For the Devs | Most urgent change | Musket accuracy

[M.]

I think it'll be beneficial for the dedicated devs of this game to hear what I and a lot of veteran players of musket games have to say. Since days of the original battlegrounds mod, I've seen this genre change and develop and so here is the most important aspect of the game that needs revision (yes, more than melee combat). I suggest reading the entirety of my post before commenting.

MUSKET INNACURACY AND UNWIELDINESS

The bedrock and bread and butter of a musket game, and a necessary component that needs to be done right and also feel satisfying. Muskets of the napoleonic era are no where near as innaccurate as protrayed in films and videogames of the era.

Trained soldiers could hit a human-sized target at 70-90m and volleys to inflict maximum damage were aimed to be conducted just under this range at 60m. Various soldier accounts of the era point to unwiedly accuracy becoming too big a burden at and beyond 150m.

In the 1814 To All Sportsmen, Colonel George Hanger wrote, “A soldier’s musket, if not exceedingly ill-bored, will strike a figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at a hundred; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, providing his antagonist aims at him; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may as well fire at the moon and have the same hope of hitting him."

The reason for closing the distance was not only to get within the musket's kill distance, but to strike fear through the visual and auditory threat a massed enemy force would present.

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO HOLDFAST?

At the moment the preferred engagement distance and the distance you can be confident (key word: confident) in hitting an enemy (half the time) is around 8-10 meters. The bulletdrop mechanic needs to be redone. For every 15 meters you need to adjust upwards about 1 full reticle. Meaning at 20 meters you need to aiming as if you are lobbing a grenade by your enemy's feet. At 50 meters you need to be aiming at distant clouds for your shot to come back to earth and land near your target. I don't seek to offend, but this would not be the case if someone working on the game would have ever fired a musket of the era in question, ever seen someone fire a musket, read specifications and tactics relating to these weapons, or sought out first hand accounts on how these muskets functioned and were utilised. But that's okay, the drop can be easily fixed by straightening the trajectory and implementing slight bulletdrop beyond 60-90 meters.

The bulletspread of the muskets is another aspect of shooting that needs to be corrected. At around 10m distance the spread seems to be 1-2 meters. Double the distance, and this increases to 3-5 meters. Again, painfully unrealistic and unrepresentative of napoleonic era weapons. Muskets had around a 1/3 meter grouping at 50 meters meaning that a shot at an enemy 50 meters away nearly always delivered a hit. Beyond this distance, the grouping increases slightly and at 100m a soldier could still expect his shots to land within 1-3m of one another.

In other words, Holdfast has a real musket's spread at 100m come into effect at around 15 meters. You can thank blind luck beyond 10 meters if you land a shot. Before any claims are made by someone that they can land shots from 25-40m consistently, the answer is no. You cannot consistently shoot at that distance in Holdfast. I've topped the scoreboard various matches by adjusting the reticle for ridiculous bulletdrop, shooting into masses, and firing quickly. However, most of the kills beyond 20 meters have been on a soldier 2-3 meters to the left or right of my target and rarely directly where I was aiming as should it should be due to the inconsequential spread muskets have within 50 meters distance. Realistically, this spread of over 3 meters would happen at around 90-100 meters. This too can be easily fixed by tightening the shooting pattern significantly according to real musket spreads.

HOW DOES THIS CHANGE HOLDFAST'S GAMEPLAY?

There is enough argument from a realism standpoint to warrant a change to the shooting mechanics. At the moment, the game feels like a miniature, arcade FPS/TPS game set in the musket era because of the 10-20 meter engagement distance and the ineffectiveness of the muskets and rifles. The unit portrait and minimap do not help remedy this at all. However, having been an avid lover of community line battle and siege events for a long time, far before the warband NW mod, I must say that the engagement distance portrayed in this game is a real threat to the atmospheric and strategic depth that could and should be present in this game. Even from watching early event gameplay I noticed how the musket's effective range of around 10 meters causes lines to, after frustratingly trying to trade blows at 30 meters and beyond, close the distance to fire a determining volley and end what could've been an incredible back and forth mass volley engagement if only the muskets had realistic drop and spread. After playing the game for a day and a half straight, I can confirm my doubts.

Another point that must be taken into consideration is that cavalry will not be punished for blind charges at enemy infantry. Closing the gap will be incredibly cost-effective for a cavalry force seeing as the musket's spread will not be seen even as a mild deterrent.

I congratulate you for sticking with me, hopefully the developers and community can come together on this issue and see that, for realism and gameplay purposes, this needs to be labeled as high priority on the early access to-do list right with a melee rehaul.

