Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Combat Roles for Pistoleer, Carbineer, and Rifleman, and others
The first thing everyone says, is that we should be the fastest on speed. This is something I agree and disagree with. Next to a sniper rifle, a pistol is one of the more slow firing weapons around. Pistols should have the quickest speed, BUT, pistols should be able to change targets with every attack, even if you spam a bunch of attacks, it needs to be much much easier for pistoleers to switch to another target and begin immediately attacking that person instead.
This is what pistols are VERY good at, that Rifles and Carbines are not, switching from one target to another fast, particularly at close quarters. To represent this, pistols should have very good overall accuracy at ranges under 20 meters, and horrible accuracy outside that distance. This target switching ability is one that carbines, rifles and heavy weapons should NOT get. We should also have a bonus of some kind when fighting indoors. If a rebel group takes an Imperial base, the pistoleers and melee people are the ones they will want to send inside.
The reason pistols are so prevelant, is that they are inconspicuous, and more or less legal, from a self-defense standpoint. To represent this, pistols, even sliced ones, should not be succesfully scanned, or targetted for scanning by imperials nearly as often. However, someone carrying a carbine or rifle, should definately get scanned. This is just common sense.
Pistoleers: Fast target changing (we should use this to hit for status effects on a large group quickly. We should fire at about the same speed we do now (the fastest) but most of our attacks should animate only showing one blast coming out of our weapon per attack, instead of a volly of 4-5. Our main job in combat should be containment (keeping enemies rooted to a specific spot while our teammates deal the majority of the damage to them). We should deal a medium amount of damage, but be focused on knockdowns, posture changes, and perhaps a shot that slows the speed to walk (or limp). In the case of dual pistols, we really ought to be able to target two separate targets. Perhaps a Control + Tab to select the second target, if we so choose. This would again aid us in our role of dealing status effects to the enemy force.
Carbineers: Carbineers should fire much slower than pistoleers, at least 3 times slower. However, their animation should show many many blaster bolts coming out with each attack. This is what represents their weapons doing much higher damage. Carbineers should have decent accuracy at all ranges, though they should not be as accurate as pistoleers are at 20 meters or less, or as accurate as riflemen are at 40 meters or more. This isnt to say the medium range should be a range they are outstanding at, they should really just be well rounded at all ranges. Their main role in combat should be as a damage dealer, and of all the ranged professions, they should do the second most damage (behind heavy weapons). These guys are the troops.
Riflemen: Riflemen should fire much slower than carbineers (at least 2-3 times slower) and deal fairly normal damage, but be particularly adept at piercing armor (Since they are sniper types and can make shots in the gaps of the armor). The rifleman's primary skill should be stealth. If you have a group of 10, and 2 are riflemen, you should have them lay in wait just outside the visible battle, so you can withdraw torward them and lead the enemy right into a sniper trap. If anyone should be able to stay off a radar, its the riflemen with their conceal shot. The Rifleman weapons should be altered slightly, to represent the sniper/hunter aspect of what they do and define their role a bit better. Weapons like the T-21 are really more heavy weapon type material. Riflemen should only get scanned by imps on rare occasion, as hunting animals with such rifles isnt that uncommon.
Heavy Weapons: Heavy weapons should be the best at the middle range. (20-40 meters). This is the big damage dealer, and the heavy hitter. Rates of fire should be fairly slow, but all the attacks should either work in a cone or have a blast radius. This should be the absolute slowest weapon there is. twice as slow as the riflemen at least. Lets do a for instance. If your heavy weapon is a blaster weapon, such as the T-21. Every time you fire (every 10 seconds maybe) a huge cone of blaster rifle rages out from your weapon (like 25 shots), and kind of like our fan shot now, hits a bunch of guys in that cone for fairly heavy damage. If you fire a missile or rocket of some kind, when it hits its target and blows up, it should do splash damage to the guys within 10 meters of him. The Beam and lighting cannons should also fire exclusively in cones. These weapons dont have a lot of control. Balancing out their massive damage and area effects, should be an incredibly slow period of time between shots, and they should be scanned every time they come anywhere near a law enforcement type.
Thrown Weapons: Grenades are designed for a specific purpose, to attack people that arent located a straight line from you, or people who are in an enclosed space. Bottom line, we should be able to throw a grenade at someone even if we dont have line of sight. Being able to throw over houses, trees, etc, and around corners in buildings makes the grenade very useable. Grenades should have damage on par with heavy weapons, but obviously its something you have to constantly restock, and lobbing a grenade should leave you vulnerable for a very very long time. Grenades should also do blast radius damage to everyone in the blast.
Melee Types: Melee people are designed for indoor fighting, and extreme close quarters fighting. The only place in the films we see someone who has a melee weapon as their primary weapon, is inside jabbas palace, where his guards use an array of axes and staffs. The Emperor's royal guardsmen also use a force pike, when guarding him indoors. When sieging an indoor space, melee people should be able to close with a ranged combatant, and when they enter combat with them, they need three different abilities. The most major ability the melee types should get, is a way to disarm someone with a ranged weapon. They should also be able to impair someone's movement, either with a knockdown or posture change. The third ability is to do damage. Each of the 4 melee professions should have a speciality in one of these three areas, and one should be a fair balance of all three. You can even use similar roles within this role to the ranged weapons. For instance, fencer can target multiple foes at one time, the pikemen can be like heavy weapons, attacking many people in a cirlce around them for most of their attacks, hitting multiple foes for status effects. swordsman can be more like carbineer, where it is the balanced one, and teras kasi can be more stealth oriented, where they dont draw aggro and can hide off the radar.
