Full Weapon Rebalance Mod Poll

[Sleezy]

The purpose of this poll is to condense feedback to present to Fatshark.
Please only take the poll if you have tested a recent version of the mod as the original version was substantially different than the later iterations. The newest version can be found here https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2088889530.

1 = Strongly Disagree
10 = Strongly Agree

I found the weapons I tested to be appropriately strong

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I found each weapon to be equal in power.

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I found the animation/chaining changes to be fun and engaging.

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I found the animation/chaining changed the weapons too much.

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I found the changes retained the role/niche/feel of the weapons.

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I found the changes undermined the role/purpose of the weapons.

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I found the overall strength of the weapons to be appropriate for my preferred difficulty.

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I found the rebalancing of the weapons created a much more varied gaming experience.

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These changes going live would likely increase the frequency with which I play the game.

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The changes going live would likely decrease the frequency with which I play the game.

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If these changes went live, the increased variation in weapon choice would likely prolong the time I play the game.

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I found the balance of the weapons to be more enjoyable than weapons in the live game.

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I found 1-3 of the weapons to be overtuned.

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I found 4-7 of the weapons to be overtuned.

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I found 8 or more of the weapons to be overtuned.

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I felt the nerfs to current meta weapons were appropriate without being too much.

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I felt the current meta weapons did not require a nerf.

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The current meta feels too restricting when choosing weapons.

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There are several weapons in the live game that have not scaled appropriately with changes to the game.

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There are weapons in the live game I love the look or feel of that are not fun to play because they are too weak.

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The weapons I love the look/feel of, feel adequate in-game while using the mod.

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[anon75893681]

Question: why not make a poll for every single weapon change you made? Wouldn’t that allow fatshark to have a better look at which changes the playerbase likes and which they don’t?

Doesn’t the difficulty matter aswell? If i for example tested everything on champ and it feels good, buy maybe it doesn’t on cata?

Also what is considered ‘meta’? If you dont really know it’s hard to know which weapons fall under that category.

[Velsix]

@Sleezy

I felt the nerfs to current meta weapons were appropriate without being too much.

I felt the nerfs to some of the current meta weapons weren’t enough nor appropriate. Should I select lower or higher on this poll question?

[Sleezy]

Well they would be appropriate then, just not enough. IF that helps?

[Sleezy]

Good idea actually. May just redo it. But do you have to have multiple questions for each weapon? I’m not a pollster.

[Velsix]

It does. Thank you.

[Argonaut14]

These questions are loaded towards the result you’re aiming for. The design ambition you have in mind is obviously hinted at in the way you have framed the questions and the wording of the questions. The questions are so open ended it makes the whole thing very subjective.

Also, if you are intending to present this to FS with the hope of getting a lot of the changes to the live version, you cannot restrict the people completing the survey to those who have only played the most recent mod - something that is going to affect every customer can be voted on by anyone who has paid for the game, even if they have never installed the mod.

Discussing Strength of weapons, power of weapons, overtuned weapons meta weapons and such is so subjective as to render the poll virtually useless as something I think is weak may be someone else’s go to weapon. I love Greatsword FK in Legend, other people think it’s awful. I think it’s “powerful”, others think it belongs in toilet.

I suspect I will be dismissed outright, as either A) I’m not a cata player so my opinion doesn’t have value or B) I whole heartedly object to the direction this mod goes in and will be roundly ignored.

I am quite content with the current state of the balance of the majority of the game, and have faith that FS will use the VASTLY superior information at their disposal to make adjustments where needed within their vision of the game.

If you really do intend to tell FS how to balance the game they designed better, then I am exactly the kind of person you need to get on board, as I’m a FS customer, not one of yours.

[Sleezy]

@Argonaut14

These questions are loaded towards the result you’re aiming for.

Give an example. The whole point is to either agree or disagree with a statement.

@Argonaut14

Also, if you are intending to present this to FS with the hope of getting a lot of the changes to the live version

It’s not about getting these exact changes. It’s about providing information to FS to give them a place to start in a future balance beta.

