Pistoleer Archive

Thread: The In Concept thread, the Balance Pass, and what it means to you (now with a link to the thread!)

Randonb
Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:17 am
#1



I read the whole thread, IC 1-10: Combat Roles; Pistoleer. I noticed some patterns. There were very few disagreements. I'm posting my findings here so that you can get an idea of what's going on and state your opinion. If you haven't already done so, please read the above linked post before continuing. I have listed here only the general ideas, not the most common answers to his specific questions.



1) Speed: People want pistols to be fast. This rings true with the original vision of Pistoleers.



2) Range: People want our range to be more limited than it is now. A common suggestion is to either put a hard cap on our range, or implement substantial decreases in accuracy at the longer ranges (sort of like what we have with our DX2 pistol, only probably more extreme). Before you start to cry, keep in mind that nobody suggested this without stating that we should be extremely formidable at close range and perfectly viable at mid-range. Side note to consider: The melee lunge moves in the Brawler tree have a range of 20 meters, as do most PvE melee attacks. This could put us in a very sticky situation if it isn't handled well.



3) HAM pool damage: A common suggestion was to give us the ability to target any HAM pool. Equally common was the suggestion to give us greater ability to decimate the health pool. Some people want to be able to pick and choose like TKAs, and others want us to further specialize in the health pool. (right now all we have for this is Body Shot 3 and Health Shot 2)



4) Area Attacks: Many feel that the Pistoleer profession should be an effective combatant vs multiple targets. We do have 3 AoE attacks, though only Fanshot works with any amount of adequacy.



5) Defenses: Many feel that we are meant to be a sort of Ranged/Melee hybrid. To this end, we would would presumably have more defense than the other ranged professions, but less damage. Some suggested a skill similar to Center of Being for us, and one player even suggested the opposite: a skill that you activate that grants a significant bonus to speed for a short time. It wasn't by any means commonly mentioned in the thread, but I found it to be original and true to the "spirit" of the majority so I included it here.


6) Dual Wield: Almost every poster said they wanted this. Basically the only thing left to decide is how we want it implemented. Master Box or Elite-Elite Profession in the Space Expansion? How much accuracy/damage/HAM cost? etc.



There you have it. If you haven't already done so, I advise you to head over to that thread and give Thunderheart your input. Remember to be clear, mature, and "articulate." The use of paragraphs and punctuation are highly encouraged. For the most part people have been doing this very well, and after reading the volume of posts Thunderheart reads, I'm sure he appreciates the effort.







In addition: if you scroll to the bottom of his post, you'll notice that the thread will be open until the end of April. That's about all you have to speculate with for an ETA on the Combat Balance Pass everybody is so excited about (with good reason). We could be getting "love" between now and then, however. Check this out from our Top 5 Issues answers:



We have a “Weapons Balance” that will bring a lot of fun to the game and it will be out in the January or February Publish. I know your first reaction will be, “January or February!?!?”, but consider it. Every weapon in the game will be re-balanced and there will be a lot of progress on many fronts.


Clearly, they underestimated how long it would take. It is mid February now, and this isn't on Test Center yet.

Message Edited by Randonb on 02-13-2004 06:39 PM




"...You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." biwan:
Former Pistoleer Correspondent (02/04/04 - 09/05/04)
betjrobards
Fri Feb 06, 2004 3:31 am
#2
Very nicely put together. Thanks for the info.



Let the wookiee win.
Blutzoll
Fri Feb 06, 2004 3:44 am
#3
try a vision-thread like in the swordsman/carbineer/pikeman forum
OpieWanKenobi
Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:02 am
#4
I think if the devs wont let the pistoleer's choose which ham to attack then they should give something else like lower the ham cost for pistoleers

and most important above all others is to let the master pistoleer duel two guns at the same time !!

great post by the way tons of useful info in there for us pistoleers



StarSider: Dark-McCue Elder TKA/ Elder Medic/ Elder Doctor

Post NGE: Lvl 90 Jedi Master/Crimson Phoenix Ace Pilot

Taewyn
Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:45 am
#5

Speed eqation is the biggest thing now.....Its just broken ....


On duel wield...


This frankly could just be adding another gun animation (which might be hard) then something simple like modifyingour specials slightly when we have two pistols...


Like, when holding two...BS3 would do 3.0 damage.....FS would do 5......SS would do 6.....


It does not have to unbalance combat, but it could be used to bring pistoleers DPS slightly higher....Flat out doubling our DPS would unbalance combat (IMO)...However adding a slightly higher mod per special when duel wielding would be perfect....


