Balance Tanya

[des1206]

Just wanted to check if people are okay with her current anti-infantry Colt .45 damage. I admit I suck at using her, but 4~5 body shots just to kill a rifle soldier? Or maybe I just need to improve my aiming skills.

Edited April 11, 2016 by des1206

[Pyryle]

Just wanted to check if people are okay with her current anti-infantry Colt .45 damage. I admit I suck at using her, but 4~5 body shots just to kill a rifle soldier? Or maybe I just need to improve my aiming skills.

I feel Tanya is considerably more balanced against other infantry in Delta compared to previous versions where she'd easily kill infantry in 2-3 shots, including the versions that I worked on a couple years earlier. This time around, I'd say you can achieve that same lethality through well-aimed headshots.

[des1206]

 

Just wanted to check if people are okay with her current anti-infantry Colt .45 damage. I admit I suck at using her, but 4~5 body shots just to kill a rifle soldier? Or maybe I just need to improve my aiming skills.

I feel Tanya is considerably more balanced against other infantry in Delta compared to previous versions where she'd easily kill infantry in 2-3 shots, including the versions that I worked on a couple years earlier. This time around, I'd say you can achieve that same lethality through well-aimed headshots.

 

You can argue rifle's secondary does the similar damage.

 

Also do good Tanya users find it easy to do headshots in close quarter combats (within buildings)?

[Pushwall]

The important thing to remember with the Colt (and other pistols) is that its bullets are hitscan, no need to lead the target like you do with other small arms, just click directly on the enemy and there's your hit.

 

The M16 secondary is nowhere near as good in close quarters due to needing to lead the target, having about half the rate of fire, and having much heavier jumping penalties than the Colt.

[ChopBam]

In close quarters you don't have to lead the target much at all, and the jumping penalties are minute. Tanya is probably better at range than she is in close quarters.

[Isaac The Madd]

Tanya Adams the amazing pistol sniper.

[System Error Message]

i think tanya needs to do more more damage to infantry to kill them in 2-3 shots. Its unbalanced if you need 4-5 shots because tanya costs a lot and infantry are free. Sometimes i wonder when balancing is done if the cost of the unit is also taken into consideration. Expensive units shouldnt be able to lose so easily.

[ganein14]

i think tanya needs to do more more damage to infantry to kill them in 2-3 shots. Its unbalanced if you need 4-5 shots because tanya costs a lot and infantry are free. Sometimes i wonder when balancing is done if the cost of the unit is also taken into consideration. Expensive units shouldnt be able to lose so easily.

This was true for a time, but then the allied team would just mass tanyas and move in to C4 rape the soviet base as any infantry that tried to stop them would be gunned down with little effort. Especially after a demo or a flare went off in the base to clear it of mines.

[Pushwall]

i think tanya needs to do more more damage to infantry to kill them in 2-3 shots. Its unbalanced if you need 4-5 shots because tanya costs a lot and infantry are free. Sometimes i wonder when balancing is done if the cost of the unit is also taken into consideration. Expensive units shouldnt be able to lose so easily.

 

Given this and your statement about how artillery "just doesn't compare to the V2" that lacked citations for why the artillery was worse when the game stats were showing it being better, sometimes I wonder if you've actually played the game enough to know anything about its balance. What's your real ingame name, cause System Error Message totally doesn't show up on the listings.

 

 

Rifles' kill:purchase ratio is uncountable since you can spawn as them without purchasing them, and everything else either performs too horribly to care about (such as technicians who, as you might expect, suck against infantry) or has bugged stats (grenadiers) - aside from that Tanya appears to be performing really well, only coming behind Volkov (who happens to be more expensive, fancy that - but may also be getting a bit of a free pass from AP mines, not sure how those track) and Snipers (who are super-specialised into the "kill infantry" role even more than Tanya is, and are better at living and sneak-killing because of their range). Doesn't look particularly "unbalanced" to me - her kill ratio has to say something about her ability to kill things. And I have no problem killing things with Tanya, but as a guy with a lot of experience and knowledge of the game (being the one who's been tweaking it for almost 2 years) I suppose that's not saying much.

 

Expensive units, while they are generally better than cheaper ones, have to not be massively overpowering because hey, guess what, this isn't an RTS where you can just spam oodles of cheaper units, here you are limited by player count. While in RA you would be able to get 60 rifle soldiers for the price of 5 tanyas, here you can only get as many tanyas as you have players (assuming they all have enough money) and the same goes for rifle soldiers. If a tanya is in your building you cannot divide yourself into 12 riflemen and gank her down (let alone infinite riflemen since they're free here). She still has to be somewhat balanced for one-on-one combat.

[des1206]

Can someone teach me how to aim better? I've been playing this game for years and it's still really hard to do headshots.

[FRAYDO]

How To Aim Better 101

[Pushwall]

How To Aim Better 101

 

I'd tell you to seek out a Gun Fu instructor:

 

 

But unfortunately it's been a dead art ever since the release of Delta.

