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progamer

Balancing?

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What we call balancing is inspecting AI and making it more "balanced" for the player. Balancing of the weapons is not done by setting similar weapons to same values or by equating sides to be the exact counter parts. However some of the decisions we made are hard and very unpleasant to do. But it must be for the sake of fluent and balanced gameplay we want to achieve.

I don't quite undrestand the argument about pistols and carbines - it makes the roles of soldier different (different effective range values). I don't think that the EBR/MXM point here is valid. MXM as the family of the MX rifle has full auto mode which makes it a direct counter part of the EBR but it has different type of ammo which has a different impact in the game. I understand that sometimes it may seem weird what you see in the alpha dev branch but this is why we chose it.

We make changes - you coment - we react. I think this is one of the best cooperations between devs and the community.:)

Pardon my ignorance but who are you? Youre use of we makes me think you are part of BI but I dont see any tell tale signs.

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He's a dev alright, even was interviewed on BIStudio and everything... although, I am wondering, two accounts? ;)

AH task force balance is really Task force AI then? STOP PLAYING WITH MY HEAD :D :803:
Well, remember that with how the alpha->beta->full delivery works, you could just "sit on the game" throughout the summer and then just download the "finished product" patch in the autumn. :lol: Edited by Chortles

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He's a dev alright, even was interviewed on BIStudio and everything... although, I am wondering, two accounts? ;)

Yeah seems weird. Investigating now. :D

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I don't quite undrestand the argument about pistols and carbines - it makes the roles of soldier different (different effective range values).

The argument is - is there any advantage of using carbines or smgs over the usual assault rifles? Effective range is shorter on them so there's no point in using them in the open areas and at the same time the difference between recoils of carbine/smg and "usual" AR is negligible in close combat. They should be used because they are better in tight spaces of urban areas but since there's no weapon collision anymore - there's no reason not to take an assault rifle or machine gun indoors instead, which also provide a lot more "stopping power".

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I have a feeling that most of you confuse our Task Force Balance with someone aiming to have the same sides. Balancing, as we use the term, it is mainly working on AI and making them in par with players :icon_twisted:

No offense, but the comment on the Lynx' fire frequency was suggesting exactly that - balancing to equalize the sides. It's not like the Lynx is in the Alpha for long, so I think it is no surprise that we're getting worried about balancing going way too far.

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I would point out however that that one comment was, frankly, vague about the context of what was intended, which thanks to pettka and Ghostone's explanations seems to imply "we're doing this despite its consequences for the PVP side of things because we want a certain state for the PVE side of things, therefore this is intentional for now". (Hell, it sure ain't "equalizing the sides" when one has two more rounds than the other.)

What we call balancing is inspecting AI and making it more "balanced" for the player. Balancing of the weapons is not done by setting similar weapons to same values or by equating sides to be the exact counter parts. However some of the decisions we made are hard and very unpleasant to do. But it must be for the sake of fluent and balanced gameplay we want to achieve.
I would in return ask: how do you resolve the inherent issue that while some decisions and tweaks (such as, say, tweaking AI accuracy based on weapon class) are "fair" in that they don't affect purely-PVP/TvT, some (such as a weapon's inherent rate of fire) do affect PVP/TvT?
I don't quite undrestand the argument about pistols and carbines - it makes the roles of soldier different (different effective range values).
metalcraze answered this one very succinctly (though frankly that was his most sober post this whole thread) and precisely; it appears that the current state has simulated the drawback/benefit of effective range has been simulated, but not the drawback/benefit of "collision", the shorter weapons (such as carbines and sidearms) having more "fluent" handling indoors... and I should point out, sidearms seem to be really REALLY fluent in handling! This is a good thing, +1, would promote again, please do more of this... so is that disparity simply "we didn't get around to it yet", or "it's a bug", or "we're not doing it the way Arma 2 did it because there was so much snagging"...?

