No, I doubt it's normally distributed. Whenever you create an instance of a random class, it's uniformly distributed because that's all a computer can do. You turn them into other distributions through various methods. Unfortunately, turning a uniform distribution into a normal distribution requires an memory intense algorithm. There is no reason to implement a high memory using process for randomizing bullet spread. If I had to guess, the method is taking a generic random seed and then choosing a random number from 0 to R for the distance between the center pellet and the edge of the spread then also choosing a random angle from 0 to 360 degrees for which sector the pellet lands in. I would argue that since this there is no reason for one sector to be chosen over the other, the random angle is distributed uniformly. For the deviation from center pellet, I could see a distribution that focuses closer to the center i.e. biased towards 0. One simple way would be an exponential distribution. That can be easily calculated in a single step through logarithms, but you'd have to truncate it since exponential doesn't have a maximum value. Another way would be not to generate a random deviation directly but to generate a random number from 0 to 1, square it, THEN multiply it by R. That would also be pretty simple to evaluate for a computer while also biasing the center and keeping a max at R. Honestly, if people are going to measure the pix of pellets, just do it with all of them and aggregate the histogram. Though I will say that even if it's bell-shaped, I doubt it'd be normally distributed. It might just be the average of 3 random variables or something. You need something like 24-48 random uniform variables to generate a single variable more or less indistinguishable from a normal variable. I doubt they're doing that in Source.
It's actually kinda interesting to me, because whenever folks think about buffs the Shortstop could use, it generally comes down to needing some kinda funky fall-off so that it deals the most damage at mid-range, since that's what it's always felt like it should excel at over its siblings And it absolutely should have that, but this video also makes it clear that it should probably have the Panic Attack's fixed spread stat too
@@WhimsicottFanatic just reduce the maximum falloff to something like 70%, maybe buff the base damage of each pellet by 1 or 2, and add qol improvements to the shove
Technically it does since the pellets deal twice the amount of damage as the scatter guns'. But it has only 4 pellets, where as the scattergun has 10 (12 for the force of nature). You're going to be doing about the same damage at similar ranges because of how often the pellets will land.
Everybody wants accurate shotguns until the 2k hours Scout that never fricking touches the ground starts demolishing Heavies from the other side of the map
I just want the shortstop to have the fixed bullet spread so that the fucking thing actually does it's fucking job. I have a Strange Festivitied Damascus and Mahogany Shortstop and the fact that the piece of shit doesn't mid, close, or long range because of the fucking bullets spread boils my ballsack and gargles my grundle.
The opposite isn't fun either, I never use the frontier justice because it makes a vein in my head explode when I hit someone at spitting range for 40 damage. I would do more damage by directly throwing the gun in their face.
Re: 5:03 I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone suggest that random bullet spread should be removed for SMGs, pistols, and miniguns. Since they all have a very quick firing speed, and decent to large clip sizes, each individual shot matters a lot less than on shotgun weapons, which fire much slower but with higher damage.
ive definitely seen it. its far less common than with shotguns, but zealots for "competitive mode first" argue that there should be nothing left to chance because that means its an RNG and not a skill issue... but for people like me still on windows 7 office pcs, and a mouse with a broken scrollwheel its not exactly a fair fight anyway.
@@Robb1977I have never seen anyone ever say this in any competitive environment. Those comp “zealots” are probably just 14 year olds parroting a RUclipsrs opinion and trying to put their own spin on it without critically thinking about it.
I started using the shortstop in uncletopia since I wanted to see just how bad it was again, but when I started getting a decent amount of kills playing mid range I was questioning if i had some sort of bias towards it. This makes so much sense
Atrazine, a chemical herbicide, messed with the endocrine system of frogs and turned them hermaphroditic. The chemicals in the water are in fact turning the frickin frogs gay.
RBS certainly suits certain weapon classes than other ones as well. TF2 really likes skill based weaponry, given that most weapons are Semi-auto, or single shot weapons. So if a gun is full auto, they give it spread. Tracking an opponent is definitely easier than landing a single shot every half second. However, when it comes to shotguns, it'd make sense for them to have fixed spread. They're precision based weapons that need you to land a shot every half second or so. But at the same time, shotguns are known for their random spreads in video games. So design wise, both sides of the coin fit the weapon class, but oddly enough they're balanced differently depending on if they're spread is fixed or not, which is really, really odd. You'd think their cones would just be the exact same.
@@hoonterofhoonters6588 Well, yeah. Tracking someone with a full auto weapon only requires you to focus on one thing, aiming. But when you're using a weapon that requires a pump action or a slight delay, you're not getting that constant DPS. After every shot, you need to take into account what you're going to do during that down time. Not to mention not having constant DPS gives the opponent more chances to hit you and missing a shot is a lot more punishing.
@@hoonterofhoonters6588 go watch The Evolution of Heavy lister I think, it explains how heavy was designed to make you learn more positional awareness due to the a multitude of factors, one of which is that they thought "tracking aim" was less skill based than "flick aim" It's also a good video
This might actually convince me to play on servers with RPS off (and maybe come back to TF2 in general). I never would have guessed this issue was the case, watching footage of youtube creators gunning down foes with the shotgun at what I would have thought was shortstop range. I can also see the Panic Attack being so much more viable now too, even with the "wide" shot pattern.
the panic attack is garbage when used without rps, because the shotguns spread pattern is infinitely better and even with rps, that spread pattern is just horrid
while i personally have no issue with what a server's RBS spread preference is, it doesn't feel as satisfying to kill someone with a shotgun without RBS.
@@zelpyzelp with non-RBS shotguns you don't exactly have to take as many risks as you can just stand further away than you would normally and frag someone that way. taking the risks with RBS shotguns and securing the frag though, now that's satisfying as hell.
So Fixed spread changes the effective range of weapons. With Fixed, the range is farther. With Random, its closer. Good to know. I only play on Valve servers, but in the off chance I joined a community server with fixed, I now have this knowledge in the back of my mind.
@@BlackChad792Randomness isn't the only thing that makes tf2 less competitive. It's entirely possible to be silly without randomness affecting people who don't,xt want to be silly. Weird hats, hats on fire, hitting people with a fish, having a dance party, ragdols, these all make tf2 far more wacky.
To be fair, random crits are an important stat. Like Gunslinger has guaranteed crits, but the other wrenches assuming you're doing damage has plenty of crits by itself. To remove random crits entirely is a very large balance shift. Id make the percentage crit chance act as a direct damage boost instead of the crits if i were to remove random crits.
@@fantastikboom1094 The big circle one a.k.a. RBS one is what games usually do with shotgun spreed while square one a.k.a. FBS one is spreed that shotguns have IRL, of course cone shaped not square one and I think it should still be a bit smaller than in tf2
Actually you need to get the avrage of the bullet distribution to get an percent value of increased accuracy. Becaus only using the extremus Shows only the Max accuracy gain.
You're still armed with the knowledge that sometimes, your shots will be missing one or two pellets at close range. It's a thing that never happens on fixed spread, where you could feasibly get good enough to 2-shot a Scout with a 62- and a 63-damage blast at exactly the range where those damage numbers happen. Where if the Scout wanted to two-shot you, they'd have to get on your level with the accuracy.
