Betty Boom confusion. Hidden undiscovered mechanic?

[Neonetik]

Hey everyone. I just finished writing a complete weapons guide for E.Y.E, and during the process of writing it, I discovered something that didn't seem to make any sense, and confused the hell out of me.

Firstly, I'm not entirely certain how shotgun damage is calculated. The game states that a shotgun like the Depezador does "32-45 damage per g", but I have absolutely no idea what a "g" is. I assume it's pellets, as that's the only seemingly logical answer I can reach judging by the extremely low damage value compared to other weapons, but I also counted the pellets that each shotgun produced, and in my test, things just didn't seem to add up. Here's where things get interesting.

In the true last combat area of the game (you know the one), I did my testing, since it was easy to get high HP Kraaks (double hammer dudes) to follow me, and then wedge myself in a corner while one of them stood perfectly still, mere metres away from me. I'm going to copy paste what I witnessed from my own guide here.

After numerous tests where I went into a corner and unloaded onto really close range, non-moving Kraak (double hammer dudes), the results I got made no sense what so ever. At some points, it took the CAW hammer 80 shots to take down one of these things, and at some points, 20. At point points, it took the Depezador 45 shots, and then 70 shots. Then, I tested it with the Betty Boom, and this is what ♥♥♥♥ed me up. The normal firing mode of a single shell per blast was a really high number of shots like the other 2 shotguns, but when I used the double barrel blast mode, I seemed to get much lower and more consistent results, averaging at around 2 or 4 body shot blasts to get a kill. I was quite careful to aim specifically for the body during all these tests, as headshots were all a 1 or 2 hit kill, and I repeated this process around 8 or so times for each shotgun, and kept getting similarly strange results for all shotguns except for the Betty Boom's double barrel firing, which was far more consistent. I have little to no idea what is happening, but I feel like there's some sort of damage multiplier going on for the double barrel blast that goes beyond just doubling the pellet count, as the results have been extremely consistent, and I've repeated the test for each shotgun multiple times, but these results seem to go against what the weapon stats seem to claim.

Does anyone know where specific weapon damage info is located in the games file, or can anyone think of a good way to confirm or deny my suspicion?

Cheers.

[Saravanth]

Well, all I know is that when you shoot someone in co-op with the betty doublefire it sends them flying, quite far actually

[Neonetik]

Yes, and I've noticed this with the enemies in the map as well. Other shotguns just have em fall down, but the Betty Boom does sent them flying. I recall there was (and probably still is) a glitch you can use where you sit on an object, and then launch it with the Betty Boom, and go flying.

At this point, I'm fairly positive there's more to this weapon than what people seem to think, not that is particularly saves it from being mediocre is general gameplay. Still, any advantages would be nice to know.

[Neonetik]

Testing against that one armored custom map guy in the temple HQ yielded completely different results, with the shotguns behaving as you'd expect.

What the hell is going on here?

[Psi Crow]

Don't try to understand.
Nothing makes any sense.

[Neonetik]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NO I DON'T WANNA KEEP RELIVING MY CYCLES OF GUILT!

[a profile]

I got similar results with Carnophages a while ago.

My guess is that the double barrel shot fires both shots in the same scatter-pattern, whereas it's normally randomized each trigger pull. This leads to more hits overall, compared to rolling the dice twice.

The effect is nullified against armor, since only the crits are doing any damage at all.

I don't know if crit rolls are calculated per trigger pull or per damage instance. It seems like it's per trigger pull, as shotguns don't seem to have incidents where every grain in a shot crits and something gets nuked. Maybe it's just so unlikely that it doesn't happen very often, though.

[Neonetik]

I'm a little confused at your answer Themself, could you please elaborate in a bit more detail? Why would the pattern of a shot change how much damage it does? Every shot I took in my test was at near point blank range, no pellets were missed. I made sure of that.

What effect are you specifically talking about, and exactly how are you taking crits into consideration here?

