v1.5 increased projectile speeds: discussion

[Stassin]

Alright folks this is a pretty crucial subject for the mod's gameplay, and even though it seemed to receive mostly positive feedback during the previous open betas, hence its addition in v1.5, now the feedback appears to be quite divided on the subject with both very positive and very negative stances.

To reiterate, the projectile speeds have been increased by 15% across the board in the v1.5 release, with the exception of projectile rifle shots and clone blobs (and SBD blobs in FA).

 

[Sir Crusher]

I've omitted the first two paragraphs as they're not really something I want to fill a feedback thread with arguing about. You're set in your ways on how you see skill just as I am set in mine.

It's impossible to be productive here if you deny other arguments by calling them opinions. Everything said in this thread will be taken seriously, and if you disqualify other arguments like that, It'll be harder to reach conclusions.

 

[Manyo]

@Sir Crusher: stop dodging with general luck vs skill discussion, again that isn't THE problem with the bullet speeds increase. Please start listing which classes and abilities are benefiting from the change and which will be worse off in overall balance. And then say why you think it will be better that way or how it will be rebalanced in your opinion. If you can't do that i have to believe you don't know what you are talking about.

The shorter duration of fights is another indirect change that im not sure everyone is aware of. I personally enjoy long gunfights and MB2 always had the perfect middle ground between Quake and CS. This will now be changed and gunners who enjoyed the game for so long this way might miss it just like me. That you think otherwise is yet again another proof that you want to fundamentally change the game. If that is the case we should have a much different discussion than just voting about bullet speeds. This would need a serious redesign of a game that was pretty well thought out and grown together since more than 10 years.

 

[Lessen]

If higher shotspeeds affect certain matchups adversely, I'd say that just means those matchups need to be adjusted, rather than reverting shotspeeds. That's how much I want higher shotspeeds to stay.

I'm fine with the resulting shorter gunfights. To me, it felt dumb for even pretty good gunners to have such long wiggle-dance sprayfights. Skill wasn't rewarded enough.

 

[Manyo]

If higher shotspeeds affect certain matchups adversely, I'd say that just means those matchups need to be adjusted, rather than reverting shotspeeds. That's how much I want higher shotspeeds to stay.

I'm fine with the resulting shorter gunfights. To me, it felt dumb for even pretty good gunners to have such long wiggle-dance sprayfights. Skill wasn't rewarded enough.

Basically shotspeeds more important than anything else in the game? For example a Mandalorian not beeing able to fly when there are enemies around wouldn't be a problem to you?

 

[Lessen]

Basically shotspeeds more important than anything else in the game? For example a Mandalorian not beeing able to fly when there are enemies around wouldn't be a problem to you?

That sounds hyperbolic, I'm pretty sure I can still get away with jetpacking around most gunners, at least here in NA. I even dodge proj shots by just jetting upwards/downwards. Sometimes. Probably not against very great snipers

 

[Sir Crusher]

@Sir Crusher: stop dodging with general luck vs skill discussion, again that isn't THE problem with the bullet speeds increase.

I've answered your questions and nothing more. You're the one bringing class balance issues to the projectile speed feedback thread, not me.

Please start listing which classes and abilities are benefiting from the change and which will be worse off in overall balance.

Classes with lower HP will have a natural disadvantage against higher HP ones. However, that problem ALREADY existed before the speed adjustment. The problem of your thought process is that you fail to see the problems in class balance, and blame the projectiles adjustment when the new speeds expose these problems.

 

[Manyo]

Classes with lower HP will have a natural disadvantage against higher HP ones. However, that problem ALREADY existed before the speed adjustment. The problem of your thought process is that you fail to see the problems in class balance, and blame the projectiles adjustment when the new speeds expose these problems.

Nothing else will be effected?

@Lessen: It was meant to be hyperbolic =).
In a thread where the majority of arguments for the change are making aim more important, i want to know where the line would be for you guys. Because if there isn't one your goal should be hitscan weapons in the first place.

Might as well go for that now instead of yearly increasing bullet speeds and going through rebalancing hell everytime.

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

It's impossible to be productive here if you deny other arguments by calling them opinions. Everything said in this thread will be taken seriously, and if you disqualify other arguments like that, It'll be harder to reach conclusions.

You might want to actually read what I omitted before posting something like this. The first two paragraphs are Torlo explaining to me what his definition of skill is, how it is reliant on repetition and factors to the feeling of gun play and the feel of range/hitscan. There is no room for argument there, I could make a post explaining that I disagree and why I disagree, and then we'd go in circles arguing in a thread about debating the change, not the semantics of what skill is, how things feel, etc. He's set in his ways on how he defines skill much as how I am set in mine.

