A Path Beyond Potential headshot overhaul?

[Pushwall]

So for some reason the thought ran through my head: what if we returned infantry combat to being more rocket-tag-ish like in Beta, by improving headshot damage? How would we go about this without nerfing infantry into the ground?

 

Right now here's how the damage of every small-arms weapon (plus the Flamethrower for kicks) lines up against regular infantry, sorted by headshots vs armoured health.
Grey = needs 10 or more shots to kill a regular inf (armoured rifle infantry, naked techie). This is only for body shots, thank god.
Cyan = needs 4-9 shots. In the case of headshots, these things might as well be airsoft guns, especially the PKM.
Green = needs 3 shots.
Yellow = needs 2 shots.
Orange = needs only 1 shot to kill regular infantry. (with shotguns this is with all pellets)
Red = can kill any infantry in 1 shot.

And here's how everything would line up if the global headshot multiplier got raised to 5, a bunch of weapons had their armour penetration values adjusted, and a couple had less/more base firepower:

An explanation of armour/base damage adjustments:

Since captains and shotgunners have a harder time of getting headshots due to their accuracy, they don't have a penetration penalty to compensate for all this (so they can still bodyshot decently against armoured infantry) - on the other end of things, the pistols are very easy to headshot with due to their accuracy and hitscan nature, so they have the harshest penetration penalty and thus their headshots are not much better than before - unless they're facing naked infantry who die with ease.

Higher armour strength in general means that bodyshots are less desirable (except with the captain/sergeant) which could somewhat compensate for the beefier headshots.

APC's 6 -> 7 is completely unrelated to all this and is a balance change coming in the next patch to compensate for some other changes, don't worry about it.

Hind's 7.5 -> 6 would be a thing that would happen if this headshot multiplier change went through; firing from above gives it a better chance at unintended headshots, and machineguns all piercing armour better means it essentially has a higher damage than before against normal infantry if its base damage is left untouched. And it really doesn't need help against infantry. So a base damage reduction (compensated by increased multipliers to hard targets to even its damage to them out) really shouldn't hurt it.

Snipers' 50 -> 60 would happen if the armour/HS change went through, because it's difficult for them to get headshots; since they use the same warhead as the other "can only hurt infantry" guns they share the same armour penetration capability so I can't just leave them with 50 damage and their old 50% penetration at the same time.

Pillbox's 9 -> 10 would happen if the armour/HS change went through, because it doesn't intentionally go for headshots. (It shares the assault rifles' warhead which is why it happens to have a weaker armour penetration settng.) It already sucks versus vehicles, this extra damage point probably won't change that much, and if it does, it can just reload slightly slower as its alpha strike matters more against infantry than it does against vehicles.

 

The big question here would be how to do all this without making infantry worthless again - or whether I should even go through with this at all  - and that's why I opened this discussion. So talk away!

Something I could do here: making the "neck" hitbox just act like the body (1x damage) instead of the head (5x) so headshots are harder to pull off. Unlike helmets everyone has the same neck box so this affects everyone equally, and somewhat nerfs tanks against infantry since their low ROF makes a failed headshot pretty punishing.

I brought up an "aesthetic change" in the video thread; this would be that if the headshot overhaul happened, I would give head hitboxes a new material that would have a more satisfying headshot sound effect attached to it, instead of the current generic flesh impact sound. (Which would get pretty silly if I did that with the current system where Tanya takes 12 PKM headshots to kill.)

[OrangeP47]

Well it seems like you've thought it through quite a bit. Personally I've felt headshots have been underpowered, so I'd be tentatively in the 'for' group to begin with. I think the key is just not to overdo it.  There's room for the boost without going too far. We just have to find the sweet spot.

[des1206]

Units that will benefit: tech & engin, spy, thief, tanya, snipers, sergeant slug and M16 alt fire. So overall it definitely is more of a buff to Allied infantry.

If this is done it will further close the distance on cheaper vs. more expensive infantry in terms of infantry lethality. I'm not sure if I like that. I didn't pay $1,500 for a Kov to be one shotted by a $150 sergeant!

To be honest I find basic infantries (rifle/shotgun) to be a bit too lethal for their price. Why? Because basic infantries are more often used in defending (since rifles spawn freely and they are not good vs. vehicles). An infantry attacking team has to deal with a constant influx of $0 free infantry, which discourages infantry rushes. In other games there will be a respawn timer to accommodate this, but not in C&C mode.

Edited May 17, 2017 by des1206

[Pushwall]

Less standing/running accuracy and more crouching accuracy for those 2 headshot machines (and the AK) then?

