People go down fast because they used to being out in the open firing on folks who miss horribly. Now it's a different ball game.

Like Wu Tang said, Protect ya Neck.

I'm down for that 10% decrease. But could you explain the strafe cap?

That's understandable, but how many maps actually encourage that style of play?

There was a 10% nerf to strafe speed in this patch. But overall it should be balanced out with the faster movement due to armor plate speed penalty reduction.

I see what you're getting at. I guess you have to avoid those open areas as much as possible.

So should I just leave battle on half of the game's maps now?

Remove the 10% weapon damage buff on all weapons that was a short term solution to aiming problems in 1.0 and remove the strafing speed cap. Discuss!

Why do that? There is always a way around a situation. Always.

That's not true.

The 10% damage buff was due to the removal of the 2% bonus per level from the weaponry skill.

It does feel like the time-to-kill is too short (when people are shooting at me anyway...).

I'm down for that 10% decrease. But could you explain the strafe cap?

Some people are mad that running sideways is slightly slower (10%) than running forward.

The weaponry skill is what created the TTK issues in Chromosme. If that was in issue, why keep it around when hit detection and aiming is fixed?

TTK issues? What issues?

As Garth said, the 10% "buff" was simply 10% being removed from the weaponry skill and moved to the weapons base damage instead. No weapons magically got a 10% buff.

Furthermore, do you really think these 10% would create such huge problems if there were any? On a high HP Assault suit it's a matter of a 1-3 bullet difference. Slightly less than that on Scouts and sligthly more on Sentinels.

Remove the 10% weapon damage buff on all weapons that was a short term solution to aiming problems in 1.0 and remove the strafing speed cap. Discuss!

It's a matter of sensibility. Why would you stick with a temporary fix to a previous problem when that problem has been since resolved and then later try to build around it? This is just like the nerfed PG on tanks that was implemented to compensate for matchmaking. Now that matchmaking is a thing, that problem has been (discreetly) resolved. With infantry, we're dealing with a snowball of fixes to fixes to fixes. I'd say we should start from the beginning and work it out from there.

Remove the 10% weapon damage buff on all weapons that was a short term solution to aiming problems in 1.0 and remove the strafing speed cap. Discuss!

So you want the 10% to go back to the Weaponry skill since that's where it was all the way up until Uprising?

There was no fix to any problem.

Damage in December 2011 was the same as it was in Chromosome and the same as it is now, the only difference being that the 10% from the Weaponry skill was moved to the weapons base damage.

That seems to me we're doing the intended damage currently, and that we previously had hit detection problems (and still do maybe?) that caused everyone to become bullet sponges.

Posting the following info on upcoming changes to weapon damage and HMG balance on behalf of CCP Rement since he's knee deep in making these changes. He will also be answer questions and discussing this topic in this thread as well.

Tl;dr version:
GÇó In the next hot-fix weapons will all get a 10% damage increase to compensate for the removal of the Weaponry skill bonus.
GÇó HMG damage buffed to 18 HP (including aforementioned 10% increase) and given a 5% dispersion buff.
GÇó In the near future, we will address range issues by removing the hard stop that currently takes place at maximum weapon range.

In Chromosome, the Weaponry skill gave an across the board 2% damage bonus to handheld weapons per level. Given the low SP cost of the skill (and the fact that itGÇÖs a pre-req for every weapon in the game) the majority of players would just skill straight to level 5 making the skill pretty pointless. So, in Uprising we removed the skill bonus. The side effect of this, of course, is that time-to-kill has increased.

This, combined with some of the control issues weGÇÖve been seeing, has led to combat feeling worse than it did in Chromosome. We will address this with a hot-fix that gives an across the board 10% increase to all handheld weapon damage to put DPS back to where it was. Additionally, weGÇÖve increased HMG damage and reduced the dispersion penalty when moving by 5% to address issues with the weapon.

The removal of the Sharpshooter skill (which gave bonuses to range) has also highlighted some issues with range in general. Weapon classes need unique range profiles. I doubt anyone would dispute that. And the sharpshooter skill was pushing far too many weapons beyond their intended engagement ranges. While itGÇÖs removal has caused some issues, the SS skill was a crutch and it hid more deep-seated problems with range in the game. It will not be coming back.

Right now, all weapons have an optimal and maximum range. Unfortunately, at its max range the weapon simply stops doing damage. This is bad for a whole host of reasons and weGÇÖll be addressing this with a point release in the near future by giving all weapons an optimal, effective and absolute range. Up to the optimal range weapons will do 100% damage (shield/armor profiles notwithstanding) and then drop off slowly towards their effective range. From effective range out to the absolute range damage will drop noticeably but weapons will still do incidental damage even at extreme ranges.

