Balance Unveiling

Good day, dear readers. Grab your glasses, pince-nez, monocles, and make yourselves comfortable. There will be a lot to read, but it's interesting and nutritious. In this article, we will delve into the darkest and most hidden corners of the new Code. Many, who initially spat, managed to conquer this game. Some were helped by installing XP, some by patches, some managed to convince their parents to get a new computer. And some were simply torn apart by anger. I feel for them and advise against delving too deep into this article and to engage in something calming and beneficial for society. For example – vacuum or knit a sweater for a bald kitten.

So, what guided the developers when they worked on weapon balance? Don’t even hope that a random number generator was involved here. There are certain patterns in the balance that become clear to people with a calculator and basic reasoning. To begin with, let’s define what we will take as our initial data. This will be the weapon characteristics table of the respected comrade Ishbane from the no less respected comrade Den Kirson’s blog. The table is very long; you can only print it on a printer that supports printing on toilet paper. So just open it in another window and refer to it in cases when you think I'm wrong, or conversely, to illustrate my words.


We have everything for further studies - the bullet damage at long and close distances, rate of fire, and a visual representation of the weapon's accuracy, which takes into account spread and the speed of the reticle returning to its original position. For the damage characteristic, we'll take damage per second, as neither bullet damage nor rate of fire fully characterize the weapon's damage. Through some mockery in Excel tables, the following patterns in game balance were revealed.

1. If something increases somewhere, something must decrease somewhere else. The main rule of balance. It’s like in RPGs. You can distribute experience points here, there, and over here, but there won't be enough for that. There is no absolutely perfect weapon in the game. The patent for using a spinning kick lies with Chuck himself, which is why it couldn’t be included in the game even as a killstreak.

2. Each weapon should have its area of application. Shotguns should be used up close, sniper rifles from a distance, and you shouldn’t hit people in the head with a motion sensor, even if you really want to.

3. The first weapon on the list should have a remarkable ability. Occasionally, this rule is violated for certain classes of weapons, but those who know the peculiarity of the weapon find it easier to level up early in prestige.

4. The last weapon on the list has a feature from another class of weapons. Until I explain, it sounds like the ramblings of a drunken ostrich, but as I make my arguments, you will have to acknowledge my correctness. Or forget this point and live happily ever after.

So, let’s start our review and go by increasing firepower. Killing by lag should be the last on the list of enslavement tools, but for understandable reasons, I didn’t include it)

Pistols

ASP

Has damage that is the same for all pistols, except maybe for revolvers. And the fastest draw speed. Which, without a doubt, snipers will appreciate, whose rifles take so long to bring up that you can only kill an enemy from the other end of the map without risking getting hit yourself. And the highest rate of fire among pistols. Which, by the way, is not that easy to achieve. If you can click the left mouse button 15 times per second in the heat of battle, then this pistol is just for you! And how, according to the developers, are we supposed to pay for such generous perks? Well, we’ll have to pay in full. With ammo and suppressors. It is exactly these attachments that prevent the first pistol from being equipped. If your seven bullets went awry in half a second, then blame only yourself. Throw the axe at the enemy, jab them in the nose with a claymore, and flee in zig-zags. You will die exhausted)

Colt 1911 and Makarov pistol

The next two pistols are literally twins of one another. Same damage, average rate of fire. One is like an American symbol, the other is at least on the flag of the Soviet Union. The developers thought long about what differences to come up with. In the end, Makarov has slightly more ammo in its basic configuration and slightly less than the Colt with an extended magazine. Thus, the star-striped pistol won by a margin of two bullets in the extended magazine. Since nothing smarter could be attached to it, it won.

