Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC 1-12: Combat Roles; Rifleman
What defines theRiflemanrole in combat?
Riflemanshould be the support class of other "close range"combat prof.Using long range, high accuracy with very deadly results.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
As they are now, I really do love the profession. I have mastered it four different times from scratch and it is always been so rewarding once you hit that master lvl.
What offensive abilities?
I see nothing wrong with the majority of the attacks in place now.
Startle shot, same as flushing without the stun effect. So no need. (possibly turn into a suppression fire type move?)
Surprise shot, single shot - relatively weak, or at least the same as strafe1/flurry1/flushing1
Conceal shot, although more useful in PvE, the damage compared to its slow recycle time tends to not make it worth it. Would rather bleed and take my chances.
Sniper shot, perfect how it is. Can not ask for anything more. (Not everything should have to be both PvP/PvE)
Headshot2/3, very little damage difference for the mind cost. Although with food/spice/buffs it is not as much a problem.
Cover, i would never use this skill. A static rifleman is a dead rifleman.
What defensive abilities?
I am happy with how the resists are now. Do not want to ask for too much.
What unique abilities?
Ranged deathblow.
Heavy Armor piercing.
Various weapon types. (Energy, Stun, Cold, etc)
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
Since i do not PvE much i will not comment on that aspect of it. PvP the rifleman are the people who stand back are are always looking for hostile targets - be it defenders or attackers, I tend to always be on top of that if another wave comes in, or if they bring a doctor/combat medic, it is my job to help speed up the enemies loss. (Ranged deathblow/ mind shots help do this)
How could/should they interact with other professions?
Rifleman shouldhave it much easier with a "tank" prof to take care of them, but should not have to rely on any prof to do this. (every prof should have some lvl of self-preservation)
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
If a Rifleman has you in his/her sights at max range - you should not be able to get anywhere near enough to realized it.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
Thisthread and possible the whole IC board just show we are wasting our breath discussing these issues on the rifleman boards andcreating a top 5 issues list to present to the devs. What is the point in having representatives from each board then duplicating the whole thing here?
We already have a top 5 issues list for riflemen, we had one last month and one the month before, but the issues being raised are just ignored or glossed over. What difference will it make raising the same issues here than in our top 5 issues?
Thisthread seems like another sop to customer service without having to actually provide any customer service.
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:And sorry seflyn but I have to disagree with the death within 20 meters. We should be able to survive, just using a gun tailored for our countersniping type line. We should have a gun that is massive damage, massive range promotion and prevention (won't even hit a barn a foot in front of it) and slow to help promote sniping from a large range and using tanks to give you those 2/3 shots required to kill someone. We should also have a gun that is medium damage, medium range, and fairly fast. If we are wielding the "sniper rifle" then yes we should be more or less a running corpse within 20 meters. However if we are wielding the fast rifle around 20 meters we should have just as much chance as a carabineer sans the state attacks.
Hehe I think we will have to agree to disagree on the death at melee range. I've always been a fan of tradeoffs, the tradeoff for being a great long ranged profession in my opinion should be a great weakness at close range but I know some people don't like this. By enabling riflemen to simply swap rifles to remove this disadvantage you remove most of the point of having the disadvantage in the first place.
One thing I would like to see is a high damage single target attack, it makes no sense to me that I can hit five people for a lot of damage with strafe2 but can't target only one of them with an attack that comes close to the same damage. Startleshot2 would be a good place to start looking at implementing this single target high damage attack as it is currently worthless imo as flushing2 does the same and more for less skillpoints.
a rifleman should have long range weaponry dealing high damage per shot having a high delay between shots and a good accuracy at all distances against stationary and moving targets - as long as they remain stationary. however, as soon as they start to move their accuracy should drop a lot.
riflemen have a natural form of ranged defense because other weapons are (or should be) less accurate at long ranges when compared to rifles, so no special bonus is needed here.
