if youre in CQC.... you charge, shoot, stop shooting because of recoil, charge, shoot, stop shooting because of recoil, charge, shoot, stop shooting because of recoil? how does that effect DPS with all that charging? whats our real DPS now, 200 something lol?

all other rifle simply.... shoot.

5 shots with the ARR at 42 damage a shot for proto is 210 damage. What suits were you mostly killing?

I have never played with the ARR before

Nerf scouts. Just based off the stats comparisons.

That statement is a logical fallacy, sorry.

How does an engineer design an airplane if he has never flown one?

How does a scientist study gravity if he has never seen it?

How does the physicist describe quantum physics without touching atoms?

I can make more of these...

It's usually called the Scientific Method, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

I certainly appreciate good feedback, but even if you meant it nicely, I completely disagree with this particular feedback and how it was put forth.

All that said and done, I did not mean to disrespect you or your intent to help the game. We are all in the same team.

So usage went up, despite not being OP, and then K/S just stayed highest because its good at long range? If that's the case, a CQC nerf will not have any effect, we can see that soon in the data.

Another theory would be that upon discovering a weapon that was OP, players started using it, and even though everyone is using it, it did not reduce its K/S at all while also getting the most kills for all Rifles by a huge margin, not usage.

You are correct that kills and spawns go hand in hand, i am just underlining a few facts

1) even though players migrate over to RR, there is no dilution of efficiency as might be expected
2) the trajectory of RR kills and spawns is alarming and could have led to an even greater disparity
3) some players have been downplaying these numbers, by saying sales = usage = non indicative of efficiency, usage is spawns, kills is the result is maybe one way to detach the two
4) Low end RR were also dominant, not just prototype, which was worrying.

End result, I want K/S to be similar, and for weapons of similar nature to have a similar result and usage.

If the Rail had a K/S of 2 and a tiny kill %, it could be assumed that it was a tricky rifle to master, but difficult enough to either need extensive specialization or player skill. The Scrambler was a case of that, but had, similarly to the RR, far too much power in CQC. The plan was to lead the TAR and SCR together by aligning their attributes a little, plus range vs dps adjustments. So far, it worked pretty well.

The Assault variants, can be treated like such a group, I would want them to be even in kills and K/S.

Hope this sheds some further light on the balancing effort.

Finally, I don't like being brought into any "do you even RR/ADS/tank/rep, bro". My approach is to balance scientifically, not based on gut feeling. My credentials as a player aren't relevant. I said "played" and by that I mean meaninfully played, it's not my weapon of choice. I have of course tried every weapon, and of course we have internal maps where we try weapons.

That said, I have no idea what my Loyalty Rank will be on my main

Every weapon should be a niche weapon. If one weapon does everything well, why would anyone every use anything else?

Balance decisions must consider both PC and Public Matches. In this case the RR may well have been balanced in PC, but for unskilled players in Public matches the RR worked just as well in CQC as any other weapon.

The RR was OP in the sense that it was the best weapon in the least skilled hands. It was too easy for low to mid level players to get exceptional results with it. It was too easy to use.

So perhaps we need another word to use instead of Overpowered to describe this phenomena. (I detest the term GÇ£noob-tubGÇ¥ by the way.)

I think you are too focused on only the top 1% of players, and are not giving any consideration to the realities of balancing for the other 99%. Ratatti has to look at both.

As a Cartographer, I would love to see maps showing where all the kills occurred in a match. Heck, I would love to have the raw data and create a map like that. You could probably draw many insights from such a map.

Planetary conquest analysis up next week.

How can you state that we are making the RR a "niche" weapon, when it almost has as many kills as the rest of the Rifles combined? The Rail Rifle is making all the other weapons "niche" weapons.

How can you say repeatedly that the Rail does not have a clear K/S advantage, when it is the highest of all the Rifles? And twice that of many of them.
...
It is not simply "overused" when it has the highest K/S as well. That doesnt make any sense.

The Rail Rifle is still used to kill massively in PC and that was taken into account.

Even if it was OP when it was introduced, why is the Kill trend growing rapidly for the last 5 months? It literally means people are migrating to it, not stuck with a decision made around 1.8.

Rattati, let say, that we had an empty map with flat terrain (no cover at all). both teams spawn 400m from each other. one team is using assault rifles, and combat rifles. the other team is using rail rifles, and scrambler rifles.

which team do you think would win an ambush?

after the match ends, the teams are allowed to select new weapons. which weapon do you think will be selected after the first battle?

at this point you should be considering poor map design as the problem for RR popularity. More cover, increased broken lines of sight, and you make long range weapon ineffective, and close range weapons more preferred. There is a reason why the RR is popular and its not because its great at CQC.