I don't recall comp players coming to the conclusion that fixed spread is actually mathematically more accurate, just more consistent and favorable in shape, but that's really as far as I remember the argument was
@@tf2excession I mean on statistical average they should end up perfectly even, just one you can practice for and one you can't. But this just isn't the case, which makes a whole world of difference from what the actual implications of a consistent spread pattern would be
This makes a lot of sense to me! I notice a lot of streamers/youtubers playing the game hitting high-damage shots with the shotgun from much further than I usually can. There's obviously a difference in skill here, but I also know that many of them like to play on servers without random bullet spread (especially in comp). I play on official Valve servers which have random spread enabled.
I'm not saying anything for either side of rather or not RBS should or shouldn't be a thing. What I am saying is I've seen people blame random bullet spread for doing little to no damage to someone when they don't even have the cross-hair on their target. They were full-on pointing to the wall next to them and then blaming the random bullet spread for missing.
Yeah I seen both videos and players in-game via spectating do this. There are fair points for and against RBS, but dear lord are some people abusing it to keep their ego intact.
honestly people like that just suck at aiming and are just looking for any excuse they can use to blame their shitty aim on, such as blaming it on lag, their mouse dying, or of course RBS. the only thing i really have to say to people like that is "git gud". instead of bitching and moaning because of how bad their aim is, they should practice aiming with something like Aim Lab or some shit
i don't think anyone wants 100% pinpoint accuracy on rapid fire hitscan weapons, you can just go to fixed patterns like in counterstrike, valorant, apex, etc. That would theoretically mean it would be possible to hit every shot with extreme skill or a bot by microadjusting aim between each shot, but it's not like the smg and minigun become laser guns.
ehhh minigun prolly would be too good, there is no headshots on anything but sniper and singular spy revolver, but there is loads of DPS that could be dished out, and miniguns have huge DPS
this isnt a bad idea and would definitely be better than them having rbs but i think you can even get away with them just straight up being 100% accurate if you just increase the damage falloff to compensate. this wouldn't work for minigun due to its high rate of fire but i dont see a reason it would be a problem on pistol,smg or revolver.
a fixed pattern is effectively perfect accuracy because tryhards will memorize the spread of the SMG/Pistol to optimize damage. Obviously it would take inhuman skill to reliably do that but buffing the intentionally unreliable secondaries of classes that already have monsterously powerful primaries feels like a bad path
Zesty, somehow fixed the bullet spread on all shotgun it feel like Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Heavy, and Engi using a 6 gauge shell. Also jeez that Shortstop bullet pattern...
If I had one major gripe with RBS on non-shotgun weapons... revolver spread pisses me off when I'm within minimum social distancing range and I still miss 80% of my shots
honestly it just sounds to me that you might not have the best aim in the world. i'll be real with you, if RBS was disabled on revolvers that would probably make them a bit too OP. same with the pistols
@@skeletonmemelord7779 ehh i dont really see how even with perfect aim you would need to unload at least 6 shots with revolver or 16 shots with pistol into someone at full hp to kill them at range and thats just to kill a light class.
i think that its because most nospread servers also have nocrits and scouts can get fucked over by nocrits pretty hard so they just naturally go to nospread nocrits
I'm of the opinion that the game was designed with Random Bullet Spread in mind, so enabling fixed bullet spread without rebalancing in another way leads to shotguns being way more effective outside of their intended range. Fixed bullet spread on its own is a huge nerf to Pyro!
@@ShakerSilver This game wasnt intended to be balanced it was 9 distinct funny ways to play the game that falls short when taken seriously, current 6v6 is a highly restrictive learned game with little variation just so you have even the ghost of the essence of comp play. (repeatable mastery vs repeatable mastery)
@@yourdemiseishere "the game wasn't intended to be balanced" is the most nonsense statement I've ever heard. Like I don't give a shit about what comp players do, the game is mostly well balanced and greatly rewards mechanical skill, and is just hurt by arbitrary randomness in those interactions. it's not Mario Party, it's a skill-based PvP shooter where people are largely trying to win.
@@ShakerSilver it's just a game, not everything have to be strictly the one way. Just because you don't like randomness it doesn't mean it's dumb. I don't like playing demo so that must mean demo is stupid class and shouldn't exist
@@ZestyJesus Eh I feel that while not a massive game changer, the randomness does have an impact. But yeah the spread as a whole being tightened with RBS off is definitely the bigger factor here, would probably be considered more of a non-issue if the fixed square matched the RBS circle like you suggested
So does the shortstop become better than the scattergun without bulletspread? If not, what if the scattergun kept the bullet spread but the shortstop didn't?
In essence, yes? At any range without bullet spread you just gotta aim center mass with the shortstop to cash in on max damage nearly all the time. If the scattergun had fixed bullet spread in the same pattern just imagine scouts annihilating classes from the same mid range as the shortstop without any of the negatives.
Great video, I appreciate you clearing up prior misconceptions and doing further tests. This spread difference seriously changes the mid range capability of Scout and Engineer in particular. If only there was a CVAR option for a tighter random spread, one that uses the same width/span of the current fixed spread pattern. And I guess, by extension, also another option for fixed wide spread like the vanilla TF2 spread size.
RUclipsr offering RUclips tip because I like your videos and I want you to win RUclips: at 4:10 you said the common "This is the end of the video" phrase "So there you have it". The only problem is that you said this at about 66% of the way through the video. I thought the video was done, and was about to click off. I can only imagine that your average view duration chart starts to drop quickly around here. Try not to use "closing language" until the last like 5 seconds of the video. Also, thank you for teaching me about the massive accuracy advantage fixed spread has.
I'd say that out of all the classes, this affects Scout the most and honestly why I'm not a fan of fixed spread. Scout's effective range with fixed bullet spread allows him to consistently dish out high damage from a much further distance than when fixed bullet spread is turned on and as I see it, really factors into him being that much more threatening in competitive scenarios where its common for fixed spread to be on. While I think consistency makes the gameplay less frustrating, the additional range it grants him sucks to fight. Would also be interested in seeing fixed spread where the bullets aren't extremely accurate compared to their random spread counterparts, I'd probably be alright with that.
the fix could be to make the box match in size to the random circle, so you'll still be doing reliable, but much ress damage. Honestly it's a bit baffling why fixed spread is so much smaller. Were the devs assuming most people will be so wildly inaccurate they need pellets shooting off to the side to do damage?
The part about this is, you can actually disable bloom via settings, I remember fucking around with settings once, and I saw a choice: "Use bloom when enabled," and I turned it off, and it made the BIGGEST difference.
I still prefer random bullet spread because i love getting a clump of pellet all close together and dealing devasting damage, with fixed spread there's a range where you will only be able to hit 6 pellets, and one where you only hit 3
I mean, the game was made with RBS in mind, so it's probably random spread that is badly shaped and spread (it should be a circle of the same size of RBS, not a square)
At 1:22 it should have been 12.18/71.45 as that proves how much of a percentage the difference is from the orginal. this division of A - B = C -> C / A = D was done correctly at 2:42.
what makes the shortstop weird is shots five pellets, but two overlap in the center with fixed spread, which is why that one has such a surprising power boost without fixed spread.
i don't think i've ever heard anyone genuinely think that RBS for automatic weapons and the revolver need to be removed. i always thought whenever the discussion comes up, it was exclusively for shotguns. since servers like uncletopia have RBS off but don't have laser revolvers/miniguns/smgs. also i think the passive aggressive comment at 0:19 was kinda un-necessary and didn't do much to further your own point, other than mock people who think RBS is bad.
this just further validates my argument that random bullet spread should be tightened a bit for shotguns. keep the random spread but tighten it so that it isn't that much bigger than fixed. a shotgun is literally random bullet spread in every fiber of its being unless it shoots slugs.
