Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Why some people care about being MASTER of a profession
1/3 of the points you spend are none combat (specifically scout), So the combat points spent by Pistoleer master and Carbine masters would actually be more spent by that of a BH master.
That's why imo Commandos should be the best combat profession out there, as all of their required points are spent on combat boxes/skills and those points are more than those spent by BHs or any other single profession.
I under stand the concerns of those that take the time to spend to master their profession. The last post above does not make any sense. A bounty hunter is a bounty hunter! That is what they do, that doesn't mean they should be the best at using a pistol and carbine thus being the best at combat. You have the scouting skills so you can learn to search/hunt things.
Side track:
What bounty hunters need is to make it more enjoyable then just pvp combat, is an actual guild where people can place a bounty on another person. The guild takes a cut off the top like 10-25% then the bounty can be placed on any player. The player with the bounty is notified then has the option to come and pay off the bounty at 1/10th the price of bounty. Once a bounty hunter accepts the mission that bounty hunter and the target can now attack each other on site. Of course the target should be notified that there is a bounty hunter on him. This would make things very interesting for the BH profession.
Ok for those master Pistoleers. When I started playing I looked at all the skills and carefully chose to be a jack of all trades, especially combat with pistol. BH took way too much skill pts, but I'm high on both the pistoleer and smugler tree. I chose that route just to get the skills. The problem that your encountering is that pistol whip has been nerfed. Now it takes way too many action pts to spam it and thats good and bad. What the Devs should have done is increase all special ablitiy costs for all professions so you can't spam any specials! It is the mass use of specials that are causing balance issues. For me it's the Eye Shot from the BH, there is not much you can do to mind pool dmg. And how come hitting someone in the eye is so easy when your both running around? There needs to be a longer delay to aim, or a huge penalty to hit with eye shot. Basically there are some benefits to mastering but in my opinion it's just about getting the skills, why should I worry about getting better acuracy when the skills are more powerfull? That is the aproach I used. Now if the special action cost to all skills were increased or accuracy mods were changed a bit more that would make me consider getting acuracy rather than skills. What a pistoleer needs like my side track for BH's above is something nice of their own.
Ok don't know if this is the right place for this but what is disarm shot good for? What does it do? I tested it to see if it unequips targets weapon, damages target weapon, and if it knocks out targets action que, but it does none of the above. So what's the point of that skill if it does nothing and does so little dmg. This is where I think mastery should come in. In towns/cities all players should not be allowed to have weapons drawn and at ready, or at least in cantinas/medcenters/starport/guildhalls. Make it so that it takes time to get your weapon out and ready. so the higher up in your proffession you can equip faster. It is unrealistic for people to be able to change weapons so quickly or bring them out of a back pack to use. Give bounty hunters the ability to switch quickly between weapons.
I can go on and on about complaints and possible changes. But I'll just stop here for now.
*insert complaint about no edit button*
But if that's the case, then stims need to be drastically reduced. I can heal for full health/action one stim, and I just have pharm3.
Imagine trying to kill doctor/buffed/medic/combat medic opponents with default attacks.
What is this a pistoleersection or a Bounty Hunter section!?!? Everyone and their uncreative mother went bounty hunter, they get some exciting missions, will be able to hunt players, and have a great time in SWG solo XP and make tons of cash via MISSIONS. If you dont want to do MISSIONS than a bounty hunter is not for you!! Bounty hunters seem to want the cream and leave the rest of the professions with the milk. I have no sympathy at all for people who think they are entitled to the best of everything as then there would be no point in being anything else..
I also would have thought that Sony would have learned by now viaEverquestthat these boards degenerate into nothing but a big whine fest that if you do what the whiners want, it promotes total game mudflation, and if they are not met, whips the whiners into a "the devs do not give 2 hoots about us" flame..
Do yourselves a favor, havea BUG report where people can report BUGS but end this foolishness. If these people had 1/10th of an idea of what goes into class balancing their head would explode.
I for one think the devs are doing a fantastic job for a game of this scope.. Keep your heads down and your chins up the game is just getting more incredible by the day.
The problem is people's conception of what a bounty hunter should be. People are arguing about weapon mastery when weapon mastery is not what a bounty hunter is supposed to be all about, SOE really screwed the pooch here.
A Bounty hunter is a fighter that studies the use of all weapons, melee included. It is often said that there is was not a single weapon that Jango and his son Boba didn't know how to use. This is the strength of a Bounty hunter, being able to use the right weapon for the situation, for example: Bounty Hunter's mark is using a pistol, what weapon would be most effective to kill a pistol wielder? Certainly not another pistol, pistol specials unique to classes like BH and the like are stupid they should only get to choose from the pistol specials of the pistoleer class to the point that they trained to.
