DUST Search - Norbar's Weekend Test 2: SMGs, Turn Speed, and Explosive Projectiles

Darkz azurr wrote:

I'd first like to say what a awesome post this is, i hope the devs read all this as i completely agree with everything you said.

Norbar Recturus wrote:

General Controls Evaluation

I'd like to begin by saying that some level of control insensitivity is important. You don't want the rumble of the DUALSHOCK to make your Sniper Rifle stutter around like crazy; however, this level should never be so high as to make fine-tune aiming impossible.

At current, it is next to impossible (for me) to snipe because I'm accustomed to slight motion to finely control my shots. If you want to move the view-box (the area your character looks at) in any direction, you need to apply about a 10 degree movement on the right stick before movement occurs. From this point out, the speed of your turn varies according to how much off center you are and can be altered according to your sensitivity options... but it is impossible to adjust this threshold.

What I noticed was that in order to properly AIM at something it feels like I have to whip the control stick back and forth with some degree of insanity. Maybe this is because of the Auto-Aim feature, maybe it's because of the control sensitivity issue. I honestly can't be sure so I won't attribute it to either case. Regardless, there is a problem here.

The same thing happens with the left stick and movement. It's very hard to "creep" anywhere. This might also be why piloting an LAV is so freaking hard for some.

.

2nd thx for looking into the controls. i have a few friends in the beta that say if the aiming controls (and spawning) are not fixed, they wont play at release, and tbh i do not blame them, aiming is one of the most important parts of a fps and feeling in control of your aim is important, i hope the devs seriously look into this as i stated to them before the right stick needs start moving from about 2 degrees from center so making tiny adjustments to stay on moving targets is possible.

as for your smg review, i think your spot on. very good post , DEVS please read all that is posted here, it's very good feedback.

nice one Norbar.