On a more serious note though. The colt/pistols/shock rifle in particular are some of the easier things to headshot with - point at their head and shoot, and try not to get into the habit of bunnyhopping cause that hurts your accuracy enough to make it impossible to guarantee a headshot. The more predictable the enemy's movement pattern is, the easier it is to actually mouse onto their head, so being sneaky helps because people who are unaware of your presence are more likely to just run in a straight line to maintain maximum speed. If you're facing an enemy that suffers greatly from jumping penalties (particularly the flamethrower, captain and sniper) and you intimidate them into bunnyhopping for defense, you've hurt their accuracy enough that you probably don't even need to get headshots to win. And with the shock rifle specifically, a lot of its damage comes from the damage-over-time effect that has the same effectiveness no matter where you hit them, so for the shock rifle headshots are usually not worth the trouble.

With other weapons you need to compensate for the projectile's travel time by aiming where you think the enemy's going to be when the bullet reaches their location, which makes things more complicated especially if the weapon's rate of fire or projectile velocity are very low (such as the rocket launchers).

[ChopBam]

Can someone teach me how to aim better? I've been playing this game for years and it's still really hard to do headshots.

Use free aim in conjunction with infantry combat.

[des1206]

 

How To Aim Better 101

 

I'd tell you to seek out a Gun Fu instructor:

 

renalert 2016-04-12 02-28-24-38.png

 

But unfortunately it's been a dead art ever since the release of Delta.

On a more serious note though. The colt/pistols/shock rifle in particular are some of the easier things to headshot with - point at their head and shoot, and try not to get into the habit of bunnyhopping cause that hurts your accuracy enough to make it impossible to guarantee a headshot. The more predictable the enemy's movement pattern is, the easier it is to actually mouse onto their head, so being sneaky helps because people who are unaware of your presence are more likely to just run in a straight line to maintain maximum speed. If you're facing an enemy that suffers greatly from jumping penalties (particularly the flamethrower, captain and sniper) and you intimidate them into bunnyhopping for defense, you've hurt their accuracy enough that you probably don't even need to get headshots to win. And with the shock rifle specifically, a lot of its damage comes from the damage-over-time effect that has the same effectiveness no matter where you hit them, so for the shock rifle headshots are usually not worth the trouble.

With other weapons you need to compensate for the projectile's travel time by aiming where you think the enemy's going to be when the bullet reaches their location, which makes things more complicated especially if the weapon's rate of fire or projectile velocity are very low (such as the rocket launchers).

 

Seems like bunny hopping in general is a bad idea...unless you are at point blank range or are using an AoE/spray weapon?

[System Error Message]

i only play privately/private servers hence why you dont see my stats. I've tried playing on the w3d servers long before but it was just a bad experience. No matter how skilled i was i was always sent to the team that is currently losing or having the team with less players. Even staying on for the next few matches it was always a loss.

Edited April 12, 2016 by System Error Message

[MechanicalThighs]

i only play privately/private servers hence why you dont see my stats. I've tried playing on the w3d servers long before but it was just a bad experience. No matter how skilled i was i was always sent to the team that is currently losing or having the team with less players.

As for the first issue, it's probably that you're just getting in late, or getting in after the enemy attacked. As for the second, I've noticed sometimes having multiple people join at once can cause one team to have more players. Although fewer players doesn't necessarily mean a loss. I've played a few games where my side was outgunned, we still managed to win, or at least keep up with the larger team. And I've had games where my side had more players but we were steamrolled by the smaller side. Give the main server another try, it's a lot of fun, even when you have internet that's so bad you get disconnected multiple times.

[System Error Message]

When you have 2-3 players per team 1 player difference means a lot.

[MechanicalThighs]

True, but it's not the end of the world. If you coordinate right, you can still beat the opposing team.

[devilslayersbane]

 

With other weapons you need to compensate for the projectile's travel time by aiming where you think the enemy's going to be when the bullet reaches their location, which makes things more complicated especially if the weapon's rate of fire or projectile velocity are very low (such as the rocket launchers).

 

 

As someone who has played arma 3 for 2,222 hours (which is a game whose combat revolves entirely on learning your weapon to lead your shot), hitscan pistols and I don't mix. I'm not asking you to change it, but that's just my input on the matter.

[delta]

You have to lead your shots in Arma? I would've assumed that enemy soldiers wouldn't move fast enough relative to realistic bullet speeds for that to be necessary, especially at the range you'd realistically use a pistol.

[devilslayersbane]

Yes. A lot, actually. The AI is really intelligent, throwing smoke and looking for cover (though the direction the smoke and cover is in aren't always the smartest). In CQB, if you catch an AI sprinting and all you have is a pistol, you're leading every shot unless they're less than 10m away from you.

[Pushwall]

i only play privately/private servers hence why you dont see my stats.

 

So... previously you said we only need one server, but here you are apparently playing on a private server.

 

And previously you asked for leaderboards - which are in progress otherwise where would I be getting my stats? - but you also play on a separate and private server, which would have to have separate stats that are meaningless to the developer because they're not reflective of a less "scripted" game where anyone can join, or no stats at all.

 

And you expect me to rebalance the game based on a tiny insular tribe that refuses to mingle with the main player base.

