Trivial-to-serious Issues with weapon behavior and possible solutions

[PhoenixDragon]

Originally Posted by GnaM

You seem to be forgetting that the only reason I brought up the AN-94 in the first place was as an (extreme) example where high rate of fire contributes to tighter show groups from short bursts than weapons with lower rates of fire.

I'm well aware that's why you brought it up. My post was pointing out why that's completely wrong: it's not the RoF that makes the AN-94 have such a tight group, it's the free-floating recoil system. Comparing the AN-94 burst-fire to a conventional ~600 RPM weapon is comparing apples to oranges, they're too different in other respects to make such a comparison useful. That's what I was trying to point out to you.

[GnaM]

Originally Posted by PhoenixDragon

I'm well aware that's why you brought it up. My post was pointing out why that's completely wrong: it's not the RoF that makes the AN-94 have such a tight group, it's the free-floating recoil system. Comparing the AN-94 burst-fire to a conventional ~600 RPM weapon is comparing apples to oranges, they're too different in other respects to make such a comparison useful. That's what I was trying to point out to you.

You seem to be having difficulty mentally negotiating relative values and are resorting to black and white judgments so you can win your "correction of the day" points. You admitted yourself that the AN94's mechanism would not work without such a high rate of fire, therefore, the fire rate is partially responsible for its tight burst groups.

In any case, it's worth pointing out that even if the PPSH really did have the cartoon recoil people on these forums seem to believe in, and TWI implemented it as such, the weapon has a semi-auto selector, so it'd still have an advantage at long range over the MP40.

[PhoenixDragon]

Originally Posted by GnaM

You admitted yourself that the AN94's mechanism would not work without such a high rate of fire, therefore, the fire rate is partially responsible for its tight burst groups.

No, a lower rate of fire would not make such a system fail to work. It would simply increase the distance it would need to freely recoil to impractical lengths. If you had a long enough of a track for it to slide back on, you could do a similar system with pretty much any rate of fire you want. The high RoF simply allows them to do it in a size that is practical in a held firearm.

And regardless of this, a weapon with such a recoil system is completely irrelevant when discussing weapons without such a system, in which the recoil is felt immediately, not after a delay. I'm not pointing this out as a flaw in the assertion about RoF, I'm pointing it out as a flaw of using the behavior of one kind of system to imply behavior in a completely different system.

[GnaM]

^ I see what you're saying now, but it was never meant as a definitive example of the point in the first place. If there were a better example, I would have used it, but it's obviously an area on which little factual study has been done. In a perfect world, the game would calculate recoil momentum out so that simply putting in the recoil impulse value would yield the proper shot groupings, but I doubt anyone has bothered to devise such calculations in any tactical shooter.

[[Mad_Murdock]]

I think we can all agree that the PPSh recoil and accuracy in this, any pretty much every other game is a cartoon at best, and an abomination at worst. Most people just have a hard time accepting the fact that it was the all-around better weapon.

Funny story, these same people have no problem accepting things like "k98 is better than mosin" (true, in most factors), etc. But I digress.

For an interesting, if I do say so myself, analysis of comparative recoil between the MP-40 and PPSh, allow me to direct you to 6 hours of my own work, located at post #37 (page 2, i think) here:

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.co...ad.php?t=86473

It is by no means perfect, but I like to think it is a fair and objective analysis that draws very interesting conclusions.

Now, allow me to address the other issue in the order they are presented. I apologize for the length of this post.

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

• Aimed down sight, moving accuracy

The sights are clearly not aligned! It's intuitive that the gun will not shoot straight, but of course it does anyways. This is an example of a mechanic which can be abused in the hands of an experienced player who knows the subtleties of the animation. After over a year of playing, running and gunning with the SVT-40/G41(W) becomes second nature. Weapons, particularly rifles, should not be as accurate while moving

I disagree. The weapon sights may be misaligned, but the rifle itself may not be as far off target as one might imagine. Two main reasons contribute to this.

The first is momentum. Even if you are walking at the speed an RO2 soldier does in IS, a lot of the "wobble" generated by walking is absorbed by the momentum of the weapon. A rifle is a heavy thing, and does not necessarily shift from position. Hence a smaller, lighter weapon is advantageous in the sense that it is much easier to bring on target. Compound this with the natural shock absorption in the soldier's arms, and you decrease the "wobble" significantly. Especially at the ranges we most see in-game that would require walking in IS, testing this out at home shows it is fairly simple to hold a rifle (M91/30 in my case) generally on a man-size target at anywhere between 5 and 30 meters.

