Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC 1-12: Combat Roles; Rifleman
For me the essential aspects of the Rifleman are:
1. Heavy damage weapons that are more accurate at longer ranges than short
2. Very high accuracy with our weapons while stationary
3. High-speed firing
4. Ranged death-blow
5.Good ranged defense
6. Poor melee defense
7. Poor accuracy while moving
Please don't change any of these in your revamp!
What defines theRiflemanrole in combat?
What basic combat elements should they possess?
A: What I think are the basic combat elemets of this profession is the ability to attack accurately at a long range. This profession is suppose to be equivalent to a sniper, or a hunter. Anybody who levels up in this profession will have a varity of skills at killing your target from a far distance. I would think that a sniper or hunter would be silent, and able to pick up off a mark when the enemyleast expects it.
What offensive abilities?
A: I think what would make this profession unique ispossibly the ability to moderately damage or kill a target with just one or two shots. The downside to this idea that would make the profession balanced is the delay on aparticular rifleweapon would be terribly slow. So slow that if an enemy isn't skilled in one shot, the best thing a rifleman would do is either switch to a faster rifle with aweaker damage raito, or change weapons because the enemy may return fire, or theenemycouldstart charging it's attacker. Now say if the rifleman is being charged by the very thinghe/she shot at, by the time it will be able to take another shot at the attacker, the attacker would be standing near him. That's looking at a point of view where the rifleman is prone, just for the accuracy bonuses to hit. If the rifleman is prone, and the enemy is standing 5 meters away, the rifleman wouldn't be able to take another shot unless he stands up, or kneels.
What defensive abilities?
A: I think a rifleman has good enough defensive abilities, wellif they are working properly. What would make a rifleman even more interesting, anddangerous, is it's ability to cloak itself on a person's radar when it come's to PVP situations.Lets say a situation where an overt Rebel was running through Theeds, and an Overt Imperial Rifleman knew that the rebel was in town, just waiting to appear out into the open. The rifleman would have this ability that only lasted for 30 secs roughly, and it covers him from everybodie's radar. You could still see him on your screen if you were looking at him, but you notice you don't pick him up on radar. Right after that, he takes the shot, and only faith would decide ifthe overt rebel is still standing, or laying on the ground.
What unique abilities?
A: I think majority of the abilities a rifleman has should stay the way it is for now. ButSurprise Shot,this ability is pretty much worthless because it's not useful in the heat of the battle, and basically it's one of the few abilities anybody uses in combat. I also feel that Sniper Shot is basically a waste of time because it is only meant for PVP purposes. The only time you can use that is when you actually kill somebody in a PVP situation.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
A: One advantage it would add to a group is the ability to moderately damage or slay an NPC Mob or player character in a PVP situation. A sniper could take out a guard or a rebel/imp player in town, while his team attacks the other targets. The chances of sucessfully killing another mob or player in a combat situation is really slim, but it wouldnt hurt to try. A team of rifleman could be a deadly combination, but they would only be able to handle so much in the first 10 to 20 seconds of combat. After that, they would either relatiate with other weapons, or run. This is looking at it if their weapons had a really slow delay.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
A: Other professions would be different compared to the rifleman profession. Each individual profession is unique to one another in more ways than one.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
A:
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
A: Professional hit-man, assasians, snipers, hunters. These are some words that would best describe them in the game. In a GCW Situation, they will be the ones taking a chance at being a death-dealer. They will risk their lives in the game to take a crack at somebody, and try and kill them on the spot. If they fail, they will be hunted unless they can take another shot, or theyflee, or use other means of attacking their targets. A rifleman would be more of a siege cannon with stealth this way.
Well this is my opinion, and my ideas at work. I haven't thought of all the full details, but I believe my ideas would make the game more enjoying, people would take more interest into this profession, and this profession could tip the tides of war in a PVP situation. I've been a rifleman ever since release date. It has been the first profession I started out as a newbie, and I would love to be a rifleman again. It's fun, and makes the game more challenging. I feel that the profession could reach new heights because of their potiential.
Thank you for your time
What defines theRiflemanrole in combat?