Each pellet does so little damage alone, I don't necessary see why each of them doing crit damage upon a "trigger pull" would be unreasonable to assume (though I think I may be misunderstanding what you mean by this).

I don't mean to be a bother, and I'm sorry for not really understanding, but any further information I can get on this matter would be very welcomed. I'm trying to clarify this as much as possible, and in a way that can be understood by everyone.

Plus, don't Kraaks have armor (despite not looking like it)? In my tests, armor piercing weapons did extremely well against them, while non-armor piercing weapons took literally hundreds of shots to take them down when aiming at the body for both.

Thank you.

[a profile]

Originally posted by NeonAbomination:

I'm a little confused at your answer Themself, could you please elaborate in a bit more detail?

Sure!

Why would the pattern of a shot change how much damage it does? Every shot I took in my test was at near point blank range, no pellets were missed. I made sure of that.

There are a LOT of pellets, and the only way you'd see the ones that missed would be if you could see through the target. The way the bullet travel and hit registration works means that sometimes enemies can wiggle around the bullet while it's in flight as well, especially since the collision size of you and many other creatures enforces a slight minimum distance between you two. So making 100% sure you aren't missing with any of them would be very difficult if you aren't reading raw game data somehow.

I'm suggesting that instead of the double-barrel firing two shots, it fires one shot and then counts each hit twice. This leads to significantly more hits overall, and thus a more consistent average damage output on a shell-per-shell basis.

What effect are you specifically talking about, and exactly how are you taking crits into consideration here?

The 'effect' is the increased probability of making multiple hits from my theoretical idea of how BB hit registration works. Crits bypass armor, and possibly experience a small percentage damage increase.

Each pellet does so little damage alone, I don't necessary see why each of them doing crit damage upon a "trigger pull" would be unreasonable to assume (though I think I may be misunderstanding what you mean by this).

When critical damage is done does the impact of each pellet get its own crit roll, or does the entire shot itself get a crit roll that is shared between all pellets? It seems to be the first one, as I don't think critting with a shotgun will 1-hit armored opponents.

Plus, don't Kraaks have armor (despite not looking like it)? In my tests, armor piercing weapons did extremely well against them, while non-armor piercing weapons took literally hundreds of shots to take them down when aiming at the body for both.

IIRC, it's mostly their health pool that is the issue and hitting them in the head gets you around that. They do have a tiny bit of armor on their body, but it's like 20-30.

Most weapons have very low damage-potential anyway, and most enemies dont have much hp, so this tiny bit of armor combined with an enormous healthpool can slow a lot of weapons down. It takes a consistent 2-3 hits with a Damocles to kill them, but dual katanas can take anywhere from 3-8 if you can't land headshots. They both do similar damage on the upper end, but DK have a low minimum and no armor piercing so the Krak's miniscule armor really gets to them sometimes.

[Neonetik]

See, the thing is, from what I can judge, when the Betty Boom does a double barreled blast, it only fires one shot, but it fires double the pellets that is usually does. You can test this yoursel fin game against a wall if you want. You say there are a lot of pellets, but for the Betty Boom, it's only like 6 on a normal blast, if I'm counting accurately after shooting walls a dozen times and counting the results each time. So I just figure that each pellet does a normal amount of damage, but now there's double the amount (again, you can see this yourself in game by looking at bullet holes, and also see what kind of spread they have). I don't really get how that would change much to consider here, or why it would be such a massive and consistant change against Kraaks when compared with other shotguns in that test.

The reason I say I'm sure I'm not missing is because, again, I'm firing at near point blank range here at Kraaks, which are pretty big targets, and the spread isn't large enough on these weapons to go around them, and I'm also watching for any sparks on the metallic wall behind them, which light up like fireworks if struck with bullets. Though if I'm misunderstanding how damage is applied here for shotgun type weapons, then this may not matter, but judging by how they preform for most basic enemies, I don't see why it would be much different from other weapons.