The main distinction between melee and ranged combatants should be that if a melee fighter gets within melee range of a ranged fighter, that ranged fighter should be pretty much screwed (pistoleers will be able to deal with melee opponents the best). However, if a melee combatant isnt in melee range, unless they are extremely intelligent about using cover to sneak up close, the melee fighter should be easily cut down by any ranged opponent.
Granted im slightly off topic from pistols specifically, but I feel that when you are talking about a role within a combat revamp, you need to discuss all the roles in order to discuss one of the roles.
Close, but I would change the classes in a few areas...Don't take this as me being critical...just giving thoughts and feedback.
One thing I would love to see to help emphasis each profession's role is an accuracy modbuilt intoweapons. Just as weapons have a speed mod, so too should it have an accuracy mod. Some guns should be easier to shoot accurately than others.
NarCranor wrote:
The first thing everyone says, is that we should be the fastest on speed. haha...correction, that's the first thing pistoleers say. Carbineers would greatly argue against. This is something I agree and disagree with. Next to a sniper rifle, a pistol is one of the more slow firing weapons around. Pistols should have the quickest speed, I thought you just said we're one of the slowest firing weapons?BUT, pistols should be able to change targets with every attack, even if you spam a bunch of attacks, it needs to be much much easier for pistoleers to switch to another target and begin immediately attacking that person instead.
This is what pistols are VERY good at, that Rifles and Carbines are not, switching from one target to another fast, particularly at close quarters. To represent this, pistols should have very good overall accuracy at ranges under 20 meters, and horrible accuracy outside that distance. Which is exactly what the Revamp will do (hasn't been specifically spelled out, but if you read the Devs posts, range mods will play a big difference post revamp).This target switching ability is one that carbines, rifles and heavy weapons should NOT get. We should also have a bonus of some kind when fighting indoors. If a rebel group takes an Imperial base, the pistoleers and melee people are the ones they will want to send inside.
The reason pistols are so prevelant, is that they are inconspicuous, and more or less legal, from a self-defense standpoint. To represent this, pistols, even sliced ones, should not be succesfully scanned, or targetted for scanning by imperials nearly as often. However, someone carrying a carbine or rifle, should definately get scanned. This is just common sense. Maybe, but remember this is a Combat revamp...As many great ideas there are out there, not all of them will make it into the combat revamp. Expect this revamp to specifically focus on combat features. What you're talking about here is more of a GCW feature for a later revamp.
Pistoleers: Fast target changing (we should use this to hit for status effects on a large group quickly. We should fire at about the same speed we do now (the fastest) but most of our attacks should animate only showing one blast coming out of our weapon per attack, instead of a volly of 4-5. Our main job in combat should be containment (keeping enemies rooted to a specific spot while our teammates deal the majority of the damage to them). We should deal a medium amount of damage, but be focused on knockdowns, posture changes, and perhaps a shot that slows the speed to walk (or limp). In the case of dual pistols, we really ought to be able to target two separate targets. Perhaps a Control + Tab to select the second target, if we so choose. This would again aid us in our role of dealing status effects to the enemy force.Nice pipe-dream, but highly unlikely. We'll be lucky if we get dual wielding on ONE target. I agree that perhaps we need a better way of switching targets. Why not an attack that fires some DoT effect then switches to the next closest available target? I think pistols advantage should be moderate dmg attacks with small HAM costs (remember, HAM is being revamped. HAM regeneration cannot be changed, so HAM costs will play big in the new system). Therefore, combining our Moderate dmg attacks, speed, and low HAM costs, we have the highest DPS. The Devs said once that dodge will change so that it will not be a passive ability (probably function more like CoB). If pistoleers are required to be close to their targets, then we need much better defenses.
Carbineers: Carbineers should fire much slower than pistoleers, at least 3 times slower. However, their animation should show many many blaster bolts coming out with each attack. This is what represents their weapons doing much higher damage. Carbineers should have decent accuracy at all ranges, though they should not be as accurate as pistoleers are at 20 meters or less, or as accurate as riflemen are at 40 meters or more. This isnt to say the medium range should be a range they are outstanding at, they should really just be well rounded at all ranges. Every class should have some big advantage. I seeCarbineers having that at the medium range and sufferingpenalties at distances far and low.Their main role in combat should be as a damage dealer, and of all the ranged professions, they should do the second most damage (behind heavy weapons). These guys are the troops. I would disagree. I think Rifleman should do the most damage behind Commando (below). Carbineers shouldbe low or moderate on defense (given that their ideal range is 20-40m). Carbineers should deal the KD attacks, and effects such as dizzy, stun, etc.
Riflemen: Riflemen should fire much slower than carbineers (at least 2-3 times slower) and deal fairly normal damage, but be particularly adept at piercing armor (Since they are sniper types and can make shots in the gaps of the armor). The rifleman's primary skill should be stealth. If you have a group of 10, and 2 are riflemen, you should have them lay in wait just outside the visible battle, so you can withdraw torward them and lead the enemy right into a sniper trap. If anyone should be able to stay off a radar, its the riflemen with their conceal shot. The Rifleman weapons should be altered slightly, to represent the sniper/hunter aspect of what they do and define their role a bit better. Weapons like the T-21 are really more heavy weapon type material. Riflemen should only get scanned by imps on rare occasion, as hunting animals with such rifles isnt that uncommon. Again, I think Rifleman should be high damage. Think about a sniper...one shot one kill. That's high damage. However, their attacks should be very slow and they should suffer extreme penalties at anything other than the ideal range and at postures other than prone...unless they're using the hairspray gun.