I would add re: pistols as an ancillary point -- re: someone's earlier "5 shots to kill" post -- that it seems that the complaining was because these complaints were claiming hits to unarmored areas; I'm not sure how much of any planned "body armor = bullet resistance" simulation has actually been implemented yet, and I'm not sure any non-devs/testers know either. :(

I don't think that the EBR/MXM point here is valid. MXM as the family of the MX rifle has full auto mode which makes it a direct counter part of the EBR but it has different type of ammo which has a different impact in the game.
That doesn't sound like a direct counterpart, especially not after the MXM got changed from also being 7.62 mm.
I understand that sometimes it may seem weird what you see in the alpha dev branch but this is why we chose it.
Chose to have semi-parallel development, or...?
We make changes - you coment - we react. I think this is one of the best cooperations between devs and the community.:)
Hey, just remember to react to more comments than from just these boards! :D I mean, contrary to what Simon1279 said, it's not all "rambo" and "COD" out there, there's plenty of Arma fans out there too...

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The argument is - is there any advantage of using carbines or smgs over the usual assault rifles? Effective range is shorter on them so there's no point in using them in the open areas and at the same time the difference between recoils of carbine/smg and "usual" AR is negligible in close combat. They should be used because they are better in tight spaces of urban areas but since there's no weapon collision anymore - there's no reason not to take an assault rifle or machine gun indoors instead, which also provide a lot more "stopping power".

That!

There are variants of the MX that are compact, mostly for vehicle crews I suppose, but short weapons and SMG's have absolutely no advantage over long rifles, only disadvantages. That makes them utterly pointless from a gameplay perspective. Maybe they weight less, but the influence of weight is (currently) IMO too small anyway.

Also, since turning around is inertialess, there is also nothing gained from using a short/compact weapon.

I think that weapon collision should be in the game and at the least force the weapon to be lowered. At least that way, a compact weapon would have an advantage. These types of weapons were specifically invented for close quarter situations.

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Pardon my ignorance but who are you? Youre use of we makes me think you are part of BI but I dont see any tell tale signs.

They just forget to add the dev stick above his avatar :)

It's Lukas if I'm not mistaken.

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Chose to have semi-parallel development, or...?

We feel that bringing community closer to the development is quite beneficial. I saw numerous bugs and issues resolved on the feedback tracker.

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Whats with the new sniper sight?

DO NOT like the magnification on the outside of the sight. Either none magnified, or 1 eye shut BLACK as previous please.

What has always kept many people with Bohemia is their ability to keep it as realistic as possible. lose that & they will lose a lot of devotes. The OFP to ArmA attraction has always been realism. Try to please everyone & you please nobody.

Keep the faith Bohemia please

Edited by jgaz-uk

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That doesn't sound like a direct counterpart, especially not after the MXM got changed from also being 7.62 mm...

... and that's good or bad? In my opinion it's great because the sides are different, have their own weaknesses and good points. They are not without character. Balance, but only realistic, NOT forced. I was able to win with my clan mates on takistani side against US in pvp matches, so I don't see the problem :P.

....

If you think that is wrong... then don't download beta ;P when it will be realesed. In my opinion it's much better than it was. Sure, not as realistic as it should be, but I've already read that there are major problems with incorporating PIP scopes into Arma, so better this that nothing(beta in mind).

Edit.:

Byku

I am allowed to voice my opinion re A3 changes; here in the forum yes?

Where did I say you aren't? Y_Y

Edited by Byku

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Try to please everyone & you please nobody.

Keep the faith Bohemia please

Holy words jigaz

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I have a feeling that most of you confuse our Task Force Balance with someone aiming to have the same sides. Balancing, as we use the term, it is mainly working on AI and making them in par with players :icon_twisted:

As for the sides, they seem more equal now, in Alpha, than they are going to be. Don't forget that Alpha is sort of test bed with some assets, coloured factions with generic equipment. Take a look at Zafir - 7.62mm MG for Red faction, do you think there's going to be a direct counterpart on Blue side? Or take a look at choppers, at least the known for Beta, there are dedicated transport, attack and light for Blue where Red have only semi-light and attack-transport one which is terrifying in both roles. I don't see any direct equation here and I hope you won't either :icon_twisted:

Thank you for clarifying! I can relax now. :)

Edited by ProGamer

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Byku

I'm involved in [DEV] willing to report problems, & have done. Anything to be of help (have already tested the new sniper available now in [DEV] )

I am allowed to voice my opinion re A3 changes; here in the forum yes?