I don't think random crits are the reason why it's doing so much damage in this instance, but it may have guaranteed crits? But again, this isn't consistant with other results I've had with the weapon testing against armored allies in the HQ. If it had a special feature to bypass armor or something on a double barrel blast that'd make sense, but I don't feel this is the case.

The whole thing is bizarre.

[a profile]

The game handles distance and perspective in a very strange way. When someone is close to you they'll obscure a lot more of what's behind them than seems apparent, almost as if things are curving around them the way the edges of a scope curve. So if a pellet goes to their side even just slightly, but at a shallow angle, it might impact directly behind them where you can't see. Kraak have a tendency to twist and wiggle as they move and attack, and they have very narrow hips relative to the rest of their body. They also have an enormous collision size, you can just barely hit them with a sword at foot-level. It can be really surprisingly easy to miss them sometimes.

I'll take another look at shotgun spread patterns, but I remember there being 5ish 'bright impacts' and 5ish 'dark impacts' per shot, with only 'bright impacts' leaving bullet holes and 'dark impacts' not leaving any decals. There were also up to 10 pellts that left little tiny dust-plumes instead of sparks of any kind. I thought the boom was firing about the same numbers with double, but again I'd have to check.

I don't think crits really impact shotguns very much, though they do give you a small hope of killing a heavy-armor if you're persistent enough.

[Neonetik]

Right, that's interesting, but again, in my test, these Kraaks were not moving at all. Completely stationary, so there was no wiggling going on here. I also made sure to attack in the same location of their body for each weapon, and while I lack some crazy tactical data to show them, I'd just like to note I was aiming in the same general stomach area for every single blast, on a point blank, stationary enemy. I'll attach a screenshot of where I'm testing in just a second.

As for the pellets, I tested bullet holes for all shotguns, and all of them had different results, with the Depezador leaving 10 holes, the CAW leaving 8, and the Betty Boom leaving 6 on a normal blast, and 12 on a double barrel blast, and the results seemed pretty consistant, though it could be hard to count sometimes due to the random pellet spread, and some pellets hitting the same place twice, though again, you could usually see this if you looked hard enough.

[Neonetik]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1368906662

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1368906786

Just so people can see where I'm testing this from. Enemies do not move at all when you hide in the corner here. The pellet spread of each shotgun was tested before-hand, and there's no way any pellets are hitting the head from where I'm aiming and the distance, nor should any of them be missing, and besides, I tested headshot damage already and got very consistant results for that. Other tests against armor were also done in a easy to control setting in the temple HQ.

(I just took these shots to show where I'm standing, ALT fire is not selected here, but I would be using it in the test.)

[a profile]

Hmm, looks like I might have been mistaken with the pellets.

I guess either he's taking knockback damage standing in that spot or double barrel has some sort of hidden damage multiplier.

[Neonetik]

"Or the double barrel has some sort of hidden damage multiplier"

Which is exactly what I said that it might have in my OP, and in my guide, so it's good that we have some similar ideas. However, the other tests against armored dudes in the HQ don't support this at all, and results against them were largely what you would expect.

Unless the HQ temple alters how allies take damage or something, I have no idea what the rule is here. Hence the post.

Depending on how armor on enemies changes damage taken, it may be that the other shotguns are barely doing any damage on body shots as damage may be almost entirely negated by the armor, but the double barrel blast does enough damage to go far enough part the armor protection to deal a huge amount of damage per shot. The issue is, from what I understand from the weapon stats, damage for weapons is largely randomized between 2 values, so honestly, the CAW Hammer should be giving similar results, or better results even, as according to the stats, each G does far more damage than a Betty Boom blast, AND it fires more pellets. Who bloody knows?

I do really appreaciate all your answer though, it's nice to see other people care.

[Saravanth]

Oh, yeah, the map selection guy sometimes takes multiple betties, other times he gets blasted off the bridge in one shot. It seems somewhat random.