The Assault Rifle Discussion

[Gawain]

invisibleman, that's not cheap, it's one of the basic game mechanics. the spies are not meant to know the mercs' position all the time. it's one of few killing opportunities and with proper recon / awareness on the spy side it's no real problem for the spies. the only areas this happenes sometimes to me is on the containers (polar base) and in main hall (factory), and usually i can get away before being killed.

[InvisibleMan999]

invisibleman, that's not cheap, it's one of the basic game mechanics. the spies are not meant to know the mercs' position all the time. it's one of few killing opportunities and with proper recon / awareness on the spy side it's no real problem for the spies. the only areas this happenes sometimes to me is on the containers (polar base) and in main hall (factory), and usually i can get away before being killed.

I didn't say it was cheap, I said it "feels cheaper" than the uzi or shotgun getting a kill. The reason I point that out is because a lot of people bitch and whine about the uzi or sometimes even the shotgun (especially PC players). Honestly, I don't even see it. I didn't really even see how the PT tazer was supposedly "cheap" either. People seem to have more objection to a shotgun blast or tazer taking out a spy at point blank range, more so than a sniper that can kill you across the level. It honestly makes zero sense to me.

If people going to call something cheap, I'd think it'd be the rifle. I don't really get where the PT tazer, uzi or shotgun get a bad rap from. 

[Westfall]

invisibleman, that's not cheap, it's one of the basic game mechanics. the spies are not meant to know the mercs' position all the time. it's one of few killing opportunities and with proper recon / awareness on the spy side it's no real problem for the spies. the only areas this happenes sometimes to me is on the containers (polar base) and in main hall (factory), and usually i can get away before being killed.

I didn't say it was cheap, I said it "feels cheaper" than the uzi or shotgun getting a kill. The reason I point that out is because a lot of people bitch and whine about the uzi or sometimes even the shotgun (especially PC players). Honestly, I don't even see it. I didn't really even see how the PT tazer was supposedly "cheap" either. People seem to have more objection to a shotgun blast or tazer taking out a spy at point blank range, more so than a sniper that can kill you across the level. It honestly makes zero sense to me.

If people going to call something cheap, I'd think it'd be the rifle. I don't really get where the PT tazer, uzi or shotgun get a bad rap from. 

Cheaper than the uzi or the canon? Please. Uzi blasts and lags. Once they start shooting, if the spy gets hit, they are stuck in the twilight zone for 3 sec until the clip unloads and kills them.

Shotgun has always been cheap. I guess I just don't believe in the one hit wonder from close range. Granted it goes with all guns, but 1 shot...BLAST....dead....how....not climactic. Whereas headshot, well, shouldn't have been in the scope right? Same can be said about uzi and shotgun, but they don't really require much. Tazzer is along the lines of a shotgun. Same bullshit kill. Talk about unbalance.

w/e your preference, all 3 will be in. All 3 probably won't even get touched. I'll stick to the rifle + scope combo.

[Farley4Fan]

I'd say no gun is cheap.  If you are close up to a merc, he should kill ya.  If you don't look around enough to see that you are being watched by a merc, he should kill ya.

[Spekkio]

I didn't say it was cheap, I said it "feels cheaper" than the uzi or shotgun getting a kill. The reason I point that out is because a lot of people bitch and whine about the uzi or sometimes even the shotgun (especially PC players). Honestly, I don't even see it. I didn't really even see how the PT tazer was supposedly "cheap" either. People seem to have more objection to a shotgun blast or tazer taking out a spy at point blank range, more so than a sniper that can kill you across the level. It honestly makes zero sense to me.

It makes perfect sense. Pointing at someone's head takes a lot more precision and coordination, hence "skill", than pointing at someone's entire body because the head is a lot smaller on the screen.

You also have to take into account the fact that, in the case of the rifle vs. the uzi, the ROF makes the uzi more forgiving. If you miss the first shot, you can adjust and shoot again much more quickly than you can with a scoped rifle.