@Argonaut14

something that is going to affect every customer can be voted on by anyone who has paid for the game, even if they have never installed the mod.

What useful information could you possibly have about the mod if you’ve never installed it? That’s like voting on your favorite flavor of chips when you’ve never ate a chip.

@Argonaut14

Discussing Strength of weapons, power of weapons, overtuned weapons meta weapons and such is so subjective as to render the poll virtually useless as something I think is weak may be someone else’s go to weapon.

That’s the exact point of a poll. You compile subjective opinions in order to get the opinion of your audience as a whole. Poll’s are almost never asking for objective facts because you don’t need to poll people to learn objective facts.

@Argonaut14

I suspect I will be dismissed outright, as either A) I’m not a cata player so my opinion doesn’t have value or B) I whole heartedly object to the direction this mod goes in and will be roundly ignored.

If you’ve played the mod, then your input is as valuable as anyone’s. To the extent you don’t play cata, this mod was originally balanced around cata. None of us have a baseline for what Legend is supposed to feel like in 2.0. If you’ve played the mod, then feedback would be appreciated in the appropriate forum.

@Argonaut14

I am quite content with the current state of the balance of the majority of the game, and have faith that FS will use the VASTLY superior information at their disposal to make adjustments where needed within their vision of the game.

Well this is an outright silly statement. FS has largely neglected weapon balancing for a long time. That’s an objective fact rather than a subjective thought. It’s not out of laziness or inability. It’s simply because they have a lot of other projects going on right now. The point of this mod is to do some of the work for FS.

[Argonaut14]

@Sleezy

I found the rebalancing of the weapons created a much more varied gaming experience.

Here’s your example. I think this is something that you’ve aimed for, and the question is loaded towards the answer you’re hoping for.

@Sleezy

It’s about providing information to FS to give them a place to start in a future balance beta.

Do you honestly think you’ve got a much better idea of what’s going on than FS with all the telemetry and statistics they have at their disposal and that FS need some guidance from modders? That position is so arrogant it’s breathtaking. FS have every single detail of everything at their disposal. How many runs, how many people choose each weapon, how many play at each difficulty, how many successful runs with someone running weapon on class.

@Sleezy

That’s like voting on your favorite flavor of chips when you’ve never ate a chip.

This is exactly what happens all the time. Companies ask for public feedback and don’t ask whether you’ve tried the product or not. As a paying customer, I am entitled to an opinion on something that might affect me and the product I’ve paid for, even if I never installed the mod. Just look at social media for multiple examples of various companies doing little polls of “which is better?” without asking if anyone has even tasted/tried anything.

@Sleezy

Well this is an outright silly statement. FS has largely neglected weapon balancing for a long time. That’s an objective fact rather than a subjective thought. It’s not out of laziness or inability. It’s simply because they have a lot of other projects going on right now. The point of this mod is to do some of the work for FS.

It’s not silly statement, it’s subjective - which is what you’ve just told me you’re after. It is your OPINION FS has neglected weapon balance, that is not an objective fact at all. There was thread no so long about “worst weapon in game” and there was 2 maybe 3 consistent with some subjective choices (like elf 2h sword, some people liked it and others didn’t and so on.)

@Sleezy

None of us have a baseline for what Legend is supposed to feel like in 2.0.

0.o. How about playing Legend as designed by the actual company who made it? Could that be considered a good starting point for a baseline?

Do you absolutely know they’re snowed under with projects and have done nothing towards balance? You even state it’s not out of laziness or inability - so could it be they think their game is just fine and some weapons need a tiny tweak - but players are crying out for content and hats so the little tweak required to Sienna and Kruber’s Mace could wait ? I think they’ve got the full picture, and as the majority of their customers player at < Legend everything is possibly as close to being balanced for the majority of their customers as it could be, given the current circumstances.

