Weapon damage and range balancing

[gollum385]

Something that was clear with the br in previous games was that it was a weapon for all ranges, a feature which many hated about it and why it was removed in reach in place of the dmr and the addition of reticule bloom. I personally loved the br, it was an awesome weapon, but i agree it's ability to function at short range did spoil the balance of the games.

 

Although this isn't the case for many other weapons, I have thought up a feature which i think would be awesome to have in any shooter imo as a balancing method. It involves the damage a weapon does based on it's range from the target.

 

For example this is kind of already done in halo reach. Rockets and grenades have an explosive radius, the amount of damage you receive is reduced as you near the edge of the explosion.

 

this will work in a similar way, but for weapon bullets.

say there is the br. It is a mid-long range weapon. With a window of distance that it should be optimal at.

My idea is that the br is maximum power at this optimum range. as you start to move outside of it, whether it be further away than desired, or closer than desired, the power of a bullet when it hits it's target begins to be reduced. slowly at fist, but at a quicker rate the further it gets away. this means just outside of the window it is ok to use although may take say a shot more than in optimal range, but go too far in and you lose it's effectiveness (ie it requires double the amount of hits to kill for example).

 

This could be the case for all weapons. If you put all the ranges of weapons into groups (eg, close combat(beatdown sword), short range(shotgun), short-mid (smg), mid (ar), mid-long (pistol), long (dmr br), very long (snipers)) then it is easy to apply this feature to all suitable weapons. It would mean that there would be crossover points with other weapons where the effectiveness of your weapon becomes less useful, and so that is the point at which the cross over is recommended. Of course you could still continue to use your weapon, especially if you only had a br and ar (no pistol).

 

This may need tweaking, ie, a weapon should cover a couple of ranges, so there can be suitable crossovers between weapons to groups apart, or the weapon can be a certain amount of range between say 0-100m (if sniper was max 100m). Ie br is best from range 50-75 metres, ar is best from 25-40 etc. Therefore a good crossover point for those to would be in the 45m range.

 

Tracking this may mean the removal of hitscan from halo 4 (hitscan was in halo 2 and reach, but not halo 3. It means bullets travel at infinite speeds, so you don't have to aim ahead of your shots etc.) as the bullets would need to be tracked possibly to see how far they have travelled before the hit (don't think there would be many issues on the networking side of things). Hit scan also added an element of skill in caclulating the distance in which to aim ahead of a player far away moving in a certain direction.

 

I must take note that weapons like the sniper probably wouldnt be affected by this system, as scoping close up is hard, and no scopes are cool/show skill (maybe non head shots are reduced outside of optimal range though? whilst no scopes are skilled, the snipe beatdown combo can be a bit easy to execute sometimes).

 

I think this system allows for the effectiveness of these all round weapons to be reduced, but also allows for skill. If you are using an out of range weapon, attacking someone with an in range weapon, it means that the power of your weapon is reduced, meaning you are disadvantaged. Only more skilled players cna come out of a disadvantaged situation on top consistently, and so this allows for skill to be shown in halo 4.

 

Would love to hear people's opinions on this, whether it is a stupid system, bloom is a good enough method of doing a similar thing or whether the br being an all round weapon was a good thing.

 

 

please check out my other thread on reticule bloom viewtopic.php?f=16&t=689

this proposes to change bloom to affect how the game is played, punishing regular spamming, but allowing for control over when and when not to fire quicker shots.

 

It would be interesting to see whether this idea of weapon damage would benefit my or the other reticule bloom system, or would actually mean we wouldnt need this system, if people think my idea is any good.

 

Please feel free to leave constructive criticism, ideas on how to improve it. In the poll, there are 2 voting options. One of them is meant to be used in one of the last 2 options, saying if this system was implemented it would be better with or without the reticule bloom system (or another system like reticule bloom (see my linked thread for my idea on that)).

[Rafter]

Sorry, but I can't agree with you on this one.

 

Let me try to explain.