PYTHON

Now we move to Clint Eastwood’s choice. Has substantially higher damage but pays for it with wild spread and six bullets in the cylinder. But it possesses two little bonuses. The first – low spread when firing from the hip. Including when shooting “Macedonian” way. The perk of wild hip shooting has been passed down from cowboy to cowboy for generations and has arrived in our time. It’s a shame there’s no horse included, otherwise I wouldn’t let it out of my hands. The next perk - an ACOG sight on a revolver. Who needs such a silly feature? Well, first, for those somewhat myopic shotgun lovers, who can only take lives from what they can reach with a barrel. Also for snipers, whose love for camping has morphed into a serious case of nearsightedness. They successfully use this revolver as a monocle for reading and for blowing opponents’ brains out in high-society conversation. For this, it’s enough to look disdainfully through the monocle at the clueless fool and pull the trigger.

CZ75

Here the developers didn’t skimp. 12 bullets in a standard magazine and 18 in an upgraded one made with a file and a piece of a tin can. Enough to shoot off all the extraneous fingers on your hands and feet. And only leave two to hold the pistol and pull the trigger. This pistol also has another feature that you will fall in love with at first sight. Long ago, in the dawn of time, there existed a mythical pistol - the Glock. And it was twin-like and noobish. Though it was called noobish by dead and unstable individuals. Those who scream at the monitor and hit the mouse against the keyboard. Triarchs couldn’t allow such an abomination in their game. But they also couldn’t permit that in a game featuring under-barrel flamethrowers, there were no automatic pistols. So on their internal game workbench, by welding a magazine as a handle to the pistol, you can turn it into a sad semblance of a submachine gun. Damage sharply decreases, recoil increases, rate of fire decreases and a pimple will pop up on your nose. And yet, you will have the most deadly thing in the class of pistols. Unless you can’t click faster than nine times a second. If so, then attach an extended magazine and still pick this pistol. What do they say in such cases, the yanks? Because it’s Awersome! Something like that.

Submachine Guns

MP5

High damage, average rate of fire, awful accuracy and an under-barrel brass knuckle. If only I could crunch it into an enemy's teeth, I would scream with joy. But I have to make do with what I have. Developers divided submachine guns into two large categories. Those that can be taken one in each hand and those that can have a sight mounted. Apparently, the ghost of noobly Glock still haunts the developers at night, and all paired submachine guns have no more than 20 bullets in the magazine. And a ground-down front sight) But we are lucky, and this specimen has nothing against attached sights and can boast thirty rounds in the magazine. Let's now look at the third balancer. So what perk does this submachine gun have? Let’s return to our workbench. We’ll file down the trigger, put in a powerful spring, grease it with fish oil, load it with ammo that has a mixture of powder and coffee, and force our device to shoot fast. And our device will be among the top three in damage per second among submachine guns. Crazy recoil - no problem. We will shoot from the hip in Nuketown.

SCORPION

Massive damage at ultra-short range, average at longer ranges, average rate of fire, and the highest accuracy among submachine guns. Unfortunately, due to compact size, the Scorpion ended up in the paired weapon category and has only twenty rounds in the magazine. If we increase the rate of fire, we get the highest damage in the game at short ranges. Except perhaps for shotguns. What do I mean by short distances? Just less than the effective range of shotguns. Developers could have just given the player a knightly spear and sent them to barbecue enemies. Would it have been possible to attach a collimator, this would be my favorite gun.

MAC11

Average damage, high rate of fire, high accuracy. Allows for collimator scopes and shooting with two hands. But the last option implies 20 rounds in the magazine. Damage per second at close ranges is slightly less than that of the MP5, but at longer ranges significantly greater than MP5 and Scorpion. Losing somewhere, finding somewhere - the first law of Balance. Great gun, but the number of bullets is critically insufficient.

AK74u

Analog of the MP5 with greater accuracy. But less than the MAC11 by about two times. If you attach a brace with increased rate of fire, you will get a gun capable of enslaving a small map. For the bad guys, there’s even an under-barrel in the package! I hope it will someday explode in their hands... Overall - a decent weapon, but I prefer more accurate toys.