The rifleman, in my opinion, should be the infantry support gunner, taking position and digging in, lending firesupport in the form of either "machine gunning" or more sniper-like function. I think that a discovered rifleman should be in big trouble if they don't have support, which I think the road to master does very well to instill in a rifleman, with the horrible point blank mods on most rifles that aren't overcome until the person reaches the Sniper title and the low block skill, even at Master level. Also, given the nature of rifleman, I think specials should be taxing on the user, much like they are now, limiting the longevity of a rifleman in the field. I feel that a rifleman is a people killer, not a creature killer, with their point blank mods on the rifles, rifleman have a hard time hitting in close, which creatures always charge to. This aspect makes them great faction hunters, fighting stormtroopers, thugs, pirates, and police with a ruthless effeciency. Unfortunately many high end missions become difficult for a master due to the horrible mind drains on rifle specials. If a rifleman is forced to engage in more than say... 2 different bursts of specials, they will surely be mind incapped without stat buffs of some kind. I feel that should be changed at master, perhaps a passive special that limits HAM penalties at Master in exchange for the changes I propose below that will turn rifleman into more of a stand and fight, as opposed to the fight on the run pistoleer style.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
Riflemen deal damage, lots and lots of damage. Its their bread and butter. Lots of Area Effect specials, and lots of support types of attacks, namely the dizzy and stun that they currently have. I think that a rifleman's accuracy needs to be cut down significantly to be replaced with a sizeable amount of 'accuracy while prone' or 'not moving'. This keeps a rifleman accurate in PvE where kiting isn't as much of a necessity, and forces a rifleman into one spot while using specials, out of fear of draining the precious mind bar without landing a shot. This will make them more vulnerable to Melees if they aren't careful. This also helps to force a rifleman away from using his or her top damage weapon while soloing, limiting their effectiveness there. (The spraystick is a viable alternative for a rifleman when fighting in close and is a weak enough weapon that a rifleman will think twice about using it now, given its fast speed, relatively high HAM costs, and lack of armor piercing)
What offensive abilities?
Again, sheer damage at the cost of sustainability. I would also like to see a very high damage/high delay surprise shot that can only be used in the situation described in its text (in cover with no one aware of your presence)
What defensive abilities?
Given that they are snipers, they should be hard to hit at range. However, I think that ranged defense only encourages players to kite and behave as normal combatants rather than the snipers I see us as. I think both the melee and ranged defense should betrimmed severelyin favor of a new use for a cover skill, which will provide its modifier in ranged defense while the Rifleman is in cover.This will make us deadly against ranged combatants and vulnerable to melees.
What unique abilities?
The Sniper Shot is an excellent unique ability, aswould be the surprise shot, if altered as mentioned above to be usable. Cover, too, is an excellent possibility as outlined above, giving rifleman more reason to go up the concealment line.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
An area effect dizzy and stun goes a long way to help a group, especially one filled with pistoleers, smugglers, and master brawlers. Also, the wide array of area effects helps rifleman clear out large alleys of enemies to help a group cut through.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
From current experience, I like the pairing of a gunfighter with a sharpshooter. Pistol Whip is much more effective when coupled with a dizzy from a flurry shot. Also, riflemen should be very much a group skill, having only limited effectiveness without a screen of some sort (IE: Pets, Melees, or Pistoleers). However, with this support, I feel they should be the most feared thing on the battlefield, mowing down uncareful enemies with a barrage of blaster fire.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
As above, a rifleman without support should quickly be cannon fodder for the group that (s)he is sniping on.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
Fire support, pure and simple. A rifleman should sit back and blast large groups of enemies, dominating them until they reach melee range, upon which, they should be slaughtered like lambs to make up for their dominance. They should shine as fire support for a squad of troopers and have a dangerous time if acting independently against a large group of people, especially if a melee is with them.
