Weapon Balance: Rifle Problem + Solution

[ballist1c]

Hi everybody!

I am now very glad I brought this up; nobody has, and it seems people have a lot of things to say about it that have not been heard.

After reading over some excellent responses, I would like to change my offering a little based on a couple things:

@ZeroKnight:
Thanks for those "ramblings" About your options, I think Option 2 is best for Red Eclipse, since it's weapons often have varied uses, with primary/secondary fires. Option 1 seems too much of a narrow focus for RE's wide uses of weapons, and Option 2 does limit close range and promote long distance shots. And indeed I know too well about that "niche" group who would take advantage of Option 1, if implemented.

@Blindman:
I have seen others use the jumping trick too, it is just MelvinSour is the one who does it the most, and who does it the best (unfortunately).

Yea, dueling against melvin is a joke. I tried to explain it to him, but all I got back was "NO ANDERSTAND BALLISTIC XD" in, of course, all caps and flashing text.

*facepalm*

So, after these responses, I will SLIGHTLY change my original offering, both in this post, and in the original. See original for full explanation.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

rifleexplode1 16
rifledamage1 38
rifledamage2 175
rifleadd 3
riflemax 3
rifleadelay1 1000
riflerdelay 1500

[qreeves]

Try "rifletaperin1 0.01". The "taper" commands are used to make the "effectiveness" of a weapon projectile get stronger as it "expands" then get weaker again as it "contracts". Best example of this is the plasma secondary, which gets bigger, then if it fails to stick, gets smaller again (but the flamer uses "taperin" and shotgun/smg uses "taperout"). "taperin" is a floating point multiplier of the total lifetime to do the "expansion" effect, "taperout" is the same for the "contraction" effect. I'm really unsure of how much of its lifetime would amount to what distance, but its lifetime is 10000ms (10s) so 0.01 would be 100ms.

[ZeroKnight]

@Quin
How exactly does taper in/out affect the particle's strength? Does it start at the weapon's base damage and increase in damage the more it tapers out, then decrease as it tapers in? I didn't know it affected power as well as its actual size. Very interesting :D

[qreeves]

Starts at zero, "tapers in" to base damage/size/etc, then "tapers out" back to zero.

[riidom]

And yes, let's stop to use MelvinSour as our scapegoat, many people do this - including myself, since it's a useful technique and sadly becomes a habit quickly.
I don't want to use it and I don't wanna see other people using it, so let's see if we can go there

[bonifarz]

Try "rifletaperin1 0.01" [...] to make the "effectiveness" of a weapon projectile get stronger as it "expands" [...] I'm really unsure of how much of its lifetime would amount to what distance, but its lifetime is 10000ms (10s) so 0.01 would be 100ms.

Yes, that sounds like the best idea so far. The rilfe has a very high projectile speed of riflespeed1 10000 (no clue about the units here). I tried with a time multiplier of only rifletaperin1 0.00001 (1E-5) and it seemed to disable the rifles primary effectively below distances where the player model is large enough to cover the clip hud. I tried smaller taperin values down to 1E-10 to see if the distance at which damage sets in can be decreased, as the intention is to nerf the doublejump-blast and not any use of the rifles primary at short to medium range. The result was more or less always the same (rounding to frames, I assume), so in order to make a good adjustment, riflespeed1 should probably be adjusted in tandem with rifletaperin1.

[Blindman]

Wasnt my intention to defend the technique, but the solution shouldnt be that difficult. It seems we are talking about a default solution for more or less unmodified servers. I dont think anyone could have forseen the way it gets used(abused?) As I stated, I saw a while back that it was much more effective than a straight up firefight, even if i suck at doing it.
Bottom line here is if its driving people away then it needs changing, I reduced the splash on all my servers, to varying degrees.

[Dratz-_C]

Hi,
Entering "rifletaperin1 .000001," the minimum value, achieves the effect of only removing splash damage from medium ranges and less while leaving it in effect for relatively long distances and up. I think this is the perfect solution and it
bore out as such in my testing. I must carefully aim at distance to hit anything with the primary splash and when I am being pursued I have to retreat to get back my splash, or default "rifleexplode1 32," consequently forcing my searching for a better weapon for medium and close ranges. Thank you for your help Quin, this made me go look at the Red Eclipse wiki for weapon vars.
Cheers

[qreeves]

I might have to add an alternate method of distance based tapering for the higher speed (and traced) projectiles. Thanks for letting me know.

