Pistoleer Archive

my top 5.

1) Specials. Although I could give specifics on how I think each special should work, I doubt with the combat retooling that they will directly follow any suggestions. Only they know where combat is headed.

2) Accuracy and speed. I croak every time I look at the rifleman accuracy/speed mods and thenat ours

Message Edited by BZebub on 03-24-2004 03:14 PM

Randonb,

My two issues are 1) fix the specials 2) more speed

Also, just wanted to let you know you're doing a great job as our correspondant. Glad to have you in that role and appreciate your efforts and responsiveness!

Would "we're boring to play" be a Top 5Issue? Not worded that way, of course. Our specials, even if they worked, don't really do anything but damage. Because all we do is damage, our only course of action is to pick the special that deals the most damage and spam it.

As long as our specials are bland, this tactic isn't going anywhere. Or does this go hand in hand with "fix our specials" closely enough that it doesn't need to be mentioned seperately?

Hey...

I think that the specials item has to stay...

I think that the DX2 is good enough as is BUT!!!! we should get a Master Level pistol inline with the Scatter Pistol that does Kinetic damage, can be Krayted, and (this is important and I mean really it is) LOOKS F'ING cool. Adding new weapons seems easy enough for the team...lets try this approach.

Defenses within the combat system must be looked at...heck I say go for a 125 cap across the board for the interim.

Randon I really respect the fact you did not bring up the fact that our speed fix could come in the form of a speed reduction to other classes. That shows a very high level of professionalism and I must say shows me how good of a correspondent you are. I am not sure what we can do here if we cannot get "faster" within the game engine. A slight (and I mean slight) bump in high end pistols (depending how the combat balance works out with regards to weapons) might be in order...though this may be able to be handled through the specials (many of which should be completely reworked and possibly even renamed).

A master Pistoleer should be faster than any other class with a pistol period. Please before the BHs get in a hissy you can have a Master BH be close but not quite as fast. Also a Master Pistoleer/BH Pistols 4 should be faster than a Master BH/Pistol Speed line 4.

And uh Dual Wielding...even if just for looks....PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are my top 5:

1. Pistoleer is too slow. We need to be faster with our weapons than rifleman and carbineer. Currently the only way to do this is to take bounty hunter. I am on the fence as if we should be faster than bounty hunters, though I would say need to as fast as a bounty hunter at a minimum.


2. Broken specials need to be fixed, nuff said.


3. Defense means crap in this game. I was getting some 1-hand exp vs. some of the bottom level trash around the cities and was hit far to much for my liking being a master pistoleer/master swordsman. The state defenses can be added to this as well. I would also like to know why our melee equivalent, fencer, has a ton of ranged and melee defenses while we are realitively lacking. Add in the brilliant (sarcasism) to hit bonus for wiedling a gun and we are completely screwed at our idea range.


4. Lack of any weapons above AP1. While we do have quite a large selection of damage types, every now and then we come across a medium or heavy armored opponent who has no vulnerablity that we have a damage type for. We cannot tank due to the afore mentioned lack of defenses. This leaves us no offensive or defensive role in the group. I am not asking for AP3 weapons AND a drastic increase in defenses, but I demand one or the other.


5. Lack of state effects. I could deal with this if our DPS exceeded (except commando)those of other professions, but it doesn't. We need something to make us more effective. I would like to see a slowing effect (force to prone for 5 seconds?) ora true rooting effecting (force to kneel for 5 seconds?). Point being we have no state effects and are therefore left with damage, which we are worst in as far as DPS.

1) less polls and lists submitted, more actual fixes.

How many times do we need to tell them the same things. Heck the last list they asked us for was promtly tossed in the trash. We don't actually need to do anything but ask them for a new list every few months, that will keep them happy.

2) Specials

My god, WTH is wrong with these people, this has been around for so long I'm wondering if it was intended to be our hallmark. Rifles tear giant holes in things, pistols do not do what we said they do.

3) Flavor, and the serious lack thereof.

We am the blandest proff in the game. we either spray and pray for a mind hit, or chop in futility at the health bar. If the Health bar is our turff how about some tools to make it a viable target.

4) the speed equation

Shafted again, /sigh.

The DX2 is fine now, I guess. It's not the weapon that needs the fixing, it is the specials. Compared to other pistols it is fine.