I don't see how the captains don't benefit from this, given that they're the only unit with better penetration than before and no other changes to even it out (APC is more fragile with the upcoming patch, whether this headshot thing pulls through or not), so they actually have better bodyshots than before (except against snipers). Sure, they have low accuracy for headshots, but it's not bad enough to make the entire idea of headshots unreliable in the close-quarters scenario you're imagining. Captains should stand a much better chance against respawning rifles in that scenario than they did before, where the machineguns' anti-infantry DPS was actually worse than the rifles. But yeah, it definitely hurts them in the open unless they're crouching (which just makes them headshot magnets)

It should also benefit flamethrowers/Kovnades in CQC since they can bunnyhop, make themselves hard to headshot, and take less bodyshot damage from nearly every other weapon while dealing the same splash damage that they previously did (unless they magically score a fireball headshot which can now kill a Tanya, unlike before where it only killed every other infantry). It also benefits all the non-slug shotguns in CQC for a similar reason - they don't have much of a bunnyhopping accuracy penalty (it's a little worse for Volkov, but at point blank that's not going to be what causes you to fail) so the benefit of making their own head harder to hit may be a good tradeoff for that.

Another way of looking at the respawn issue: it could be easy to headshot someone who's just spawned, depending on reaction times. So the respawning team might not have as much of an advantage as you'd think. Better headshots should also discourage people from going up to a purchase terminal to refill/swap character in the middle of combat, as it makes them stand still for a bit. So that's another downside for defenders to consider.

Agreed on spies - they can land the first strike and headshot more easily in the circumstances that they're meant to be used, so they probably get some of the biggest benefit from this. But they normally don't have much going for them, so I don't really see a reason to intentionally hamstring them if I go through with this overhaul.

[Voe]

Are you telling me the game no longer uses the 5x headshot damage multiplier it used to?

[Chaos_Knight]

1 minute ago, Voe said:

Are you telling me the game no longer uses the 5x headshot damage multiplier it used to?

I assume that was actually happening for quiiiiite some time. That would explain why I felt like my headshots weren't doing as much as I thought they would, and why center of mass aiming felt so much more superior. Huh. And I blamed it on the armor system.

[Voe]

I thought those were the armor mechanics too.

[OrangeP47]

I remember reading the change somewhere when I got caught up upon my return.  I still aim for the head out of Beta habit as it is though.

[Pushwall]

4 hours ago, Voe said:

Are you telling me the game no longer uses the 5x headshot damage multiplier it used to?

Looking back at the bones.ini files over the years, it got dropped to 4x sometime in Gamma and then 3x sometime before Delta's initial release. Probably CJ's fault.

[Pushwall]

14 hours ago, Voe said:

I thought those were the armor mechanics too.

Nah, as I said before, if we could make armour behave differently for certain body parts I'd just make headshots completely ignore armour. (Though thinking back on that, that would have the odd effect of making pistol headshots get far more of a benefit than machinegun headshots, which probably isn't needed when pistols can headshot far easier than machineguns.)

 

So I'm thinking on some more possibilities on how to counterbalance the system proposed in the OP:

Infantry regen being upped to 5 HP per second instead of 3, or regen timeout being reduced from 30 to 20-25 seconds.

Armour shredding values being lowered again, so no infantry can go from full armour to 0 without having regenerated at some point in their life.

Since the headshot changes would obviously mean you're much more likely to be able to multi-headshot someone to death from full health, regen and armour will be even less pivotal than before - so they could surely stand a buff if it happens.

[Voe]

We can set up some testing sessions to try that out.

[Pushwall]

Something else I could do - I'm going to take a look and see if I can ship armor.ini/bones.ini on a per-map basis. If so, I'll make an RA_Fissure_Headshot map or something for next patch (with full tech to test all the inf) so the damage aspect can be publicly tested in a decently-sized game without potentially messing up the whole game's gameplay. I'd rather not steal testing time from games that aren't even released.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Pushwall
Nope, can't do this.

[GaryOak]

I gotta have to post that I don't like this change

I was kind of getting into infantry combat, but since the patch my performances have been dramatic

I suffer from the screen briefly freezing at times,  especially when new public messages are received -- this, other small lag issues and a not-up-to-date gaming computer makes me feel ill probably never start being able to hit really small hitboxes

I'm off course definitely not one of the more skilled players, but all things considered for me, this gives me a feeling of getting hammered by the older and more elite players a lot harder, with little room for improvement

I have off course not been around since the beta, and definitely don't wanna come across as someone who thinks his opinion is important in this community; I just felt I needed to point out that this patch can make gameplay harder for some people, especially the newer ones

And yeah, I could and should always try and upgrade hardware if things are supposedly so bad right now -- that's one of the reasons you shouldnt give too much regard to my opinion on this one lol

[FRAYDO]

Just going to chime in here for a second.

