Pistoleer Archive

Pistoleer Community Issues 8/20/2003

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1. Disarming Shot 1 and Disarming Shot 2 issues
2. Pistoleer Special Abilities Not Working
3. Defenses not working
4. DX2 not working correctly
5. Knockdown still not functioning properly
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6. Quick question:
Can you tell us anything about the republic blaster and the royal blaster certifications or are they "relics" for display? They do not seem usable yet.

Details:

1. Disarming Shot 1 and Disarming Shot 2 issues
In response to changing the effects of disarming shot 1 and disarming shot 2.
Both specials are currently unique and fairly effective for pistoleers.
Disarming Shot 2 is an AOE knockdown, which goes well with Multi Target Pistol Shot, and is a master level skill
Disarming Shot 1 is a lowest tier special that according to my tests, does LESS than normal non-special attacks (!)
However, vs a LAIR, this special does double damage, making it the single best special to use vs lairs (slightly higher than fan blast, or very close in any case)

SUGGESTION:
Rename Disarming Shot 2 and Disarming Shot 1 to appropriate names, leaving the effects as is.
(Lair Shot or Structure shot for disarming shot 1, Area Blast for disarming 2, as maybe poor examples
Folks seem comfortable with those specials as they are, have based their profession around the mastery level one.
Regarding the potential change to make disarming shots doing damage to a weapon:
Most are giving feedback that they think it's a griefing special that they neither would like to use, or have used on them, creating far too much combat downtime as a result of a single special ability.
Being the profession that "destroys your equipment" doesn't seem to hold much appeal. If a change is made regardless, we suggest the specials stop an opponent from attacking in some way other than destroying the weapon, such as adding a delay to opponent's next attack(s), a short duration intimidate effect, etc.

Actually, since pistoleers have 0 state effects and really just two forms of special (Random ham damage and a single targeted health attack), adding some really neat effects in place of those suggestions would probably be welcome, or to any of our specials.

2. Pistoleer Special Abilities Not Working:

A. BODY SHOT 3 - not as effective as body shot 2 (Which is a marksman special)

Outperformed by the far less expensive, body shot2 that's achieved in the marksman line. It's the only targeted HAM pool special line that pistoleers get.

Multiple tests all showed the same results: (+74 pistol speed, 4.0 speed, 17-35 damage CDEF on unarmored, same opponent, using stop watch, 11 shots for delay test, over 50 for damage average:
Example:
BS2 = 80.4 avg dmg per shot. 1.8s avg delay = 43.8 dmg per second.
BS3 = 97.8 avg dmg per shot 2.5s avg delay = 39.0 dmg per second

SUGGESTION:
We suggest an increase in damage modifier, keeping the delay the same, so that it outperforms the far easier to get body shot 2 that is not even part of the pistoleer line.
A special effect added to it would be nice, since we have no state effects, but the main concern is the damage increase.
With no AR2 weaponry and with health damage being easily healed using stims, it's important that our only targeted damage shot be effective.
Realistically we think it should have a damage modifier of at least 3.0-3.2 (it's around 2.5 now) and a state effect added to it.

B. Multi-target pistol shot
Multi-target pistol shot is either not straightforward in how you use it, or it only works sporadically, even after patch. I could not get it to "fire" most of the time I tried to use it.

C. Point Blank Area 2 only seems to be hitting one target and not multiple targets.

D. Pistol Melee Defense 2 has no knockdown component. Should it? It's also a limited range special that offers only damage, which isn't usually as effective as using ranged attack, since if any opponent moves out of the 7m range, you lose the attack/time. We suggest a state effect added to this special, or something that makes it worth using.

3. Defenses not working

A. DODGE does not seem to work at all vs average opponents

Tests with +30 dodge (master pistoleer) in a duel vs a player with a +40 acc/+20 speed (non-pistoleer using marksman pistol only). Over 200 attacks, 0 dodges. Also ran smaller test vs unarmed attack, with pistol out, with pistol firing and kneeling, using Body Shot 2 rather than normal attack, all of which had 0 dodges.
I have noticed a very, very few dodges vs mobs and vs completely untrained players. There is no need to "dodge" an untrained attack.