Heavy Weapons: Heavy weapons should be the best at the middle range. (20-40 meters). This is the big damage dealer, and the heavy hitter. Rates of fire should be fairly slow, but all the attacks should either work in a cone or have a blast radius. This should be the absolute slowest weapon there is. twice as slow as the riflemen at least. Lets do a for instance. If your heavy weapon is a blaster weapon, such as the T-21. Every time you fire (every 10 seconds maybe) a huge cone of blaster rifle rages out from your weapon (like 25 shots), and kind of like our fan shot now, hits a bunch of guys in that cone for fairly heavy damage. If you fire a missile or rocket of some kind, when it hits its target and blows up, it should do splash damage to the guys within 10 meters of him. The Beam and lighting cannons should also fire exclusively in cones. These weapons dont have a lot of control. Balancing out their massive damage and area effects, should be an incredibly slow period of time between shots, and they should be scanned every time they come anywhere near a law enforcement type. The commando correspondent has already stated the direction their profession is going. They'll be the frontline fighters - damage dealers. Don't be surprised if they get new weapons (chainsaw anyone :smileywink. Commandos should suffer extreme penalties at anything but close range. Think of commandos as the new TKA/Pikemen. They should have great damage resists. Also, their attacks should be slower than any other class, but not to an extreme level. Commando attacks were like that once before and everyone left the profession because their slow attacks combined with low accuracy they were being killed by nunas. They should suffer movement penalties due to the weight of their weapons. This is also something the devs have discussed...having the weight of your weapon affect how quickly you can move. I expect commando to be a great profession post revamp.
Thrown Weapons: Grenades are designed for a specific purpose, to attack people that arent located a straight line from you, or people who are in an enclosed space. Bottom line, we should be able to throw a grenade at someone even if we dont have line of sight. Being able to throw over houses, trees, etc, and around corners in buildings makes the grenade very useable. Grenades should have damage on par with heavy weapons, but obviously its something you have to constantly restock, and lobbing a grenade should leave you vulnerable for a very very long time. Grenades should also do blast radius damage to everyone in the blast. The biggest problem with grenades are that they aren't stackable so weaponsmiths won't make them. Grenades should do less damage than other HW, but have a much higher accuracy so they cannot be evaded.
Melee Types: Melee people are designed for indoor fighting, and extreme close quarters fighting. The only place in the films we see someone who has a melee weapon as their primary weapon, is inside jabbas palace, where his guards use an array of axes and staffs. The Emperor's royal guardsmen also use a force pike, when guarding him indoors. When sieging an indoor space, melee people should be able to close with a ranged combatant, and when they enter combat with them, they need three different abilities. The most major ability the melee types should get, is a way to disarm someone with a ranged weapon. They should also be able to impair someone's movement, either with a knockdown or posture change. The third ability is to do damage. Each of the 4 melee professions should have a speciality in one of these three areas, and one should be a fair balance of all three. You can even use similar roles within this role to the ranged weapons. For instance, fencer can target multiple foes at one time, the pikemen can be like heavy weapons, attacking many people in a cirlce around them for most of their attacks, hitting multiple foes for status effects. swordsman can be more like carbineer, where it is the balanced one, and teras kasi can be more stealth oriented, where they dont draw aggro and can hide off the radar. Melee should be balanced a lot like ranged would be balaced. TKA - highest defenses, quick attacks, but lowest DPS. Swordsman/Fencer - moderate defenses, moderate speed, moderate DPS. Pikeman - low defenses, low speed, moderate DPS. All melee classes should do less DPS than ranged weapons. Defensive mods should be specific to the profession (i.e. no defensive stackers).
The main distinction between melee and ranged combatants should be that if a melee fighter gets within melee range of a ranged fighter, that ranged fighter should be pretty much screwed (pistoleers will be able to deal with melee opponents the best). However, if a melee combatant isnt in melee range, unless they are extremely intelligent about using cover to sneak up close, the melee fighter should be easily cut down by any ranged opponent. Agreed
Granted im slightly off topic from pistols specifically, but I feel that when you are talking about a role within a combat revamp, you need to discuss all the roles in order to discuss one of the roles.
You're also forgetting BH, Smuggler, SL, CM, CH, etc., but good start. BH & Smuggler I like their currenty abilities...I think they fit well with what each profession is. They just need to be better balanced against everything else.
I think pistoleers should have the quickest overall speed. I know it sounds contradictory to what I said. A sentence got left out when I was cutting and pasting to edit my post about attack animations. I wanted to state that while pistols should be the fastest, when we attack only 1-2 blaster bolts should come out of our weapon with each attack. When a rifleman attacks, it should be the same thing, 1 bolt per attack. Now when a carbineer attacks, a giant stream of multiple bolts should be visible. Carbineers should have the weapons that repeat the fastest, but all those rounds all still go at the same target, so it is, in essence, still one attack. This explains their higher damage, because more bolts are in the attack.
I understand that is more of a GCW issue, but it does deal with balancing the combat professions. Its just not a direct balance, since it deals more with freedom of movement and lack of harassment.
I understand that having something to target differently isnt likely to happen, but im trying to think a bit further outside the box. The forum posts get incestuous if wild crazy new ideas arent introduced every now and again, and the ability to fire at a new target every attack quickly and easily (re: without losing our speed) does represent what a pistol brings to the combat table very accurately. The manueverability of the small weapon is something that separates us from the others.