Let me make myself absolutely clear. I don’t particularly mind the mod, you can do what you like and it appears to be popular for those few players who play at the highest level. If it stayed a thing, with it’s own discord and community who enjoyed it and got the best out of their game then all power to you, and long may it continue.

When it start affecting MY game - that I expect a professional games company to balance and build upon- that’s why I’ve got a problem. I do not want modders affecting the live game whatsoever as they simply do not have the same access to information that FS does. I hope that FS will nod, smile, make the right diplomatic noises and then completely ignore this mod. They’ve surely got a far deeper understanding of the information than modders do.

[Sleezy]

@Argonaut14

Here’s your example.

I don’t find that statement to be leading. It is something we’ve aimed for. But the option is to either agree or disagree with the statement. How is that leading? You can disagree if you disagree.

@Argonaut14

Do you honestly think you’ve got a much better idea of what’s going on than FS with all the telemetry and statistics they have at their disposal and that FS need some guidance from modders? That position is so arrogant it’s breathtaking. FS have every single detail of everything at their disposal. How many runs, how many people choose each weapon, how many play at each difficulty, how many successful runs with someone running weapon on class.

Telemetry is only one aspect of weapon balance. People often play with weapons or builds they know aren’t good because they are sick of the meta weapons. We used data everyone has access to to analyze the strength of weapons such as damage, range, mobility, cleave, mass of enemies, etc. All of that can be found in the source code.

@Argonaut14

Companies ask for public feedback and don’t ask whether you’ve tried the product or not. As a paying customer, I am entitled to an opinion on something that might affect me and the product I’ve paid for, even if I never installed the mod. Just look at social media for multiple examples of various companies doing little polls of “which is better?” without asking if anyone has even tasted/tried anything.

You are definitely entitled to your opinion on the game. However, your opinion on a mod you’ve never tried isn’t very valuable. In order to provide the most valuable feedback, I asked people to respond who have some knowledge or experience with the mod.

@Argonaut14

It is your OPINION FS has neglected weapon balance

You can look at the logs of weapon changes. There have been very few since 1.6 which was a LONG time ago.

@Argonaut14

How about playing Legend as designed by the actual company who made it? Could that be considered a good starting point for a baseline?

Not really. It’s hard to say without sounding arrogant, but the group who designed the mod wouldn’t be able to tell how strong a weapon is by playing legend QPs. It’s just too easy. For a reference, try to get a feel for weapon balance in like recruit or vet. Stuff just flops so fast that everything feels OP.

@Argonaut14

so could it be they think their game is just fine and some weapons need a tiny tweak

A few FS Devs have mentioned they intend to do a large balance beta in the future. So probably not.

@Argonaut14

When it start affecting MY game - that I expect a professional games company to balance and build upon- that’s why I’ve got a problem. I do not want modders affecting the live game whatsoever

You’re still not understanding the process. The mod will not affect the live game. We didn’t even apply for sanctioning. It’s simply information gathering and ideas for FS. The exact same as any feedback you’d see in the forums. It is just more detailed information.

[Argonaut14]

@Sleezy

A few FS Devs have mentioned they intend to do a large balance beta in the future.

Ok cool, I’m happy just to leave it up to them then.

@Sleezy

The mod will not affect the live game.

So there’s no need for the poll. Ok. I’m glad that’s cleared up. Thank you!

[Sleezy]

@Argonaut14

Ok cool, I’m happy just to leave it up to them then.

Great. I don’t think anyone asked you to do anything different.

@Argonaut14

So there’s no need for the poll. Ok. I’m glad that’s cleared up. Thank you!

Perfect. Enjoy your day and happy rat killing!

