Weapon balance

[LemoN]

I know, I meant for all guns. As for the jamming, if it were to be implemented, the "X amount of rounds and it jams" would be fine. It's not like we're taking care of the same weapon over a very long period in game, so it wouldn't make much sense to base it on being dirty/cold/wet etc

as the game will feature different weather conditions it would make sense to higher the chance of stoppages when temperature reaches sub -20

 

[Ermac]

Semi automatics from WWII should not be compared to modern semi-automatics.

The G43 in all probability was not the most accurate rifle on the field by any measure. As inaccurate as its portrayal in Ost Front? I would have no idea.

Anyway, consider that G43 was literally the second semi-automatic rifle introduced into the German military aside from Walther's previous effort, the piece of crap G41.

I imagine their performance was not nearly up to snuff.

Nobody was comparing them to modern semi automatics. Were just saying in typical combat distances the accuracy of a bolt action is wasted and that the semi automatic rifle will be nearly as accurate as bolt action in those distances. I never fired a G43 but I imagine they might be sufficently accurate.

SMGs weren't given a lot of recoil for balance reasons in RO:Ost, they were just set up like that because we thought real weapons acted like that. Now that we have had a lot of trigger time on some fully automatic weapons (SMGs, Assault Rifles, LMGs, etc) we know better how they really handle. That is why the weapons handle like they do in ROHOS, because we've made them more realistic based on our new real world experience. And we won't make them behave unrealistically for balance. Balance will be handled in other ways such as respawn times, spawn locations, etc.

That's really nice to know.

I know, I meant for all guns. As for the jamming, if it were to be implemented, the "X amount of rounds and it jams" would be fine. It's not like we're taking care of the same weapon over a very long period in game, so it wouldn't make much sense to base it on being dirty/cold/wet etc

Well I don't think jamming will be in HOS anyways.

 

[heath4n]

SMGs weren't given a lot of recoil for balance reasons in RO:Ost, they were just set up like that because we thought real weapons acted like that. Now that we have had a lot of trigger time on some fully automatic weapons (SMGs, Assault Rifles, LMGs, etc) we know better how they really handle. That is why the weapons handle like they do in ROHOS, because we've made them more realistic based on our new real world experience. And we won't make them behave unrealistically for balance. Balance will be handled in other ways such as respawn times, spawn locations, etc.

This one single statement just took away a lot of the excitement I had for this game.......With that sort of statement, grenades are going to be all powerful and SMG's are going to be all powerful. Realistically, SMG's are still quite accurate at long distance, if you can rest it on something, they are simple going to be overpowered. I have fired many different types of SMG's and I have no doubt that I can hit man sized targets almost every shot at 200-300 metres with a mp40.

There are so many examples such as the kar98 sniper vs the G43 sniper, it was a smart decision to make the g43 much more inaccurate because simply it gave the game more depth as you had to make a decision, perfect accuracy vs semi auto.

If you take this path as it looks like you have, you are going to cost yourselves a lot of gamers because the game will just not be as fun as a result.

One of the reasons for Darkest Hour's success is primarily because of their embrace of the balance between realism and playability. There is a reason why Darkest Hour is bigger than RO and almost everyone would agree it is better in almost every single way. It's not because it is new, it's because they focused on what would be fun rather than strictly realistic. For example, reducing the damage radius of grenades significantly increased the fun of the game so much but at the cost of realism. Again, I could come up with so many scenerio's proving this but I don't need to because anyone who has played the two games for more than a couple of hours will be able to see this.

As it is, using a bolt action is a huge challenge, the only thing that makes relatively useful is the fact that you didn't code in the concept that some kid who puts a dot on their screen can't snipe people without using iron sights. Even without the dot, with a little skill, you can snipe people from the hip incredibly easily from long ranges. I'm not sure if you are aware of this but if RO had been more popular and people with some skill started to get into this game competitively, it would have been abused badly.

I suspect that you will fix the perfect accuracy of a gun while shooting from the hip in RO2. When you add in the fact that SMG's are going to be incredibly more powerful in comparison because they basically wont have recoil and kids who get a bolt action which will be more than half on big servers are going to get dominated.

