Commando Archive
Thread: An analysis: What is a commando?
Well i was going to open this with the text from the manual.. as it stands this is painfully outdated as it still talks about how we craft our own grenades. So what I'll do instead is first step back and establish which direction I'm looking at this from.
Needless to say that every profession in the game is designed to fill a seperate role, this also extends to the combat professions in how they are used in the field for both solo and group play. As it stands there are blatently some combat professions and combinations of skills which are great for one method of fighting or another. There is really only one profession we can look to for a comparason... and that is the Bounty Hunter as it is also a hybrid profession.
The Bounty hunter is obviously designed to be a self contained set of skills designed for solo combat. You have the pistols, the carbine and the LLC which all translate to different ranges and purposes. When you get down to it you can see the designers mind at work as they have contained everything a BH needs within their profession. Naturally there are balancing issues however this is an analysis of what the profession appears to be.. not how it currently works with bugs and balance issues. The commando is very clearly the opposite of the BH in many respects. Many of the weapons require the player to crouch, take aim and then spend several seconds before firing another shot. This to me suggests that the commando as the title of the profession says is designed for warfare.. not solo combat.
However even in war a soldier sometimes needs to go one on one with an opponent, in this situation there is many options for the commando from the LP to the flamer and the grenades. However there is currently an issue whereby the roles of certain weapons haven't been firmly established. Lets look at the profession skills trees at a whole though and think about what role each one is apparently geared towards.
The grenades (fieldtactics)are clearly aimed at giving the commando the ability to cause large amounts of damage in all of the damage types not usually available to other professions. Handy in both solo and as a support weapon there really isn't any issues here for the grenades aside from the fact they aren't fantastically popular at the moment.
Heavy ranged weapon support is obviously just that, weapons designed for siege purposes where you are basically backed up by others allowing you to deal alot of damage to the target in large chunks. Much like the field tactics line you have every type of damage under the sun here however all the weapons require very specific placement and timing in order to actually survive long enough to use them.
The flamethrower as it stands is multi-purpose. Looking at it's range modifiers it's clearly designed for many uses so it's fair to say the designers intended for this to be THE commando's soloing weapon of choice along side the launcher pistol. However as I have stated before the weapons flexibility is hamped by the fact it causes heat damage which many enemies have resistance to, it's a trade off really which would work except for the flamers DOT burns which allows it to kill anything without exception.
The HAR looks very much like it was designed to fill the role of a non-disposable support weapon. It fires slower, the delay between specials is huge and it's really not very accurate unless your crouching. However the situation is that it requires you to be really close to the target to be effective, that alone isn't a problem since it's a support weapon however with the current accuracy issues it really means that things don't get better from novice.
So overall when people are saying to get rid of the HAR or that commando's are useless I think they need to step back and look at just what the commando is. On the whole the profession is geared towards (at least in appearence) group support with a bit of soloing thrown in with help from the LP, FT and some of the grenades. That would explain the lack of defence modifiers on the whole as realisitically we're supposed to let other combat professions get stuck in while we do out damage from the edge of the battle field. Out of all of the professions we have the full range of damage types at our disposal, this alone gives us a huge advantage when your dealing with the really tough enemies. THAT is what in my opinion is the commando's real strength.. the ability to cause the maximum damage in any situation and thus flexibility but using specialized weapons.
So what is a commando? It's a profession for warfare, not for soloing. If you want one on one you should take a look at the BH profession or carabineer or pistoller. If we can agree this is the direction Commano was headed in to begin with then our ideas won't clash with the original design brief thus allowing much less debating and arguing over what should be the next step to take. All of the weapons in the profession do indeed serve a specific role, they just need balancing for their purposes.
The range of the HAR, as you say it is a support weapon and in my mind, as support weapon to have more range than the HAR at the moment. In a support role in a battle, you dont get up close, you stay at the back and look for the spot to make the most damage you can.
So in my mind the HAR should be a medium to long range weapon. While on the other hand the FT should be close up.
As it is now, i hit better at 64m with the FT than i do with the HAR (i´m still novice commando 0/0/0/0).