3 hours ago, GaryOak said:

and definitely don't wanna come across as someone who thinks his opinion is important in this community;

@GaryOak Everyone's opinion is important in our community! Don't ever think your opinion is not important, as we are always open to what you and everyone else has to say.

[Pushwall]

Don't worry, your opinion is important. But if you can't upgrade your hardware maybe some hints might help.

Not every unit is super-reliant on headshots. Sergeants and the Kovshotty with their inaccuracy, and Snipers with their bullet drop, have a lot of trouble getting headshots anyway and this was true even before the hitbox overhaul - but due to their high damage they tend to do well enough just bodyshotting people, and aiming at the chest you're bound to get a few pellets flying faceward too, so perhaps there's a niche for you. That and Flamethrowers who don't even need to hit (but benefit a lot from doing so).

For other units, crouching is more important than ever before for long distance combat, particularly with the rifle soldier/medic/captain (and the sniper but that was already true for him anyway). Those guys are going to have trouble hitting anything at their max range if they're not crouching, and even when crouching, they still have a small degree of inaccuracy (except the sniper and the M16 trishot) that stops them from being guaranteed to land consecutive headshots and may turn slightly off-aimed shots into headshots. Tanya, Volkov and Sergeants don't get any accuracy benefit out of crouching though - not that Tanya needs it with her laser accuracy.

You could always try practicing offline against bots; load up RA_CamosCanyon, press F8 and type botcount 12 or something to give you a small number of moving targets to work with (most of these 12 just sit in their base and only attack people that enter the base, you'll only get 1 or 2 offensive enemies). If the war factories and base defenses are a problem you could enable friendly fire and destroy them before enabling bots - but for next patch I might as well add bot logic to Wasteland since it's such a simple map and that'd remove the most annoying steps to setting up an infantry practice game

[danpaul88]

I'm just going to drop this in for discussion - I'm too out of the loop to offer nuanced opinion one way or another.

I recall some time ago in AR we deliberately made infancy more bullet spongey to compensate for map sizes - an issue APB shares IIRC. With weak infantry you end up with gameplay that looks like this;

 

2 minute walk to enemy base

10 seconds fight then dead

Repeat ad infinitum. Assuming war factory is out of action or you have no cash.

 

After a couple of cycles that gets really old really fast. If infantry are too fragile it becomes really hard for them to be at all effective at attacking an enemy base, especially with long travel times.

 

Some food for thought ☺️

[Pushwall]

2 hours ago, danpaul88 said:

Some food for thought ☺️

Well I didn't just up the headshot multiplier and do nothing else. There was plenty done to even this out:

• most of the small arms got made less accurate when standing
• free rifles got made less accurate in general
• infantry hitboxes got made smaller (especially the head)
• regen got sped up
• cover penetration of all explosions was reduced (don't forget that cover is actually a thing here! )
• AP mines became easier to kill and got a smaller blast radius
• snipers/arty/v2 got nerfed into the ground
• armour penetration of most weapons was lowered, thus making their bodyshot damage weaker than before (ask Voe about the mighty Makarov and its 2 HP of damage).
• repair tools and golden wrench become almost useless when bunnyhopping

The idea is that headshots are actually worth going for now, but to achieve them at long range you generally have to expose yourself to them in the process by crouching - and with these other changes, infantry are in most cases not any easier to deal with than they were before, and if they're inside your buildings you pretty much have to deal with them before you can begin repairing. This was done to turn infantry more into high-risk high-reward units.

Another thing is that, as a consequence of all this, refilling in combat is more difficult than before because it makes you stand still which makes you an easy headshot target. So it's not all defender advantage. Hopefully tri's anti-refill plugin is done soon, so defenders using refill2win will stop being a problem entirely and offensive infantry will truly cement their intended position of high-risk high-reward.

I will say though, there's always more that could be done to help infantry out without "giving in" by turning them into walking tanks, and feedback is certainly appreciated.