This completely contradicts your statement where you understood that this initial difficulty was what initially turned so many off the game after playing it once or twice.

I truly hope that you don't make this mistake. I love the realism angle and understand it's your competitive advantage but don't go and put realism first at any cost because it will be at your own peril.

Edit. I still have hope that the relaxed realism mode may keep the weapon balance from RO and DH

 

[Zetsumei]

Rifles have have the advantage of caliber and speed. And thus a more predictable flight path.

Remember the key of rifles is not only hitting a target at a big distance its hitting targets who only show a tiny bit of them as well.

Smgs might behave more realistic but with the zoomview the range is extended so things like bullet drop and velocity will matter more.

 

[heath4n]

I'm not sure if you have fired many SMG's but if you have them rested and sighted, they are still incredibly accurate, bullet drop is basically non existant for distances past 100-200 meters and honestly, can you see much infantry fighting at distances of greater than 200 metres in the game.

When you take into account, zoom when you go into iron sight, zoom while you breath, bullet penetration and most importantly almost no recoil, I'm scared that the game I am most looking forward to will be boring because the long term playability is just not there like it was for RO and DH.

Edit, I even forgot to mention the suppression coding that almost certainly will get copied in some form from Darkest Hour which again gives SMG's another big advantage over rifles. In RO, if you were both lying down, you were dead if you had a SMG, in DH and I'm almost certain in HOS, with a smg, all you have to do is start firing in the general direction of the bolt action and they are going to have a hard time hitting you if you can just get the bullets close enough to cause the suppression effect.

 

[Zetsumei]

i know that smgs are really powerful but i think that a bolt will find its way regardless. And i always play with bolts atm anyway not because i think its challenging but because i think its the best and easiest to use weapon atm.

Most things wont matter for a standing person out in the open at 200 meters. But when someone is behind cover showing a tiny bit of himself a rifle will find a way to be advantagous.

The difference between a semi and a rifle is probably more of a concern than smgs are rifles atleast thats what i think. We'll all have to see so. I don't know if you played the RO mod, but there smgs were more usefull at range, yet it didn't stop rifles from being really usefull either, personally as a bolt action playing i always wanted smgs to become more usefull at range.

 

[Ermac]

I'm not sure if you have fired many SMG's but if you have them rested and sighted, they are still incredibly accurate, bullet drop is basically non existant for distances past 100-200 meters and honestly, can you see much infantry fighting at distances of greater than 200 metres in the game.

When you take into account, zoom when you go into iron sight, zoom while you breath, bullet penetration and most importantly almost no recoil, I'm scared that the game I am most looking forward to will be boring because the long term playability is just not there like it was for RO and DH.

Edit, I even forgot to mention the suppression coding that almost certainly will get copied in some form from Darkest Hour which again gives SMG's another big advantage over rifles. In RO, if you were both lying down, you were dead if you had a SMG, in DH and I'm almost certain in HOS, with a smg, all you have to do is start firing in the general direction of the bolt action and they are going to have a hard time hitting you if you can just get the bullets close enough to cause the suppression effect.

Just wait until you play the game before you start moaning about it.

 

[oberkommando]

Already I dont like the idea of zoom when in iron sights, and realisticly when I close one eye things dont magicly appear bigger just more focused maybe you should just blur the peripheral vision to simulate this. Also the main tanks Im guessing will be the Pnz3s and Stug3. Any clues?
Please dont make it a CSS.
OB3R

 

[Agenda_Suicide]

Already I dont like the idea of zoom when in iron sights, and realisticly when I close one eye things dont magicly appear bigger just more focused maybe you should just blur the peripheral vision to simulate this. Also the main tanks Im guessing will be the Pnz3s and Stug3. Any clues?
Please dont make it a CSS.
OB3R

According to TWI the zoom that's present in HOS simulates how you would really see your target in real life. In OST when you bring up sights the soldier you're firing on is actually smaller than he should be.

 

[oberkommando]

Yes I did read that, but can someone explain why this is so? Wouldnt that mean that the depth of field settings are way up the ****. Pardon my french. Shouldnt the tech heads be able to compensate for this? I have no idea thats what forums are for to discuss these issues. Enlighten me folks.
OB3R

 

[heath4n]

I don't need to wait until I play the game because the president has already clearly stated that he is going to change one of the best characteristics about the game that I love so much.

