Proposed changes to attachments in next patch

[sushicake]

mp1st.com/2011/12/31/big-changes-to-weapon-balance-in-store-for-battlefield-3/

TL;DR

Nerfed

Foregrip - ADS spread will now be increased by 25%

Suppressor - ADS spread reduced to 25% (down from 50%). Hip spread increased to 50% (up from 34%).

Buffed

Bipod - even more of a reduction in recoil and spread

Heavy barrel - Damage range dropoff lengthened. Spread increase per shot lowered to 25% (from 50%). However hip spread will now be increased by 25%. No mention of the original V-recoil penalty (possibly removed?).

Flash suppressor - V-recoil reduced by 20%. Hip spread increased by 20%. No mention of the spread added per shot penalty and ADS/hip max spread penalties (possibly removed?).


The laser sight is unchanged.


Overall I like the changes, the two most useless attachments ATM (HB and FS) are getting buffed like crazy. The foregrip nerf is retarded and a total cop out, though.

You are my bro, bro.

[bel]

Foregrip nerf is gay. I like the rest, especially the flash suppressor. And I'll be using the hbar on just about everything now. It was already better than people seemed to believe, now it's great.

[raxcoswell]

Yeah idk. Never get unduly concerned about this stuff since it's the same for everyone. And the only one that really 'affects' how I play at all is laser, which isn't being touched

[ninja]

What exactly is meant by a 20% decrease in accuracy? Are they referring to spread, sway, recoil, or what?

[didjeridu]

Based on feedback and other discussions among the community, Kertz came up with a list of changes he would like to make to weapon attachments in the future. This, however, is not guaranteed and is subject to change. Keep reading for a summary of each attachment, whether they are being nerfed or buffed, and how the developers at DICE feel they should be used.

So yeah, this is just ideas floating around. Still, I'll jump on board the hate wagon. These ideas are downright retarded.

So now the grip makes your gun less accurate. Makes total sense to me. The problem isn't the grip being too good, it's that there are no good alternatives. Bipod was already effective enough, why make it better? With grip being borderline useless, it only makes the bipod more attractive to more players. And I don't see any mention of fixing the terrible controls for the bipod, so it's not like I'll ever be using it. Silencer doesn't need an accuracy bonus at all. It really makes me wonder what they're smoking if they think the grip is too powerful, yet leave the silencer mostly intact. Heavy barrel is still terrible. The only thing they changed is the lowered spread per shot. It sounds like it still only benefits the first shot, making it a terrible choice for anything besides semi-only.

Nowhere does it say that the flash suppressor keeps you off the map. I'd rather it not anyways, but that's a story for another time. Still, if those proposed changes are real, then I'd be happy. The main problem it had was being a completely terrible version of the silencer. Now it seems to have no ADS spread increase, which will go a long way in making it attractive. Why even list the laser sight if there are no changes? From the way it's worded, it almost sounds like they're making the laser more of a giveaway to the enemy if you run around with it on. I'd be fine with that, but maybe they're too afraid to call it a nerf?

It really sounds like they want to force people into using no attachments. I really don't see how these people can't figure out how to buff the bad attachments to the level of the good ones. I shouldn't have to sort through a list of attachments to find the only one that's useful, or leave it blank because there's nothing worth using at all. I should have to sort through a list of attachments I love, and agonize over the decision of what to use. And by making the grip terrible, they're only going to promote more tube Assaults. Even if the underbarrel rail doesn't provide much of a benefit, there's no reason not to use it instead of leaving your gun naked.

[rubionubio]

Update from Demize via Twitter:

Alan Kertz
@demize99 Alan Kertz
Working on the Accessory tweaks, thanks for the feedback. Accessory values will now be tweaked per weapon, instead of globally.

Definitely good news! And it signifies a change in philosophy, that they're now open to changing individual weapons for balancing purposes, not just bug fix purposes. Good news indeed.

[rubionubio]

Jan 2, 2012 11:37:52 GMT -5 didjeridu said:

Heavy barrel is still terrible. The only thing they changed is the lowered spread per shot. It sounds like it still only benefits the first shot, making it a terrible choice for anything besides semi-only.

I get the impression from that post that they increased the minimum damage, but not the overall damage? "allow players to increase their maximum range (not damage)" since the term used to connect that to the ADS bonus of 50% is as well not by. I.E. "allow players to increase their maximum range (not damage) BY increasing the ADS bonus to 50%." That sounds very different.

Overall I would say that I like that they are creating a strong differentiation between three or four basic loadouts:

Close Range (Laser, foregrip, red dot)
Mid Range/all purpose (Silencer, foregrip/bipod/hbar or underbarrel rail (speaking of, this needs a buff and a reason to exist) and ACOG or holo)
Long Range (Hbar, Bipod, ACOG or 6x

Obviously some situational/preference choices mixed in, but this is just what I see...