Secondly, and this has a lot to do with what you mentioned about exploiting, there is haptic feedback which is absent from a game. A soldier who has been shooting the same weapon for a year (paralleling your experience example) will be very in tune with the behavior of his weapon. At this point it becomes muscle memory. In my own limited experience, I can shoulder the aforementioned M91/30 mostly on target from the hip, just from being familiar with where the end of the barrel is pointing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I just dont see it as much of a problem or exploit at all.

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

• Regarding the SVT-40 -

Like a lot of tilting-bolt designs, the SVT strings vertical groups. This should be reflected in game. The SVT sniper in particular should have a noticeable drawback at long range, shouldn't be a flat upgrade over the Mosin sniper

No long rant here, I think it was sufficiently explained by Phoenix that the point of impact deviations that are often quoted for these weapons require ranges beyond what we see in game to show much of a detrimental effect at all. This is also partly what makes the PPSh accuracy nerf so detestable.

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

• Submachine guns - problematic patterning

Assuming you can handle the recoil, the accuracy between the MP 40 and the PPSh is very similar. As a result, the PPSh has a significant advantage at range. Simply put, a high ROF weapon should not group as well as a low ROF weapon. Increase accuracy of the MP 40, or increase dispersion in the PPSh

A trained soldier would most likely be able to handle the recoil, so lets stick with that assumption. Which brings me to the point that, the PPSh SHOULD have a significant advantage at range. I don't know why it is painted like some kind of shotgun-range bullet hose in every game ever. The 7.62x25 Tokarev round carries the same kind of kinetic energy as its 9mm counterpart. Especially given it's higher velocity, which incidentally makes for a much flatter trajectory which is a serious advantage at long ranges. On top of that, it is a necked cartridge fired from a select-fire weapon. It is basically the WWII era FN P-90. As for recoil mitigation, see my analysis above. The sustained-fire recoil of the PPSh is definitely higher than on an MP-40 due to it's nearly double ROF, but per-shot the PPSh recoil significantly less than the MP-40, which makes the 2.5x values we see in the code doubly ridiculous.

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

• Pistols - Fun, but firing behavior is in sore shape

Like submachine guns, pistols in RO2 are best when fired as quickly as possible for maximum volume of fire. Your best bet at ranges over 50m is to mash the trigger and try to gauge point of impact based on the firing animation. My suggestion is thus: Increase dispersion with rapid fire. There should be a penalty to accuracy while the sights are out of alignment after the firing animation. Increase accuracy a bit to put emphasis on well-aimed shots at center mass

I can't comment too much on this since I have never used them much, but in my experience they seem to be alright. At close ranges, you SHOULD be firing that thing off as fast as you can, because at that point you are using is as an almost last-ditch weapon.

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

• And finally, Regarding flaws in ADS (Aim Down Sight)

It always snaps to the same point at the center of the screen. As an experienced RO2 player I would say the most important aspect of the gunplay is always knowing the exact center point of the screen in order to pop off accurate shots as quickly as possible.

For one, this is pretty unintuitive considering the free-floating ADS mechanic is one of the core gameplay gimmicks that separates RO2 from other shooters, but for another it's very exploitable. Add your own crosshair with a pencil or use a simple jpg overlay and you have a big advantage
Two possible solutions:

1.Introduce a low-profile crosshair that sits steady in the center of the screen at all times. Yeah I know, I know, but anything that removes the advantage of the draw-ons is a step in the right direction

2. Add an element of randomness as to where the sights align after aiming. I'm willing to hear any other ideas

I definitely agree that some improvements can be made to the ADS system, but I disagree wholeheartedly with your proposed solution. Firstly, adding a crosshair is a big no-no, that is effectively fixing an exploit by giving it to everybody and therefore just kind of lowering the standards. This is how we get higher test scores in schools here in California, by dropping the difficulty (haha, its a political joke).

I think that the sights should come up to the general area where the gun is pointed at the hip. Maybe not the same precise point, but adding randomness to the mix will just make me wonder why my experienced soldier is randomly pushing his gun off-target while pulling it into his shoulder. It is really not as movement-intensive of an operation as people make it out to be and becomes very fluid with a bit of practice.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned tomorrow for the next exciting episode of Murdock's periodically pedantic rants!

