DUST Search - [Feedback] Rifle Changes Too Small To Be Effective (with math)

DeathwindRising wrote:

Lower the damage per shot a bit and increase rof for the AR stats you propose. Your dps should be the same. I'll do the math in a bit but, AR damage per shouldn't be that close to a RR.

A 10% increase in damage (36.3) plus increasing rof to 850 would yield a dps of 514.25 which is a reasonable start. Keep in mind that it's getting weapon profile and prof bonuses which increase shield damage by an additional 25% making anti shield dps 642.8125 which is more than enough to chew through even a caldari sentinel at record pace

Basically, the current ballacs AR is what we should aim for. The issue however is CCP wants weapons that aren't full auto to do more damage because they feel they a harder to use. That's why the AR has always had the lowest dps with the RR above it, followed by the CR and SCR.

to make CCP's point, imagine if all weapons had the same dps, regardless of weapon profiles or skills. everyone would use the AR or RR for either close combat or long range combat. why? because both of those weapons require nothing more than for you to aim and hold the trigger down til you run out of ammo. the combat rifle requires multiple trigger pulls and its scope hinders close combat. the scrambler rifle requires the most manual operation with the added hindrance of a heat mechanic. no one would use them over AR's and RR's. CCP balanced the rifles to promote variety as well on performance.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 12 post(s)
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1459	Posted - 2014.06.05 05:09:00 - [1] - Quote So the changes that were made to the rifles were too small to really lead to effective change in each of the effected weapon's relative power. The Gallente Assault Rifle got a 3% buff leading to the following changes: Duvolle GAR Previous Damage: 33 New Damage: 33.99 Previous DPS: 412.5 New DPS: 424.875 The Combat Rifle got a 2% debuff leading to the following changes: Boundless Combat Rifle Previous Damage: 29.7 New Damage: 29.11 Previous DPS: 594 New DPS: 582.2 And Just for comparison here are the stats for the Rail rifle and the Scrambler rifle: Kaalakiota Rail Rifle Damage: 51.7 DPS: 517 Visiam Scrambler Rifle Damage: 71.5 DPS: 841.17 <-- these are the raw numbers (71.5 x 705.88 / 60 and do not acount for heat issues during sustained firing) Looking at these numbers a few things are pretty clear. First that the GAR still has by far the lowest DPS even though it also has the shortest range. The result being that no one should be using this weapon right now. It is still useless. Secondly, the attempt to balance the combat rifle has done very little to reduce its total dominance of the battle field at almost all ranges. This is compounded by the fact that it is also the easiest of the weapons to fit (lowest CPU and PG costs of the light rifles) and is relatively easy to use, at least compared to the SCR. Finally, the SCR is still the most OP rifle in the game when used well but since most of us can't aim and the weapon has shorter range than the RR and the CR it is kind of a moot point. In order to bring both the CR and the GAR into balance they need to be altered more significantly. Giving the GAR a 35% damage increase over its 1.8 stats will raise its damage to 44.55 per shot and its DPS to 556.875. This is mind you still lower than the damage and DPS figures of the current CR and, given that the GAR has a much lower range than the CR, will allow the weapon to be competitive while not demolishing everything in sight. Reducing the CR damage by 10% from its 1.8 stats would bring the damage to 26.73 per shot and the DPS to 534.6. This change would give it a DPS that is only 4% lower than the GAR (which it out ranges) and 3.5% higher than the RR (which has a longer range). These changes would allow weapons to have the short range/high DPS --> long range/low DPS relationship that would give each its domain of dominance while still retaining usability at other ranges. TL;DR GAR still stinks buff it by 40% from 1.8 levels CR still far too good reduce its power by 10% from 1.8 levels Leave the RR, SCR, and the LR alone for now. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1463	Posted - 2014.06.05 12:35:00 - [2] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: A 35% damage increase is insane and unreasonable. I thought so at first too but please look at the DPS numbers and keep in mind the range profiles of the weapons. While a 35% increase to weapons damage is quite high it would actually give the AR only a 4% higher DPS than the CR which is only a marginal improvement. Additionally because the GAR's range is so short the CR would still have a large advantage over it in anything but the tightest quarters. CCP Rattati wrote: I'm forming the analysis as we speak, consisting of three components 1) comparable dps per class (std-adv-pro) between comparable styles breach AR vs rail rifle burst AR vs combat rifle tactical AR vs scrambler rifle AR vs assault variants 2) dps per PG/CPU invested 3) user experience/differentiating factors (clip, ammo, heat, accuracy, range) This will end in madness, spreadsheets and tears. I see that you are looking to compare varients of the the AR to the similar varients of other weapons. I will take a look at those numbers too and edit the intial thread to reflect balance that way. Personally though I would rather compare the base varients as that is what the range profile is based off of and what most players use. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1463	Posted - 2014.06.05 12:43:00 - [3] - Quote DeathwindRising wrote: Lower the damage per shot a bit and increase rof for the AR stats you propose. Your dps should be the same. I'll do the math in a bit but, AR damage per shouldn't be that close to a RR. A 10% increase in damage (36.3) plus increasing rof to 850 would yield a dps of 514.25 which is a reasonable start. Keep in mind that it's getting weapon profile and prof bonuses which increase shield damage by an additional 25% making anti shield dps 642.8125 which is more than enough to chew through even a caldari sentinel at record pace Basically, the current ballacs AR is what we should aim for. The issue however is CCP wants weapons that aren't full auto to do more damage because they feel they a harder to use. That's why the AR has always had the lowest dps with the RR above it, followed by the CR and SCR. to make CCP's point, imagine if all weapons had the same dps, regardless of weapon profiles or skills. everyone would use the AR or RR for either close combat or