The shotgun and tazer do not need to hit such a small area to get an instant kill. You can hit the player anywhere on the body. This is why people object to it. On top of that, the shotgun's insta-gibbing is random. Getting a headshot with the rifle takes significantly more hand-eye coordination on the player's part.

[Westfall]

I didn't say it was cheap, I said it "feels cheaper" than the uzi or shotgun getting a kill. The reason I point that out is because a lot of people bitch and whine about the uzi or sometimes even the shotgun (especially PC players). Honestly, I don't even see it. I didn't really even see how the PT tazer was supposedly "cheap" either. People seem to have more objection to a shotgun blast or tazer taking out a spy at point blank range, more so than a sniper that can kill you across the level. It honestly makes zero sense to me.

It makes perfect sense. Pointing at someone's head takes a lot more precision and coordination, hence "skill", than pointing at someone's entire body because the head is a lot smaller on the screen.

You also have to take into account the fact that, in the case of the rifle vs. the uzi, the ROF makes the uzi more forgiving. If you miss the first shot, you can adjust and shoot again much more quickly than you can with a scoped rifle.

The shotgun and tazer do not need to hit such a small area to get an instant kill. You can hit the player anywhere on the body. This is why people object to it. Getting a headshot with the rifle takes significantly more hand-eye coordination on the player's part.

$$$

[InvisibleMan999]

It makes perfect sense. Pointing at someone's head takes a lot more precision and coordination, hence "skill", than pointing at someone's entire body because the head is a lot smaller on the screen.

You also have to take into account the fact that, in the case of the rifle vs. the uzi, the ROF makes the uzi more forgiving. If you miss the first shot, you can adjust and shoot again much more quickly than you can with a scoped rifle.

Well honestly, I don't care how much "skill" it takes. I'm just concerned about what it actually does. The shotgun or PT tazer only kills you if you get close. Seriously. You can easily prevent yourself from getting shotgun killed just by avoiding the merc. And calling the shotgun cheesy? I mean come on... The shotgun is the weakest weapon in the game. So it can kill you easily at close range. That's all it does. If a player has to whine about someone using a shotgun, just give up this game now. How about try using a little bit of stealth and stop aggroing the mercs. If I had a choice of what weapon the mercs would take, I'd give them all shotguns, and I'll tell you what, I'd win a ton of games, against even good mercs. "Cheap" my ass.

The uzi, despite what people think, isn't the massive insta-kill weapon everyone says ti is. Sure, once in a while you catch a lag burst, but the majority of time, it's relatively easy to get away. I deal with uzis all the time on xbox and while you're almost sure to take damage running away from an uzi, you're not going to die most of the time. It's just as uber as most people say it is. Not to mention that like the shotgun, you've got to be relatively close to get torn up by an uzi. Even at medium range, its effectiveness is significantly lower and you better be pretty good at aiming to hold the firing cone down on your target. The uzi still requires some aim to kill a moving target. You're almost assured to damage the spy, but you won't kill him unless you're good with it.

The rifle, on the other hand, while requiring slightly more "skill" and I say slightly because the majority of snipes happen to be while your'e hacking stuff, has a bunch more cheese associated wtih it. You can die to a host rifle before you even see the guy shooting. Like on Aqua. Say you're hacking pirates. A good sniper, especially a host sniper, can kill you by just sliding out from the bridge or the tech room platform and basically insta-snipe you. You've got like no reaction time. I seriously don't care what minor amount of skill it requires to memorize the screen position of the spies head at the proper objective. That's way cheaper to me than any uzi or shotgun kill.

And there's other cheap shit you can do with the rifle too, that doesn't even involve getting kills. Like on missile strike, tehre's one bunker bomb you can shoot from up above on the walks if you took the sniper. Again, shooting a stationary target, not big on skill.

I mean, I can see people who have the any weapon goes, attitude. But banning the uzi or shotgun because it's cheap, that's just sad. While the uzi and shotgun may have some issues, they pale in comparison to all the shit you can do with a rifle that's cheap, cheesy or outright lame.