With carbineers having no big advantage, having no big weakness is a big advantage
The carbine is the basic frontline combat weapon for a reason. I dont mind carbineers also having a knockdown, I just feel that with the exception of melee fighters, pistoleers should be the best at the posture changes and knockdowns and slowdowns.I agree riflemen should do a fair amount of damage, but one round from a sniper rifle vs 3 rounds from a carbine, id say the carbine does more damage, especially if you talk about firing at a lair, vehicle or large creature. The reason a rifleman/sniper does so much damage, is the placement of the shot. This is where their armor piercing ability would come in. They can place a shot between the chinks of armor, doing high damage because of the placement of their rounds, not because of the raw damage dealing ability. That is all I wanted to get across. Damage would probably be high, itd just be high for a different reason other than raw damage. I still believe that a snipers primary skill should be stealth. Being able to shoot at people who dont know what direction to return fire in is the big advantage of being able to "reach out and touch someone" that way.
Those changes to commando sound like commando is just going to infringe on the role of the pistoleer and the melee professions. Who is going to operate these heavy weapons if the commandos fight at close range? You can't fire a missile launcher at less than 10 meters, youd be in your own blast! Im not too thrilled at those possible changes to commando.
If commando is getting revamped like that, then I think grenades should become useable by everyone. Maybe put it in the combat support tree of marksman, since a grenade is a support type weapon.
I didnt forget Bounty Hunter or Smuggler, a BH works with heavy weapons, pistols, or carbines. Whichever he is using is the category he should fall into. Smugglers should work similar to pistoleers. IMO, smugglers shouldnt even have a combat tree, neither should bounty hunters. These classes should be focused on doing the actual job of delivering illegal cargo or tracking down people. Their combat abilities should come from another class. I am a squad leader myself, and I dont really want us to have a weapon persay, and this post dealt primarily in the weapons of the classes, and the special moves those classes use. Didnt think to include SL. Im not gonna lie, I did forget about creature handler though, and im glad I did. H8 CH.
Anyway, glad someone engaged in a discussion on it. Maybe something productive will come of it.
NarCranor wrote:
I think pistoleers should have the quickest overall speed...when we attack only 1-2 blaster bolts should come out of our weapon with each attack. When a rifleman attacks, it should be the same thing, 1 bolt per attack. Now when a carbineer attacks, a giant stream of multiple bolts should be visible. Carbineers should have the weapons that repeat the fastest, but all those rounds all still go at the same target, so it is, in essence, still one attack. This explains their higher damage, because more bolts are in the attack. I too have gotten little sleep lately, and perhaps that's why, but I'm still confused by this...that all sounds like just animations. The scatter pistol fires several projectiles at it's target, yet it only translates into one shot (either that or saber block is worse than we though).
I understand that having something to target differently isnt likely to happen, but im trying to think a bit further outside the box. The forum posts get incestuous if wild crazy new ideas arent introduced every now and again, and the ability to fire at a new target every attack quickly and easily (re: without losing our speed) does represent what a pistol brings to the combat table very accurately. The manueverability of the small weapon is something that separates us from the others. Nothing wrong with thinking big. Just saying that it's best to focus on combat when talking combat revamp and other things separately. The Devs will certainly approach all non combat issues separately, so we should as well. And, if they do implement a speed modifier based on the weight of your weapon, that will definitely be were Pistoleer gets their strength. Sort of a "quick run in, unload some good shots, then move out".
With carbineers having no big advantage, having no big weakness is a big advantage
I agree riflemen should do a fair amount of damage, but one round from a sniper rifle vs 3 rounds from a carbine, id say the carbine does more damage Still, a surprise for sure, I disagree. I think the 1 rifleman shot should domore damage than 3 carbine shots. The difference is, the carbineer can get off 3 moderate damage posture/DoT attacks before the rifleman can get off the second shot. Think of it as a pistoleer vs. rifleman 1x1 starting out at max distance apart. The rifleman gets off the first shot....a very powerful, very accurate shot cutting the pistoleer's health in half...the pistoleer rushes the rifleman. The pistoleer's initial shots miss because he/she is too far outside the ideal distance. But, given the pistoleer's movement speed, he/she has greatlyreduced the distance between the two before the rifleman gets off the second shot (decent damage, butbut only reduces the pistoleer's health by 10%due to the reduced distance). Before the rifleman can get off a third shot the pistoleer is 10m away unleashing a miriad of shots, quickly reducing the rifleman's health. Rifleman fires but misses completely because of the low distance.
Those changes to commando sound like commando is just going to infringe on the role of the pistoleer and the melee professions. Who is going to operate these heavy weapons if the commandos fight at close range? You can't fire a missile launcher at less than 10 meters, youd be in your own blast! Im not too thrilled at those possible changes to commando....If commando is getting revamped like that, then I think grenades should become useable by everyone. Maybe put it in the combat support tree of marksman, since a grenade is a support type weapon. I disagree (hehe...think I'm seeing a pattern here). It goes back to feeling like this model makes pistoleer way too overpowered. We shouldn't be the god of the front lines. That role should be reserved for commando. We should be more the support for the front line...shooting over the commando's sholder while the commando keeps the opponent at bay. I do expect the commando weapon lines to change, but grenades should still be theirs. Watch the end of the Normandy invasion in Saving Private Ryan. That's somewhat how I see commando.