Prediction is based on two things. How well you know what people generally do in a particular hallway, and how well you know your opponent. This is not skill, merely refined practice hitting the same predictive moves over and over again. You at first guess, and then slowly get use to what your opponent is going to do before he does it. This is fine, but feels extremely poor in fun gun-play. Not only is it based on repetitiveness, which I think we all deal with more often then not, it also doesn't feel like you have a gun. As in, at all. Now, I played since 1.3, so I don't go too far back, but I like the feel of having to aim without trying to guess( or predict) where my opponent is going. That just feels.... poor, in game-play taste. Now, after doing some Open fights tonight, there is still some feel to this. However, it certainly makes me feel like I earned a hit, rather then finally got your pattern down. Big difference there.

To address you other point, the guns still don't feel hit scan, at least at mid-range (though our definitions on range is what probably vary). Is it more hit-scan(ish) then it was... sure. That was kind of the point of the increase in speed, so accuracy and aim took more point then predicting patterns. Sabering is much the same, if an opponent attacks in a same pattern time and time again, you eventually get it down and start PB-ing them like there is no tomorrow. Changing up your combo style, and actively mixing it up fixes that, but a strafing style can really only be mixed up so far. Left, right, and a little farther left next time to dodge a bolt coming in feels cheesy at times, even in this patch, though not nearly as bad as before.

 

[jango40]

I don't like the change but seems we have to live with it considering the pol

 

[Nex]

That sounds hyperbolic, I'm pretty sure I can still get away with jetpacking around most gunners, at least here in NA. I even dodge proj shots by just jetting upwards/downwards. Sometimes. Probably not against very great snipers

Everything to you seems 'hyperbolic', you use that nonsense word in every post. You guys presented literally zero logical arguments in favor of faster projectile speeds while we did explain why changing things for the sake of change alone is not just unnecessery but stupid as well. You don't change and touch things that are fine. Nobody complained about this untill recent update. Devs created the problem that wasn't there on the first place. But that happens if you put kids into beta testing and then take their silly game-breaking ideas seriously, sigh.

 

[Stassin]

I don't like the change but seems we have to live with it considering the pol

That's not set in stone just yet. This thread and poll are only probing, and getting information.

Big EDIT:
Why so impatient, organic ? Oh... right... your limited lifespan and unstable organism urge you to rush through both decisions and existence.

 

[Lessen]

Everything to you seems 'hyperbolic', you use that nonsense word in every post.

"a Mandalorian not beeing able to fly when there are enemies around" = hyperbole, mate. Mandos can still fly. It's not my fault y'all say such ridiculously exaggerated things.

You guys presented literally zero logical arguments in favor of faster projectile speeds

Slow shots make gunplay "overly random" because movement is extremely difficult to predict. If shots are slow enough, the gunplay starts to favor "just skitter around and fire randomly" over "be careful about where you're aiming, even if it limits your movement." I prefer the latter option. Logical enough?

Obviously this argument isn't just about logic; there's a huge element of subjective "taste" here, and the poll seems to indicate that the "tastes" of the playerbase favor faster shotspeeds.

 

[Sir Crusher]

You might want to actually read what I omitted before posting something like this. The first two paragraphs are Torlo explaining to me what his definition of skill is, how it is reliant on repetition and factors to the feeling of gun play and the feel of range/hitscan. There is no room for argument there, I could make a post explaining that I disagree and why I disagree, and then we'd go in circles arguing in a thread about debating the change, not the semantics of what skill is, how things feel, etc. He's set in his ways on how he defines skill much as how I am set in mine.

He never stated, "in my opinion, Prediction is...". He gave the definition of prediction and you disqualified it as an opinion.

 

[Lessen]

p.s. @Nex I don't think you can even argue something like "the past X years of MB2's history prove that it was fine the way it was before."

The fact that we have so few good gunners in NA suggests to me that there's been something wrong with gunplay. (Although obviously the main reason why saberists outnumber gunners is simply "lightsabers are cool." But shit, blasters are cool too.)

And besides, really good gunners generally favor proj. Because it has high projectile speeds.

Edit: Importantly, playstyle-wise I'm someone who tries to only engage in gunfights at closer ranges where prediction isn't overly random. I'm really not a fan of long range sprayfights, where you basically spray-and-pray while focusing your attention mostly on evasion. I like aiming. So I engage at ranges where aiming is possible.

In this patch, in long halls, projectiles (aside from snipers ofc) are still slow enough that you can have those kinds of spray-and-dodge bullet hell fights, if you really want to. I imagine that's more your style. So I think I can sort of see where you're coming from.

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

He never stated, "in my opinion, Prediction is...". He gave the definition of prediction and you disqualified it as an opinion.