[astroVB]

@Sleezy poll apart, wich is very useful without doubts (thanks for your work), I would like to know your opion about a couple of weapons:

• 2H Hammer is too slow: this is a problem when you are surrounded and you haven’t the time to charge the heavy attacks (= it fails in its main work). I guess you buffed the push attack for this reason… but why you haven’t added TANK property too? Without TANK property, you can stagger very few enemies and the change you did is barely visible;

• 2H Sword: why you reduced the the buff to attack speed from 10% to 5%? 2H Sword’s heavy attacks should be fast (more or less) as Executioner Sword’s light attacks. In this way:

  • 2H Sword: more control and higher efficiency vs many elites;
  • Exe Sword: more dps and armor damage;

• Halberd: this is a complicated speech… could I know, in your opinion, where Halberd is better than Executioner Sword? Imho Halberd is overshadowed… I prefer the old version L1>L1>L3.

• Empire Longbow: the time before zoom is too long. This hurts when, for example, you must to kill a far Special. Moreover: what about more penetration? Crossbow hasn’t any delay to shoot and it has the same penetration…

[anon75893681]

I’m not great at poll’s either. I think polls are very difficult to set up correctly and ask the right questions to get to how the players feel.

I honestly don’t know how you could ask better questions. But i think i would of asked questions to establish that players baseline and then ask follow up questions. Like if you ask “i found animation/chaining fun and engaging” i would try and find out what engaging means for the player answering before, also is fun and engaging the same thing, i would split them up. Either make it so only cata or legend players could answer certain questions or differentiate.

I don’t know, i would like make a huge af poll making sure there can be no/or little room for missunderstandings. That would probably not be what a poll is about, because polls are so you can quickly ask players opinions. I’m just looking too much into it.

Super late edit: it’s just very hard to poll general balance. Would be much easier to poll in regards to the mod and what players think of it. Or just poll individual weapons

[anon75893681]

A poll is always subjective and about how players feel.

This mod is made by sleezy and others and they have the right to ask players who played the mod for their opinions, if you didn’t play it and you fill out this poll all you’re doing is influencing the results and kinda being a di€k. Everyone is free in giving their balance opinions, but try and do so on feedback categorie in a seperate post.

I’m not sure why you are hating on a balance feedback thread or mod? Even if fatshark doesn’t want to rebalance, why couldn’t playerd give their opinions?

This mod is no different then a traditional feedback thread, the only difference is that here players can actually test weapons. If i suggest a weapon to have more cleave, it’s hard to grasp how that translates into gameplay, and this mod does exactly that. It can also test if different swings or combo’s could fix a weapon. So this isnt really that differen’t from pure written feedback, and fatshark will treat it as such and if they like something take ideas from them. Csgo also has a guy who has a balance mod, and valve also takes idea from the mod, i don’t see that as a bad thing?

[Sleezy]

@astroVB

2H Hammer is too slow: this is a problem when you are surrounded and you haven’t the time to charge the heavy attacks (= it fails in its main work). I guess you buffed the push attack for this reason… but why you haven’t added TANK property too? Without TANK property, you can stagger very few enemies and the change you did is barely visible;

The Cleave/stagger profile is 8.48 mass and 22.64 mass respectively. You should still be able to stagger a substantial amount of mobs. We didn’t add tank because then the push stab would become too strong and too easy to use in my opinion. I hear what you’re saying though.

@astroVB

2H Sword : why you reduced the the buff to attack speed from 10% to 5%? 2H Sword’s heavy attacks should be fast (more or less) as Executioner Sword’s light attacks. In this way:

I agree. Although I believe the numbers were 15 and 10 respectively. The change was reduced due to a substantial amount of feedback saying it was overtuned.

@astroVB

Halberd : this is a complicated speech… could I know, in your opinion, where Halberd is better than Executioner Sword? Imho Halberd is overshadowed… I prefer the old version L1>L1>L3.

Halberd is more mobile although barely. It also has far better monster damage and better range which makes it safer. The change from L1 L1 L3 to the current chaining changes makes it where no attacks are removed. Previously L2 no longer existed. Also, it gives you an attack chain for every situation and makes the user think about what chain they should be using at a given time. @Incandescent actually handled all of the Halberd changes as he’s our resident Kruber main. He could probably speak to the thought process in more detail. I personally love the changes but that’s obviously my opinion.