I love how you implement statistics mathematics into tf2, as not only i get to enjoy ur videos, but i also understand the steps and procedures u took for your data analysis.
Not only is fixed bullet spread shortstop more accurate, but the layout pretty much guarantees 2 pellets hit even at long range, since they are stacked completely vertically
Random Bullet Spread is literally how guns work though irl... Not every bullet is going to shoot exactly straight, especially a bunch of small pellets/metal bits flying out of a barrel. This is why Im ok with it.
If random bullet spread kept an identical range to fixed spread, I would probably be mostly indifferent to whether it's set on or off. Now that I know this, I prefer fixed spread because they feel better to aim with
After looking into the code, porting it to R, and doing a million or so iterations, the code gives a random spread by doing the following: Creates two random variables x and y which will be added to x and y directions of the vector the player is currently looking in. x and y are distributed according to the sum of two uniform random variables (assuming an internal parameter is 0.5. Good assumption according to the code comment) The distribution is not gaussian, but it is triangle shaped. 76% of the pellets will be in the center circle (a circle with the same center but half of the radius) The above would equate to 25% reduced average damage dealt by using RBS instead of FBS since this halfway point is the perimeter of the FBS pattern according to the video. The most ironic thing about this is this damage reduction is almost the same as Valve's attempted balance for no random crits weapons. _Turning off random bullet spread is like turning on random crits for shotguns_. Let me repeat that: for the purposes of average damage per shot, every single weapon in the game except shotguns has random crits factored in. Shotguns also have random crits, but random bullet spread essentially cancels it out. When you turn off random crits AND random bullet spread, you essentially give shotguns +35% damage per shot that no other weapon is compensated with, which equates to the average damage a weapon gains over time when random crits is turned on. Advocating for fixed bullet spread is advocating for random crits without knowing you are advocating for random crits.
I was with you until the last part. It is not like advocating for random crits. It is like advocating for buffing the accuracy/damage of shotguns. Also most people that advocate for FBS also advocate for no random crits, so as you said, it cancels out.
I've been playing this game since 2009, and I've had countless hours in both games with and without fixed spread. Normally, when I'm in a server with random spread on, I rarely ever notice any time where random spread really did cause me to potentially get killed. I never really minded because I know the OTHER players are also dealing with it, so it's somewhat of an even field in that regard as far as I'm concerned. Obviously, as zesty show, there is definitely an accuracy difference when looking at the spread, but it's not like how some people feel with the majority of shotguns that it makes your damage such a dice roll that you can feel it every game. The only exception is with the shortstop. Being a scout main, I've played a fair bit on all of the scout weapons, and one of the weapons I particularly like is the shortstop because of how different it feels compared to the other primaries. It's the ONLY weapon where I really feel the random spread every game I use it in. It brings it from being a very deadly quad-shot to something that feels like you're sneezing on them half the time, with the occasional crazy amount of damage when every pellet hits. It's one of the only weapons I would say truly feels like a dice roll with each shot when the random spread is on, and that sucks dick.
the agrument of bigger spread circles is kinda wrong, since a few pellets are further away from the crosshair while some are much closer. so basically there will be a smaller circle where 50% of the pellets hit, compared to the bigger one on fixed spread
They should add fixed bullet spread for shortstop like the panic attack has, making the weapon more consistent at range thus more unique than other scatterguns, since its only unique thing is the shitty shove
Zesty, there is something I want to understand: At 5:04 you said that it's a bad idea to remove RBS from *auto-guns* like smg, revolver and pistol, which in my opinion is very agreeable, however, when people talk about RBS I see it as talking about "tf_use_fixed_weaponspreads 1\0", which only removes is from multi-pellet single shots, like shotgun and scattergun, that is the official definition in my opinion for "disabling RBS", I don't play CSGO so I don't know if removing auto-gun RBS is from there, but I don't think people want this change, I may be proven wrong. I think there is a lack of definition for what the 'comp' players want (at least in this video) and it frustrates me because it brings birth to stupid fights and misunderstandings. I enjoyed the video, you always bring new things to the table, you somehow managed to make such a dull subject as RBS into a somewhat interesting topic, congrats on that. Have a nice day.
While I would MUCH rather have random bullet spread for SMGs, Miniguns, etc., Im curious as to how having a CSGO style spread pattern (minus the recoil) would function. I.E, its the same pattern every time you fire for extended periods of time, but the pattern is designed to appear similar to the random bullet spread found in game. I feel this would add a level of consistency while still maintaining the same effective ranges for the weapons in question.
I vaguely recall that “fixed spread” pistols are coded to still not be laser accurate, but instead shoot consistently … in a box pattern. Which would name an the range gets a bit longer according to this test.
having random bullet spread off in this game does barely anything for automatics and only really affects shotguns lol i have no idea where this insane notion that RBS off turns miniguns into sniper rifles came from
I think another important factor that needs to be considered for weapon accuracy: the hit profile of your targets. All uncrouched enemies have a tall rectangular hitbox (more or less), and so vertical pattern of a fixed spread of bullets will hit for damage much more reliably, with an extra row or column being added in fixed intervals based on your aim and how close the target is. Wheras with random distribution, there's a half decent chance that even a well-lined-up shot can only hit with one or two pellets, due to the random scatter ranging from barely to wildly missing otherwise.
The "60% more accurate" factoid only holds water if you assume that each point in the random bullet spread cone is equally as likely, which just isn't true
Plus it just makes sense to have random bullet spread due to it being a real thing in real life as well, I don't think I've EVER since a fixed shot pattern on a shotgun in real life. So i agree with you Zesty on this.
I wonder then how the panic attack compares to stock with random bullet spread, given that it has lower accuracy, yet has increased accuracy from the fixed pattern.
What we need is *blue noise* bullet spread… Er, sorry, the RED soldier is about to hit me in the back of the head with a shovel for calling it “blue noise”.
Seeing the shortstop's spreads reminds me of the shotgun accuracy reveal in hunt showdown. While theres still a spread and hunt has effective ranges, alot of shotguns have a similar spread to what you've just shown with the shortstop, though not that tight of a spread. Thats with normal buckshot though, the other ammo types have different spreads.
Critstop is viable in no restrictions 6's since the med can just heal off any damage you take while sniping important picks like the Med or Demo. Obviously if a flanker gets in your face your fucked but its kinda like a fast diet sniper with 2x cap rate
The shotguns balance is that they have spread and damage falloff. Why would fixed spread make it broken? It would still get outclassed midrange by the demoman and every other class save for the spy, medic and sniper has one anyways.
@@skeletonmemelord7779 Pyro already gets shut down by people who realize they can shoot outside of his flame thrower range. Besides, pyro’s job isn’t to get frags, it’s to mash m2 and deny people of doing their jobs (Medi Uber, demo/soldier spam, spy, etc.) which he can still do with fixed spread. I don’t know why people “theorize” how removing RBS would affect the game when servers that do that already exist and are fine. Uncletopia is literally just pubs 2.0, people run Pyro there all the time.