So as I said No sniper is ever going to aim with both eyes open. So just what is the point of this full zoom outside of the scope?

If it's not broke don't fix it.

Edited by jgaz-uk

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Thank you for clarifying! I can relax now. :)

Yeah, a big thanks to Pettka and Luca for clarifying what we mean when talking about TF Balance.

To add to this, as I've said before, the number and types of weapons and vehicles in Arma ballooned over the years without necessarily careful thought about the values in the configs or how the AI might use them. This has a big impact on gameplay, the perception of the AI and the game as a whole. The work - which, as I've said before, should have started long ago - to get a hold of these values has begun under the guidance of devs like Luca and Pettka.

I mean, shit, when the creative director is saying "let's not be afraid of that word, streamlined," mocking the engine improvements as "welcome to the late 90s" [...] you do seem to basically feel that the creative director is lying to you

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at there, but I hope the point I made was clear enough. We're happy to show off and promote advancements like Ragdoll, physX, hands-on-the-bloody-steering-wheel, etc, as new features in our engine, but we're not kidding ourselves or anyone else that it's entirely unique or revolutionary. Other games have done great work in these areas for years!

Rather, the feature is simply representative of our work towards bring the game up to date and work away at such 'rough edges' where we can.

Exactly. The case of I Want to Believe. [...] The problem is that for Jay Crowe repeating 'authenticity' so often the game is lacking one.

I reject the idea that it's misleading anyone to talk about our game in such terms; particularly, when we work so hard towards this attribute.

Best,

RiE

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I'm not opposed to the idea of auto-lowering or low ready... I can't remember who, but I believe someone had the idea of "Fire" key/button causing the weapon to raise-from-low-ready/fire, which is not the same as the current raise/lower implementation.

I was talking about this feature in the discussion about Low-Ready Position.

It is implemented since OPF - when the rifle is in the lowered position, all you have to do is pull the trigger one time and it is raised immediately. It works so for me in ArmA3.

One may forgive me my irony - it does not prevent BIS to change it.

I have a feeling that most of you confuse our Task Force Balance with someone aiming to have the same sides. Balancing, as we use the term, it is mainly working on AI and making them in par with players :icon_twisted:

On the subject of balancing: It is new to me, that BIS thinks about the balance between player and AI - but the offense was highlighted by a devil smilie. :mad:

PvP - Replay or use mod

As far as I know, PvP matches will always be played with a side swap: Each side must also play once with a set of equipment of the opposite side. If you want to play PvP matches with no page breaks, you can solve the problem of balancing issues with a specific set of PvP-mod. The PvP-players will still find any reason to argue...because it's their motive.

I agree about the fact that the difference between rifles with long barrel, short barrel and silencers, should be felt by different range, accuracy and weight. The enemy should recognize a larger object faster.

The rate of fire should be based on realistic values that are possible for 2035.

Under no circumstances it should be necessary again to change the values of impact (or firerate), just because a later extension (like DayZ) has made this necessary.

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Balancing, as we use the term, it is mainly working on AI and making them in par with players

And this is how AI is being worked on?

This step away from real data has been done on purpose for gameplay sake - AI snipers weren't able to shoot at distances longer than 800 meters reliably, they didn't take zeroing that far into account. This would make player extremely overpowered at distances around a kilometre, where player is safe and still deadly with the rifle thanks to better zeroing skills. And nobody wants AI just sitting like ducks and waiting to be shot

Sorry but it is not the right solution.

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And this is how AI is being worked on?

Sorry but it is not the right solution.

Correct. The relief I felt when read that the AI is being balanced against human was replaced with despair when I read pettka's explanation regarding why bullets have unrealistic speed values.