 

Think that you're in war, holding a semi-automatic weapon, you see an enemy in the distance, you fire. Right? (let's not talk about etics now)

Your problem is the fact that, if he is too far away, your weapon loses precision, the bullets dont shrink nor smth like that.

 

Meaning: If a foe is too distance for a br/DMR/other-semi-automatic shot, you can shoot, but the precision of the weapon should decrease. Therefor, imagine sme is still far way, no matter how much time you take into putting his body inside your reticle, you always have a chance to miss, but, if you hit, it will hit as hard as if he was close to you.

 

Obviously Halo's shotgun should stay the same and only hit hard in short distances)

 

This leads to thinking of the need to aim a little higher for the shot to land where we want it to land (specially if we're thinking about snipers)

 

Anything you didn't get, tell me

 

,

[Twinreaper]

The problem with the weapons is not the distance to enemy issue, but more of a damage level. Although your idea is sound, it is flawed a little. It would take the game engine an additional amount of time to calculate appropriate damage for each weapon. That is something that is already almost pushed to the limits with the 360. All halo games to date, have heavily relied on the 360 graphic architecture to handle a majority or the gameplay in terms of damage, physics and collision calculations. While the processor end handled a small amount of other tags and game objects. memory usage also runs very high on halo games.

 

Adding in a secondary calculation string subset for the damage would tax the game engine and console optimization a bit. there would have to be a compromise in other areas.

 

As for the whole real war thing posted up by Rafter, your reason is flawed as well. The amount of force one recieves from a bullet is relevant to it's firing acceleration, amount of angle it has due to gravity and the trajectory or movement of the target. Someone hit by a shotgun at a distance of 3 feet versus 30 feet is a good example of this. Someone up close would be blown back by the amount of physical force the bullets have + it's ejection speed. As the distance grows, so does the effective penetration and recieved force. It is all basic physics and very well documented.

[gollum385]

Rafter, thanks for your comments.I can see where you come from, in that bullets damages do not change close up, (in fact the would be more) or even further away (as long as the bullet has enough velocity). But obviously my idea is to make a games console balanced, so that the weapons up close would do less damage, as a balancing idea.

 

thanks twinreaper for your really insightful criticism. You broke it down great for me to see. I can completely agree that the calculation time could be an issue, and i know the xbox 360 is being maxed out (when will they release a '720' with better graphics, processors, and a blu ray drive!?) so i could see why maybe this system wouldn't be optimal for performance. Thankyou for at least viewing my idea from a different perspective.

 

Based on your comment on damage, do you just think the br was too powerful then, from a terms of bullet damage, even in it's optimal range?

 

It would be great for several other features like you documented, gravity angle trajectories etc being able to be put in place in halo, to make the skill of shooting from further away harder (again no hitscan in this case). However i agree it could strain the console/network.

 

I also played around in my head the idea that the bullet can fire at a certain angle from any position from the head of a gun. The point at which it is in the centre of the reticule is in the optimal range (pretty much). This would again be affected by bloom in that the angles and places in which the bullet could fire from could be even less accurate (crossover point changes ie solving bloom problem). Therefore too close up and the bullet will more thank like not be at the centre of the reticule (the target) and afterwards the same, meaning outside the optimal range the chances of hitting are less. However the idea of bullet firing at random angles struck me as a bit flawed.

 

Would like to think what you think about this idea, and whether that would be a good implementation or solution? Obviously again if you think this would would also be hard to achieve let me know

[gollum385]

Interested in how you would combat this problem twinreaper, or if you would at all, and what you think of my other suggestion.

[Rafter]

As for the whole real war thing posted up by Rafter, your reason is flawed as well. The amount of force one recieves from a bullet is relevant to it's firing acceleration, amount of angle it has due to gravity and the trajectory or movement of the target. Someone hit by a shotgun at a distance of 3 feet versus 30 feet is a good example of this. Someone up close would be blown back by the amount of physical force the bullets have + it's ejection speed. As the distance grows, so does the effective penetration and recieved force. It is all basic physics and very well documented.

 

 

First: Very nice paragraph and very well written.

 

Second:

2.1: I said that the shotgun was an exception to the rule.

