Nobody aims and fires a pistol at the 0.1s speed cap (ignoring that sometimes scripts can bug out the ROF and fire faster). Not only that, but pistol scripts make it much easier to accurately squeeze off 5+ rounds.
@Roobubba, the ROF is already 0.1s and an increase to 0.15 would do very little to mitigate the benefit gained from scripts.
I would favour a 0.1 or 0.15s cap on the ROF but not full auto. Full auto would just make the pistol another lmg clip essentially, and that's less interesting than the one-click-one-bullet pistol we have now and had in NS1. But negating the benefits of scripts by a real, functioning ROF cap is a priority.
Click to fire being interesting isn't actually a thing though. There's plenty of legal ways of subverting it to max fire rate, which means that it's a flawed mechanic.
At the very least the developers should raise the rate of fire to an actual attainable number by most players, and perhaps slightly increase the damage in trade off, pistol scripts should not net you any advantage in the game as it is a pathetic practice and this is an easy fix to remedy that.
You can 2 finger mouse one and fire the pistol just as fast as any script out there.. and edakulous can do it with one finger.
Actually, doing that with one finger is easier than using two. Just tense up your arm and act like you're having muscle spasms. It doesn't matter since you'd be unable to properly aim, though. The mouse would violently shake vertically.
The rate of fire isn't important - there will still be scripts to make it full auto, and that will always be an unfair advantage. There's simply no way to prevent this, it's easier to aim when you're not repeatedly pressing the mouse button.
The rate of fire is important as evidenced by the fact that nobody complains about a scripted shotgun. Why? Because the refire is slow enough that a script doesn't help at all. Slowing the fire rate will destroy much of the unfair benefit gained from using a pistol script.
Granted but only if you're talking about a complete overhaul of the pistol. You would need to make it something like a fire rate of .5 to remove the advantage of the pistol script, and that has major balance repercussions.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited March 2013
I recorded this one a while back to compared NS to NS2 shooting, not using a pistolscript. And without a pistol script ~10bullets/s isn't that hard to achieve. However the problem is that you lose most of your aim control on the vertical axis. Horizontal moving targets are not really an issue (floor Skulks, Gorges, Gliding Lerks, Blinking Fades and the Fat Onos :P). Burst fire with the pistol is very situational and since we're dealing with bouncy Skulks for most of the game its mostly used on players who attack and retreat in straight lines...
Natural Selection 2 - NS Pistol versus NS2 Pistol
Reload was also much slower in NS and currently we spawn in with a full bandolier of shooty things, the war effort has made progress :P
Hey guys, i've been playing around with the macros on my g110 keyboard, and i've achieved some really really fast pistol macros since this thread. Although I havent' used it in a real game, as i developed the macros for testing, I'd like to note I can get the pistol to fire at a delay of 25 milliseconds (.025 seconds) in between each shot. This empties the clip (with latency) in about .36 seconds.
The thing to note is i'm not giving up any kind of accuracy, wherever i'm aiming when i press the button the clip empties. This is a problem and is very possible with any standard macro capable keyboard.
If anyone cares I can post a pic of the macro and show a video of it. It will even reload after emptying the clip. The only error is when the latency is high enough the game won't register all the clicks, and semi often only empties 9 bullets as it skips one bullet.
I would gladly support a slower pistol with higher damage per shot. It would really make the pistol animation a lot better. I would love to actually see that Luger reminiscent ejection detailed in the deluxe edition art book with each shot.
It would also relieve those situations where Lerks are killed by pistol macros/scripts firing enough damage to kill it one clip. As a Khamm, I watched one guy kill six of my Lerks with a script. It lost us the game because none of them could get anything done before they were killed.
the NS2 pistol is supposed to have the same ROF cap as the NS1 pistol, it just doesn't work. it's possible to bypass with scripts, seen here.
regarding scripts - although I do believe there is an element of skill involved in clicking repeatedly and tracking, it's a silly skill and a script will almost always be superior unless the time between shots is high enough. it's simpler to avoid the situation and just implement automatic fire as TF2 has done.