Ok, TH, this is the first time I have posted on one of these, mainly because nothing else realy applied to my character, and I don't feel I should give comments about something I know nothing about. Well here we come to my beloved Rifle(wo)men. I have been one since August, when I finished my grinding. From day 1 I wanted to be a sharpshooter, but the definition of one has eluded not only players, but it seems the development team for a while.
Taking a quick glance at the rifleman forums you can get a lot of nice information regarding what the "Sharpshooter" definition is in a military sense. They are the common foot soldier. The ones who run around with the AK 47 and the M16, the standard Soldier. This is the niche we fill in SWG right now. The common misconception is that we are snipers. A sharpshooter is not that. A rifleman is not that, and it seems for the most part, in SWG the profession is not that. We only have two sniper skills. Conseal shot, which is PVE only, and Sniper Shot, PVP only. All of our other shots are typical machine gunner skills as I believe they should be. Our rifles for the most part are assault weapons with no true sniper rifles, aside from the broken Tusken, accoding to the EU.
So what to do with our profession. There are only a few flaws that have made us kind of the flavor of the month. First is the Ranged Damage penalty was removed. Although the 2.5x modifier was quite harsh, a 1.5x would be perfect. We are not ment to be in close quarters combat, and if we get stuck there we should be doomed. A rifle butt attack, as a last ditch defense, kind of like the pistol whip skill, would be nice to at least give us a chance, but in all honesty, if a melee profession gets close to us, we should die, but fix GTEF exploiting first. 
After that I think we are fine, but there is still the sniper issue.
The common misconception is that the rifleman is a sniper. Infact most of us diehard riflepeople, signed up for the profession thinking this was the case. There is nothing about us that makes us a sniper besides those two shots, which are never used in a real sniper situation. If you wish to make us snipers and carbineers machine gunners, then we need different weapons, different shots, and an ability to hide from radar when under "cover", yet another usless skill. You would also need to fix rifle scrawl speed. IF you chose to go this route, a speed cap might be in effect, but you would have to increase damage dramatically, as a sniper's motto is, "one shot, one kill."
Since it seems that the rifleman profession is infact a blending of a sharpshooter and a sniper I would offer this as a fix to the profession all together. Add a 1.5x melee modifier. Lower our Melee Defense and Ranged Defense. Make it to where when we are under cover our ranged Defense increases dramatically, and finnaly make sniper rifles very slow, very high ham, high accuracy, and very high damage, and make the haevy machine guns, i.e. t21, very fast, low accuracy, high damage. Giving us, the seeming option, to pick to be a sniper or a machinegunner.
I would like to say though, before you even think about messing with any profession that is working now, please fix everyone else. You will notice that if you fix pistoleer, carbineer, pikeman, ect. The complaints about rifleman will drop and us being the FOTM will go away. I hope you take what I said into consideration, and we are all tired of the people who don't know how to play this game, screaming nerf, seem to have a more significant voice than the people who do know how to play thier chosen profession well.
Mind pool attacks and big damage AE attacks are what defines a rifleman and the ability to deal a death blow from range is one of our best abilities, perfectly suited to the definition of a rifleman as a long range fighter.
Seflyn wrote:
Hehe I think we will have to agree to disagree on the death at melee range. I've always been a fan of tradeoffs, the tradeoff for being a great long ranged profession in my opinion should be a great weakness at close range but I know some people don't like this. By enabling riflemen to simply swap rifles to remove this disadvantage you remove most of the point of having the disadvantage in the first place.
One thing I would like to see is a high damage single target attack, it makes no sense to me that I can hit five people for a lot of damage with strafe2 but can't target only one of them with an attack that comes close to the same damage. Startleshot2 would be a good place to start looking at implementing this single target high damage attack as it is currently worthless imo as flushing2 does the same and more for less skillpoints.
Long range fighting
What basic combat elements should they possess?
High accuracy, high damage, long range
What offensive abilities?
