The M16 is not as bad as everyone says it is.

[Geebanger0]

Most importantly, it's not worse than the Silenced SMG. A lot of people seem to think that the SMG has a higher DPS, but this is only true if you exclude the reload times and damage per magazine of each weapon.

The silenced SMG can deal 1250 damage with a single magazine, which it can fire and reload in 5.395 seconds, giving it a magazine dps of 231.696. The M16 takes 6.575 seconds to fire and reload a magazine, which is somewhat slower, but because it deals 1650 damage per magazine it can output 250.950 dps, about 9% more than what the silenced SMG outputs.

Another reason people seem to think the silenced SMG is better is that it has a higher damage potential than the M16. If you fire every single bullet, the M16 can deal a total of 13530 damage, whilst the silenced SMG can deal 17500. Although this is a significant difference, it seems that a lot of people are conveniently willing to ignore the fact that the silenced SMG can only output this much damage in total due to having 70% more reserve ammunition (yet its total damage output is nowhere near 70% higher, its not even 30%)

If both weapons are used in a situation where they have an infinite supply of ammo (IE: all finales, most crescendo events, any chapter of a well designed campaign that gives the survivors regular access to ammo piles), then the M16 will always be dealing more damage. It takes the M16 53.475 seconds to deal its total 13530 damage. In that same amount of time, the Silenced SMG only deals 12375 damage.

Basically, the facts have been taken out of context and looked at in a vacuum. In practice, the M16 is almost always going to be better. It even has additional upsides that, again, seem to be ignored, such as increased penetration and greater accuracy whilst crouched, standing and in midair. If you want to get really technical, the M16 also spawns more frequently than the silenced SMG in later chapters, allowing you to use the spawns as an instant reload.

The argument that the M16 is terrible because it's worse than the AK is also poorly thought out and only tells half the story. The M16 is worse than the AK not because the M16 is bad, but because the AK is overtuned to an unreasonable degree and outclasses every other weapon in the game.

For reference, here's the stats for all the T1 and T2 weapons, in the format of "Weapon name = time taken to fire and reload 1 magazine = damage per magazine = dps when a full mag is fired = total damage potential"

Silenced SMG = 5.395 = 1250 = 231.696014829 = 17500
MP5 = 6.8 = 1300 = 191.176470588 = 18200
Uzi = 5.395 = 1000 = 185.356811863 = 14000
Wood shotgun = 12 = 2000 = 163.93442623 = 20000
Chrome shotgun = 12 = 1984 = 162.62295082 = 19840

Auto shotgun = 7.003003003 = 2530 = 361.273584906 = 25300
Combat shotgun = 7.003003003 = 2520 = 359.845626072 = 25200
AK = 7.56 = 2320 = 306.878306878 = 23200
M16 = 6.575 = 1650 = 250.950570342 = 13530
Mil sniper = 10.83 = 2700 = 249.307479224 = 18900
Combat rifle = 11.72 = 2640 = 225.255972696 = 18480
SG 552 = 7.525 = 1650 = 219.26910299 = 13530
Hunting rifle = 6.88 = 1350 = 196.220930233 = 14850
AWP = 24.66 = 2300 = 93.2684509327 = 23000
Scout = 16.4 = 1350 = 82.3170731707 = 17550

The stats for the shotguns are likely skewed, since it assumes every pellet connects at a range where there is no damage ramp up or falloff, so they'll be excluded from the rest of the discussion. Taking the shotguns out of consideration, the AK not only has the highest magazine dps, but also the highest damage per magazine, and the highest potential damage of any weapon in the game. And it's not as if it's just barely better than the other weapons; Its outputting 5-10k more total damage than everything except the AWP, and an extra 50 magazine dps than its closest competitor (funny how the next best choice is the M16, even though it's supposedly one of the worst weapons in the game).

There's two important things to take away from these stats:
- The AK is not balanced, and is stronger than every other weapon by an unreasonable degree. It makes no sense to base weapon balance around the sole outlier rather than the relatively balanced selection of other weapons, and I don't know why anybody would ever do this.
- The M16 is more than capable of keeping up with its peers. Most of the other T2s sacrifice some magazine dps in exchange for an additional strength. For instance, the hunting rifle and SG 552 both have a lower dps, but they're more effective at range and are useful for conserving ammo. The exception to this is the Mil sniper, which has an almost identical dps but a much higher potential damage, a scope, and infinite penetration. Basically it has a bunch of added bonuses at very little downside, and is consequently just as strong as the AK as evidenced by its popularity.

So no, the M16 is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It's balanced in comparison to most other weapons, and the two common examples that are used as "proof" that it's bad are instead outliers that are better due to their own strengths rather than the M16s weaknesses.

[JAiZ]

Good stats, the Ak47 and autosnipers being stupidly OP throw off a lot of the weapon balancing, though you got one thing wrong:

Originally posted by Geebanger0:

If both weapons are used in a situation where they have an infinite supply of ammo (IE: all finales, most crescendo events, any chapter of a well designed campaign that gives the survivors regular access to ammo piles), then the M16 will always be dealing more damage.

Since the Mac-10s DPS only drops lower than the M16's because of it's reload, it actually still has a higher DPS when you're spamming a weapon spawn and skipping the Pickup animation, so the M16 is not always the higher DPS weapon.

