Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Pistoleer to be discussed in panel this morning at Fan Fest.
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XwingRogue3
Sat Jun 05, 2004 9:18 am
#1
This morning pistols will be discussed at Fan Fest. Yes it's grouped with rifle and carbine but those in attendance are given good opportunity to ask questions to the panel. I think I remember randonb said he will be there as well. I look forward to seeing my fellow pistoleers. Hopefully we can get some good info and bring it back to the forums here.
It's funny because everyone gets to have one profession on their badge. I've only seen about 5 that have pistol as their profession. lol It's just like in the game with so few of people that are proud to display pistoleer. I chose the pistoleer badge of course. Anyway I just found that ammusing. Later all.
Psyrick
Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:31 am
#3
ask them if they can make a mini publish that makes LastDitch/StoppingShot hit one HAM on your target
Just to hold us over untill the combat balance.
Just to hold us over untill the combat balance.
Kevie
Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:15 pm
#5
if you can post any info, please do so
not all of us live near the west coast and couldn't attend so it's up to you guys to give em hell for all of us 
XwingRogue3
Sun Jun 06, 2004 1:36 pm
#7
Being that Randonb is our correspondant and that he was there it's only right that I let him post the reviews of the fan fest panel. One small thing I got from it is that they don't like seeing everyone having the exact same weapons all the time. The weapons are all to be redone in the rebalance so that if you like using one weapon over another then you'll be able to and still be effective. Ok I'll shut up now. lol And yes they know fully the complaints of pistoleers. Or at least they do now lol.
Randonb
Sun Jun 06, 2004 4:44 pm
#8
Yup I was there. Didn't ask any questions though, as it was your guys' "dev time." There were a couple of interesting points. Be sure to pipe up if you remember something interesting that I didn't include. All of this is paraphrased.
The developer answering our questions was none other than the mighty Keldarin, the SWG Live Lead Systems Designer. I do a fair amount of work with him, but he isn't allowed to post on the public forums. Actually there are a great many developers with "read only" privileges on the forums, and they lurk more than you think.
Player: Pistoleers need more speed/they aren't fast enough. Is this going to get done?
Keldarin: It isn't so much that Pistoleers need to be faster, as it is other people need to slow down. Even if we wanted to, Pistoleers could not be sped up to fire faster than 1 second. The speed cap is in place for server stability reasons.
Player: Pistol Melee Defense 2 doesn't knock down. What's going on with that?
Keldarin: This was just an oversight. We'll fix it.
Player: Dual wield. We wants it, we needs it, and hordes of us are asking about it at several of the panels during fan fest. Even atthe Continuity panel and twice during the same panel, because we don't pay attention.
Keldarin: We recently did a whole lot of Motion Capture Shooting for a variety of items, (this is what developers use to create the animations for characters), and dual wield was included. We're not yet sure when it is going to happen, but it is something that we definitely want to do. Dual Wielding was actually originally going to be a seperate profession called "Dual Wielder" that specialized in using 2 weapons, but we quickly found out that the players would rather enhance the existing professions and make them more fun.
Player: Why can Pistoleers fire at 64m, the same as Riflemen? Why are they so accurate at that range? (a player later pointed out that Riflemen are also accurate at point blank range)
Keldarin: Capping Pistoleer and Carbineer range isn't something that I'd like to do. I try to avoid hard caps whenever I can, and thisparticular solutionwould cause a slew of problems.However,we might try to increase the significance of ideal range by adjusting accuracy modifiers. This would happen across the board, Riflemen included.
It is true that a lot ofthe roles between professions are blurred right now, and part of that is the system in place wasn't designed appropriately to deal with some of the higher numbers we are seeing. It works pretty well at the lower levels, but as players get more advanced a lot of things start to fall apart. One of them is chances "to hit" like you are talking about, and another is Speed. These are both systems that are going to be getting a lot of reworkingin the Combat Balance.
Player: Loot rights. I can wail away on a krayt dragon from long range, and as soon as it dies the TK's get all the loot.
Keldarin: Loot is a tricky problem. We could arbitrarily distribute Loot among the group, but that can also frustrate players. What we've opted to do here is provide a loot confirmation so you at least know who took it, and can work it out among yourselves. Players typically know that if they take everything they aren't likely to have a group for very long. If the players have ideas about other systems we can impliment, that is something we'd be willing to look at in the future.
Player: Experience and loot rights are presently based on damage dealt, and we feel this is unfair. Not all professions deal equal amounts of damage. I can take hits for my group, but if I don't deal much damage, I don't get a fitting reward.