This is the last time I'm replying to your posts on this subject as it is utterly irrelevant to the topic of the thread. If you really want to argue with me this badly, make your own points and argue them with me but I won't waste my time and this thread's forum space debating over how you or I define prediction and skilled gameplay, that sort of difference is fundamental and a forum argument is not going to change your mind no matter how well presented, you hold your view on that as I hold mine.

I could have argued the point easily but chose not to as it is down to our definition and opinion of skilled gameplay, not whether the increased projectile speed is good or bad. I see prediction, map knowledge and the dedication required to use both of them in conjunction with your own aim and positioning during high stress situations such as a tense gunfight as a fundamental skill, that separates good players who win through strategy over bad players who crutch on their youthful reflexes.

As for the rest of it, it is his opinion and his view on how skilled gameplay functions and how the game feels to him, arguing that will only devolve into a shit flinging contest. If his issue is that predicting a target doesn't feel right but hitting a target with the current changes feels more like an earned hit, then we should be looking into making all guns hitscan so that aim is rewarded as the most prestigious of skills whilst all other aspects of MB2 fall to the wayside in favour of a more 'competitive' gunnery system.

After all, if people actually want the skilled gunner to win the vast majority of the time there's no way to better ensure this than to allow skilled players to land 100% headshots at any range while moving erratically, pussyfooting around with faster projectile speeds as we slowly head towards hitscan weapons is just wasting time.

 

[Sir Crusher]

fine. send me a message at the council of balance if you want to debate this.

 

[Lessen]

fine. send me a message at the council of balance if you want to debate this.

are we allowed to mention the council of balance

@CC-1119 "Appo' I like the faster projectile speeds, and I DON'T want hitscan. I don't think that's contradictory. I don't want aim to be the only factor; I just want it to be 15% more of a factor than it was before! My own argument continues to be "aim wasn't a strong enough factor before," and you would be wrong to conflate that with "I want aim to be the only factor."

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

@Lessen
Sure, but I disagree that aim wasn't a strong enough element before. I mean, the change certainly has made aim more relevant but the "15% gain" in terms of aiming relevance isn't necessarily proportionate to movement, that 15% increase to the worth of an individual's aim cascades into something like 30 - 40% less effectiveness for any sort of mobility focused play style or evasion at close to mid range. It may just be an issue of over tuning as I think 15% is far too high and invalidates a lot of play styles which are not passive as well as significantly lowering the skill difference between a top tier gunner and a newbie, a lower value might work better to give you enough of a boost that you can reliably avoid shots at higher levels of play.

 

[Zilenan91]

Speaking of the new projectile changes, I think ETs and Commanders need an Armor buff to be at 60 armor at armor level 3. The class in general is not very good anymore, especially with the Dodge nerf which made that ability essentially unusable on the class now with how short it lasts. The dodge nerf was absolutely needed because that ability is fucking dumb, but there's just no real reason to play Commander when you can be a Soldier now since all it is is just a faster Soldier.

Also the t-21 feels REALLY bad now. The whole thing it did before was do great damage, but the downsides were that it costed more points to get it to level 3 compared to the e-11, and it was very inaccurate to the point that you had to be standing still (and using Dodge to be safe while doing this) in order to fire it at perfect accuracy. It's not good anymore even despite the projectile speed increases helping it somewhat since it now needs one extra shot to kill most classes, meaning it kills closer to the same number of shots as the E-11 does, but on a gun that both costs more points and is way less accurate. Overall the nerf isn't the worst thing ever since the whole point of the gun was to shit on Gunners while being weaker against Jedi, but at the moment it doesn't do that anymore so it's bad.

 

[Nex]

p.s. @Nex
The fact that we have so few good gunners in NA suggests to me that there's been something wrong with gunplay.

LOL. NA players are bad = something with the gunplay is wrong! Let's speed up bullets! Hahahahhah ok no comment dude.. holyyy shit... I'm so done now with you clowns. The ultimate proof of how idiotic and silly your whole cry out is.

Obviously this argument isn't just about logic; there's a huge element of subjective "taste" here, and the poll seems to indicate that the "tastes" of the playerbase favor faster shotspeeds.

See, you even admit you can't use logical argument. Pls hold me, this guy is hilarious. And the only thing this poll shows when you actually click to see what members voted for specific option, you can easily notice that for Yes there is like 1-3 players that are good (threep,SeV), the other 35+ votes were given by complete newbies. Where on the other hand, in favor of Not keeping it mostly veterans and few of the best players around voted. It kinda says alot. Noobs prefer the easy way, while good players not so much.

For real, why is this discussion still going on? Devs pls? End this comedy.