There should be no argument who the best should be when it comes to their respective weapons and that is the Elite classes. Again i will state the Bounty hunter's strength should lay in the fact that they have versatility. Why they gave Bounty hunter's scout is beyond me, they should have had to learnall melee weapons as they did with firearms. Give them the underground investigations line for tracking their quarry and voila you have the cannon version of the star wars bounty hunter. Oh and give them a dirty tricks line to compensate for the lack of gadgets.
Pistoleers, carbineers, and riflemen should be the undisputed masters of one on one combat with their respective weapons. Bounty hunters should be the masters of the hunt with versatility second to none. The Bounty hunter attacks unsuspecting marks with proper tactics, Boba was a cheap shot artist not a master gunman, he was known for using thermal detonators and disintegrating his marks. If Boba would have ever stood toe to toe pistol to pistol with a gunfighter like Gallandro he'd have had a very short career and not had the reputation as the galaxie's most feared Bounty Hunter.
Plain and simple.
Bounty Hunter is someone who is trained to capture or kill someone.
Pistoleer is someone who is trained to defend themselves with a pistol.
Therefore a Master Pistoleer should have MUCH more skill with a pistol than ANYONE else. They devote their entire life to being the absolute best with a sidearm. They do not train in capturing prey, or crafting armor or healing wounds (unless as a second profession of course). A pistoleer holds a gun in his hands all ofthe time. He sleeps with it under his pillow. He treats his gun the way a samuri treats his blade. To a pistoleer there is no other weapon worth carrying into any fight. A gunslinger does not take the time to think of which weapon may suit him best in a given situation, he simply draws and fires, straight form the hip as he has practiced a thousand times.
Furthermore a Bounty Hunter should not have to kill every bounty, capture should be an option. A bounty hunter is more of a Jack -of-all master-of-none type when it comes to weapons. He needs to know how to deal with many types of weapons, but doesn't have the time to focus too long on any one. He trains in many other things besides weapon use, such as the ways to make contacts in various places in order to chase down those who carry a price on their head. While a Bounty Hunter is quite an adversary, he does not place all of his eggs in one basket. He has to learn many weapon skills, because he never knows what situation he will find himself in when closing in on that mark.
Treat these professions in this manner and all of the balancing will solve itself.
If bounty hunters are supposed to have better pistol skills than other professions then how did Han walk out of that cantina,while the bartender was stuck wiping dead rodian off the walls?
Actually the only BH in the movies that was worth his weight in bantha fodder ended up swallowed. At point blank range he was not using a pistol to attack Luke, he was trying to trap him with a cable, like any good BH would.
That's my thoughts on it, take 'em or leave them all for the womprats to nibble on.
Cim Taurus
The answer: give us pistoleers 2 pistols to wield! Bam Bam Bam like that and we'll be the "masters" of the pistol.
Oh! and give us a taunt action where we spin our pistols in our hands or blow smoke from our barrells...that would really make us "masters".
In-game Spoodo Happy - Master School Janitor/Novice Pistoleer
See the light. Death 4 life.
5.7. Learning Capacity
Every character has the same learning capacity,
which is basically a representation of the number of
skills you can have at any one time. Your Learning
Capacity bar, which can be reviewed in your Skills
screen (Ctrl + S keys), fills up as you gain skills.
When the bar is completely full, you can no longer
learn new skills.
Different skills have a different learning capacity
"cost," but all the characters can gain complete mastery
in three full professions and dabble in a fourth.
However, you don't need to adhere strictly to the
professions or learn each discipline in your chosen
professions. In fact, the most successfull players will
likely create unique characters by learning a number of
disciplines from several different professions.
My response to this is pretty much to simply cut and paste from SOE's online manual, which many people seem to have not read, or just ignore.
Bounty Hunters, Carbineers, Commando's, Pistoleers(placed in alphabetical order so as not to offend any rabid profession fanatic) will NEVER be as good as a dabbler that mixes skills...and in the end, dabblers will be all there really is...don't believe me, look at AC1. Everyone and their dog was a 3 school mage with a melee weapon except for the few Full magic mages...and even they would whip out a race based weapon every now and then because some critters were so magic defensive. SOE's outlook is pretty obvious from the above quote. A dabbler is the master because they picked the best skills. For RP purposes you might be a master something or other, but unless masters are given a real REASON to be a master, there's no point in it.
Master Pistoleers should get somethig great.
Master Carbineers should get something great.
Master Riflemen should get something great.
Master Bounty Hunters should get something great.
Everyone should get something great!