[Blindman]

Hi,
Entering "rifletaperin1 .000001," the minimum value, achieves the effect of only removing splash damage from medium ranges and less while leaving it in effect for relatively long distances and up. I think this is the perfect solution and it
bore out as such in my testing. I must carefully aim at distance to hit anything with the primary splash and when I am being pursued I have to retreat to get back my splash, or default "rifleexplode1 32," consequently forcing my searching for a better weapon for medium and close ranges. Thank you for your help Quin, this made me go look at the Red Eclipse wiki for weapon vars.
Cheers

I couldnt get the fifth 0 without getting an error, .00001 seemed to work, nerfed it at close range, doesnt hit anything.

[Dratz-_C]

Blindman,
I am curious about your error. A six figure decimal range is specified in the command reference and it works fine for me in 1.3.1. What is the error you got?
quin,
Thank you for considering a finer taper method.
Cheers

[Blindman]

well i put in .000001 and i get

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

set rifletaprin1 to 1e-06

I should point out that the server and my client both are svn builds

[Dratz-_C]

Blindman,
I think the message is normal. In 1.3.1 it displays that confirmation message for me at 6 figures and 5 figure decimals; le-05 is displayed to confirm entering my .00001.
Cheers

[ZeroKnight]

well i put in .000001 and i get

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

set rifletaprin1 to 1e-06

That would be scientific notation.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

0.000001 = 1e-06 = 1x10⁻⁶

[Blindman]

I sort of thought that after I wrote it, thanks.

[Dratz-_C]

I might have to add an alternate method of distance based tapering for the higher speed (and traced) projectiles. Thanks for letting me know.

Quin,
Would it help you if I created a ticket about this matter in trac? By the way, I met Ballistic in the game and he said he would be fine with the rifletaperin1 solution if you add an alternate smoother gradient method of distance-based tapering of the higher speed (and traced) projectiles.
Cheers

[qreeves]

I just did that, but thanks.

[Dratz-_C]

You are welcome.
Cheers

[qreeves]

UPDATE: The new distance based rifle primary tapering is now in SVN for testing.

[Dratz-_C]

Ok, I am downloading it to test.
Cheers

[Calinou]

Maybe make the secondary rifle burn people. :P
The primary should be slightly nerfed, though (slower projectiles? longer refire time?).

[Dratz-_C]

Tripling the new default "rifletaperin1 224" to "rifletaperin1 672" is the best solution to the cheap close and limited middle rage splash damage in my array of tests on a variety of maps. With "rifletaperin1 672", the default splash damage, "rifleexplode1 32," only becomes effective at a respectable extended medium range. Players can still use the easy splash damage from afar where the projectile speed comes into effect as a check. With difficult accuracy on the edge of medium range sometimes a player can land a small splash. However, it is at this threshold that it becomes more effective to switch to the group of weapons designed for medium range such as the pistol, grenades, smg, plasma and shotgun. The relatively slow default rate of fire on the rifle1 makes it somewhat ineffective at chaining close direct hits and it is entirely ineffective at landing close splash damage due to not meeting the minimum distance defined in "rifletaperin 672." Switching to close range weapons, such as grenades, the flamer, sword, and melee, becomes imperative unless one is able to retreat to gain some range for the splash to begin to take effect again. Get the svn to try it out and see what you think. If you do not feel like getting the svn and just want a fast way of assessing the matter, look at relative sizes of these explosion or splash decals.

rifletaperin1_672_v-_rifletaperin1_224.jpg

Assenting to a request, I have created a video comparing the svn suggested value to the default value. (Those who are interested in the process of video authoring and Red Eclipse as a subject can read on; otherwise just see the video itself. You will have to forgive that I ran fraps and the game at once on my nettop. My usual framerate is about 2.5 times higher than when recording video using fraps. I would have liked to do an hd video and may still experiment with it, but this possibility is an unlikely matter as I recorded the source material at 960 x 540. However if I am able to produce a better video and do see it to fruition I will promptly inform you of it.)

youtu.be/FjBGlVD709I
Cheers

[riidom]

I tried a game with /rifleexplode1 12 today, changed nothing else, and it felt good. The basic message of this change is: "Use rifle if you wanna aim, else pick some other weapon." I'm not saying all the other vars discussed here dont add to the solution (I didnt experiment with them, so I have no idea), but this one mentioned above is the core to me. Also I think clipsize 3 is too hard, 5 is really fine.
Just my 2 cents

[ballist1c]

Dratz, can you please make a video so those who do not want to lose their settings and mods by switching to SVN? Your explanation is very detailed, but it is always better to see it tested out in a match. Thanks!

typing this on a Wii U!

[riidom]

Don't forget the secondary fire, if you push your zoom level to minimum it is very usable in close combat too. So all these things can be easy workedaround then.
I played under similar settings on AZ Linux Server, as close as you can get to without SVN version, and it looks interesting, I have to say.