[Gawain]

oh, you can do something against it. you can estimate the safe time to hack by recon and experience, you can use spy bullets, let your mate cover you, listen for the going-into-zoom noise (with eax you can hear it almost on the whole map like shooting nades lolz) etc

shotty isn't cheap, it's just crap. sniper isn't cheap, it's the most balanced weapon as it is highly lethal but has significant weak points as pointed out several times before. if there's a cheap weapon, it's the uzi. obviously you have very little to none experience with the pc version, so i can understand why you think in a different way.

[Spekkio]

How much skill it takes to get an instant kill is at the very basis of this argument. The amount of hand-eye coordination it takes to use a weapon is at the very heart of how they need to be balanced. You cannot just discount that.

I agree that the shotgun is the worst gun in the game because its inept at anything beyond close range. However, the randomness of the gun insta-gibbing people is still frustrating. It's comparable to facing a insta-frag cannon. Most of the time your opponent fires it off hopelessly, but then the laws of probability kick in and you start getting instant kills with it. Sometimes these kills happen at quite a decent range, too. The irony of the shotgun is that it works better in lag because of the remnants of console coded auto-aim. What's even more frustrating is knowing that your opponent got that kill purely based upon randomness. You can't even tip your hat and say "nice shot, sir," because it wasn't.

I realize that some people still prefer to take the shotgun, and all the power to you. I'm not calling those people any sort of derogatory names or anything like that. However, my point, as it was before, is that you cannot make a good argument that the amount of skill it takes to insta-gib a spy with the shotgun is anywhere near the amount of skill that it takes to insta-gib a spy with the rifle.

I truly think that the shotgun should be re-worked so that it's slightly more effective at longer ranges, ie you can shoot people off hacks from longer range and get those pesky spy bullets off the wall, and take away the fact that it can insta-gib a spy. Aside from that, though, I think that if the tazer was better than complete shit that the shotgun would be overlooked even more than it already is.

The uzi is powerful because it allows players who ordinarilly can't snipe to compensate with a kick-ass full-auto weapon. In other words, player A and B are in a game. Player A is an outstanding marksman. Player B is mediocre. By opting for the uzi, player B now levels the field because he has a weapon that compensates for his lack of hand-eye coordination through over double the ROF and more than half the power.

Some numbers for you: Both the uzi and rifle empty their magazines in 10 seconds. That means that the uzi shoots 6 shots/sec, while the rifle shoots 2.5 shots/sec. In zoom mode, the rifle can only shoot 1 shot/sec.

At close range (about the effective range of the shotgun), both the uzi and the rifle will kill a spy with 2 full-auto headshots. This takes less than 1 second with both weapons. If you were to zoom with the rifle, it would take around 1 second to get the kill -- despite what you said later in your post, the scope DOES take a short amount of time to activate, and that is significant. Aside from that, the scope can be disabled through flashbangs and chaffs.

Well, now let's look at the body: The rifle will kill in 3 body shots, while the uzi will kill in 4. That means it takes the rifle over 1 second to kill someone while the uzi still is comfortably under 1 second. If the rifle were to zoom and shoot at the body, it takes two shots to get the kill, which would take around 2.5 seconds.

Now here's the kicker: the Uzi has significantly less bullet spread than the rifle, thus making it an adequate long-range weapon. Sure, you won't kill the spy hacking across that wide room, but you can knock him off the objective until you get close enough to to significant damage.

What this means is three things:

1. A player using the Uzi can miss more often, ie be less accurate, and get a kill in the same amount of time as someone using the rifle. See above about the uzi compensating for a player's lack of hand-eye coordination
2. Contrary to what you've been arguing, a spy under fire from the Uzi has considerably less time to react than a spy under fire from the rifle.
3. A player using the uzi full-auto is going to hit the spy more often than a player using the rifle full-auto, just because of the bullet spread difference.