And then an all purpose, standard issue bare-bones gun, with an optic. I prefer to see things this way then having a set of attachments that everyone picks because they're clearly the best, I.E. the setup that everyone runs now: Holo, foregrip, and silencer (I'm sure some people roll with different stuff, but this is what I see all the random scrubs using).

[patrickbc]

When you say:

Suppressor - ADS spread reduced by 25% (down from 50%).

Will the total ADS spread then be 75% (25% lower than original) or 25% (75% lower than the original)?

[rubionubio]

I think he meant to say that the new total will be 25% as opposed to the previous modifier of 50%.

[tiesieman]

I like all numbers on that list, especially the flash suppressor that suddenly looks llike the attachment I'll roll with (one that doesn't change that much)

For the foregrip though..I dunno. It does need to have a downside IMO

Maybe some downside for prone shooting, where foregrips are in your way or something. Seems kinda in line with the design philosophy of it being an "on-the-move" attachment

[rudybojangles]

I remember Demize saying that soldiers complain that the foregrip hurts when they are trying to take out targets at long range. I guess decreasing accuracy is his interpretation of that.

[sushicake]

Jan 2, 2012 11:37:52 GMT -5 didjeridu said:

Nowhere does it say that the flash suppressor keeps you off the map.

My bad, a bit of an oversight by me. Kertz said not too long before this that he wanted to make the FS keep you off the map. I didn't realize it wasn't mentioned here so I guess the idea didn't stick. I'll edit the OP.

Heavy barrel is still terrible. The only thing they changed is the lowered spread per shot.

No the HB is looking pretty good now. Like rubio said it seems like the ideal choice for mid/long range. The lowered SPS means that the HB will now actually make short 4 round bursts more accurate (especially on the Engineer weapons). The extended damage range dropoff is also a new change. There is also the possibility that the v-recoil penalty got removed since it wasn't mentioned.

[raxcoswell]

This feels even more moot now that it's not even happening. Can't believe I wasted 2 hours crying in a public toilet over this.

[sushicake]

Jan 2, 2012 17:28:50 GMT -5 raxcoswell said:

This feels even more moot now that it's not even happening. Can't believe I wasted 2 hours crying in a public toilet over this.

lolol. Well these changes will happen if people don't give feedback on it.

[didjeridu]

Jan 2, 2012 12:36:31 GMT -5 rubionubio said:

I get the impression from that post that they increased the minimum damage, but not the overall damage? "allow players to increase their maximum range (not damage)" since the term used to connect that to the ADS bonus of 50% is as well not by. I.E. "allow players to increase their maximum range (not damage) BY increasing the ADS bonus to 50%." That sounds very different.

It's a little confusing. Range can either mean that they increased the damage range (takes longer to hit minimum damage), or that they increased the actual range (more velocity, less drop, longer bullet life). I was under the impression that the HB already increased velocity and decreased drop, but I could be wrong. Either way, their wording is still terrible. They say it increases ADS accuracy (decreasing spread), yet they say it increases dispersion per shot (increasing spread). That sounds to me to be exactly the same as how the HB functions now: increases first shot accuracy only. Or perhaps they'll have both the ADS spread decrease and all around spread increase fighting each other at the same time. So combining the two, the first shot would be highly accurate, second less so, then everything after maybe 5 shots (guestimation) would have less accuracy. That would be okay I suppose, but I still don't like it.

I think the HB should remain as is (with range increase, etc.), but without the ADS spread increase. I don't care if the spread benefit is for first shot only, as long as I'm not severely punished for ever firing more than one bullet. Additional ADS spread is just unnecessary for the HB when it increases recoil as well. Some may think additional recoil and hip spread isn't enough of a downside, but when the HB would have to compete for a slot with the likes of the silencer and a possibly buffed FS, it wouldn't necessarily be a clear choice.

[rubionubio]

Good ideas Didjeridu.

The HB should - like it's real-life counterpart - allow for a hotter-loaded ammo and longer sustained fire, increasing velocity (thereby decreasing drop) and tightening up spread. It should however be less wieldy overall, meaning more hip spread since it's garbage in CQB with all that weight towards the forward end of your gun making it a bitch to swing around.

As far as the grip goes, I meant to say what Rudy did. In RL the grip is great for quick target transitions and wide sweeps, but it's not as stable a platform for long distance shooting. It's less stable and supportive. Hold your hand out, palm up, and then hold your hand out in a fist, vertically. Feel the difference? Same reason why they don't teach the cup-and-saucer method of handgun shooting. The game should reflect that in my opinion.

