Bio Engineer Archive

First, let me say, I'm not a Master Dancer. I am, however, a 0 0 4 0 Novice for the purpose of Roleplay dancing primarily. I am, however, a Master Musician and Master Entertainer so many core Dancer issues are also core Musician issues. That said, let me give my opinion:

1. AFK "Play" - As stated above and will be many times after I hit the 'submit post' button, this has to go. It has hurt the environment of our Cantinas and hurt the Dancer ability to effectively sell buff due to free public buffbot stations. Few things are more aligned against a social plyastyle than the antithesis of social play...that being: the fully macro'd dancer. How are the social folks supposed to ply the social side of their trade comfotably ina sea of AFK zombies? Experinece tells me that while it is possible, it is not all that fun.

2. Broken Base Dance - Lyrical and Formal (and coming soon: Theatrical) look to be beautiful dances to the dancer, but not to eveyrone else. I understand that this may be an issue with player position prediction code. If that is the case then I can sympathize because the Devs on the Planetside team (which I also play) have been wresteling with this one for a year now They finally just found a work-a-round that was not the best, but perhaps, only solution. However, if it's possible, please fix this, it feels like we're being denied some of our really more unique wide area perfomances.

3. Eight Florishes for Every Dance - This is another big issue. I think it's a bit of a sad state of affairs when I do Exotic 2 (my highest dance) and only have three different flourishes. One of those is borrowed from another dance as it is. It really feels like in the initial development of SWG the team had to hurry up and finish the higher level dances so they could get the product out the door. The corner they cut was a lack of flourish variesty. It is a tad unbalanced that the higher level performances lack depth of variety when they take the most investment of time and skill points to achieve. So, let's hire some professional dancers from both genders and get some MO-CAP rolling, please.

4. An Equivilant to /changeband, /startband, etc. - As a Master Musician, I enjoy the fuctionality these commands give. As a Dancer I find myself longing for that same functionality. They help facilitate performance and make for smoother music, and the dancer profession would benefit well from some analogous commands. I suggest /changetroupe, /starttroupe, etc. for the acutal commands.

5. A Buff Window - Granted, I do not buff as a Dancer, but I think this is another issue that should be addressed for both the performing elite entertainer professions. I would love to have a Buffing Window in the same vein as that which the IDs have for their services. Soemthing that shows who is watching/liestening, who is presently being buffed and the time remaining to a full buff.

Tiggs, thank you for making this effort, but we have already had plenty of data calls for our issues. Some plan of attack on how you will/can tackle them would be appreciated in furthur communication.

Greets Tiggs.

Ive been master commando for over a year now, dropped it for the hologrinding and still i re-mastered it 4 times during the hologrind just because i liked it so much. Ive been master of all combat proffessions minus fencer as well.

I've PVE'd against every critter in this game and did extensive PvP as Commando.

The issues this proffessions has in my view:

1- Lack of defined role : Just what is our specialty supposed to be? All other combat classes have specials geared towards specific purposes (aka carbineers have mostly crowd control specials). The commando has a bunch of weapons which are not higher in damage than the other proffessions, does not use its expendable weapons (shoulder mounted weapons, grenades) for anything in particular (since they do the same damage over time as using the flamethrower or the HAR)... has no defenses or abilities or specials (BH have fire dot too) that would make commmando unique.

2- Redundancy of weapons: The commando weapons are Grenades (C22,Cryoban,Glop,Imperial Detonator,Thermal Detonator,Proton), Shoulder Mounted weapons (Heavy Particle Cannon, Rocket Launcher, Heavy acid Stream launcher, Lightning Cannon, Flamethrower, Heavy Acid Rifle and the Launcher Pistol.

This proffession has the most numerous proffession-specific weapons.. all others only have 2 weapons unique to them. However, when the Commando weapons are compared to each other, they are either the same thing with a different animation AND/OR inferior versions of another weapon in the commando arsenal.

For example, the Heavy Acid Rifle is a weak copy of the flamethrower. Same range, same specials (no dot though), weaker damage, same armor piercing (zero), same refire delay. And even though the damage types are different (heat vs acid) its of no difference since all creatures in the game that have high acid resists also have high heat resists. For a weapon with zero AP and high refire rate against these creatures is really pointless (read: commando using a marksman certification weapon will do the same if not higher damage than to use the HAR on said creatures).

