Commando Archive

A few thoughts on commandos.

First, it seems like the developers either haven't articulated a viable vision for the command (one balanced from a game play stance), or having articulated it, they've failed to achieve it. Therefore, I think we should focus on a viable vision. This should make it easier for the develoers to achieve something not only fun, but balanced.

My vision: Commandos should be a jack of all trades for light weapons and unarmed combat, with the unique ability to be very effective against heavily armored or stationary / slow-moving combatants via the use of heavy weapons, explosives and heavy armor. This would be consistent with their very high combat focused starting requirements. It seems like we're close to being the jack-of-all light weapons, but woefully far from being effective users of heavy weapons, explosives or heavy armor. Here are my thoughts on each of these categories:

1. Light Weapons: The commando needs some commando only skills that round these skill sets out. This should include not only enhanced accuracy, damage, defence with reduced delay, but also a few unique unarmed, pistol, carbine and rifle abilities. Commandos should not be as effective as an elite in each class, but should be able to tackle reasonably

reasonably difficult oponents. This will allow commandos to switch to light weapons where they are more effective than heavy weapons or explosives (more on this later).

2. Heavy Weapons: Heavy weapons should be much higher damage per second ("DPS") in some circumstances than light weapons, but perhaps (slightly) less effective than light weapons in certain circumstances as well. I see heavy weapons as weapons that have some combination of long range, high armor penetration, long recharge, high accuracy against stationary or very slow moving targets, high damage, potential for collateral damage, and long initial charge. What this means is that heavy weapons should be MUCH more effective against a heavily armored stationary or slow moving target than light weapons. Heavy weapons would be more effective against stationary unarmed targets or armored moving targets than light weapons. However, heavy weapons should be less effective than light weapons against fast moving relatively unarmed targets (where unarmed means that the armor is equal or less than the penetration factor of the light weapon). Moreover, as a general rule heavy weapons should suffer a severe penalty when the commando is moving at faster than a walk (I say walk because with the heavy armor suggestion below you can have a heavily armored, slow-moving effective commando). Heavy weapons could be divided into categories that are as follows: Special friendly (lower ham) vs. special unfriendly, very long range vs. medium range, collateral damage vs. no collateral damage, very high armor penetration vs. moderate to good armor penetration, very inaccurate for moving targets vs. reasonable accuracy vs. moving targets, very high damage vs. high (or even moderate) damage, special utility against droids vs. no special utility against droids, and on damage type.

5. Miscellenous combat imrovements:

a. Lacking a certificate for an area shouldn't reduce damage; it should reduce accuracy and increase delay. This just makes sense.

b. Armor should have its effectiveness skewed against the weapon's armor penetration in a way that makes more sense than the seemingly linear setup we have now. In other words, giving a weapon with a armor penetration ("AP") value of 3 a 25% enhanced damage against armor resistance ("AR") of 2, a 50% enhanced damage against AR 1, and a 75% enhanced damage against AR 0 is not the best way to implement armor penetration. Armor penetration should be more of a threshold where once you are over an AR you have full effectiveness. In other words, an AP of a 3 should be as effective against an AR of 2 as it is against an AR of 1 or 0, not more so. It's reasonable to give it less effectiveness against an AR of 3 (say a 25% decrease across the board). It should then drop off in effectiveness against each subsequently greater AR value. As it stands now why not just make a weapon with an AR of 3 have a greater damage min and max vs. an AR of 2. That's effectively what the current system as I understand it stands. However, perhaps my understanding is off. This deserves some further investigation. However, it's hard to do with player made armor all having an AR of 1.

c. Walk vs. run accuracy penalty: Very simply put, if you walk or your target is walking the accuracy penalty you receive should be less than that if you were running or if your target was running. Heavy weapon's extra-severe moving target penalty should be noticeable only where at least one of the targets is running, not walking. A commando should be effective when wearing the heavy armor I talk about above (or merely walking for whatever reason) against a slow-moving target (be it another heavy armored commando or a tank-type vehicle or a slow moving AT-ST).

d. Accuracy in general: Large targets should be VERY easy to hit, even when the targeter is running at the same time the target is running. I'm thinking of AT-STs, Krayt dragons, and the like here.

Those are my thoughts. I think if implemented they would dramatically improve the commando class, and game play as a whole for all of the combat professions. The bottom line is that commandos should be the single most effective class in combat. This should only be a marginal improvement against other players. But it should be a HUGE improvement against large, heavily armored, stationary or slow-moving targets. This would define our class. Add in explosives, heavy armor, and mines and you have a complete combat hybrid class that would make all of us happy. However, a word of caution. Commandos should not be SO much better than other combat classes in strict pvp skirmishes. We should be better, but the edge only where we have an opportunity to "set-up" so to speak with a heavy weapon or the ability to take advantage of explosives. In a straight shoot-out where the other party is moving a lot, our advantage should be minimal. If we are forced to move as well our accuracy should drop a lot.

NOTE: Sorry for the multiple posts. I had to cut and paste it to a word document then had trouble pasting the whole thing in.