Ive been trying to avoid too many weapon balance discussions with Gears 3 because until recently we havent had much data to definitely act from. But, with the recent release of a chunk of data, it seems a good time to weigh in and give my personal take on the weapon balance issues.
Before I do though, I should preface this with the note that these are my personal opinions, and while I do have a design role with Epic, I am far from an authority on these matters. Design decisions are typically made in a room with a large group of people debating things heavily (and at length). So, dont take these opinions as a statement of what Epic is going to do. Im just one voice on the team, not on the MP team, and far from the most influential.
Forgive the WALL OF TEXT!!!
When I was in High School and the earth was forming, I played the ever-loving hell out of an arcade game called Cyberball (think mechs playing football). I was religious about it. My friends would ride our dinosaurs out to the arcade at Putt-Putt and shovel hard earned cash into that machine multiple times a week. One of my closest friends was even more hardcore about Cyberball, and extremely skilled. He would hand me my ass every time we would play. Typically he would score about 5 touchdowns in a game with his bad ass running game and titanium running-back tactics, and I was hell bent on making a passing game work (not smart if you know the game well). Typically I would score 1 or maybe 2 times to his 5. Without fail, each of my hail mary scores would result in a fist pounding controller wrenching fit and screams of WHAT!? THATS BULLSH*T! I maybe won 3 or 4 games in as many years, but the challenging opponent made it worthwhile.
Im sure you know where Im going with this, but there are two schools of design thought for this. On one hand theres the argument that hes the superior player, and I should be incapable of scoring on him, this is a game of skill damnit! In his mind, any success on my part should be attributed to luck or cheap tactics. On the other hand is the school of thought that some randomness is good, keeps the game interesting, and in acceptable amounts it doesnt remove skill from a game (consider Poker as exhibit A).
The reality is that on the whole, he was winning the games, over and over and over. His skill made the overall victories happen, but it was not an absolute skunk every game.
I firmly believe that if youre skilled with the Gnasher
you are on average winning your games (or at least losing to people who are also good with Gnashers). You can correctly say Gears is a game about Gnashers based on that belief, and I would agree with you. But, its not a game exclusively about Gnashers. Theres valid arguments to be made for all Gnasher playlists and special events, but overall Gears multiplayer, is not that experience.
I ask, somewhat rhetorically, Does a skilled player really want a lesser player to be zero threat to them? Is that rewarding? Even a mediocre player like me knows theres joy in occasionally finding yourself in a match where you outclass everyone and slaughter them like helpless sheep. But thats not a game that continues to be interesting or worthwhile to play. You dont get better, youre not growing, and the rewards are short lived indeed.
If youre the one outclassed in a match, a game where youre never effective is one you wont go back to. You dont mind losing the games, but there has to be moments of success for everyone.
Ive heard several times, including responding to someone just earlier today, that the sawed off ruins shotgun duels for them. They approach someone, and that person fires their sawed off at them and runs away screaming. I maintain that that encounter was never going to be a duel. That person is clearly not skilled with a Gnasher (or they would prefer it) and would not have been a participant in a showdown anyway
they would simply have been gibs, and statistically are most of the time. Given a handful of those encounters that person would likely never come back to the game, and the reputation of Gears as being impossible to enjoy online would perpetuate.
Earn the kill.
An enemy who is not at least minimally dangerous to you is not a rewarding one to kill. It gets old, quick. Change your mindset to one where you actually enjoy the fact that even new players have to be given some degree of consideration. Youre always playing with fire, but thats what makes the risk and reward worth it. A tense play environment is part of the enjoyment. Paying attention to the environment and how you approach an enemy is as much a part of the experience as how quickly you can red-mist them.
As a whole I dont see people complaining that the Gnasher is broken. We tried very hard this time around to get that weapon feeling better, to make it more consistent, and have dedicated servers helping with fairness. What I mostly hear is concerns that other weapons are now effective, and thats interfering with how some want to play the game. My personal opinion is that I want a one-weapon game about as much as I want a fighting game with one character that everyone uses and is clearly the best. A variety of play styles makes the game more fun for players of all types, even Gnasher players who might not realize it.