Of all the above weapons in our arsenal, the commando only really uses the flamethrower. Launcher pistol has no mods or specials, shoulder mounted weapons are of no use against any target in the game (damageovertime wise you outdamage them with a marksman weapon), grenades have the same issue as the shoulder mounted weapons and the HAR is weaker than the flamethrower.

In short, 99% of our weapons are uselessly redundant. No point in using them over the flamethrower no matter what the target is.

3- Complexity of crafting Commando Weapons: Huge issue with commando is the avaliability of our expendable weapons. The schematics to make these weapons are so complex that most weaponsmiths dont even bother to make them...too hard to find resources to make decent stat weapons, take too long to have factories produce them, and in the end too expensive for the costumer base to buy them regularly.

Ive been master commando/weaponsmith, and I can tell you that I could not keep up with my OWN needs as an active pvp and pve commando.

4- Commando Pre-requisites not serving commando: Namely the unarmed 4 requirement. We are required to burn points in a set of skills that the commando will NEVER use. When any commando player unequips his ranged weapon (all commando weapons are ranged) he becomes a brawler..and a wimpy one at that. We do not use unarmed blind or unarmed stun or unarmed hit.

5- Weapon Issues : Aside from the weapons being redundant, the commando arsenal is riddled with bugs. Grenades have their accuracy modifiers as 'ideal' (aka best accuracy) inside the grenade's own blast radius. In short, if we want to hit a target with a grenade we may as well pull the grenade and throw the pin because we WILL get hit by the grenade alongside our enemies. The Beam Rifle certification has been broken since day 1 of release, we cant use it! no Mods for it either. Expendable weapons having no option to choose a HAM bar to hit, and for expendable weapons with rather bad chances to hit, that do less damage per time than non-'heavy' weapons, having the penalty of having only a 33% chance to hit the same ham bar every shot (long refire delay too) makes it counter-productive to use the expendable weapons over another weapon.


What I suggest needs to be done:

Commando's Role:

Commando's role should be the front-loaded damage dealer & the anti-armor (atst's, droids, anything with medium or higher armor rating) specialists.

If you are not familiar with the term front-loaded, it just means that if a rifleman does 10k damage over 10 seconds in 10 shots (just to use easy numbers), the commando should do 10k damage in one shot and needs to wait 10 seconds to re-fire.

In other MMPOG's the classes that are frontloaded damage dealers usually do high damage but also take high damage since they have the least defenses, making them very vulnerable during those 10 seconds they have to wait unable to fight back.

This ability can be combined with the anti-armor role.

This would make the commando be what its arsenal defines him to be: high damage dealer but with long refire delay... the kind of guy you want along in your group to soften or finish up a target quickly.

Commando Weapon Redundancy & Weapon Issues:

This is the easiest part and the most vital part that needs to be addressed.

-Make the shoulder mounted weapons all have heavy armor piercing (ap3), have high minimal damage (5k min) and max damage (12k max) stats, and give them really long refire delay mods (we're talking 10 to 12 seconds not the 3 seconds it is now). These weapons should all have the same accuracy mods and just be different in the damage type and radius damage they inflict (rocket launcher has blast radius and does blast damage, lightning cannon and heavy particle cannon have no blast radius and are electricity and energy damage type respectively, acid streamer has blast radius and does acid damage)

-Grenades should have an ideal accuracy range of 30m and a blast radius of 10m. Grenades should also inflict state effects (C22=stun, Cryoban=warcry effect, glop=posture down, imperial detonator=dizzy, thermal=weak fire dot, proton= no status effect, just does massive damage). Grenade damage types should change to : C22= kinetic, cryoban=cold, glop=acid, imperial detonator=blast, thermal=heat, proton=stun.

-Beam Rifle certification and accuracy/speed mods need to be added to HAR branch. Beam Rifle should have specials that make the rifle fire a constant beam of energy for the 4 to 5 seconds it takes to refire and does around the damage the current HAR does with acid single2 (about 5k max), Beam Rifle should be AP2, Beam rifle's 2nd special should be a cone attack that does normal shot damage but to multiple opponents in the cone.

-Flamethrower should be prevented from firing past 30m. Just like some weapons have 'max range 40m' and they cant shoot if target is over that range, so should the flamethrower. This whole 'lobbing fireballs' is very lame. The flamer should be a close range combat weapon only.

-Launcher pistol needs specials and launcher pistol-only mods. Add L.P. accuracy and LP speed mods, specials for the launcher pistol should be: Homing Shot (weapon has 100% accuracy for that shot but does no extra damage than a normal autofire shot) and MIRV Homing Shot (same as Homing shot but hits all targets in cone).

