A "Formula" for Comparing Recoil Stats

[banana]

this is exactly what i sent him

hi stuart,

would you please give me the mw3 gunkick values so i could give it to the denkirson boards, also their centerspeed if its different for gunkick which i assume it isnt, thanks in advance. (:

[duckcall00]

Jun 12, 2012 18:45:54 GMT -5 banana said:

this is exactly what i sent him

hi stuart,

would you please give me the mw3 gunkick values so i could give it to the denkirson boards, also their centerspeed if its different for gunkick which i assume it isnt, thanks in advance. (:

Here's a tip from our local youtube "celebrity," Drift0r:

He talks about how to get in contact with big youtubers. Correct grammar and politeness is important.
I don't think a lowercase "hi" and a smiley face will get the attention of someone with 190000 subscribers. He probably receives countless messages each day, and will pay no attention to the one we sent.

[probaddie]

I have finished the results for Black Ops, with both the vertically unbiased and biased statistics:

Unbiased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFVxUEVSQlB2VDI3SmpSZ3ZhQWlZSHc#gid=1
Biased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFRJeDZHdXdFMFhpNlNMdDRRMmlJcHc#gid=0

The result that shocked me most was the fact that both statistics rank the M16 with the Infrared Scope the best weapon. I immediately opened the game to test this, but I think it makes sense. The weapon deviates very little from that swaying motion when firing, and almost invariably returns to its natural swaying path before the next round is fired.

Let me know what you think, especially which statistic you prefer.

Edit: Wait, that's not true at all (about the M16 IS). The Skorpion with Grip ranks as #1 with the unbiased statistic. Still, it makes sense that both would rank high.

[cashmoves]

Jun 14, 2012 0:20:49 GMT -5 probaddie said:

I have finished the results for Black Ops, with both the vertically unbiased and biased statistics:

Unbiased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFVxUEVSQlB2VDI3SmpSZ3ZhQWlZSHc#gid=1
Biased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFRJeDZHdXdFMFhpNlNMdDRRMmlJcHc#gid=0

The result that shocked me most was the fact that both statistics rank the M16 with the Infrared Scope the best weapon. I immediately opened the game to test this, but I think it makes sense. The weapon deviates very little from that swaying motion when firing, and almost invariably returns to its natural swaying path before the next round is fired.

Let me know what you think, especially which statistic you prefer.

Edit: Wait, that's not true at all (about the M16 IS). The Skorpion with Grip ranks as #1 with the unbiased statistic. Still, it makes sense that both would rank high.

i leveled the m16 to 30 a couple prestiges ago. hoping the 16 with thermal had hidden super power like with the lmgs... its still not good. i did testing in game firing at walls (very scientific i know...). anyway, some times all three bullets are dead on, other times one or two bullets still stray way off. its the inconsistency of the m16 spread combined with its slow fire rate that kills it. the thermal does nothing but make this all the more apparent because there are no irons or anything to get in the way of your perfect sight of the bullets flying randomly off target...

you could fix it either of two ways. keep the inconsistency but increase fire rate. keep the slow fire rate but at least make the damn thing consistent.

so long as the m16 is 70% 2BK, 15% 3+BK, 15%1BK, its going to blow. thermal or no.

[Marvel4]

What? The M16 in Black Ops doesn't have a slow rate of fire...

[cmck]

MW3 M16 I think.

[probaddie]

Jun 14, 2012 8:07:30 GMT -5 cashmoves said:

Jun 14, 2012 0:20:49 GMT -5 probaddie said:

I have finished the results for Black Ops, with both the vertically unbiased and biased statistics:

Unbiased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFVxUEVSQlB2VDI3SmpSZ3ZhQWlZSHc#gid=1
Biased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFRJeDZHdXdFMFhpNlNMdDRRMmlJcHc#gid=0

The result that shocked me most was the fact that both statistics rank the M16 with the Infrared Scope the best weapon. I immediately opened the game to test this, but I think it makes sense. The weapon deviates very little from that swaying motion when firing, and almost invariably returns to its natural swaying path before the next round is fired.

Let me know what you think, especially which statistic you prefer.

