CUEmu - Thread Posts

jfang

Wed May 12, 2004 8:47 am

I am a bit confused. It seems that there is a big push to "fix" the "extremely high" ham costs of carbines. My question is, are they broken? Why should they be lowered?

What I mean by this is that the original intent of HAM cost and encumberance is to prevent the spamming of specials. There is a reason why you want to increase your secondary stats (strength, quickness, and focus in particular). There is also a reason why a weaponsmith can customize HAM costs, and not simply speed-damage (although in looking an weapon vendors you would never know about it). The use of a stock *should* be a trade-off of damage to weight, so not everybody uses stocked weapons all the time. (Do you have a light-weight and less damaged "I'm not buffed but still need to fight" carbine?)

So for acarbineer, you can choose to have a high damage per second weapon and fight in heavy armor, or choose to fight in light armor with a lighter weapon and spam specials.

Ignoring buffs and armor (which the balance of is a completely separate issue) it seems to me that carbines are the weapon which most closely matches the devs original intent for how combat should work. I think the problem isn't that carbine HAMs are too high, the problem is that other weapons HAMs are too low (among other things).

Then again, we will need to see how the combat revamp will affect everything. Until then, discussion of HAM, armor, buffs, specials, and whatnot is purely academic.

Hav0c

Wed May 12, 2004 8:54 am

#2

I think it's more of a case of our costs are 'high' compared to everyone else. For example I can equip my Laser Carbine and fire 5 actionshot2's and drain nearly all my action. Mr Rifleman/Pistoleer can specialspam all day and not dent their stats.

I agree with your point that spamming specials isn't the ideal way to go but if everyone else can isn't it a little unfair we can't?

Watph Brilo

Master Bounty Hunter

'I am Jack's broken heart'

Hav0c

Wed May 12, 2004 8:56 am

#3

I think it's more of a case of our costs are 'high' compared to everyone else. For example I can equip my Laser Carbine and fire 5 actionshot2's and drain nearly all my action. Mr Rifleman/Pistoleer can specialspam all day and not dent their stats.

I agree with your point that spamming specials isn't the ideal way to go but if everyone else can isn't it a little unfair we can't?

Watph Brilo

Master Bounty Hunter

'I am Jack's broken heart'

Niza

Wed May 12, 2004 1:36 pm

#4

The game has been balanced (all other professions, creatures and generalmechanics)to players spamming special attacks. When the game was young it used to be possible to play unbuffed and with lower armour types and still get to use a few special attacks. The problem though is that the game was never beta tested with players havingbasically unlimitedaccess to max stat resources. So as soon as the first advanced weapons, armour and buffs appeared it destroyed the game balance that was beta tested. To fix the problems the devs have been tweaking numbers on HAM costs, special attack delay, damage and effect type. Carbine is one of the professions that got a halfassed fix but was never looked into again after that fix. Only the popular professions have tweaked since the damage control fixes from last year went in.

In the current game system, with the changes that have been made to most of the other combat professions and with weapons, buffs and armour at there current level Carbineer is not working as a PvP combat profession. Lowering the HAM costs would go a long way to giving carbine a real shot at being semi-effective.

Ni'za Whira - Just another Bounty Hunter

BoyOfLight

Wed May 12, 2004 3:13 pm

#5

Hav0c wrote:
I think it's more of a case of our costs are 'high' compared to everyone else. For example I can equip my Laser Carbine and fire 5 actionshot2's and drain nearly all my action. Mr Rifleman/Pistoleer can specialspam all day and not dent their stats.

I agree with your point that spamming specials isn't the ideal way to go but if everyone else can isn't it a little unfair we can't?

High level Rifles have 71( 61 on my no HAm scoped Laser Rifle ) mind cost, Powerhammers have over 110 health cost, VK's are slightly lower then carbines. I dont rememeber the Ham on anything else but those are strait from my inventory. I much rather prefer the mid level HAM cost to all stats in carbines then the huge health cost i had when weilding my powerhammer.

Egnar/Egnards Atop
Tarquinas Legion
Grand High Troll of The Troll Order/A Ninja of One
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Lihpson

Wed May 12, 2004 4:28 pm

#6

yeah, it seems like most professions have HAM issues. They are still issues but I dont think carbineer is much worse than any other profession, as far as specials draining HAM.

********************************************
Gihpson
Master of Polearms
Personal Motto: "The more the better!"
Theme Song: "Burnin Ring of (mind) Fire"!

Antehiem

Thu May 13, 2004 12:40 am

#7

Well, an unbuffed carbineer's action may go down like nobody's business, but the same is true of a rifleman's mind. Neither class can spam specials all day, without buffs. Pistoleer HAM costs do seem to be lower, yes, but will still drain HAM unbuffed (in theory they should be firing faster than the others, so still drain fast), but to say riflemen aren't hindered by there specials unbuffed, isn't true.

At least carbineers and pistoleers can stim away damage. This may sound pro-rifleman, but last year they were pretty broken, and mind buffs were hard to come by, compared to now. I am a carbineer, and have been from the days of no buffs, to now fighting perma-buffed, but as far as HAM costs go, we aren't 'much' worse than many other professions, melee or ranged.

:: Saizek Jarel :: Mercenary ::

TAfirehawk

Thu May 13, 2004 6:27 am

#8

The issue here is NOT the weapons, but the HAM penalty modifiers in the Specials, which is where we are ganked.....

But at the same time, I think the HAM changes will eliminate ALL spamming for ALL professions, so this might be a totally wasted discussion

Iebas Feania
Former Correspondent of the Former Profession, CARBINEER

Antehiem

Thu May 13, 2004 6:45 am

#9

Arafel,an unstocked, standard master weaponsmithelite carbine is more likely to have around 25/40/25 (roughly)HAM cost. The one your describing must have a stock (even scope)on, that has been experimented for damage/accuracy, not for HAM. As the person showed above, a laser rifle's mind cost, unstocked/unscoped, is higher than any carbines action cost, unstocked/unscoped (though scopes can be made with 0/0/0 HAM cost and still give some more accuracy). T21's are even higher, and probably only the slugger, with about 60 action cost, is more of an equivalent, but a DXR6 is still around 30/40/20 HAM,and its not as though we 'have' to use sluggers foracid damage.

You shouldn't be using a stocked weapon, unbuffed, to be spamming specials with. As I now fight perma-buffed, thanks to my master doc partner, I have invested in stocked/scoped weapons, as i'm able to raise all my stats high enough to negate the HAM costs, but up until that point, it was standard weapons.

As a side note, just using the default attack, 3-4k HAM NPCs aren't too hard to take down (if your careful who you take on), without theneed to spam specials. The system was never designed to be used to spam specials.

:: Saizek Jarel :: Mercenary ::

Arafel_

Thu May 13, 2004 12:57 pm

#10

"High level Rifles have 71( 61 on my no HAm scoped Laser Rifle ) mind cost, Powerhammers have over 110 health cost, VK's are slightly lower then carbines. I dont rememeber the Ham on anything else but those are strait from my inventory. I much rather prefer the mid level HAM cost to all stats in carbines then the huge health cost i had when weilding my powerhammer."

HAM costs for my elite carbine:

H : 83

A : 102

M : 76

Does that look mid-level to you? When it costs me almost 300 HAM to do ONE crippleshot i think that's a little high

Arafel
PM Official Meat Shield
Teras Kasi Master - Master Swordsman - Master Medic
I Y Swamptown
Combat Upgrade Beta Tester *crossed fingers*

Carbineer Archive

Thread: Why fix HAM costs?