A strong shooting system must come first and foremost in this type of game. Good shooting and melee systems will propel this game forward while badones will hold it back even if new factions, weapons, and cavalry are introduced. Thankfully, it's easy to fix what's in place because of the base game the developers worked hard to create.

[TheOkami]

Originally posted by 12e Biym:

Yes, I'm not arguing for muskets to hit shots at 100m with ease. I've suggested that the spread at 50-60m ingame be the equivalent of a real muskets spread at 100m of 2-3 meters with a 1/2 meter drop. You are essentially getting a 1:2 or 1:3 scale of Holdfast to reality in terms of musket ranges and engagement distances. This makes muskets significantly less accurate than they should be but will help the gameplay and atmosphere of Holdfast tremendously, especially linebattle events. At the moment you have about a 1:6 or smaller scale and it makes the entire game suffer and throws the idea of an immersive and semi-realistic game set in the napoleonic era out the window. The reticle should be adjusted once the effective range for the ballistics of each weapon is adjusted. At the moment, the crosshair is accurate to 2 meters. Beyond that and the shot may very well hit the ground or fly to either side.

I'm with you there! Hope the devs will consider this.

[TheBear]

Originally posted by 12e Biym:

Yes, I'm not arguing for muskets to hit shots at 100m with ease. I've suggested that the spread at 50-60m ingame be the equivalent of a real muskets spread at 100m of 2-3 meters with a 1/2 meter drop. You are essentially getting a 1:2 or 1:3 scale of Holdfast to reality in terms of musket ranges and engagement distances. This makes muskets significantly less accurate than they should be but will help the gameplay and atmosphere of Holdfast tremendously, especially linebattle events. At the moment you have about a 1:6 or smaller scale and it makes the entire game suffer and throws the idea of an immersive and semi-realistic game set in the napoleonic era out the window. The reticle should be adjusted once the effective range for the ballistics of each weapon is adjusted. At the moment, the crosshair is accurate to 2 meters. Beyond that and the shot may very well hit the ground or fly to either side.

Okay someone sticky this and lets go.

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by 12e Biym:

Yes, I'm not arguing for muskets to hit shots at 100m with ease. I've suggested that the spread at 50-60m ingame be the equivalent of a real muskets spread at 100m of 2-3 meters with a 1/2 meter drop. You are essentially getting a 1:2 or 1:3 scale of Holdfast to reality in terms of musket ranges and engagement distances. This makes muskets significantly less accurate than they should be but will help the gameplay and atmosphere of Holdfast tremendously, especially linebattle events. At the moment you have about a 1:6 or smaller scale and it makes the entire game suffer and throws the idea of an immersive and semi-realistic game set in the napoleonic era out the window. The reticle should be adjusted once the effective range for the ballistics of each weapon is adjusted. At the moment, the crosshair is accurate to 2 meters. Beyond that and the shot may very well hit the ground or fly to either side.

You keep claiming this, yet there is no evidence at all.
The game now plays as it should(if you slighlty decrease the bullet drop)
I tried to play as line infantry just to test, to see if they are worse, since I've only played rifles and line infantry. But there is no problem, and I've not seen your fabled. "miss at 10 meters"
If the enemy is standing still and you take your time to aim, you wil hit at 10 meters.
If you increase the musket accuracy just a little, you'll make them into what rifles are now. and than everyone would just snipe. Those rifles are very deady.

[kruall]

i've miss shots at less then 10 meters and have gotten headshots at 70+ meters, the spread of the musket and rifle shot is very inconsistant at any range(it's worse the closer the target tbh) which is more RNG then skill

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by Vykorie:

i've miss shots at less then 10 meters and have gotten headshots at 70+ meters, the spread of the musket and rifle shot is very inconsistant at any range(it's worse the closer the target tbh) which is more RNG then skill

Not really, it's the ping and FPS. The game lets you sidestep like you are dancing the charlston. When they do that with the lag in this game, you'll miss. If they stand still or run at you, you'll hit.

[Nym]

Hard bump

[Donder161]

hmmm if it is improved.. line battles will be over too quick..

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by Donderwolk:

hmmm if it is improved.. line battles will be over too quick..

It's allready almost impossible to mount a succssful charge. If you got 12-15 men in a line, chances are chargers won't reach the line.
As people are learing to use the weapons. They will only make it harder to charge.
Those that now have used the rifles a little, are now snipers with in 30-40 meters. If you're in the open and you see a riflemen aiming at you, chances are you're dead.

[TheBear]

Originally posted by Donderwolk:

hmmm if it is improved.. line battles will be over too quick..

