Change of MG and SG to ballistic mode

[GreEn`mArine]

Hello,

I've recently found out that the machine gun and shot gun have been changed to be not instant hit weapons anymore, but ballistic weapons (without the technical possibility to get the old behaviour back using a cvar). Ballistic weapon means, that the bullets are now projectiles that actually will need time to travel.

First of all, I'd like to know what the unit and meaning of the variables _speed and _bulletconstant is (basically I'm wondering how to get the meter/sec velocity of the bullet).

Then, as I felt that I wasn't hitting much anymore (not even at close range!) with MG (I tried MG since it is the weapon that is more useful for me) I tried it in another environment:

- I asked mkzela to walk in a straight line. I was walking as well (parallel to his path) and was about 5 meters away. I did not hit anything at all with MG, only if I started to lead my aim by the width of his playermodel (so about 2cm on my screen), then I started to hit.

- As I couldn't believe that the bullets were that slow I checked my demo. In fact I found out that when watching the demo, my crosshair was behind mkzelda, which means that simply my usual lag to the server (on the internet) caused this aiming issue, and in the moment I was leading my aim by 2 cm while playing, the crosshair was infact ON his model in the demo. This means that, at least at close range, the bullets' speed wasn't directly the problem.

HOWEVER, what caused me to not hit him anymore at all was likely the lack of the good-new antilag-mechanism, which has been removed for SG and MG in the process. The lack of it makes the MG and SG weapon useless, even already at short range (at least to me, and I have a 20ms ping to the server when using ping command in the shell, go figure how it works out for normal DSL people who have pings 3-5 times bigger).

I would like to
- Get a statement why such a big change was made without asking the community
- know why the change was being made anyway, why couldn't it stay a instant hit weapon
- know why the tendency exists to make nexuiz more and more realistic although this not necessary (just my opinion)
- know whether antilag could be added again for these 2 weapons

Let the discussion begin!

[divVerent]

The change was being tested on my servers for OVER A MONTH, and nobody complained.

It had to be, to:

- not make the MG secondary stronger than the camping rifle at long range use
- because hitscan looks absolutely retarded (smoke appears before the tracer)
- because the MG was abused as long-range hole-punch weapon while intended for short range only

That's what you get for not testing on the servers where development is done.

Now, suggest something to fix this. There can't be ANY antilag for projectiles (well, what use is adjusting the shot to "appear" to hit the target, when the target will move till the bullet gets there)?

BTW, I also ran weapon strength statistics (kill/death ratio for all combinations of weapons), and the MG got no weaker there.

Simply learn to lead your shot with the MG. What is the problem with that?

BTW: in turn, the damage of the MG could be increased.

[GreEn`mArine]

The change was being tested on my servers for OVER A MONTH, and nobody complained.

It had to be, to:

- not make the MG secondary stronger than the camping rifle at long range use
- because hitscan looks absolutely retarded (smoke appears before the tracer)
- because the MG was abused as long-range hole-punch weapon while intended for short range only

That's what you get for not testing on the servers where development is done.

Now, suggest something to fix this. There can't be ANY antilag for projectiles (well, what use is adjusting the shot to "appear" to hit the target, when the target will move till the bullet gets there)?

BTW, I also ran weapon strength statistics (kill/death ratio for all combinations of weapons), and the MG got no weaker there.

Simply learn to lead your shot with the MG. What is the problem with that?

First of all, I play on .de PlanetNexuiz.de server frequently in order to test new changes. Who can know that you are secretly doing stuff on ONLY your servers alone and then decide that this is the best for the game ahd the will of the community to do it that way!?

The MG was abused as long range weapon or the MG secondary stronger than the camping rifle argument is weak, since there are enough other methods to make the secondary fire mode weaker, using spread or lowering damage for example.

Apart from that I haven't quite figured out the "smoke appears before the tracer" part (you know me and my particle settings, I never see MG shots, their smoke or anything except for my muzzle flash), so could you perhaps explain what you mean with that and why there haven't been hordes of players since v2.4 complaining how retarded the MG looks since antilag exists?

[Alien]

I tried MG since it is the weapon that is more useful for me

Another post which proves sg thing.