[Panzer Jager '43]

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

No long rant here, I think it was sufficiently explained by Phoenix that the point of impact deviations that are often quoted for these weapons require ranges beyond what we see in game to show much of a detrimental effect at all. This is also partly what makes the PPSh accuracy nerf so detestable.

This is just not true. If an SVT-40 is achieving 7-MoA groups, then it will become unreliable for engaging a man-sized target in the open at around 300m. Engaging targets at 300m is quite possible in this game.

Furthermore, it will have considerable effect on engaging head-sized targets of personnel in cover at ranges well under 300m. This is a huge factor in the game, where lots of people like to use these things called cover, and often pop out only their head. If your head is say, 5" across, then at around 100m the SVT-40 would be far from 100% reliable for engaging a head-sized target (for example a prone machine-gunner or dug in Rifleman.) Beyond that range, the difference between the SVT-40 and a 3-MoA Mosin (which is a pretty bad condition Mosin) would only increase considerably.

[[Mad_Murdock]]

Originally Posted by Panzer Jager '43

This is just not true. If an SVT-40 is achieving 7-MoA groups, then it will become unreliable for engaging a man-sized target in the open at around 300m. Engaging targets at 300m is quite possible in this game.

To be perfectly honest with you, If your scoped (or unscoped for that matter) SVT is shooting 7 MoA, you've got much bigger problems to worry about.

[GnaM]

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

I think we can all agree that the PPSh recoil and accuracy in this, any pretty much every other game is a cartoon at best, and an abomination at worst. Most people just have a hard time accepting the fact that it was the all-around better weapon.

Funny story, these same people have no problem accepting things like "k98 is better than mosin" (true, in most factors), etc. But I digress.

Yes, I read your post in Sarkis' thread back then and enjoyed it. I've said this in other threads, but if weapons in RO2 had a random chance to misfeed and the PPSH had a 2.5x higher chance of doing so, that would be far more realistic and preferable to 2.5x recoil.

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

I think that the sights should come up to the general area where the gun is pointed at the hip. Maybe not the same precise point, but adding randomness to the mix will just make me wonder why my experienced soldier is randomly pushing his gun off-target while pulling it into his shoulder. It is really not as movement-intensive of an operation as people make it out to be and becomes very fluid with a bit of practice.

This sounds like it'd be very similar to Infiltration's iron sight free-aim, which I praised in another thread, because it has the added advantage of allowing you to manually pull the sights lower when you're scanning for targets, then higher when you're preparing to take a shot, all without removing the weapon from your shoulder.

[Gregory Corso]

Originally Posted by PheonixDragon

Yeah, the scoped bolt-actions are about ~1/4-1/3 MoA, while the semi-auto snipers are ~1 MoA. At max scope-plus-focus zoom, that makes the bolt-action snipers sub-pixel accurate, and the semi-auto snipers barely wander into the neighboring pixels. Effectively, no different in accuracy.

The MP40 and PPSh are ~32 and ~34 MoA, respectively, for also negligible difference (Amusing note: From the commented out value, it looks like SMGs were originally going to be around 7 MoA). I think we're mixing up terms, though. When I was speaking of the PPSh having worse spread, I wasn't talking about per-round accuracy (Although I noted its slightly lower accuracy as a factor), but the area that it will put rounds into during a long burst, which is quite a bit larger for the PPSh than the MP40. The main difference between them is that the PPSh has 2.3 times the recoil per round, and almost double the RoF. So you're going to be putting out twice the number of rounds, but have four times the total recoil to handle over that same period of time. Given the same skill at controlling recoil, the MP40 will hold a much tighter group--but because of the PPSh's higher RoF, it'll still have a comparable number of hits on-target over the same period of time.

Although, if your aim is poor, you might have slightly better luck with a PPSh than an MP40, simply because you saturate a larger area with bullets. Same for if you have more targets in the area.

Yeah if this is true it's just about what I expected, barely a difference in spread. I object to balancing weapons purely on recoil, assuming a flat level of 'skill' is a flawed assumption to say the least. The MP 40 needs skill too! It needs snappier aim due to the smaller margin of error in CQC, and it takes exposing yourself significantly longer to get kills at 50m+. If you ask me those drawbacks are significantly more difficult to work around than the one drawback the PPSh has, you know the one that's completely negated by staying with 5-8 shot short bursts and pulling mouse slightly downwards when firing

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

I disagree. The weapon sights may be misaligned, but the rifle itself may not be as far off target as one might imagine. Two main reasons contribute to this...