Edit: Wait, that's not true at all (about the M16 IS). The Skorpion with Grip ranks as #1 with the unbiased statistic. Still, it makes sense that both would rank high.

i leveled the m16 to 30 a couple prestiges ago. hoping the 16 with thermal had hidden super power like with the lmgs... its still not good. i did testing in game firing at walls (very scientific i know...). anyway, some times all three bullets are dead on, other times one or two bullets still stray way off. its the inconsistency of the m16 spread combined with its slow fire rate that kills it. the thermal does nothing but make this all the more apparent because there are no irons or anything to get in the way of your perfect sight of the bullets flying randomly off target...

you could fix it either of two ways. keep the inconsistency but increase fire rate. keep the slow fire rate but at least make the gosh darn golly gee whiz thing consistent.

so long as the m16 is 70% 2BK, 15% 3+BK, 15%1BK, its going to blow. thermal or no.

I was referring to the BO M16, not the MW3 M16A4. I though it was clear from the fact that I made these comments in my post introducing the Black Ops stats (and mentioned the Infrared Scope rather than the Thermal). We're also not talking at all about the weapon's damage, just its recoil.

[cashmoves]

Jun 14, 2012 12:22:18 GMT -5 probaddie said:

Jun 14, 2012 8:07:30 GMT -5 cashmoves said:

i leveled the m16 to 30 a couple prestiges ago. hoping the 16 with thermal had hidden super power like with the lmgs... its still not good. i did testing in game firing at walls (very scientific i know...). anyway, some times all three bullets are dead on, other times one or two bullets still stray way off. its the inconsistency of the m16 spread combined with its slow fire rate that kills it. the thermal does nothing but make this all the more apparent because there are no irons or anything to get in the way of your perfect sight of the bullets flying randomly off target...

you could fix it either of two ways. keep the inconsistency but increase fire rate. keep the slow fire rate but at least make the gosh darn golly gee whiz thing consistent.

so long as the m16 is 70% 2BK, 15% 3+BK, 15%1BK, its going to blow. thermal or no.

I was referring to the BO M16, not the MW3 M16A4. I though it was clear from the fact that I made these comments in my post introducing the Black Ops stats (and mentioned the Infrared Scope rather than the Thermal). We're also not talking at all about the weapon's damage, just its recoil.

haha well shit on my face.

anyway, m16 with acog was my favorite gun in blops. so this all makes sense.

[probaddie]

Update: I've included a link to the BO results in the OP. I think I'll begin trying to standardize the actual statistic(s) so that they can be used to "measure" recoil. Meanwhile, hopefully the BO stats will create some sort of consensus to the biased vs. unbiased argument.

[banana]

I was just about to ask you to standardize it (:

[probaddie]

So I've decided to take it upon myself to ask Stuart if he can help with the GunKick numbers. Here is the e-mail I just sent him:

Hello Stuart,

My name is [censored], a member of the Den Kirson forums (as "probaddie")
and a fan of your XboxAhoy videos. In particular, I was impressed with your
Time To Kill video on Call of Duty's recoil model; it was an informative and
accurate video which delicately handled the technical subject matter very well.
Indeed, it's quite difficult for players to grasp the effect each statistic has
on a weapon's behaviour as a whole, a point you made in the bonus footage of
the Recoil video. This inspired me to use my mathematical knowledge and
(admittedly amateur) programing ability to devise a way to "measure" recoil
using each weapon's recoil parameters. This effort has been on-going for about three weeks now, the product of which is all contained in the original post of a thread I started on the Den Kirson forums:

denkirson.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=4577.

I've thus far been able to grade the weapons of Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops
using a program I wrote in Mathematica based on just the weapons' ViewKick
statistics -- the four maximum and minimum pitch and yaw statistics and the
ViewKick CenterSpeed. I even devised a second version of the method to account
for the relative dimensions of a man-sized target; this version puts less
penalty on weapons with vertical recoil to account for the fact that an upright
target is, in usual circumstances, taller than it is wide.

Much work has been put into this -- though as a math nerd I do thoroughly enjoy
it -- but the entire method is, on the whole, flawed. This is because I have no
way of taking the GunKick aspect of the recoil model into account. The L86 LSW
is the most potent example of this, in that, in my results pages, it ranks
almost as the best weapon recoil-wise without any mention of a Thermal Scope
being attached to it.

