PSN Game Balancing?

[Miir]

Going on the assumption that some of the original weapons will make it over to Planetside next. What are your thoughts on how to achieve balancing? I know this was a big issue with the first game.

One of the simplest ways I can think of is to allow all empires to have access to the same weapons. This could be done by making everything common pool. No empire specific weapons.

Or... if you don't want to lose your empire identity.

What they could do is have each empire have a version of the same weapon.

So for example.

VS have a Lasher.
TR would have their version of the Lasher
NC would have their version of the Lasher

The only differences would be the art model and FX animations used. The damage, rate of fire, accuracy coding would be identical in each case. Just visually different.

Same could be applied to vehicles to resolve balance issues.

In the end if everyone has the same weapons it would come down to tactics and how you use them.

[Hamma]

Yea I have always wondered why they don't just mirror the damage between each gun. It seems like it would be a fairly easy thing to do.

[Sirisian]

I've never really been against this idea. However if there was like 3 more MA, HA, and AV weapons in common pool the developers would need to make sure they all have their own unique strengths and weaknesses in the game so that you don't end up with a "well X is always better than Y".

However this would remove the whining about balancing and the call for buffs/nerfs almost completely from the game and forumside would die so I don't approve of this.

Plus the only weapon I use in the game that's empire specific is the lancer and I don't want the other teams using that. It's way too powerful and I'd hate to see NC or TR using it against my liberator.

[Bags]

If they have listened to their official forums at all over the years, I believe we'll see:

Lasher's lash removed, COF tightened, same clip, same damage, keep AP, registration fixed. (Possibly renamed)
MCG's bloom unaffected by anything but jumping until 10 shots (maybe increase base COF slightly?), same clip, slightly more damage to rexo, registration fixed.
Jack Hammer removed or put as common pool, triple-jack removed.
-- Jack Hammer replaced with some form of heavy Gauss rifle. Still best at close range, but it doesn't three shot you like the jackhammer. Probably has anywhere from 20 - 40 shots. Decent at long range.

Result:

Lasher more reliable, can be balanced as HA and not a HA/SA Hybrid.
MCG's TTK against REXO brought into line with other HA, COF more manageable where the MCG is supposed to shine.
Jack Hammer no longer best HA and NC stand a fighting chance in HA fights at mid range.

Weapon strengths:

Lasher can be used as effective area denial, good close and long range.
MCG is now clearly best long range, but good close range too.
Heavy Gauss is best close range, but good long range too.
All three heavy assault very good in hallways.



--
MCG was supposed to be the clear best long range HA, able to compete with MA, but the ridiculous bloom from taking one hit made this very hard. Currently best mid ranged HA, but barely.
Lasher was supposed to be HA / SA, but has been held back as HA due to its lash. I believe it needs to be made purely HA.
Jackhammer was too strong for ease of use. Its lack of range is hardly a drawback considering NC also have the best MA.

I'm personally a fan of "Different but equal" ala SC2 and PS1. Some of this would obviously need to be tweaked, for example as the MCG with no bloom for 10 shots may not need a TTK increase -- stuff like that.

Most of the above is my opinion combined with most popular opinion on the official forums with what is wrong and needs to be fixed / changed with the HA.

--
However, I think all MA should be almost identical. I've never been in a situation where I would take a Cycler over a Gauss rifle. At long range, with Gauss, you can kill people before they can hide. A 50 shot magazine does nothing if they can easily hide from you. Not to mention MA reload is very fast and easy, as most combat occurs at long range wit much cover.

[BorisBlade]

Totally agree with bags. They do need to keep the unique aspects as it does add some flavor, but yes it also means massively more work. His changes are about right on as far as the empire specific weapons.

