[HN Gopher] Show HN: CS Weapons - Counter-Strike weapon data com...
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       Show HN: CS Weapons - Counter-Strike weapon data comparison app
        
       Author : vercadium
       Score  : 94 points
       Date   : 2021-05-05 19:15 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.csweapons.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.csweapons.com)
        
       | hexo wrote:
       | Which CS is this? 1.6 or GO?
        
         | vercadium wrote:
         | Global Offensive yeah. It's pretty much taken in both the 1.6
         | and Source communities at this point (though I'm sure both have
         | some dedicated players remaining).
        
           | jboy55 wrote:
           | I loaded up 1.6 a month ago, got into an iceworld game,
           | brought back lots of memories. Crunch Crunch Crunch
        
       | Waterluvian wrote:
       | Sleek and loads fast.
       | 
       | What I want more than anything is a dynamic diagram showing the
       | bullet spread depending on how fast I shoot. Maybe even let me
       | click for shots.
        
       | vercadium wrote:
       | Professional e-sport tournament payouts for Counter-Strike now
       | total nearly $100M; players have everything from huge salaries to
       | sport psychologists, but still no good way of visualising game
       | data.
       | 
       | CS Weapons provides information and comparisons on Counter-Strike
       | weapons, featuring real time analysis and calculation of weapon
       | data.
       | 
       | Simulations are performed live in the browser and are scenario
       | reactive, dynamically updating based on the part of the body hit,
       | your range from the target and more. Alternate modes such as
       | burst fire and silencers are all supported. Modelling additional
       | aspects like recoil and accuracy with customisable shot intervals
       | is underway.
       | 
       | Technical and design highlights:
       | 
       | - Data-driven Vue PWA.
       | 
       | - Installs to supported devices for a native app experience and
       | works offline; a Service Worker notifies users when an update is
       | available.
       | 
       | - Clean URLs that populate application state to support linking
       | directly to comparisons.
       | 
       | - Device sharing experience using the Web Share API.
       | 
       | - Dynamic SVG charts that react in real time and are fully
       | responsive.
       | 
       | - Immersive chart viewing experience with the Fullscreen API.
       | 
       | - Supporters are rewarded with additional features; as a
       | "Jamstack" application, CS Weapons utilises AWS Lambda to query a
       | membership API using "serverless" functions that are triggered
       | through an Auth0 authentication rule.
       | 
       | - Custom material design built on Vuetify, with its colour
       | palette, typography and user experience lovingly pruned and cared
       | for.
       | 
       | - Blistering performance and load times.
       | 
       | On a personal note, I'm trying to do my best as a new dad, so
       | building this during my free time on top of that, full-time work
       | and a house move has been really challenging and if I'm honest
       | with myself, probably not that healthy. Still, after chipping
       | away at this for so long it feels great to finally put it into
       | the wild across the game's community this week.
        
         | gknoy wrote:
         | This looks really great, and shows a lot of polish in its
         | interface. I liked how you had different preset ways of
         | filtering the data (SMGs, Rifles, etc), as well as linkable
         | results pages. Being able to select armor and hit-locations
         | seems to just be a scaling factor, but also was a neat touch.
         | 
         | I think there might be some value in adding a duration slider
         | (as an alternative to shot count). Because most items you're
         | comparing has varying rates of fire (e.g. P90 vs UMP45 vs
         | Mac10), the slower weapons will often show more "damage" (over
         | N shots), whereas the DPS might be similar or vary a lot.
         | 
         | It might also be interesting to have weapon selection filters
         | based on cost -- e.g., comparing rifles and SMGs of similar
         | cost, or things you can buy on the first or second round.
         | 
         | Edit: I also just went to the advanced charts section,
         | encountered your buy-me-a-coffee link. While I personally don't
         | like signing up for additional tiers of access, I think this
         | was a very nicely done way of doing so.
        
           | vercadium wrote:
           | Some excellent feedback there; thank you! That's not just a
           | pleasantry either - those were seriously insightful comments
           | you made.
           | 
           | Having cost selection is a fantastic idea, especially given
           | the commonly used terminology in the game lends itself nicely
           | ("Eco buy" etc).
           | 
           | Your comment on duration hints at something that I have felt
           | but not articulated in my notes so that was very helpful.
           | Like you mentioned, this is particularly relevant in the SMG
           | category because the amount of rounds they fire in an average
           | engagement is that much higher and the disparity between
           | their rate of fire is greater (the MP9/P90 are in a league of
           | their own in particular).
           | 
           | Lastly, cheers for your other kind words! :)
        
           | Exmoor wrote:
           | Seconded. I've played CS casually for almost two decades now
           | and, although I specific details have changed over time, I
           | never really knew the specifics about how each weapon
           | effected you. For instance, I've always considered the SG553
           | to be just a less accurate version of the AUG (without actual
           | evidence), but it actually inflicts higher damage and also
           | slows you down a bit.
           | 
           | Cool site.
        