UZI

By damage and rate of fire, it’s similar to MAC11. 32 rounds in a standard magazine. 48 in a long. But these two extra rounds cost us dearly. Oh, how dearly! This weapon has the most horrific spread in the game. It feels like the weapon is held by the hand of a hysterical housewife trying to hit a burglar. But she hits not him, but the kettle, the microwave, her beloved squeaky pink poodle toy, and herself in the knee. Nevertheless, the burglar escapes with wet pants. Everyone is alive and happy, and nearly no one was hurt. In general, this is not our choice.

PM63

Analog of MAC 11 lacking threads for a suppressor and mounts for collimator sights. Its accuracy is slightly lower than that of MAC11 due to a slightly lower return speed of the sight to the initial point. A nice, colorful weapon, but again, the ammo is lacking...

MPL

Analog of UZI with a magazine of 32 rounds and slightly greater accuracy (less than that of AK74u). For greater accuracy, we paid with a long magazine. Instead, we were given the ability to tape two smaller magazines together. What prevented us from joining the magazines of the other submachine guns with the same tape remains a mystery. Probably due to the felling of rubber tape-leaving trees in Brazil. Or the developers’ inherent greed. In any case – the weapon has too much recoil to arm anyone other than Somali pirates.

SPECTRE

A good weapon. I wrote about it in a mini-review of interesting arms when we all drooled in anticipation of the code on the calendar. And then we saw the fat hairy behind of the developers. The behind assured us of its purity, promising quick patches, but that didn’t make it look any prettier. But this is not the point. The weapon is indeed good, looks beautiful, shoots in the right direction and leaves nice round holes in your enemies. An analog of the MAC11 with a long-awaited magazine of 30 rounds. However, we can no longer take an automatic in each hand, but we’re not any kind of barbarians to fire at everything except the enemy with wide eyes and screams of “OloLo”. We’ll attach a collimator sight, and enjoying high accuracy, we will leave bits of lead in the heads of our enemies. My favorite weapon in the class of submachine guns. It's a pity only that the developers left five rounds from the four-round extended magazine in their wide pockets. I believe they did this for the best of intentions, in the name of Balance, but after all, if given free rein, they would without hesitation make a dozen equally performing guns differing only in skins. And no one would say a word about bad Balance)

Kiparis

The last submachine gun available after buying all the others. Suspiciously resembles MAC11. Except for one small detail – you can put a sight on it called Acog. And now let’s take another look at our Balance patterns and try to determine which class of weapons our Kiparis is akin to? It has become akin to assault rifles, thanks to high penetrating capability. Your enemies are cowards and hide behind little walls, flower pots, and when there’s nothing nearby, behind one another? Then your choice is a Kiparis! It will quickly teach them not to hide behind unreliable barriers and to accept their death with dignity. But personally, I value the extra ten rounds in the SPECTRE magazine, which will help me take the head from an extra enemy.

Unfortunately, submachine guns only provide an advantage at close range due to rate of fire. And with that – they can outperform assault rifles at long range) But, if you are a lover of beautiful sights or a long magazine, then you’ll have to take a hike. This, in my opinion, is one of the serious errors in balance from the Triarchs. However, they grant high movement speed, and most importantly – high strafe speed. This greatly increases your chances of surviving when fate pits you one-on-one against the owner of a more powerful assault rifle. A slowpoke – the assault rifle will simply shoot the air behind your back while you circle around them.

Assault Rifles

What advantage do assault rifles give over submachine guns? Firstly, it’s greater damage in the base configuration. Secondly, it’s various under-barrel killing tools that can weigh down your barrel. A grenade launcher, flamethrower, shotgun, and under-barrel forks that you can buy in the next DLC. Agree - quite a good selection not to stop at just submachine guns. Therefore – the balance is maintained.

M16

Now let’s again glance at our derived patterns. What benefits can there be from this stupid rifle that fires in bursts? It has abysmal damage per second but high accuracy. And... Its accuracy increases when you put an ACOG, and even more so - when installing an infrared sight. Ideally, this should apply to all weapons – put a precise sight with good magnification - accuracy increases. But Triarchs have everything backwards. They bought defective, cursed sights for the game. Of course, this is again for the sake of Balance, but a grain of common sense should be present in any matter. But let’s get back to our M16. This rifle seems to whisper to us: "Hang an infrared sight on me and let’s dominate snipers together!" In other words – it is almost the perfect weapon for long distances.