HOWEVER...being a master of an elite profession should cost more, like 20+ points. Choosing to be a master in something means your life is consumed by the persuit of that mastery. You don't meet Olympic sharpshooters, or Secret Service counter-snipers who just do shootist stuff as a past time....they train 8 hours a day, 7 days a week and then some! They eat the right foods to facilitate a calm pose and practice breathing techniques and nerve control....they don't sit down after training and chuga case of Mt. Dew so they can go game all night. You shouldn't be able to get away with a crap skill pt cost and some training xp. It should have some sort of cost associated with that one skill being the focal point of your life. That way whatever totally awesome skill a master gets, they earn.
Jaegen I agree....But I think alot of the problem with the game comes from things being broken, rather then balance..
Bounty Hunter:
- +60 pistol accuracy+30 General accuracy over pistoleer
- +50 pistol speed+2 Speed over pistoleer
- +12 ranged defense +7 over the pistoleer (+6 of this comes from the marksmen line)
Pistoleer:
- +30 dodge +30 over what a BH has
- +30 accuracy
- +48 pistol speed
- +16 pistol aiming +16 over what a BH has
- +30 accuracy while moving +30 over what a BH has
- +20 defense vs. stun +20 over what a BH has
- +20 defense vs. blind+20 over what a BH has
- +20 defense vs. dizzy +20 over what a BH has
- +20 defense vs. posture change +20 Over what a BH has
- +20 defense vs. knockdown +20 over what a BH has
- +15 accuracy while standing +15 over what a BH has
- +13 melee defense +13 over what a BH has
- +5 ranged defense
In general you can see from this list a pistoleer is indeed better then a BH with his pistol. The problem is many of these mods are broken. However from the list we can determine a few things...
As anyone can see the BH has a raw accuracy and speed mod, with nearly no defense and no special accuracy modifiers...(such as shooting while running)...While the pistoleer has a great deal of defense, and a great deal of diversified accuracy. This leads me to assume a few things.
A BH using his pistol has only one obgective, to kill his oponent. He is not fancy with it, he has no finnese with it...He simply shoots as fast as he can and as straight as he can until the mark is dead. The pistoleer however has a diffrent obgective, he can fight with his weapon. His skills are more built around defense, and fighting in any given situation.
There is a world of diffrence between a Marine trained to kill with a pistol, and a Trick-shot style pistol artist. Both are deadly with their fire arm, both know how to use it well, for one however its a tool, for the other its a lifestyle. I belive the accuracy modifiers display this well, a BH is good at using his pistol to be just that, a tool, while the pistoleer is good at using his pistol to be good at fighting.
With that in mind there are a few main problems I see.
1.) Defense mods/specilized accuracy mods are broken, they may have been fixed however in the last patch..With the new negatives to shoot while running, have pistoleers seen any improvments?
2.) Specials, are lacking, and spammable. The system should only a specials to be...Special. Alot of this stems from everyone being able to one-shot heal everything.
3.) Mind damage is dispropotionate to all other damage, Raph posted this was not supposed to be the case. It was a loophole to stop ifinite healing.
With the mods in mind, if they were working as intended, I have a simple question.
Why would pistoleers think the BH is better then them at pistols? Remember when you answer, eye shot is on the way out, and all we have over a pistoleer is +30 general accuracy. Keep in mind the special accuracy, and perhaps some ideas on how to make it more useful 
.
2.) Specials, are lacking, and spammable. The system should only a specials to be...Special. Alot of this stems from everyone being able to one-shot heal everything.
Forgive me, that is supposed to read.
Specials are lacking and spammable. The system should only allow specials to be used as just that, specials. Alot of this stems from everyone being able to one shot heal themselves in combat.
I think the word "Master" in all of our professions is confusing us, either that or the Dev's had no idea exactly what Master of something means? One would think that a Master Pistoleer would be just that, a person highly skilled in the use of pistols? I would think that no one would argue that point.
The same goes for the other professions, including BH. But its here we run into some difficulty. Everyone forgets what a Bounty Hunters does? anyone wanna guess? hmmm I'll give you a hint...Hunter? a Bounty Hunter hunts! So one would think that a Master Bounty Hunter would be highly skilled at hunting and tracking people down and subdueing them. (BH skills should dictate hunting marks).
Unfortunately, all this logic has been thrown out the window because of PvP. The way it stands now is that no one cares about the sincerity or integerity of being a Master of their profession. They just want to be "one shot killers" in PvP. Sad IMO but all too true. Most of the whining and nerfing that has gone on is because this one or another isn't uber in PvP. They don't care about their profession or what it means (or should mean) all they care is one shot kill in PvP So the rest of us must put up with the ramifications of nerfs due to constant whining by PvP'ers.