I didnt forget Bounty Hunter or Smuggler, a BH works with heavy weapons, pistols, or carbines. Whichever he is using is the category he should fall into. A BH isn't just whatever weapon he/she is using at a time. A BHer's strength comes in the ability to quickly and easily switch between the different weapon roles to be a sort of "one man army"...something that the weapon switch delay has completely destroyed.
Smugglers should work similar to pistoleers. IMO, smugglers shouldnt even have a combat tree, neither should bounty hunters. These classes should be focused on doing the actual job of delivering illegal cargo or tracking down people. Their combat abilities should come from another class. I somewhat agree with that. Even during Beta I felt BH should be unlocked after mastering Pistoleer and Carbineer. Unforunately, there was a large outcry by the community wanting to play "Star Warsy" roles. Since JTL was far off and the Devs had no idea what to do with Jedi, BH and Smuggler were put in any way they could.
I am a squad leader myself, and I dont really want us to have a weapon persay, and this post dealt primarily in the weapons of the classes, and the special moves those classes use. Didnt think to include SL. Part of the CR is about giving players more of a reason to group with other professions and play as a team. SL absolutely fits in that team role. How do you help SL? Honestly, I can't say I care enough to think about it for long
Anyway, glad someone engaged in a discussion on it. Maybe something productive will come of it. Anytime...especially for a fellow June '03er
Excellent thread, guys! Keep it coming.
Rockhurst wrote:
NarCranor wrote: I think pistoleers should have the quickest overall speed...when we attack only 1-2 blaster bolts should come out of our weapon with each attack. When a rifleman attacks, it should be the same thing, 1 bolt per attack. Now when a carbineer attacks, a giant stream of multiple bolts should be visible. Carbineers should have the weapons that repeat the fastest, but all those rounds all still go at the same target, so it is, in essence, still one attack. This explains their higher damage, because more bolts are in the attack. I too have gotten little sleep lately, and perhaps that's why, but I'm still confused by this...that all sounds like just animations. The scatter pistol fires several projectiles at it's target, yet it only translates into one shot (either that or saber block is worse than we though).
It is just animations.. the idea behind Carbineer was that they would fire more slowly because each special was represented as a "burst" of rounds. The character sqeezes off a burst (the system counting it as one "attack"), then takes a short moment to aim. The Pistoleer just squeezes of round after round, because there is so little kickback.
So really they are firing I understand that having something to target differently isnt likely to happen, but im trying to think a bit further outside the box. The forum posts get incestuous if wild crazy new ideas arent introduced every now and again, and the ability to fire at a new target every attack quickly and easily (re: without losing our speed) does represent what a pistol brings to the combat table very accurately. The manueverability of the small weapon is something that separates us from the others. Nothing wrong with thinking big. Just saying that it's best to focus on combat when talking combat revamp and other things separately. The Devs will certainly approach all non combat issues separately, so we should as well. And, if they do implement a speed modifier based on the weight of your weapon, that will definitely be were Pistoleer gets their strength. Sort of a "quick run in, unload some good shots, then move out".
This is an interesting idea, I'll give it that. The problem is that the big, cumbersome weapons might not find it enjoyable to have such limited control over their own targeting. It would probably get old pretty fast for them. Firing and running speed is a pretty good way to represent slow vs quick,and we'll see if it provides enough of a sense ofspeed differences.This is an excellent example of "thinking outside the box" though. I hear a lot about Pistoleers wanting to be able to draw their weapons faster than others and so forth, so it's the kind of thing to keep in mind, absolutely.
With carbineers having no big advantage, having no big weakness is a big advantage
To be fair to NarCranor, he did say that Pistoleers would be lower on the damage dealing side of things. I'm also not so sure that being a "frontline fighter" is really an inherent advantage. Is being up close really so great? Maybe if you are in a tight dungeon, but usually no. In the case of Riflemen, they do have the Spraystick for such situations, so that they aren't cut off from the content found only in close quarters.
I agree riflemen should do a fair amount of damage, but one round from a sniper rifle vs 3 rounds from a carbine, id say the carbine does more damage Still, a surprise for sure
This is why differences in things like Firing Rate and Accuracy vs Defense can't be too different. You get into situations where the combat system just isn't fun for anybody. If a Carbineer is 3 times slower thana Pistoleer and a Rifleman is 3 times slower than a Carbineer, and a Commando is twice as slow as a Rifleman, than yeah, that makes a Pistoleer 18 times faster than a Commando. Does the Commando then deal 18 times the damage per shot of a Pistoleer? Or more, since he's the supreme damage dealer and the Pistoleer is focused mainly on speed and crowd control? What if the Commando misses his first shot?
I don't mean to poop on the thread because it's really great, but these are the kinds of things to think about in your discussions.
Those changes to commando sound like commando is just going to infringe on the role of the pistoleer and the melee professions. Who is going to operate these heavy weapons if the commandos fight at close range? You can't fire a missile launcher at less than 10 meters, youd be in your own blast! Im not too thrilled at those possible changes to commando....If commando is getting revamped like that, then I think grenades should become useable by everyone. Maybe put it in the combat support tree of marksman, since a grenade is a support type weapon. I disagree (hehe...think I'm seeing a pattern here). It goes back to feeling like this model makes pistoleer way too overpowered. We shouldn't be the god of the front lines. That role should be reserved for commando. We should be more the support for the front line...shooting over the commando's sholder while the commando keeps the opponent at bay. I do expect the commando weapon lines to change, but grenades should still be theirs. Watch the end of the Normandy invasion in Saving Private Ryan. That's somewhat how I see commando.