If the accuracy was the same regardless of RBS being on or off then you'd still have instances where pellets cluster more or less to one side. This could be avoided by having a maximum range between each pellet to prevent offset clusters of damage. If pellets can still cluster to one side more than the other then you'd still have rare instances where the player is either cheated from a kill, or be given a kill due to damage thresholds and spread at distance. For example an evenly placed shot missing enough pellets to increase the required shots to kill by 1, or getting a few extra pellets to land on off center aim causing the shot to kill when it would have barely not killed them. The main argument I've seen for RBS's removal has always been the potential variance leading to 1 extra needed shot or 1 less needed shot to kill without any influence on the players end. In the exact same scenario where RBS is off the player would be punished for bad aim and rewarded for good aim more consistently. It's also worth considering the moment to moment feel of shots landing or missing will feel less inconsistent. Since shots with the same "enemy team hitbox" to "background" ratio will always return similar numbers. The instances of RBS impacting whether you need an extra shot would statistically even out, but the influence of those specific damage boosts or decreases varies significantly. From both a win state observation in a match to a player's personal catharsis and enjoyment. Missing a kill on that one guy you want get due to a few of your bullets deciding to lean to the other side of your aim's cone is frustrating. In the opposite scenario getting a kill despite your aim being way off can feel undeserved or empty. Since the kill was not due to having good aim, but the game giving you just a little bit of extra damage you didn't aim well to get. All that being said it would be nice to see a fair comparison with a RBS cone that matched the fixed patterns to see if this is actually a big enough difference to matter. Or at the very least whether or not the instances in which it effect things significantly are so rare that it does not register as a difference. The real question is, what aspects to gameplay does RBS bring that would be worth whatever potential downsides it has, and what does FBS bring positively to gameplay in exchange for any negatives it can cause. In terms of visuals you could very easily separate how something looks from the mechanics, so there's no reason to be restricted to unnaturally shaped pellet formations with RBS off. Especially since if a player can't register the difference between RBS and FBS effecting their damage, it's doubtful that they'd also be able to observe the spread of damage not lining up with the visual placement of the pellets in something as chaotic as TF2. Though I think both of those would be more noticeable the better you are at the game.
I think random bullet spread could be made a lot better by just encoding a cap on the distance from the crosshair based on the gun so that it never goes farther than the farthest pellet in the fixed calc, like how classic DOOM has a cap on how far from the crosshair pellets can spread.
That ending got me, that was a damn good impression, and good video, I always sucked with the shortstop but I did notice hitting more shots with it on servers with bullet spread off
No, I doubt it's normally distributed.
Whenever you create an instance of a random class, it's uniformly distributed because that's all a computer can do. You turn them into other distributions through various methods. Unfortunately, turning a uniform distribution into a normal distribution requires an memory intense algorithm. There is no reason to implement a high memory using process for randomizing bullet spread. If I had to guess, the method is taking a generic random seed and then choosing a random number from 0 to R for the distance between the center pellet and the edge of the spread then also choosing a random angle from 0 to 360 degrees for which sector the pellet lands in.
I would argue that since this there is no reason for one sector to be chosen over the other, the random angle is distributed uniformly. For the deviation from center pellet, I could see a distribution that focuses closer to the center i.e. biased towards 0. One simple way would be an exponential distribution. That can be easily calculated in a single step through logarithms, but you'd have to truncate it since exponential doesn't have a maximum value.
Another way would be not to generate a random deviation directly but to generate a random number from 0 to 1, square it, THEN multiply it by R. That would also be pretty simple to evaluate for a computer while also biasing the center and keeping a max at R.
Honestly, if people are going to measure the pix of pellets, just do it with all of them and aggregate the histogram. Though I will say that even if it's bell-shaped, I doubt it'd be normally distributed. It might just be the average of 3 random variables or something. You need something like 24-48 random uniform variables to generate a single variable more or less indistinguishable from a normal variable. I doubt they're doing that in Source.
I can't read
So much and yet I don't get why the pin lol.
It's cool insight into how RBS is likely coded
@@ZestyJesus I see well this is a good pin then and thank you.
if you ask me, the distribution looks closer to a square than a circle
That Shortstop discrepancy...yeesh.
And that thing is meant to have a longer effective range compared to Scout's other primaries!
looks like whomever did the stats players with bullet spread off.
It's actually kinda interesting to me, because whenever folks think about buffs the Shortstop could use, it generally comes down to needing some kinda funky fall-off so that it deals the most damage at mid-range, since that's what it's always felt like it should excel at over its siblings
And it absolutely should have that, but this video also makes it clear that it should probably have the Panic Attack's fixed spread stat too
even with fixed spread itll still suck because the damage falloff is the same as stock, 52.8%
@@WhimsicottFanatic just reduce the maximum falloff to something like 70%, maybe buff the base damage of each pellet by 1 or 2, and add qol improvements to the shove
Technically it does since the pellets deal twice the amount of damage as the scatter guns'. But it has only 4 pellets, where as the scattergun has 10 (12 for the force of nature). You're going to be doing about the same damage at similar ranges because of how often the pellets will land.
YES I KNOW THERE IS A TYPO
Good job but leave it I think it's funny.
glad to see you're still kicking after what happened, keep up the good work
@@fartmaster3 What happend?
EPIC TYPO FAILURE
@@wealthybone2990 he had a different opinion
everybody wants perfectly accurate shotguns till the 1k hours engie rolls outta his nest with 20 revenge crits and starts playing shotgun-sniper
Everybody wants accurate shotguns until the 2k hours Scout that never fricking touches the ground starts demolishing Heavies from the other side of the map
I just want the shortstop to have the fixed bullet spread so that the fucking thing actually does it's fucking job. I have a Strange Festivitied Damascus and Mahogany Shortstop and the fact that the piece of shit doesn't mid, close, or long range because of the fucking bullets spread boils my ballsack and gargles my grundle.
@@davisdf3064 everybody wants no RPS until heavy becomes the sniper®
@@Bnvnu
Everyone wants no RBS until the weapons start performing realistically
The opposite isn't fun either, I never use the frontier justice because it makes a vein in my head explode when I hit someone at spitting range for 40 damage. I would do more damage by directly throwing the gun in their face.
it's weird how this seems so obvious yet I never really thought about what the actual difference in accuracy was until now
I personally don't care that the accuracy is changed, I just like consistency.
Re: 5:03
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone suggest that random bullet spread should be removed for SMGs, pistols, and miniguns. Since they all have a very quick firing speed, and decent to large clip sizes, each individual shot matters a lot less than on shotgun weapons, which fire much slower but with higher damage.
So, yeah, it *would* be a pretty stupid idea, if anyone was even suggesting it.
ive definitely seen it. its far less common than with shotguns, but zealots for "competitive mode first" argue that there should be nothing left to chance because that means its an RNG and not a skill issue... but for people like me still on windows 7 office pcs, and a mouse with a broken scrollwheel its not exactly a fair fight anyway.
@@Robb1977, random bullet spread is separate for automatic weapons, it's always on regardless of shotgun RBS
@@Robb1977I have never seen anyone ever say this in any competitive environment. Those comp “zealots” are probably just 14 year olds parroting a RUclipsrs opinion and trying to put their own spin on it without critically thinking about it.