             | NicoJuicy wrote:
             | I play it casually and practised a bit with the
             | spray/recoil workshops maps.
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | > Professional e-sport tournament payouts for Counter-Strike
         | now total nearly $100M; players have everything from huge
         | salaries to sport psychologists, but still no good way of
         | visualising game data.
         | 
         | Cue "SG was overpowered for five years and nobody noticed"
         | (because _real_ CS players use the AK, not the  "cod noob
         | gun").
        
         | pyentropy wrote:
         | It's cool that you market it as material design and sharable
         | and having a fancy stack... but all I care is whether I get
         | useful info about CS:GO. The ugliest maps programmed for
         | training are more useful imho.
         | 
         | The charts don't help me learn anything about the data more
         | than the table, and the stats like RPM or deploy milliseconds
         | mean nothing to me. If you ask CS players how they learn
         | timing, it's usually mouse tapping a rhythm _from some song_.
         | 
         | The key takeaway is that you need creative ways to _actually
         | help_ me understand which weapon to pick in which situation.
        
           | vercadium wrote:
           | I actually modified what I posted elsewhere (Reddit for
           | example) for this audience as I imagined those technical
           | details were more relevant. Fair point though.
           | 
           | I understand what you mean about the charts; some prefer
           | things displayed visually so I think it's important to meet
           | the needs of different types of users.
           | 
           | Thanks for the feedback!
        
             | globuous wrote:
             | For what it's worth, I was glad you shared your stack, was
             | actually kinda curious ! Very nice website, thanks for
             | sharing, hope you had a blast building it ;)
        
           | ZephyrBlu wrote:
           | I've built an analytics website for StarCraft 2 and found
           | something similar.
           | 
           | It's very easy to get 'cool' statistics and information, but
           | it's very hard to create something 'cool' or novel that's
           | actually useful for players trying to improve.
        
       | new_orleans wrote:
       | Nice work. Now do the same thing for the ubiquitous aimbots,
       | hacks, & cheats that CS:GO allows?
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Important factor not shown is avg shot spread, minimum burst till
       | max spread, and how kneeling affects spread, spread after 2
       | shots, 3 shots, spread while moving. Those are important
       | especially for AK vs other weapons.
        
         | vercadium wrote:
         | Thanks; absolutely! Modelling these additional aspects like
         | recoil and accuracy with customisable shot intervals is
         | underway.
         | 
         | To elaborate, they didn't make it into the initial release as
         | there's a substantial amount of work involved to tie that in
         | dynamically with the data (as each shot is inherently dependant
         | on all the shots before it and the time between them when
         | firing multiple rounds).
         | 
         | I understand how much value this would add to the comparisons,
         | so it's a top priority!
        
       | dvt wrote:
       | As an ex-pro CS player (circa 2003-2007), this is pretty neat.
       | Unfortunately, even though CS might have a fairly deep weapon
       | pool, only a very small subset of weapons are actually used in
       | competition (I'd wager 90+% of gameplay mostly involves the M4,
       | AK, AWP, and USP/Glock). Situationally, a few weapons would be
       | interesting to compare (the MAG-7 and Scout come to mind), but
       | the tool isn't particularly useful outside of a curiosity.
       | 
       | Even though I don't really follow the pro scene much anymore, I'd
       | personally be more interested in a tool that analyzed map
       | positioning and strats. Cool site nonetheless, solid work!
        
         | ZephyrBlu wrote:
         | > _I 'd personally be more interested in a tool that analyzed
         | map positioning and strats_
         | 
         | What sort of analysis of map positioning and strategies are you
         | thinking about?
        
         | krat0sprakhar wrote:
         | +1 .. came here to say exactly this. While this site is great
         | for finding out what others weapons exist, I don't think any
         | weapons outside of m4, ak, awp are actually used.
        
           | always_left wrote:
           | I love that nothing has changed since cs 1.6
        
             | gtsteve wrote:
             | Yes, largely it has been tweaks but there have been a few
             | changes such as the loss of my beloved riot shield.
        
           | vercadium wrote:
           | While this is certainly the case overall, at least in today's
           | meta the variety isn't that bad. For example, if you scroll
           | down on https://www.hltv.org/stats?event=5728 you can see a
           | breakdown of what was used in the Dreamhack Masters
           | tournament which was on this weekend.
           | 
           | I feel there's enough variation there (especially for "eco
           | rounds" were people can't afford the top weapons) to find
           | value in comparing them.
           | 
           | Nonetheless, you are correct on the majority and for sure
           | that will be reflected in the usage of the site - a lot of
           | the comparisons are going to be "Can the M4 kill with 1 shot
           | to the head at range X" or similar.
        