My biggest objection to this is simply that it isn't fun. There's no mechanical drawback for running and gunning, situations where the sights on my rifle are a essentially a distraction. The fact that it's an unintuitive mechanic is just icing on the cake

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

Most people just have a hard time accepting the fact that it was the all-around better weapon.

It's not really. Bergmann and Schmeiser could have created an automatic weapon with a ROF of upwards of 1000RPM, and though that'd be far better weapon in RO2 there are very good reasons why they didn't - foremost being accuracy and shot patterning

And while 7.62 Tok is a neat round for a SMG, but I'm confident in saying 9x19 is more than adequate for the same role. The biggest problem with the MP 40 is that it simply wasn't deployed in large enough numbers

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

To be perfectly honest with you, If your scoped (or unscoped for that matter) SVT is shooting 7 MoA, you've got much bigger problems to worry about.

This is actually a thing. Point of impact changes drastically between shots as the SVT heats up. This is probably due to compromises in the design to keep the rifle as lightweight as possible. The barrel is light and the stock is very thin and shifts as the entire rifle compresses under firing. It failed as a sniper rifle for many reasons and it's not very difficult to figure out why.

[[Mad_Murdock]]

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

My biggest objection to this is simply that it isn't fun. There's no mechanical drawback for running and gunning, situations where the sights on my rifle are a essentially a distraction. The fact that it's an unintuitive mechanic is just icing on the cake

To each his own I guess, I would see my soldier pushing the barrel in random directions rather than bringing up his sights like a normal person to be unintuitive and not fun either for example. The truth is, guns are not that difficult to use and point in the right direction, there is no reason to make this artificially more difficult. If you are shooting from the hip, then you are most likely in a situation where this is warranted (CQC), and at that point speed is more necessary than utmost accuracy, so yes, the sights can be a distraction. In a sudden engagement at short range, I would imagine it is more instinctual to fire rather than spend time aligning your (possibly randomly off-target) sights. Especially for a WWII soldier who was not trained in modern CQC techniques such as a half-shouldered ready position.

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

It's not really. Bergmann and Schmeiser could have created an automatic weapon with a ROF of upwards of 1000RPM, and though that'd be far better weapon in RO2 there are very good reasons why they didn't - foremost being accuracy and shot patterning

Maybe they could have, but that is irrelevant because they didn't I would love to debate the whole MP-40 vs. PPSh thing in another thread if you have time, but I will not derail this one.

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

And while 7.62 Tok is a neat round for a SMG, but I'm confident in saying 9x19 is more than adequate for the same role. The biggest problem with the MP 40 is that it simply wasn't deployed in large enough numbers

That would depend on the definition of the role. If we are talking street-width CQC then yes, it is a fair match. If we are talking about a diversified urban engagement, the 9x19 falls far short (haha, ballistics pun) of the Tokarev's capabilities at medium range.

Originally Posted by Gregory Corso

This is actually a thing. Point of impact changes drastically between shots as the SVT heats up. This is probably due to compromises in the design to keep the rifle as lightweight as possible. The barrel is light and the stock is very thin and shifts as the entire rifle compresses under firing. It failed as a sniper rifle for many reasons and it's not very difficult to figure out why.

As it should, from a physics and engineering standpoint. My biggest gripe is with the details, 7 MoA would make the SVT less accurate than a first-gen AK-47, and I find that impossible to believe. If I had the time and location, I could bench my SVT and test this out, but I don't, so I won't. The best subjective proof I can give you is multiple claims of 1-2 MoA groupings with SVTs and comparative accuracy performance to the venerable M1 Garand in competition. The M1 tends to win out in the long run, most likely due to the issues you described above, but that does not require 7MoA degradation considering the M1 is noted for its accuracy as a semi-auto.

I will, however, back up the claim of the stock being thin there are definitely some locations that could use reinforcement. The barrel is another story, the one on my particular piece is definitely beefy enough for what it does, more so than Mosin barrels I have seen.

It also failed as a sniper rifle primarily because it was not designed as such. An FN-FAL would also fail as a sniper rifle for the same reason, as did the M1. They are battle rifles, and with optics make a decent marksman weapon, which is what we see in-game with the scoped SVT, but a sniper rifle they do not make.