Pistoleer Archive
Thread: The Riflemen Still Want to Kite Us
As long as rifleman can't shoot while moving I say give em a better range. But if you are going to allow them to run while holding a rifle longer than they are pointing over thier shoulder and shooting no. It does away with the kiting argument.
Now I am not a rifleman, but I walked out of the cantina about a week ago,got vaporized. In one attack a rfileman did 1100 to me, 800 to another guy, 700 to another, 2700 to some poor pet. Now may he was a commando/rifleman and just wearing the master rifleman tag not sure, but I lost all sympathy, at least with how weak they supposedly are at PVP, with one pull of the trigger.
I dont know what to do other than do process of eliminaton. The big4 i always say are DMG, speed, HAM costs, and accuracy.
--- What rifleman are with the speed nerf----
Rifle dmg is medium
Rifle speed is medium
Rifle accurcay SUCKS
Rifle HAM costs are THROUGH the roof, and mind on top of that.
--- What rifles need----
Now Rifleman cant have high dmg or we one shot so dmg, so medium
Speed cant be as fast as pistolier at master so speed at medium.
Next is accuracywhich isneeded to be extend so we havemore time to hit the mobs who are inc to kill us.
We can DERASTICLY lower HAM costs so we do more dmg over time...
--- What Pistols are ----
Pistols have mediumdmg, arguablly light but i see it as medium hehe
Pistols have FAST speed
Pistols have HIGH accuracy
Pistols have LOW HAM costs
Do you understand why riflesare envious of pistols? You will win out in damage over time every time.
Draxous wrote:
Seem pistolers want it all
RANGE SPEED DAMAGE
I not seen one post by pistol member actualy as attempt at balanceing this game and thats why things are fubared everyone scared of loseing there power.
Your extreme language is unwarranted. If pistols are more accurate than the devs intended, or rifles less accurate than the devs intended, I would support trying to get that fixed. I think plenty of us would.
What makes me feel extremely defensive and annoyed, however, is when people suggest capping my range for either regular shots or specials to something less than 64 m. At least let me take the freaking shot. If you guys are upset at the idea of a speed cap, and feel you are somehow justified because of that, please for God's sake take it up with the guy who suggested it, the combat dev. What also makes me feel defensive is when people claim that pistoleers are overpowered. I haven't been overpowered since the day they fixed knockdown.
If you aren't asking for a range cap on pistoleers, I'm not talking to you.
Pamoya i dont think your overpowered, just toaccurate at long range. I even think you should get some effects on some of your specials.BHs on theother handare overpowered and to accurate with a pistol (imo BH should use different skill mods so you can't double dip on speed/accuracy). A pistolierv. BH with just using a pistol the Pistolier should win just about every time because its an elite class and BH isnt. Pistolier v BH who attacks your weakness,which SHOULD be yourrange, gives the BH anadvantage with the LLC(but atm you can shoot him accuratly from afar so this doesn work).BH v Rifleman using only rifles... well cant do that cause they dont use rifles, imo that makes no sense because of the marskman requirment...
I agree caps are a stupid idea.
TekDragon i feel your pain but saying Jaegen88 is a moron detracts from credability and takes your accurate account of reality and makes it worthless. Also takes away credability from your fellow riflemans arguments. It sounds like im finally making some headway and i dont need the extra trouble of making the pistoliers thinking we hate them.
You guys have heard my ideas on how to makethe pistol/rifle situationbalanced from my presprctive,I would like to hear your theories. This way you can try to balance andtweak rifles instead ofus wanting to tweak pistols, or you can share on what you think should be tweaked or not tweaked with yourselves. (if you fear kiting riflemanjust propose to take our moving accuracy away) Well i hope to here some suggestion =)
Well, as a Rifleman, I do not think your max range should be 30 meters. Certainly the whole kiting issue with melee is a huge.
What really irks me as a Rifleman is that it appears that the range mods are out of wack. I have another character who is a commando/pistoleer and I do just as well with my pistol at 64 meters as my Rifleman does. In fact, I do more damage per second with a pistol (trained at Master Marksman) at 64m than I do with a T21 at 64m trained at 2/1/0/1 in Rifleman.
My master marksman can solo things like giant dalyrake, guf drolgs, mutant womp rats, scycks. My rifleman is as good as dead if he even considers trying to fight something like that.
Please understand. I do not call for nerf of the pistoleer. It's just that I am mad that rifleman has not lived up to be nor fulfilled my desire of what the profession should be, plus it is really broken and sucks bad. It makes me so mad. So any discussion on ideas to fix the profession is welcome. But I am sorry that you guys go caught up in the discussion and a few people want to nerf you to make us appear stronger. And that I don't agree with.
