Pistoleer Archive
Thread: GCW Revamp: What do Pistoleers want specifically?
It is very difficult to pin down exactly what a pistoleer wants in the GCW without refering torelative superiority of other classes as fighters compared to the Pistoleer. After all, the GCW is predominantly PvP.
Thereforethe first thing we need to establish is what exactly the Pistoleer is supposed to bring to the fight compared to other classes. This has been highlighted by others in previous posts. After that, such things as faction perks etc. can be suggested based on this role.
The first thing I believe Pistoleers want with reference to the GCW is a clearly perceived role to play in combat that is different to other classes but equally desired.
If we take only the ranged fighter classes, I believe the following is generally accepted:
a) Rifleman are supposed to be high damage, slow moving and slow firing. I understand that it is likely that following the combat balance rifleman will be "encumbered" when they are carrying a rifle and will move more slowly. This will limit their ability to kite - they will need a tank type class to keep the enemy from them. They will also fire at a much slower rate than Pistoleers - reports from the fanfest suggest that the weapon speed equation is being completely rewritten. In doing so it is expected that rifles are going to fire much slower and will notr be able to reach the speed cap.
b) Carbineers are supposed to be medium damage, medium speed and withgood state effects. I am guessing they are going to take on the role of crowd control and some ability to fight the enemy head on.
This leaves pistoleers. Following on from the above, it follows we are supposed to be low damage, fast speed and difficult to hit - ie our defences are high. This is logical as we are not as encumbered as other classes and can dodge/block more effectively. In fact, I would guess tht we are supposed to act in a similar way to fencers do now. We can be front line troops, difficult to hit and fast and manoeverable, but not as damaging. We can also act as hit and run scouts - used to advance ahead quickly and determine the strenghts and weaknesses of the enemy.
This is not to overlook dual wielding. If a pistoleer chooses to duel wield, then the damage output would beat least doubled butat the expense ofdefence and speed-after all it is difficult tomove quickly and defend yourself with a pistol in each hand.
The second thing the GCW should offer is factional equipment that stregthens the ability of the pistoleer to fight his enemy, be that imperial or rebel.
If the items above are correct, then factional perks should be available that assist the PvP pistoleer. This would include faster firing pistols, lighter pistols that increase defences against other players etc.
The final thing that Pistoleers will need is recognition for the act of defending with respect to xp and faction points.
If a pistoleer is to act in the front line but not be able to dish out damage to the same extent as the riflemen they are defending, then the xp/fp system needs to be overhauled to consider the amount of damage defended/absorbed by a player as well as the damage dished out.
Of course, all of the above may be miles off what the pistoleer eventually becomes and you may not agree withthe role I suggested. However the main points are valid. Pistoleers need a clearly defined role, factional equipment that accentuates the role and a fair system for distributing xp/fp and loot whatever that role may be.
So, coming up with ideas for a single profession within the GCW revamp was a bit tough.
Pistols are the most concealable weapons in the game, except for unarmed (VKs), but that's obvious. Therefore, wouldn't it be cool if Pistoleers of certain factional rank could become spies? I really don't know what the GCW revamp will contain, and therefore it is hard to imagine what we should be able to do, but being able to infiltrate certain areas, perhaps including player-based factional bases, could be a lot of fun.
Another possibility. The idea of a concealable weapon brings about the covert/overt question. A covert pistoleer of certain factional rank, perhaps having his pistol holstered, could fire upon an overt player of opposing faction, without having to obtain a TEF. Of course, people could argue that this is griefing, but when a player walks around overt they should expect to be attacked.
Basically, I see pistoleers as close-range fighters that can conceal their weapons, which enables us to be the most covert of our factions. A player carrying a big T21 rifle inside an enemy base would look a bit suspicious, would it not?
Anyway, just a couple ideas I came up with while thinking how we could work within the GCW.
Hmm, I guess my main thing for pistoleers is they're not all that useful on the open battlefield. If you've the choice of a bunch of long range rifles or some up close pistoleers, which're you going to choose when they combatants are far apart? Of course, this doesn't hold strictly true for SWG due to the range of 64m of all weapons.
