Raw Weapon Data via Higby

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by Falcon_br

Increasing reload time to nerf the two .75 move ads overpowered VS HMG is not the solution we need right now.

Frankly this is the only part that I can agree with or support.

Having MOAR weapons that apparently function at a high level? Just pick the good one or the one you like?

There is so much detail missing from these graphs. They are interesting, but at the same time there is more they DON"T say than they do.

As far as balancing the .75 move ADS? I don't recall, I think it was igladyoumad that made a post about it many months ago and I think it got glossed over because, well he complains about a lot. Simply put though HA with an HMG should just not have that kind of movement and increasing reload time to attempt at balance is a laughable excuse.

[maradine]

[Badjuju]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Popularity =/= Quality. I don't see how this data shows that the Jackhammer is too good and the MCG isn't good enough.

From what I can see the VS LMGs are the most effective in the hands of BR100s.

Yea, surprisingly allot of players wielding VS LMGs, or any .75 weapons for that matter, do not take full advantage of the strafing speed. Higher BRs seem to understand the capabilities those weapons and strafe like mad men. What i was surprised to see was how the vs LMGs overall did very well, not just their prized ones. Med guns for VS fell short to NC and TR though, but we knew that already (Carnage will be a beast with nano changes btw).

It would be nice to see this data for a wider range of character ranks. Say 50-100. The point that higher level characters are more likely to have unlocked more weapons is well made, however a player not unlocking a weapon does not skew the data for that weapon.

My concern is how accurate some of the data is with what may be a relatively small sample size, particularly on the less popular weapons where a few outliers can really skew the data if the sample size for that weapon is small. The larger the sample size the better the data will be every time.

Not only that, but higher BRs tend to be verry efficient with whatever they use and generally are better players (opinion based off personal experience) I'm not sure if they represent the general player base who may be struggling with specific weapons Comparatively. If that was the case, I'm not sure what is better. Do you look at data from better players that show the full potential of weapons, or do you look at the data that represents what the average player is capable of doing with that weapon? Again this is under the assumption that higher BRs were often better players who leveled up quicker because of it.

Overall though the data is great to see and seems to fit how I feel about the weapons which are more popular. The one thing we need to be careful of is comparing score per hour between weapons of different niches. For example the jackhammer has a high score per hour because it is a close combat weapon used in fast paced environments with lots of targets (You see this with allot of weapons in that niche). It looks to out perform many LMGs from every faction, however I'd consider it a less effective weapon overall. You just don't tend to rack in kills as fast in longer engagements. Two different groups of weapons with two different niches.

Wow what was ment to be a quick comment turned into a wall of text, ill stop rambling .

[Badjuju]

Originally Posted by Falcon_br

If you don't think spm alone is enough, I have already made direct weapon stats comparative and the weapons with better stats are clear with better spm.
That's why I don't see future on MLG unless they all use NS weapons. It is clear that the TR is on disadvantage on all HA weapons.
While we must use the t9 carv on all situations, the NC and the VS have better options for close and long range, even to all purpose!
You can't be a competitive HA TR player and use something else then the t9 carv, unless you want a negative K/D.
I never saw a competitive streamer TR player that plays with HA, they all play with Mosquitos, or medics.
I don't get what you are talking about the TAR, the data is clear when the carnage BR is more used with better spm.

We have in outfit scrims on test server all the time playing every faction, and faction never dictates who wins the match. Ill agree that VS LMGs are the best in the game but the difference isnt enough to dictate who is winning fire fights. The player who shot better in any given engagement wins every time. VS on the other hand are lacking In the assault rifle department. The HV-45 blooms very quickly and isn't quite as effective in hammering in those head shots. Even then, the difference isn't substantial. I'm not going to argue that changes shouldn't be made, balance seems to be and should be an ongoing process, but balance is close enough that you can win with any faction in this game.

Also, the biggest factor in winning by a long shot is team work. Every faction has very capable weapons for every engagement with every class. But even if they didn't, a strong well coordinated push with shitty weapons is going to beat a sub par defense with amazing weapons every time.