Aim assist is not that strong it does not even have a snap. No I'm sorry but if ur dieing loads learn the freaking concepts of cover y. The game is longer matching you up with newbs your know facing people that can shoot.

Sorry about ur ego.

Pretty much all the aim assits posts iv read are load of rubish to be honest. now everybody can fight so deal with it. If u wanted to Do PC welcome to what matches would have been like people at that level don't miss

wasn't the 10% dmg buff only meant for the HMG but CCP decided give every weapon the buff? if it has to be removed then remove only the other weapons dmg buff and leave out the HMG

And leave people that "don't" want to use the aim-assist in a disadvantage ? What about KB/M users ?

I didn't say change the aim-assist, I'm suggesting that we balance around it instead of snowballing hot fixes to problems that have been fixed.

If you reduce the damage of weapons, that is only going to benefit people that uses the aim-assist...in fact we should do the opposite, boost the damage of all weapons by 10%, so skills, reflexes, and tactical awareness counts for "something".

Then why have damage mods? Better yet, why have SP, dropsuits, and fittings either? We can all run around with ARs and die to 4 bullets in fast paced, enclosed maps. Sound familiar?

so you can drop shields and stack mods - your choice of setup.

I would actually prefer to see the 2% put back on the skill tree. IMO there is too much levelling up of skills that do nothing

and no we are not dying to 4 bullets. The fact is we have never played this on a LAN so we have no idea what CCPs idea of time to kill is - it doesnt seem that bad to me

You're missing my point.

And you seem to be missing mine.

In Chromosome the 10% bonus was on the Weaponry skill. Aiming was fine in Chromosome and personally I didn't have any trouble with killing anyone. In Uprising they removed that 10% bonus on the Weaponry skill, which would mean that TTK would be increased to more than was intended, so they moved that same 10% bonus to all weapons base damage instead, to keep TTK the same as in Chromosome.

Due to terrible aiming in Uprising and various other reasons, everyone became bullet sponges and TTK was increased because people couldn't hit their targets properly. Now that hit detection and aiming has been at least somewhat improved (aim assist maybe too much) TTK is back at the intended levels.

The 10% bonus to damage shouldn't be removed because we're currently at the intended TTK levels.

I haven't seen anywhere where they've said these are the intended TTK levels. Would you mind posting a link?

Considering the damage values have been the same ever since December 2011 to now, I think it's a clear indication that what we have now are intended TTK levels.

Please teach us your ways, oh Grand l33t master pro.

Apparently, it's just you and a few others that prefer that twitch playstyle. There's nothing wrong with that preference, but the game needs to accommodate it or have a nice happy medium for other playstyles like we've had in the past. Fittings and character customization should dictate that instead of everyone being forced to conform to one specific way.

Also, if you want more damage, that's what the weapon proficiency skill is for. One of the things Uprising did right was bind passive skills to fittings and not simply to your character. You can have all the SP in the world but you still have to build your suit.

But has someone that actually works on this game stated that these are the optimal TTK levels. I don't want your indication, I want to see something from someone with CCP next to their name stating that. You know about as much as I do on here and the only ones that really know what's going on have a blue tag whenever they post. But at this point, I doubt they know either.

The problem is that with the new strafing cap and aim assist, nobody misses.

they play this on a LAN - they know the %

the % have not changed in over a year

To be perfectly honest, I'm a little baffled at what's happened with the Mass Driver. The reason for the splash and blast range nerf was that in playtests we found the MD to be so effective that at one point almost half the people in the office were using it in battles. Clearly, that's not been the case with Uprising and after getting the engineers to go elbow deep into the code it appears there may be a few reasons beyond dry numbers that are contributing to the MDs underwhelming performance.

One, there appears to be a de-sync between client and server so that (more often than it should) the server and client think the projectile exploded in different places. They're not far off, but enough so that shots you *think* are spot on are off the mark enough to do only minor splash damage. And two, I'm told splash occlusion is getting blocked by a single player character more than it should, contributing to the "randomness" of the damage dealt and the sometimes smudgy feeling of the weapon.

I'm hesitant to rebalance the weapon until we get these issues looked at (which is happening right now).

Remove the 10% weapon damage buff on all weapons that was a short term solution to aiming problems in 1.0 and remove the strafing speed cap. Discuss!