Since most people have problems with PvP and how riflemen dominate everything, let's examine that issue using some real world examples (YES, i know Star Wars is a sci fi world)
In real military warfare on the battlefield, there is no pistoleer due to their low damage AND low firing rate. Handguns are used as the last resort, so that leaves carbineer and rifleman. No matter what your view on the role of rifleman on the battlefield is, most people would agree it falls into two categories, heavy machinegun men and sniper (which is my preference). Both of these categories share the same characteristic of high damage and low accuracy while moving. The firing rate of machinegun men is far faster than the current 1 shot per sec speed cap, so we should not argue about that, but how about a sniper? I agree, none of us (excluding those who have been with military services and went through sniper school), should be able to fire a sniper rifle with high accuracy and high speed. However, for a master sniper, it's possible to fire at a target (size of a human or larger), from less than 64m while standing still, kneel or prone, with a scope. The HAM cost should be high (on mind) because when you are sniping, it's going to be difficult to do anything else.
So what should happen to carbineer and their role of the battlefield? Think about the soldiers who fight with M-16 rifle and special ops soldiers who use M-4 carbine or HK-10 sub-machine guns. They are useful and NECESSARY for urban and medium range combat. The class should be able to fire at high speed while moving, their accuracy should not be as high as rifleman but their HAM cost should also be lower.
Now, imagine a battle field with the objective of a building/base or a heavily defended compound. Riflemen (both machine gunners and snipers) would setup outside of the scenario (60m away from the building) and lay support fire and counter-sniping for the assault troops which will be mainly carbineers and melee professions. The defenders' riflemen will provide suppression fire and sniping on the assault group. Once the attack reaches the building, rifleman will become useless because they are not effective in close quarter combat and the result of the battle will be determined by the battle of the assault group and the defenders (however, not the defending riflemen).
So, riflemen's accuracy should drop to near zero while moving, -50~-100 when target is within 20m range and ham cost should stay high as the way it is right now. We should also get to keep our high damage and if you are a master, enjoy a high speed of firing. It's pointless to make every class to have the same DPS, which will just make all classes the same with only minor differences, the better solution would be to make each class excel in different situations (indoor/outdoor).
Now addressing pistoleers specifically, you guys shouldn't even be on the battlefield! The point of a pistol is for self-protection like the pistol line for smugglers and BH. Pistoleers should not be a combat/soldier class like rifleman and carbineer; they should be more of a 1 on 1 class in PvP. I can see pistoleers being on par with TKA, fencers and other melee classes (Equilibrium, if u have seen the movie, u get the idea).
I personally think if things are done that way, most people will stop crying nerf and start to enjoy the game a lot more, but that's just my 2 credits.
I'm not reading everything from where I last posted but I just have to add this for all you people who demand rifleman be snipers in any sense of the true meaning. Copied and pasted from one of my posts in the RM forum.
And to all of you who want to be snipers. I am so tired of this. Don't you think all the army's of the world wished they could have all thier rifleman being snipers, doing one shot kills from 300+m. Think how much they would save on ammo alone. The fact is 99.9% of the riflemen in the army's of the world are grunts who run around with auto-fire machine guns and spray bullets everywhere. Why? Not cause the army wants them to, but because its a very elite group of individuals who can actually accomplish this. It is possible to simulate snipers in other real time video games such as FPS's since they require some sort of skill on the part of user along with any character mods to be used successfuly. SWG is NOT a FPS, its a RPG. Less hair trigger reflexes, more tactics. They absolutely CAN NOT give a class that can be ground through in any length of time a "one shot kill". You think we're unballanced now, add that and watch all the other classes empty as everybody moves to rifleman and we start having Sniper Wars Galaxies. If all you have to do is "Tab" "/maketargetdead" to win the battle whats the point of being anything else? Lets face it, we're grunts. We are not, nor can we ever be, the one shot snipers of this universe. If you want to one shot someone in the head go play BF 1942 or Counter Strike. What you snipers are asking for, begging even, is an "I win" button.
I'm going to add to my last post (since edit doesn't seem to be working here...)
I don't think 99.9% of you who want to be snipers realize what snipers really do. They don't run out onto the battle field, drop prone, fire off a shot, and kill someone. They go out, scout out the terain, find the best vantage point where they can see the most but not be seen themselves or be able to be easily counter attacked. They go up in this little hole they found, then wait for days for targets of opportunity to come thier way. When a target of sufficient value is spotted, they take thier shot and then move on. They don't sit there and do headshot after headshot taking out the entire opposing force, they take out the officer in charge or some other individual of percieved importance. After they shoot they high tail it out of there to keep from being killed themselves. The mechanics of this game style (that being an RPG) do not in any way support this style of play, and even if it did, I highly doubt those of you demanding your one shot sniper kills would have the patience to sit in one spot waiting for the random overt/tef to come by to take them out, then move on.