Like I said we've skimmed amongst ourselves often, pitting different factions against each other and there has never been a time where faction dictated the outcome. It's all about team work and strategy. Using NS weapons would take away from what the game is all about and provide for boring comp if you ask me.

We also have plenty of players who play heavy as their primary class on TR. Just because they aren't one of the few people who stream doesn't mean they don't exist.

[Assist]

SPM isn't a very good indication of a specific weapons quality. SPM is a better indication of a players quality, or an outfits quality.

All this shows is that BR100's are able to aim well with all the weapons.

[Artalion]

I decided to dive into the medic data. I do data analysis for a living, so I immediately plugged all the raw data into excel and began looking for patterns. SOE, this is pro-bono.

A word on comparisons: I looked mostly at the equipment percentage. SPM would be meaningless because we are looking at all equipable weapons, regardless of type.

A word on math: I love it, but I realize that most people do not. So the format I'm going to use is this: Math first, then English. For those that are interested, statistics will be given in this format: Stat: (NC, TR, VS).

Math: Onto the graphs. I ran a number of regressions, before finding that a logarithmic regression best fit the data. NC users fit the logarithmic curve best, while VS fit the least. TR came in the middle. (R^2=.9565,.8835,.7905) I also ran correlations between the various equip rates between the empire. I found a strong correlation between the data: VS & NC= .9176, TR & VS= .9768, and NC & TR = .9759.

Translation: I found that the NC tends to be more diverse in their choice of primary weapons than the TR and VS. Even so, each empire seems to overwhelmingly favor a particular primary weapon over other weapons. This pattern is consistent across all empires.

Math: I went on to add more information, including the gun names and type. I then ran a comparison to see if the order of gun usage was related to type. Using a weighted average, I found that NC weapon types matched TR and VS with .8856 and .9018 respectively, while TR matched VS with a value of .9112. Values were still higher when I compared the first ten weapons. (.9075, .9736, .9547). (Note: To make the comparisons valid; I combined guns with cosmetic differences.)

Translation: Since the graphs looked so similar, I wanted to know if the weapons that were being used were also similar. They are.

Math: I now wanted to measure how diverse the faction weapon use was. To do this, I calculated the difference between each weapon, then added the differences. I found that differences were (22.09, 30.43, 35.41) The lower the number, the more diverse the weapon use is.

I went a step further and grouped them by type; to see what the differences in use were, by weapon type.

When I looked at Assault Rifle differences, I got the following sums: (21.88, 30.25, 34.58)

When I looked at Shotgun differences, I got the following sums: (2.46, 1.89, 3.34)

When I looked at SMG differences, I got the following sums: (1.62,.68, 3.12)

Translation: When it comes to choosing between different SMG's and different shotguns, there isn't much of a difference in terms of choice. The low differences between their frequency of use compared to other alternatives, suggests that SMG's and Shotguns are well balanced against each other.

The same can not be said for Assault Rifles. There are clear favorites here, weapons that are used more frequently than other weapons of the same type.

Final Conclusions (English): It looks like the various empires are well balanced against each other. The bigger problem is that there is a wide disparity between how frequently the assault rifles are used.

There are some possibilities that might explain the disparity.

The first is that the majority of PS2 battles favor specific types of engagements which cater more to situations where those particular weapons would be an asset.

This isn't convincing because PS2 battles can vary widely from location to location. Furthermore, it wouldn't explain disparities between factions. NC Assault Rifles have less disparity than TR weapons of a similar type.

The second is cost. Certain weapons cost certs and money, and not everyone has them, hence less weapon use.

This isn't convincing either, because our population consists of BR 100 players. Players in this particular group are heavily invested in the game, if not financially, then certainly in play time. They have had ample time and opportunity to unlock any of these weapons. If they haven't unlocked them by now, then there may be a very good reason for it.

Which leaves us with the possibility that the weapons themselves are not well balanced with respect to their counterparts. The nature of how to fix them is beyond the scope of my analysis. However, I can point out the weapons in particular that are furthest from the average use.

