out weapon damage in-game and plugging it into spreadsheets (I'm one to talk, I discovered the Guassian curve formula for how missile damage works in EVE Online back in 2005) but in a game like PlanetSide I'd rather not see it become a mainstream thing.

I've been part of the elitist spreadsheet-humping crowd, and in games like EVE Online it's fine, but I'd like to be able to retreat from that in PlanetSide and just be able to go with whatever weapon "feels right" instead of spending hours crouched over a calculator. I get OCD about numbers and I can't help it... so ignorance is bliss.

I sort of agree with this. The issue, in my opinion, is that the weapons all look and act basically the same, just with different characteristics. None of them feel, look, or sound very different, if different at all, when fired. I can't go through a 30 minute trial and tell that it's the gun I want, as it feels too similar to my first gun. They need to add variety to our weaponry so instead of looking at the stats and damage output and such, we go through a trial, think it feels, looks, and sounds really nice, and we buy it. All this "recycle a gun and give it new stats" stuff is really, really getting on my nerves. It shouldn't be a challenge to decide what gun I want; the challenge should be getting it.

[Bags]

Okay well when they don't give out numbers people find them themselves so I don't see the point of not giving them out.

[Palerion]

Okay well when they don't give out numbers people find them themselves so I don't see the point of not giving them out.

I'm fine with numbers; I just wish guns were different enough that I could make a satisfactory decisions without having to look at the numbers.

[Wahooo]

Thread start date middle of Beta.

No change at release just added more weapons. What is worse is that now a lot of these weapons either function exactly the same as another with different descriptions or simply have very poor descriptions that make them sound meh.

Just one more thing in the long list of small things that add up, that makes me feel the game was just to rushed to release.

[RevAngel]

Is it not simple to SOE that we need to have numbers, so Sony will have to ballance weapons? Like xnorb postet on page 2, Battlefield Bad Company got the real stats reverse engineered. Even in one of the last patches they ballanced some weapons which were just slightly out of ballance.

From there, and not ANY other direction, starts the fairness and stops the whinig from customers/players about the bad ballance of the game. There's lots to do about the ballance ingame, so why does SOE not "use" their customers by giving them more than bars. OK, make a toggle button for numbers or even easier, create ONE small sheet like that of Battlefield Bad Company 2 from xnorb's post and put a link-button somewhere in the shop window. After that, you know what you get. Not just a strange generic text about when the gun started to be used and some lie-bars above it (with even some weapons with empty bars for some stats). Thats just not fair for people who do not live in the game and still want to play it without getting their teeth kicked out from EVERY player that lives in the game. Lost some good online battle buddies who played other shooters with me. I did what I could to convince them, that the game will be more ballanced in the future and that you actually can play it just with skills. But no, its free to play so SOE has to make it great for people who already know what weapons are good and whats good against what, because these are the players who already paid for some stuff. But here a little logic: turn down new players because they have to read up everything in forums about stats and how the game works, and poof, you got a straw fire and in the end 50 people logging on per day, like in the end times of Werner, because no new player can stand it to get his teeth kicked out one by one every day until he is fed up. Then again, we all say "yeah, thats SOE, we already saw it on Planetside 1, Everquest 1 +2 and so on"...

SOE could learn, but do they want?

[Stanis]

I played BL:R just before the tech test.
I throughly enjoyed the game and loved the customisation.

I was very much hoping that a similar model would be in PS2. When the devs said we'd get extensive customisation and sidegrades - for weapons BL:R was the model I had in the back of my mind.

The combination of base weapon, rail, scope, stock, barrel, magazine creates thousands of options.
It's true a gun might seem powerful in stats - but you realise that the heavy assault rifle might have a high damage but it really kicks like a mule.
Or a virtually recoiless SMG with high fire rate - but the damage per shot is low and max range is short.

What we have now is a marketing ploy.
I see very little difference between the guns, I'm only really interested in a short/medium and long range weapon. With a 2x Holo scope or 4x for longer ranges.

Realistically they keep putting these guns in at some point I'll stop caring until they add something specifically unique and different.

The decimator for instance - seems like in most cases its still a poor choice than the S1. It has drop, which I didn't expect.

[Phreec]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AuOojvNLMApVdEtIU1NKenEzNzZOSWNaanFqSUVxLW c&type=view&gid=12&f=true&colid0=17&filterstr0=AR&sortcolid=16&sortasc=true&rowsperpage=250

This spreadsheet isn't exactly a secret. They're also working on creating a more visually pleasing charts over at http://symthic.com/ (the current google docs spreadsheet is made by one of their members).