@astroVB

Empire Longbow : the time before zoom is too long. This hurts when, for example, you must to kill a far Special. Moreover : what about more penetration? Crossbow hasn’t any delay to shoot and it has the same penetration…

The zoom is connected to the move slow. So you sacrifice the speedier zoom for far increased mobility. As far as cleave, w/ Empire longbow, you use the light charged arrow for hordes or left click during ult so it’s pretty fast, too. I think that’s a good point, though.

[astroVB]

First for all, thanks for the answer. It’s a pleasure speak about this mod.

@Sleezy

The Cleave/stagger profile is 8.48 mass and 22.64 mass respectively. You should still be able to stagger a substantial amount of mobs. We didn’t add tank because then the push stab would become too strong and too easy to use in my opinion. I hear what you’re saying though.

An “half way” could be a safer option? For example a small buff to the cleave?

@Sleezy

I agree. Although I believe the numbers were 15 and 10 respectively. The change was reduced due to a substantial amount of feedback saying it was overtuned.

I have understood, it’s comprensible… even if, sometime, the minority may be right in spite of the majority. I suppose it will be Fatshark’s decision.

@Sleezy

Halberd is more mobile although barely. It also has far better monster damage and better range which makes it safer. The change from L1 L1 L3 to the current chaining changes makes it where no attacks are removed. Previously L2 no longer existed. Also, it gives you an attack chain for every situation and makes the user think about what chain they should be using at a given time. @Incandescent actually handled all of the Halberd changes as he’s our resident Kruber main. He could probably speak to the thought process in more detail. I personally love the changes but that’s obviously my opinion.

This is true… but, dunno, I feel the disadvantages are more numerous than the advantages. Specially the combo L1>heavy feels… innatural? Like if the first attack didn’t stagger enough to let us to chain the second, heavy, one. Exe hasn’t this problem. Exe is better vs armors too. The mobility is, like you said, similar.
Dunno… maybe buff a little its mobility or give a little bit of more stagger on L1 could be an option?

But sure: I would be very happy to read @Incandescent opinion.

@Sleezy

The zoom is connected to the move slow. So you sacrifice the speedier zoom for far increased mobility. As far as cleave, w/ Empire longbow, you use the light charged arrow for hordes or left click during ult so it’s pretty fast, too. I think that’s a good point, though.

About penetration I had to be more precise. My bad. I would like to buff the penetration ONLY to Full Charged Shots.
It’s very frustrating when you want to kill a Special between an horde… but the arrow stops before reach the target. Specially if we consider that Empire Bow is a pretty slow weapons… it’s enough to think about Crossbow: it can shoot in hipfire without any delay, it has almost same damage (both can 1SBS Fire, Gatling, Assassin and 1SHS Leech, Stormer and Globadier)… and it has the same precision too. IMHO.

[Sleezy]

@astroVB

This is true… but, dunno, I feel the disadvantages are more numerous than the advantages. Specially the combo L1>heavy feels… innatural? Like if the first attack didn’t stagger enough to let us to chain the second, heavy, one. Exe hasn’t this problem. Exe is better vs armors too. The mobility is, like you said, similar.
Dunno… maybe buff a little its mobility or give a little bit of more stagger on L1 could be an option?

I actually like halberd better than X-sword, but I do value monster damage quite a bit and I like the safety of Halberd. Also, Halberd heavy does decent armor damage so it’s a pretty decent combo for mixed hordes. I think X-sword is a higher dps weapon overall, but Halberd isn’t too far behind and has some really strong tertiary benefits. As far as the unnatural feel of doing heavy/light. I like the way it feels, but I did occasionally have an issue with halberd heavy and light looking exactly the same and I would get lost as to where I was in the rotation. It took me probably two full games to get a rhythm for it. If FS were to adopt these chaining alterations, I would recommend they do something to differentiate the animations. That’s just not something we have the capability to do. Also, if you’re not running dodge distance on this weapon, it makes a HUGE difference.