If I wanted a game without recoil, I would play cod 5.

It takes away from the skill of the game and makes it significantly less fun. I want options in my game, I want to be able to decide if I will spray or double shoot or even 4-5 bullets, this choice is going to be taken away.

No-one will do anything but spray anymore because their is no recoil and it is going to make the game boring.

Seriously, realism at the cost of fun is going to cost you dearly, I truly hope TW heed this warning and give us the option of having RO recoil rather than realistic recoil.

 

[Mormegil]

I'm not sure if you have fired many SMG's but if you have them rested and sighted, they are still incredibly accurate, bullet drop is basically non existant for distances past 100-200 meters and honestly, can you see much infantry fighting at distances of greater than 200 metres in the game.

I'm surprised at this, as in another thread, I calculated bullet drop for an MP40, and found a 3 foot difference between 100 and 200 meters. My calcs didn't take into account lift (if any on that round) or drag, just gravity and flight-time. I've never fired a real MP40, so I'll defer to an expert on that.

It's not an artificial problem, it's a real one. Why? Bullet drop for one thing.

Lets take a Mosin Nagant rifle, with a muzzle velocity of 1100 m/s. At 200 meters, it takes 0.18 seconds to reach target (longer really, but I don't know how much speed falls off by then due to drag). In that 0.18 seconds, the bullet drops 16cm. At 100 meters, that's only a drop of 4 cm. That's a 12 cm difference with a rifle. That won't make a big difference with a guy standing out in the open, but if just the helmet is peaking out, that can make the difference between a hit and a miss.

Now imagine that difference with a pistol round - say an MP40 at 380 m/s muzzle velocity. 34 cm drop at 100 meters, 135 cm drop at 200 meters. That's a difference of 1.01 meters (3 feet). A 3 foot difference in aiming seems pretty relevant to me.

But if a 3 food drop is realistic, than hitting a head sticking out behind cover makes a big difference. If you're leading a running target, 0.18 seconds and .56 seconds can make a big difference. A man running at 10 mph (14.7 ft/sec) would require a lead of 2.6 feet with a MN rifle or 8.2 feet with an MP40. That seems substantial.

 

[oberkommando]

I guess what we are saying is that RO has a huge following of supporters because of the SKILLS required to play such a game and so far from what we can see is that there will be NO skills required to play HOS. Also will support for the Original RO be withdrawn once the HOS version is complete? Because I can see that some of us may still be playing that version for years to come. Like I have stated before I will reserve my final judgement once I have played HOS.
OB3R

 

[REZ]

It's been said that while in zoom (which one we don't know since there are two, count 'em, two zoom levels) that we are seeing our targets how we would see them in real life.. so that begs the question - how are we seeing things when not in zoom?

 

[VariousNames]

This one single statement just took away a lot of the excitement I had for this game.......With that sort of statement, grenades are going to be all powerful and SMG's are going to be all powerful. Realistically, SMG's are still quite accurate at long distance, if you can rest it on something, they are simple going to be overpowered. I have fired many different types of SMG's and I have no doubt that I can hit man sized targets almost every shot at 200-300 metres with a mp40.

There are so many examples such as the kar98 sniper vs the G43 sniper, it was a smart decision to make the g43 much more inaccurate because simply it gave the game more depth as you had to make a decision, perfect accuracy vs semi auto.

If you take this path as it looks like you have, you are going to cost yourselves a lot of gamers because the game will just not be as fun as a result.

One of the reasons for Darkest Hour's success is primarily because of their embrace of the balance between realism and playability. There is a reason why Darkest Hour is bigger than RO and almost everyone would agree it is better in almost every single way. It's not because it is new, it's because they focused on what would be fun rather than strictly realistic. For example, reducing the damage radius of grenades significantly increased the fun of the game so much but at the cost of realism. Again, I could come up with so many scenerio's proving this but I don't need to because anyone who has played the two games for more than a couple of hours will be able to see this.

