DUST Search - Stop the madness! Assault Rifle nerfing protest.

INFINITE DIVERSITY IDIC wrote:

emtbraincase wrote:

Everything, to be able to balance, has to be compared against something else. To the best of my knowledge, the AR is the weapon they use for that purpose. Since it is the most common weapon, by choice, it gives a large enough sample size to be able to ignore the disparity in ability between those players using it, and focus on the relative effectiveness of other weapons. This means that you should never buff/nerf that weapon as it would cause all data gathered up to that point to become useless. However, you should use it as justification to buff/nerf other weapons in relation to it so as to bring about the balance everyone is so desirous of.

In short, don't nerf the AR, buff those weapons that are underperforming against it in situations where that shouldn't be the case. Such as a LR at long range or an SMG up close. From my experiences, both of those weapons have a better than average chance to take me out with my fully specc'd AR fits under those circumstances. But again, it generally comes down to the awareness and ability of my opponent to force me into the kind of battle they want, and my ability to stay out of those situations.

While I like the idea even this view is not dynamic enough to understand true balance, for one thing the smg up close is simply to simplistic of a view, you must look at factors that simply cant be expressed with values on a spread sheet. For example the sub is a SECONDARY weapon not a primary and if it consistently under performs against an AR can we not say that is somewhat expected? Also your sample is badly skewed in that we are not viewing competitive samples of equal strength, thos who use the AR as it stands are the majority, meaning they will be the best players in the game, have been playing the longest, and have the most skill points so this weapon tends to be found on the field fully maxed, meaning 5 points into sharpshooter, 5 points into proficiency, and also having the core skills to carry enough cpu and pg to stack multiple damage mods on a proto suit. You could play dust all day and not run into someone who has the equivalent of that in a laser rifle or scrambler rifle. Also this weapon does more damage against shields than armor which will change the way a armor heavy sentinel deals with an ar vs a shield heavy caldari. There are so many things that go into this opinion of balance, and thats all it is, thats its nearly impossible to discern balance as long as we think of balance as equal. Dps is another commonly used number to prove imbalance and this is simply not complete, but because we have so many number nerd transplants from eve it is the only way they know how to communicate their frustration with failure at just not being that good, because is the most over looked variable in combat, player skill. It very much reminds me of an athlete blaming his opponents shoes for his own lack of success, it cant be him, it must be the shoes... Balance should never be equal, it should simply mean a given set of strengths and weaknesses that arise under diffrent parameters, paired with diffrent suits and in diffrent situations lead to varied outcomes, some of these strenghts and weaknesses should be given set values, others however should not. Often times when you find your self being completely owned look around at some of those other variables, it might not be the gun, it could just be you.......


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emtbraincase Falconpunch Hatesurfers 13	Posted - 2013.10.06 03:02:00 - [1] - Quote Everything, to be able to balance, has to be compared against something else. To the best of my knowledge, the AR is the weapon they use for that purpose. Since it is the most common weapon, by choice, it gives a large enough sample size to be able to ignore the disparity in ability between those players using it, and focus on the relative effectiveness of other weapons. This means that you should never buff/nerf that weapon as it would cause all data gathered up to that point to become useless. However, you should use it as justification to buff/nerf other weapons in relation to it so as to bring about the balance everyone is so desirous of. In short, don't nerf the AR, buff those weapons that are underperforming against it in situations where that shouldn't be the case. Such as a LR at long range or an SMG up close. From my experiences, both of those weapons have a better than average chance to take me out with my fully specc'd AR fits under those circumstances. But again, it generally comes down to the awareness and ability of my opponent to force me into the kind of battle they want, and my ability to stay out of those situations.
emtbraincase Falconpunch Hatesurfers 13	Posted - 2013.10.06 06:23:00 - [2] - Quote INFINITE DIVERSITY IDIC wrote: emtbraincase wrote: Everything, to be able to balance, has to be compared against something else. To the best of my knowledge, the AR is the weapon they use for that purpose. Since it is the most common weapon, by choice, it gives a large enough sample size to be able to ignore the disparity in ability between those players using it, and focus on the relative effectiveness of other weapons. This means that you should never buff/nerf that weapon as it would cause all data gathered up to that point to become useless. However, you should use it as justification to buff/nerf other weapons in relation to it so as to bring about the balance everyone is so desirous of. In short, don't nerf the AR, buff those weapons that are underperforming against it in situations where that shouldn't be the case. Such as a LR at long range or an SMG up close. From my experiences, both of those weapons have a better than average chance to take me out with my fully specc'd AR fits under those circumstances. But again, it generally comes down to the awareness and ability of my opponent to force me into the kind of battle they want, and my ability to stay out of those situations. While I like the idea even this view is not dynamic enough to understand true balance, for one thing the smg up close is simply to simplistic of a view, you must look at factors that simply cant be expressed with values on a spread sheet. For example the sub is a SECONDARY weapon not a primary and if it consistently under performs against an AR can we not say that is somewhat expected? Also your sample is badly skewed in that we are not viewing competitive samples of equal strength, thos who use the AR as it stands are the majority, meaning they will be the best players in the game, have been playing the longest, and have the most skill points so this weapon tends to be found on the field fully maxed, meaning 5 points into sharpshooter, 5 points into proficiency, and also having the core skills to carry enough cpu and pg to stack multiple damage mods on a proto suit. You could play dust all day and not run into someone who has the equivalent of that in a laser rifle or scrambler rifle. Also this weapon does more damage against shields than armor which will change the way a armor heavy sentinel deals with an ar vs a shield heavy caldari. There are so many things that go into this opinion of balance, and thats all it is, thats its nearly impossible to discern balance as long as we think of balance as equal. Dps is another commonly used number to prove imbalance and this is simply not complete, but because we have so many number nerd transplants from eve it is the only way they know how to communicate their frustration with failure at just not being that good, because is the most over looked variable in combat, player skill. It very much reminds me of an athlete blaming his opponents shoes for his own lack of success, it cant be him, it must be the shoes... Balance should never be equal, it should simply mean a given set of strengths and weaknesses that arise under diffrent parameters, paired with diffrent suits and in diffrent situations lead to varied outcomes, some of these strenghts and weaknesses should be given set values, others however should not. Often times when you find your self being completely owned look around at some of those other variables, it might not be the gun, it could just be you....... My entire argument hinges on the law of large numbers. The bigger a sample size, the more generalizations you can make. Nerfing the AR would invalidate all data compiled for "balancing" and would require collecting yet another sample size which can never be as large or accurate in interpretation as having left it alone. The goal would be to get every weapon where it is desired in regard to comparability to the AR, then implement the racial variants in order to "flesh out" and "nerf" the overall AR we are currently using. EDIT: And I don't have anything in mind other than the results of the 1-on-1 stats using weapon v weapon, which they have access to. You see a large enough sample size, and you can just about predict anything within a few % of actual results. Law of large numbers works for insurance, works for science, and works for most anything.