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Norbar Recturus Algintal Core Gallente Federation 119	Posted - 2012.07.23 16:06:00 - [1] - Quote For those unfamiliar with my posts, each weekend I put up a post in General Discussion asking what I should test for the weekend and take votes. This week, SMGs seemed to be somewhat of a bother because my thread generated a good deal of people asking me to test SMGs. A couple people mentioned turning speed and control sensitivity so that got thrown in too. Lastly, being a fan of the Mass Driver, I decided to also test Explosive Projectiles and see why they don't always go Boom. Submachine Guns Let me begin by saying that playing close to 30 matches using only the SMG is not fun. 'Specially in an AR dominated metagame. With that out of the way, let's go over how I tested these bad-boys. Skills For this test, I made sure to have Submachine Gun Operation and Proficiency at 5 and 4 respectively. I also have Weaponry at 5, and the Sidearm Upgrades to 3 across the board. Fittings I tested every SMG in the game using the following setups: Scout SMG Being tested, Stable Drop-Uplink, Basic Armor repairer, Basic Shield Extender, Militia Locus Grenade (if PG/CPU allows) Assault SMG being tested, Sidearm Damage Mod, Basic Shield Extender, Kinetic Catalyzer, Stable Drop-Uplink, Militia Locus Grenade (if PG/CPU allows). Heavy SMG being tested, Complex Shield Extender, Enhanced Armor Plating, Hercules Armor Repair Unit, Stable Drop-Uplink, Militia Locus Grenade (if PG/CPU allows). The Guns Every SMG. 5 Deaths with each on each dropsuit-class fitting. What did I learn: Pardon what will read like a ramble, these are notes I took while playing and I am putting them here in order with my commentary. The first thing that I noticed is that the biggest problem with SMGs has nothing to do with their design and everything to do with hit detection. Burst ARs and High ROF guns suffer from this same problem and it's why you don't see a lot of people toting them around. After the Hit Detection problem comes the the recoil issue which will be discussed in detail below. In no universe, real or imagined, should a gun that vomits bullets suffer from close-range "bullet-pull." For those unfamiliar with this term, "Bullet-pull" refers to the tendency of a bullet to travel at an angle when fired from a gun-object in an FPS. This happens because guns generally have an "accuracy factor" to them which is modified by you running, moving, or otherwise not sitting still and pulling the trigger in bursts. The Halo 3 Tactical Rifle is a great example of Bullet Pull as you fire bullets more frequently. Burst-fire SMGs do not shoot their bullets fast enough. The strength of a Burst weapon is that the bullets leave the chamber so quickly that the gun literally doesn't have enough time to fully recoil before the final round in the burst is fired. This phenomena means that the "burst" should generally be in the same place... not scattered in every which way (with one bullet hitting my target in the foot while being aimed at the torso). Even when firing point-blank into a target, it does not seem like you do 53 damage per shot with anything. In fact, it seems like some of the bullets actually do 0. ADS does not help improve the accuracy of this gun unless you are using a Breach variant. Gun-flare seems to be too dramatic. It makes it nearly impossible to aim at a target more than ~ 4M away. Heavy Suits have the largest advantage because of their giant armor HP pool. I had the best performance with the heavy suits despite their slow speeds in both movement and turning simply because I could shoot bullets for longer than my opponent. I also noticed with the heavy suit that switching from any Heavy Weapon to the SMG produced an apparent increase in run-speed. This may have been an optical illusion. There is a valid case for making the SMG a Light Weapon and not a Sidearm. Special Case: Breach SMG If you're like me, you probably die to Breach SMGs more than any other type of SMG. A good amount of people have the Toxin ICD-9 (Aside: nice Pun using the International Classification of Diseases) loaded so you would think that you should see a higher volume of deaths from this gun... but this isn't the case. I asked why and here what I came up with: In testing the SMGs I discovered that it's greatest strength (High ROF) is also it's greatest downfall. The speed at which these guns fire when combined with the recoil handling and bullet-pull cause a large majority of their shots to veer very, very, far off. In this way it would be more accurate to call SMGs a short range HMG in that they have the same problems with accuracy. The Beach SMG does not suffer from this problem because it fires at a RoF which is significantly slower. As a result of this reduced fire rate, bullets are more likely to not suffer from the aforementioned bullet-pull and thus give the gun a higher DPS measurement. I suspect that this problem does not just extend to SMGs, but also applies to the other guns in the game as well. Why does the CreoDrone Breach have the highest rate of use in the game? Because it's effective. Why is it effective? Because its bullets ACTUALLY hit the target. The Boundless Breach SMG has the exact same thing working for it. Conclusion I do not feel as though the SMGs need an overhaul or tune-up. If anything, their effective range probably needs to be raised up a little bit while the damage quotient should probably be reduced. The number one problem surrounding these weapons currently is that bullets magically seem to pass through their targets, while others seem to simply disappear off the server with no trace or sense of permanence. Hit detection is the SMGs worst enemy right now followed very closely by bullet-pull and recoil. If you intend to be competitive as of now, I recommend fitting up the Breach SMG and avoid the Burst SMGs at all costs.
Norbar Recturus Algintal Core Gallente Federation 119	Posted - 2012.07.23 16:07:00 - [2] - Quote General Controls Evaluation I'd like to begin by saying that some level of control insensitivity is important. You don't want the rumble of the DUALSHOCK to make your Sniper Rifle stutter around like crazy; however, this level should never be so high as to make fine-tune aiming impossible. At current, it is next to impossible (for me) to snipe because I'm accustomed to slight motion to finely control my shots. If you want to move the view-box (the area your character looks at) in any direction, you need to apply about a 10 degree movement on the right stick before movement occurs. From this point out, the speed of your turn varies according to how much off center you are and can be altered according to your sensitivity options... but it is impossible to adjust this threshold. What I noticed was that in order to properly AIM at something it feels like I have to whip the control stick back and forth with some degree of insanity. Maybe this is because of the Auto-Aim feature, maybe it's because of the control sensitivity issue. I honestly can't be sure so I won't attribute it to either case. Regardless, there is a problem here. The same thing happens with the left stick and movement. It's very hard to "creep" anywhere. This might also be why