SUGGESTION:
Find a balance such that the maximum dodge allows dodging some portion of attacks in an average duration fight.
Take into account skill stacking, which may or may not require diminishing returns, a cap, or some other method of balance.
Skill mixing should of course offer benefits, but we've seen cases where it can lead to imbalance.
We assume the same goes for the other defense, although we have not tested those (block, counter attack)
Actually, any explanation on how defenses are supposed to work could help guide is in our testing and in making better suggestions, we're guessing here.

B. Defense vs Knockdown (stun/posture change, etc.) seems to have little/no effect. Same suggestion as dodge.

4. DX2 not working correctly -
A. The DX2 does NOT do bonus damage (From being AR1) on most targets with no armor (AR0). It works "sometimes", but generally it does not add the 25% bonus as other AR1 weapons seem to be doing.
B. Also, the resources seem far too rare for this weapon. Since release, no DX2 anyone has posted about crafting/seeing has been comparable to easier and far less costly weapons like the marksman certificate FWG5.
As a result, it's not a very special weapon. The scatter, for intance, provides similar performance but is not nearly as difficult to craft/resource.

5. Knockdowns still not functioning properly
A. Increased HAM cost is not a deterrent, when the EFFECT of knockdown removes your opponent's ability to both move and take action. It seems to be only rarely resisted so why not spam it?
B. Doctor buffs (qui/sta) and food allow use of any/all specials without running out of action pool (Mind pool is drained, but very slowly). There is no change to HAM cost that will circumvent this. This goes for all specials.
C. Once knocked down, if you are dizzy or hit with a dizzy at the same time in one attack (check specials), when you try to stand up from being knocked down, since dizzy, you fall back down. Essentially a no-cost multiple application of knockdown. Yes this is the definition of dizzy, no it's not balanced.
D. IMPORTANT KNOCKDOWN ISSUE
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=pistoleer&message.id=4772

I tested this a while back in a duel vs a novice marksman
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I applied ONE knockdown to my opponent. Opponent immediately stood up and tried to self heal. It took about 15 seconds total before he could heal (includes prone time..rough testing).
I applied SIX knockdowns to my opponent. Opponent immediately stood up and tried to self heal.
It took 94 seconds before he could self heal (OR ATTACK).
I applied 10 knockdowns to my opponent. It took 151 seconds before my opponent could self heal, initiate attack, etc....I'd say Knockdown is bugged.

It's not just healing of course, he could take NO ACTION during that time except run around.

This was tested using pistol melee defense 1 and disarming shot 2. I cannot say if ALL knockdowns work this way.
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SUGGESTION:

I suspect knockdown adds some sort of "Delay to Next Action". Possibly around 10 seconds in duration PER KNOCKDOWN.
Each subsequent knockdown seems to be ADDING to the Delay Next Action Counter, rather than RESETTING it to the guess of 10 seconds, for instance.
It seems intuitive that after the last time your are knocked down, you should have a straight delay to action, not some additive delay.
This is going to hurt the current PvE XP for anyone using KD, which is harsh. With the new changes to KD on the test center, too many changes too fast reducing KD effectiveness should be examined with this taken into account.

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Thank you for reviewing the community issues, we look forward to the next round of feedback.

Jaegen88 - on behalf of the pistoleer community

Yup, this is exactly right.

I like it, I wouldn't change a thing. I just hate the fact that we keep on sending in the same thing. This is like the third report now right? And all three have been with the same problems, BS3, Dodge, defense, ect. I wish they would finally look into this and fix it already.

Yep, has all the issues that concern me. Sorry to gripe, but you didn't include #7. We aren't as powerful as BH, or weapons aren't as cool as commando. The new ranger is l33t compared to us. CH blows us out of the water. We are underpowered. Ook Ook.

Good points, none of them new issues
As far as the BH issue goes, I don't wanna be the best in the game, just the best with a pistol. Master Pistoleer should mean sumthin other than " I can make 4 million pistol XP, fear me "

hey jag, i have to ask why you didn't put the thing about the DX2's range in their.It supposed to have an ideal range of 8m yet gives negative modifyers at that range, the positive modifyers is optimim at 0m.Check it out if ya can please.

BH scatter is most efective at 20m and is virtually identical in damage and speed both acid based and AR1.Pretty much the exact same weapon.I checked mellee weapons last nite and saw that most have an ideal range of 2 or 3 even.To use a Dx2 effectivley we have to be melleeing the darn thing with it even closer then a mellee!!