[bel]

hbar should increase recoil and decrease spread.
flash suppressor could decrease recoil and increase spread, giving it a reason to exist as the hbar's evil twin.
silencer should decrease recoil slightly if they have to give it a side-benefit.
foregrip should increase vertical and decrease horizontal recoil

Those are the easiest ways to achieve what DICE seems to be going for. I wish they'd stop playing around with spread and balance by recoil instead. We're getting closer and closer to BC2 again. If they were going for real realism, though, I'd be quite glad to see them do what rubio's suggesting.

[battleaxerx]

I feel like the poster boys of the video game world (Robert Bowling, Alen Kertz, etc.) are partly for teasing the communities with quality.

It can't be that hard with all the man power at their hands to make the game scary good and unbelievably balanced.

I feel like they know what to do and what we want and what makes sense, but they beat around the bush with talk of whack ass changes that are sub par to the changes that great minds have conceived.

Seems like a front to me... I guess that's me though, I'm usually the only one who ponders a corporation's alternate agenda. The agenda you ask? To lure players to invest time in their product talking and thinking about it so as to make more life long customers. It's business. Marketing. Surely it doesn't work for every customer or have an effect on everyone, but they're encouraging people to give feedback and the effects of that are getting people to stick around... I'm not hating, I just feel like hoping about and talking about balance is almost a waste.

It's just that. It's a real shame if we, the people, are the only way this game will reach its peak.

[rudybojangles]

I think Demize has a harder time than most realize.

He actually did something right: the L95A2 is like a lazer, which makes it a playstyle choice between that and the Famas/AEK. But given the game mechanics, recovery, spread, etc... he is doing what he thinks is best. Maybe all the power has blinded him from the imbalance, but I doubt it. I think he has even responded to some tweeters lamenting the AK74, the RPK, and their kin, but I don't think, given his philisophical limitation of bullet=damage, he will ever truely balance the game.

It would be fun to revisit this thread in 1 year when the recoil and spread of high RPM guns makes them nigh unusable except for in touching distance.

[bel]

Conpiracy theory alert. It's really hard to balance a game perfectly, dude. I do think they listen to the wrong people a lot of the time, and I'm all for saying they make retarded choices, but I highly doubt they're being intentionally dumb. I haven't seen a single FPS in the last five years that's been balanced perfectly.

Either all those companies are part of a conspiracy to rival the faking of the moon landing... or it's kinda difficult to do.

[rubionubio]

In my opinion they go about determining balance from the wrong direction.

Think of a cause and effect chain (weapon balancing in this case; Changing Y causes X effect which in turn creates Z end statistic result, I.e. more global kills or usage, whatever, you name it). Think of this as a water hose with a series of valves set along the line, from the source to the spout where the water comes out.

Bad companies/philosophies approach problems from the spout end, by looking at the results that they see (X weapon is under used, Y recoil value is too high, Z weapon is overused in it's class, etc.) and working backwards, up the "river" we've created. They then make the change that they want to make, and then wait for the result to see if they were successful or not, and then make more changes, etc.

Good companies/philosophies approach problems from the other end of this chain, looking at root causes, and behaviors rather than results. They start out with a mission, and tweak things to fit that mission, trusting that, if the mission was correct from the beginning (Example: All Accessories Will Have a Useful Situational Purpose) the results will naturally fall into place organically as you align yourself more and more in line with your mission. In this way the results (complaints, whining, etc.) are completely irrelevant because all you're looking to do is make the gun stats match up to what you wanted them to be in the first place.

Using the first approach balancing (using results-based analysis) will NEVER be done, nor will it ever be right, because you're chasing a moving target. By following the second approach and tackling problems before they even reach the end of our proverbial hose, you avoid having to fiddle with all the little valves and knobs and switches and levers (in our case, recoil, spread, RPM, mag size, damage, etc. etc.) trying to dial the water flow and direction JUST RIGHT so that it's the same coming out of all your hoses.

TL:DR Start with a great mission or overall goal in mind with your project (gun balance -- or more specifically, what we are REALLY asking for when we say "gun balance"... situational usefulness - Every gun has a purpose that you define ahead of time) and tweak the guns to match YOUR MISSION. The end "results" are only useful in that they create the palette with which you paint your picture -- A little more recoil here and a little smaller hip spray here makes this into the CQB beast that we want it to be... A dash of muzzle velocity helps this to fill the DMR role we have envisioned for it... Etc.

Most of us Bro's are pretty smart dudes and dudettes, and I think the reason we find problem solving these sorts of problems to be so easy is because we approach the problem with WEAPON DIVERSITY in mind, NOT balance. Call me crazy, but we all would absolutely hate a game that had the same gun with 15 different skins right? So Foxtrot balance and don't waste time with it, just make square pegs for square holes and circle pegs for the circle holes and quit trying to shave off the edges of the square pegs to fit in the circle holes.

