M4A1 vs Mk18

[APSInc]

I wanted to know what the functional difference between the two weapons are. I know they are available to different classes, and that the ammo mods for the Mk18 seem to have different damage models from default (according to the wiki).

However, other than this minor difference, they seem to be stat clones of each other. Same recoil, RoF, selective fire modes, base damage and accuracy, and even the same weight, weight points, and supply cost.

I really like using both weapons, but at the moment I'm confused as to why I might take one over the other (in say, the specialist class).

What are your reasons for taking one over the other, and are there other differences that I'm not aware of?

Discuss!

[Dr.Wholian?]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr. Death:

Does the FAL at least uses the same stats as the MK14?

Damage and mag size are the same, recoil is slightly higher, but still only 33% greater than the AKM, which is a far cry from the difference in real life. IRL the Mk14 is actually heavier than the FAL, which means it would have less recoil.... but still at least 72% more than the AKM.

This is a relative comparison (each weapon's value divided by that of the lowest recoil weapon) which shows how on the whole recoil differences in Insurgency are about 1/3 that of real life:

http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/b500/Gnalvl/insvsrl_zps98d5d7f1.png

IRL a Mk14 or FAL has about 10x the recoil of an MP40. In game, they have less than 3x the recoil of an MP40. In general, the differences are watered-down and inconsequential.

A better arsenal would look like this:

http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/b500/Gnalvl/ihaveadream_zpsa6a1b5ae.png

[jballou]

As you can see at my stats parser[jballou.com] they are indeed very similar. There are a few problems here.

One, this isn't designed as a realistic shooter in a lot of ways, it is a tactical shooter. That has a lot of overlap with realism, but that's not the primary goal. So there will be some aspects of the game that make nerds like Wholian and myself immediately raise the BS flag, but it's all done to keep the actual gameplay in line with what we're trying to do, and sometimes that means doing something that sacrifices raw realism to keep it working smoothly. Having joined the team has helped me get a better perspective on this side of things and I understand it and grudgingly agree with it most of the time now.

Two, in real life, effective differences in terminal ballistics of different weapons are not as varied as you'd been led to believe by Hollywood. If you take a hit to the upper torso from any modern assault rifle, you're probably going to go down, and be in serious trouble without prompt medical attention. And the variations of the real world mean that it becomes even blurrier, I hate to bring in anecdotal stories to the discussion, but I have seen a man shot 15 times still functioning in a fight, and I have seen a man shot in the wrist with one round from an M16A1 that ended up killing him almost instantly. The bizzare effects of physics and physiology aren't well represented in game, and would be exceedingly difficult to implement without causing the game to turn into a random number festival.

So, all that said, I can understand the desire to make the weapons a bit more differentiated and better balanced. I am always reading these threads and try to take the ideas and feedback to the larger community and developers to see what can be done, but bear in mind some stuff (i.e. the weight and recoil of the M14) are done to keep the game balanced, not to accurately portray realistic attributes. That said, if anyone has some suggestions for better ways to balance or differentiate the weapons, I'm all ears.

[Dr. Death]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από =7Cav=CPL.Ballou.J:

As you can see at my stats parser[jballou.com] they are indeed very similar. There are a few problems here.

One, this isn't designed as a realistic shooter in a lot of ways, it is a tactical shooter. That has a lot of overlap with realism, but that's not the primary goal. So there will be some aspects of the game that make nerds like Wholian and myself immediately raise the BS flag, but it's all done to keep the actual gameplay in line with what we're trying to do, and sometimes that means doing something that sacrifices raw realism to keep it working smoothly. Having joined the team has helped me get a better perspective on this side of things and I understand it and grudgingly agree with it most of the time now.

Two, in real life, effective differences in terminal ballistics of different weapons are not as varied as you'd been led to believe by Hollywood. If you take a hit to the upper torso from any modern assault rifle, you're probably going to go down, and be in serious trouble without prompt medical attention. And the variations of the real world mean that it becomes even blurrier, I hate to bring in anecdotal stories to the discussion, but I have seen a man shot 15 times still functioning in a fight, and I have seen a man shot in the wrist with one round from an M16A1 that ended up killing him almost instantly. The bizzare effects of physics and physiology aren't well represented in game, and would be exceedingly difficult to implement without causing the game to turn into a random number festival.