The MA probs could be tweaked with CoF tweaks such as how much bloom and how long til it blooms. The gauss is superior because its much higher damage per hit and its burst fire use at the longer ranges means you get alot more accurate damage per burst than you can with a cycler because you need more bullets to get the same damage but then get the nasty bloom makin that not feasible. Its a simple thing of making it not bloom til it does atleast as much damage as the gauss does before the same bloom amount. Starting with a slightly smaller bloom to make up for the weaker bullets possibly and of course tweaking the degredation of bullets and of course keeping things tuned for how rexo absorbs hits. (faster firing weapons are hurt more than slow ones, one prob the mcg gets.)

Honestly tho, the MA weaps are by far the easiest to balance and still keep em fairly unique. Never really figured out why they always seem to make em seem hard. The only things you actually notice about em that are different are the rates of fire, clip size, bullet damage, and instant/no special ammo for ap mode for the pulsar. The clip size for the cycler should just be slightly larger than what is needed to give it the same damage per clip as the gauss. The extra clip size helping to make up for using a lot more ammo to do the same job. (not a big deal since the clip size rarely matters much on those weaps as they are used more at longer range.) Give the pulsar the same treatment but not giving it any extra ammo since it has its rather nice instant ap mode that needs no other ammo. (AP ammo does great damage to maxes before you scoff at it, AP MCG is a poor mans deci and does wonders)

Rate of Fire and damage, which must also take into acct how those bullets work versus agile and rexo in a damage over time situation, is simple to fix as well. Making sure that the damage per second, (rate of fire vs damage per bullet) is equal, and that hte per bullet split (how much damages health and how much damages armor) versus the armor types is the same percentage split between weapons. That will make their damage the same regardless of armor but still allowing the exact same feel to each weapon, cycler fast but weak per bullet. Guass slow but strong per bullet. And the pulsar being somewhere in the middle but not getting any larger clip than needed to be equal dps to a gauss but instead getting the AP mode.

All the "invisible" attributes of the gun like damage degredation and when and how much things bloom should just be identical based on dps breakpoints on the blooms and % degredation on the bullets over distance.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Bags

I'm personally a fan of "Different but equal" ala SC2 and PS1.

This is a premise that I feel pretty strongly about. Earlier posts were saying "well the easiest fix is just let every weapon be common pool" which is logical, but would take alot out of the game. It reminds me of one of my favorite Homer Simpson quotes, "Can't win. Don't try."

Balance is achievable so we shouldn't just take a defeatist attitude about it. If everyone had the same weapons, the fighting would get very bland. I like knowing that I have to account for completely different strengthes and weaknesses when I go up against different empires.

If everyone had access to all weapons, all we are doing is picking armor color.

[Rbstr]

I find homogeneity in all but color between factions very borring. I'd prefer weapons to be more asymetric.

But I also want guns to be deadlier in general, which removes one the major issues with having vastly different fire rates and incident damage. While 4 compared to 6 shots is the same proportion as 20 compared to 30 the usability gap is far more disproportionate.

[PsychoXR-20]

SporkFire said it best:

“Balance really isn't about making the numbers match. If we did that, we'd have nothing more than retextured weapons with no character to them.”

Copy/Pasting numbers is a cop out and so is just throwing all the weapons in the game into common pool. It might be fun at first having access to every empires weapons, but that would get old fast. I think one of the things that can help keep PlanetSide from getting boring is the fact that you only have reliable access to your empires weapons. When I would play my VS character, the Guass seemed so much more fun because I couldn't just run up to an equipment terminal and grab one, each one was a prize for killing the enemy.

[DviddLeff]

There needs to be differences, but they shouldn't be as large as they are now. To help fix this average ttk for weapons should be lowered, so more weapons are usable not only against others in that certification, but in other certifications. HA is the most imbalanced weapon cert; the differences are simply too great to make the weapons comparable.

Also there should be more classes of weapon, and therefore more weapons. HA would be broken up into three new certs; shotguns (JH), machine guns (MCG) and flame throwers (Lasher, tweaked), with common pool and ES weapons moved into them. There would also be a dedicated infantry AA cert. With the creation of new ES weapons for those categories we will see less differences, therefore less imbalance.