This is, of course, pointless. Ask anyone in the dev team about any of this and dollars to donuts the answer to all of these issues will be " combat re-balance " and isn't that kinda why they didn't answer our 10 questions, because the answers they gave the pikemen all used "no" and "combat re-balance" to answer their questions and were summarily flamed into oblivion.

The specials that are supposed to give us a 10 sec delay only give us at best a 5 sec delay to creatures when they actually do get hit by it, as part smugg and part pistoleer I have the opportunity to knock something down and make it stay there for 30 seconds supposedly, but it only ends up being about 10 seconds for all three specials, what was the point in working so hard to get those for that, for one extra shot cause our speed bites.

Fdraven

• Pointblank Area 2 does not fire in a circle around the gunfighter as it should, obviously needs to be fixed (This would be an awesome hunting/levelling skill if it worked correctly)


• Disarming Shot 1 and 2 should have some sort of status effect attached to it, perhaps intimidate to reflect the 'disarming' effect of the shot. (Intimidate lowers damage down in an attack for as long as the status is up, I am fairly certain) In no situations does Disarmingshot outdamage any other special, nor does it fire quickly to assist a novice gunfighter.

The thing with this is that some of our specials aren't "broken" they're just out of whack because of our speed (see question 4 on a good fix idea).

• Stopping Shot is the Pistoleer's most damaging single target special per shot at x5.0. Unfortunately its speed modifier is so horrid that you have to tape up to make this a good special (But if you do, whoa Nelly, it becomes lethal)


• Multitarget Pistol Shot: Same as Stopping Shot essentially, it has a higher damage multiplier than Fan Shot (x4.2 versus x4.0) yet the slower speed is murder for an untaped gunfighter. It isn't supposed to be a second knockdown, its supposed to be an added bonus when some poor schmuck gets into melee range of a gunfighter.


• Pistol Melee Defense 2: Again, same deal. It has a higher damage multiplier than Fan Shot (x4.1) yet only hits cap when coupled with master marksman.


• Body Shot 3: Again, same deal, I feel like a broken record. This shot has a higher damage modifier than bodyshot2 (x2.5 versus x2.1) Assuming that the multipliers I have are accurate, this would be a better special for a master pistoleer who can fire that shot as quickly as s/he could fire bodyshot2. If the modifier isn't correct, obviously this shot is bugged and needs to be moved to the category above.

Other specials have been classically thought as broken/redundant, but in fact aren't.

• Point Blank Single 2: This is actually a very solid levelling shot, allowing a gunfighter to use a republic blaster in point blank range and still do about equivilant damage as fanshot, if not more at lower levels of Pistol Stances. I have not done any testing on whether or not the Point Blank Single accuracy is working right, but the damage is definitely there. If the accuracy is not there, again, move this to the bugged specials section and have them remove the point blank mods when firing this special, as its advertised.


• Double Tap is one of those stealth skills in Pistoleer that actually does a surprising amount of damage, it is the best ranged, single target shot, assuming the gunfighter does not have tapes or is a master marksman as well. Sure, with novice pistoleer speed, kipup and dive shot do more damage, but over the progression of pistoleer, Doubletap becomes a viable attack through 90% of the time you are levelling.

I'm one of the weirdos who loves my pre-fix DX2 and use it religously for the acid damage, so I guess this one isn't a good top 5 for me

I'd love to see timers put on all status effects to help give pistoleers more of an advantage against carbineers and other status spammers. For a one profession master, I would like to mention, no profession really has enough ranged/melee defense to stop a master. The primary defense is in the dodge/counterattack/block to defend against damage. I would like to say that pistoleer provides a very solid foundation in melee defense that other classes sorely lack (Like Carbines)

LEt's consider the speed issue with todays pistols:

Take a standard military sidearm, for those who fire them here, how long does it take to completly empty a clip?

Speed is an issue, but the speed should go like this from masters perspective

1) Carbineer (They should have the fastest weapons, they are the common soldier, they are the ones with the M16s today.

2) Pistoleer (We should be fast, but not as fast as the carbineer [How can someone with a Desert Eagle be faster than someone with an M16]

3) Riflemen (They are the snipers, the ones that take a long time to reload. We should be faster than them)

Any comments?