Keldarin: This is another tricky problem, and I agree that it isn't working as well as it could. We might be able to grant experience someday down the road for damage taken as well as damage dealt, since this is an important contribution to any group.
Also, when we are determining resists for a creature, we sometimes intentionally make it difficult for a given profession to take it down. If the brawler can't kill it without the marksman dealing damage, and the marksmen can't kill it without the brawler tanking, it can make for some interesting encounters. Still as a general rule, I try to avoid complete invulnerabilities to damage types.
Player: I can kill <insert name of some really big lizard or something here, I forget>, and the experience caps at 5k. What the hell?
Keldarin: The real problem here is that players are soloing things that are waaaay too high level. I see your point that it isn't worth killing these high level creatures for experience, but you aren't supposed to be soloing them or even taking them down in a small group. This problem is going to disappear after some of the more overpowering aspects of the game get reined in in the Combat Balance.
Other interesting points:
- On TC, targeted pool shots are getting some changes. They now are simply more likely to hit the targeted pool, and are more likely to miss entirely. I haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet. The reasoning was that the developers didn't like groups all trying to bring down targets through seperate pools, so they want to lessen the distinction between targeted and random HAM specials. This makes me nervous personally, but I'm going to see what it plays like and try to gather more information.
- They are also experimenting with LOS changes. If the server can handle it, they'd like to make it so marksmen cannot fire through terrain. This is somewhat taxing on the hardware, so it might not stay and it might not be in effect all of the time.
- I'm hoping that most of this is good news to you guys. When I met with the developers, it really shone through that they are passionate about making the best game possible. It's true that sometimes they screw up and they never have enough time in the schedule to do what we'd alllike, but I did have the chance to casually speak with them. These are good people trying to make a great game, and they love what they do.
- I wore an Imperial Stormtrooper Officer costume to the fan fest, but only wore it for the competition. I didn't win anything though. I got beat out by a Twi'lek, a little kid on a Mon Cal costume, a guy ina Rebel Flightsuit, and an amazing Bounty Hunter costume. I was totally 5th place though.
You'll see a picture of what I was wearing later. Best of all, I had no trouble whatsoever putting on my Imperial Hat! - I had a freaking blast at Fan Fest. I cannot begin to describe how awesome it was, and how amazingly cool our community is.
biwan:
vGeist
Sun Jun 06, 2004 4:57 pm
#9
Zero mention of what the heck is up with Disarm 2 huh. Glad you guys are on top of things.
WesBelden
Sun Jun 06, 2004 5:01 pm
#10
Thanks Randonb, appreciate your hardwork and glad you and others had fun while there.. roll on a FanFest UK eh? 
(like that'll ever happen 
)
(like that'll ever happen )
BZebub
Sun Jun 06, 2004 5:36 pm
#11
vGeist wrote:
Zero mention of what the heck is up with Disarm 2 huh. Glad you guys are on top of things.
oh get over it...we can't get all our questions answered, and disarm might end up not even making it into the combat balance ("we can expect a total revamp")
good job Randon, most of it is good news. The LOS thing might be a big nerf to ranged combatants, might not...
WesBelden
Sun Jun 06, 2004 6:57 pm
#12
BZebub wrote:
vGeist wrote:
Zero mention of what the heck is up with Disarm 2 huh. Glad you guys are on top of things.
oh get over it...we can't get all our questions answered, and disarm might end up not even making it into the combat balance ("we can expect a total revamp")
good job Randon, most of it is good news. The LOS thing might be a big nerf to ranged combatants, might not...
Disarming shot being taken out entirely wouldn't surprise me at all. Given that the old Panic shot essentially did what you would have thought disarming shot would do in the first place (the only difference being the description of Panic shot), we're not likely to see pistoleer get given the same thing.
Indeed, I've come to the conclusion that panic shot in a former guise (disarm) was intended for pistoleer, but given they threw Smuggler out far later than intended in beta (crafting changes taking up a whole bunch of their resources) it got added to the smuggler's tree instead (I'm more than likely wrong, but hey, I'm a devoted SWG fan, I have to have some dementure right? )
)
Randonb
Sun Jun 06, 2004 10:15 pm
#13
By the way, I think the reason I hadn't already heard of the targeted pool changes was that it isn't on TC yet. Keldarin just thought it was. It isn't in the notes at least, but I'll log in and try it out. For now I'm getting some sleep!
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