But aside from that i agree with you more.
Abyh Moonlighter
Novice Commando
Eclips
we do our damage from the edge of the battlefield?
since when is 16m the edge of the battlefield. the HAR is a RIFLE it should be used as one and have long range specials. if the HAR is slower it should do more damage then the FT or at leastthe 2 should have the same speed and damage so the that you can take advantage of a weakness to acid. most stuff that has 100% resist to heat has at least 60% to acid. so a gun that fires slower and does less damage really doesn't help much when we are master marksmen we have other weapons to use to attack what it has 0% resist to. and if you get novice pistoleer you get an acid gun that can out damage the HAR without specials (someone test this I'm sure I'm right, a novice pistoleerand a master commando with a HAR using no specials at ideal rangeusing the same method as ivoni used to prove we suck at pvp).
the heavy support weapons are fine but don't do anymore damage then the flame special so I guess you could say they are our long range specials but they cost so must and run out so fast no one wants to deal with them. gernades,is there a reason commandos can't throw a baseball more than 20m and hit something, even within 20m all I seem to hit is myself.
we do our damage from the edge of the battlefield?
since when is 16m the edge of the battlefield. the HAR is a RIFLE it should be used as one and have long range specials. if the HAR is slower it should do more damage then the FT or at leastthe 2 should have the same speed and damage so the that you can take advantage of a weakness to acid.
As i said I think that the accuracy is really the issue with the HAR, the weapon is around +0 at 15m and -115 at 64m. But once that accuracy is up at +80 you'll be able to accuracy fire it at around 40m with a decent amount of accuracy from futher outside the battle. As for the power and speed of the HAR I dunno, the utility of being able to call around alot of acid damage might be enough to off-set the fact it doesn't have armor piercing or higher damage. I dunno, the devs probably have some kind of method to work these things out but this topic was about to see if people agree with the purpose of various weapons not how they measure up to each other at the moment.
Indeed someone said that the FT and HAR are like apples and oranges, thats because when you look at the tree as a whole they are designed for seperate roles. On the whole though I think that the FT is doing too good a job of things and the HAR is doing a very poor job of it. I mean people look at their fav FT and see it as being a powerful weapon which they love... thats true but is it really going a bit too far. I know people hate nerfs but from a logical point of view the FT is starting to becoming a little too multi-purpose in a profession full of dedicated and specialized weapons.
I agree. Commandos are not good at 1on1, and I don't think they were supposed to be. Their FT allows them to be good at PvE, but in PvP, their strength comes from the heavy weapons and the grenades.
There are only a few problems I have with this.
1. heavy weapons have too few charges. For 50k, a heavy weapon should have 100 charges. That will get them through a handfull of PvP battles without having to by a new weapon. Grenades should have 20 charges or so.
2. Heavy weapons are not that accurate. Instead of having a rocket launcher accuracy modifier, and a HPBC modifier, etc, there should just be one heavy weapon accuracy modifier. Right now, some of the heavy weapons are less accurate then others because they are only obtained higher up the heavy weapon support tree. Rocket Launcher is the only heavy weapon that hits most of the time.
Other then that, yeah, commandos can do all types of damage. They have weapons that have an AP3. They can do good damage from 64m as well as 16m. There weapons need tweaking, that is for sure, and they could use a few more defence modifiers, but they should not be turned into 1on1 gods.
I disagree in a lot of ways but agree in some.
OK, first of I agree heavy weapons would be weapons we use for war style combat as support, bu thats the only support weapons.
As far as the whole profession being there for a support profession, I disagree, entirely.
BH the profession geared for soloprofession? Sure, but for 1 on 1 not 1 on many. Do you know what a BH is? If used in war they are head hunters that would go after a specific target not take on an army. BHs fight smarter and only have interest in collecting someones head for money.
Pistoleer? Someone handy witha gun. The old trickshot. Great in street fights but just a good fall back skill in a war.
Carbineer? Rifleman? Now these are more like the soldiers your getting at. Machine guns(sota) and rifles. Assault type class would be the carbineers, ranged support coming from the rifleman, they are snipers after all.