[GreEn`mArine]

English please

[Komier]

When I shoot the machine gun or the shotgun, I see the impact on the wall when the tracer just starts to leave the gun. At longer range, this would look pretty funny when you see a splash on a wall then watch your bullet fly through the air. I am guessing that this is what they are talking about when they say that the smoke appears before the tracer.

[FraNcoTirAdoR]

I would say that restricting the mg usage to short range like this is a good idea, but the problem is that with the current settings machinegun and shotgun are way too weak, it feels like both weapon are falling out of the weapon repertoire. The problem is not the removal of antilag, but the combination of these things that come up with the new settings:
-You need to predict the movement/direction of the target
-You need to count with the speed of the target
-You need to count with the distance of the target
-You need to add the effect of lag to it
- Even if you the both above are done you will certainly hit very few by default because of the spread.

I think these are just too much to keep in head, and this is the same "sickness" of camping rifle too, and why many people don't prefer that weapon at all, and finding it way too weak. Shotgun (especially with antilag on) was a beautifully balanced weapon in my opinion, now its really feels to be messed up, giving the freshly spawned player practically no chance for immediate self-defence.
In my recommendation the machinegun's bullet/sec should be raised by much, so it would be more efficent if you can track the target with these hard circumstances. This would also solve the big problem that mg is too spammable, it comes with TONS off ammo, with that you can shoot for hours...
For shotgun i have no idea what to do, maybe the earlier settings were just fine, because its used for short distance anyways, so its certainly not causing those uncomfortable issues as the mg does on long range.

Ahh something I would like to rapidly add to the end of this post: mortar is overpowered now with all these new weapon-setups! (and its logic since ALL weapon are have gotten much weaker except that)

[divVerent]

Mortar is NOT overpowered, but far weaker than the RL.

As for MG - yes, fire rate can be increased (but damage per bullet lowered then). Would also look better.

As for SG - heck, this doesn't even CHANGE the shotgun at all! It gets the very same hit/miss ratio before and after this change. At short range, nothing changes for the SG at all, due to its high spread!

Anyway. Too late. It has been tried on my SVN servers before commit. On the SVN servers that were there SPECIFICALLY for the purpose of trying such stuff before commit. For over a month. If you complain NOW, you're proving that you're stupid idiots.

Or, you're proving that non-developers hosting SVN servers is harmful to development, as it removes an important part of the feedback loop to the developers.

[Alien]

but the problem is that with the current settings machinegun and shotgun are way too weak, it feels like both weapon are falling out of the weapon repertoire

sg always did.

[divVerent]

SG is a freaking starting weapon. If everyone started with a Nex or a RL, what point would there be of the pickups?

Same reason why the MG sucked in Q3A.

Anyway, MG now has higher dps, comparable dps value to hagar. Done by reducing the damage per bullet, but increasing the bullet rate:

Previous: primary = 15 damage, 0.1 refire -> 150dps
Now: primary = 13 damage, 0.05 refire -> 260dps

Previous: secondary = 30 damage, 0.2 refire -> 150dps
Now: secondary = 30 damage, 0.15 refire -> 200dps

Might be too strong now, even with the ballistic bullets.

Also note that MG and SG share one advantage over all other guns: huge damage in an ammo pickup, and long spamming from a single pickup. If you compare:

SG: 15 shots per pickup, = 900 units of damage
MG: 80 shots per pickup, = 2400 units of damage
GL: 7.5 shots per pickup, = 487.5 units of damage
Electro: 12.5 shots per pickup, = 750 units of damage (1000 if all are combos)
Crylink: 12.5 shots per pickup, = 1575 units of damage
Nex: 5 shots per pickup, = 650 units of damage
Hagar: 15 shots per pickup, = 570 units of damage
RL: 5 shots per pickup, = 600 units of damage
HLAC: 25 shots per pickup, = 575 units of damage
Seeker: 2.777 shots per pickup, = 444.444 units of damage
CR: 8 shots per pickup, = 640 units of damage (1600 if all are head shots)

As you see, the MG is the cheapest weapon of all. Most bang for the buck. The other guns that are high in this metric - CR, Crylink, Electro combo, SG - are balanced by it being hard to actually pull off this damage amount.

There is also an optional "antilag bullets" mode that lets all bullets hit immediately. This however is a heavy weapaon balance breaker, as it makes the Uzi stronger than the rifle at long range.