This is where I begin my plea. I am not asking you to do anything which might
jeopardize your contact with Activision vis-a-vis your Elite videos. But where
you were gifted the files containing the statistics for every weapon in Modern
Warfare 3, you hold the information I need to complete my efforts in measuring
recoil: the GunKick statistics. I noticed that you posted some of those
statistics in the Recoil video, and that gave me hope that you are not
contractually obliged to withhold those numbers from others. Indeed, Infinity
Ward themselves released the ViewKick statistics with their Game Guide, even as
those numbers are hidden by the same encryption as the GunKick numbers are; I
would take that to imply that they would have no issue with the GunKick numbers
being public knowledge.

Also, I would need to know exactly what effect the ACOG and Thermal attachments
have on both recentreing statistics (ViewKick and GunKick), if possible.

Again, I am not asking you to risk your financial well-being for what is
essentially a mathematics exercise. But I would be very grateful if you could
find your way to honouring my request -- and I'll still be a fan of yours whatever your reply!

From an avid fan,

[censored] (probaddie)

Do you think that will do?

[cmck]

I think its well thought out and polite. If it will work? I think you'll get a response if he checks his messages often. If he will give you those stats is a mystery though. Isn't life a b!tch. I hope you get them. That message definitely was worth a few numbers.

[probaddie]

Jun 15, 2012 11:53:40 GMT -5 cmck said:

I think its well thought out and polite. If it will work? I think you'll get a response if he checks his messages often. If he will give you those stats is a mystery though. Isn't life a b!tch. I hope you get them. That message definitely was worth a few numbers.

Here's hoping. I don't expect a response tonight; he probably hoofed it down to his favorite pub after work to watch England play Sweden in Euro 2012. (I know he's a footy fan because he mentioned his loyalties lie with Preston North End).

And just as I finish that, England score. Yeah, no chance of an answer tonight. ;D

[probaddie]

Just an update on what I'm doing. I'm working on standardizing the statistic so that it can be used to "measure" recoil. I originally said I would adjust the scores relative to the worst weapon in the game, but I've taken a different route. I've decided to simply use the raw score -- i.e. without transforming the statistic into a score out of 100 -- and made it into a sort of "recoil unit". You'll see what I mean shortly .

[probaddie]

Well that was much easier than expected.

So basically what I've done to get the new statistic is take the number I get from adding the variances together -- this is what the taxicab metric has always done -- and multiplied it by 100; it's that simple. The reason I multiply by 100 is because psijaka's recoil plots are recreated by simulating 10-round bursts. But since the sum of the two variances gives a squared distance, I took that factor of 10 and squared it to arrive at 100.

I'm going to hold off publishing the results as the sixth draft until Tuesday at the latest. The request to Stuart Brown was sent to what I assume is his business account, [e-mail] -- I thought that would be the least congested of his accounts. Thus, I don't expect a reply until Monday at the earliest. I'm holding out hope that we can get the GunKick numbers, and if we do I think we should mothball this project until we work out the proclivities of the GunKick mechanic in a separate thread. I was thinking about what effect GunKick woudl have on the method and it tuns out it's bit more complicated than just "adding" on the effect of GunKick's contribution to the recoil, even assuming the most favourable conditions.

[probaddie]

And I've now officially hit for the cycle in this thread with a quadruple post. MLB MVP Award, please.

Here is the sixth draft (just the MW3 results for now). The "statistic" column now contains a measure of the recoil rather than a score out of 100. As it turns out, a recoil unit (RU) is fairly small; only one gun achieves a sub-unit measurement (L86 with Kick+Grip+Thermal, a mythical beast) and the rest are measured essentially in tens of recoil units. Only a perfect laser beam can achieve a measurement of 0. Of course, the unbiased and biased statistic produces different measurements. I guess we can call a unit of vertically biased recoil a "vertically adjusted unit" and denote it RU_2.77 (2.77 is the height-to-width bias ratio we've been using).

I removed the percentile rankings, hoping that the absolute measurements will suffice as a way to compare weapons.

Here are the results:
Unbiased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dHBMT21TWHpoUV9VcnIwTlp6OWRZc3c#gid=0
Biased: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dFR4NmVEVDNkMHNtSlAzLWktOGFLTFE#gid=0

And no, I did not get a response from Stuart. I'm not sure if it was poor timing of the e-mail (Friday afternoon before England played Sweden in Euro) or if he just sees too much crap in his inbox on a regular basis to notice my e-mail. I really thought I'd at least get a token, "Sorry, I can't."

I'll post the BO results tomorrow.

[Marvel4]

Suggestion for the Black Ops results: You should combine AK-47 and Commando etc. since they have the exact same recoil values. Your current list is a bit hard to read.