Commandos? One vs many. Read the handbook or strategy guide." Avoid on battlefield at all costs unless incapacitated or otherwise distracted," "A commando can survive many situations that others could not" those 2 straight out of the game if you float your cursor over the top of the tree. Says nothing about being just support from the back of the battlefield although heavy support weapons suggest but thats just one line in the tree and just part of our "multi"-role. Not at all subject to being the back of the battlefield but rather IMO the frontline, the initial assaulters, the navy seals, or rangers of the SWG world. Grenades are not a supposrt weapon but more for taking out entrenched enemies so you can attain the field posiston yourself for your comrads that are coming behind you as clean up. Flamethrower? Close combat meant for dealing out damage to multiple enemies at once at SHORT RANGE. (I know someone else said they are used at 45m in WWII but got to look at how far rifles reach and where they are at in game standards as well) That is our assault weaopn for front line. Acid rifle? Ummm..... errrr..... who knows? Its so broke. IMO it was either to be same as the flame but offer us a diferent damage type or it was supposed to be our only long range, non-disposable heavy weapon. LP? Well as I said about pistoleer, thats our street fighting weapon, or fall back in battle.
Thats my oppinion. It would be good to hear what others feel.
technohic got it 100% right. we didn't spend all those skill points just to be a different type of rifleman we did it to blow stuff up and kill lots of people. the problem is we will never be all that we can be because the other classes will cry that we are too good. "they spent a lot more points in combat then I did, and I can't beat them for some reason."
ok don't nerf the damage or dot of the flamethrower, there is at least one pistol that has a max range of 40m(cannot start shooting anything until you are withing 40m) the FT should have that same limit. you want to nerf the burn? all we do now is set stuff on fire 5 seconds before we are killed in pvp, our last act to help our side,new tag for flame 4 could be kamakazist (or however it is spelled, why should I care about spelling the devs didn't when naming a flame 4 specialist).
the HAR needs to be a long range weapon with the same damage and speed as the FT and fix the acc and spd to stack.
Heavy weapons we don't need the acid cannon it is no different than the acid single2(without the 15second wait time). give us a cold cannon or a stun cannon or both. all, but the RL, should be AP2 and the RL should be AP3.
Gernades should be weaker(the higher level ones that sometimes get one hit kills when they hit), faster, and hit from a much greater range.
I always viewed commando as a support role, and what up said up above corresponds to this..however the HAR is just plainly redundant
its specials are exactly like FT, and has two if not more critical disadvantages to the FT
the two trees on your left are our support branches, the two trees on our right are not, the HAR should either be combined with FT (just a special varient) and the present HAR tree either have a duel purpose hybrid weapon or special purpose (like an e-web blaster cannon...makes us immobile, but its great on support, etc) OR just make it the LP branch
ive taken many steps back while being commando since a few weeks after launch, and I don't see much use of the HAR in its present state (nor even if its specials were increased..which until hell freezes over, that will happen..devs have stated they do not have the intention of raising special range)
That is essentially what i was saying TechnoHic, the commando is used in a warfare situation. I don't really think that a one vs many situation is accurate since if you can take on a group then you can certainly handle a single player. Indeed with the minimum of defence skill mods and the fact we now also suffer a x4.5 damage melee multiplier (remembering that most of our weapons have to be fired from a crouch) then if you come up against even one melee player or a group then your dead meat. Considering the speed of most weapons you really aren't gonna last long in a 1 vs 3 fight even if they used all of their normal weapons. All it takes is a knockdown and a few whammys from the three enemies and a commando is deadmeat.
This is why I say that realisitically we're geared towards group support, a commando might be able to handle a bit of solo combat against a few enemies with the help from the FT and LP but it's so easy for things to go sour and end up getting killed. The commando really does shine when they're in a group and able to properly use their weapons to the fullest potential, so I wouldn't say that a commando MUST work with a group but they certainly operate to their fullest when they do hence it's really their main role in the big picture.