@4Lυkαskα very possible.
Me, a person who can't aim worth my life: 3 chip damage from a medium range shotgun blast is a win in my book
Hello famous tf2 RUclipsr jalon
what mouse are you using?
I started using the shortstop in uncletopia since I wanted to see just how bad it was again, but when I started getting a decent amount of kills playing mid range I was questioning if i had some sort of bias towards it. This makes so much sense
I have noticed the same thing there.
its pretty good anyway imo
Zesty is the type of person that confirms our conspiracy theories with data. Next week the frogs are gay
That already happened... no I am serious.
Atrazine, a chemical herbicide, messed with the endocrine system of frogs and turned them hermaphroditic. The chemicals in the water are in fact turning the frickin frogs gay.
@@WyattStrange No it wasn't. They weren't turned gay. ...They were turned trans.
@@vanilla8956
Immensely worse.
@@semi-useful5178 that's actually what happened by the way, jones got confused
RBS certainly suits certain weapon classes than other ones as well. TF2 really likes skill based weaponry, given that most weapons are Semi-auto, or single shot weapons. So if a gun is full auto, they give it spread. Tracking an opponent is definitely easier than landing a single shot every half second.
However, when it comes to shotguns, it'd make sense for them to have fixed spread. They're precision based weapons that need you to land a shot every half second or so. But at the same time, shotguns are known for their random spreads in video games.
So design wise, both sides of the coin fit the weapon class, but oddly enough they're balanced differently depending on if they're spread is fixed or not, which is really, really odd. You'd think their cones would just be the exact same.
"Tracking an opponent is definitely easier than landing a single shot every half second." Is it? Is that really true?
@@hoonterofhoonters6588 Well, yeah. Tracking someone with a full auto weapon only requires you to focus on one thing, aiming. But when you're using a weapon that requires a pump action or a slight delay, you're not getting that constant DPS. After every shot, you need to take into account what you're going to do during that down time.
Not to mention not having constant DPS gives the opponent more chances to hit you and missing a shot is a lot more punishing.
@@hoonterofhoonters6588 go watch The Evolution of Heavy
lister I think, it explains how heavy was designed to make you learn more positional awareness due to the a multitude of factors, one of which is that they thought "tracking aim" was less skill based than "flick aim"
It's also a good video
@Spookwagen-The Great eating a burger with no funny musterd
This might actually convince me to play on servers with RPS off (and maybe come back to TF2 in general). I never would have guessed this issue was the case, watching footage of youtube creators gunning down foes with the shotgun at what I would have thought was shortstop range. I can also see the Panic Attack being so much more viable now too, even with the "wide" shot pattern.
Uncle Dane has made a great video on this point, it's a great insight if you want more info about it.
the panic attack is garbage when used without rps, because the shotguns spread pattern is infinitely better
and even with rps, that spread pattern is just horrid
while i personally have no issue with what a server's RBS spread preference is, it doesn't feel as satisfying to kill someone with a shotgun without RBS.
@@skeletonmemelord7779 why's that? If you don't mind me asking
@@zelpyzelp with non-RBS shotguns you don't exactly have to take as many risks as you can just stand further away than you would normally and frag someone that way.
taking the risks with RBS shotguns and securing the frag though, now that's satisfying as hell.
Personally I think this is what the short stop SHOULD feel like
but not the other shotguns
Fr it’s already a nerf gun
So Fixed spread changes the effective range of weapons. With Fixed, the range is farther. With Random, its closer.
Good to know. I only play on Valve servers, but in the off chance I joined a community server with fixed, I now have this knowledge in the back of my mind.
There is no advantage in using RBS
@@Luksed12 Random bullet spread is just another element of randomness in the combat of TF2 which make it more casual and less deterministic
that sounds like the same argument for keeping random crits in the game@@BlackChad792
@@BlackChad792Randomness isn't the only thing that makes tf2 less competitive. It's entirely possible to be silly without randomness affecting people who don't,xt want to be silly. Weird hats, hats on fire, hitting people with a fish, having a dance party, ragdols, these all make tf2 far more wacky.
To be fair, random crits are an important stat. Like Gunslinger has guaranteed crits, but the other wrenches assuming you're doing damage has plenty of crits by itself. To remove random crits entirely is a very large balance shift. Id make the percentage crit chance act as a direct damage boost instead of the crits if i were to remove random crits.
While it's good to see misinformation corrected, this means really annoying people will act even more annoying
unfortunately yes.
How games portray shotgun spray vs how it actually is.
Which one is where?
@@fantastikboom1094 The big circle one a.k.a. RBS one is what games usually do with shotgun spreed while square one a.k.a. FBS one is spreed that shotguns have IRL, of course cone shaped not square one and I think it should still be a bit smaller than in tf2
@@Jasiuc330 You're wrong tho. Try shooting a shotgun, you'll be surprised.
Actually you need to get the avrage of the bullet distribution to get an percent value of increased accuracy. Becaus only using the extremus Shows only the Max accuracy gain.
This, this, this!
You're still armed with the knowledge that sometimes, your shots will be missing one or two pellets at close range. It's a thing that never happens on fixed spread, where you could feasibly get good enough to 2-shot a Scout with a 62- and a 63-damage blast at exactly the range where those damage numbers happen. Where if the Scout wanted to two-shot you, they'd have to get on your level with the accuracy.
zesty finally learns a lesson the comp community has learned years ago lol
he still did the math for it
I don't recall comp players coming to the conclusion that fixed spread is actually mathematically more accurate, just more consistent and favorable in shape, but that's really as far as I remember the argument was
@@OmegaRC59 It being exactly the same grid pattern just automatically made it more accurate as a whole than random
@@tf2excession I mean on statistical average they should end up perfectly even, just one you can practice for and one you can't. But this just isn't the case, which makes a whole world of difference from what the actual implications of a consistent spread pattern would be
He isn’t the brightest
I’ve been using the shortstop in casual for memes and the discrepancy in its usefulness in various scenarios is mind boggling
This makes a lot of sense to me! I notice a lot of streamers/youtubers playing the game hitting high-damage shots with the shotgun from much further than I usually can. There's obviously a difference in skill here, but I also know that many of them like to play on servers without random bullet spread (especially in comp). I play on official Valve servers which have random spread enabled.
I'm not saying anything for either side of rather or not RBS should or shouldn't be a thing.
What I am saying is I've seen people blame random bullet spread for doing little to no damage to someone when they don't even have the cross-hair on their target.
They were full-on pointing to the wall next to them and then blaming the random bullet spread for missing.
Yeah I seen both videos and players in-game via spectating do this.
There are fair points for and against RBS, but dear lord are some people abusing it to keep their ego intact.
honestly people like that just suck at aiming and are just looking for any excuse they can use to blame their shitty aim on, such as blaming it on lag, their mouse dying, or of course RBS. the only thing i really have to say to people like that is "git gud". instead of bitching and moaning because of how bad their aim is, they should practice aiming with something like Aim Lab or some shit
Can't wait for a fixed spread plugin that makes it a circle, as it always should've been
Well that explains a bit. I often had more consistent aim in MGE environments. Guess it's a big difference.
another good video with great editing. ty zesty your content is always fun to watch.