One of the things I was considering doing during the overhaul was making it so that tank shells and rockets simply cannot score direct hits on non-Volkov infantry at all - shells would fly harmlessly through them if you tried - getting rid of the option of tanks being able to randomly oneshot them and forcing them to rely on their splash damage. That would definitely bolster infantry survivability and further encourage infantry vs infantry combat. But I felt that was going a little too far, so I decided not to. If it was done, of course, tank splash damage would be made less pathetic but given a smaller radius, so they're not completely inept against infantry and ensuring that there's still some aim required in tank vs inf combat. Kind of a step in the RTS direction, and besides, how many tank gunners have successfully scored a direct hit on an enemy infantryman IRL? It replaces the "balance" oddity of people surviving tank shells to the chest, with the idea that you just cannot directly hit them in the first place because it's too difficult - an idea that is already in place with the Redeye/Strela whose rockets always fly past infantry even if you should directly hit them. (Before Delta they did negligible damage but clearly exploded on them to no effect anyway which just looks silly.) What are people's thoughts on this?

[ChopBam]

I've always liked the satisfying hitmarks and subsequent damage on tank and rocket bodyshots. The missiles flying through bodies isn't intuitive for newbies and doesn't make sense outside of this gameplay idea.

[GaryOak]

12 hours ago, Pushwall said:

Don't worry, your opinion is important. But if you can't upgrade your hardware maybe some hints might help.

Thank! Definitely gonna try this, lol. And I really should have an upgrade soon, due to getting a job...but then the job will probably mean I almost cant play anymore 

7 hours ago, Pushwall said:

What are people's thoughts on this?

Hmm I myself kind of consider it a trade-off ingame as of now: I either hit the ground near the target to kill it through splash damage, or try to directly hit it. The thing is, going for direct hits almost never works due to the predicting and dodging game and the time involved for the shell to get to the target. When you miss the direct hit, you usually dont hit the ground either, so its an all or nothing shot. So going for ground hits and splash damage is mostly it for me -- the fact that I sometimes get a lucky direct hit just comes with the game. 

I wonder if other people go for direct tank vs infantry hits deliberately? I guess it's an option if someone is against a wall / will receive damage from the splash all the same. 

Edited June 14, 2017 by GaryOak

[Pushwall]

7 minutes ago, GaryOak said:

I wonder if other people go for direct tank vs infantry hits deliberately? I guess it's an option if someone is against a wall / will receive damage from the splash all the same. 

I typically only go for splash if the enemy is armour-broken (splash gets a lot stronger in this case), almost dead, or too good and too far away for much chance of a direct hit. Or when using the phase tank which has a lot of splash damage. MBT splash was deliberately made almost worthless against armoured infantry as part of Delta's package of letting infantry actually be worth something. Tank shells being unable to one-shot people on direct hits unless they get a headshot was also part of that, but that just feels weird.

[ganein14]

If the infantry is close to me and I'm in a tank, I tend to forgo just shooting them and try to squish them, though that won't stop me firing at them.

[NodGuy]

While it sucks playing as an expensive unit like the Shock Trooper or Volkov, only to be killed by one lucky shot from a Light Tank, I feel that this has improved infantry combat for me.

After playing with it for a while now I no longer like this change. It does not improve infantry combat for me when my ping's always over 180. To me infantry combat was better before this change. Not that my opinion matters anyway, just thought I'd update.

Edited July 14, 2017 by NodGuy

[des1206]

Going back to Danpaul88's note. Would a large infantry only map every be viable without vehicle transports? I don't think so, since the attacking side, even if they are good shots, will just face endless waves of respawning defenders until they are worn down, or until the game devolves into a sniper duel. 

But then again, this is why we have radar dome's new function and random STs on large maps incase both side's WFs are down.

[Pushwall]

If only hard respawn timers could be a thing. That would also fix the annoying "random" element of the death timer where sometimes your death animation plays too slowly and thus delays your respawning. They wouldn't have to be particularly long either (we don't want to make people sit around doing nothing waiting to respawn) - even 5-7 seconds would be a modest improvement over what we have now. It'd help stem the tide of reinforcements which would especially help the kinds of attackers who tend to be within metres of enemy spawn points, i.e. infantry.

Tanya and signal flares might need a bit of a nerf if this happens though.

[Testament]

On 2017-05-16 at 9:08 PM, OrangeP47 said:

Well it seems like you've thought it through quite a bit. Personally I've felt headshots have been underpowered, so I'd be tentatively in the 'for' group to begin with. I think the key is just not to overdo it.  There's room for the boost without going too far. We just have to find the sweet spot.