As it is, using a bolt action is a huge challenge, the only thing that makes relatively useful is the fact that you didn't code in the concept that some kid who puts a dot on their screen can't snipe people without using iron sights. Even without the dot, with a little skill, you can snipe people from the hip incredibly easily from long ranges. I'm not sure if you are aware of this but if RO had been more popular and people with some skill started to get into this game competitively, it would have been abused badly.

I suspect that you will fix the perfect accuracy of a gun while shooting from the hip in RO2. When you add in the fact that SMG's are going to be incredibly more powerful in comparison because they basically wont have recoil and kids who get a bolt action which will be more than half on big servers are going to get dominated.

This completely contradicts your statement where you understood that this initial difficulty was what initially turned so many off the game after playing it once or twice.

I truly hope that you don't make this mistake. I love the realism angle and understand it's your competitive advantage but don't go and put realism first at any cost because it will be at your own peril.

Edit. I still have hope that the relaxed realism mode may keep the weapon balance from RO and DH

First of all.....I dominate people with the bolt-action rifles, and I've seen people better than I am at them.

Now, there's always the point where I walk up to some guy on Danzig and he's corner camping with a PPSH, or where I get flanked, or where I sprint straight into a dude with an SVT-40, but for the most part, I can wade directly into enemy conflict zones and go shot-for-shot with other weapon times.

I extract a special joy from shooting Russian assault troops at point blank. just as they begin their bullet spam, I just go BLAM and plant an 8mm Mauser round in their face.

Let's see, here's the bolt-action rifle in summary:

Perfectly accurate
Nearly limitless effective range in video games
Extraordinarily high stopping power at any range

Let's look at the submachine gun in summary:

Short effective range
Low stopping power
Not controllable
High rate of fire
Large magazine size
---

In other words, the skill ceiling on a bolt-action is in the stratosphere compared to SMGs. Rule 1 with a bolt-action: DON'T MISS. Rule 2 with a bolt-action: USE COVER. If you use those simple rules, you will not have a problem using them competently, even in ranges that would make the average player wince without a fully automatic submachine gun.

ON HIPSHOOTING:

I'm currently a big fan of the 24/7 hipshooting server and the hipshooting Steam group. Why? Because it's a wonderful art and it hones an extremely useful skill in close quarters combat. It's particularly useful against corner campers, who are a mean and slimy bunch.

Now, something I know for sure is that with hipshooting, it's entirely dependent on the skill of the player. Your accuracy is entirely dependent on where you point the barrel. Now let me ask you this.....why the HELL shouldn't it be? I'm using a bolt-action rifle....there's no recoil entering into the question. All we're talking about is firing a bullet. Guess what? A bullet will function the same and ballistics will perform the same no matter whether you fire from the hip or from the shoulder. The bullet will leave the barrel and travel in the direction the barrel was pointing in when you fired the round. There is no reason there should be artificial levels of bullet deviation when firing guns from the hip, unless we're talking about recoil, weapon sway, breathing, and so on. The bullet goes where the barrel is pointing, with the sole exception of accounting for weapon inaccuracy or (if the engine is advanced enough) environmental effects (such as wind). And those effects are constant across rounds fired from the hip and rounds fired from the shoulder.

Also: submachine guns start with a low muzzle velocity and that muzzle velocity increases over distance due to wind resistance/friction/etc. That means they lose power the longer they travel. Another thing....recoil doesn't affect accuracy (unless it affects the mechanics of the rifle), it only affects controllability, meaning even in semi-automatic firing modes, you're going to be working with something that is realistically in the realm of reasonable power.

Face it: if submachine guns were so godly, why does the military use rifles? Why is it that no one in their right mind would recommend an SMG over a rifle for standard issue military use? Because pistol cartridges suck and submachine guns are inaccurate. Ta-da.

BTW Danzig sucks.

 

[oberkommando]

I see we are all on the same page, but is anyone listening??????
I wonder if a css player has infiltrated the HOS team?????
OB3R

 

[Zetsumei]

Tbh i think the telling of weapons behaving correctly is one of the best things that can happen to rohos, its not like there is no recoil, its not like it will take no skill. If anything to hit someone at a far distance or when someone is only showing a tiny spot of himself especially with a smg you need more skill to hit.