So, all that said, I can understand the desire to make the weapons a bit more differentiated and better balanced. I am always reading these threads and try to take the ideas and feedback to the larger community and developers to see what can be done, but bear in mind some stuff (i.e. the weight and recoil of the M14) are done to keep the game balanced, not to accurately portray realistic attributes. That said, if anyone has some suggestions for better ways to balance or differentiate the weapons, I'm all ears.

You could take it as "realism IS balance". You could make the SKS replace the AC instead of that being the FAL, and make the FAL be the new automatic marksman rifle for the insurgents. While i understand the way bullet wounds work, please do understand that most of the recent cases in modern warfare about unarmored soldiers taking several hits and still walking has more to do with the 5.56 the modern US military use is an M855A1, wich fragments very little, and it works even worse since the insurgents use adrenaline to keep fighting longer. Whatever results you might see or cases from the middle east warfare from people getting shot and being "fine" does not apply since in those cases they were drugged. I have seen cases of insurgents taking nearly 30 5.56 to the chest and still being able to fire a gun. That does not mean i can use that case as a realistic source.

[Dr.Wholian?]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από =7Cav=CPL.Ballou.J:

So, all that said, I can understand the desire to make the weapons a bit more differentiated and better balanced. I am always reading these threads and try to take the ideas and feedback to the larger community and developers to see what can be done, but bear in mind some stuff (i.e. the weight and recoil of the M14) are done to keep the game balanced, not to accurately portray realistic attributes. That said, if anyone has some suggestions for better ways to balance or differentiate the weapons, I'm all ears.

How is it balanced to have a weapon which deals double the damage of everything else (i.e. FAL/Mk14 and their one hit kills) suffer only 33% greater recoil? Both real physics AND gameplay balance agree with the principal of "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".

For pure gameplay's sake, if the skill requirement is not up to par with the weapon's power, then balance is lost and a weapon is getting buffs for free. The Mk14 and FAL are supposed to be geared towards making single shots count rather than spamming bullets - if their recoil is low enough to allow bullet spam on par with assault rifles, then they aren't really filling their role in any meaningful way - they are just assault rifles with free additional damage.

As for the Mk18 vs. M4A1, the painfully obvious truth is that NWI simply intended to provide two different skins for the exact same weapon to provide a superficial appearance of class variety without any actual functional variety. If the game's weapon collision and weight systems were implemented properly, then there would be no risk of imbalance, because any damage decrease would come with speed and CQB advantages which are the ENTIRE point of the Mk18.

Balance is not in any way a valid excuse to just make everything the same. That's a cop out, plain and simple.

If the goal is to create a balanced tactical game with only incidental observance of realism, then game mechanics should accentuate tactical differences between each weapon as much as possible. Instead what we see in Insurgency is a system where a marksman, rifleman, and pointman are all tactically identical and differ only in their job title and the cosmetic skin that goes on their rifle. The end result is that there are no tactics to using your class, the class system is basically worthless, and the game isn't actually very tactical.

Fear of variation is not the same as balance. If every racer in Mario Kart had the same stats as Mario, then one might say that the game is "balanced" but what they really mean is "identical", the roster would be worthless, and the game would be ♥♥♥♥.

[Dr. Death]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr.Wholian?:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από =7Cav=CPL.Ballou.J:

You dont get it. Balance does not mean realism, Realism means balance. You said it yourself, the REAL physics law would be "for every force, there is a division in between the opposite and the same consequence" But i am not getting into that, the point is, while i understand Ballou point, no gun is OP without a consequence. Real life guns have always an advantage and a disadvantage. FAL has 20 rounds mags and a lot of recoil, and IMO, terrible iron sights, AK 74 deals good penetration and better accuracy than the 47, yet deals with much lower stopping power, Etc. Having realistic guns and implementing them right means they auto balance themselves. If they dont, then there is a problem with the way weapons are implemented, either from engine limitations to developer's fault or something else.