The Force-A-Nature also does bonus damage on fixed spread, due to the extra pellets overlapping
lol
The devs know this and it is an intentional feature on the panic attack to make it encourage close fights
i don't think anyone wants 100% pinpoint accuracy on rapid fire hitscan weapons, you can just go to fixed patterns like in counterstrike, valorant, apex, etc. That would theoretically mean it would be possible to hit every shot with extreme skill or a bot by microadjusting aim between each shot, but it's not like the smg and minigun become laser guns.
ehhh minigun prolly would be too good, there is no headshots on anything but sniper and singular spy revolver, but there is loads of DPS that could be dished out, and miniguns have huge DPS
this isnt a bad idea and would definitely be better than them having rbs but i think you can even get away with them just straight up being 100% accurate if you just increase the damage falloff to compensate. this wouldn't work for minigun due to its high rate of fire but i dont see a reason it would be a problem on pistol,smg or revolver.
a fixed pattern is effectively perfect accuracy because tryhards will memorize the spread of the SMG/Pistol to optimize damage. Obviously it would take inhuman skill to reliably do that but buffing the intentionally unreliable secondaries of classes that already have monsterously powerful primaries feels like a bad path
I honestly feel the shortstop specifically shouldn't have random bullet spread.
you're so right we should remove fixed shotgun spread
Zesty, somehow fixed the bullet spread on all shotgun it feel like Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Heavy, and Engi using a 6 gauge shell.
Also jeez that Shortstop bullet pattern...
If I had one major gripe with RBS on non-shotgun weapons... revolver spread pisses me off when I'm within minimum social distancing range and I still miss 80% of my shots
to be fair the revolver does a scary amount of damage per shot
RBS isn't that big lol, you just can't aim
@@edwinlam4679 big deal on revolvers and pistol
honestly it just sounds to me that you might not have the best aim in the world. i'll be real with you, if RBS was disabled on revolvers that would probably make them a bit too OP. same with the pistols
@@skeletonmemelord7779 ehh i dont really see how even with perfect aim you would need to unload at least 6 shots with revolver or 16 shots with pistol into someone at full hp to kill them at range and thats just to kill a light class.
the shortstop would geniunely be incredible if it had fixed spread as a stat
this explains why scunts osscilate so much inside no random spread servers
i think that its because most nospread servers also have nocrits and scouts can get fucked over by nocrits pretty hard so they just naturally go to nospread nocrits
I'm of the opinion that the game was designed with Random Bullet Spread in mind, so enabling fixed bullet spread without rebalancing in another way leads to shotguns being way more effective outside of their intended range. Fixed bullet spread on its own is a huge nerf to Pyro!
The game was designed with a lot of dumb things in mind like Random Damage Spread and Melees dealing crits 15-60% of the time.
@@ShakerSilver This game wasnt intended to be balanced it was 9 distinct funny ways to play the game that falls short when taken seriously, current 6v6 is a highly restrictive learned game with little variation just so you have even the ghost of the essence of comp play. (repeatable mastery vs repeatable mastery)
@@yourdemiseishere "the game wasn't intended to be balanced" is the most nonsense statement I've ever heard. Like I don't give a shit about what comp players do, the game is mostly well balanced and greatly rewards mechanical skill, and is just hurt by arbitrary randomness in those interactions. it's not Mario Party, it's a skill-based PvP shooter where people are largely trying to win.
@@ShakerSilver I'm not trying to "win" in Tf2. I'm trying to chill and unwind and enjoy haha pootis pow XD. Stop being a tourneyfag
@@ShakerSilver it's just a game, not everything have to be strictly the one way. Just because you don't like randomness it doesn't mean it's dumb. I don't like playing demo so that must mean demo is stupid class and shouldn't exist
Zesty: Random bullet spread doesn't matter
Also Zesty: Actually it does matter but I'm still right lol
the randomness of RBS doesn't matter
the size of the spread when it's turned on does
@@ZestyJesus Eh I feel that while not a massive game changer, the randomness does have an impact. But yeah the spread as a whole being tightened with RBS off is definitely the bigger factor here, would probably be considered more of a non-issue if the fixed square matched the RBS circle like you suggested
@@ZestyJesus yes it does
So does the shortstop become better than the scattergun without bulletspread? If not, what if the scattergun kept the bullet spread but the shortstop didn't?
In essence, yes? At any range without bullet spread you just gotta aim center mass with the shortstop to cash in on max damage nearly all the time. If the scattergun had fixed bullet spread in the same pattern just imagine scouts annihilating classes from the same mid range as the shortstop without any of the negatives.
You'd still have only four shots, a longer reload and would get outclassed at short range.
no
scatterguns range increases too, so its still on top
that's what happens when you disable RBS. it becomes more powerful and in a sense, the fixed spread Shortstop feels like a crutch imo
@@skeletonmemelord7779, what do you mean by "crutch"?
Great video, I appreciate you clearing up prior misconceptions and doing further tests. This spread difference seriously changes the mid range capability of Scout and Engineer in particular. If only there was a CVAR option for a tighter random spread, one that uses the same width/span of the current fixed spread pattern. And I guess, by extension, also another option for fixed wide spread like the vanilla TF2 spread size.
And that's why the panic attack is generally the best shotgun in causal.
for anyone who's anal about RBS being an issue, yes.
holy cow, that is NOTABLY DIFFERENT
RUclipsr offering RUclips tip because I like your videos and I want you to win RUclips: at 4:10 you said the common "This is the end of the video" phrase "So there you have it". The only problem is that you said this at about 66% of the way through the video. I thought the video was done, and was about to click off. I can only imagine that your average view duration chart starts to drop quickly around here.
Try not to use "closing language" until the last like 5 seconds of the video.
Also, thank you for teaching me about the massive accuracy advantage fixed spread has.
Didn't even think about it that way...thank you
I'd say that out of all the classes, this affects Scout the most and honestly why I'm not a fan of fixed spread. Scout's effective range with fixed bullet spread allows him to consistently dish out high damage from a much further distance than when fixed bullet spread is turned on and as I see it, really factors into him being that much more threatening in competitive scenarios where its common for fixed spread to be on. While I think consistency makes the gameplay less frustrating, the additional range it grants him sucks to fight. Would also be interested in seeing fixed spread where the bullets aren't extremely accurate compared to their random spread counterparts, I'd probably be alright with that.
the fix could be to make the box match in size to the random circle, so you'll still be doing reliable, but much ress damage.
Honestly it's a bit baffling why fixed spread is so much smaller. Were the devs assuming most people will be so wildly inaccurate they need pellets shooting off to the side to do damage?
This is why the panic attack seems so damn good
No wonder why the panic attack just feels nice
The part about this is, you can actually disable bloom via settings, I remember fucking around with settings once, and I saw a choice: "Use bloom when enabled," and I turned it off, and it made the BIGGEST difference.
What does that have to do with Bullet Spread?
yeah, I think the graphics settings probably change your guns accuracy actually! crazy guy
@@FWbitxhh I think it was somewhere in gameplay options or somewhere like that.
"Ferb, i know what we're gonna do today" *joins Uncletopia with shortstop and crit-a-cola*
I still prefer random bullet spread because i love getting a clump of pellet all close together and dealing devasting damage, with fixed spread there's a range where you will only be able to hit 6 pellets, and one where you only hit 3
Making Random Bullet Spread off Default: 🚫
Making the Fixed Spread pattern the same size as Random Spread: ✔
Other way around, make the random spread the same size as the fixed spread
So, this is obviously Source Jank. The question is "does the fixed spread or the random spread have the actual 'intended' shotgun accuracy?"
