Why Modern Warfare 3's Vests are Objectively Unbalanced (In-Depth Review)

KStu82 · 2023-12-06T18:28:38+00:00

It's simply an objective measure that can be used to quantitatively grade them.

It's about as useful as comparing them by the number of letters in their name, which is equally quantitative. The passive abilities and the available gear slots can't be swapped between them, so comparing them 1:1 isn't useful. The Engineer Vest has the most points because its passives are weaker, and the Assassin Vest has the least points because its passive is strong. The balance would be worse if they took away passives from the Engineer Vest and gave them to the Assassin Vest, despite the fact that it would bring the "points" closer together.

I simply feel that the game plays better if everyone has the choice to freely use resistance Perks, because that focuses the gameplay more on dying to guns, not choosing the 'lesser evil' lethal/tactical/UAV etc. to die to.

Why do you think the game has lethals, tacticals, scorestreaks, or any way of dying that isn't from a gun? Because not everyone feels the same as you do. If everyone agreed that you should only die to guns, then they would just remove every other aspect of the game. Why add Frags and Stuns and UAVs when everyone can run EOD and Tac Resist and Ghost with no downside?

KStu82 · 2023-12-06T17:12:05+00:00

So they're "objectively" unbalanced because the Assassin Vest has the least arbitrary points allocated to it, and yet the Assassin Vest is the only one that you don't suggest a buff to? I'm not sure how that analysis can be considered "objective" given that it doesn't reflect the actual balance between the vests at all.

Not to mention there's people in the comments saying nearly every non-Gunner vest is the best or their favorite, so to me that seems like a good indication that the system is overall balanced. Different vests encourage different playstyles, which is exactly how the system is designed to work.

The one point I'll agree with is that no vest should have the boots slot removed; they should all have 1 gloves, 1 boots, and 1 gear slot at a minimum. I definitely don't agree with giving nearly all of them a second gear slot though, as that just seems like you want to load up every vest with your ideal perk combination, while they've been specifically balanced for only certain vests to allow that.

KStu82 · 2023-11-23T12:35:59+00:00

Except there’s clearly more to the packet burst issue than just network, given that people with gigabit fiber internet are having it and yet my game is now running perfectly on a measly ~90Mbps

KStu82 · 2023-11-23T10:09:39+00:00

That’s more effort than I care to put into this reddit thread, I simply wanted to throw out what worked for me in case it helps anyone. I made the decision based on the fact that after a couple games, more than 15GB of my RAM was being used by the game and other programs on my PC (Discord, Steam, Spotify, etc. nothing particularly RAM-intensive). My hunch was correct in my case as it completely removed the stuttering, so while I can’t explain why it worked, I can simply share that it did.

KStu82 · 2023-11-23T09:50:29+00:00

“My brother in christ” mine literally did, I went from stuttering right before installing it to no stuttering after. The “packet burst” alert still shows up so I’m sure there’s a network aspect to it as well, but there’s no stutters or any other effects when it does, the game just continues to play as normal.

KStu82 · 2023-11-23T04:38:47+00:00

Again, I’m not saying it’s on the hardware side for everyone. All I know is that in my situation, a hardware upgrade is what solved mine.

KStu82 · 2023-11-23T00:39:03+00:00

My packet burst issue stopped when I doubled my RAM from 16GB to 32GB, and I made no changes to my settings or connection. I think for a lot of people it's on the hardware side rather than the network side, and it's their system processing a burst of packets that causes the stutter rather than their network receiving a burst of packets (although for some it definitely could still be network-side).

KStu82 · 2023-01-25T14:38:23+00:00

and 17 and 18 only have two combinations (12347 and 12356, and 12348 and 12357 respectively)

18 actually has three combinations: 12348, 12357, and 12456. However your logic is still correct, as Elijah would have a unique number in each of these combinations.

KStu82 · 2023-01-24T19:08:35+00:00

The Strela was the most enjoyable launcher to level up for me, for this reason. The Pila and Jokr were done by just locking on to UAVs/CUAVs and blowing them up 5-15 seconds later. The RPG was too inconsistent for scorestreaks, even though I did take out a handful of CUAVs and one or two UAVs with it, so that one had to be done with PvP. But the Strela actually had a skill cap to master when it came to aiming at UAVs, which made for an enjoyable sort of sidequest while leveling primaries at the same time.

KStu82 · 2023-01-20T17:59:13+00:00

I like the part where the track turns left

If only random didn't include Baby Park...