They are still in my opinion the opposite of the BH, indeed that profession has the speed and status effect skills to stick bleeds, blind, knockdown, dizzy and everything else on multiple targets within the space of a few seconds. A commando really cannot do that which is why I say the BH is better for PvP or dealing with multiple targets themselves, if you stick a BH into a group situation they end up just being another person blasting away blindly without any thought. A commando is able to do so much more once they're allowed to think about what weapons they can use.
One thing I've been thinking is that we could really use with the branches of the tree serving a specific perpose. Rather than being a list of weapon certifications they need to be group in order of what the skills and weapons within are used for. This would certainly encourage more dabblers but it also means that commando can focus on exactly what they want to do first. On the whole I think that the first tree is fine as it is for grenades, ideally though they need to remove all defensive skills mods from that line and increase the general accuracy and speed for the grenades more.
The second branch is also fine in terms of disposable support weapons but again as someone mentioned there should really be a single unified heavy support weapons accuracy and speed mods rather than having skills for each weapon. If the devs want each weapon to have a unique 'flavour' then it can easily be done with the range modifers instead of all those messy skill mods for each one.
The thirdbranch is where I think we need to merge the HAR, LP and the FT. These needs to be really the non-disposable weapons. Throw in a few specials for the FT, and HAR as normal along with some LP specific ones as well.
The forth branch to me should be converted into the defensive skill mods and some generalized specials for the three weapons in the third branch. Since the commando does their best work in a support role then it should also contain support enhancing specials. Rather than the usual flamecone and acidcone specials, you'd have those removed and turned into a generic 'conefire' attack which simply works as the current one but can be used for the LP, FT and HAR. A bit like the Pistoleers areashot attack you might say. Another handy special would be an AoE knockdown not to different to what the riflemen have, naturally it'd need to have a huge delay so that it's really only used to give your group some breathing space and since we're dealing with weapons that can cause physical pressure to someone it makes perfect sense. The last support special I can think of is more like a sweeping attack, much like the cone but it's fired in a full 180 arc in front of you allowing for some major coverage to all targets in the area.
As for the skill mods I mentioned how I like the idea for a 'heavy weapon toughness' kinda skill mod which would be an extention of the unarmed toughness we have anyway, even defence as low as +40 would be significant since many commando's cannot wear armor as the special drain a massive 100 points by default and the armor only makes things worse.
Flamethrowers are not just propellent and flammable, they are a 3 part thing, propellent <nitrogen gas>, initial igniter <benzine> and then target burn <coal tar>, as the example used above, not used in modern flamethrowers but the prinicple is the same. The gas is inert and is used to spary both towards the target. The benzine is ignited at the muzzle and is used to ignite the coal tar. The coal tar, being wet and sticky coats the target and burns hotter and longer than the benzine. Basically when hit with a flamethrower you get wet first with coal tar and burning benzine, the coal tar ignites and you are damaged by the coal tar. The coal tar is sticky fire, even if you stop drop and roll, you would not put ot this fire, it can be smothered but requires more effort. If the flamethrower was just benzine it would be like a blow torch and very short range and just flame. If it was just coal tar it would be very short range and would require something very hot to ignite it at the barrel. By using all three elements here the flamethrower gets range and a cooler lighter at its barrel.
Its true that a flamethrower can be effective against heat resistant targets. Everything is affected by large increases in temperture. The surface may not burn, but the transfer of heat internally will negatively affect anything and anything doused in a long hot burning liquid will take damage.
When I look at flamethrower specials I see the flamethrower applying a good hose down with out ignition and then lighting it up after. Its not really a cooldown that our specials encounter, but a time to restore pressure to push the jellied gas out again. To be honest all of the heat produced with a flamethrower occurs beyond the barrel of the weapon anyways, there is no need for a cool down.
What is a commando in SWG? We apply dots. That is why the HAR is not right, not because it doesn't do damage, but because when it does specials, it does those at the same range as the flamethrower with out any different effect than to not dot <even if accuracy and speed bonus were to apply, it doesn't dot and it doesn't do better damage>. At long range we can use our consumable weapons for damage.
So whatare the solutions?