I don't understand why it feels right for BIS to make unrealistic changes to weapons just so the AI will succeed in using them against humans. This approach is so twisted to the point I feel ridiculous to explain why.

Fix the AI BIS, instead of ruining the game to fit their limitations.

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Whats with the new sniper sight?

DO NOT like the magnification on the outside of the sight. Either none magnified, or 1 eye shut BLACK as previous please.

Two words: "3D Scopes". Now if you're talking about "outside not magnified" as in Red Orchestra 2 style... yeah, that wasn't going to happen. The new sniper sight essentially previewed what BI was going to do for "3D scopes", and people were receptive as hell; even the "1 eye shut BLACK" scopes are going to be so modified.
... and that's good or bad?
I did not say "good or bad". ;) I simply said that it didn't seem "direct counterpart"; I guess to me the differing caliber outweighed shared full auto.
If you think that is wrong... then don't download beta ;P when it will be realesed. In my opinion it's much better than it was. Sure, not as realistic as it should be, but I've already read that there are major problems with incorporating PIP scopes into Arma, so better this that nothing(beta in mind).
Pretty much this. :lol: People were demanding 3D scopes, but there were so many realism disputes that frankly.
Thank you for clarifying! I can relax now. :)
Glad that you can relax. As far as so much use of the term "balance", though, I think they like trolling us. :p
I'm involved in [DEV] willing to report problems, & have done. Anything to be of help (have already tested the new sniper available now in [DEV] )

I am allowed to voice my opinion re A3 changes; here in the forum yes?

So as I said No sniper is ever going to aim with both eyes open. So just what is the point of this full zoom outside of the scope?

If it's not broke don't fix it.

At least one comment on the 3D scopes request ticket goes like this: "+1 and actually if its true i have already hear that some sniper are trained to use both eyes when looking in the scope, one with the zoom of the scope and the other for check watch around the target, i have try with my 9x scope and i can do it, its not hard." Frankly, RO2 set the expectation for what "3D scopes" mean to so many people that that's what BI is responding to. You may not like what they came up with, but I wouldn't be surprised if it changes as well to be like the "3D ARCO" that has been seen so far.
I was talking about this feature in the discussion about Low-Ready Position.

It is implemented since OPF - when the rifle is in the lowered position, all you have to do is pull the trigger one time and it is raised immediately. It works so for me in ArmA3.

We're not talking about the same thing then, what I'm talking about is low-ready as the default (basically see how a long gun is held differently when jogging than when stationary, in combat pace or in walk) with the Fire key basically being "raise from low ready and fire in the same action", as opposed to/in addition to the current raise/lower.
On the subject of balancing: It is new to me, that BIS thinks about the balance between player and AI - but the offense was highlighted by a devil smilie. :mad:
Dude, his "devil smilie" is his punctuation, don't read anything offensive into it. ;)
Under no circumstances it should be necessary again to change the values of impact (or firerate), just because a later extension (like DayZ) has made this necessary.
Did he even imply that this was any of what was going on? No...

---------- Post added at 02:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 PM ----------

Fix the AI BIS
At this rate you'd be waiting til the end of time. :rolleyes: Let me try a better response for you:

pettka, thanks for the explanation, but what else do you have in mind as far as tweaks? It sounds like the current "step away from reality" is to achieve a current state, but what's the roadmap as far as achieving a different solution for a similar state, namely raising AI's ability to account for zeroing past 800 meters? I admit, I get the sense that the AI was designed only with the initial alpha release's scopes, which IIRC only go out to 800 meters as well...

Is this a specific issue that you already have a planned "proper" fix for later implementation/release?

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I was quite excited about the 3d scopes anouncement (even though the previous all black was fine by me)

But the '3d' scopes are just full screen view with a 2d cutout overlay :rolleyes:

Sooo what we'll end up with is probably less fps due to rendering more,

a smaller scope view which is dakened and harder to see through FPDR

... and I'm STILL looking forward to it :D

I think the SOS should remain black though. With that zoom level being seen outside the scope optics just looks wrong.