However, it would still seem to me that our fortay would be street fighting, easily concealing our weapons on our person and then quickly drawing them out in side street ambushes etc. That and the inside of buildings/bases etc. - it's far easier to dive around a corner with pistols blazing than it is to turn around in confined spaces with an unwieldly rifle.
That said, our role in the GCW is tightly linked (if not the same) to our roll in combat overall; it's hard to differentiate between the two. Depending on the extent of the GCW revamp, if we see things like Riflemen being sent on sniping assignments, taking out key leaders in the field and what not, then perhaps pistoleer's roll could be for up close assasinations in cities? I don't know, it's hard to come up with stuff when we still don't know what they're doing with the GCW and what our role will be inafter theCB.
well.... in-line with the (*crosses fingers*) supposed player-craftedfaction armor we're getting, i was suggesting several armors that didn't neccassarily have a lot of protection, but many other mods
i also suggested certs for these and the only pistoleer one i could think of was scout trooper armor (they used the scout blaster after all)
and sorry to the rebels, i couldn't think of anything other than different looks of the marine armor that would embody its imperial counterparts
but anyways: scout trooper armor
certed at scout and pistoleer
actual armor pieces: chest, helm, right/left biceps/bracers, belt, boots
other clothing pieces: gloves, pants, backpack
since it is scout-use armor, it would have terrain negotiation mods, mask scent mods and pistol accuracy while moving and scout blaster speed/accuracy mods
i had several other ideas too but that's just the one that pertains to us and it affects the gcw
other than that, i suggest factional weapons as well....... must be overt to equip like faction clothing/armor
imperials would get a scout blaster, rebels would get a republic blaster
Give us pistol certification for ALL types of pistolsas long as we are overt. This will give pistoleers an incentive to be involved in gcw and be overt more often than not.
When you learn a Martial Art, you achieve degrees of each belt. First Degree Red Belt, Second Degree Red Belt, First Degree Black belt, etc. Well once a Pistoleer reaches master, what if he then could decide to get "degrees" of factional Mastery. This of course could be applied to all three factions (or four if they add Hutt) granting each "base" Master Pistoleer identical skills and abilities, but from there the option to choose more accuracy, more speed, more defense, etc.
Then restrict the area of Degrees that you can acquire. If you decide to be enhance your Speed Degrees, you must focus on that Degree until you completely master it, and this would need to be extremely hard to represent higher level professions than we have now. 2 million Pistol Experience for Speed Degree I, then 4 Million Pistol Experience for Speed Degree II, etc.
I drew much of this on how we are explained Force Sensitivity will be. After Mastering an art, wouldn't you then be able to inject your own flavor into it? Well, I am a good shot, but my speed is my strong point, or I am a pretty fast shot, but I could Bulls Eye a Chuba at 100 meters.
When a player reaches "Master" there isn't much left for him to do, allowing Degrees of that master would enhance the "high end" game... hrm... when I typed "High End" game something popped into my head.
What if these masteries were quest based? What if there was a series of really difficult quests for Masters in Each Profession, linking directly to their area of expertise? Continuing to use Pistoleer as an example, you meet up with a Rebel Trickshot, he says that a high ranking Imperial Dignitary is going to be arriving in Theed at such and such time. When you arrive at the coords, an Imperial Inquisitor Spawns, along with some high level Escorts. Once you kill the Inquisitor (and hopefully survive the Escorts) you recieve a point towards your Mastery. This would encourage PVPers to group more so that they can get these masteries and be better in PVP, and would be a gem for PVE'ers as it'd be quest based adventures relavent to our chosen profession.
Say, CHs, "The Empire is training some sort of creatures for use against the Rebellion on Dathamir, travel there and tame one of their young, and bring it back to me." the CH would then go, Train this insanely difficult pet, and return back to the Rebel who would give him an advancement past his current Mastery.
In Everquest you worked and worked forever to get to Level 65, we don't have anything like that in SWG. We need High Level Goals for players who would otherwise just drop Pistoleer and move on to something else. This could very easily tie into the GCW.
You want to draw Neutrals into choosing a side? What if they don't want to PVP? Can you ensure their safety in PVE'ing? Most Neutrals I know are Neutral so as not to be griefed. Without fixing that problem, the smart ones who are Neutral, will stay neutral.