It could still work if they implemented closer spawnpoints. (like captoring points that allow you to spawn ever closer, downside if there are several so you wouldnt be able to overrun the enemy that easily)

[Maximum Sloth]

I think it's a bit more fun when people I am playing against don't have laser accuracy. It adds to the intense nature of the combat.

Could you imagine if the muskets were laser beams at 100m? Say goodbye to the bands, and lines...they'd both be impractical. Musicians would be even easier targets, and lines would basically be lining up to a firing wall to be shot by people camping behind rocks quite a large distance away.

I doubt there would be any lines or line battles at all - as their purposes would be mooted.

[Horcerer]

Originally posted by Maximum Sloth:

I think it's a bit more fun when people I am playing against don't have laser accuracy. It adds to the intense nature of the combat.

Could you imagine if the muskets were laser beams at 100m? Say goodbye to the bands, and lines...they'd both be impractical. Musicians would be even easier targets, and lines would basically be lining up to a firing wall to be shot by people camping behind rocks quite a large distance away.

I doubt there would be any lines or line battles at all - as their purposes would be mooted.

Except literally noone is advocating "lasers'

[Kamov]

Musket accuracy is just terrible. I've found that if you want to kill someone with one either get to 20m distance or go a rifleman.

[Varrict]

Whilst I agree that musket accuracy needs to be tweaked it isn't impossible to hit people far away, just luck based. I've made plenty of shots and getting up to 10 kills on average in each game with at least 40% of them being shots up to 50m away. Muskets were innacurate but only past ranges of 50m, if I were to shoot a target 15m away in real life then I'm bound to hit it 7/10 times but at the moment the game conveys it at more like 4/10 times at 15m.

It is exceptionally frustrating shooting a guy at maybe 10-20m away and the shot getting near him but swaying to the left or right at the last minute when it should have hit, I've even made shots at less than 10m away and it still somehow miss.

[kruall]

Originally posted by Donderwolk:

hmmm if it is improved.. line battles will be over too quick..

every line i've see gets destroyed in less then <40 seconds, me and 3 other riflemen ambushed a line and forced them to retreat after their one volly did ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to us

[M.]

Nice to see people understand how necessary and helpful these changes are for Holdfast. However, there is one recurring complaint I keep seeing and that is that "muskets would now be snipers" and "linebattles would end too fast."

To quickly address the first point. No, they wouldn't. The guns should have a range at which there is negligible spread and you will be guaranteed a hit. Currently this is within 2-3 meters. Negligble spread on a human sized target with a real musket happens at around 50 meters. If we are aiming for a 1:2, 1:3 scale of Holdfast to realism then we can have this spread occur at around 15-20 meters. If you aim dead center on an immobile target within this range, your 1/3 meter spread should gurantee a hit most of the time. Increasing the distance will increase the spread. Let me add here that having this predictable spread will have a huge impact on the skill factor of the shooting mechanics. You could now increase your chances of striking by learning the musket and rifle spreads at each distance and aiming accordingly. Practicing shooting at various distances is now useful, because player input will play a bigger role in the projectile's trajectory than the pure slot machine that currently flings the shot far left, right or wherever it wishes. You will now be encouraged to lead your targets and this multiplies the skill factor even further.

To address the second point that this would end battles too quickly: Good accuracy at 20m seems to be scary for a lot of people because the past few days have encouraged players to close the distance and trade blows within that distance. What would really occur is the engagement distance would increase slightly. Rather than running up to the enemy and firing shots at 15-20 meters distance and missing most or all of those shots, players would begin to exchange musket fire at 40-45 meters. They wouldn't magically pick off players at this distance. The spread would be reasonably tight to 20-25m but no further. However they could be sure that aiming dead center at a charging enemy 10-15 meters away would secure a kill.

In my main post I explain how linebattles and other coordinated events will see a massive benefit with this change in place. Lines would begin to exchange musket fire at 60+ meters and the regiment with the more experienced marksmen, that know where to aim and how to lead targets to increase their chances that the spread will hit, will inflict more casualties. At this distance, lines would not be obliterated as has been stated above. Currently, exchanging fire at beyond 30 meters is laughable. The first line to come within this distance of 20-30m and fire a volley will inflict massive casualties and end the engagement quickly. Events will be slower strategically with an increase to musket accuracy but faster to get into real action. More activity, but more strategy and depth as well.

Let me add here that the above is from a gameplay perspective. I believe I've stated and reiterated enough reasons for why the shooting should be changed for historical, realism, atmospheric, and roleplay reasons.