I mean, the game was made with RBS in mind, so it's probably random spread that is badly shaped and spread (it should be a circle of the same size of RBS, not a square)
Could've made a collab with schounic about since he's the tf2 source code master
now we know the buff the shortstop needs. Fixed shot patter to become the viable midrange scattergun.
At 1:22 it should have been 12.18/71.45 as that proves how much of a percentage the difference is from the orginal. this division of A - B = C -> C / A = D was done correctly at 2:42.
Woops, my bad...still comes out to 0.17, which is effectively 0.20. Incorrect process with the correct answer...
@@ZestyJesus Yup, which is why i didn't bother much more 'bout it than just to leave a comment letting ya know.
what makes the shortstop weird is shots five pellets, but two overlap in the center with fixed spread, which is why that one has such a surprising power boost without fixed spread.
absolutely love your choice of music here btw, prime 3 is one of my favorite games
i don't think i've ever heard anyone genuinely think that RBS for automatic weapons and the revolver need to be removed. i always thought whenever the discussion comes up, it was exclusively for shotguns. since servers like uncletopia have RBS off but don't have laser revolvers/miniguns/smgs.
also i think the passive aggressive comment at 0:19 was kinda un-necessary and didn't do much to further your own point, other than mock people who think RBS is bad.
this just further validates my argument that random bullet spread should be tightened a bit for shotguns. keep the random spread but tighten it so that it isn't that much bigger than fixed. a shotgun is literally random bullet spread in every fiber of its being unless it shoots slugs.
ok, that i can get behind
What if I throw the Shotgun, will it randomly splits mid-flight ?
TF2 players when shotguns work like shotguns: 😡
You mean highly effective out to mid-range? Real life shotgun shot barely spreads until like 30 meters at least
I love how you implement statistics mathematics into tf2, as not only i get to enjoy ur videos, but i also understand the steps and procedures u took for your data analysis.
Not only is fixed bullet spread shortstop more accurate, but the layout pretty much guarantees 2 pellets hit even at long range, since they are stacked completely vertically
Random Bullet Spread is literally how guns work though irl... Not every bullet is going to shoot exactly straight, especially a bunch of small pellets/metal bits flying out of a barrel. This is why Im ok with it.
If random bullet spread kept an identical range to fixed spread, I would probably be mostly indifferent to whether it's set on or off. Now that I know this, I prefer fixed spread because they feel better to aim with
god the Bryyo theme just NUKED me into memory lane, so many hours lost to Prime 3, SO worth it.
After looking into the code, porting it to R, and doing a million or so iterations, the code gives a random spread by doing the following:
Creates two random variables x and y which will be added to x and y directions of the vector the player is currently looking in.
x and y are distributed according to the sum of two uniform random variables (assuming an internal parameter is 0.5. Good assumption according to the code comment)
The distribution is not gaussian, but it is triangle shaped. 76% of the pellets will be in the center circle (a circle with the same center but half of the radius)
The above would equate to 25% reduced average damage dealt by using RBS instead of FBS since this halfway point is the perimeter of the FBS pattern according to the video.
The most ironic thing about this is this damage reduction is almost the same as Valve's attempted balance for no random crits weapons. _Turning off random bullet spread is like turning on random crits for shotguns_.
Let me repeat that:
for the purposes of average damage per shot, every single weapon in the game except shotguns has random crits factored in. Shotguns also have random crits, but random bullet spread essentially cancels it out. When you turn off random crits AND random bullet spread, you essentially give shotguns +35% damage per shot that no other weapon is compensated with, which equates to the average damage a weapon gains over time when random crits is turned on.
Advocating for fixed bullet spread is advocating for random crits without knowing you are advocating for random crits.
I was with you until the last part. It is not like advocating for random crits. It is like advocating for buffing the accuracy/damage of shotguns. Also most people that advocate for FBS also advocate for no random crits, so as you said, it cancels out.
I've been playing this game since 2009, and I've had countless hours in both games with and without fixed spread. Normally, when I'm in a server with random spread on, I rarely ever notice any time where random spread really did cause me to potentially get killed. I never really minded because I know the OTHER players are also dealing with it, so it's somewhat of an even field in that regard as far as I'm concerned. Obviously, as zesty show, there is definitely an accuracy difference when looking at the spread, but it's not like how some people feel with the majority of shotguns that it makes your damage such a dice roll that you can feel it every game.
The only exception is with the shortstop. Being a scout main, I've played a fair bit on all of the scout weapons, and one of the weapons I particularly like is the shortstop because of how different it feels compared to the other primaries. It's the ONLY weapon where I really feel the random spread every game I use it in. It brings it from being a very deadly quad-shot to something that feels like you're sneezing on them half the time, with the occasional crazy amount of damage when every pellet hits. It's one of the only weapons I would say truly feels like a dice roll with each shot when the random spread is on, and that sucks dick.
though i guess that makes it all the more satisfying when you do get kills with it
justice for my boy the shortstop!
the agrument of bigger spread circles is kinda wrong, since a few pellets are further away from the crosshair while some are much closer. so basically there will be a smaller circle where 50% of the pellets hit, compared to the bigger one on fixed spread
They should add fixed bullet spread for shortstop like the panic attack has, making the weapon more consistent at range thus more unique than other scatterguns, since its only unique thing is the shitty shove
>I was playin around with the Shortstop the other day, y'know, for my own amusement
Shortstop vid confirmed :^)
Zesty, there is something I want to understand:
At 5:04 you said that it's a bad idea to remove RBS from *auto-guns* like smg, revolver and pistol, which in my opinion is very agreeable, however, when people talk about RBS I see it as talking about "tf_use_fixed_weaponspreads 1\0", which only removes is from multi-pellet single shots, like shotgun and scattergun, that is the official definition in my opinion for "disabling RBS", I don't play CSGO so I don't know if removing auto-gun RBS is from there, but I don't think people want this change, I may be proven wrong.
I think there is a lack of definition for what the 'comp' players want (at least in this video) and it frustrates me because it brings birth to stupid fights and misunderstandings.
I enjoyed the video, you always bring new things to the table, you somehow managed to make such a dull subject as RBS into a somewhat interesting topic, congrats on that.
Have a nice day.
While I would MUCH rather have random bullet spread for SMGs, Miniguns, etc., Im curious as to how having a CSGO style spread pattern (minus the recoil) would function. I.E, its the same pattern every time you fire for extended periods of time, but the pattern is designed to appear similar to the random bullet spread found in game. I feel this would add a level of consistency while still maintaining the same effective ranges for the weapons in question.
I vaguely recall that “fixed spread” pistols are coded to still not be laser accurate, but instead shoot consistently … in a box pattern.
Which would name an the range gets a bit longer according to this test.