But for close range, it’s better to choose something more potent.

ENFIELD

Accurate, low power, old and dusty. The cartridges for it are likely still packed with smoky powder. This rifle is unremarkable, except for the ACOG sight, which looks like a sewing needle lodged in a spyglass.

M14

A must-have in any kit of any self-respecting game, semi-automatic rifle. Powerful, accurate. But accuracy is marred by strong recoil, which throws the rifle upwards. Special bonuses - increased damage to the head and neck, increased penetrating ability, like sniper rifles or machine guns. Can be used as a worthy alternative to a sniper rifle on hardcore. In essence, it’s quite complicated to handle due to single-fire shooting. While you are desperately trying to click the half-dead body of the enemy, you may be rapidly filled with lead like a turkey at Christmas - with nuts. Moreover, the developers were incredibly kind to semi-automatic rifles. If you press the trigger more often than specified in the user manual, the weapon simply jams. Until the soldier manages to straighten the bent trigger caused by excessive diligence. But most of the time that doesn’t happen. If you shoot - it means they will shoot at you right back. And if at this inopportune moment the weapon jams for a few seconds - then in a split second, the soldier ends up with more holes than SpongeBob SquarePants. So good luck mastering this tricky piece.

FAMAS

Accurate, powerful, fast-firing gun. Elegant and beautiful. If I were a bearded psycho with a Vietnamese bullet in my head, I would marry it. The only downside to this little darling is its asymmetric recoil. While firing, the barrel slightly pulls right-up. However, a weapon with predictable recoil is easier to control than one that throws from side to side. In general, I noticed that weapons in the game with lower bullet damage but higher rate of fire win in damage per second. This is also obviously part of Balance, as weapons with higher rate of fire deplete their ammo faster.

GALIL

High damage, low rate of fire, high accuracy. In terms of damage per second, it slightly loses to FAMAS. But it has five additional rounds in the magazine. And considering that it also spends those more slowly, it will be enough for a couple of extra heads. In general, five additional rounds are quite enough to avoid tossing this weapon into the abyss.

AUG

Analog of FAMAS except for double the, but symmetrical recoil. Convenient ACOG in the form of a white dot within a black circle. It sticks to heads of your enemies beyond your will. And... You knock off their helmet, shoot headphones out of their ears, and knock a Cuban cigar out of their teeth, but still can’t get a bullet into the sloping forehead of a pithecanthropus with a Kalashnikov. All because of the same infamous recoil...

FAL

An analog of M14, inheriting its deficiencies but lacking such advantages as accuracy and increased head damage. You may ask - why are developers so unfair to it? I agree with them. A rifle with such an indecent name doesn’t deserve more)

AK47

Analog of Galil but with double the, but symmetrical recoil and five fewer bullets in the magazine. ACOG resembles that of AUG, but more gaudy. The perfect choice for lovers of bears and matryoshkas, but I wouldn’t trust this metal piece with my life, even a gaming one.

COMMANDO

Here the developers got a bit too carried away with the balance. The gun turned out to be a complete analog of the Kalashnikov assault rifle but wouldn’t even suit friends of bears. Into the abyss!

