Damage

Damage is one of the four primary balance mechanics in class shooters.

Damage is a defining feature of a class, and determines how they interact with the enemy team, which is a primary interaction in shooter games. Damage determines the time to kill overall as well as interaction between specific classes. High damage classes tend to be slower, but can be quite popular among players.

Damage is a simple mechanic, with only a few defining choices to make in implementing it. Damage is usually balanced in a few key ways. These are rounds per minute, damage per round, damage type, and damage effects. Damage type and damage effects are their own categories, but for most players, damage per round and damage type are combined into a larger category known as damage per second. While damage per second is a good category, it is important to understand the two "sub-mechanics" within it

Damage Per Second
Damage per second (DPS) is calculated by taking the damage per round and multiplying it by the rounds per minute. This association results in an amount of damage over a set amount of time that gives a "full potential" of a class, but fails miserably to tell the full story.

Damage Per Round
Damage per round is how much damage each individual shot deals. This is important because it determines the number of shots required to kill an opponent. The number of shots required to kill tends to change the amount of risk an engagement has. The more shots required to kill an enemy, the less each individual shot counts against the player if missed. This is why riflemen and Heavy riflemen are often very popular among low level players.

Damage per round also determines how much a class's time to kill deviates from its damage per second.

Rounds Per Minute
Rounds per minute (RPM) is a measurement of how many shots happen within a minute, it is equivalent to the "attack interval" metric. RPM is important because it determines how quickly a class can make secondary shots on a target. Rounds per minute determines how quickly a player can put out damage and is the "per second" part of DPS

Balancing The Two
Damage per round and RPM are roughly inversely proportional, with higher damage leading to lower RPM. This creates a more consistent range of DPS across a game. In more moderate classes, simply looking at DPS is usually sufficient when determining how powerful a class is compared to others, but when either RPM or damage per round becomes an extreme, the DPS of the class can become misleading.

DPS vs TTK
Damage Per Second is closely linked to Time to Kill, but they are not the same. DPS measures exactly how much damage a class can deal over time, regardless of anything else. TTK, however, is a specific metric that measures the amount of time between the first shot and the death of a player. This usually lines up with the damage per second, for example if a class can deal 200 damage per second, they should be able to kill a 100 health player AT MINIMUM in half a second, but this is not always the case. Classes such as the designated marksman, the sniper, and often the archer all have a TTK that is far faster than their DPS implies. If a sniper only has to shoot once, then the TTK is 0, even if his DPS is only 50. This is extremely dangerous because the more the TTK and DPS deviate, the more punishing the class is for new players and the more difficult a class is to fight against as well as to learn.

Damage Type
There are four types of damage, based on two sets of two options each. These two choices are delivery method, and impact type.

Delivery Method
There are two methods of delivery for damage: instantaneous damage, often named "hitscan" after the computer method to calculate it; and projectile damage, which uses a projectile with a set speed and trajectory to deliver damage.

Instantaneous Damage
Instantaneous damage is often called "hitscan" damage. Its name derives from the method used to calculate it, where the server draws a straight line out in the moment of firing and "scans" for a "hit" along it all at once. Hitscan damage is often used to simulate bullets, and is associated with relatively low DPS. Hitscan damage is the most common type of damage and is the easiest for new players to understand. Put head in crosshair, click.

Projectile Damage
Projectiles are physical objects generated in the world that deal damage. Most often these are rockets or arrows. Projectiles are more challenging to interact with since they take time to travel to their targets, but they often make up for this by dealing more damage or having other effects. Projectiles are often seen as very flashy due to their difficulty, and are commonly seen as high risk, high reward. Learning to lead targets properly is vital to unlocking the full potential of a projectile class.

Impact Type
Similarly to delivery, impact is divided into two types: Direct and Area of Effect (AoE).

Direct
Direct damage is dealt only to a single target or to a specific point. Direct damage is usually considered more difficult to use since missing the target means an entirely wasted opportunity for damage. Direct damage usually is the simplest of damage, with the displayed damage per round being the total damage available.

Area of Effect
Area of Effect (AoE) damage is damage that is spread over an area and affects all players within the zone. AoE is considered less difficult to use than direct damage, since direct impacts are not entirely necessary to deal damage, and therefore makes AoE damage more forgiving. The most common form of AoE damage in class shooters today is explosive damage, which includes all rockets and grenades. Explosive damage acts in a small sphere with the maximum damage at the center of the sphere, losing potency as distance increases from the central point. The other common form AoE damage is a "carpetting" system, where an area of the ground (of a specific size) is coated in a "carpet of damage." In this system, every point in the area deals the same amount of damage, and stay in effect over a certain amount of time.

The Four Damage Types
Between these two choices, there arise four types of damage: Direct hitscan, Direct projectile, AoE hitscan, and AoE projectile.

Direct Hitscan
Direct Hitscan is the most common form of damage, simulating bullets. This is the easiest form of damage to understand.

Direct Projectile
Direct Projectile damage is less common than the hitscan variety, but is still relatively common. This simulates arrows, thrown objects, and cannons. Direct projectiles are the hardest to accurately use, and often have very high rewards for landing hits with them.

AoE Hitscan
AoE hitscan is the rarest type of damage, often used at very short range to simulate a melee attack such as the swing of a sword or a punch. Using this type of damage for other things is risky, as the instant creation of a "danger zone" at a distance is almost impossible to balance correctly.

AoE Projectile

Rockets, grenades, flak rounds, and napalm are all examples of AoE projectiles. This is the second most common form of damage behind direct hitscan. AoE projectiles are a mainstay of the class shooter, and countless players have spent years mastering the lead and travel times. AoE damage allows the user to negate the main disability of projectiles: aiming difficulty. The area of effect allows even missed shots to explode on nearby surfaces, dealing splash damage to the enemy.

Damage Effects
Certain combinations of damage, such as high rpm, low damage per round setups, that simply do not work well on their own. These are often augmented to be in line with the more moderate setups in terms of damage per second or other effectiveness. These effects can also be used as a core feature, adjusting the damage curve of every single class.

Afterburn
Afterburn is an effect that deals guaranteed damage over time. This effect is also known as poison, or bleeding. Often this damage can be either negated or offset by receiving some kind of healing, or through other means, such as jumping in water to douse flames. Afterburn can mean either the general term of damage over time, or specifically the effect of being on fire. Many games have multiple sources of damage over time that differ slightly depending on the source, such as fire that can be put out, vs poison that must be offset through healing, vs bleeding that only heals after a certain amount.

Falloff
Damage falloff occurs as the distance between shooter and target increases. Most games have falloff, meaning that the farther away a target is, the less damage will be dealt to it. This is not always the case, though.

Ramp Up
A companion effect to falloff is ramp up, which is the increasing of damage. Usually it is by coming closer to the target, with some games dealing bonus damage for being in extremely close proximity, but an interesting form of ramp up is using it as an inverse to falloff. This is always with a direct projectile, making it deal more damage the farther it travels. This leads to some interesting gameplay and can be both confusing and exciting for new players to discover.

Critical Hits
Many games have a way to specifically deal increased damage, such as hitting a certain area of the body. This increased damage is usually a flat multiplier applied to the normal damage. Headshots are a good example, dealing upwards of double or even triple damage in some games. Not all classes and weapons need this mechanic, though, and making it a feature of certain classes can help them be more unique and situationally useful.