Commando Archive
Thread: State of the Commando Address (December 2003)
Field Tactics: Some type of tactics that would be used in the field. Such as building bunkers, walls, etc. Also, being able to plant explosive charges and lay mines (NOT minefields) would be fantastic. Also, a different array of grenades; Grenades that we currently have are boring. We need ones that not only can do damage, but effect states such as Flash-Bang Grenades (Blind), Sonic Grenades (Dizzy), and Foam Grenades (Something I have seen soliders use on TV specials that cover an enemy in quick dry foam, greatly limiting movement.)
Removal or Upgrade of HAR: The HAR as it is is useless, so I hope it is either replaced with a rapid fire gun, or improved (and an improvement would not be making it the same as the flamer, with a DOT and heavy damage). A fully automatic gun, not a semi automatic, would be my prefered replacement.
Offensive Vehicles: Have the DEVs read their description of our profession? We are supposed to specialize in combat vs vehicles! Though its a long way away, the Space expansion could help spice up our profession. Hover tanks, long range artillery cannons, and low flying attack ships that players can man would all be great additions later on, and of course Commandos will specialize vs these.
One thing I would hate for the DEVs to do would be for them to make a rapid fire machine gun, but give it charges like a heavy support weapon.
I have read the entire thread posting and I love most of the ideas presented here. If half of them were implimented the commando would become a very fun and dynamic class to play. Right now the commando is just repeditive and you wind up killing your self 9 out of 10 times trying to kill the enamy; via blowing your self up by grenade, extreme ham costs on heavy weapons, and that wonderful 2.5 melee mod that all unlucky commandos suffer. we are effectively siucide soldiers at this point and time. But the commando is not a lost cause and the last major patch was a good step foward in fixing the commando as a profession. I believe alot more can be done to fix the profession, but it will require some drastic changes. So here is my two cents on the fixing this wonderfully bust class.
Fixing the current commando design.
This will not be hard to do. fix the heavy acid rifle so it works correctly. lower the ham cost and range penatlies a bit on those heavy weapons so its worth shooting them at people or NPCs for the amount they cost. fix the radius effects so they work. Fix the grenades so we can throw them and not incap ourselves doing it. these can also do with a ham cost and speed reduction so they are worth blowing the money on them for how little you get. also get rid of the 2.5 melee damage mod. any brawler class can drop a master commando if he gets to close to use his flamethrower. wearing armor make the commando the equivelent of an unarmored pistoleer/carbineer/rifleman when they deal with melee classes. these fixes would make the commando a decent class to play.
A creative commando fix.
This calls for a reorganization fo the skill tree and how a mayority of the commando weapons. the heavy weapons and the grenades of the field tactics tree should be combined togather since they are about the same in use, considered a special attack that is only affective in an ideal situation. grenades should stay the same with three exceptions. faster speed to throw ( not hard to throw a baseball sized object fast). make the ideal ranges farther out so commandos far and wide can enjoy throwing a grenade without incapping themselves. And finally lower ham costs on throwing those grenades (does not take much out of you to throw that baseball size object) the range penalties will still cause them to miss if not in ideal range.
Now here is the drastic change, the heavy weapons. Make it one heavy weapon launcher with a single accuracy and speed mod. The mod will need to be similar to most other professions, some where around 100 to 120 accuracy with the speed mod being a little more then half (50 to 70). this single launcher is not disposable but must be loaded with ammo to be used. the ammo will be the damage types of the current heavy weapons (acid, electric, energy, blast). The ammo can have modifers on it that affact the accuracy and speed of the launcher as well as the amount of damage the ammo will do and what armor piercing it has. we can call the ammo shells just for kicks. this will make the heavy weapons more dynamic and fun to use. This will also affact the weapon smiths since the ammo and launcher will need to be produced seperately. this solution offers a disposable weapon type that can be resupplied easily without to much hassle. beyond that the weapon will be used the same way as it is now, a special attack. and if a commando wants to carry multiple damage types on him or her, purchase multiple launchers and have them loaded with there desired damage type. In short the heavy weapon will have one set of mods and the grenade's their own set of mods. the weapons will determine the rest. this idea is derived off of the grenade launcher idea in previous posts.
some comments on the flamethrower, acid rifle and launcher pistol. I agree with alot of people who have presented there ideas about these weapons. A few of those ideas stand out to me though. every one knows who they are when I say this. the flame thrower is ok as is. It does what a flamethrower is sapposed to do, burn things. The flamethrower should retain its own skill tree in my opinion. The heavy acid rifle is busted and will never be consider a good alternative to the flamethrower even if it was fixed. it should be converted into a rifle like weapon and grouped with the launcher pistol in their own skill tree. rifleman specials can be usedwith the acid rifle same as the launcher pistol is used with pistoleer specials. give them both there unique mods and specials and make both a unique commando weapon. a nice little addition would be a carbine type weapon to the commando so the carbiners can take advantage of some of the class bonuses and have fun with ( hmmm...maybe that rapid fire laser cannon people were talking about in the previous posts).