@astroVB

About penetration I had to be more precise. My bad. I would like to buff the penetration ONLY to Full Charged Shots.
It’s very frustrating when you want to kill a Special between an horde… but the arrow stops before reach the target. Specially if we consider that Empire Bow is a pretty slow weapons… it’s enough to think about Crossbow: it can shoot in hipfire without any delay, it has almost same damage (both can 1SBS Fire, Gatling, Assassin and 1SHS Leech, Stormer and Globadier)… and it has the same precision too. IMHO.

IDK if you’re aware of this tech, but the biggest buff to Longbow is that you can now full charge while tapping the zoom button. You can do this in live, but it’s really easy to get stuck into a zoom which stops you and is just all the way bad. So you full charge your arrow and then just tap RMB. That way you always have an arrow fully charged while moving around at full speed. It really helps to mitigate the differences between xbow and manbow.

[Adelion]

I will not go into much detail. But I would say I miss questions like:

Did you feel we did not nerf certain weapons enough?
Did you feel we left out certain weapons which should have received a nerf?
Did you feel we buffed weapons which didn’t need a buff?
Do you agree with our baseline power for meta?

But the general problem with the poll is that you are forming an average over ALL changes which is bound to say … nothing of value. If Fatshark checks this and sees a number of 7 somewhere they know: Okay some changes may be cool others not. But which one? The data generated by this poll is not distinct enough. On the other hand creating polls distinct enough will be too detailed and scare off people.

The second problem is the participant bias. Let’s be overly optimistic and say we get 50 votes on this one. They will be majority from the users who were enthusiastic about the mod and already clearly in favour. People mainly against the changes have either skipped the mod directy or at least the poll, so their voice is not heard. While we have to argument fairly that each one HAD the chance to take part, it is not how it usually works in life. If people don’t like something, they will simply ignore it unless they are on an ideological/spiritual vendetta. Anyway, they poll will show an overwhelming favour of the changes.

In general and as personal opinion, I think there is exactly one and just one way to balance weapons (and talents and classes). And this is based purely on statistics. Speak: Are all weapons available for a character used equally over this character (in restricted cases, this class)? Have all weapons for a character the same success/failure quota on each difficulty? This is the data we would need to make objective statements and it is the data we have no access too.

Right now, if Fatshark checks which weapons are used they will see an imbalance in usage for example. Especially on one character they will see that one weapon is overused. While the source of this can be discussed (weapon is to strong versus alternatives are to weak), the issue is present. In my opinion, these upper outliers have not been adressed at all or not in a sufficient manner. They are overly used and strong because they do not fill a niche. They fill several niches like being strong against horde, being strong against mix horde, being strong against elites, having high survivability and defense properties all at the same time. No matter how much you create niches for other weapons, it will not solve the imbalance of usage because people will still use the allrounder as long as the allround has above average stats in all fields (and because people will avoid change if not beneficial enough for them). For the imbalance to be corrected the upper outliers have to be nerfed harder. They must be pressed in a more specific niche. And example would be that for example the being strong against horde would be changed to weak against horde. Or that if it is strong in offense, the survivability will be cracked down. We have not seen this for this mod. Also, “dps” is not a niche.

[Sleezy]

@Adelion

In general and as personal opinion, I think there is exactly one and just one way to balance weapons (and talents and classes). And this is based purely on statistics. Speak: Are all weapons available for a character used equally over this character (in restricted cases, this class)? Have all weapons for a character the same success/failure quota on each difficulty? This is the data we would need to make objective statements and it is the data we have no access too.

Only using this data to balance weapons would be foolhardy at best. People use different builds and classes for a myriad of reasons. Not necessarily related to the strength of the weapon. My go to in Cata QP is BH with volley Xbow or repeater pistol and falchion. Probably one of the worst builds in the game. I just find it fun.