My mouse is very programmable and has a lot of buttons. By default one of the buttons is programmed to repeatedly and rapidly send M1 clicks, and this is explicitly touted by the manufacturer as intended to be a rapid fire mechanism for single-click-single-shot weapons. In other words, a "pistol script" built into the hardware, no actual script required.
I use it and I love it.
If I were playing in a competitive league where the league rules forbade such circumvention of the "one click one shot" pistol mechanism, then I wouldn't use it. But I don't, so I do.
If I thought that being able to rapidly press the mouse button was an interesting skill, then I wouldn't use it. But I don't, so I do.
I don't particularly care what the maximum fire rate is. If pistols are really fast, great. If they're really slow, great. The game will be fun either way and I'll enjoy myself either way. If it bothers you that I can fire the pistol full-auto faster than you can semi-auto, then by all means cap the fire rate at whatever speed makes you happy. Whether that's as fast as edakulous can fire, or as fast as you can fire, or as fast as my grandma can fire, whatever.
But whatever that max speed is, that's how fast I'm going to fire. Full-auto. Using my mouse's built-in "script". Because clicking as fast as you can is dumb.
The pistol doesnt have a fire rate cap currently, it is well known. The only thing that really needs to be fixed on the pistol is to cap it to 0.1s a shot.
The pistol doesnt have a fire rate cap currently, it is well known. The only thing that really needs to be fixed on the pistol is to cap it to 0.1s a shot.
It does have a fire rate cap, but it isn't 0.1. It should be though, but there's something buggy in the code making it possible to empty the clip in around half a second. Which would indeed step across the border of humanly possible shots. Heck after emptying the NS2 pistol in that video my hand did feel the strain, you simply can't keep that up indefinitely :P
0.1s is still far too fast because it opens the door to scripters gaining a large advantage over non scripters. You're pretty much encouraging scripters by leaving the pistol refire rate at 0.1s. As you can see from that guy above, they believe they're entitled to cheat because the game allows them to.
0.1s is still far too fast because it opens the door to scripters gaining a large advantage over non scripters. You're pretty much encouraging scripters by leaving the pistol refire rate at 0.1s. As you can see from that guy above, they believe they're entitled to cheat because the game allows them to.
Playing devil's advocate here for a second:
I'm hard pressed to blame the user in situations where developers introduce a mundane mechanic that's easily subverted by a variety of methods. It doesn't really matter where you try to draw the line of cheating vs non-cheating, when the non-cheating methods are basically identical to the cheat methods.
Case in point for the pistol, you can do the following:
Binding fire to keyboard, or binding multiple fire keys to keyboard. This allows you to mash rapidly without affecting mousehand aim.
Binding fire to mouse wheel, which allows you to scroll multiple inputs at the same time. Essentially giving max fire rate without affecting mousehand aim.
OR
Making a script where you hold down a key for max fire rate.
You can argue semantics all day and all night, but the reality is that there isn't much effective difference between any of the above beyond the word "script". The only real difference being that if you're under competition rules, you will use (or even just lie and say you're using) one of the legal approved methods. The problem is solely with a badly designed mechanic being kept in the game. Because making a mechanic that can be subverted with both legal methods/scripts alike is simply asking for pointless drama and meaningless distinctions.
Click to fire on a rapid fire weapon has been an awful mechanic in any PC game that has ever tried to use it. It's flawed, it's broken, and has absolutely no place in a game that's trying to foster a competitive community.
Really would like an official stance on this by UWE, if they say "Pistol scripts are cheating in our game", then yeah people can still do it. But they can't say it's not cheating.
Really would like an official stance on this by UWE, if they say "Pistol scripts are cheating in our game", then yeah people can still do it. But they can't say it's not cheating.
It's a meaningless distinction though. The word script is a dirty word, but the reality is that you can subvert the click to fire system in other ways that are seen as legal. The easiest (since binding to mouse wheel effectively is... tricky on some mice), is just binding additional keys to left click on your keyboard. You can set it up so that one finger can hit 2-3 keys in succession that all trigger left clicks. Meaning you can mash with that finger while still maintaining perfect mouse aim with your other hand.