Again, all you snipers want is an I win button.
how to balance rifleman:
1. make the ion rifle ap 0
2. make the t21 blast dmg
3. make the speed at master 85
done.... we should be machine gunners, sniper is not possible in this game since CM 's out range us and prone is death in pvp
Given the basic considerations listed above, please answer the following questions:
What defines theRiflemanrole in combat?
The role of the rifleman in combat is as a combo auto gunner / sniper. Unfortunately due to the maxium range being 64m a full on sniper role is useless. When a lunge can hit you from 1/3rd of your sniper range ther is no point in being a sniper. I define sniper here as a long distance attack. who chooses targets, kills in one shot and hides while doing it.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
The current setup works well for rifleman. However some sort of slowdown attack other than supression frire would be useful. It only takes a few seconds for a mob or player to reach melee range at which point we are dead.
What offensive abilities?
The head & mind shots. The AOE Strafe etc They all work well. We do need better versions of those attacks that we get from marksmen however
What defensive abilities?
We have our ranged defence and our posture UP defence. Make it POSTURE CHANGE defence and give us some protection against KD
What unique abilities?
Well, we have sniper shot at the moment but is useless in PvE. Give it some use.
SurpriseShot : Noone is sure what the point of this is. Presently it's a random attack single target. It doesn't require TakeCover as the wording in it indicates. Please define and repair this skill if appropriate.
StartleShot : This shot is redundent with FlushingShot. The two are nearly identical with FlushingShot having one advantage over it. There is no present use for StartleShot as FlushingShot is obtained earlier and does everything that Startle does making it pointless.
Give us another mind shot attack, maybe with some sort of state change.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
Rifleman should be the core of the assualt force. much as we are now. We have the capability to snipe but primarily we are auto gunners, and we should stay thay way. If you were to cap our speed while keeping the current SPECIAL attacks you would make us useless. the average damage for 200 damamge every second vs 600 damage every 3 seconds is the same. Unless you miss.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
Much as they do now. We aint broke.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
no idea
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
Rifleman should be the core of the assualt force. much as we are now. We have the capability to snipe but primarily we are auto gunners, and we should stay thay way. If you were to cap our speed while keeping the current SPECIAL attacks you would make us useless. the average damage for 200 damamge every second vs 600 damage every 3 seconds is the same. Unless you miss.
Please realise that other than the melee bug, rifleman as a profession are working well. We aint nerfed so dont nerf us.
We do have some stuff that needs fixing, but remember its fixing, not breaking.
What defines theRiflemanrole in combat?
A Rifleman is a gunner with some sniping abilities, but is not limited to being a "sniper". They have the most accuracy at the highest range. If a pistoleer can hit at 64m with no problem, then we need to hit farther, do the most damage. A rifleman's targetted shots should be slow, due to aiming and sniping, autoattacks and burst/aoe's should be fast, as they are not really targetted.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
Longest range with the most accuracy, possibly greater than 64m if possible. Some sniper shots and some heavy infrantry gunner attacks.
What offensive abilities?
Supression, targetted hits. There are many shots that seem useless or redundant. Not many NPC's use prone, and some of the attacks are for startling or surprising other prone snipers.
What defensive abilities?
Ranged defense, and block doesn't work, but it should be dodge or counter. Block?
What unique abilities?
Rifleman shouldn't just be a pistoleer with a different gun, they need different damage types to pierce various light armored units and droids/vehicles/machinery.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
They could be used to pull a long range target, snipe a long range target, or used in closer (40-64) heavy gunning.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
They should be damage dealing infrantrymen, I'd rather seem them as gunners who can snipe rather than snipers who can sometimes gun.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
They would depend on melee's or pistol for closer quarters, while they keep the enemies heads down or take out a possible other sniper, or gunner.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?