The M16's biggest weaknesses are the low reserve ammo - making it the only weapon that is prone to running out of ammo, even on properly balanced levels - and it's firing sound, which is so poorly designed that it's actually a verifiable health hazard.
Those two aspects alone make it unreliable and uncomfortable to use, and are more than enough reasons to prefer the Mac-10, especially since a measly 8.5% higher DPS is nothing to parade around as impressive, considering the AK47 has twice as big of a difference and otherwise identical or superior stats to the M16.

You also don't need to manually calculate all the stats, they've been thoroughly tested and reliably documented for a long time.

[Geebanger0]

Originally posted by JAiZ:

You also don't need to manually calculate all the stats, they've been thoroughly tested and reliably documented for a long time.

I wanted to

[internet angel]

wait people say M16 is a bad weapon? it was my go-to tier 2 weapon back when i was new to the game, it felt powerful shooting it

[Witch]

Originally posted by JAiZ:

and it's firing sound, which is so poorly designed that it's actually a verifiable health hazard

I got you covered:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2438072065

[Witch]

Originally posted by PythonWood:

wait people say M16 is a bad weapon? it was my go-to tier 2 weapon back when i was new to the game, it felt powerful shooting it

It's pretty damn powerful, it just isn't preferred by people who desire to play as efficiently as possible because of some slight stat differences supposedly

[R󠀡F]

Originally posted by JAiZ:

and it's firing sound, which is so poorly designed that it's actually a verifiable health hazard.

Heresy! To me CS/L4D/L4D2 M16/M4 firing sound is THE M16/M4 firing sound. All other games are inferior when it comes to the firing.

[JAiZ]

Originally posted by PythonWood:

wait people say M16 is a bad weapon? it was my go-to tier 2 weapon back when i was new to the game, it felt powerful shooting it

Never blindly trust feelings or impressions.
People believing their arbitrary impressions has led to really stupid rumors like "Melees have different ranges" or "Jimmy Gibbs has a 5% spawn chance", which just makes people gullible and misinformed - If you ever want to improve at something and properly understand it, don't rely on impressions, cause they're almost always wrong - Verify the facts.

Originally posted by Witch:

Originally posted by PythonWood:

wait people say M16 is a bad weapon? it was my go-to tier 2 weapon back when i was new to the game, it felt powerful shooting it

It's pretty damn powerful, it just isn't preferred by people who desire to play as efficiently as possible because of some slight stat differences supposedly

The fact that the ak47, military sniper, hunting rifle, and autoshotguns are significantly more powerful, makes the M16 extremely weak in comparison.
It also doesn't help that the game's tier system treats all of them as "equal", despite half of the T2 weapons being significantly superior options that are absolutely not equal.
The M16 is simply a peashooter in comparison.

Originally posted by R󠀡F:

Originally posted by JAiZ:

and it's firing sound, which is so poorly designed that it's actually a verifiable health hazard.

Heresy! To me CS/L4D/L4D2 M16/M4 firing sound is THE M16/M4 firing sound. All other games are inferior when it comes to the firing.

L4D's audio quality is objectively bad.
The gunshots have horrendous clipping, significantly reducing the quality of the sounds and causing physical discomfort. When listened to for extended periods of time it can even cause noticeable pain and long-term damage. The worst offenders are by far the M16 and Uzi, but in general every weapon sound suffers from this.
I experienced this for myself, cause I literally developed a worse tinitus from hearing the bloody m16 nonstop for hours on end on Parish Bridge - There's a reason "quiet gun sound" mods are so popular among more dedicated players; The vanilla gun sounds are plain and simply horrible.

And don't even get me started on the sound engine itself. It's sub-par even for the time the game was made.

[King Of Lolis]

I aint reading all that
Just will say aye,i use it more than ak47
The ak47 is kinda cringe with being meta weapon while m16 is mostly ignored

[Demo]

Originally posted by King Of Lolis:

The ak47 is kinda cringe with being meta weapon while m16 is mostly ignored

Based.

[Tsumugi]

I would rather use a Silenced SMG instead of the M-16.

[Zadkiel]

Originally posted by PythonWood:

wait people say M16 is a bad weapon? it was my go-to tier 2 weapon back when i was new to the game, it felt powerful shooting it

I have more kills with the M16 than I do the SCAR because I had it in my head that slower reload speeds weren't suitable for a game like L4D where everything is fast paced.

[Hell-met]

bullets damage has distance fall-off so max DPS is never really a thing anyway

[Bathtub Shitter]

In a game where you kinda just use what you find it sort of isn't a huge deal if it's not the best option. A tier 2 is still a tier 2. The reload and damage difference between that and the silinced smg is negligible. Ammo pool doesn't mean much when there's ammo piles every chapter. Penetration is better.

It's not like it's in a horrible spot.
Other option in tier 2 ARs: burst fire <or> slow firing speed and high bullet dmg

Does it need a buff? something need a nerf?

[what?]

No point arguing statistics. Either it's fun or it isn't.

M4 is meant to be the middle ground of the AK and SCAR. AK prioritizes damage over accuracy and SCAR is the opposite. It's entirely a matter of what area you're fighting in, how good your aim is, and opinion.

If you want to argue statistics, you're arguing for a meta, and to argue for a meta means you're just backing yourself in this corner of using the same guns and playstyle all the time.

Left 4 Dead isn't competitive. Stop restricting yourself and have fun.

[JAiZ]

Originally posted by yesskillch:

No point arguing statistics. Either it's fun or it isn't.

Does that mean that the red stuff leaking from my ears after using the m16 is the fun fluid?