The Issue of the 10%-20% Power Differentiation

[Sifer2]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

It's actually specialization. Someone could be specialized 20% into one thing and another person could specialize 20% into something totally different. Meaning two veterans would not necessarily be on equal footing. It would depend on what they specialized in.

In fact that's why I'd prefer more than 20%. I already did the math Higby showed for a few cases and came to the same conclusion that 20% isn't really anything for specialization. My current fear is that specialization doesn't mean anything other than visual upgrades.

It could mean something. Depends on the weapon were talking about. What if a Sniper Rifle by default can't one shot you but with 20% more it can? All depends on the Rifle damage an armor/health values.

[Bags]

Originally Posted by Valdae

Another thread on this forum that has been blown completely out of proportion..

But it got us a dev response, yay.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Higby

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

Thank you for the clear up. I understand the point on weapons that have have smaller damage points like you mentioned, but it could potentially help higher damage weapons like the Jackhammer. Whats was the 20% remark towards concerning the difference between a vet and noob?

@ The people who say gets blown out of proportion. What else do you expect to happen based on the info we have attained, since its release a few weeks ago? Please do not say there is no point in discussing due to the limited info, if that was the case we should not have have a dedicated PS2 forum.

EDIT: Nevermind you already responded to that. I could of sworn I hit the VIP tracker this morning, guess not lol.

[Soothsayer]

Originally Posted by Goku

@ The people who say gets blown out of proportion. What else do you expect to happen based on the info we have attained, since its release a few weeks ago? Please do not say there is no point in discussing due to the limited info, if that was the case we should not have have a dedicated PS2 forum.

Yeah, this is pretty contentious and central to all aspects of gameplay. People are gonna really come out and voice their opinions on something as big as this.

And I assume that its early enough that a difference can be made (or, from my biased point of view... not made).

[IceyCold]

Originally Posted by Goku

Thank you for the clear up. I understand the point on weapons that have have smaller damage points like you mentioned, but it could potentially help higher damage weapons like the Jackhammer. Whats was the 20% remark towards concerning the difference between a vet and noob?

Even then it would still not be a big difference because of the scale of health to dmg.

For instance:

Say the Jackhammer does 40 Dmg a hit, thus against a target with 100 hp: 3 shots to kill. (40 + 40 + 40 = 120)

Now with a 20% modifier to dmg the JH now does 48 dmg per shot.

Math again with new mod:

Shot # // Dmg // Health remaining
0 - 0 - 100
1 - 48 - 52
2 - 96 - 4
3 - 134 - -44


So even with this dmg modifier of 20% you still require 3 shots to kill someone at full health.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Higby

The growth afforded by the PS2 cert system to an mmorpg character growth curve isn't even comparable.

Using some back of the napkin math on a hugely simplified example. A first session player would pick up a gun that did 10 damage per shot and start blasting at a guy with full health, assuming he hit every shot and didn't get any headshots (he's a noob, afterall!), it would take 10 shots to kill his enemy:

Shot # damage done health remaining
1 10 90
2 20 80
3 30 70
4 40 60
5 50 50
6 60 40
7 70 30
8 80 20
9 90 10
10 100 0

Imagine we were talking about a straight 10% damage increase, what does this look like?

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 11 89
2 22 78
3 33 67
4 44 56
5 55 45
6 66 34
7 77 23
8 88 12
9 99 1
10 110 -10

Would you look at that... still takes 10 shots to kill.

What about 20%, surely that is an insane TTK decrease...

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 12 88
2 24 76
3 36 64
4 48 52
5 60 40
6 72 28
7 84 16
8 96 4
9 108 -8

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

CAN WE PLEASE NOW, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, REALIZE THAT THE DEVS ARN'T COMPLETE TARDS AND HAVE BALANCE IN MIND???

[Bags]

You can't have both a brain and Higby's hair though.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by IceyCold

Even then it would still not be a big difference because of the scale of health to dmg.

For instance:

Say the Jackhammer does 40 Dmg a hit, thus against a target with 100 hp: 3 shots to kill. (40 + 40 + 40 = 120)

Now with a 20% modifier to dmg the JH now does 48 dmg per shot.

Math again with new mod:

Shot # // Dmg // Health remaining
0 - 0 - 100
1 - 48 - 52
2 - 96 - 4
3 - 134 - -44


So even with this dmg modifier of 20% you still require 3 shots to kill someone at full health.