Well its nice to see that so far two people spoke up and said on the whole they agree with the roles of the weapons and the focus for our profession, those who read but didn't post I guess they agree as well or they'd have said something. So I'd say since we're waiting for a correspondant it'd be nice to have a large focussed thread to discuss the options so we can find what is popular and what isn't. Now I'd like this to be different than other threads, typically what happens is that people see the posted idea and either agree or disagree. That might be good for the moral of the person whos idea it is but it's not great for feedback to the devs, the more ideas people bring to the table the more there is to sort through and find the ideal solution.
I guess the place to start is with the problems with the weapons really, since one leads to the other.
Grenades
On the whole I've got to say I've never seen someone use grenades much apart from master commandos, but people generally don't use them because we know they're painfully inaccurate. With only a +55 accuracy it'd not surpizing people are missing half the time. But from a logical point of view these are explosions.. ie. area of effect weapons. So how the hell can they be such poor accuracy. I'd say the devs need to increase the accuracy for these weapons to well over +100 for the sole fact of they're 'supposed' to be explosives. So what would be the ideal range for these grenades? Mid -range? Long range? no close range since your likely to get blasted yourself as well.
Heavy support weapons
I don't think anyone really has any issues with the purpose of these weapons, frankly i think the devs hit the nail pretty much right on the head with these. All of them require alot of thought into how they're used, the distance.. the position, the fact you need to take the moment to fire and still get away afterwards. It's really an ideal solution for a heavy weapon and not one of those fire and forget like things you see in FPS games. The only real issue is they're costly in the extreame, for some people thats not a problem but the fact is that if they're supposed to be used in anything other than PvP then they need to have more charges since even with the RL you need around a dozen rounds to take down the big stuff. That's almost half of a RL used up and costing you alot of cash for the sake of experience and just killing a target. They really are designed mainly for PvP but then why bother with all the various damage types?
Flamethrower
Even the real world flamers are used for infantry, they're a close to medium range weapon which is also ideal for crowd control. Yet the SWG flamer is so flexible it really fits into far too many roles and means that it loses the point for other commando weapons existing. There are a number of thinks that could be done to solve the issue, many of the simple ones are nerfs however the alternative is to increase the power for all commando weapons which means a complete balancing pass for all professions and the enemieswhich is why the devs generally avoid it.
solution #1: Reduced range and accuracy
On the whole the flamer in my opinion works too well at all ranges, it is after all pressurized flammable gas and like real world flamethrowers accuracy is supposed to be the pits. If it's napalm thats another matter but we're talking about something which is basically like a can of hairspray and a lighter. So setting something on fire or actually causing constant damage is actually quite tough with projected flames, the further from the source you get the more the flames disperse and the lower chance of catching fire or even being hurt by the heat. Frankly I'd like this solution, make the FT only really effective from 0m to 30m. However it needs to be incrediby accurate within that space and then become the utter pits the further away.
solution #2: Reduced power per hit, narrower damage range,faster speed for specials but with more HAM drain
The flamer is really anti-infantry and crowd control in it's purpose from what you can see. Ideally the idea shouldn't be to have powerful hits but a constant stream of damage for the target. The idea being that while it's DPS is lower this is compensated by the current ability to hit at all ranges, the faster rate for the specials would allow the DPS to be pushed much higher than any other weapon but at the cost of only limited duration becase of the higher cost to the HAM. Also so that the reduced power doesn't sting the minimum and maximum damage ranges would be brought close together. Rather than a flamer with around 400-800 it could be changed to 600-700 meaning it's a very reliable weapon thus increasing the average DPS to compete with a more beefed up HAR I'll come to in the moment. Also with the existance of the DOT the flamer is actually causes more damage anyway.
solution #3: No more DOT
Not really an ideal solution in my opinion but would be a one stop solution for the current over-effetiveness of the flamer. Frankly since most people love the DOT and it's what makes the flamer unique I'd say while this would be an ideal quick-fix it wouldn't be very popular.
Of all the possibilities I think I can see I like the first or second the best. Having them combined would be too much of a nerf in my opinion and a drastic step away from the FT which many commandos loves. Personly I'd like to see a change but not a total one from how it currently looks.