[Dr.Wholian?]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr. Death:

While i understand the way bullet wounds work, please do understand that most of the recent cases in modern warfare about unarmored soldiers taking several hits and still walking has more to do with the 5.56 the modern US military use is an M855A1, wich fragments very little, and it works even worse since the insurgents use adrenaline to keep fighting longer. Whatever results you might see or cases from the middle east warfare from people getting shot and being "fine" does not apply since in those cases they were drugged. I have seen cases of insurgents taking nearly 30 5.56 to the chest and still being able to fire a gun. That does not mean i can use that case as a realistic source.

You have it somewhat backwards, as it was regular M855 which was used for the vast majority of combat and Iraq and Afghanistan and exhibited a well-documented failure to fragment due to angle of attack, fleet yaw, and sub-2700 FPS velocities. M855A1 has been designed to match the fragmenting behavior of Mk318 so that fragmentation is not dependent on yaw, angle or velocity to occur.

Its true that some failure-to-stop scenarios involved insurgents on drugs, but not all of them did. There are well-documented cases of combatants continuing to fight despite suffering multiple gunshot wounds leading back to Vietnam, Korea, WWII, and WWI through all calibers including M193 5.56mm, 7.62x39mm, 7.62x51, .30-07, 7.92x57mm and even anti-material calibers.

[Dr.Wholian?]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr. Death:

You dont get it. Balance does not mean realism, Realism means balance. You said it yourself, the REAL physics law would be "for every force, there is a division in between the opposite and the same consequence" But i am not getting into that, the point is, while i understand Ballou point, no gun is OP without a consequence. Real life guns have always an advantage and a disadvantage. FAL has 20 rounds mags and a lot of recoil, and IMO, terrible iron sights, AK 74 deals good penetration and better accuracy than the 47, yet deals with much lower stopping power, Etc. Having realistic guns and implementing them right means they auto balance themselves. If they dont, then there is a problem with the way weapons are implemented, either from engine limitations to developer's fault or something else.

Oh, I totally get it...I have been arguing those exact points in this community since before the game was officially released two years ago, and built an extensive mod base don that principle which made drastic revisions to recoil and damage based on things like wound profiles and free-recoil calculations.

However, the sad fact remains that most people don't understand this, and unless you spell out for them the way a weapon's particular real life attributes lead to gameplay balance, they will assume that realism hurts gameplay and that everything should be implemented in a homogenous way which contradicts real life for no legitimate reason besides fear of the unknown.

[Dr. Death]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr.Wholian?:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr. Death:

But to each its own. In real life the main reason that makes a weapon better than the others its the price or maintenance/availability, etc. things that civilian owners know (this is all thanks to me lurking on /k/) But yeah, a gun for each situation, the MP40 could be used if it gets implemented with nearly the same stats as the MP5, just like it should be. The M249 has TERRIBLE accuracy compared to real life (tested on very-long-range mod maps) but the game does not simulate real weight of the guns.

You always see machineguns in games like ArmA perform nearly perfectly due to its great magazine/box, rate of fire, and the such (wich makes them perfect weapons for CQB) because no game so far has made weight in guns matter. The closest thing to that would be ArmA 3 with the half-assed way of making the gun less straight depending on its weight when its moving. However, it seems no dev want to make it realistic and have the weight increase or decrease mouse software accel.

But even if that previously mentioned sistem does not gets introduced, the M249 might still be balanced due to its low accuracy, but again, real life guns are balanced perfectly.

[Dr.Wholian?]

In my Insurgency mod I implemented an enhanced weight system in which weapon weight is affected by attachments, reduces recoil, but has a negative impact on free-aim area and standing/unsupported sway. So whether you are piling optics, bipods, etc. onto a rifle or choosing an LMG over a rifle entirely - everything you gain from weight in recoil absorption you will pay for with consequences.

