Jump Shot Settings

[10001110101]

After a lengthy discussion at the admin meeting the following was agreed upon:

Jump shot setting will remain at 70% damage for the next week so that everyone can have time to assess the change. Each week that damage modifier will increase by 10%. At the end of the month we will address this again in the next admin meeting. So week 2 will be 80%, week 3 90%, and week 4 back to full 100%.

This forum is for discussion regarding this series of changes over the next month. All opinions and discussion from guest and members alike is welcome here for this topic. Please don't introduce other variables into the mix. Let's focus on one thing at a time.

At the next admin meeting the discussion here will be considered and a vote will be taken at that time as to which of those settings to keep.

EDIT: Borch/Shart can one of you put a message on the server regarding this? Just something to let ppl know a change is being tried and this is the best place for feedback. Thanks!

[10001110101]

I thought I'd take a second to try and detail what this is about because it is possible it's not clear to everyone what we're even talking about. There are two "issues" at play. One involves rifle players jumping (generally to see over an obstacle) and shooting enemies while they are in the air. Some people really dislike this/find it unfair and feel like it confers some advantage over other types of shots and isn't "realistic". Some others see it as a viable part of the game that is readily available for everyone to learn in an arcade style game where we die and resurrect repeatedly. The second issue is in regard to close quarter interactions where a player jumps around to avoid being shot. Again, some feel that this somehow lessens damage the jumper takes, makes their own shots register better, etc., and again strains the bounds of realism. Others shrug and consider it a well established mechanic of the game. What constitutes abuse of a mechanic in either case is obviously a subjective matter and hard data if it exists has so far not been easily found.

The current changes reduce the damage a player is able to inflict while they are in air. So currently if you jump and fire that bullet delivers 70% of the damage of a bullet fired standing still. Thus making jumping and shooting significantly less effective with the aim of reducing the amount of jumping and shooting on the server.

So that is what is being tested. So far I havne't heard a good way to solve these issues independent of each other but I have an idea to run past Borch that focuses on close quarters which might allow us to then deal with them one at a time. If you have suggestions this is the venue to bring it up.

I tried to create this post without being uncharitable to the positions as I see them but I'm obviously not unbiased in this discussion so if you feel I've misrepresented the issue at hand feel free to put your own spin on it.

[Borch]

Note that it is accepted that doing a jump shot increases the amount of damage done, for whatever reason, making it easier to kill a target.

[Jerms]

Note that it is accepted that doing a jump shot increases the amount of damage done, for whatever reason, making it easier to kill a target.

Not sure who this is "accepted" by, and frankly is doesn't matter, because that is false information and I am unsure why you would want to throw that at the end of binary's post were he was kind enough to lay out what was happening for everyone to follow.

[bonehill]

There has to be some balance here - and I think it matters and it is accepted by a majority that jump shooting works,has been more effective in killing than standing still and shooting. Its akin to having nades that destroy all within 50 yds rather than 10 yds for example or perhaps slinging your rifle out on its shoulder strap to bash someone 4 yards away and who wants that! The simple question is going to be how many want it to continue so those with the skill to carry it our can utilise it against how many dont think it should be part of the game for whatever reasons. Then how many will live with the vote and continue to play!

[10001110101]

Sunday was tense at times so if I gave the impression that I take the premise that jump shots do more damage as one that should generally be "accepted" I can only shrug and offer apologies as that would not have been my intent. I thought where I stand on the issue was clear to everyone but for clarity sake minus some data that shows me otherwise I agree with Jerms that the idea that jump shots deal more damage doesn't subjectively ring true to my experience playing the game.

I'm trying to keep my thoughts to myself in this venue for now but at some point I'll attempt to put them into order. I'm typically direct and can be cantankerous at the best of times. My health of late has not been the best of times so I'm admittedly not going to be confused for a bundle of sunshine. With the admin meeting having been tense at times I may have said things poorly or not articulated things in a way that was easily understood. If it felt like I was personally coming at anyone I hope you'll be charitable and chalk it up to something other than me trying to deliberately be an ass. I'm trying to open my mind to reasons that justify changing multiple mechanics of a game that have been there for 15+ years. I'm struggling but I'm trying. I'm hopeful there's a compromise or solution that placates everyone.

Happie and I did a bit of testing on the 70% setting but I'd like to get with him and replicate it again as well as get a larger sample before I share all of it but during the 10 or so mins we went back and forth trying various things there wasn't an instance where shooting a player while descending from being in the air resulted in a kill.... excepting the headshot of course. That bit about this effect happening while descending should also be brought up and detailed as well but I'll save that for later as well.

[Borch]

Sigh. In chatting with folks about this, such as Auburn, they discussed the boost during jumping as a fact, also claiming that it made the shooter more susceptible to injury, though the jump is often used to hide, jump out and hide again, so that would mute it. There was no mention of this generally-accepted impression made in Binary's post, so I added it. I didn't realize that there were those who disagree with that, especially one who benefits from it quite often.

Labeling it as "false information" is in itself false.