G11

The last rifle in line has a lot in common with sniper rifles. High accuracy and a variable magnification scope. In all other respects, it is very similar to the M16 except for slightly lower damage. However, it has such a multitude of advantages that you wouldn’t even want to touch the M16 after you’ve held this wonder of German engineering. Firstly, it boasts a huge magazine of 48 rounds. Secondly - an impressive ammo capacity. Thirdly - an incredibly comfortable low-power sight with a wide field of view. It allows you to drive snipers to hysteria and to hold narrow passages against superior opponents. But when handling such weapons, it’s necessary to know a few tricks that Captain Obvious in my face will gladly share with you. The sway of the sight decreases immensely when you lie down. This is true for both low-power sights and variable-power sights. As for the open sight... You will nullify all the advantage of the weapon if you choose it. Better to just kill yourself with a shovel. With such weapons, you should only shoot at heads and know where you will place the next round. Handling the weapon will be eased by a pro version of the trick-perk to compensate for the long time it takes to bring the sight to the eye or a pro version of the perk for penetrating capability. Usually, the enemy will have time to turn around and shoot a couple of bullets in your direction, which severely disrupts your aim. A pumped penetrating capability perk makes you immune to such trifles as hole-popping pieces of lead and you eliminate the enemy without problems. A fine piece of machinery, yet unfortunately, it doesn’t come with straight hands.

Machine Guns

HK21 and RPK

Identical in power but different in recoil patterns. HK21 is slightly more accurate, but RPK has a larger magazine. It’s hard to choose something definitively better among them, so let’s continue rummaging through the box of machine guns.

M60

This machine gun traded some damage for a large magazine. Damage, moreover, unlike previous machine guns, decreases with distance. But the magazine is very large. And if you install an extended magazine as a module, you can hold the trigger at the beginning of a round and not let go until the end. Enemies, driven crazy by the constant crackle of your machine gun, will start banging their heads against the wall and spamming dirty curses with typos in the chat. A wonderful chance to feel like a real Rambo!

STONER 63

This machine gun has inherited all the best features from assault rifles – rate of fire and aiming speed. It has the highest damage in the game, both at close and long ranges. Enemies caught in such a meat grinder don’t even manage to realize what turned their unfortunate bodies into meaty jam. However, undoubtedly, the weapon has drawbacks that can be easily compensated with the right set of perks. The rapidly depleting small carried ammo can be compensated with the scavenger perk. Slow reload speed can be compensated with the sleight of hand. And the turtle-like movement speed can be compensated with the marathon perk. This weapon is forgiving to its owner; it overlooks many mistakes and pulls you out of the most hopeless situations. But it can also make one complacent, relaxing. It isn’t very interesting to play with. I keep the class with this weapon in case of a black streak in the game, which immediately turns into blood-red. Why did the developers let such a weapon of mass destruction slip through the Balance censorship? They decided that a small magazine and weak penetration ability would even the weapon out with the rest. A huge mistake)

Sniper Rifles

The creators of the new Code hate snipers. At least those who rush around the map, stringing corpse after corpse on the barrel of their large-caliber guns. In their opinion, the sniper’s place is behind the bushes in the furthest corner of the map. Of course, this is closer to realism, but I didn’t buy this game for that. I scream for precise weapons, but I can’t sit still. I must see the face of my enemy when my bullet flies straight into his eye. And the developers, to impose their useless and solid opinion, stretched the aiming time beyond reasonable limits. In 0.4 seconds, a caffeine-loaded player can drink two more cups of coffee, take a bathroom break, and die three times. It’s either look through the sight from somewhere high, or die. Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives in the assault rifle class.

Dragunov and WA2000

These two rifles are identical to one another except for minor details that are defining. They have the same rate of fire, damage; both rifles kill with a single head or chest shot. But the WA2000 has a faster return to its original sight point. And what did developers take away from it by the law of Balance for this? Bullets from the magazine and a couple of lenses from the optical sight. The WA2000 sight zooms in worse than that of Dragunov. But the WA2000 ACOG sticks to the eye faster than that of Dragunov. In general, as with HK21 and RPK, a clear winner cannot be identified, which the developers wanted.

L96A1

Classic bolt-action rifle. Kills with any body part containing somewhat important organs. ACOG - the spyglass boasted by ENFIELD. I am simply infuriated by the tendency in games for bolt-action rifles to possess greater damage than semi-automatic rifles. Accuracy, cheapness, weight - here I won’t argue. But various killing power of rifles that use one type of ammunition (WA2000) – this is nonsense. In any case, this rifle is the best choice for a sniper unless they just like to shoot at heads exclusively.