Note: the LP should have its graphics changed so that the rockets it fires go UP 45 degrees when fired and only descend to the target to hit it. It will significantly reduce the lag-issues from rockets exploding against the ground.

Weapon Complexity when Crafting:

Duh. Make it easier to craft commando expendable weapons. It should be no harder to make a rocket launcher than it is to make a T-21 rifle. For a set of weapons that are designed for one class to use constantly (hence expendable), its ridiculous to have very hard to make and very expensive to buy weapons. Most commandos cant even AFFORD to buy a single crate of proton grenades or gods forbid a rocket launcher.

Commando Pre-Requisites:

As said before, unarmed does nothing for the commando. instead switch it to exploration4. When have you heard of a commando unit not being trained to negotiate rough terrain? And lets be honest, if a commando meets a teras kasi the last thing he's gonna do is drop his flamethrower to throw a punch.

Final Notes:

Commando needs to be given 'grandmaster marksman' abilities as well so it can use its marksman cert. weapons against other elite proffessions.

This means the commando trees themselves should contain mods and specials on rifles,carbines and pistols... not to make them as good as the specialist proffessions (rifleman, carbineer, pistoleer), but to make the commando be the equivalent of a player thats HALFWAY to master specialist proffession (aka a 2.2.2.2 rifleman/carbineer/pistoleer). and for simplicitie's sake, recieve cross-marksman weapon specials.

Changes to be made to the commando Field Tactics Tree and Master Box to accomodate all this:

+17 pistol speed +20 pistol accuracy (same as found in novice pistoleer+box2 of accuracy and speed)
+15 carbine speed +20 carbine accuracy (same as found in novice +box2's in carbineer)
+30 rifle accuracy +25 rifle speed (same as in novice +box2's in rifleman)
+40 unarmed speed +70 unarmed accuracy (same as tkasi novice and power2box and precision2 box)

(The above split half and half in box4 of Field Tactics and half in Master Box...to prevent dabbling in just 1 tree in commando to make elite ranged profs super accurate or super fast)

Specials to be added to heavy support weapons tree, that can be used by any marksman or flamer/HAR:

- overcharge shot3 (same damage as overcharge shot2, but does not damage the weapon)
- AIM 2 (same accuracy bonus as aim1 but does not stop the commando from moving)
- Tumble to prone/kneel/standing 2 (same as the marksman tumbles, but cost no HAM)
- Cover2 (same as cover1 but costs no HAM)
- Area Fire (normal weapon damage AOE attack with a 1.2 ham cost modifier)

Commando Defenses:

The Commando should be a tough unit to deal with in combat. However, this does not mean to turn the commando into a Matrix-fencer-pistoleer like dodge machine or a ranged/melee defense stacking maniac. No, the Commando should, imo, have ZERO ranged and melee defenses and NO dodge/counterattack/block defenses. Instead, the commando should have strong anti-status defenses.

Plug those into the box4 of the Acid Rifle Tree and the Flamethrower tree and Master Box. +70 Defense Vs Blind, Vs Dizzy, Vs KD, Vs Intimidate, Vs Stun, Vs Warcry vs posture change (down) and (up).

The above status defenses should be split +40 in the master box, +15 in the HAR and +15 in the Flamer Tree box4's. Again, to prevent dabbling to raise defenses significantly.

This way the commando would be tough to STOP from coming at you by using status and posture attacks, but not so tough to deal with in melee or ranged combat (as far as hitting him in melee or ranged.. this is to counteract the fact that the commando has better firepower via heavy weapons and half as good in any master elite ranged weapon).

Commando being a hybrid proffession should not receive Mitigation 3. However, since its a class that has both ranged AND melee range weapons (and whose role is melee ranged and ranged!), commando should be given both Ranged AND Melee Mitigation 1 in a box3 and melee and Ranged mitigation 2 in Master Box.

There, thats what I had to say.

---

irbk wrote:

3. Trying to "grind" CH XP is nearly impossible unless you are a Medic. Espcially with just baby's to work with. I was "grinding" XP with the maximum amount of babys I could have in my datapad, attacking creatures that I could kill in one shot. I'd let the pet get in a hit and then kill the creature. With in about 15 minutes, all my babies were "used up" meaning that there HAM was all gone and they needed to sit in my datapad and heal up. Even with being a Novice Medic (that I picked up JUST so that I could grind some CH XP a little faster) it still takes a lot.

---

Message Edited by Ravanne_Esi on 10-11-2004 05:57 PM