As for the field tactics tree, that will be reserved for defence mods, a little bit of terrain nagotiation and some other misc mods and or specials.
As I said before its a massive overhual that will not likely be done and if it is done will not be implemented any time soon. Also if these ideas were used I would say about a third would make it. sorry for the extremely long post but these ideas have been reading all the posts on the top five issues of the commando class. thanks every one for reading it.
I dont know if major over-haul is need but we do need some fixing 
1. HAR, best use I have ever come up with is to use itlike a regularrifle long distiance shooting and switch weapons when they get too close. If that is how it is supose to be used then adjust it so it can be used that way, right now the HAR has no AP while every other acid weapon has AP andacts like a slower shooting flamethrower. Make up your minds what the HAR is supose to be and fix it accordling.
2. As many people have said before and will after me, there is a ton of potential in the Comando class, but right now we suffer from a jack of all trades mentality. Focus ! Focus! If we are supose to be the heavy weapon specialist then setup the class accordingly, As it stand I have a lot of cool guns that can shoot pretty good but dont do jack or they tear somthing up but by the time they are done I might as well head back to town and healup for the next few days
3. The Launcher Pistol should have some kinda special moves a Knock down attack would be cool, or maybe a overwhelm kinda attack where the launcher pistol fires continuesly for 2 to 3 minutes and once the smoke clears who ever your shooting at is down on the ground hurting or justplain gone(dead or ran away).
4. Grenades are cool but we need a better way of using them, right now by the time I throw one the target has moved fix how they are throwen either fast or give us a way to compensate for them moving like being able to hold the Nade for 2 to 3 second before htrowing, I also agree with a roll command
Novice Comando and speedbump
Lots of good ideas here. The only thing I want to add is that grenades should have a knockdown to them. I mean ya the armor is going to absorb some of the damage but you should get knocked on your but in the process. That one thing would make grenades extremely useful to me and to others. keep up the good ideas.
I agree with almost all of the suggestions so far. I know that all I use is my flamethrower and it gets boring cause theres nothing else decent in are tree. I definatly think we shuld get some launcher pistol and unarmed attacks as well.
Yachew, Master Commando, Corbantis
I'm still for ditching the HAR altogether in favor of some sort of rapid fire machine-o'-death, like a chain-fed minigun.[/quote]
when i first got the game i said to myself, after reading the description of commando. "if anyone is gonna get a mini gun, it will be the commando". now that i'm master commando, i find out that i was wrong. we definitly need some sort of very fast, very powerful area effect weapon. to keep things in balance, the commando should either have to be stationary or limited to walking ( no running or burst running). basically two commandos with such weapons should be able to mow people down. this would be excellent for defending bases, and almost as excelent as an offensive weapon as well. i understand many people would scream nerf, so you could also set a cost to using it, such as ham, credits per time using it, say 100 creds per second? (that's 1k creds for 10 seconds of total pwnage). to be sure that the commando doesn't lose ALL of his/her money, they could have to pay credits into the weapon much like you pay your housemaint. the more you have in it, the longer it lasts, while not pulling straight from your bank account. you could even have both credits and ham cost. or perhaps a damage multiplier like the current 2.5 we get while holding the FT.
although this would be a very effective weapon, which the commando does deserve, i can forsee problems with people dabbeling with it, much like everyone and their brother has flame 4. said weapon could be certed in the heavey weapons support tree, but stats could come from field tactics. i know that doesn't make much sense, but this should only be a weapon that full time commandos can use. heck, i suppose you could cert it in the master commando box, giving at least something worth while to master commando besides flamecone2.
so i guess in summary of what i think our rapid fire weapons should be like, if the devs ever give us one.......
very powerful and ideal for taking down groups of people or large animals (if the animal is also being kept away), but with costs to mobility, ham, and or credits.
these are just a few ideas i came up with. It's 5am and i need to go feign death on my bed.
It's fun to think we'll get 1/2 of what we ask for, but we must be realistic so not to overwhelm the Dev's already full plate.I have a feeling the Devs need a precise list of just *fixes* to make, not class overhauls.
1. HAR - I'm just convinced this weapon still fires like I just turned Novice Commando. The mods for this weapon need to be fixed and allow us to actually hit with it. There's a day and night difference in accuracy between the thrower and this weapon, so I know it's not working. Upsetting that this weapon is supposed to cause acid burn and damaging effects to armor and mechanical devices, yet it doesn't even have Light AP. Let's put the *Heavy* in Heavy Acid Rifle. Making the HAR pack a heavier punch on tougher armored targets with specials over the throwers catastrophic results to unarmored targets would show a distinct difference between the two. That way Commandos across the galaxy don't see the cooler looking HAR as an inferior product that doesn't work. And please fix the graphic work on the shot. Is that a wooden arrow I'm shooting? And if it is, why is it flying side ways?!