0.1s is still far too fast because it opens the door to scripters gaining a large advantage over non scripters. You're pretty much encouraging scripters by leaving the pistol refire rate at 0.1s. As you can see from that guy above, they believe they're entitled to cheat because the game allows them to.
Playing devil's advocate here for a second:
I'm hard pressed to blame the user in situations where developers introduce a mundane mechanic that's easily subverted by a variety of methods. It doesn't really matter where you try to draw the line of cheating vs non-cheating, when the non-cheating methods are basically identical to the cheat methods.
Case in point for the pistol, you can do the following:
Binding fire to keyboard, or binding multiple fire keys to keyboard. This allows you to mash rapidly without affecting mousehand aim.
Binding fire to mouse wheel, which allows you to scroll multiple inputs at the same time. Essentially giving max fire rate without affecting mousehand aim.
OR
Making a script where you hold down a key for max fire rate.
You can argue semantics all day and all night, but the reality is that there isn't much effective difference between any of the above beyond the word "script". The only real difference being that if you're under competition rules, you will use (or even just lie and say you're using) one of the legal approved methods. The problem is solely with a badly designed mechanic being kept in the game. Because making a mechanic that can be subverted with both legal methods/scripts alike is simply asking for pointless drama and meaningless distinctions.
Click to fire on a rapid fire weapon has been an awful mechanic in any PC game that has ever tried to use it. It's flawed, it's broken, and has absolutely no place in a game that's trying to foster a competitive community.
You can't actually do any of this in NS2. You can't bind multiple keys to fire. You can't bind mouse wheel to fire. You need to use an outside macro program (ie autoit, hotkeyboard pro, razor synapse, standard macro keyboard software) to achieve this. If you could do any of these within the confines of NS2 then that may be an argument. But you can't.
I agree that the current pistol implementation is awful.
0.1 is not too fast imo, its pretty easy to click out he shots faster than that without much effort. When i tested various caps i found 0.08 to be closest to NS1 pistol speed (which did less damage).
0.1 is not too fast imo, its pretty easy to click out he shots faster than that without much effort. When i tested various caps i found 0.08 to be closest to NS1 pistol speed (which did less damage).
Again, that's not the end of the conversation. The TF2 pistol fires at a rate of .17 - and yet, Valve still chose to add automatic firing later on because they acknowledged the harmful impact of pistol scripts. Anyone can click the mouse button super fast, but doing so with steady aim is extremely difficult, whereas with a script it's effortless.
You can't actually do any of this in NS2. You can't bind multiple keys to fire. You can't bind mouse wheel to fire. You need to use an outside macro program (ie autoit, hotkeyboard pro, razor synapse, standard macro keyboard software) to achieve this. If you could do any of these within the confines of NS2 then that may be an argument. But you can't.
I agree that the current pistol implementation is awful.
Are you really at the level where you're going to call using mouse/keyboard software to rebind keys to different functions as cheating? Because I can't think of a single competitive game that's ever taken that ridiculous stance. It certainly doesn't violate the idea of 1 button press = 1 action at any rate.
Also, the term macro program is incorrect. Changing the function of a key is not a macro.
You can't actually do any of this in NS2. You can't bind multiple keys to fire. You can't bind mouse wheel to fire. You need to use an outside macro program (ie autoit, hotkeyboard pro, razor synapse, standard macro keyboard software) to achieve this. If you could do any of these within the confines of NS2 then that may be an argument. But you can't.
You can't adjust your gamma within the confines of NS2. You need an outside program to do it. Which, by your standards, would be cheating.
Good luck selling that one to the competitive community.
0.1 is not too fast imo, its pretty easy to click out he shots faster than that without much effort. When i tested various caps i found 0.08 to be closest to NS1 pistol speed (which did less damage).