NC
Carnage BR (Standard Deviation 1.71)
Gauss Rifle Burst (Std. Dev.: -1.57)

TR
TAR (Std. Dev. 2.02)
T1B Cycler (Std. Dev. -1.22)

VS
H-V45 (Std. Dev. 2.16)

[BeyondNinja]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

• Maybe not, we'll see. Personally I would rather see each faction having the same 0.75 weapon options. Giving each faction it's own category of 0.75 weapons just seems rather arbitrary. I don't really see it as being a good way to make the factions more distinct from each other.

THIS ^

Ignoring SMGs and Shotguns cos they're common, the 0.75x ADS weapons are the most popular in every category, for all factions.

I agree that SPM doesn't really show much, because the difference between say, the Jackhammer and MCG is less than the difference between the TR and NC battlerifles...


It is however evident from the data that CQC-focused automatic weapons are the most popular for each category but what I think the data shows best is that for certain categories a faction feels 'pigeonholed' into choosing a single weapon. Best examples are the GD-7F for NC carbines, and the H-V45 for the VS medic, and to a lesser extent the Jaguar carbine and TAR AR for the TR.

From this I would postulate that the first 2 weapons need viable alternatives for CQC (other than shotguns and SMGs) and the TAR and Jaguar may need to have their alternatives (the TRV and Lynx) adjusted as evidently their pros aren't widely seen to overcome their cons compared to the TAR and Jaguar.

[Ghoest9]

There is WAY too much moving while shooting in general in PS2. And its way too effective.

Have you ever shot real guns? Moving while shooting works really really badly unless you are at almost point blank range. Forward movement offers a big penalty. Lateral movement ti a total joke.

If you had to do it you would want a small low recoil high cycle rate weapon that you could basically use like hose and its still for close range.
I Idea of using Assault rifles and even much worse LMGs while moving is totally stupid.

[BlaxicanX]

Any argument that starts with "have you every shot real guns" is doomed to fail.

I totally agree about LMG's though. If I had my way, they would be almost totally unusable if fired while moving, especially from the hip.

That said, there is overall game balance to consider. Call of Duty uses a gun gun system where SMG's have the best accuracy while hip-firing and firing on the move, while LMG's have shit hipfire and fire on the move accuracy. The result of that is almost no one uses LMG's, while SMG's tend to be king. With Battlefield, the only reason people use LMG's is because of the suppression mechanics (which I think are fucking awesome, btw).

Considering "suppression fire" doesn't really exist in Planetside, I'm dubious of how useful LMG's would be if they were made extremely unwieldy in short-range combat.

[Falcon_br]

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

Any argument that starts with "have you every shot real guns" is doomed to fail.

I totally agree about LMG's though. If I had my way, they would be almost totally unusable if fired while moving, especially from the hip.

That said, there is overall game balance to consider. Call of Duty uses a gun gun system where SMG's have the best accuracy while hip-firing and firing on the move, while LMG's have shit hipfire and fire on the move accuracy. The result of that is almost no one uses LMG's, while SMG's tend to be king. With Battlefield, the only reason people use LMG's is because of the suppression mechanics (which I think are fucking awesome, btw).

Considering "suppression fire" doesn't really exist in Planetside, I'm dubious of how useful LMG's would be if they were made extremely unwieldy in short-range combat.

I must agree with you.
But in a game of PS-2 proporsion, if they place suspression fire on it, in every big firefight you wont be able do advance or hit anything because of all the suspression you are going to receive!
Also, the small damage of the game makes even suspressive fire pointless, because if you try to pin down someone, you accuracy will go off and he can just pop up and kill you, I just advice suspression fire on my outfit if you have another person aiming at the target.

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by Assist

SPM isn't a very good indication of a specific weapons quality. SPM is a better indication of a players quality, or an outfits quality.

I would most certainly agree when it comes to engineers and medics.

[Ghoest9]

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

Any argument that starts with "have you every shot real guns" is doomed to fail.

I totally agree about LMG's though. If I had my way, they would be almost totally unusable if fired while moving, especially from the hip.