2. Thrower - The only two things I can think of on this skill tree/weapon is to reduce the "regular shot" range and decrease the Death Star strength DOT effect. The DOT part doesn't need much discussion so I'll only talk about the "regular shot" angle. As a Master Commando, I'm crazy accurate from "3 point land" engaging even rifleman and HITTING them from ranges I know aren't realistic to the weapon. Some argue that the fire would burn as the flame jets over them. Granted, but the shot shouldn't look or have the range effectiveness like I'm casting high level Magic Missle. I shouldn't be able to even go "weapons hot" on the opponent with my thrower until I can read his name, class and guild tag clearly. Make it so where the available range mod to even fire it doesn't show up until your roughly 35 - 40m or so. With such a shorter range yet devastating weapon, the superior range of the HAR will find another place in the heart's of Commandos everywhere.
3. Heavy Weapons - Despite the time it would take to code it, making the launcher tube re-usable and have loadable ordnance is a WONDERFUL idea. It will allow you to buy a good, yet expensive launcher tube for each type, and then buy crates of loadable ordnance for them. Treat it just like putting a weapon upgrade on a pistol for better max damage. Shouldn't be too much to code. In the weapon "EXAMINE" mode you can see the # of uses left and the expected damage range that loaded ordnance will provide. And of course two separate areas to build these from, Armorsmiths can focus more on the demand of reloadable ordnance than having to build a complete weapon system each time. I don't have too much complaint on the damage these weapons do, as they are all quite deadly to a target with such vulnerabilities. But I think against fortifications and structures like turrets, we could do a little more damage per shot, as 100k HAM turrets are no joke, and I doubt you'll be able to pool together 10 more expert/master commandos to make up for the fact these turrets are essentially one shot, one kill even on a med-buffed commando.
4. Grenades - Getting these to work right is about as elusive as it is to find a weaponsmith who will actually make and sell you a crate! Clearly if I'm a Master Commando, for the HAM requirements and my mod skills on using one, I shouldn't miss. Not to say I should always cause the advertised damage, but a highly trained "grenadier" (I'll talk about names in a bit!) should get this one right 9 out of 10 times. There should also be some short term random/unpredictable effect from any grenade applied aside from damage. These should range from stun, dizzy, blind, to posture change. But only those... and a shorty time on dizzy, but no knock down. Since grenades take a while to recover from they need to provide some benefit to the attack aside from damage, this will also make our h2h abilites more enjoyable as the grenade will put them in a state to assist our melee attack. I am not too keen on the craftable requirements on these, but it should be relatively easy to mass produce these. Making availability possible to this very specialized area.
5. Launcher Pistol - I love this gun, when I first saw it fire, I told myself whatever profession I need to be to use that... that's what I'm gonna be! Clearly this hand-cannon is appreciated early on, then pushed aside once we learned flame single 1. I feel this pistol should be treated with the same amount of respect as a Bounty Hunter does to his Scatter pistol... I mean even at Mastery you see them toting one! Mods and Specials for this should be included in the Field tactics Skill Tree. That will answer the LP's greatest mystery: Should the LP give Hvy XP or Pistol XP? It won't matter! It'll require combat xp all the same in order to excel in it!
I've read a lot of ideas on what to give the LP as shot bonuses. Knockdown? No! Too much! You would never hear the END of people complaining about knockdown / flame single combos. So just hang that one up. Dizzy? No, with the LP able to do Supp. Fire, that just wouldn't be right. I think the LP should have two good specials in conjunction with the pistols specials it gets. Here are my opinion on what the two should be (mostly based off other's excellent ideas):
a. Lock-on Shot - Since the advertised explanation of the LP is it fires a suite of small dumbfire missle warheads, why not allow them to fire smartly as well? This special allows a "near" miss-free (even aimed shots can miss) salvo of missles hitting the target causing a slightly increased amount of damage in one random HAM area. The drawback will be it does require an automatic aim to fire (to allow the missles to acquire the target) and it will appears over the player's head as a Square crosshair icon, not the circular one that aim does. This will be a great 1st level skill in that tree for new Commandos to get, as they will have the ability to do slightly suprior damage with the LP early on, but will have to be careful with it's use as it cannot be done on the run and does require load time for the character to aim up the LP's shot.
b. Cluster Shot - This shot will allow the Commando to arm his missles to do superior blast damage in radius size sacrificing the strength of a standard LP shot. Whatever the blast radius will be with the LP (when they fix that too), this shot will double it, allowing you to catch several creatures / players in a huge blast but at a 30 - 50% cut in HAM damage from a normal LP shot. As an added bonus to compensate for the shot's drastic reduction in strength the increased blast size will have the ability to cause Stun (or blind, not sure on that) to some or all of the victims in the blast. This will be a great solution giving the commando the ability to provide effective cover fire with their LP. However the shot can only cause one type of state damage, no stacking blind and stun. It will also need just little more delay on the shot to compensate for the additional layer of missle fire needed to cause the bigger explosion. This shot will be able to be performed on the run and does not require aiming.