Again, that's not the end of the conversation. The TF2 pistol fires at a rate of .17 - and yet, Valve still chose to add automatic firing later on because they acknowledged the harmful impact of pistol scripts. Anyone can click the mouse button super fast, but doing so with steady aim is extremely difficult, whereas with a script it's effortless.
I agree with this. It is much easier to just track a target while the pistol script is doing the clicking. At that point you are just brushing your target as opposed to performing the clicks and tracking.
I've been a victim of scripting and you can tell when a player is using it in a prolonged match.
You can't actually do any of this in NS2. You can't bind multiple keys to fire. You can't bind mouse wheel to fire. You need to use an outside macro program (ie autoit, hotkeyboard pro, razor synapse, standard macro keyboard software) to achieve this. If you could do any of these within the confines of NS2 then that may be an argument. But you can't.
You can't adjust your gamma within the confines of NS2. You need an outside program to do it. Which, by your standards, would be cheating.
Good luck selling that one to the competitive community.
I don't know anyone who adjusts their gamma with respect to NS2.
You can't actually do any of this in NS2. You can't bind multiple keys to fire. You can't bind mouse wheel to fire. You need to use an outside macro program (ie autoit, hotkeyboard pro, razor synapse, standard macro keyboard software) to achieve this. If you could do any of these within the confines of NS2 then that may be an argument. But you can't.
I agree that the current pistol implementation is awful.
Are you really at the level where you're going to call using mouse/keyboard software to rebind keys to different functions as cheating? Because I can't think of a single competitive game that's ever taken that ridiculous stance. It certainly doesn't violate the idea of 1 button press = 1 action at any rate.
Also, the term macro program is incorrect. Changing the function of a key is not a macro.
I think that using third party macro programs to remap keys can be considered cheating based on what you are doing with it. To rebind mousewheel to fire so you can effectively pistol script would be considered cheating in my opinion. I haven't given much thought to binding multiple keys to fire, but I don't think it would be as effective as a pistol script regardless.
Comments
@Roobubba, the ROF is already 0.1s and an increase to 0.15 would do very little to mitigate the benefit gained from scripts.
Click to fire being interesting isn't actually a thing though. There's plenty of legal ways of subverting it to max fire rate, which means that it's a flawed mechanic.
Actually, doing that with one finger is easier than using two. Just tense up your arm and act like you're having muscle spasms. It doesn't matter since you'd be unable to properly aim, though. The mouse would violently shake vertically.
Granted but only if you're talking about a complete overhaul of the pistol. You would need to make it something like a fire rate of .5 to remove the advantage of the pistol script, and that has major balance repercussions.
Just look at his aim. He can't even keep the mouse steady while he does it, let alone aim at a moving target, and that's the whole point.
Natural Selection 2 - NS Pistol versus NS2 Pistol
Reload was also much slower in NS and currently we spawn in with a full bandolier of shooty things, the war effort has made progress :P
The thing to note is i'm not giving up any kind of accuracy, wherever i'm aiming when i press the button the clip empties. This is a problem and is very possible with any standard macro capable keyboard.
It would also relieve those situations where Lerks are killed by pistol macros/scripts firing enough damage to kill it one clip. As a Khamm, I watched one guy kill six of my Lerks with a script. It lost us the game because none of them could get anything done before they were killed.
the NS2 pistol is supposed to have the same ROF cap as the NS1 pistol, it just doesn't work. it's possible to bypass with scripts, seen here.
regarding scripts - although I do believe there is an element of skill involved in clicking repeatedly and tracking, it's a silly skill and a script will almost always be superior unless the time between shots is high enough. it's simpler to avoid the situation and just implement automatic fire as TF2 has done.
I use it and I love it.
If I were playing in a competitive league where the league rules forbade such circumvention of the "one click one shot" pistol mechanism, then I wouldn't use it. But I don't, so I do.
If I thought that being able to rapidly press the mouse button was an interesting skill, then I wouldn't use it. But I don't, so I do.