Heavy Acid Rifle
Many people call this a totally broken weapon. Well I'd say to them if you want to look at something which is totally broken then go play as a chef, smuggler or bio-engineer for a month and then come back and see that the HAR isn't broken, it's just horriblyunbalanced. The current accuracy range for the HAR looks more like what you'd expect from the flamethrower, I'd even go so far as to say they got the two of them mixed up in that instance as a rifle by it's very definition should be long range. However the HAR is in logical terms a hybrid of a rifle and the flame thrower since it can shoot acid filled containers while also having a spray-n-pray option. In the end I'm not sure where the designer was trying to go with the HAR. The commando already has two infantry weapons which serve different roles so there is no need for a third. The HAR deserves to be placed into a support role but for that to work it needs to turn into a long range weapon.
That means removing the acidcone and acidsingle attacks from how they currently operate really as those are obviously only going to look right at close range. Basically what I'm saying is that the HAR needs to be focussed directly towards filling the currently absent hole for a non-disposable support weapon. Keep the x2.5 damage multiplier for the HAR but remove it from the flamer but increase the long term DPS for the HAR while also forcing it into a role much like a T21 or Lazer rifle where you have a narrow optimum range that forces you to really think about how it's used much like all of the other heavy support weapons. I dunno if you folks agree or disagree with this but given how it's popularity is at the moment I guess any chance would be a good change.
A quick look at defence skill mods for the commando
On the whole I'd say that the commando needs to go without melee and ranged defence mods, this is because all of our weapons are bulky so not only are we a large target for ranged but we're a very easy target for being physically hit. WhatI DO think we need is increased accuracy bonuses, defence versions knockdown and posture changes and something akin to unarmed toughness but with heavy weapons since even though we're a big target we have a large weapon which makes us steady on our feet and could even be used to block some attacks meaning we can be hit easily but we don't take as much damage. For the HAR this wouldn't matter since there's the damage multiplier but with the up close and personal nature of the FT some 'heavy weapons toughness' even if it's only a total of +40 at master would be most handy since the commando is going to be getting stuck in. We are afterall a merging of close melee combat and guns.
FLAMETHROWERS:
Contrary to what we had thought, flamethrowers were introduced fairly early on. They were first employed by the Germans at the battle of Hooge on July 30, 1915. Flamethrowers consisted of a backpack with a resevoir of compressed nitrogen and a tank containing about ten pints of "liquid flame", usually a mixture of coal tar and benzine. A hose ran from the fuel tank to a nozzle, on which was an ignition device; on pressing the trigger, gas forced the liquid through the nozzle and at the same time the ignition device fired the liquid. The result was a stream of burning liquid with an effective range of about 45 meters.
Flamethrowers proved to be a terrifyingly effective weapon, and they were quickly adopted by the British, French, and American forces. They had a somewhat shorter range than many of the other weapons of The Great War which, in conjunction with their efficacy, meant that flamethrower operators quickly became targets; no one wanted an enemy flamethrower anywhere near them. It became customary for flamethrower operators to go into combat surrounded by an infantry squad to protect them until they could be usefully deployed.
An advantage of flamethrowers is that they don't require that much skill to operate; anyone who can aim a garden hose can aim a flamethrower, which makes them, oddly enough, a good weapon for novices. Even an untrained combatant can cause massive damage against large numbers of opponents, as long as they can get within range (as a caveat, one should make sure the novices are bright enough to avoid rather literal "friendly fire" casualties, which are somewhat easy to achieve with this weapon.) In addition, their use as a psychological weapon of terror is unparalleled. Katya suspects that flamethrowers might also prove rather effective against creatures which are immune to certain forms of more conventional weaponry.
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While history shouldn't dictate the way a fantasy game is structured it certainly has not stopped anyone here from making that analogy. The fact is some types of flamethrowers from real life were accurate up to 45m.
Also, lets keep in mind, this isn't BF914, Medal of Honor or any other WW2 knockoff. This is Star Wars. Don't forget it.