Regarding vehicles my proposed hard point system will address the balance issues there; currently the prowler and vanguard need one shot to kill a rexo; the mag needs 3 precise hits. You have three infantry and the prowler/van need three shots; the mag needs nine! To address this currently VS need to roll Auroras or Threshers with their tanks, whereas the NC and TR just dont need to bother.

[Aractain]

Balance is subjective anyway. As long as all parts of the game are equally represented and catered too and in general things are capable of accomplishing the goal it should be okay.

Definately DO want different empire equipment (personally I wanted ALL equipment to be empire specific but whatever).

[TRex]

Originally Posted by Aractain

Balance is subjective anyway. As long as all parts of the game are equally represented and catered too and in general things are capable of accomplishing the goal it should be okay.

Definately DO want different empire equipment (personally I wanted ALL equipment to be empire specific but whatever).

I want them to keep empire specific , but I wish they allowed through merits or something the ability of the player to unlock secondary , tertiary modes on the weapon to allow you to tweak the thing to your own personal taste slightly .
For instance , the mcg you could add the ability to increase its short range or long range damage / effectiveness for you personally , but not at the same time ..an either or situation.
Lasher , you could remove the lash and reduce its cof bloom.
All player related tweaks , and hence more ways for players to want to improve their character or make it more personal.

I hope they do this with all aspects of the game , medical, engineering , air , anti-air , vehicles , support . Allow people to unlock things through consistant play and dedication , not to make them over powered, just to give you more options at your disposal and not to feel limited . You unlock them through merits, then use certs to lock them into your character until you decide to swap certs out as it is now.

[CutterJohn]

I would greatly prefer MA style balance between the factions. Small differences for flavor, not large differences in performance and capability. I'm quite fine with the identical or only slightly asymmetric teams in most other FPSs.

From an RP perspective, its beyond silly that after 8 years the techs from the various factions haven't figured out how to mimic the capabilities of their enemies or wire up the consoles so you can draw equipment from them your enemies did just moments before.

[Firefly]

I'd like to see a function where (for example) a TR hacker can hack a terminal in an NC base and come out with NC gear. And vice versa, except the Vanu shouldn't get it because I hate the fucking Vanu and their teal metrosexuality.

Kidding.

I'm not for placing everything in the common pool, I have to say. The only thing I'd say add to the Lasher is that it lashes friendlies. The Jackhammer needs to be extremely close-range. I've seen/made kill-shots at decent medium ranges, that's not a goddamn CQB weapon. And for the MCG, I'd like to see it operate like the Heavy Gunner weapon in TF2.

I don't really have a problem with the other weapons. I'd like to see the TR get out of WW2 with their flak cannons, though. I mean, we have the Striker... come on. Oh, I will say, buff the Beamer or let me send /tells to the enemy so I can gloat about Beamer pwnage.

[kaffis]

Honestly, I always felt the MA was close to being a decent balance.

The cycler just needed to have its maximum bloom toned down some, and then it would have been an excellent weapon with an advantage tradeoff with the gauss rifle.

Yeah, you'd take the gauss over the cycler at the far edge of mid-range one-on-one, but I'd take a slightly less max-bloomy cycler over a gauss at close-mid range or against a squad of guys in a hallway.

I think PS would be a lesser game if everything were common pool, or reskins of the same weapon stats. The variety adds depth, and fighting one enemy empire is different from fighting the other enemy empire; let alone playing as each empire being different.

[I SandRock]

The MCG needs it overall damage reduced but its medium ranged damage increased. I feel medium range MCG is balanced but close range it shouldn't be so effective.

The JH needs a slight damage reduction.

The Lasher can have its AOE effect completely removed because people will always QQ about it no matter what and just do normal damage or do some other effect, like you can charge the bolts for more damage.
Or they need to completely rework the VS HA and do something else with it.


AV:
No lock-on. On any gun.

MA:
Punisher needs some love. Remove the AP mode. It sucks anyway, and it doesn't justify a lower damage.

I like the NC one the best personally.