I don't particularly care what the maximum fire rate is. If pistols are really fast, great. If they're really slow, great. The game will be fun either way and I'll enjoy myself either way. If it bothers you that I can fire the pistol full-auto faster than you can semi-auto, then by all means cap the fire rate at whatever speed makes you happy. Whether that's as fast as edakulous can fire, or as fast as you can fire, or as fast as my grandma can fire, whatever.
But whatever that max speed is, that's how fast I'm going to fire. Full-auto. Using my mouse's built-in "script". Because clicking as fast as you can is dumb.
Playing devil's advocate here for a second:
I'm hard pressed to blame the user in situations where developers introduce a mundane mechanic that's easily subverted by a variety of methods. It doesn't really matter where you try to draw the line of cheating vs non-cheating, when the non-cheating methods are basically identical to the cheat methods.
Case in point for the pistol, you can do the following:
Binding fire to keyboard, or binding multiple fire keys to keyboard. This allows you to mash rapidly without affecting mousehand aim.
Binding fire to mouse wheel, which allows you to scroll multiple inputs at the same time. Essentially giving max fire rate without affecting mousehand aim.
OR
Making a script where you hold down a key for max fire rate.
You can argue semantics all day and all night, but the reality is that there isn't much effective difference between any of the above beyond the word "script". The only real difference being that if you're under competition rules, you will use (or even just lie and say you're using) one of the legal approved methods. The problem is solely with a badly designed mechanic being kept in the game. Because making a mechanic that can be subverted with both legal methods/scripts alike is simply asking for pointless drama and meaningless distinctions.
Click to fire on a rapid fire weapon has been an awful mechanic in any PC game that has ever tried to use it. It's flawed, it's broken, and has absolutely no place in a game that's trying to foster a competitive community.
I don't think it's cheating.
It's a meaningless distinction though. The word script is a dirty word, but the reality is that you can subvert the click to fire system in other ways that are seen as legal. The easiest (since binding to mouse wheel effectively is... tricky on some mice), is just binding additional keys to left click on your keyboard. You can set it up so that one finger can hit 2-3 keys in succession that all trigger left clicks. Meaning you can mash with that finger while still maintaining perfect mouse aim with your other hand.
More than one input per button press or key click is generally considered cheating unless it is supported by in game macro functionality.
This is akin to the pink skulks mod. You may not think it's cheating, but I'm betting that most people will.
You can't actually do any of this in NS2. You can't bind multiple keys to fire. You can't bind mouse wheel to fire. You need to use an outside macro program (ie autoit, hotkeyboard pro, razor synapse, standard macro keyboard software) to achieve this. If you could do any of these within the confines of NS2 then that may be an argument. But you can't.
I agree that the current pistol implementation is awful.
Again, that's not the end of the conversation. The TF2 pistol fires at a rate of .17 - and yet, Valve still chose to add automatic firing later on because they acknowledged the harmful impact of pistol scripts. Anyone can click the mouse button super fast, but doing so with steady aim is extremely difficult, whereas with a script it's effortless.
Are you really at the level where you're going to call using mouse/keyboard software to rebind keys to different functions as cheating? Because I can't think of a single competitive game that's ever taken that ridiculous stance. It certainly doesn't violate the idea of 1 button press = 1 action at any rate.
Also, the term macro program is incorrect. Changing the function of a key is not a macro.
You can't adjust your gamma within the confines of NS2. You need an outside program to do it. Which, by your standards, would be cheating.
Good luck selling that one to the competitive community.
I agree with this. It is much easier to just track a target while the pistol script is doing the clicking. At that point you are just brushing your target as opposed to performing the clicks and tracking.
I've been a victim of scripting and you can tell when a player is using it in a prolonged match.
You can adjust gamma directly on a bunch of different monitors as well, without interacting with the PC on any level.
I don't know anyone who adjusts their gamma with respect to NS2.
I think that using third party macro programs to remap keys can be considered cheating based on what you are doing with it. To rebind mousewheel to fire so you can effectively pistol script would be considered cheating in my opinion. I haven't given much thought to binding multiple keys to fire, but I don't think it would be as effective as a pistol script regardless.