 

Am I the only one seeing how bullshit all this is?

 

No matter how skilled i was i was always sent to the team that is currently losing or having the team with less players.

 

Yeah that's a thing with the W3D engine. if teams are even, it always places a new joiner on the team that's doing worse because that is most likely the team that needs help to balance it out. If teams are uneven, it always places a new joiner on the smaller team because that is most likely the team that needs help to balance it out. That's how it is with every other game on this engine.

 

While that can be "fixed" with a server that enables manual teaming, that just encourages people to stack teams, which is even worse. I'm guessing that's what your private server does - how else is it magically free of the joining the weaker side "problem"? So I'll be taking your experiences on it with an even smaller grain of salt than I already was.

 

When you have 2-3 players per team 1 player difference means a lot.

 

Wow it's almost like splitting the player base means there's less people on each server

[des1206]

@Pushwall

 

Can you do an analysis and let us know when are the servers most filled during the next patch update thread? This way people will know when to join for bigger games.

[MechanicalThighs]

I agree with des, that would be nice. Small games are still a lot of fun, but with a bunch of players it's amazing.

[Ginosaji]

how would such a analysis be of any use?

 

i think it would make more sense to open a topic of its own where people just say when they have time to play a few games and according to the majority of people who have replied, we could set a launcher news announcement with a givin time where people usually would be playing during the day.

 

on the irc i've also noticed a few new faces who've joined during the time when the server is empty. what kind of impression would these people have of the game other than "meh, mod is dead -> uninstall".

Edited April 12, 2016 by Ginosaji

[Einstein]

@Ginosaji Well having stats generated on this would be more accurate and more informative than just a thread. While having a thread would be nice, we could gain more from stats. And the existing stats system could probably be easily extended to report join/leave timestamps, as well as play duration for each player, and calculate averages on those numbers. Just a guess. Go ahead and make a thread if you'd like, nothing wrong with that.

 

 

 

i only play privately/private servers hence why you dont see my stats.

 

So... previously you said we only need one server, but here you are apparently playing on a private server.

 

And previously you asked for leaderboards - which are in progress otherwise where would I be getting my stats? - but you also play on a separate and private server, which would have to have separate stats that are meaningless to the developer because they're not reflective of a less "scripted" game where anyone can join, or no stats at all.

 

And you expect me to rebalance the game based on a tiny insular tribe that refuses to mingle with the main player base.

 

Am I the only one seeing how bullshit all this is?

 

As far as this goes, based on past experiences with "private"/3rd party servers, we can't really even answer your questions that have nothing to do with the official server because we have no idea if they're even running the latest or even the same (unmodified) version of the game. Once it leaves our hands, anyone with the proper knowledge can easily change the experience drastically, at which point it ceases to be a "vanilla" experience. We can't fix that, especially since we don't even know where you're playing.

[MechanicalThighs]

lol yup. Devs aren't gods. They're able to do some pretty godly things, but they can't do everything.

[FRAYDO]

i think it would make more sense to open a topic of its own where people just say when they have time to play a few games and according to the majority of people who have replied, we could set a launcher news announcement with a givin time where people usually would be playing during the day.

Hey that's an idea. Shoot me a PM and let's discuss this more.

[ganein14]

 

i only play privately/private servers hence why you dont see my stats.

 

So... previously you said we only need one server, but here you are apparently playing on a private server.

 

And previously you asked for leaderboards - which are in progress otherwise where would I be getting my stats? - but you also play on a separate and private server, which would have to have separate stats that are meaningless to the developer because they're not reflective of a less "scripted" game where anyone can join, or no stats at all.

 

And you expect me to rebalance the game based on a tiny insular tribe that refuses to mingle with the main player base.

 

Am I the only one seeing how bullshit all this is?

 

No matter how skilled i was i was always sent to the team that is currently losing or having the team with less players.

 

Yeah that's a thing with the W3D engine. if teams are even, it always places a new joiner on the team that's doing worse because that is most likely the team that needs help to balance it out. If teams are uneven, it always places a new joiner on the smaller team because that is most likely the team that needs help to balance it out. That's how it is with every other game on this engine.

 

While that can be "fixed" with a server that enables manual teaming, that just encourages people to stack teams, which is even worse. I'm guessing that's what your private server does - how else is it magically free of the joining the weaker side "problem"? So I'll be taking your experiences on it with an even smaller grain of salt than I already was.

 

When you have 2-3 players per team 1 player difference means a lot.

 

Wow it's almost like splitting the player base means there's less people on each server

 

My thoughts exactly Pushwall. Maybe its almost time for the funnies group to get its second member?

[System Error Message]

When i played on the main server it was before i made an account. I also see the main server mainly empty. most of the time i just play by myself or with a few friends.

 

sure even when being outnumbered its possible to win but regardless of my skill in how many times i keep killing them or stopping or delaying or even sneaking into the enemy base it just wasnt enough. Perhaps balancing should be the team that needs numbers should get it first. So for RA that would be the allies getting the player first. It was also before w3d obtained RA APB and i played both RA APB and TSR on their main respective servers.