Edited by EDcase

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Sorry but it is not the right solution.

pettka or anyone else, can you acknowledge that the omniscient AI that deduces your position via ESP is a bug instead of a feature? Please say it's a bug.

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Thanks for helping out Chortles, don't know what we would all done without you.

Honestly? I think my response was much more prompt, clearer, and to the point. But thanks for giving me the opportunity to repeat my message:

BIS, please. Don't 'balance' the game, fix the AI instead.

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I don't quite undrestand the argument about pistols and carbines - it makes the roles of soldier different (different effective range values). I don't think that the EBR/MXM point here is valid. MXM as the family of the MX rifle has full auto mode which makes it a direct counter part of the EBR but it has different type of ammo which has a different impact in the game. I understand that sometimes it may seem weird what you see in the alpha dev branch but this is why we chose it.

We make changes - you coment - we react. I think this is one of the best cooperations between devs and the community.:)

First wanna say that I "love" being part of the alpha so far and the final product is something I am actually already pondering about how I will feel when that happens.Really enjoy seeing daily change logs and interacting with devs!

As for carbines and the "roles" of soldiers I feel that this needs to be looked at.If you look up medic online you will see that they carry pretty much same rifle as the rifleman units.But in Arma games they get nerfed and carry shorter range weapons and even worse they are equipped with pure CQB sights irregardless of typical engagement distances encountered.In servers that don't have supply boxes to change loadouts I felt combat ineffective and would wait for a rifleman spot to open,though every server I enter has the supply boxes where you can completely change your loadout.So I ask why must these roles be enforced with weapons and hence different effective range values when just having the task of giving medical treatment when needed is enough.Same with repair specialist,sapper etc.To counter these roles becoming too good I think a better method would be to limit the amount of ammo they carry by making the medkit take up most of the space in their backpacks and then fill remainder with first aid kits.When a soldier is shot but not downed their should be negative effects to fighting such as more sway/blur etc but they can only stop bleeding out with their own FAK's and must rely on medic to get them feeling better as the medic uses the medkit to heal/revive.

Explosive specialists should also be more fleshed out.The mine detector takes up as much space as a 9mm mag and should instead be held on back like an AT and equipped when you hear the telltale explosions.Get rid of the red triangles to signal a mine found and instead place real red triangles in ground atop a found mine.This can also take a good amount of the explosive specialists backpack space by loading 20 or so of them.

http://defense-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/gizmo.jpg (114 kB)

This all just IMO of course.;)

Edited by Wolfstriked

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One problem is that within a class, all rifles are essentially identical. Using them in combat, there is no difference between the MXC, MX and MXM. The only one that is immediately different is the MXSW which has higher AI dispersion and handles burst fire differently.

This makes no sense. Just having the guns for the sake of diversity is a waste of resources that could´ve been more adequately placed elsewhere. MX and MXSW would´ve been sufficient, since the MXM and MXC are just MX rifles by stats with a different disguise. All assets should have some gameplay relevance, or they become superfluous. We had the same problem with the M16, M4 and SCAR in Arma 2. All were essentially the same, also because the bullet used is the same, so not even there you get a difference between them. With the MX's it´s even more intense, but it goes for all Assault rifles in the game.

The TRG20 and 21 are the same, with a different model. The Katiba and Katiba-C are the same, with a different model. At least, that is what I can discern from my uneducated scouring of the configs ingame, previously revealed knowledge, statements on the editing boards of OA prior to Arma 3 Alpha's release and other tidbits here and there.

Can anybody tell me what the point of these guns is beyond eyecandy? You can put on a sniper scope on an MXC and it will behave exactly the same way as an MXM. Am I missing something, or is this really how it works?

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MXC has worse dispersion than an MX while MXM is slightly more accurate than an MX.After posting above post and thinking about it further I think the main purpose in Arma games is to differentiate the AI effectiveness.So fighting a medic AI at 600m is easier than fighting a rifleman,with both at same AI setting.But truthfully I never can tell its a medic or a rifleman etc.

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