The Issue of the 10%-20% Power Differentiation

[Higby]

Originally Posted by Goku

This is a FPS first not a RPG were you become far more powerful then you were at the beginning of the game and one shot level ones.

The growth afforded by the PS2 cert system to an mmorpg character growth curve isn't even comparable.

Using some back of the napkin math on a hugely simplified example. A first session player would pick up a gun that did 10 damage per shot and start blasting at a guy with full health, assuming he hit every shot and didn't get any headshots (he's a noob, afterall!), it would take 10 shots to kill his enemy:

Shot # damage done health remaining
1 10 90
2 20 80
3 30 70
4 40 60
5 50 50
6 60 40
7 70 30
8 80 20
9 90 10
10 100 0

Imagine we were talking about a straight 10% damage increase, what does this look like?

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 11 89
2 22 78
3 33 67
4 44 56
5 55 45
6 66 34
7 77 23
8 88 12
9 99 1
10 110 -10

Would you look at that... still takes 10 shots to kill.

What about 20%, surely that is an insane TTK decrease...

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 12 88
2 24 76
3 36 64
4 48 52
5 60 40
6 72 28
7 84 16
8 96 4
9 108 -8

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

[IceyCold]

Originally Posted by Higby

The growth afforded by the PS2 cert system to an mmorpg character growth curve isn't even comparable.

Using some back of the napkin math on a hugely simplified example. A first session player would pick up a gun that did 10 damage per shot and start blasting at a guy with full health, assuming he hit every shot and didn't get any headshots (he's a noob, afterall!), it would take 10 shots to kill his enemy:

Shot # damage done health remaining
1 10 90
2 20 80
3 30 70
4 40 60
5 50 50
6 60 40
7 70 30
8 80 20
9 90 10
10 100 0

Imagine we were talking about a straight 10% damage increase, what does this look like?

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 11 89
2 22 78
3 33 67
4 44 56
5 55 45
6 66 34
7 77 23
8 88 12
9 99 1
10 110 -10

Would you look at that... still takes 10 shots to kill.

What about 20%, surely that is an insane TTK decrease...

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 12 88
2 24 76
3 36 64
4 48 52
5 60 40
6 72 28
7 84 16
8 96 4
9 108 -8

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

=Higby= uses [LOGIC] against =Rage Thread=
[LOGIC] crits for 99999999999999
It's super effective!

[Sifer2]

The bigger concern to me in regards to progression is I heard examples given that it could take over a year to max out a class. Now it might be premature to have a fit over this not knowing what the class trees look like. An what weapons/mods will be available to the new guy versus the 1 year veteran. But it does strike me as something that could very easily be screwed up.

If 1 year vets get an uber weapon mod or something that everyone knows is just way better. I don't see people sticking around for a year at a disadvantage to try to earn that. Games like Battlefield/CoD may have stuff like this but it certainly doesn't take a year to level up.

Of course I do understand what they are trying to do. They recognize that PS1 was weak on the progression side of the things an that a lot of people left once they hit BR 20 an got tired of fighting over the same bases. Some MMO players seem to only play for progression an nothing else. So they are trying to give them that. But it could cause a lot of problems I think. Especially do to inevitable inflation where eventually some one maxes his class an wants even more toys to break the game balance.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Higby

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

Thank you for the clear up. I understand the point on weapons that have have smaller damage points like you mentioned, but it could potentially help higher damage weapons like the Jackhammer. Whats was the 20% remark towards concerning the difference between a vet and noob?

@ The people who say gets blown out of proportion. What else do you expect to happen based on the info we have attained, since its release a few weeks ago? Please do not say there is no point in discussing due to the limited info, if that was the case we should not have have a dedicated PS2 forum.

EDIT: Nevermind you already responded to that. I could of sworn I hit the VIP tracker this morning, guess not lol.

[Soothsayer]

Originally Posted by Goku

@ The people who say gets blown out of proportion. What else do you expect to happen based on the info we have attained, since its release a few weeks ago? Please do not say there is no point in discussing due to the limited info, if that was the case we should not have have a dedicated PS2 forum.

Yeah, this is pretty contentious and central to all aspects of gameplay. People are gonna really come out and voice their opinions on something as big as this.