We have gone too far. I really do not like these changes. Every weapon feels like it shoots nerf darts against people but rips tanks and buildings to shreds. It feels like trying to fight a Havoc in Renegade with a Nod rifle soldier if you fight anyone remotely competent.

inb4 "git gud" I was pretty good when my bullets actually hurt.

[GaryOak]

On 2017-6-27 at 5:37 AM, Testament said:

We have gone too far. I really do not like these changes. Every weapon feels like it shoots nerf darts against people but rips tanks and buildings to shreds. It feels like trying to fight a Havoc in Renegade with a Nod rifle soldier if you fight anyone remotely competent.

inb4 "git gud" I was pretty good when my bullets actually hurt.

Nice to find someone agreeing with me!

Going back to DanPaul's post, even though I find Pushwall's argumentation quite valid in that the team has tried to reduce other gameplay elements so it isnt '10 mins walk vs 5 seconds fight', I still think that that scenario probably happens more than I would like. I think it's due to the fact that headshots can make kills possible in less than a second. 

So my argument would be that walking across the map might very well take up to 10 mins in the larger maps. Maybe its a bit less in most maps, okay. The problem, as I see it, is in that one can get killed in single infantry combat in less than a second today.

I've walked an entire map several times before, only to be killed by pyryle in 0,2 seconds when i finally reached the enemy base. My first conclusion is definitely that he's really good and i should up my game. But my second conclusion is that i just spent 10 minutes only to get killed in less than a second. Which kind of makes me feel like pressing the escape button, and quitting.  

[Pushwall]

Thanks for the feedback.

3 hours ago, GaryOak said:

So my argument would be that walking across the map might very well take up to 10 mins in the larger maps. Maybe its a bit less in most maps, okay.

I'm just going to assume you didn't literally mean walking to the enemy base, so I think you might be exaggerating things ever so slightly because sprinting from the inside of one of your own buildings to the inside of one of the enemy's, when taking the longer outer routes on the largest maps like Ridge War, should rarely take more than 2 minutes if uninterrupted (just checked myself - danpaul is right on the money here). And again that's just for the biggest maps. 2 minutes might still sound like a lot but compare it to how long vehicles take in the same situation - it's not that much slower. Most tanks aren't even 50% faster than sprinting infantry and that's not even taking into account speed loss from turning and climbing. Don't tell me you've never felt the same way from brazenly trudging a mammoth tank across the map for longer than an infantryman takes, then eating a triple cheeseburger mine and instantly losing your tank?

Though travel time is definitely a concern even if it's not as exaggerated as you insist. Something I kinda want to do in future is paradrops that temporarily allow infantry at home to "teleport" to the front lines quickly. Possibly enabled by some kind of limited-purchase flare akin to the a-bomb, so it doesn't entirely supplant transport vehicles.

3 hours ago, GaryOak said:

I still think that that scenario probably happens more than I would like. I think it's due to the fact that headshots can make kills possible in less than a second. 

So can snipers (who killed in 1 headshot even before the overhaul), AP mines, phase tank splash barrage (or track-sniping vs Volkov), V2/arty, squishing, and so on, and I don't think anyone will call for any of these to be "dealt with" (except snipers which are certainly a little controversial).

Granted, several of these got nerfed in addition to being discouraged through the better-but-harder headshots. Killing infantry is now more of a job for infantry. Though the free rifles could probably stand to get nerfed a bit further to hamper the respawner advantage.

3 hours ago, GaryOak said:

I've walked an entire map several times before, only to be killed by pyryle in 0,2 seconds when i finally reached the enemy base. My first conclusion is definitely that he's really good and i should up my game. But my second conclusion is that i just spent 10 minutes only to get killed in less than a second. Which kind of makes me feel like pressing the escape button, and quitting.  

It kind of sounds like you're attacking with one infantry in which case, yes, expect to die against a lone defender even if it's not right away and especially if he's waiting for you. This is also true in Reborn despite the whole "infantry are made of adamantium" thing (unless you're a commando) so I don't think applying that method here would help much...

[GaryOak]

3 hours ago, Pushwall said:

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm just going to assume you didn't literally mean walking to the enemy base, so I think you might be exaggerating things ever so slightly 

I definitely was exaggerating -- I guess my arguments arent based upon facts as much as id like to. I am more about general feeling, it seems. 

 

3 hours ago, Pushwall said:

Though travel time is definitely a concern even if it's not as exaggerated as you insist. Something I kinda want to do in future is paradrops that temporarily allow infantry at home to "teleport" to the front lines quickly. Possibly enabled by some kind of limited-purchase flare akin to the a-bomb, so it doesn't entirely supplant transport vehicles.