Saying that rohos will be like css because it will have a more realistic form of recoil for weaponry is a weird statement, especially as css might be one of the best balanced games in existence and you want to make a point that rohos will be unbalanced now.

It worked fine in the mod with less recoil i dont see why it should become an issue now.

 

[oberkommando]

Maybe I can clear up what Im saying, dont make it a run and gun (spray and pray) bunny hopping madness. Keep it real and in line with the original whats with the mounting icons, glowing orb over objectives for christs sake look at your damn map or give the sqaud leader coloured flares like the real mcCoy. If not then give the user the option to turn these things off. In single player yeah but multi player pffft.
OB3R

 

[Tiger2]

I think "balancing weapons" is not a even a subject that needs to be discussed on TWI forums. Balancing weapons is for games like Battlefield, COD etc.

Do not forget that in Red Orchestra you get quotas, so even if some weapons are better than others.. only 2 players out of 10 can be equipped with them for example.

In RO 3.3 on Danzig there can only be two Germans with STG44. That is historically correct and balanced in itself because Germans only began manufacturing these rifles towards the end of the war. They could not equip every German in a short period of time and that is why Kar98K and MP40 were still being used.

 

[heath4n]

Why shouldn't we discuss the recoil, this one simple concept will be the single greatest change and without any doubt whatsoever, it is going to completely change the dynamics of the game and very possible hurt the amazing balance that makes RO so good.

Even if it was accidental, RO achieved an extraordinary balance between all weapons with each weapon having strengths and weaknesses.

Watch the demo, it was plainly obvious in it and it was confirmed by the president of the company.

Almost every single weapon has some sort of unrealistic balance in RO, for example, stupid amounts of tracers for MG's, much higher recoil for SMG's, amazing hip shooting abilities for rifles, snipers zooming in much quicker than real life, grenades being far less powerful than real life and this is all going to change making the already very powerful weapons more powerful and the already weaker weapons weaker.

Variousnames, you obviously stated the following regarding the SMG for RO as it is now

Let's look at the submachine gun in summary:

Short effective range
Low stopping power
Not controllable
High rate of fire
Large magazine size

RO2 will have the following differences compared to RO.

The effective range will go up signficantly because you will be able to spray so much more accurately.
The stopping power is going to go up significantly because of the new damage dynamics and even more so because more bullets are going to land more accurately than before
It will be completely controllable as it is realistically compared to RO currently
The rate of fire will be higher that what it is now because again, the rate of fire in RO is much lower than real life.
Magazine size actually might be worse because quite often magazines weren't fully loaded to prevent jams.

The one main fault I see with RO atm is the hip shooting, if kids paint a dot on their screen, they are snipers from the hip and this is stupid. As unrealistic as it is, this needs to be addressed because if this game becomes popular, it will get abused and ruin the game for many people. it doesn't reduce in accuracy if you are moving either, its clearly bugged at the moment, its not even realistic. I think it should be slightly nerfed just so it can't be abused. Please trust me when I say, I can hold my own with a bolt action, i actually prefer them for the challenge and I can see just stupid this is atm.

As for your statement regarding why would anyone choose a SMG over a assault rifle, no-one who was playing seriously would. The STG-44 is by far the best gun in RO.

Saying that rohos will be like css because it will have a more realistic form of recoil for weaponry is a weird statement, especially as css might be one of the best balanced games in existence and you want to make a point that rohos will be unbalanced now.

Zetsumei, you obviously have no idea regarding balance in CSS, it's hopelessly unbalanced. Only 4 guns get used out of about 40 and 1 of them is hopelessly overpowered which is the awp. The only other choice is the m4 or AK which are balanced against each other, then the desert eagle which is hopelessly overpowered compared with all other pistols because it is stupidly accurate.

You realism buffs, full credit to you, good luck to you and enjoy your game. I personally want a game that is realistic but keeps balance in mind so the game is fun and continues to be fun for a long time. I truly dont want to wait for DH 2 before I get a fun game of RO2.

I truly hope that TW takes these concepts into consideration and implements it into the relaxed realism mode because realism mode while being different and interesting and worth playing, will almost certain in my opinion get boring very quickly.