And I assume that its early enough that a difference can be made (or, from my biased point of view... not made).

[IceyCold]

Originally Posted by Goku

Thank you for the clear up. I understand the point on weapons that have have smaller damage points like you mentioned, but it could potentially help higher damage weapons like the Jackhammer. Whats was the 20% remark towards concerning the difference between a vet and noob?

Even then it would still not be a big difference because of the scale of health to dmg.

For instance:

Say the Jackhammer does 40 Dmg a hit, thus against a target with 100 hp: 3 shots to kill. (40 + 40 + 40 = 120)

Now with a 20% modifier to dmg the JH now does 48 dmg per shot.

Math again with new mod:

Shot # // Dmg // Health remaining
0 - 0 - 100
1 - 48 - 52
2 - 96 - 4
3 - 134 - -44


So even with this dmg modifier of 20% you still require 3 shots to kill someone at full health.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by IceyCold

Even then it would still not be a big difference because of the scale of health to dmg.

For instance:

Say the Jackhammer does 40 Dmg a hit, thus against a target with 100 hp: 3 shots to kill. (40 + 40 + 40 = 120)

Now with a 20% modifier to dmg the JH now does 48 dmg per shot.

Math again with new mod:

Shot # // Dmg // Health remaining
0 - 0 - 100
1 - 48 - 52
2 - 96 - 4
3 - 134 - -44


So even with this dmg modifier of 20% you still require 3 shots to kill someone at full health.

Doesn't matter anymore. So w/e now lol. Was stating the reason why I was concerned. That can make a big difference though depending on certain areas of the game. Base fights from all the extra shooting leaves people at lower health, so that would make it even more effective at killing then.

[Shady]

Originally Posted by Goku

Doesn't matter anymore. So w/e now lol. Was stating the reason why I was concerned. That can make a big difference though depending on certain areas of the game. Base fights from all the extra shooting leaves people at lower health, so that would make it even more effective at killing then.

So what you're saying is you want them to balance the game around the fact that people with less than full health will sometimes be fighting people with full health and the people at full health shouldn't have a higher chance of killing people at low health?

I could kinda understand what you're saying if it were a one on one situation where if player 1 had lower health than player 2, and player 2's gun did more damage it's more likely that player 2 would kill player 1, but player 1 is already at a disadvantage because whether player 2's gun does more damage or not he still has more health and is more likely to win.

But what you're talking about isn't even close to that, what you're saying is that you're concerned with the fact that in big base battles a guy with a higher damage weapon is going to do (in the case of the example given earlier on this page) 8 more damage to a guy who isn't at full health and might kill said guy in 2 shots instead of 3. In that case it sounds like the guy with less health should try to find a medic instead of trying to fight people who are at full health with slightly more powerful guns.

I'm sorry but I just don't see how this is a big enough concern to worry about.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Shady

snip

Higby already explained it so it doesn't matter anymore. I thought originally it was going to be along the lines what Higby originally said possibility. Though I didn't see any of that and got caught up in the current discussion. With how everyone was talking it looked like Higby didn't even mention anything prior to those posts.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Higby

The growth afforded by the PS2 cert system to an mmorpg character growth curve isn't even comparable.

Using some back of the napkin math on a hugely simplified example. A first session player would pick up a gun that did 10 damage per shot and start blasting at a guy with full health, assuming he hit every shot and didn't get any headshots (he's a noob, afterall!), it would take 10 shots to kill his enemy:

Shot # damage done health remaining
1 10 90
2 20 80
3 30 70
4 40 60
5 50 50
6 60 40
7 70 30
8 80 20
9 90 10
10 100 0

Imagine we were talking about a straight 10% damage increase, what does this look like?

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 11 89
2 22 78
3 33 67
4 44 56
5 55 45
6 66 34
7 77 23
8 88 12
9 99 1
10 110 -10

Would you look at that... still takes 10 shots to kill.

What about 20%, surely that is an insane TTK decrease...

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 12 88
2 24 76
3 36 64
4 48 52
5 60 40
6 72 28
7 84 16
8 96 4
9 108 -8

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

CAN WE PLEASE NOW, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, REALIZE THAT THE DEVS ARN'T COMPLETE TARDS AND HAVE BALANCE IN MIND???