Hiding around corners isnt the sole domain of the Sawed-off, its long been the tactic of Gnasher players, chainsaw fans, nade taggers, and nearly everyone who does anything besides run straight at opponents since Gears 1 was released and people realized the camera position meant they could get away with it.
Beyond Melee range is a term I wrote for the area very near a player. I can see the confusion, and apologize for the wording; its never been meant as a specific technical term describing a precise range equal to that of your weapon bonk. We would never include such specific data in the interface, as those attributes can change with updates.
To call the Sawed-off the Anti-Gnasher isnt quite accurate, maybe I said it in some random interview I dont recall, but that has never been the heart of it. There are people who simply dont get the Gnasher, and suck with it regardless of practice. The Sawed-off is meant to be an effective option for those players, a useful tool to keep in that half of the inventory, and a means of mixing up the combat.
Epic does not hate Gnasher users, far from it. I personally fought very hard for the improvements to the weapon, and of course most of you know that feedback was from productive members of the forum here. But I dont have to hate the Gnasher to want other weapons and tactics to be useful in the game as well. Dont confuse my motivations.
The community will always change as the game ages, and the populations skill levels adjust over time. Ive personally seen several people at the office who couldnt use a Gnasher to save their lives get used to the Sawed-off and close quarters combat; but they still lose to Gnasher users, and eventually decide to give the weapon a fair shake and have become Gnasher converts.
Stats still show the Gnasher is clearly the way to go for those skilled in its use, and thats absolutely fine with me. Just try to change your mindset a bit when the bottom couple guys in a match kill you once in a while
A few closing thoughts:
Twitter is a sh*t format for debate, anything said there sounds curt. Im *obviously* a wordy bloke, and 140 characters isnt a useful format for these discussions. If I respond to someone in less than 5 sentences I feel like Im being a jackass. I respect you guys opinions, and I dont want to flood my feed with short responses dying to be taken out of context and turned into flame fuel.
The argument someone made here that the only way to get things changed is to be loud and post frequently is a fallacy, I assure you. We listen to well thought out concerns and make changes based on persuasive arguments. We also heavily buy into statistics to support perceptions of people on every side of a debate. We, as much as all of you, have perceptions that are based on play tests and often find the data to not support what we thought initially.
The change to DBS range is not huge. Dont expect a huge reaction if you send me videos of meticulously set up test cases pointing out minor pixel differences in weapons. The proof is in the practical application of weapons and final results are in the form of statistics, not in comparing properties of a weapon.
If you are making a video, show everything before and after the kill, dont get clever with your editing, it blows your case. There were some vids of the retro supposedly killing people blind-fired in Trenches that upon framing through revealed clearly they were being shot by a lancer from the side at the same time. Another showed someone supposedly getting one-shot sniped, of course theres about a 5% omen visible, which at the time meant he was less than half health, and clearly the editor knew this
but cropped the video as tightly as possible for maximum outrage. You wont find us debunking these sorts of things every time they arise or defending the vids on YouTube, so, use your own skeptic filters please.
Montage videos are not proof of imbalance. If that was the case, the Gnasher would have been long ago nerfed, because God knows there are enough videos out there of people raging hell on an opposing team with a Gnasher. Theres not a weapon out there without several montage videos that make it look overpowered.
When you make a video of someone running at you and dying, or showing me that the sawed off has a wider cone of effectiveness than the Gnasher, I will stand by my assessment of yes, thats how its meant to be. It is supposed to have a wider cone, and it does do more damage than the Gnasher in its effective range.
For what its worth, Im not heavily involved in the continuing maintenance of Gears 3 MP, so if you think Im the devil, rest easy and harrass Quinn and Knepley and Rod instead, hahaha
I continue to respect the hell out of you guys and gals opinions on the game, and seriously value the time you take to come here and participate in the community. There are definitely things I have to agree to disagree on with many of you, but I will never regret reading a well thought out argument for something, and Im always willing to state a case to my coworkers when Ive been convinced of something here.