6. Names and Title - The Devs almost got it right with all of them, we just need a quick re-arrange in some and a total REWORDING on others.
- HAR Specialization title should go from Ordnance Manufacturer to Chemical Weapons Specialist. I know there is a Chemical Warfare Specialist and I think a Biological one too, but this suits the Commando's ability to use the HAR in deadly procision.
- Flamethrower Specialization title needs to go from GrenaDEER (Why oh why?) to Expert Commando. Clearly this weapon is the staple in a Commando's aresenal, and this title exemplifies that.
- Heavy Support Weapons Specialization title needs to be... Artilleryman. You use big weapons to do big long-range damamge, this name constitutes the skill-line well.
- Field Tactics ... you learn mostly about grenades it his field of expertise so how bout oh say... Grenadier! (with an "i" this time guys.)
On some final thoughts, I think the unarmed melee skill tree should be kept. If you wanted to add some defense skills in the class, I supposed you could throw two special attacks with unarmed defense mods in the "Field Tactics" tree much like it is now. Heck, alternate which skills you get between the Launcher Pistol skills and the melee skills. (i.e. in Field Tactics I you get Launcher Pistol mods + skill: Lock-on shot then in Field Tactics II, you get a new melee skill + mods, etc... Nothing overpowering mind you, but just a few additional skills to keep us from becoming the Flame Thrower class we have been horribly classified as. Also those Heavy weapon skilltapes... are they working for anyone? Maybe when the mods get fixed on all weapons the skilltapes may reflect their benefits accurately.
I didn't realize I'd go on for so long with this rant. So I appreciate your time in reading. I just want to help out the profession I love so much and have no intention on leaving.
In the service of the Empire,
- Ta'Karn Eventyde
Master Commando
Sunrunner
i'm not a commando, but i feel your pain in the need of actual useful treelines. if you're gonna make commando require unarmed or give them a pistol to use, give them a skill to do something with it. i'd suggest removing the grenade tree, or combining it with the disposible weapons tree and making a "field survival" tree that would implement unarmed and pistol techniques.
i.e. tree one would be some kind of attack for the pistol (like a rapid volley of shots), then for tree 2 put in a unarmed move (the move to the throat was a good idea). then alternate between pistol and unarmed again, and for the master box give 1 more move for each.
to compensate for making commando more versitile you'd need to make burn DoT like the rest so it won't incap to bring it in line with all the rest of the proffesions, or make a item that anyone can use to cure the burn (i think making DoT in line with the others would be the best bet).
like i said i'm not a commando, but i like to help in any ways that i can
1. Titles: you need to make us have cooler titles.(Ordenance manufacturer .. eh is that an artisan? or what?)
Field Tactics IV: Field Veteran.
Heavy Support Weap IV: Artyllerist
Flame Thrower IV: Pyrotechnich
Heavy Acid Rifle IV: Chemical Warfare Specialist
2. HAR.
Dont remove this please. I really like the name of it and the graphics(not the animations though). Instead add some more accuracy, AP2 and better animations/sounds.
Add the accuracy to make it a mid range weapon to use before switching to FT for close combat.
Also you could add some status changes instead of a DOT effect thous making it unique.
3. Field Tactics.
Make the grenades a knockdown/dizzy weapon. When thrown they create a AOE status effect,
I really like someone idea to add a war veteran camp with sandbags and ammo crates. An idea could be that you set up a blaster machine gun post to fire from with a big modifier on ranged defense.
Add some terrain negation too.
4. Heavy Support Weaps
I would like to see that you have to buy a pretty expensive weapon and then buy less expensive ammo clips / rocketswich can have different dmg depending on weaponsmith.
Thats my 4cents
It has to be ditched, unless there are unique commando specials placed in it and some kind of scouting skills are placed in the Field Tactics tree, or some role-playing content to support it (all of which has been mentioned above). The 2.5 damage multiplier is just a bad idea all around for any weapon. Holding a certain weapon should not cause additional damage. If anything heavier weapons should help (Rifles make good melee weapons, butt strokes and bayonet thrusts).
Also it is best to ask for big changes/fixes/things. If one asks for small/few changes, then only a few changes will occur. Ask for big/many changes, then some changes will occur, more than a small/few.