Of course I also dont think HAM should go up when we DW But thats just me

Message Edited by Taewyn on 02-06-2004 07:47 AM




Taewyn Alsan Lt Colonel in service of the Empire


Taewyn and Oqua's "As you like it" Armor and Clothing store. On Naboo, right outside of Kaadara Location: +5729 +6376.


Emavi
Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:48 am
#6

The other bug issue that I have seen from reading the boards (and Im in agreement here) is making our "specials" work as intended.. Like DisarmingShot, Stopping Shot being the formidable shot it is listed as in the skill tree description. Bobyshot3 being less potent than Bodyshot2 etc etc.


The issues you listed above are good. The issues I listed above should be included as well and seriously need to be fixed.



Barr1cade
Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:31 am
#7
perhaps dual wield could be an option for example having two guns would double your speed and damage but halve your range? Good for those desparate cantina moments




- Barricade (Farstar)
Bio-engineer Vendor at Subliminal City, North coast of Naboo
Randonb
Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:55 am
#8




Emavi wrote:

The other bug issue that I have seen from reading the boards (and Im in agreement here) is making our "specials" work as intended.. Like DisarmingShot, Stopping Shot being the formidable shot it is listed as in the skill tree description. Bobyshot3 being less potent than Bodyshot2 etc etc.


The issues you listed above are good. The issues I listed above should be included as well and seriously need to be fixed.





Absolutely. Those are a given. In fact, a lot of examples were given for whatour specials could do. Additionally, a lot of people brought up that we should continue to be the "running and gunning" profession that we are now.





"...You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." biwan:
Former Pistoleer Correspondent (02/04/04 - 09/05/04)
Gray03
Fri Feb 06, 2004 3:10 pm
#9

My biggest concern out of all of those would be range.


At the moment, melee range is effectively 20m+ (realisticly up to 30m or so due to lag, warpingand targetting issues where the server thinks you are closer than you really are, or lags in updating positions)


With weapons having a maximum range of 64m, this doesn't leave a lot of room for divisions amongst pistols, carbines, rifles. What I frankly dread seeing happen is a situation where rifles are deemed to "own" the 50-64m range, carbines get the 35-50m range and we get stuck "owning" the 20m-35m range = which will effectively mean that to be in effective range, we will be functionally in melee lunge range.


Also, I really have yet to see a real answer to the "kiting" issue. It is already nearly impossible to hit a defensive template rifleman who is running away at long range - if our range is capped further it will become impossible.


Lastly - everything needs to be considered together, not as seperate issues. Example: Rifleman have a hard time hitting at point blank range, so thus we should have a hard time hitting at long range - right? Bzzt - not unless you take into account the fact that the rifleman can do ridiculous amounts of mind-targetted damage in one shot at that range. If we are going to get basically "screwed" at long range combat we really need to get some much more effective *killer* level short range moves.




Keito_Temreh
Fri Feb 06, 2004 4:02 pm
#10

Here are my list of concerns regarding pistoleers. Ive been a master Pistoleer since august 2003 and back then many of the things that make us suck now didnt apply back then.


1. Brawlers have a max range of 21m. This is the ideal(max effective) range of most pistols in the game other than the fwg5 which is better at long range than short or medium. All melees can hit up to 10m and have awesome defenses(tkms stack well with everything melee defense wise). Of course we all know defense stacking has made pvp less than desireable as of late as well. This puts us in the one place we dont want to be, in range of people who can literally kick our collective behind in short order.


2. This places us also at the mercy of hybrid professions such as the commando who have a max effective range of 16 meters with their specials although i have less trouble surviving encounters with commandos than i do with melees especially TKMs.


3. With the above two scenarios youd think we would be pretty strong verses a melee profession and it does appear in our defenses that the devs feel this way too. High defense to KD, dizzy, blind, etc.. and a very high melee defense mod. It appears we are meant to be weak to long range professions like the rifleman as we have very low ranged defense mods. We definitely look like we were meant to be a close range fighter able to stand up to a melee. However in practice this doesnt pan out very well as we do not possess the firepower, accuracy, speed, or ability to affect states to be very effective at this.


4. Ham costs aside rifleman and carbineers beat us hands down in damage per second, RIflemen are faster, more accurate( even at point blank), and do more damage than a pistoleer. What this means? We arent roughly equal or competitive with them. Now maybe we werent meant to be, see the above statement.


5. Most of our specials either dont work at all or dont work as intended. Bodyshot 3 does less dps than bodyshot2 etc.... Both master specials are broken and do not function as advertised. Pistol melee defense 2 does absolutely nothing other than a high ham cost low damage melee attack. That leave us with Fanshot, our bleeds, and stoppingshot. Soon our bleeds wont stack any more and stoppingshot is inferior to other pistol specials in other lines like smuggler last dtich assault. To be frank i dont use any pistoleer specials at all, I rely totally on smuggler pistol specials.