         | mafuyu wrote:
         | Agreed. It's a neat site, though! There has been some variation
         | in weapon use in recent years, but I don't know if this site
         | would have really helped in revealing those details.
         | 
         | There was that whole period last year where people discovered
         | the SG and AUG were actually quite good, and then Valve nerfed
         | them into the ground again.
         | 
         | Several years ago, the UMP was insanely accurate when
         | tapping/bursting, and it was a great half buy and anti-eco gun.
         | That got nerfed, too. The MP5 behaves somewhat similarly, but
         | it's not really worth buying over the MP9 in a serious match.
         | 
         | There was a recent discovery with the Nova, where the first
         | shot spray was found to be consistent, and you could hit
         | headshots consistently from distance by aiming to the right of
         | the head. That one's pretty fun, although the situations where
         | you'd want that over a deagle seem niche.
         | 
         | I think the biggest missing with this site is that it's only
         | comparing raw DPS/rate of fire numbers and not spread recovery.
         | A big part of it is the "feel" of bursting/tapping guns while
         | momentum cancelling, when in scenarios where you can't full
         | spray.
         | 
         | eg. Clicking on the head with a P250 at medium range isn't
         | super accurate, but if you manage to momentum cancel perfectly
         | and trace, you actually have a pretty decent chance vs full
         | armor. But I could also buy a five seven, which has better
         | armor pen, accuracy, and sprays better.
        
           | vercadium wrote:
           | Thanks for the feedback; absolutely! Modelling these
           | additional aspects like recoil and accuracy with customisable
           | shot intervals is underway.
           | 
           | To elaborate, they didn't make it into the initial release as
           | there's a substantial amount of work involved to tie that in
           | dynamically with the data (as each shot is inherently
           | dependant on all the shots before it and the time between
           | them when firing multiple rounds).
           | 
           | I understand how much value this would add to the
           | comparisons, so it's a top priority!
        
             | mafuyu wrote:
             | Good to hear! In particular, one comparison I would love to
             | see is something like:
             | 
             | If I perfectly strafe and momentum cancel between every
             | shot with a pistol, how often do I dink an opponent if my
             | crosshair's on their head with a P2K, P250, CZ, and five
             | seven? How different are the recovery periods where I'm
             | strafing before I can tap again?
        
       | mjs7231 wrote:
       | I imagine what would totally sell me on it is interactivity with
       | a live game. Imagine if you could hook into the game and show
       | live data on the last kill, where you hit him, how much damage
       | you inflicted and why. Would be really cool, but probably not
       | allowed without getting banned.
        
         | maxvu wrote:
         | In a very recent update, Valve's added what looks like some
         | kind of dashboard to consume game statistics (for a small
         | monthly fee...).
        
         | NicoJuicy wrote:
         | Just lookup the spray workshops.
         | 
         | They show that data and you can practise there.
        
         | gustavo-fring wrote:
         | This probably sounds like an old man but Halo 2 weas doing this
         | back in 2004 when you could immediately after the game get
         | detailed game reports, even available via Rss.
         | 
         | No surprise that Bungie made revolutionary games with Halo
         | (series) and Destiny. Halo 1 was the basis of FPS on the
         | console and Halo 2 was the basis for Xbox live
        
           | t-writescode wrote:
           | nit:
           | 
           | Golden Eye was the basis of FPS on the console, after which
           | Perfect Dark and Time Splitters followed.
           | 
           | What came later was Halo and its 2-concurrent-weapon + auto-
           | healing formula that was more forgiving and modern-arcadey
           | that redefined (but did not invent) console FPSes. It may
           | have also introduced the dual-analog control style for FPSes
           | on consoles that have since taken over.
        
         | mhh__ wrote:
         | It's not live, but Leetify can give you some very precise data
         | about your gameplay e.g. what your spray patterns actually were
        
       | professorsnep wrote:
       | Really well done! Playing around with it a little, the only thing
       | I noticed was it was difficult to see which color meant "better"
       | when comparing values. Maybe add a little checkmark or something
       | if one stat is higher?
       | 
       | Other than that, I love how you don't just compare raw values,
       | but have the ability to select armor/range/etc. That's something
       | I see missing in a lot of similar "comparison" applications.
        
         | vercadium wrote:
         | Thanks! Great point on the highlighting; it's a tough balance
         | because I also want to make it look subtle (I'd be worried that
         | an icon would be jarring when there is a sea of them during a
         | comparison) but I'm sure something could be done to improve it.
         | Hmm, perhaps colouring the "best" text with the my
         | accent/success colour (the yellow) rather than, or in addition
         | to, the weapon's name? Something to think about.
        