Hmm, what about adding faction-sepcific weapon mods that could convert you weapon to a "Rebel" or "Imperial Blaster". I'm thinking they'd be sort of like permanent power-ups with unique attributes for each faction.
Of course that's not pistoleer-specific, but I still think it would be cool.
I'd also like to see some faction-specific guns added, such as the Imperial Officer blaster for the Empire, and maybe something jurry-rigged like the Bryar pistol for the Rebels (not to say there couldn't be more than one per side of course...)
I might have to come back to this. That's a topic that takes a little time to think about. Off your ideas though, I think the faction weapons are good idea. Or a limited use schematic you buy from the recruitor. It makes a faction only weapon. As for your comments about maybe only using it while overt, that it's OK I guess. What if you can use it while covert, but if you do you get a TEF? That way you can run around with it, display it, have nuetrals go "ooohhhh" when they see it equipped. But if you actually fire it you get a TEF. The TEF timer works like a normal TEF, 5 minutes after the last time you shot it.
But to make this worth the effort, and to make it for recruiting, each faction needs a different weapon. What I mean is, rebels get on pistol, and Imps get another one, totally different looking. If the devs don't want to make 2 differnt pistols, 2 different carbines, 2 different rifles etc how about this?
Since the rebels are basically in hiding, and sneak around, and don't go around in uniform, if they have one, to avoid detection, the rebels get a hold out blaster. This is a blaster from Star War material. It's like the deringer of our times, but a blaster. Small, concealable, fast, low number of shots. The SWG version could be something that is small, fast(maybe fastest pistol in game?) no AP, and medium damage. If they want to make it low damage, maybe lowest in game, then do compensate by making this one faction weapon usable covert with out getting a TEF. Yes this would lead to some farming while covert, but it might not be worth it with low damage output.
So if the rebels get a pistol, maybe the Imps get a carbine or rifle instead. I say carbine because that is standard ST issue weapon, unless they are heavy unit with a rifle. But standard is carbine. Then for the melee folks, maybe a small vibro knife specialty for rebels, and a 2hand sword for Imps, or some big double axe or something like that. Maybe the big double axe for Imps, and dual wieldable shivs for the rebs. Again they are small and easy to conceal, fast, low damage individually, but you can dual wield them.
I had another thought for this. It's not totally GCW perk, really its general combat, but it would help, and be cool in PvP battles.
What if, once we get dual wielding, and use the Multi Target Pistol Shot working, we are targetting more then one enemy at a time? Not sure if this can even be coded or not. But imagine, you have a pistoleer, in the middle of a battle, and they pull out two blasters. They start blasting away, but at more then one target at once. Since the MTPS already has you change targets to anything within 32m in a 360 degree circle, what if you were shooting at 2 at a time?
Right now with one pistol MTPS just moves your primary target to another one nearby and your damage goes to that one. And that one alone, so it takes your fulll damage. But since the target keeps moving about, you are doing doing damage to multiple targets over time, just not all at once. So if you are dual wielding, you are targetted on two seperate targets. You only have to select one enemy, and once you start using the MTPS special, it starts doing the rest like it does now. But one pistol is hitting one target with full damage of that pistol, and the other pistol you have, is on a different target doing full damage. Then they both shift to different targets, so on so forth.
Another idea, and I have no idea how it would work in, and prolly no one would until maybe after the CB. But what if Pistoleer was made to be the anti CM? The CM usually need to move in someone close to combat to get their DOTs on the targets, and also to do combat healing. You know Combat Medic? hehe So that means they are up close in battle, maybe just behind the front line. Well what if the pistoleer had something to the advantage to get them up close throught the front line and taking out the CM. Close up, ranged combat. We are the anti CM and Docs too for that matter.
Also, we should be able to buy skill that trains us to use specials on mount's or speeders. If you think about it, were using a pistol so there should hardly be any recoil.
Maybe more iteams that increase accuracy or something. Like modified helmets or such.
Well, its seems most of my ideas would apply to mostly all professions but i cant really think what would souly help a pistoleer out.
The best thing i can think of is maybe holsters for our guns so we can be real cowboys!
Maybe also some new titles or something would be cool. Trick Shot is sort of boring.
Anyway, I hope some of these are good ideas or they inspired some of you readers.
Barbarossa
Bringing Order to Chaos