6. We have No state attacks, not one, a weak KD that really doesnt do much as the opponent always gets up right away and inferior weapons and dps to every other combat profession. All that we have is what appears to be some great defenses on paper but in practice do little to nothing. I as a Pistoleer/rogue/master marksman cannot compete with a simple rifleman who has invested in nothing but rifleman. They do more damage, attack an unhealable pool, have superior weaponry, are faster, have better defenses, and are more accurate at our ideal ranges than we are. They are pistoleers with heavy weapons. and on top of all of that they want to limit our range even more as if we werent already less accurate then they are.


7. Ranged mitigation has effectively crippled our profession, People with buffs regen damage faster than we can deal it out.


8.Since we have one pistol that can be krayted now we just dont have the firepower to compete. Its been months now and still no new weapons to offset the loss of the krayted marksman pistols. ANybody in comp armor and buffed is effectively immune to a pistoleer. You dont have to be any more than a tier 4 marksman to beat us. Wear comp, gett buffs and wittle us down. What use a stun weapon you say? Yeah a tangle pistol using the best possible resources can be made with a max damage of around 140 and a very slow weapon speed( around 3.5 before sliceing) with buffs, armor, and mitigation this effectively brings us down to around 10 damage per shot in pvp as the weapon has a very low min damage.


9 Got milk?





Keito Tarmeh Master Bounty Hunter/Master Pistoleer Valcyn : Retired
Brant Hogan Master Combat Medic/Master Carbineer Bloodfin : Retired
Notam Vavaso Master Pilot/Master Carbineer/Master Bounty Hunter Chilastra : Active
Fatcheen
Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:04 pm
#11
I have a somewhat different idea as to what should be done w/the pistoleer, here is my list in order of importance...


#1 - HIghest Importance -Get the current special attacks in our tree to work as they should


#2 - Some sort of state attack dizzy/delay or something. My idea has always been to make disarm like the smuggler panic shot where it would delay the person from shooting for x number of seconds


#3 - A defense v. dizzy/kd bonus a bit higher than we have, maybe 10->15 points higher? The reasoning, if our range is cut down and we have to go close range we will be on our back the entire time.


#4 - New/better pistols.


#5 - Dual Pistols [Although if #1 was fixed, maybe this wouldn't even matter except for "looks"]


I still strongly thing #1 should be the huge push, get the current things that are broken fixed before attempting to add newstuff that will likely be bugged.


My $.02
Madrox
Sun Feb 08, 2004 4:22 pm
#12


Very good, I like all of that.


Additionally I'd like to make sure we emphasise that EACH of our specials should have it's own place and use, instead of the 1 or 2 we spam now. Some should be targeted, some should be heavy in damage, some should be AE, some should be really efficiant(in terms of HAM cost to us), etc. In any given situation we should be able to choose between 3-6 specials that would work differently from each other.


I agree that if melee range is going to be kept where it's at, then we need a major boost in our up-close abilities. I don't like having a "hard-cap" on our range(like the SR-Combat pistol) but rather be VERY innacurate at ~40m+.


We should have plenty of melee defense(ie: melee defense and dodge), plus MUCH more +accuracy while moving so we can constantly be on the move. The "kiting rifleman" was mentioned earlier, and although I hate asking for nerfing, with a lot of the restrictions that have been removed from Riflemen i think they should suffer A LOT of accuracy while moving, though should have the most accuracy while still.


I'd also like to see some of our "Pistol Whip" abilities expanded, even if they have to move the KD effect up higher in the tree. Even just adding some kind of effect to PMD2 would be nice. Maybe a kick, or other close range evasion attack in the Master box.


And of course, SPEED
Marsupial-DREAD-
Sun Feb 08, 2004 4:47 pm
#13
Fairly stupid ideas in my opinion. The pistoleer tree to me is one of the most balanced and "working as intended" professions in the game.

2. Decreasing range would be a bad idea as kiting is the only viable option in killing melee types (who can kd/dizzy you at 15+ meters..)

3. Adding the ability to attack any HAM pool would also be a poor change. I picked pistoleer for the ability to stack 2 bleeds on an opponents health pool and then spam bodyshot 3. If I wanted to go for the mind, I would have picked up BH pistols instead.

4. One welcome change to the area effect attacks would be for fan shot to be a health pool targeted attack, which would supplement the pistoleer profession nicely.

5. Pistoleer defenses are not overpowered or gimpy, with considerable dodge bonuses.

6. Finally, the dual wield suggestion is completely retarded, and without extremely well thought out implementation, could be one of the more unbalancing changes yet made in SWG.
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