This wasn't a problem before they fixed accuracy but now it is.As for precadence (sp?) they originally told the commandos their 0m weapons were intended to be that way yet a couple days ago it was announced their weapons were getting range increases across the board.I'm pretty sure the to hit modifyers were probably intended for 8m and not 0 so it was a probably a mistake in the 1st place,anyways it couldn't hurt to check.We should get plus at 8m at the very least probably more like 15 realistically.

Please look into this as this is supposed to be our best weapon.

I can't belive you havnt said that disarmshot 2 is bug should not be an AOE ranged knockdown it should be aattack that damage's peoples weapons.

Taken from the games discription ,

/disarmshot2 <target>: This is a ranged attack that can be used to hit your opponents weapon, This is more powerful the disarm shot1

Where does it says its AOE and where does it say it knows down mutiple targets?. Care to explain?

what do you mean? He does mention its bugged, he says that the description and and the actual effect do not corespond.He also says that it is the opinion of most of those on the forum that if it did actually work as described and damaged your opponents weapon it would be a grief move and is not desirable by most.Most of usdon't want to destroy peoples weapon's, and most of us find theAE KD to be muchmore beneficial then a grief shot no one wants.

Tho i must admit i could see where some PvP'ers may find damaging their opponents weapon desirable, but it seems most think that thiswould betoo extreme.

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Jaegen88 wrote:

1234Taz ,

Maybe stopping shot is "bugged" too since it doesn't often incapacitate in one hit? I think I'll add that in the next issues post..good thinking.

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By all means do so but I think its wrong what your doing at thats why I posted. Both you and I know disarmshot2 should not be doing what it currently is.

Taz, you really want a shot will be NOT help you in PvE, and do nothing in PvP except piss people off and get them to come over here and complain how so and so from server such turned the condition of my weapon from 900 to 43? is this really what you want? Would you like it if someone did that to your weapon? I don't know about you, but are you aware of how many hides I have to sell in order to replace my weapon? I'll make it easy for you, the sale of hides/bones/meat doesn't cover the cost of the pistol I used to replace it. And now you want someone to run along and force me to replace it even sooner? How can you like that? It's obvious a greif shot which takes away the fun of the game for many people, and in PvE, it will be useless, it's enough that we don't get to loot the weapon the NPC was shooting at me with, but now I use a shot called Disarm shot and it does nothing to it's weapon? Common, lets get some gaming common sense going here please. In a way both of you are right, but Jaegen is right also if he takes your example in stopping shot. We should complain because the description say's it can incap in one shot, obviously, it can't.

1234Taz:

To quote from the beginning of Jaegen's report:

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Details:

1. Disarming Shot 1 and Disarming Shot 2 issues
In response to changing the effects of disarming shot 1 and disarming shot 2.
Both specials are currently unique and fairly effective for pistoleers.
Disarming Shot 2 is an AOE knockdown, which goes well with Multi Target Pistol Shot, and is a master level skill
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It clearly states exactly what Disarming Shot 2 does, in a section that talks about how there was previous talk of changing the special, that we didn't like the idea of changing it to be a grief shot, with the suggestion that the special be left the way it is and the name just made more appropriate.

Nothing was hidden, and if the Devs determine that the effect is bugged, inappropriate, misplaced, or whatever, I'm sure they'll change it, just as they've been changing and nerfing other things.

much better than #1

(suggestion, if you put your post in notepad and resize it a couple times you'll see where those hidden carriage returns are)

First, I want to thank you Jeagen. You are easily the best correspondent that I'm aware of. And yourFAQ has no peer that I've seen, either in terms of completeness or invested effort.

I think your list is close spot on. Although not a popular opinion, I am of the mind that Body Shot 2 is the most effective weapon we have. However, I don't think this should be the case. Most of the suggestions are that BS3 should be made more effective, but to do that would further make the Stances tree more worthless, considering BS2 already outstrips it in terms of actually killing a moderate HAM creature. What I might suggest is that BS3 is where it should be and BS2 should be lowered in effectiveness. Right now, BS3 is still marginally better than Fan Shot, but they are far closer in skill level than BS2.

I hate to be in the nerf camp, but it seems silly that BS2 remains the only skill I need to advance outside of the odd HealthShot2.