That said, there is overall game balance to consider. Call of Duty uses a gun gun system where SMG's have the best accuracy while hip-firing and firing on the move, while LMG's have shit hipfire and fire on the move accuracy. The result of that is almost no one uses LMG's, while SMG's tend to be king. With Battlefield, the only reason people use LMG's is because of the suppression mechanics (which I think are fucking awesome, btw).

Considering "suppression fire" doesn't really exist in Planetside, I'm dubious of how useful LMG's would be if they were made extremely unwieldy in short-range combat.

I hardly see what its a bad argument.

Its just the nature of human bodies and how they work. For the most part the game is at its best when technology is unrealistic and awesome but humans physically function more or less like real extremely athletic people.

[Sledgecrushr]

I think the most important part of these graphs is the spm. From what I am seeing is that generally the nc and tr infantry wepons are scoring close to the same while the vs weapons are overperforming.

I wish we could reorder these charts for spm.

[Badjuju]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

There is WAY too much moving while shooting in general in PS2. And its way too effective.

Have you ever shot real guns? Moving while shooting works really really badly unless you are at almost point blank range. Forward movement offers a big penalty. Lateral movement ti a total joke.

If you had to do it you would want a small low recoil high cycle rate weapon that you could basically use like hose and its still for close range.
I Idea of using Assault rifles and even much worse LMGs while moving is totally stupid.

Many find that playstile fun which is mos important.

For the sake of argument though, if youve ever been in the military you are trained to shoot on the move. You use skeletal support over musle to keep your uperbody as rigid as possible while movement and fluidity is controlled by your lower body. Staying still allows you to reach reach extreme ranges such as 300 meters standing to 600 meters while prone using ironsights of an m16, something every marine accoplishes in boot camp.

Mlitary assault rifles are also buit to accomade fring while on the move which is integral in performing assaults. SMGs even more so. Broom sticks, bullpup designs and all kind of other features are examples of advancements that impove a weapons capabilities to be fired on the move.

Sure there is more movement in planetside but one its a game not reality, and two one bullet doesnt kill you. If one bullet killed then you would be stopping or limiting your movement for that well placed shot. However it takes loads of bullets thus people move to reduce the amount of incoming fire you take.

If everyone had to stand still and fire a half a magazine at each other the ame would be boring as hell from my perspective. Movement keeps the game fluid well paced for ttk. Not only that but it demands more shooting skill. Shooting a still target for an extended time is rather effortless. If it was a very low ttk then you have that twitch factor but thats not the case.

I think the movement/shooting mechanics were done right. Slowing them would bog the game down imo.

[Ghoest9]

Originally Posted by Badjuju

For the sake of argument though, if youve ever been in the military you are trained to shoot on the move. You use skeletal support over musle to keep your uperbody as rigid as possible while movement and fluidity is controlled by your lower body. Staying still allows you to reach reach extreme ranges such as 300 meters standing to 600 meters while prone using ironsights of an m16, something every marine accoplishes in boot camp.

Mlitary assault rifles are also buit to accomade fring while on the move which is integral in performing assaults. SMGs even more so. Broom sticks, bullpup designs and all kind of other features are examples of advancements that impove a weapons capabilities to be fired on the move.

Sure there is more movement in planetside but one its a game not reality, and two one bullet doesnt kill you. If one bullet killed then you would be stopping or limiting your movement for that well placed shot. However it takes loads of bullets thus people move to reduce the amount of incoming fire you take.

If everyone had to stand still and fire a half a magazine at each other the ame would be boring as hell from my perspective. Movement keeps the game fluid well paced for ttk. Not only that but it demands more shooting skill. Shooting a still target for an extended time is rather effortless. If it was a very low ttk then you have that twitch factor but thats not the case.

I think the movement/shooting mechanics were done right. Slowing them would bog the game down imo.

It took you 4 paragraphs to avoid mentioning that the military does not want you to fire while moving laterally - which is what I specifically addressed.


You might hit someone across a room while moving laterally - otherwise its a horrible idea.



As for moving forward or backwards while firing - yes you can do it for useful effect - the but the loss of accuracy is huge. The idea of .75 speed while doing it is absurd and the though of hip firing beyond room length is silly.