The role of Commando is something Commandos know the most about, but I can tell you that they hate taking damage from their own grenade blasts. They do have an Unarmed 4 prereq, so it makes sense that they would fight in close range (as well as hopefully get some kind of ability for that prereq to make sense).
I didnt forget Bounty Hunter or Smuggler, a BH works with heavy weapons, pistols, or carbines. Whichever he is using is the category he should fall into. A BH isn't just whatever weapon he/she is using at a time. A BHer's strength comes in the ability to quickly and easily switch between the different weapon roles to be a sort of "one man army"...something that the weapon switch delay has completely destroyed.
Yet if there were a real difference between the roles of those weapon types, wouldn't that make him versatile for different situations (such as supplyingwhat is lacking in a group), even if he didn't switch midcombat very often? If he chose to specialize in one above the others, couldn't he pick up Carbineer/Pistoleer/Commando, and have the other weapons as suppimental skills for other situations?
Smugglers should work similar to pistoleers. IMO, smugglers shouldnt even have a combat tree, neither should bounty hunters. These classes should be focused on doing the actual job of delivering illegal cargo or tracking down people. Their combat abilities should come from another class. I somewhat agree with that. Even during Beta I felt BH should be unlocked after mastering Pistoleer and Carbineer. Unforunately, there was a large outcry by the community wanting to play "Star Warsy" roles. Since JTL was far off and the Devs had no idea what to do with Jedi, BH and Smuggler were put in any way they could.
Very interesting idea. They seem to be having a hard enough time fleshing out the skill trees that are there though, evenwith the Combat abilities!
I am a squad leader myself, and I dont really want us to have a weapon persay, and this post dealt primarily in the weapons of the classes, and the special moves those classes use. Didnt think to include SL. Part of the CR is about giving players more of a reason to group with other professions and play as a team. SL absolutely fits in that team role. How do you help SL? Honestly, I can't say I care enough to think about it for long
Oh, Squad Leaders will take of Squad Leaders.
Anyway, glad someone engaged in a discussion on it. Maybe something productive will come of it. Anytime...especially for a fellow June '03er
biwan:
NarCranor wrote:
Assuming that the goal of the combat revamp is to assign a specific combat role(s) to all combat professions in the game, Id like to start a thread that kind of focuses our role within combat. I know this has been tried before, but hey, its been a while.
The first thing everyone says, is that we should be the fastest on speed. This is something I agree and disagree with. Next to a sniper rifle, a pistol is one of the more slow firing weapons around. Pistols should have the quickest speed, BUT, pistols should be able to change targets with every attack, even if you spam a bunch of attacks, it needs to be much much easier for pistoleers to switch to another target and begin immediately attacking that person instead.
This is what pistols are VERY good at, that Rifles and Carbines are not, switching from one target to another fast, particularly at close quarters. To represent this, pistols should have very good overall accuracy at ranges under 20 meters, and horrible accuracy outside that distance. This target switching ability is one that carbines, rifles and heavy weapons should NOT get. We should also have a bonus of some kind when fighting indoors. If a rebel group takes an Imperial base, the pistoleers and melee people are the ones they will want to send inside.
The reason pistols are so prevelant, is that they are inconspicuous, and more or less legal, from a self-defense standpoint. To represent this, pistols, even sliced ones, should not be succesfully scanned, or targetted for scanning by imperials nearly as often. However, someone carrying a carbine or rifle, should definately get scanned. This is just common sense.
Pistoleers: Fast target changing (we should use this to hit for status effects on a large group quickly. We should fire at about the same speed we do now (the fastest) but most of our attacks should animate only showing one blast coming out of our weapon per attack, instead of a volly of 4-5. Our main job in combat should be containment (keeping enemies rooted to a specific spot while our teammates deal the majority of the damage to them). We should deal a medium amount of damage, but be focused on knockdowns, posture changes, and perhaps a shot that slows the speed to walk (or limp). In the case of dual pistols, we really ought to be able to target two separate targets. Perhaps a Control + Tab to select the second target, if we so choose. This would again aid us in our role of dealing status effects to the enemy force. I believe we should be medium damage, medium speed. (Ahead of Riflemen, and behind carbineers) We should excell against a small group of enimies, but when we are heavily outnumbered, we will need backup. I don't really like the idea of us being the containment, but it is an unique idea. We excell close up, and are okay at medium, but we are poor at maximum range.
Carbineers: Carbineers should fire much slower than pistoleers, at least 3 times slower. However, their animation should show many many blaster bolts coming out with each attack. This is what represents their weapons doing much higher damage. Carbineers should have decent accuracy at all ranges, though they should not be as accurate as pistoleers are at 20 meters or less, or as accurate as riflemen are at 40 meters or more. This isnt to say the medium range should be a range they are outstanding at, they should really just be well rounded at all ranges. Their main role in combat should be as a damage dealer, and of all the ranged professions, they should do the second most damage (behind heavy weapons). These guys are the troops. Fastest firing, lowest damage. Good all around in respects to range. These guys should be the crowd contol. Fast firing supprisive shots that will make the enemy want to dive for cover. Big range of state, posture,and kd attacks. I could see a PMD type of attack for Carbineers, using the stock of the gun.
