Pistoleer Archive

Dabblers benefit by only taking the skill trees that has abilities, modifiers, or schematics that they want and ignoring skill trees that they don't need or want. They do this quite easily because defenses, accuracy modifiers, speed modifiers are in their own trees. What would happen though if all the speed modifiers weren't in just one tree...but split into several. The dabbler would then have to use up more skill points to be as good as they used to be.

For example if defenses to state effects were spread out across all 4 skill trees then in order to get the full bonus possible you would be required to get all 4 skill trees. This would minimize the effect that dabblers would have on the profession(s) in question.

Like CH skills were moved around. I think this is a good idea

And why would you want to do this?

Is Dabbling that offensive?

No but you can MASTER BH and take 1 line of pistol..

So if you want to be a PISTOL bounty hunter youll only be able to Expert BH and Master Pistoleer

I dont understand the hatred so many people have against dabblers.

Nor do I. The system is made for this type of thing.

When playing a proffession, especially one that is supposed to specialize in something(in this case pistols), it is important to feel somewhat special or unique. Bounty Hunters often do feel special and unique whereas Pistoleer often feels boring and bland because everyone just takes what they want and end up as good or better than we are. With a simple fix as stated above the things that make a pistoleer a pistoleer could be spread out a bit. And by doing so our accuracy modifiers, speed modifiers, and defenses to state effects could be spread out more. Skill trees for specialized combat professions should be described more by the special attacks given in that tree.

When comparing Pistoleer to other specialized combat professions there is definitely room for improvement in regard to special attacks.The variety of what the special actually does is lacking. State effects, wound chance, delay effect on target, recovery time, number of targets effectedand other variables could be mixed and matched to create more flavor into Pistoleer attacks. Currently the only somewhat interesting attacks we have are bodyshot 3 (which is currently less effective than bodyshot 2) and health shot 2. As is currently all of our other attacks are random HAM attacks which often seem comparable to marksman abilities and completely outmatched by Bounty Hunter specials. Its not so much the Bounty Hunter are so much more powerful than a pistoleer, its the fact that their attacks are so much more useful. How many random HAM special attacks does a pistoleer need? Throw in some state effects on a couple of em and see how we react! I imagine many of us would be overjoyed then...and maybe just maybe some of the whine posts would decrease a bit. (Why are you laughing? One can dream can't they lol.)

I actually like the idea of making the benefits of Pistoleer harder for dabblers to grab, because right now there are too few benefits to climbing up our entire tree.

If I was clever and less invested in this profession I would surrender almost all of my Pistoleer skills, because I would be better off spending those points in Smuggler and Commando for those attacks. I've already dabbled in Bounty Hunter for those points.

I think most of us have done this, to some extent. To be really good with a pistol, you have to take bits and pieces of other trees, like the BH Pistol line. The problem is that we get tons of calls to "nerf Pistoleers" when the Pistoleer tree itself is pretty weak and the people they're mad at are BH Pistol+Smuggler+two boxes of Pistoleer+Novice Commando folks. The rest is that the Devs nerf the Pistoleer skills but the problem isn't in the Pistoleer tree itself.

Lots of folks have come up with "solutions" to this problem, and you could argue that it's not a "problem" at all. I think the reality is, though, that Pistoleer in its current form isn't valuable enough to advance in.

Do I support the current idea, specifically? I'm not sure. I think a better answer might be just to make some cool special attacks available only to high level Pistoleers. But the general problem he's trying to address is something that we should care about.

A skill-based system is INTENDED to have so-called "dabbling." If you want a class-based system go play another game.

Yes but the intention of this skill based system was for those that specialize to be stronger than those that generalize(dabblers). Currently in the regard of pistoleers generalists are stronger than the specialist. This simple dabbler fix would solve that problem. It would also give dabblers a taste of a lot more than they were getting before but not as much of what they are really wanting. It would give those that actually mastered the profession an edge over someone that just learned two skill trees. It would give a reason for a master pistoleer to exist at all. After all every profession has to take the crappy trees with the useful trees if they want to become a master...with the fix stated above the crappy trees wouldn't be as crappy anymore...they'd actually have a purpose. Is it the best way to fix the problem? Probably not...but its a realistic way.

Against dabbling...??? Are you out of your mind???

That is what the skill sysytem is based on. I respect anyone who goes through the trees to get to master but let the rest of us determine what we want to do by dabbling.

The skills system is great and unique and with it I can make any type of character I want. I do not want to play a game where I am tied into Pistoleer just because I like using pistols.

Take pride in your Master Pistoleer Title, you've earned it. But do not grief about people picking up some skills here and there.

In fact, if someone is to go BH what would they do with all that Comabt Xp they are earning but have no place to spend. Why not go novice pistoleer or carbineer so you can use that XP on thsoe skill trees.

Dabblilng is a wonderful thing.

I am dabbling in many professions and I love it.

Limit dabblers why? Why should I be penalized because I want to be a master doctor with exploration 4 and don't have enough skills to master pistoleer?

Sorry, that's just rediculous.

The solution is not in limiting "dabblers", as "dabbling" is a core design principal for the character skills system. The solution should be that there are unique and usefull advantages to mastering a profession. Dabblers can dabble all they want, but they won't have the best-of-the-best abilities that a specialist has access to. Meanwhile,a specialistwill be more limited, but have more capability than someone that hasn't fully specialized in the same field. The failure in SWG's current systemis that the Devs haven't given master levels enough perks to make it worthwhile. It's not limited to just the Pistoleer profession. Nearly all of the professions have the same problem at this stage of the game.There just are not enough incentives for people to becomemasters of any of the professions. You'llsee many of the same arguementsin all of the profession boards ... people wonder why they should master their profession at all be it pistoleers, carbineers, BHs, rangers, doctors, merchants, chefs, etc. You don't fix a skill based system by limiting dabblers, you fix it by having enough inticements that people want to master something. Otherwise, you should just make a full, classed-based system and be done with it.