[battleaxerx]

Nice post, bro. Take effective playstyles for the game engine, and build them to a standard. Deviations from that standard take a penalty of some kind (PDW on recon).
If every attachment is useful in the situation it was designed for and having no obvious choice, we'd be balanced. They just need to get it through their heads that looking at the big picture is really all it takes...

Surely, if you want a good long range tool for your assault, you could pick a handy rifle, or a bad rifle with an HBar and acog, or go extreme and have that setup on a G3 for instance. I kinda feel like it's getting there with the new give take system.

[tiesieman]

Yeah, these changes do highlight those specific playstyles they were talking about pre-release.

I like the idea alot; you initially pick a weapon for whatever distance, like that G3 battleaxerx mentioned, and then by the time you've unlocked attachments for it, you can go any way with it. Emphasize its strong points by equipping the new HBAR and a bipod + rifle scope; next map, instead of switching weapons, slap a foregrip, laser/silencer and a red dot/holo on it and you're set. Feel indifferent? Use nothing, or possibly the foregrip (an initial accuracy penalty of 25% is not that high) and the flash suppressor

I guess I'm actually the only one that would like to see these, lol

[undoubledzim]

I will miss you forgrip.... YOU WERE MY FAVORITE ATTACHMENT EVER

Well I guess I might actually use a third attachment now

[sleep]

overall i like the buffs.

not crazy about the foregrip nerf but i understand, it makes running no attachment in that slot a viable option.

i've never really liked all the effects they threw on suppressor. keeping you off the map is its primary function and it's great, and the only drawbacks it needs are the reduced damage-falloff-range (still not sure exactly how much the range is reduced though?) and lower velocity bullets. all the stuff about increasing accuracy, reducing kick, changing hip spread is unnecessary and makes no sense to me.

[rudybojangles]

I actually love that DICE has balanced attachments against not having attachments. Sure, I get comfortable in certain playstyles, but I love to adjust. I remember back in my days of BC2, I wrote a DRMB blog post which I am sure no one read, but I called for downsides to all of the weapon specializations. Now we are getting that through attachments!

Also, on a side note, back in the Bad Company 2 (XBOX) days, I would actively avoid weapons considered overpowered. Then I started my quest to platinum all of the guns, and at that point I lamented that I had not used weapons before they were nerfed (fffffff M60 and XM8 LMG). So, in BF3, I have resolved to seek out the most OP combinations before they get nerfed! I was a huge user of the IRNV+M240B+grip combo. Then I switched to Engi, and started using the SCAR-H to great effect. After that nerf, I went to the AEK (skipped over F2K, didn't get there in time). Now, I am trying to find good weapons which are most typically overlooked. I have really dug the SKS, the MP7, the PKP (even though it's been gaining significant popularity), 93R. I think these are weapons that are less prone to the nerfbat.

[SheWolf]

hmm. looks like no attachement will be the way to go for me (PC user, recoil is easily compensated for with a mouse, spread is the deciding factor for me personally.)

[raxcoswell]

As a console user, even with my aiming precision restricted to 90 degree arcs, nothing turns me off an attachment more than negative spread.

[didjeridu]

Yeah, spread is my biggest nemesis. I don't care if it's there, and honestly I think BF3 could use a little more spread (I still at times fire an entire M16 mag into a clump of enemies with near perfect accuracy). I just greatly prefer recoil; not because it's easier to deal with, which for the most part it is, but because it's more "fun." Having to pull a gun down, and possibly left or right, while firing is like a minigame within the game. Combat becomes more than just point and click. Spread just isn't fun at all. It's one thing to have to stop firing because the recoil is getting too heavy to handle, but it's something else when you have to stop because you hit the "invisible timer" of when your bullets shoot wherever they want. As fun as BC2 was, shooting the guns wasn't. In addition to some guns taking maybe 10 bullets to kill, their spread was pretty noticeable, partially because there was barely any recoil. It's just frustrating to have "perfect aim" yet miss half your shots.

But anyways, that's enough of that. I'm pretty happy with the gun mechanics in BF3, I just don't like how it seems like all the attachments are so obsessed with spread rather than recoil (increasing spread in particular). Using a naked gun just feels...wrong somehow. Well, naked AK was the way to go in CoD4, but that's another story.

I don't ever expect BF3 to be balanced. As long as bullet=damage, there will always be guns that are better. I just wish there were more quirks in the default weapons. For example, the B2K carbine sacrifices foregrip for PDW attachments, yet also has high velocity and recovery. That makes it pretty different compared to the AKS-74u, the closest comparable carbine.

[tiesieman]

Meh. .2 vs .25 is such a small diference it would hardly matter for me in most situations anyway; and in fact, adding the HBAR would nullify the penalty

It's gonna be a bigger penalty on those LMGs though, but Demize has said that attachment stuff won't be global and will be on a per-weapon basis.