 

2.2: About the other things, I must say that I didn't underststand every thing very well, and will explain why.

 

(This is a nerd :ugeek: part, skip it if you want)

 

(Attention: I don't live in an English country, so I didn't learn the following terms and concepts in English. I will translate them (obviously) but some things my have a different name in English)

 

Talking about the "force" of the bullet:

 

I believe you meant the Intensity (like (Abs (F)), F with an arrow on top) given by the force aplied in the bullet when it was shot

 

It is calculated through the following equation: Wf=Fd(cos(a)) (air resistence is negligible)

Wf being in Jouls, being Wf=Variation of the cinectic Energy or V(Ec) (

V(Ec)=.5m((square of the final speed)-(square of initial speed))......(Initial speed is 0, final speed is when shot)

Or we can calculate the energy through E=mc^2 (Eisntein's theory)

 

We can't use Newton's 2nd law, (F=ma), (even when we're studing a rectilinear uniform movement) because it is almost impossible to calculate a=accelaration=(variation of speed)/(variation of time) being Vtime the almost impossible part to calculate

Meaning here: Yes, the accelaration (altough I used speed) given to the bullet when shot affects the Intensity of it.

 

Though, between the barrel and the target, two forces come into play:

Fg= gravity

Fa= air resistance

 

Fa= can be considered negligible because the bullet is a small, aerodinamic, compact object.

 

Fg=mg (being m the mass, and g the gravitic accearation= 9.8 ms^(-2)

 

If you fire in an horizontal line, the gravity only affects the trajectory, but, (as you can never fire in a perfect horizontal line, and, even if you fire, I doubt the bullet has enough speed (not sure) to work like a satelite (only the direction of the movement changes), mean: the bullet will start pointing lower too soon, reducing the angle between the gravictic force and the direction of the bullet from 90? to less, therefore, has the gravity doesn't create a perfect 90? angle with the bullet's direction, it will, not only change its direction, but also its speed (accelarating it, actualy).

 

BUT, and here's the but.

as, Wf=Fgd(cos(a)), a being the angle; as the angle will allways be close to 90, only if you're firing to an higher or lower position) the cos(a) will be very small, (pluss the mas is very small as well) thus making Wf very small, (ok, I can't be sure of this because I don't have the values. Though, even if it changes anything to the bullet's direction; it will be very little)

 

Even if you're firing to an higher or lower position, check this,

x=x0+vt+.5at^2

If anyone has values to put in here, you'll check that, (even only with distances and bullet velocity), the time, t,will be very small, (this is accualy visible), and the accelaration will be very small as well.

Mean: (I don't have the exact values, but this was done sensibly) for small maps (I'd say every indoors Halo map) The gravity changes very little to the bullet's direction, a negligible thing. In bigger maps, though, it could change a little, never too much though, (It would be nice, in long distances, to need to fire the sniper rifle's bullet a little upwards and in advance of our taget's movement)

 

About the trajectory or target's movement in the impact's moment

Again, nothing changes if it is moving in a perpendicular direction than the bullet's direction, (it would only matter where the target would fall, dead) but any other direction could change a little the bullet's impact (aka Itensity of crash).

Though, and here's the though, the bullet's velocity greatness (don't know if greatness is the best word, if it isn't, think value) comparing to a human's (or a spartan's, elite's, brute's, whathever) velocity is so different that we can say that the target's velocity is negligible.

 

Mean: Target's movement doesn't change a thing in the moment of the impact)

 

Shotgun, as said before, is an exception because of the type of ammunition is takes (It is not a normal bullet)

 

So, I believe that what I said is either all wrong or all right.

 

Open to hear anything I missed.

 

Please, this is not being nerd, I just had a physics exam, so I still remember almost everything.

 

Open to errors,

[Twinreaper]

Very nice explanation of the "real world" physics behind it all. I was referring mostly to how the physics of the game engine are handled.