[FIREk]

Originally Posted by Higby

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

<3

Matt, now that you've become an Internets Hero over here and pretty much made a /thread , can I take advantage of your attention and direct it here?

All of you worrying about straight power advancement, in fast TTK games it's all down to skill anyway. Even if your opponent can drop you 0,2s quicker, if he got the drop on you you, those 0,2s won't help you much. They won't help him much if you got the drop on him, and if he's got more armor and can take one hit more.

In APB Reloaded you've got weapon upgrades that translate into sheer power, up to 7% more RoF and roughly 20% reduced Cone of Fire bloom. Regardless, you don't really feel the difference, unless your opponent is using an item shop weapon that does offer a true, significant advantage (like tighter spread that you couldn't ever achieve through upgrades).

Now let's take BFBC2 for example. Many unlockable weapons give you an advantage with no real tradeoff. There's so much happening and TTK is so short that it doesn't really matter. There aren't that many 1v1 fights, and there will probably be even less in PS2. The most important thing is situational awareness - getting the drop on an enemy before he gets a drop on you.

In my opinion the 20% is just something to keep the more simplistic players playing the game. Some people just need progression in order to give some meaning to the time they spend in the game.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Higby

The growth afforded by the PS2 cert system to an mmorpg character growth curve isn't even comparable.

Using some back of the napkin math on a hugely simplified example. A first session player would pick up a gun that did 10 damage per shot and start blasting at a guy with full health, assuming he hit every shot and didn't get any headshots (he's a noob, afterall!), it would take 10 shots to kill his enemy:

Shot # damage done health remaining
1 10 90
2 20 80
3 30 70
4 40 60
5 50 50
6 60 40
7 70 30
8 80 20
9 90 10
10 100 0

Imagine we were talking about a straight 10% damage increase, what does this look like?

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 11 89
2 22 78
3 33 67
4 44 56
5 55 45
6 66 34
7 77 23
8 88 12
9 99 1
10 110 -10

Would you look at that... still takes 10 shots to kill.

What about 20%, surely that is an insane TTK decrease...

Shot # damage done life remaining
1 12 88
2 24 76
3 36 64
4 48 52
5 60 40
6 72 28
7 84 16
8 96 4
9 108 -8

1 less shot to kill, not exactly curb-stomping and face-blasting noobs off the map. And, this is already an out of bounds scenario because we're not going to have a 20% increase on damage to begin with.

If it doesn't make a significant difference, why are you doing it at all?

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Malorn

If it doesn't make a significant difference, why are you doing it at all?

My guess is that it will make a difference, just a very slight difference, and anybody who is competative will likely want to have any advantage they can, no matter how slight that advantage is. (i.e. like using implants, or cave benefits in PS1)

[Kran De Loy]

Originally Posted by Malorn

If it doesn't make a significant difference, why are you doing it at all?

..
I guess I could answer that like you were being a sarcastic ass and that your choice of phrasing was just accidental.

Three reasons I can think of off the top of my head.
1) To give the player base an idea that their time is not put to waste, that there is character advancement and to reward players that play a lot while not leaving the casual gamer in the dust.
2) This is an MMO, there will be more than just 2 people shooting at each other and not all of them will have only 100hp.
3) That information was purposefully designed to show a specific point and should not be taken as concrete data.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Kran De Loy

..
I guess I could answer that like you were being a sarcastic ass and that your choice of phrasing was just accidental.

I asked a simple yet terse question. There was no sarcasm in it.

Three reasons I can think of off the top of my head.
1) To give the player base an idea that their time is not put to waste, that there is character advancement and to reward players that play a lot while not leaving the casual gamer in the dust.

Why is this necessary?

2) This is an MMO, there will be more than just 2 people shooting at each other and not all of them will have only 100hp.

Planetside is an MMO also yet it does not have this. Again, why is this necessary?

3) That information was purposefully designed to show a specific point and should not be taken as concrete data.

The example is irrelevant, I can give numbers where a 10% difference makes a 2-shot kill a 1-shot kill.

The numbers are not interesting, the reasons for having it in the game at all are far more relevant and are the root of the issue.