Basically when you try to fire an LMG without ADS (point shooting) you are far more likely to miss the target initially due to misjudging point of impact, requiring you to spend more time walking your fire into the target. When even though sustain fire will land in a relatively tight cone, you will have a more difficult time landing pintpoint shots from standing/unsupported positions because of fatigue increasing your sway.

And this all applies as well to various rifles with varying attachments...the lighter rifle will point shoot more accurately and have less sway in unsupported positions. Thus for example, before you equip a bipod you need to consider whether you will be fighting in areas with good deployed vantage points, because otherwise it actually hurts your accuracy.

I agree that some sort of mouse deceleration caused by weight would be nice, but there are various reasons why people would oppose this. Free-aim is not the perfect solution, but it's the available one and helps somewhat.

In any case, this all comes back to the fact that if your mechanics are executed properly, then for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, every benefit comes with a tradeoff, and thus balance and realism go hand in hand.

[Dr. Death]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dr.Wholian?:

I understand people would go against game-based mouse accel. It stands against any sort of game custom already stated, but its the only realistic way to stop people from choosing LMG all the time (if they could) that i can think of

[Deadlylag]

To be fair the Mk18 is basically a M4A1 lower with 10.3 inch upper. In otherwords ,exchange the 14.5 upper to 10.3 upper and you got yourself a mk. 18. Here is a SEAL weapon kit which contain a complete mk.18 with M4A1 upper.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/641240_Official_Mk_18_and_CQBR_Photo_and_Discussion_Thread.html&page=568#i6833058

The mk18 is now standard weapon for most if not all US special operation guys. It's very popular and more or less replace the 14.5 upper (M4A1).

Mk.18 has a 50yard less max effective range than M4A1. The difference is so minor that it hardly notice at all. Effective range means probablity of a hit. Pretty much a non-issue.

Recoil and muzzle climb is also a non-issue. Increase muzzle flash, increase noise level, and increase concussion will be migrated with proper muzzle devices.

[jballou]

Good points. I think if you (Dr. Wholian) want to have a chat with me, I have an idea of a way we can all be at least a little happier here. Ping me on Steam when you get some time.

[Dr. Death]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Deadlylag:

What's the advantage of having a smaller upper?

[Deadlylag]

I own two SBR (10.5 and 14.5). Here is mine 10.5 with a suppressor.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=440357848

For one thing it small. That's means you can run a suppressor and still be shorter than a 14.5 upper.

It better for CQC (close quarter combat) and still able to get hits over 600 meters.

Allow for better fighting inside the vechicals, like helo and humvees.

Take less space for transportation. In the case of SEAL, they use small mansize submarines with little space for storage. So every inch counts.

Light weight. It so light, amazingly light. Less weight means less pain when you're humping it for days and miles. The lgiht weight allow for faster handling/speed. It also very balance.

As far as I know the mk.18 replaced the M4A1 in most if not all special opertion guys. SEAL kit comes with one M4A1 lower, one M4A1 upper, one Mk. 18 upper, as well as the typical Sig 226. They discard the M4A1 upper and go right to mk. 18.

[Dr. Death]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Deadlylag:

I own two SBR (10.5 and 14.5). Here is mine 10.5 with a suppressor.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=440357848

For one thing it small. That's means you can run a suppressor and still be shorter than a 14.5 upper.

It better for CQC (close quarter combat) and still able to get hits over 600 meters.

Allow for better fighting inside the vechicals, like helo and humvees.

Take less space for transportation. In the case of SEAL, they use small mansize submarines with little space for storage. So every inch counts.

Light weight. It so light, amazingly light. Less weight means less pain when you're humping it for days and miles. The lgiht weight allow for faster handling/speed. It also very balance.

As far as I know the mk.18 replaced the M4A1 in most if not all special opertion guys. SEAL kit comes with one M4A1 lower, one M4A1 upper, one Mk. 18 upper, as well as the typical Sig 226. They discard the M4A1 upper and go right to mk. 18.

Wait, are we talking about barrels or upper recievers?