Mind pool attacks, high damage area effect attacks
What defensive abilities?
High ranged defenses and resistance to posture changes with lowish melee defenses
What unique abilities?
Ranged deathblow, conceal shot and heavy armour piercing
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
High damage output, area effect attacks
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
Rifles should be high damage long range weapons much as they are now, should fall rather quickly if reached by a melee, dealing ranged deathblows to disrupt the enemy
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
Killing from afar, providing accurate powerful attacks
What defines the Rifleman role in combat? Right now, ranged mind damage, ranged DB, high AP...
What basic combat elements should they possess?Keep the above, maybe tweaking them as needed. They should be the ultimate combat profession at maximum range, and therefore be of greatest use in outdoor settings and limited use in tight indoor settings (where the pistol take over).
What offensive abilities? Fix HS3, and you're good to keep the current skills.
What defensive abilities? Right now the Riflemen have too high of melee defense. Ever since the innane 2.5x melee damage was removed, our defense has reached a nice equilibrium, but the melee defense went too far, me thinks. Riflemen should perhaps have the highest ranged defense, but the lowest melee defense of the non-hybred combat professions.
What unique abilities? Right now we have the high AP weapons, DB at range, and the ability to use Conceal shot. This is good, but the DB at range doesn't have the same usefulness in PvP as Conceal Shot has in PvE. I'd like to see Riflemen's range extended beyond 64m (even if only 70m) to better examplify the long-range title, and to add to the sniper role, allow us to somehow be less noticed in PvP combat. (off radar?)
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat? Confusion. A Sniper-Riflemen could shoot a target from concealment, confusing the target as to where the shot comes from. This could inturn distract it for a (very) short time from a tank or other targets.
How could/should they interact with other professions? We should be support fire, taking out strategic targets at a distance.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants? As stated above, our Confusion in group combat would aid the Tanks, who inturn aid us by keeping the targets at bay.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War? Sniper, silent assassin.
Request For Comments: 70m is possible. And CM proved that 80m is possible. So please don't give me the old "64m is the maximum range as dictated by the technological limits of our servers" excuse. It's old, I've heard it before, and it doesn't hold water.
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
I'm sorry but I just have to point out something that I find funny. The people who are proposing the idea of rifleman as just snipers on a hill, after doing a quick and easy search, rarely if ever have posted in the rifleman forum. Not saying anything by it; just pointing it out.
I'd also like to throw in something as well because many people have a misconception of how a sniper works. If you are on a hill, building, or near trees/buildings/other standout objects you're not a sniper but just dead. This is a huge misconception as being in any of these locations only insure how easy the enemy will spot you.
The ones who snipe will do it from cover in any area; however, elevated positions do give certain advantages these are not always the best choice. A sniper in a valley will last much longer and have a less of a chance being spotted than one on a hill, by a tree or on top of a building. Things to keep in mind when sniping:
- Concealment is your number one priority. Find a spot to shoot from that will offer the best amount of cover yet the least amount of visibility.
- Always have more than one escape route from you location. Never snipe from buildings or places that you cannot make a quick exit from.
- Weight your options before you shoot. Do they know you're there and how many are around? Will others notice where I'm firing from when I start to shoot? Also, how many visible targets are around or near your intended target?
- Never attack from the same location for more than a few shots (if possible). If you stay at the same location and attack targets from there you will be found sooner or later. Keep on the move.
I know that in Star Wars Galaxies that there are many constraints that will prevent us from being able to do some of the suggestions; however, these methods can be carried over to other games. Currently I'm a master rifleman with the tracking and wayfaring line in ranger complete. I can check for possible targets (creatures, npcs, and players) and conceal myself within most agro environments. Using a camo kit I can position myself in or near a lair of agros and hit target players as needed without being spotted easily by a visual scan. Other than still being able to be spotted by another ranger using a player scan or if somebody actually takes the time to read all of the red con names I can successfully operate as a sniper.