       | coding123 wrote:
       | I know this is CS specific but it's a resource that kinda finally
       | confirms why I always use some machine gun vs a shotgun in many
       | games. Shotguns are fun in some games because they cause things
       | to explode close up, but in general the DPS is just super low at
       | any distance compared to a machine gun/assault rifle.
        
         | 600frogs wrote:
         | You've missed the point of a shotgun - DPS is irrelevant, it's
         | how fast I can get you to 0 before you can get me to 0. And
         | shotgun wins there, at least up close.
        
       | syndacks wrote:
       | Does anyone know of anything similar for PUBG?
        
       | gdsdfe wrote:
       | Oh one for division 2 would be pretty cool
        
       | sabas123 wrote:
       | Personally I don't really see the value in comparisons of these
       | primitive statistics like rate of fire/reload time.
       | 
       | At a high level everything becomes so highly dimensional that any
       | analysis on this level falls short compared to intuition.
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | It's probably most helpful in terms of having discussions
         | around weapon balancing
        
           | leetcrew wrote:
           | it's really hard to figure out which weapon is best just from
           | looking at a page of attributes. consider the classic ak vs
           | m4 dichotomy. ak kills in one headshot with or without armor,
           | has higher damage per shot, and has higher DPS. the m4 has a
           | much tighter recoil pattern though. in practice, most people
           | will drop an m4 to pick up an ak, but they are closer than
           | they look on paper.
        
         | hnnnnnnng wrote:
         | The only useful thing is the recoil pattern, which this site
         | doesn't even have.
        
       | gustavo-fring wrote:
       | I love CS. I mean I love the franchise as a whole but the
       | original was such a breath of fresh air in what 2000. The gunplay
       | is so good.
       | 
       | It's unfortunate that even today it is impossible to play without
       | hearing 4chan racial slurs for the lulz. Very toxic community.
        
         | porcc wrote:
         | Valorant!
        
         | gtsteve wrote:
         | Some recent changes were made around people who frequently get
         | blocked being auto-blocked for you when you join the game. They
         | have highlighted red names like "Dalmatian" and "Flamingo",
         | etc. If you un-block them, you swiftly find out why.
         | 
         | So, blocking communication is one thing you can do to help send
         | a signal that this player is toxic. I guess eventually they
         | start getting queued in lower trust factor lobbies but that's
         | speculation.
        
         | mhh__ wrote:
         | Solution:                   voice_enable 0
        
       | lwansbrough wrote:
       | I'm one of the primary engineers behind tracker.gg. If I could
       | offer some constructive criticism:
       | 
       | - You probably don't need individual pages
       | 
       | - You're polluting my browser history as a result, not very user
       | friendly. :)
       | 
       | - I shouldn't have to navigate away from the "direct" view to add
       | weapons
       | 
       | - The "direct" view and the "table" view are functionally
       | equivalent. You should figure out how to combine these into a
       | single optimal view - shouldn't be difficult since they do the
       | same thing.
       | 
       | - Your "winning" cell highlighting isn't really clear. Yes it's
       | lighter, but that's not really an effective indicator of "best"
       | (on tracker.gg we use gold highlighting to accomplish the same
       | thing in our view:
       | https://battlefieldtracker.com/bfv/profile/origin/Z1nYoRiTa/...)
       | 
       | - Your various filters/modifiers should probably be colocated
       | with the selected weapons, they're all filters.
       | 
       | - With a single table there's probably room to split the view in
       | half to show graphs/detailed breakdowns to the right of the main
       | table. Your "direct" view uses an inordinate amount of space.
       | (I'm thinking something like our Valorant match viewer:
       | https://tracker.gg/valorant/match/a06b84a9-bdd2-4509-90ca-fa...)
       | 
       | Overall pretty cool, I could see something like this being
       | popular with Valorant too.
        
         | michaelmdresser wrote:
         | I really don't mind the individual pages and I don't think it
         | really "pollutes" the browser history either. Rather, I think
         | it makes it much easier to link a friend to a specific
         | comparison.
        
           | lwansbrough wrote:
           | You can do this without spamming history, just replace the
           | state instead of pushing it.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | finger wrote:
         | Some stats on your page seem obviously faked. E.g top 1 cs go
         | player has 11600 days of play time. Longer than the game even
         | has existed.
        
           | lwansbrough wrote:
           | Yeah, our CS:GO site doesn't get any love, it has received a
           | total of about 10 hours of attention - that's why I avoided
           | using it as an example. Cheaters run rampant in CSGO, it's
           | not a problem exclusive to our site unfortunately. We're
           | exploring ways of automatically detecting cheaters across our
           | network though.
        
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