[probaddie]

Jun 19, 2012 22:24:31 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

Suggestion for the Black Ops results: You should combine AK-47 and Commando etc. since they have the exact same recoil values. Your current list is a bit hard to read.

I can only see two actual cases of this: the AK47/Commando and the MAC11/Spectre. Many guns have the same ViewKick values, but CenterSpeed and rate-of-fire values break ties in many cases. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but I remember there being many more gun clones in BO. In any case, I'll combine those results later today.

Your point is taken about "readability." I think what I'll do, if we're satisfied with how the statistic measures recoil, is get rid of the intra-class and primary/secondary rankings in favor of simply listing each weapon in order from best to worst within each class.

(And I'm making a second attempt at getting Stuart's attention. I'm sending an e-mail tomorrow at 6:00 British Standard Time. Hopefully my e-mail will be the first in his inbox when he wakes up . Failing that, can anyone think of someone within IW/Activision who might be helpful?)

[Marvel4]

The Enfield and Galil also have the same recoil and some weapons have the same recoil with different attachments, like the Spectre and Kiparis with ACOG and the PM63 and Kiparis with Grip etc.

[Megaqwerty]

PM63 Grip, Kiparis Grip, and pre-patch Famas all have identical recoil.

[probaddie]

Just a quick update: I'm kinda revamping the code again to make it more streamlined. I original had to create two versions for both MW3 and BO and now I'm trying to combine the two. I haven't forgotten abut the BO results -- and incorporating the gun clones into the list. I'm also going to drop the rankings in favor of just listing the weapons from best to worst within each class. The recoil statistic can be used for any inter-class comparisons. No promises on when this will come out, as I've been very busy lately with RL stuff.

Oh, and I'm including semi-auto sniper rifles in the next update. Because why not?

[banana]

Why hasn't this been stickied?

[probaddie]

Well thank you for the sticky nod, but it's just as well it hasn't been stickied yet; this is an incomplete work as far as I am concerned. It's getting there though.

Also, do we think we have a shot of getting IW to release the GunKick numbers? As some have mentioned on this forum, IW feel they are losing the support of the CoD community, hence the upcoming re-balancing. They might be persuaded into releasing the numbers as a token of good faith .

[banana]

Which one of the devs seems most likely to give it to us?

[Marvel4]

I think Mark Rubin.

[banana]

Well since i don't have twitter (Facebook is way better ) someone else has to do it..

[probaddie]

Foxtrotting. Gun. Clones. gosh darn golly gee whiz you, Treyarch!

I finally have the results for the seventh draft for both BO and MW3.

• I eliminated all the rankings in favor of listing the guns within each class from best to worst.
  
• I introduced the "recoil measurement" as the determining statistic for both games. Now, lower is better.
  
• I combined gun clones by hand -- at the cost of my sanity -- such that any weapon with at least one clone (recoil-wise) will have all its clones listed as one entry.
  
• I fixed a bug that was affecting guns with uni-dimensional and negligible recoil (MP7+Kick, bolt-action rifles, and maybe the Skorpion+Grip).
  

Here they are:

MW3 (unbiased statistic): docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dHpfUGxMMWp2cngzWjI0M3hhTEYyckE#gid=0
MW3 (biased statistic): docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dENabG1Ma0wtUUNwWksyOXJrcWw4M3c#gid=0
Black Ops (unbiased statistic): docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dHF4V20tTkI2eXlGOFZUZDR3SlJUMmc#gid=0
Black Ops (biased statistic): docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnFeORnwotj_dE5XZTNOendENDBXUEJMOVozSDdCM3c#gid=1


So, for this version I'm not really interested in settling the unbiased vs. biased debate -- I don't think that'll even happen until we get those GunKick numbers. Instead, focus on whether you think the recoil measurements are sound in comparison to one another. So pick which statistic you prefer (unbiased or biased) look at guns with very low GunKick and decide if you agree with the relative scores with one another, both in how they perform in-game and when looking at a recoil plot. I anticipate there being an issue but if you guys like the numbers as they are I'll let my issue with it go unheard.

[banana]

You spelled m1911 wrong you put m911

[probaddie]

Jul 3, 2012 12:49:22 GMT -5 banana said:

You spelled m1911 wrong you put m911

You people are so demanding . Fixed, and thank you.

[banana]

On the mp7 do you use a 25% increase for rapid fire?