long range combat. why? because both of those weapons require nothing more than for you to aim and hold the trigger down til you run out of ammo. the combat rifle requires multiple trigger pulls and its scope hinders close combat. the scrambler rifle requires the most manual operation with the added hindrance of a heat mechanic. no one would use them over AR's and RR's. CCP balanced the rifles to promote variety as well on performance. I have proposed similar balance methods before using ROF instead of base damage to boost the GAR's DPS. I actually like this response better because it is self limiting (higher DPS because of ROF = lower sustained fire) but you need to make sure you're only accounting for the base stats. If you start including the bonuses to shield damage for the GAR and the bonuses to armor for the CR you get into some much messier calculations (especially since the CR's bonuses and penalties are the best in the game right now) which make ballancing more accurate but much more confusing. Also don't forget, the GAR has the lowest range of the rifles which makes the ability to apply its DPS more limited, thus its need to have a higher DPS than the other rifles. CCP has also never responded to my requests to balance the GAR using increased ROF paired with slightly increased damage. I thought that simply increasing a single stat would be more appealing to them. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1465	Posted - 2014.06.06 07:48:00 - [4] - Quote castba wrote: 44hp per round for a duvolle? You have to be kidding. Please refer back to the TTK issues pre 1.7 with the AR and three of the old complex damage mods. EDIT: Also, perhaps compare like for like? AR Assault CR Assault RR Assault (?) SR Tactical AR Combat Rifle Rail Rifle Scrambler Rifle Please notice that pre 1.7 we had no longer range weapons, all the current weapons out DPS the AR, and even in CQC the AR sucks relative to the CR and RR. Giving a boost to damage to bring its DPS into line with the other weapons makes it the CQC light king while still giving the CR the highest ROF in the game by a long shot, which matches up with EvE lore. As to your second note about comparing like varients I personally think that is foolish since the main varients are the ones most players use but CCP seems to agree with you (see the blue tag post in this tread) and others have already started other threads doing just that. While I do think such comparisons are interesting they are useless without finding some way to quatify the value of a weapon's max range so as to compare it to damage. Failing to do that will make the TAR look quite good when in reality it still sucks because it can't compete with the scram thanks to its extremely low range. The same can be said for the Breach AR vs the RR and the Burst AR vs the CR. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1465	Posted - 2014.06.06 07:53:00 - [5] - Quote Boot Booter wrote: Sorry but correct me if I'm wrong... 1. The proto RR DPS is only 397.7 (51.7 damage with 461.53 rpm) 2. You have to include the delay between bursts for the CR. I don't think it's possible to achieve the full dps without the use of some special controller. If you pause 0.1 sec between bursts you are already down to 436.8 dps.. Go ahead and try to tap you fire button ten times in one second. It's not easy. For comparison the ACR has dps of 411 now. The SR is a bit harder to figure out but I don't really think too many people complain so they must be ok. Therefore, the AR is currently the DPS king (~425) as it should be. You are correct about #1. I realized today at work that I had done the calculations using the ROF from the ARR not the standard RR. I am editing the OP now. As far as 2 is concerned the ACR still has much higher damage than the AR which is a major issue since it has much longer range. EDIT: Looking at the correct numbers for the RR now reminds me of how important alpha damage is, which is why I stated earlier that I totally approve of a more balanced approach to buffing the AR which has a smaller buff to damage along with a buff to ROF. A 5% buff to 1.8 damage and an increase of the ROF to 800 would give the GAR a DPS of 462 which is higher than the CR (using your theorised numbers for practical non-modded controller DPS) and the RR without being stupid (a complaint of many about my pure damage buff model which is fair). Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1466	Posted - 2014.06.07 20:31:00 - [6] - Quote CCP Rattati wrote: A little chart I made. Hypothetical Max dps of Rifles Discuss. Thank you for the graph. Here is the problem with the way the rilfes currently work, which your graph perfectly illustrates. While weapons of the same type (assault, breach, tac, etc...) all have approximately the same DPS (the SCR is the exception here and it is pretty far out of whack) they do not have the same range. Sure, my proto AR has almost the same DPS as a proto ACR but the ACR has much longer effective and optimal range making it much more usuable. The same can be said when comparing the AR to the ARR or the ASCR. Why did you try to make all the weapons of one fire type have the same DPS regardless of the range they could apply that damage at? Given my druthers weapons with lower range would have a higher DPS. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1467	Posted - 2014.06.08 09:06:00 - [7] - Quote Devs, I've been digging into this a bit deeper and was wondering what range the majority of kills occur at? Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1467	Posted - 2014.06.08 16:15:00 - [8] - Quote I've really been thinking about the rifle balance issue and the total lack of diversity it is causing so I've started making a spreadsheet to help visualize the problem and possible solutions. 1.8 hotfix alpha weapons stats link Take a look at the assault rifle proposal tab. I think the top graph pretty clearly shows that there is an issue with the assault type weapons, though it isn't entirely clear why the AR is so underwhelming compared to the other assault type weapons. The lower graph is my attempt at a more reasonable set of stats but I fear that it won't do enough for the AR so suggestions are very much welcome. Once we get some numbers the community is in general consensus about I'll change the OP. Fun > Realism
Mobius Kaethis Molon Labe. General Tso's Alliance 1467	Posted - 2014.06.08 21:50:00 - [9] - Quote I assume that your not saying you will normalize all 'assault' type weapons only that all GAR will have the same range as the Duvolle. In that case I am all in favor of the change. No comments on my little graphs? Fun > Realism