So can snipers (who killed in 1 headshot even before the overhaul), AP mines, phase tank splash barrage (or track-sniping vs Volkov), V2/arty, squishing, and so on, and I don't think anyone will call for any of these to be "dealt with" (except snipers which are certainly a little controversial).

You bring very valid examples to the table, and I definitely like that paradrop idea! In the end, though, I would simply argue that infantry has the ability to kill other infantry too fast right now. Experienced members of APB and APB members with high end computers/connection seem to have quite the edge over newer players.

I am obviously a newer / more n00b player. The question on my part is: how much would you like the 10+ years experience APB players to have an edge over newer players? And how would you like high-end gaming PCs to play a role? (again: this is coming from someone without a high-end gaming pc, so please take that into consideration lol)

I would think that the older APB gets, the fewer players it draws. Maybe it would therefore not be the best idea to implement gameplay rules that enhance the advantage of older players over newer players. Then again, and I stress this, I am an outsider. I know you have spent lots of thoughts on this. I just figured I might post something like this. Maybe its better to put emphasis on the older players instead, for example!

[Pushwall]

7 hours ago, GaryOak said:

I would think that the older APB gets, the fewer players it draws. Maybe it would therefore not be the best idea to implement gameplay rules that enhance the advantage of older players over newer players. Then again, and I stress this, I am an outsider. I know you have spent lots of thoughts on this. I just figured I might post something like this. Maybe its better to put emphasis on the older players instead, for example!

This isn't Beta where the old devs deliberately made sure not to tell the public about vital gameplay features such as v-sniping so that oldies could killwhore with snipers without having to fear the possibility of being hit by counter-snipers. All (or as much as we could cram) the info for newbies is right there in autoannounce (though I plan to move it to a help screen eventually where everything can be read at your leisure).

Your KD of 0.92 is certainly better than the average (it might not look like it, but the average is well below 1 due to the many deaths that don't also give a kill, such as suicides and base defenses) and your KD this month is higher than it's been the other months so I really get the feeling this isn't hurting you as much as you say it is and you're just skewed by your experiences against one old player who is known to be tenacious and different gameplay rules would not change this one bit as he'd just change his playstyle to accommodate them, and most likely quicker than the average player would.

7 hours ago, GaryOak said:

And how would you like high-end gaming PCs to play a role? (again: this is coming from someone without a high-end gaming pc, so please take that into consideration lol)

Well I don't have a "high-end gaming PC" either so I'll let that speak for itself.

[Chaos_Knight]

7 hours ago, GaryOak said:

The question on my part is: how much would you like the 10+ years experience APB players to have an edge over newer players?

And a question from the "other side of the barricades" if you wish. How low would you want skill ceiling to be? One of the things, besides tech levels (eugh D:) which killed APB in Gamma was exactly dumbing down the importance of individual skill levels.

Sure enough, W3D games aren't Quake or Doom where people with 20+ years of experience will mop the floor with you without breaking a sweat. You can still kill people like Pyryle or me, and quite easily at that when using the right tools/strats because W3D actually offers you these in the form of classes, vehicles and counters between those. 

Sure enough if you charge 1 on 1 into skill superior player with equal classes and conditions, you will most likely die. That's how games work in general. For the matter of fact, compared to games like BF series or Overwatch, APB is extremely generous in giving you a fighting chance against just about anything you meet. Say, in BF4 a veteran would've 3-headshotted you from behind a crate 70m away in under a second before you even knew where he was firing from. Or just stabbed you from behind for an instant kill. Or flanked you with a suppressed weapon. And don't even get me started on jets, snipers, C4s and claymore mines.

In W3D you have a minimap which almost always works, reasonable TTK with far less insta kills, better general visibility and easily detectable traces on nearly every weapon worth worrying about (Tanya is the only exception I can think of). Maps are smaller and respawns are faster.
After all, if you reduce the distance between skill floors and ceilings, what reason would there be to get better over time?

One thing I would suggest though is to reduce bullet damage against vehicles and esp. tanks. Light vehicles may be fine as they are, but capt shouldn't be a reliable counter to meds/HTs. Maybe reduce bullet effectiveness against building exterior/defenses also (applies to rangers as well)? We got rockets for that after all.
Maybe if body shots feel too weak to people, go to 4x HS multiplier with according tweaks to guns? I just feel like high risk-high reward stuff like slug rounds or tri-shots HS should still be worth trying if you know what you are doing.