 

Unfortunately there is no real good way to combat the issue of how much damage a weapon gives you depending n the place of the target and the type of weapon being used. The calculation process alone would kill the game play. Even when Halo 2 used the "hitscan" battle rifle, you would see a slight lag skip when the game had too players using it. It takes a lot more processing than most would realize for simple tasks to complete.

 

Now for Halo Reach, it would be possible to achieve this. As I said in a post somewhere else, most of all the game engines handling is through a script system. This is the first time that any Halo game has used scripts outside of AI, cinematics and machs to handle almost all aspects of game play. The only exception there of coarse would be Firefight mode in Halo 3, and ODST.

 

But while I do like that idea of how a weapons damage should change based on range, it also would bring a completely different feel to the multiplayer and campaign aspect of the game. Personally, I am not good with handling change. Hell I throw a fit after Bungie usually changes something silly in tag structure or tag data. I can't imagine how upset I would be if they drastically changed how weapons deal damage.

 

But again, I think that is a very exciting idea that could bring a whole new spin onto the franchise.

 

But I did also want to say, that from what I have read, the military shooter type of training games that soldiers use in the military, do have this type of damage calculation. Which is why the graphic end of it is so poor. A majority of the processing power is devoted to the environmental and physical calculations of the game.

[Enry117]

this would be nice, sounds good but i would suggest one thing: the shoot loses power only if the target is further than the weapon's range and not even if the target is closer

[Twinreaper]

True. You could simply state at what range the projectile would start to lose it's maximum speed, and adjust the damage to subtract an "x" amount per world units after that. Sounds good to me.

[gollum385]

Thanks for the positive comments. Again these are just ideas i thought up. Whether they could be implemented, or if they needed tweaking etc is up to the people who make the game. I just try to look at problems and think of how ways to solve them.

 

Definately agree the bullets being reduced after a range makes sense. But whereas things like weapon spread on the ar already combat that problem, there is nothing to combat the br etc close up, which was the real reason i thought this up (to try and combat that sort of situation).

 

What i personally like about my situation is aswell as nerfing weapons at inappropriate ranges (trying to anyway), it allows a skill gap to be produced, as those who can make their weapon work better than other out of range, against other weapons in range will be able to prove their skills.

 

Twinreaper, i completely agree about change and how you handle it. See my thread on combat names, which definately reflects that (and thats not even gameplay!). http://www.343industries.org/forum/index.php?/topic/325-sort-out-the-combat-names/

 

Whilst i too hate change (disliked reach on many fronts), i think evolution is the key. I mean Reach did have many new good ideas though (although i felt many were implemented badly, and they were at the sacrifice of previous things, something i didnt agree on). Taking all the previous features weapons maps etc from previous games, and using them as groundwork is great. But a new graphical engine, refining those systems and bringing in interesting new concepts is definately something that will keep the game fresh. I think most of my forum posts (things such as new playable characters, gametypes, exp and ranking system and the reintroduction and evolution of dual wielding) try to summarise this. Looking at what is done, and errors made, and trying to improve the situation, whilst making it new and interesting. Obviously people may disagree with some of my ideas, but many are extra features i think would add things for those who want it, and change the gameplay in positive ways, making halo more tactical and competitive than ever before (something reach definately lacked).

[gollum385]

Does anyone have other ideas on how to combat weapon balance? Obviously bungie felt that reticule bloom was the way to try and achieve this, but i think a solution similar to mine would mean that whilst hitting an enemy at that range is achievable, the chances of success are severely reduced. combine this with things like weapon spread, or my ideas on reticule bloom (http://www.343industries.org/forum/index.php?/topic/338-reticule-bloom/) and i think it would really add to the tactical elements of the gameplay.

[gollum385]

I'd like to clarify that I think this system would be very good for gameplay, allowing for skill, but preventing any weapon for operating well outside it's designed range limits. I think that although this wouldnt be accurate in terms of what real bullets do, this system would balance gameplay, and i'm all for that over what is possible. You could even say the increase in damage is due to the increase in speed of the bullet, up until it's operating range, as it accelerates from the gun, then afterwards it's decrease in speed, and therefore damage due to decelleration from air resistance etc.