Of course, there is a tradeoff: the uzi is not effective at extremely long distances, and its full-auto damage decreases steeper as you increase range. However, how many of these cases are there in the game where sacrificing extremely long range capability would be detrimental to the game? Aside from Factory with its open rooms and numerous sniping points, and River Mall with its long layout, I can't think of any maps where sacrificing the ability to snipe from long distances would be that detrimental to the mercs. As a matter of fact, most of the game's action takes place at a range that is optimal for the uzi's powerful full-auto capabilities, especially as the game winds down and the amount of objectives are more limited. A combination of one merc with an uzi for hunting, and one merc with the rifle for covering those wide view spots works extremely well with some minor team coordination.

What I really don't like about the uzi is point #2: you can't do anything to really neutralize it. The shotgun has a long reload, which gives you time to shock the merc and get away. You can't do this to the uzi because the high frequency of bullets prevents you from aiming, even when there isn't any lag. You can try throwing smoke, but they have mask. You can try throwing a flashbang, but they have MT. You're basically stuck trying to run away from a virtual tractor beam. I really don't think you can use your experiences on the Xbox in regards to this because it is nearly impossible to keep your crosshairs focused on a moving spy with an analog stick. It is not impossible to do this with a mouse.

I honestly think that the Uzi's bullet spread needs to be wider than the rifle's when firing full-auto.

The rifle takes significantly more skill than the uzi to use. First, if you're aiming at the head, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. You hit and kill the spy, or you miss and the spy gets away with no damage to him. Second, hitting the head is a lot harder than hitting the spy anywhere on the body. Third, there is the tactical element of locating spots on the map that give you the widest amount of sniping options.

Finally, the examples you provided in your post are flawed. First of all, if you're hacking in pirates in Aqua then you should either have a bullet at the merc entrances, or you should use the HB sensor to gauge the amount of time it will take the merc to find you and get off the terminal before then (pro tip: instead of risking death for an extra 2 seconds off the terminal and whining when you get screwed over by [insert shitty game mechanic], leave before the merc even gets in the room and setup for something else). Second of all, sniping is not "instant." The delay is rather short, but it's there and makes a significant difference. Third of all, getting sniped by an invisible merc because you're on a server with 300 ping is irrelevent to the argument. The problem in that situation is lag, not the rifle. Game mechanics break down in any game where significant lag is involved, and CT is no different. Lastly, you can hit both bombs from the catwalks in Missile with the Rifle AND the Uzi.

Now, I don't care what weapons people use in my server. They're in the game, so it's all fair. When I'm host, I take the rifle out of courtesy for the other people playing on my server. If I'm a client in 150+ ping, I'm going to take the uzi because sniping becomes useless. The shotgun and uzi can compensate for a player's lack of hand-eye coordination, but the "ceiling" of their effectiveness is lower because of this. The rifle takes significantly more practice to master, and I think that it's the weapon that most separates players based upon skill. The reward to putting that effort into it is being able to cover a wider area of the map through the use of the scope. I do not see anything wrong with that.

[Kurbutti]

Well written.

[Cyntrox]

Well written indeed, although lag will always be a part of online gaming - the game mechanics has to be made to tolerate it.

[frvge]

If there's a gradual decent in the damage done by shotgun and especially uzi, then it could be balanced.

That should be codable.

[Spekkio]

That decent is already present in CT.

[Xris]

Holly freakin long ass post, very nice Spekkio.
My $0.02 -> If something is implimented into a game, and is not a hax, it cannot be considered cheap, yes the devs may not have balanced it, but if its there for everyone to choose then its fair game.  Our devs that are creating PS are much smarter then the SC devs and I'm sure they will balance it all properly.  Lastly we have to remeber this is UT3 and there are going to be actual severs and not someones POS pc (compared to servers, i'm sure most of you have nice pc's like me :))

[Cyntrox]

...actual severs and not someones POS pc

Wait... What? Is this true? Can't people host games themselves in UT?