Note that it is accepted that doing a jump shot increases the amount of damage done, for whatever reason, making it easier to kill a target.

Not sure who this is "accepted" by, and frankly is doesn't matter, because that is false information and I am unsure why you would want to throw that at the end of binary's post were he was kind enough to lay out what was happening for everyone to follow.

[10001110101]

Here's what I've seen to date. Some of it is just factual of what happened when we purposely tried to test something and some of it is just my subjective experience of these changes.

70%- Jump shots won't kill anyone unless you hit them in the head. Happie and I tested this a bit but did not gather a large sample of data. We tried shooting each other in the legs, arms, lower torso, and upper torso each doing it a couple of times to each area. I haven't seen anything in game at other times that makes me think our experience was unique.

80%- Anything in the torso seems to be effective at killing. Extremities generally did not produce a death. Jun and I played around doing the same as I did with Happie but we didn't stay at it very long. But we both agreed torso seemed to be effective and extremities were not. My in game experience has been that a few shots tanked that I felt like were on target but nothing I felt was an extreme outlier from how our server has played previously.

I've been unable to play as much as I'd like and due to health I'm distracted at best right now....so I don't really have a great feel for 80% but it SEEMS to be reasonably fair in that it gives you a decent likelihood of killing the person.

I have no idea how to evaluate what effect either percentage change has had on close quarter interactions. I jump at times but not enough that with my limited sample of play time this week I was able to tell a huge difference. But that's not the way I typically play so it would have to be drastic for me to notice it I think. Maybe Bobert can chime in at some point and tell us what he feels his experience has been. Chompers is going to jump like crazy no matter what percentage you put it at I suspect.

One thing I mentioned previously was that any time you are descending this damage modifier is in effect. So if you walk out the opening in the mid tower on Bandit and shoot someone as you fall the modifier treats it like you jumped. Same if you fall out of the german spawn tower etc. This was at 70% I didn't test it at 80%. There are a million little places where this can happen and was one of the more frustrating things for me while it was at 70%. I suspect at 80% torso will kill while falling. But that's just me guessing.

If 80% doesn't impact the close quarters guys hugely my opinion is it seems like a fairly decent compromise for the jump shooters. But that's just my subjective opinion and I don't want to throw the shotgun users under the bus if it's making their game change any more than those of us using rifles. So some input from more people on both ends of this spectrum is probably a good thing. I've done my best to direct people to the forums but for whatever reason those who are willing to voice an opinion there won't do so here.

[Borch]

I plan on analyzing the logs, comparing each week to each other when this is done.

There is a setting that adjusts how much of a change in altitude in the map it takes for the jumpshot to come into play.

I haven’t even tried to figure out how to handle altitude change from the regular logs, I don’t think there’s a way to do it, but what we can do is try to see how it affects it in a controlled situation, where we have a map with some hills on it, and have people move over there from places and see when it’s activated or not.

[Borch]

I wrote a python program to extract the data from the game logs and format it for importing it into a mysql database on the server. I imported it into a mysql database and then experimented with different ways to analyze the data.
The columns of data are:
|server_time|event|vguid|aguid|weapon|damage_done|projectile|hit_loc|base_damage|loc_boost|calc_jump_reduction|theory_reduction|date|client|

Sample of data in the mysql file. There are 426028 rows of data in the database.

mysql.png (106.29 KiB) Viewed 13389 times

• server_time - the number of seconds since the server started
  event - K or D, kill or Damage
  vguid - victim guid
  aguid - attacker guid
  weapon - weapon used
  damage_done - actual damage done in the game
  projectile - the type of projectile used by that weapon
  hit_loc - location where the bullet hit (determines any boosts to the base_damage
  base_damage - the base damage of the weapon
  loc_boost - the boost to the base_damage of the weapon because of the hit location on the target
  calc_jump_reduction - the actual damage done, divided by the base damage and the loc_boost
  theory_reduction - the reduction to the damage amount, based on the setting on this date
  date - the date
  client - the name of the attacker

Calculation derived from the database.

shots.png (133.34 KiB) Viewed 13389 times

• Jump shots tanked is a count of the number of times a shot would have killed, except for the reduction due to the jump setting.
• The total shots is a count of the total number of shots, damage or kill, on that day.
• Jump tank percent is the percentage of times that the jump shot reduction caused a damage instead of a kill, as a fraction of the total shots.
• Other tanks is a count of the number of times that death did not happen, only damage, NOT caused by the reduction setting % of the hit.
• Other tanks percent is a percentage of other tanks of the total shots that caused death or damage on that date.
• Reduction Setting % of the hit is the reduction amount of the damage when a jump was detected.

I did not analyze melees in regard to this.

Note that I discovered that there are at least one other cause of damage reduction, maybe more, as there is an Extreme hit reduction due to range of the target. There might be some others as well.

I am not sure why the 90% reduction seems to increase the counts. It might be that some other reduction in the game is contributing to that. (Or maybe I have an error in my analysis efforts).