Riflemen: Riflemen should fire much slower than carbineers (at least 2-3 times slower) and deal fairly normal damage, but be particularly adept at piercing armor (Since they are sniper types and can make shots in the gaps of the armor). The rifleman's primary skill should be stealth. If you have a group of 10, and 2 are riflemen, you should have them lay in wait just outside the visible battle, so you can withdraw torward them and lead the enemy right into a sniper trap. If anyone should be able to stay off a radar, its the riflemen with their conceal shot. The Rifleman weapons should be altered slightly, to represent the sniper/hunter aspect of what they do and define their role a bit better. Weapons like the T-21 are really more heavy weapon type material. Riflemen should only get scanned by imps on rare occasion, as hunting animals with such rifles isnt that uncommon. These guys are the snipers. Great at long range, a little good at medium, and very poor up close. I could see a PMD type of attack for Riflemen, using the stock, or barrel,of the gun. The big damage dealers, but slow. They have a spraystick to bak em up at point blank range, too.
Heavy Weapons: Heavy weapons should be the best at the middle range. (20-40 meters). This is the big damage dealer, and the heavy hitter. Rates of fire should be fairly slow, but all the attacks should either work in a cone or have a blast radius. This should be the absolute slowest weapon there is. twice as slow as the riflemen at least. Lets do a for instance. If your heavy weapon is a blaster weapon, such as the T-21. Every time you fire (every 10 seconds maybe) a huge cone of blaster rifle rages out from your weapon (like 25 shots), and kind of like our fan shot now, hits a bunch of guys in that cone for fairly heavy damage. If you fire a missile or rocket of some kind, when it hits its target and blows up, it should do splash damage to the guys within 10 meters of him. The Beam and lighting cannons should also fire exclusively in cones. These weapons dont have a lot of control. Balancing out their massive damage and area effects, should be an incredibly slow period of time between shots, and they should be scanned every time they come anywhere near a law enforcement type. All around big damage dealer. Veryt versitile, as would a BH be. Big area attacks, they are suited to taking out big groups of enimies.
Thrown Weapons: Grenades are designed for a specific purpose, to attack people that arent located a straight line from you, or people who are in an enclosed space. Bottom line, we should be able to throw a grenade at someone even if we dont have line of sight. Being able to throw over houses, trees, etc, and around corners in buildings makes the grenade very useable. Grenades should have damage on par with heavy weapons, but obviously its something you have to constantly restock, and lobbing a grenade should leave you vulnerable for a very very long time. Grenades should also do blast radius damage to everyone in the blast. /agree
Melee Types: Melee people are designed for indoor fighting, and extreme close quarters fighting. The only place in the films we see someone who has a melee weapon as their primary weapon, is inside jabbas palace, where his guards use an array of axes and staffs. The Emperor's royal guardsmen also use a force pike, when guarding him indoors. When sieging an indoor space, melee people should be able to close with a ranged combatant, and when they enter combat with them, they need three different abilities. The most major ability the melee types should get, is a way to disarm someone with a ranged weapon. They should also be able to impair someone's movement, either with a knockdown or posture change. The third ability is to do damage. Each of the 4 melee professions should have a speciality in one of these three areas, and one should be a fair balance of all three. You can even use similar roles within this role to the ranged weapons. For instance, fencer can target multiple foes at one time, the pikemen can be like heavy weapons, attacking many people in a cirlce around them for most of their attacks, hitting multiple foes for status effects. swordsman can be more like carbineer, where it is the balanced one, and teras kasi can be more stealth oriented, where they dont draw aggro and can hide off the radar. /agree
The main distinction between melee and ranged combatants should be that if a melee fighter gets within melee range of a ranged fighter, that ranged fighter should be pretty much screwed (pistoleers will be able to deal with melee opponents the best). However, if a melee combatant isnt in melee range, unless they are extremely intelligent about using cover to sneak up close, the melee fighter should be easily cut down by any ranged opponent.
Granted im slightly off topic from pistols specifically, but I feel that when you are talking about a role within a combat revamp, you need to discuss all the roles in order to discuss one of the roles.
Overall, I agree pertty much woth what you said.
I think that the Pistoleer should be a class that everyone should pick up or dabble in. When hell breaks loose, a soldier can always fall back on his trusty sidearm.
Randonb wrote:
This is an interesting idea, I'll give it that. The problem is that the big, cumbersome weapons might not find it enjoyable to have such limited control over their own targeting. It would probably get old pretty fast for them. Firing and running speed is a pretty good way to represent slow vs quick,and we'll see if it provides enough of a sense ofspeed differences.This is an excellent example of "thinking outside the box" though. I hear a lot about Pistoleers wanting to be able to draw their weapons faster than others and so forth, so it's the kind of thing to keep in mind, absolutely.
Also, think of it this way. Commandos and Rifleman certainly wouldn'tenjoy it if they were always slow. And, what good is a Commandoif he/she is supposed to be your frontline firepower if they're struggling to keep up with the rest of the group....same goes for Rifelman. However, both of those classesalso have other weapons (launcher pistol & spraystick) that they could switchto in order to move from point A to point B.While the commando has the launcher pistol equiped, that commando would move as quickly as a pistoleer. On the other hand, when the commando switches to the flamethrower, that commando would move much slower (representing more of their Tank roll). In addition, speed can be represented in the weapon switch delay. Commandos and Rifleman might take a long time (3-4 seconds) to switch weapons since those weapons are so much larger. On the other hand, Pistolers might be able to switch weapons (as long as it's from pistol to pistol) quickly (say 1-2 seconds). BHers can switch weapons from HW to Carbine to Pistol very quickly (0-2 seconds). Even with pistols, there could be a slight movement difference. A pistoleer might be able to move quicker with an Scout Blaster than a DE-10, but sacrifices DPS.