PSG-1

But this rifle has no merits. Only drawbacks. The damage of the Dragunov, the recoil of the L96A1. For all this, developers have given us only a slightly increased damage modifier to the abdomen that still doesn’t allow to kill a victim with one shot. By the way, comrade Dan swore that without modules this rifle gets a modifier that allows a kill to the abdomen. But apparently, only in our dreams. Right after the patch, my friend and I checked this curious fact. But apparently, a bullet in the abdomen – isn’t a sufficient reason to kick the bucket. Most likely due to the poor aerodynamics of the bullet, which loses all energy in the hairy belly button of the valiant special forces soldier.

Shotguns

OLYMPIA

A regular hunting double-barreled shotgun. Powerful, allows for relatively quick emptying of both shots filled with duck shot into the enemy's face. When I pick it up, I immediately remember the disgusting dog from "Duck Hunt" with barely suppressed disgust. This gives me strength in combat. In essence – it’s better to use the rifle with sleight of hand. Because juggling a rifle and four rounds (two of which are horrifically hot) under a rain of lead is quite problematic.

STAKEOUT

High power, high accuracy when shooting through the sights, and slow reload speed. From a double-barreled shotgun, two shells can be fired much faster. Yet the fact is that you only have two with this one, and here you have twice as many. Moreover, due to the low spread of shot, STAKEOUT is much more powerful than its hunting counterpart. Eight densely flying pellets are often enough for an enemy who has just popped out from behind a corner to take out their eyes, ears, nose, and other parts of their once irresistible face. By the way, developers made an offer in the shotgun class that is impossible to refuse. One module that improves the weapon's performance. They could have come up with many things – collimator sights, different types of ammo, laser sights, and a ground-down front sight. But we are only given one module that it’s better to install. Otherwise, it will be worse)

SPAS12

Has lower damage, compensated by high rate of fire. 8 rounds in the magazine. A suppressor that allows you to mischief in the enemy's rear without loss of power. A great shotgun! "But how can this be?!", you might exclaim. How can a suppressor decrease the shot of a shotgun? How - I won’t say, but I will say that it can! And here’s a little picture of the suppressor on the shotgun.


HS10

This shotgun has half the magazine of SPAS12, a bit better accuracy when aiming, slightly greater rate of fire, and a convenient sight that, unlike SPAS12, doesn’t obscure the whole screen. This weapon also has one pleasant feature. The ability to shoot with two hands from the hip, which transferred over from submachine guns to this weapon. The output isn’t much (too much spread), but there’s a lot of noise and it’s very fun. I recommend)

So, we’ve galloped through our impressive arsenal. It’s time to choose the best representatives from each class. Among pistols, the hero is undoubtedly the CZ75. Unless you are Clint Eastwood) Among submachine guns, there are two winners. Lovers of uncontrolled firepower will choose AK74u with a modification for rate of fire, while hunters for headshots will be thrilled with the SPECTRE with a collimator. By the way, I belong to the latter category. Among assault rifles - FAMAS. If you’ve thought "OLOLO Noobgun!!!11" run, please, give yourself a slap; I can’t reach you through the monitor. Cool dudes don’t play with wooden guns) Among machine guns, the winner is also clear – STONER 63. Why would we need miniguns when we have this rattle? It’s just that this weapon significantly narrows down the choice of perks, but it’s worth it. Sniper rifles? Of course, the elephant gun that has transferred from Counter-Strike. Just don’t overdo it sitting still. Otherwise, one fine day you will become like this guy \*picture of a sloth\*. But among shotguns, I can’t choose an unequivocally best one. The developers have surpassed themselves. Balance is embodied. But the double-barreled shotgun doesn’t make it into the pantheon of shotguns for obvious reasons.

Why have I typed these many, many letters? So that you don’t play blind, but know the strengths and weaknesses of your weapon. And yet you should always choose what is dear to your heart. Therefore, despite the above scribbled points, I will take my weak yet extremely beautiful G11 and go wreak havoc with friends in public. I advise you to do the same)