Doesn't matter anymore. So w/e now lol. Was stating the reason why I was concerned. That can make a big difference though depending on certain areas of the game. Base fights from all the extra shooting leaves people at lower health, so that would make it even more effective at killing then.

[Chufty]

To be fair to all the sane people out there, I think it's only a vocal minority who are getting their knickers in a twist about precisely nothing.

Absolutely nothing that SOE have announced so far has me concerned. I just want more PlanetSide, and I want it ASAP.

[Bags]

>implying planetside has a big enough group of people for there to be a "minority"



Thanks for the insult though!

[IceyCold]

Originally Posted by Chufty

To be fair to all the sane people out there, I think it's only a vocal minority who are getting their knickers in a twist about precisely nothing.

Absolutely nothing that SOE have announced so far has me concerned. I just want more PlanetSide, and I want it ASAP.

Even if I personally think it is all going to work fine as the Devs have described, everyone has a right to an opinion and the devs need to be willing to listen to all of the feedback from the community. I can understand why they are worried and it is precisely BECAUSE of this "vocal minority" that Higby came onto this forum to give his input on the subject and thus giving the community as a whole more information to base our own judgments off of.

Dismissing the opinions of even a small percentage of the community simply because you do not agree is a foolish act at best; and a practice I would prefer the Development team working on Planetside 2 never adapt.

[Shady]

Originally Posted by Goku

Doesn't matter anymore. So w/e now lol. Was stating the reason why I was concerned. That can make a big difference though depending on certain areas of the game. Base fights from all the extra shooting leaves people at lower health, so that would make it even more effective at killing then.

So what you're saying is you want them to balance the game around the fact that people with less than full health will sometimes be fighting people with full health and the people at full health shouldn't have a higher chance of killing people at low health?

I could kinda understand what you're saying if it were a one on one situation where if player 1 had lower health than player 2, and player 2's gun did more damage it's more likely that player 2 would kill player 1, but player 1 is already at a disadvantage because whether player 2's gun does more damage or not he still has more health and is more likely to win.

But what you're talking about isn't even close to that, what you're saying is that you're concerned with the fact that in big base battles a guy with a higher damage weapon is going to do (in the case of the example given earlier on this page) 8 more damage to a guy who isn't at full health and might kill said guy in 2 shots instead of 3. In that case it sounds like the guy with less health should try to find a medic instead of trying to fight people who are at full health with slightly more powerful guns.

I'm sorry but I just don't see how this is a big enough concern to worry about.

[LostSoul]

To be honest I like his Maths and his hair now!

Damn him.

[Straws]

Originally Posted by Valdae

Another thread on this forum that has been blown completely out of proportion..

Sadly, it's a side-effect when people (passionate ones, mind) try to discuss specifics of game design when they lack the details needed.

It would be nice if some people in this thread would show a bit of restraint and wait until they have the finer details before "condemning" design decisions, but we're currently working with a perpetual IRC minded internet community where everything is a reaction rather than contemplation.

Some people in this thread have given hyopothetical scenarios to show how minor 20% can actually be, others have pointed out that's it's "20% more useful, not 20% more powerful", but that's semantics and it is over the heads of a lot of people, even those with a solid grasp of game design.

Now that Higby has said what a few others already said, maybe some of us will calm down a bit, think outside the box a little, and maybe realise that the theoretical is not the same as the practical application of design.

[FIREk]

Originally Posted by Higby

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

<3

Matt, now that you've become an Internets Hero over here and pretty much made a /thread , can I take advantage of your attention and direct it here?

All of you worrying about straight power advancement, in fast TTK games it's all down to skill anyway. Even if your opponent can drop you 0,2s quicker, if he got the drop on you you, those 0,2s won't help you much. They won't help him much if you got the drop on him, and if he's got more armor and can take one hit more.

In APB Reloaded you've got weapon upgrades that translate into sheer power, up to 7% more RoF and roughly 20% reduced Cone of Fire bloom. Regardless, you don't really feel the difference, unless your opponent is using an item shop weapon that does offer a true, significant advantage (like tighter spread that you couldn't ever achieve through upgrades).

Now let's take BFBC2 for example. Many unlockable weapons give you an advantage with no real tradeoff. There's so much happening and TTK is so short that it doesn't really matter. There aren't that many 1v1 fights, and there will probably be even less in PS2. The most important thing is situational awareness - getting the drop on an enemy before he gets a drop on you.

In my opinion the 20% is just something to keep the more simplistic players playing the game. Some people just need progression in order to give some meaning to the time they spend in the game.