...To be fair to NarCranor, he did say that Pistoleers would be lower on the damage dealing side of things. I'm also not so sure that being a "frontline fighter" is really an inherent advantage. Is being up close really so great? Maybe if you are in a tight dungeon, but usually no. In the case of Riflemen, they do have the Spraystick for such situations, so that they aren't cut off from the content found only in close quarters.
What makes being a frontline fighter advantagious is the assumption that you're given enough defenses to justify your position on the front line. Melee classes were certainly developed with this in mind. This is just applying that thought across all classes.
This is why differences in things like Firing Rate and Accuracy vs Defense can't be too different. You get into situations where the combat system just isn't fun for anybody. If a Carbineer is 3 times slower thana Pistoleer and a Rifleman is 3 times slower than a Carbineer, and a Commando is twice as slow as a Rifleman, than yeah, that makes a Pistoleer 18 times faster than a Commando. Does the Commando then deal 18 times the damage per shot of a Pistoleer? Or more, since he's the supreme damage dealer and the Pistoleer is focused mainly on speed and crowd control? What if the Commando misses his first shot?
I waspart commando back when specials had a Huge delay...coupled with low accuracy we couldn't kill much of anything. I think some of this could be overcome with an accuracy mod built into weapons (like speed and HAM costs). Shouldn't it be easier for a Commando to hit his target with a flamethrower than a pistoleer with a single projectile pistol? Say a flamethrower has accuracy of 80. The commando must have at least 80 accuracy to be able to be a "master" of that weapon. On the other hand, a pistol might require much higher accuracy. No formal forumal here, but something like the players accuracy skill/ the accuracy required for the weapon * 100 = the amount of dodge. counterattack, etc. required to by the target avoid the shot. Or, taking the discussion on how quickly and how much damageCommando vs pistoleer shoot. Say a commando has a 6 second delay after firing the most powerful flamethrower shot. However, the commando moves very, very slowly with the flamethrower equipped (so, in this case the commando just stands still) and the flame shot has an effective distance of 20m. On the other hand, the pistoleer is most effective from 0-15m. That leaves 5m that the pistoleer can move in, attack, and move out before being hit by the next commando blast. To me that would make combat far more tatical.
I don't mean to poop on the thread because it's really great, but these are the kinds of things to think about in your discussions.
The role of Commando is something Commandos know the most about, but I can tell you that they hate taking damage from their own grenade blasts. They do have an Unarmed 4 prereq, so it makes sense that they would fight in close range (as well as hopefully get some kind of ability for that prereq to make sense).
Commandos definitely deserve big changes. Nothing was worse than when the devs said that they wanted the ideal range of grenades to be 0...obviously they didn't think about that one for long. I'm still all for commando's having chainsaws...how's that for a melee weapon justifying that unarmed IV prereq.
Yet if there were a real difference between the roles of those weapon types, wouldn't that make him versatile for different situations (such as supplyingwhat is lacking in a group), even if he didn't switch midcombat very often? If he chose to specialize in one above the others, couldn't he pick up Carbineer/Pistoleer/Commando, and have the other weapons as suppimental skills for other situations?
In addition to Master Pistoleer, I'm also a MBH. And, speaking for all other BHers, the role of a BH is not "filling in the gaps" of the group. Though that could be the BH's purpose in groups, the primary role of a BH is still 1x1 combat. BH's should be able to start hitting their target with status and posture attacks from a distance (Underhand shot, scattershot) with carbine, move in with pistol, appling more status attacks and good damage (pistol), then deal out high damage with HW (LLC). I certainly see what you're saying and the versatility will be important someday. However, BH's only have one possible target (Jedi), so there isn't much variety in the opponents we encounter. If the Smuggler revamp includes Smuggler bounties, I definitely see the versatility coming more into play.
Very interesting idea. They seem to be having a hard enough time fleshing out the skill trees that are there though, evenwith the Combat abilities!
There were actually some discussions in Beta about how we could implementsmuggling into Smuggler. Some aspects were very close to what GM came to the community with. Whether the Devs ever read thosethreads or not, who knows...but nothing was stopping the release train.
Oh, Squad Leaders will take of Squad Leaders.
What about that other class...something like Ranger? Do we still have those?
NarCranor wrote:
This is what pistols are VERY good at, that Rifles and Carbines are not, switching from one target to another fast, particularly at close quarters. To represent this, pistols should have very good overall accuracy at ranges under 20 meters, and horrible accuracy outside that distance. This target switching ability is one that carbines, rifles and heavy weapons should NOT get. We should also have a bonus of some kind when fighting indoors. If a rebel group takes an Imperial base, the pistoleers and melee people are the ones they will want to send inside.
In the case of dual pistols, we really ought to be able to target two separate targets. Perhaps a Control + Tab to select the second target, if we so choose. This would again aid us in our role of dealing status effects to the enemy force.
Thrown Weapons: Grenades are designed for a specific purpose, to attack people that arent located a straight line from you, or people who are in an enclosed space. Bottom line, we should be able to throw a grenade at someone even if we dont have line of sight. Being able to throw over houses, trees, etc, and around corners in buildings makes the grenade very useable. Grenades should have damage on par with heavy weapons, but obviously its something you have to constantly restock, and lobbing a grenade should leave you vulnerable for a very very long time. Grenades should also do blast radius damage to everyone in the blast.
it wouldn't make sense though, since normally firing at one person would be much easier /shrug
also if there was a special for grenades to still do some damage if they miss, have a chance to "dud" and do no damage at all even they hit........ and jeez, a knockdown! you just got your feet blown from beneath you, but you're still standing?! i don't think so... maybe a posture down for people close by