piloting an LAV is so freaking hard for some. Turn Speed Infantry turn speed feels a little bit clunky. It takes about half a second to look behind you in a heavy suit, about the same time to look behind you in an assault, and approximately 1/4th of a second to get a 180 on a Scout dropsuit. I didn't test Logistics because I'm pretty sure that they'd fall somewhere between assault suits and heavies. Moving a big gun quickly isn't easy and I understand the control limitations for emulating this; however, it shouldn't take forever and a day to turn around. Horizontal rotation needs to be significantly faster as taking corners feels like I'm stuck to the wall. This might be related to the control insensitivity problem. Explosive Projectiles If you use a Mass Driver or fire from a Small Missile Turret you have experienced a situation where-in firing a projectile that is supposed to explode does not produce an earth-shattering kaboom. In between dying with SMGs and spinning around like an idiot I found some time to blow myself up in a number of interesting ways, some of which should provide insight as to why not everything explodes as intended. Spinning If you rotate in circles while firing a mass driver or small missile turret, your projectile will most likely not explode. Non-rotational fire seems to produce more explosions than turning while you shoot. Distance I have established that there is no safe distance for explosive projectiles. Shooting a Mass Driver at your foot results in instant death if you're in a Scout suit. Also tested on Walls, Ceilings, Vehicles, and Players. Forward / Backwards motion This does not seem to affect explosions on Small Missile Turrets, but does on a Driver. Forward movement seems to cause fewer explosions while rear motion seems to cause frequent explosions. Texture Handling ing Shooting at round things seems to cause infrequent detonation. Flat objects seem more prone to detonating an explosive than slanted objects. Rendering Explosions Sometimes you will shoot a projectile and think it doesn't explode. It does. Other times you will shoot a projectile that seems to explode. It doesn't. There is no consistent level of fault or error here, it seems like the game just can't decide what should really happen. Direct Impact and Explosions Hitting players with explosive projectiles USUALLY does not cause an explosion... but does produce death. Mass Drivers do not typically instantly kill things that they hit while a SMT does. This probably is because the "blast" that you don't see applies to all sides of the hit-box and thus produces battlefield spaghetti. Conclusions about Explosive Projectiles Based on everything that I've seen happen and done myself I have concluded that unless the projectile strikes a surface at something close to perpendicular it will not explode. This explains why spinning in place and shooting causes infrequent detonations: there is a horizontal component to the velocity of the round that affects its impact direction. It also explains why moving backwards produces more frequent kabooms (steeper vertical impact angle due to reduced forward velocity). This also is why more people report getting good results from on-high (shooting down means a more perpendicular collision). Texture handling does not seem to be consistent AT ALL when it comes to explosive handling. The spiky barricades between A and B will almost ALWAYS cause an explosion while the Control Tower points usually do NOT (If you're aiming at someone capturing a point, the floor is your best target). Moving Tanks also seem to be somewhat impervious to MD rounds but not from SMTs. *Overall Conclusions* I think that a lot of controls and properties of objects are inherited according to the game code. It feels like overall schemes were designed to handle things on a macro basis instead of being designed according to the form-function of the objects they control. While Momentum is a nice thing to model in a game (no instant death collisions on friendlies because you tapped them on accident), it may not be the best thing in the world to represent when it comes to explosive projectile impacts. On that same token, recoil handling should probably be redone. I'm not one to say that a system should be re-invented unless necessary because I understand the work that goes into these things... but come on. No gun should have a round hit the floor when you're pointing it straight ahead. Bullet-pull be damned, Bullets go straight, it's the gun that moves. I look forward next week.
Norbar Recturus Algintal Core Gallente Federation 119	Posted - 2012.07.24 13:34:00 - [3] - Quote Darkz azurr wrote: I'd first like to say what a awesome post this is, i hope the devs read all this as i completely agree with everything you said. Norbar Recturus wrote: General Controls Evaluation I'd like to begin by saying that some level of control insensitivity is important. You don't want the rumble of the DUALSHOCK to make your Sniper Rifle stutter around like crazy; however, this level should never be so high as to make fine-tune aiming impossible. At current, it is next to impossible (for me) to snipe because I'm accustomed to slight motion to finely control my shots. If you want to move the view-box (the area your character looks at) in any direction, you need to apply about a 10 degree movement on the right stick before movement occurs. From this point out, the speed of your turn varies according to how much off center you are and can be altered according to your sensitivity options... but it is impossible to adjust this threshold. What I noticed was that in order to properly AIM at something it feels like I have to whip the control stick back and forth with some degree of insanity. Maybe this is because of the Auto-Aim feature, maybe it's because of the control sensitivity issue. I honestly can't be sure so I won't attribute it to either case. Regardless, there is a problem here. The same thing happens with the left stick and movement. It's very hard to "creep" anywhere. This might also be why piloting an LAV is so freaking hard for some. . 2nd thx for looking into the controls. i have a few friends in the beta that say if the aiming controls (and spawning) are not fixed, they wont play at release, and tbh i do not blame them, aiming is one of the most important parts of a fps and feeling in control of your aim is important, i hope the devs seriously look into this as i stated to them before the right stick needs start moving from about 2 degrees from center so making tiny adjustments to stay on moving targets is possible. as for your smg review, i think your spot on. very good post , DEVS please read all that is posted here, it's very good feedback. nice one Norbar. No problem. It's a Beta, we're Testers. Last time I checked, it was our duty to provide feedback.
Norbar Recturus Algintal Core Gallente Federation 119	Posted - 2012.07.25 01:30:00 - [4] - Quote Bresker Veyne wrote: You got my likes! Hopefully this gets some attention from the Devs! I hope so. I don't mind doing these in-depth reviews... but God it would be nice to know that the development team is at least reading what I write without a million posts from other users saying "YEAH WE NEED THIS." and "NO WE DON'T LEAVE IT OUT."