Please teach us your ways, oh Grand l33t master pro.

Honestly, I have noticed very little difference in aiming. Some people say it is worse. Others say it is 'easy mode'.

I think most people don't even know what the hell they are talking about.

Try and keep up...before 1.4 aiming mechanics were 'meh'...after 1.4 aiming mechanics are 'improved'...doesn't it stand to reason that if you now actually hitting what you are aiming at, that you would kill them more effectively and efficiently?

How the kitten does that translate into 'easy mode'?

Remove the 10% weapon damage buff on all weapons that was a short term solution to aiming problems in 1.0 and remove the strafing speed cap. Discuss!

Good idea, +1.

Bring back the strafing speed of 1.3, thus making it easier to break out of the AA magnetism and making AA less useful in CQC engagements.

The hit detection buffs have definitely made weapon damage too high. I would support a reduction to weapon damage for sure.

I think its time we talk about the lack of rifle kick in this game too. It might be time to remove sharpshooter and change AR/SMG/CR operation to dispersion reduction.

Either sharpshooter has to go or kick/dispersion needs to be ramped up to Chromosome values again on the AR to limit its long range capabilities. I have 0 SP invested into the AR on my main and my Exile thinks about climbing after the good part of a clip. Clip size might need an adjustment too but one thing at a time. Sweeping changes brought us here, yet again.

The ASCR never climbs ever throughout its entire clip. It does start to shake back and forth a little but nothing much.

I think the ScR is in a good place because of what kind of weapon it actually is. The overheat mechanic and fitting costs are more than enough to balance it out compared to the AR. The only thing I would change is better range for the standard variant and a militia assault version to be included with the Amarr starter fits to promote weapon diversity.

The ASCR never climbs ever throughout its entire clip. It does start to shake back and forth a little but nothing much.

defo strafing, idk about the damage buff, I like killing people uber fast

I'm only talking about enough range to make the ScR's range superior to the TAC AR since the TAC AR is meant to only emulate it. There's a whole topic on the subject. Adding a militia variant (along with every other weapon) needs to happen as well so that new players can try everything out without having to spend SP. Also, including a full auto racial rifle on each racial starter fit would stop funneling players into just using the AR.

No I think if the AR is to recieve a kick nerf, then the AScR should probably recieve an overheat nerf. Something along the lines of increasing heat build up by 40% or so.

I haven't used the AScR alt since 1.4 (Can't really stomach playing my main now either) so I haven't seen how the new skill affected the AScR yet. Whatever the case, I'm thinking it should be that mid range, brawler rifle that has less kick and dispersion than the standard AR at the cost of overheating. Did this change?

The assault scrambler has never had any serious heat issues, and while heat build on the level of the semi-auto would be too much, it probably needs some. The AR should kick/recoil more (especially in contrast to the burst), the assault scram needs more heat build-up for it to even be a factor. So, he has an accurate request in that case I think

Remove the 10% weapon damage buff on all weapons that was a short term solution to aiming problems in 1.0 and remove the strafing speed cap. Discuss!

That would just hurt light frames even more.

DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY KNIVES!

The aim assist is "OK" but man i'm a heavy and omg i get wrecked waaaay to fast by ARS. in 1.3 it was fine but whatever u did in 1.4 it really facked me over.

Want to remove AA? Fine, no problem, BUT. In return max aiming sensitivity for the DS3 needs to be increased by somewhere around 250%, and the acceleration is still too much. Give us a stand alone option to tweak the acceleration. I don't want to have to move the right stuck very far to aim my shotty. Hard to twitch aim when my controls are still gimped.

Also, Cap the dpi Mouse users have closer to what DS3 limitations are. If I can't turn like the flash then neither should M/KB users. Fairs fair right?

I'm not convinced that 10% would be enough. You don't balance a 300% increase in TTK with a 10% reduction in damage.

No I think if the AR is to recieve a kick nerf, then the AScR should probably recieve an overheat nerf. Something along the lines of increasing heat build up by 40% or so.

Personally, I don't care if we have AA or not. But this magnetic autopilot BS has to go or people on the business end of a gun should have the chance to defend themselves.
From what I've seen, the M/KB input is already on the level of the DS3 since it's using joystick emulation. You can't turn a 180 or anything crazy like that because we don't have raw input. AA is meant for controllers to compete with mice, but right now the DS3 has an unfair advantage.

I've been saying that once we get aiming and hit detection problems resolved, weapon balance needs to be addressed. I hope that's what they look into for 1.5 or we're in trouble.