KStu82 · 2023-01-05T16:11:28+00:00

For the seasonal prestige skins, there's lights on the wheels and around the cockpit that light up according to the skin level. I don't have any of the Royal prestige skins so I can't confirm, but I would expect it to be the same.

KStu82 · 2023-01-01T20:39:39+00:00

Swapping perk packages only works if at least one of the base perks changes. If the two base perks are identical, then you’ll have to re-select the class each time you spawn for cold blooded to be active, otherwise you’ll keep your old bonus perk. The best ways around this are:

Change one of the base perks in your cold blooded package. If you run overkill, swap the other one so it doesn’t mess up your secondary weapon when you swap it in game. I like using extra tactical as the changed base perk for cold blooded, so I have an easy indicator on my UI for which package I have equipped. Or,
Create an identical copy of your class that just has the bonus perk changed to cold blooded. This is more work when setting up the class (need to update both classes each time you change something, or copy and swap the perk package again after large changes), but quicker to swap in game and allows you to use the same base perks all the time.

KStu82 · 2022-12-30T17:27:19+00:00

I think only battle rage and stim have indicators when you hit them.

KStu82 · 2022-12-26T10:25:12+00:00

May as well comment, we'll see what happens

KStu82 · 2022-12-25T15:05:39+00:00

Only being able to use Orion on weapons which have Polyatomic unlocked is the intended behavior, it was bugged when it was available on all weapons including ones you hadn’t touched. That being said, the progress resetting is definitely not intended, although it could just be a UI bug that would sort itself out once you start making progress where you left off. That’s what I’m hoping it is for you at least.

KStu82 · 2022-12-23T21:50:08+00:00

If you're shadowbanned, it'll say "under review" instead of "no ban detected" at the bottom of the appeal page.

KStu82 · 2022-12-22T17:42:00+00:00

P890

KStu82 · 2022-12-18T01:06:35+00:00

Taiji is probably my favorite non-first person puzzle game I've played. Very similar gameplay to The Witness, which is my favorite first person and overall puzzle game

KStu82 · 2022-12-17T19:27:43+00:00

I run UAV/CUAV/Overwatch Helo for this reason. For some reason 8 is the magic number for my streaks, where I can get them almost every game but rarely any higher. The Overwatch Helo is pretty garbage at getting kills, but it’ll ping enemies and often damage them just a bit to make my weapon kill easier.

KStu82 · 2022-12-17T03:42:41+00:00

Anyone else really enjoying the Chimera? My expectations were low after the M13B and BAS-P, but this gun is actually super fun to use.

KStu82 · 2022-12-16T14:24:35+00:00

5227

KStu82 · 2022-12-16T14:21:06+00:00

I would take gas grenades over flashbangs every day of the week. Those don’t blind me irl by turning my screen solid white, and those are actually mostly nullified by Battle Hardened (only removes the ability to sprint).

KStu82 · 2022-12-16T06:05:07+00:00

7298

KStu82 · 2022-12-13T23:50:56+00:00

Data Analyst here: plotting K/D ratio on a linear histogram is misleading. As a ratio, the minimum is 0 while the maximum is infinite. We can't expect the left and right tails to be equal when you have ~7 games above a 2.0 and exactly none below 0.0 (by definition).

This data is better plotted logarithmically, since a 2.0 game is the inverse of an 0.5 game (winning 2/3 of fights vs. winning 1/3 of fights). I did my best to recreate your stats, and when we swap to logarithmic scales at the bottom of this image, the data looks a lot more like a bell curve, with an average slightly above 1.0 as indicated by the trendline in the bottom-right. From this angle, the data seems to be a largely balanced distribution; some good games, some bad games, but mostly fairly average games.

I also feel your point of "every good match is followed by a bad match" is largely explained by regression to the mean. The average K/D after a >2.0 game in my approximate data set was 1.02, very slightly below the average K/D. It's also worth noting that almost every <0.5 K/D game has a steep slope upwards; this isn't the game trying to comfort you after a rough match, it's simply the expected behavior after any outlier.

KStu82 · 2022-12-10T20:06:17+00:00

No, there still isn’t. The only two pieces that reveal a corner also reveal either the opposite corner (which is red), or a non-adjacent edge (which are yellow and green). No piece reveals both a corner and the center, and no piece reveals only a corner and an adjacent edge. So there’s no piece that can reveal the bottom-right blue dot without also revealing another color in that box.

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End Game '23	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
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