Actually i can’t find any documentation of this anywhere, so ignore that
fixed spread for automatic weapons makes them fire within a cone, its still pretty random
having random bullet spread off in this game does barely anything for automatics and only really affects shotguns lol i have no idea where this insane notion that RBS off turns miniguns into sniper rifles came from
I think another important factor that needs to be considered for weapon accuracy: the hit profile of your targets. All uncrouched enemies have a tall rectangular hitbox (more or less), and so vertical pattern of a fixed spread of bullets will hit for damage much more reliably, with an extra row or column being added in fixed intervals based on your aim and how close the target is. Wheras with random distribution, there's a half decent chance that even a well-lined-up shot can only hit with one or two pellets, due to the random scatter ranging from barely to wildly missing otherwise.
Random bullet spread and random kritsz are nececary for the game. For the game too even be balanced actualy.
That makes zero sense
this feels like it should be a shounic video.
The "60% more accurate" factoid only holds water if you assume that each point in the random bullet spread cone is equally as likely, which just isn't true
I like these kind of short, scientific videos where you test a thing and explain how it affects gameplay. Entertaining, informative, nice. 👍
Plus it just makes sense to have random bullet spread due to it being a real thing in real life as well, I don't think I've EVER since a fixed shot pattern on a shotgun in real life. So i agree with you Zesty on this.
Im ok with rbs but the real life excuse is dumb its tf2 you can rocket jump who cares about the shotgun shooting more realistically
its not real life. its not supposed to be real life. this isnt counter strike or cod its tf2
bro, it's a video game, it doesn't have to resemble real life.
@@luigifan4585 yall can hate it all you want it ain't leaving anytime soon, neither are random crits (despise that stupid mechanic)
i also agree with this. also i think disabling RBS is more of a crutch than anything
I wonder then how the panic attack compares to stock with random bullet spread, given that it has lower accuracy, yet has increased accuracy from the fixed pattern.
God I thought that a scout was hacking, he was sniping me so bad with the shortstop. Now I know.
What we need is *blue noise* bullet spread…
Er, sorry, the RED soldier is about to hit me in the back of the head with a shovel for calling it “blue noise”.
Honestly if the shortstop was the only accurate shotgun for scout then I wouldn’t be mad
ah, this explains why I absolutely hate the panic attack. (well, at least minus the free 20 damage increase)
Seeing the shortstop's spreads reminds me of the shotgun accuracy reveal in hunt showdown. While theres still a spread and hunt has effective ranges, alot of shotguns have a similar spread to what you've just shown with the shortstop, though not that tight of a spread. Thats with normal buckshot though, the other ammo types have different spreads.
Does that mean the crit a cola-shortstop combo might actually be viable on uncletopia and stuff?
no lmao
See Critstop works in casual because your foes can't hit shit, and doesn't work because you can't hit shit either. The opposite is true on Uncletopia.
Critstop is viable in no restrictions 6's since the med can just heal off any damage you take while sniping important picks like the Med or Demo. Obviously if a flanker gets in your face your fucked but its kinda like a fast diet sniper with 2x cap rate
well, that answers the debate then.
NGL this is why I don't get disabling random bullet spread, I always feel like it's part of the shotgun's balance
i know right?
The shotguns balance is that they have spread and damage falloff. Why would fixed spread make it broken? It would still get outclassed midrange by the demoman and every other class save for the spy, medic and sniper has one anyways.
@@4lksk363 someone in the comments did make a point that without RBS it pretty much shuts down Pyros so... yeah...
@@skeletonmemelord7779 Pyro already gets shut down by people who realize they can shoot outside of his flame thrower range. Besides, pyro’s job isn’t to get frags, it’s to mash m2 and deny people of doing their jobs (Medi Uber, demo/soldier spam, spy, etc.) which he can still do with fixed spread.
I don’t know why people “theorize” how removing RBS would affect the game when servers that do that already exist and are fine. Uncletopia is literally just pubs 2.0, people run Pyro there all the time.
right then. i don't exactly agree with the whole thing about Pyro's job not being to get frags but that's fine. not everyone plays pyro the same way
New Zesty vid, pog
If the accuracy was the same regardless of RBS being on or off then you'd still have instances where pellets cluster more or less to one side. This could be avoided by having a maximum range between each pellet to prevent offset clusters of damage. If pellets can still cluster to one side more than the other then you'd still have rare instances where the player is either cheated from a kill, or be given a kill due to damage thresholds and spread at distance. For example an evenly placed shot missing enough pellets to increase the required shots to kill by 1, or getting a few extra pellets to land on off center aim causing the shot to kill when it would have barely not killed them.
The main argument I've seen for RBS's removal has always been the potential variance leading to 1 extra needed shot or 1 less needed shot to kill without any influence on the players end. In the exact same scenario where RBS is off the player would be punished for bad aim and rewarded for good aim more consistently. It's also worth considering the moment to moment feel of shots landing or missing will feel less inconsistent. Since shots with the same "enemy team hitbox" to "background" ratio will always return similar numbers.
The instances of RBS impacting whether you need an extra shot would statistically even out, but the influence of those specific damage boosts or decreases varies significantly. From both a win state observation in a match to a player's personal catharsis and enjoyment. Missing a kill on that one guy you want get due to a few of your bullets deciding to lean to the other side of your aim's cone is frustrating. In the opposite scenario getting a kill despite your aim being way off can feel undeserved or empty. Since the kill was not due to having good aim, but the game giving you just a little bit of extra damage you didn't aim well to get.
All that being said it would be nice to see a fair comparison with a RBS cone that matched the fixed patterns to see if this is actually a big enough difference to matter. Or at the very least whether or not the instances in which it effect things significantly are so rare that it does not register as a difference. The real question is, what aspects to gameplay does RBS bring that would be worth whatever potential downsides it has, and what does FBS bring positively to gameplay in exchange for any negatives it can cause.
In terms of visuals you could very easily separate how something looks from the mechanics, so there's no reason to be restricted to unnaturally shaped pellet formations with RBS off. Especially since if a player can't register the difference between RBS and FBS effecting their damage, it's doubtful that they'd also be able to observe the spread of damage not lining up with the visual placement of the pellets in something as chaotic as TF2. Though I think both of those would be more noticeable the better you are at the game.
For fairness, fixed spread is sortof 'hollow' (pellets don't land anywhere except the borders and the center)
I think random bullet spread could be made a lot better by just encoding a cap on the distance from the crosshair based on the gun so that it never goes farther than the farthest pellet in the fixed calc, like how classic DOOM has a cap on how far from the crosshair pellets can spread.
I sense a disturbance in the usage of the panic attack.
man, no wonder why I ball harder doing shotgun battle engie on NRS servers.
Boutta be fun playing widowmaker with pocket and fixed accuracy
I can't help but think these videos are an indirect jab at Fish.
Random crits are visible. Random BS is not visible.
This really makes the situation so much worse.
oh hey its the matt walsh guy
MFW zesty liked a tweet where matt walsh says it's wrong to groom 4 year old kids
@@okaychud that's a very funny way to read it sure
I needed this I'm on a 16 hour shift and my brain needs dopamine
That ending got me, that was a damn good impression, and good video, I always sucked with the shortstop but I did notice hitting more shots with it on servers with bullet spread off
999999999hrs players finding the stupidest excuse for their skill issue be like
Imagine using Shortstop with Crit-a-Cola with fixed spread enabled. Snipers be damned.
2:31 not to be that guy but you forgot the “r” in rare
I KNOW
This is a good followup. Nice to see.
I always hated fixed bullet spread. I think I'm gonna go onto my friends server and abuse the hell out of them with the short stop from now on.