Jaegan88,
The special to-hit modifier is not affected by range, eg BodyShot1 give you a +20% (or +25% depending on whose data) to hit at max range and at all other range.
It does man, we've been saying this over and over and over.
Consider these points
1) +25% to-hit translate to +50 accuracy skill. Now, to gain 50 accuracy skills, you'll need to advance up between 5 to 7 skill boxes (some boxes only give +5 accuracy). That's equivalent to gaining up to 1,250,000 pistol xp. Put it another way. A noob using BodyShot1 will hit with the same accuracy as someone up to 7 level higher than him using auto-attack. You decide if this is "unbalance".
- Being prone is equivalent of +60 accuracy.
So by your logic you'retelling me being prone is "unbalanced". I don't think that'sa position you want to defend.
23) DPS isn't the whole story. What you care about is ADPS (Actual Damage Per Second), which is simply the (to-hit)*(DPS). Now, a +25% gain to-hit isn't a linear +25% ADPS. It's (base + 25%)/base, meaning the lower accuracy you are, the more you gain. At high level, you gain nothing.
Let's take me as an example. When I was noob, I would solo hunt Grand Wrix (I started out as a craftsman, so I made myself the best weapon). As marksman 0/1/0/0, I sux. Yet, I was able to successfully solo Grand Wrix. What I do is run and shoot from 64m at the running Grand Wrix. My base to-hit is 5% (lower cap). But because I was spamming BodyShot1 all day long, I was able to do a tremendous of damage more than my auto-attack. My ADPS went from 0.05 * DPS to (0.05+0.25) * (1.5 BS1 special) * DPS = 9x more (0.05+0.25)*1.5/0.05 = 9x. Yes, it took a long time. But I was still successful.
Of course, the flip side is at Master, you get nothing since the to-hit is cap and the BS to-hit just get wasted.
You decide if this is "unbalance".
If you are you asking of a hypothetical soloing of a mob is unbalanced or not, the answer is, no.
If you are asking if ADPS has any relevance in the context it's in, and in the relative numbers you show, the answer is yes, but certainly haslittle to do with unbalance. We could do an almost infinite number of like examples with rifles, only using different criteria.
Please tell me you understand how to use ideal ranges to modify accuracy.
I do understand how the range modifier work. The range modifier at x distance is m*(x - x0) + b, where x0 is the ideal range and m & b depends on if you're before or after the ideal range, m being the slope based on the weapon stat and b is the ideal range modifier.
For example, taking a contrite PhuoBar special pistol with a range modifier of -50/15/-80 with ideal range of 20m.
The range modifier if you're closer than 20m is (x - 20m) * [ (-50 - 15)/(0m - 20m)] + 15. eg @ 0m, it's -50; @ 10m, it's -17.5; @ 20m, it's +15.
The range modifier if you're further than 20m is (x-20m)*[(-80-15)/(64m-20m) ]+ 15. eg @ 64m, it's -80; @ 30m, it's -6.5; @ 20m, it's +15.
Good, this feeds into your understanding of the below.
Pistoleers have ONE AR1 weapon with a 64m range. It's ideal range is 8m. At 64m we have -90 accuracy. That's -40 accuracy after specials. It's STILL less accurate than a rifle at 64m. Doesn't a T21 have 0 at 64m? Hrm +5 accuracy vs -40 accuracy. I'd say favor goes to rifles...as desgined.
Rifles are far more effective when they do hit, and as you see here, they aer also more accurate at range. If you go prone, you add even more accuracy, if you AIM, you add even more accuracy, and you know, most people I know that fire rifles, have to aim first..you know? Even standing rifles are more accurate in that example.
You're missing the point. The question isn't whether rifle can hit more effectively at long range than pistol, the question is "is everything in play balanced"?
You won't be figuring this out any time soon. Tha's a balance question, when everyone else according to the polls, is worried about fixing your own profession. Are you reading that, FIX YOUR PROFESSION. Are you saying it's worth time now balancing, when changes are still being made, so that when they are made, balance is shifted again and has to be re-examined? From everything I've read, experienced, and seen, riflemen have warping problems in PvE, and are concerned about the speed changes. These things are understandable/important. However, if you mean, balance is so out of whack that pistoleers beat riflemen in PvP 90% of the time. Well that simply isn't true, both from the pistoleer side and the riflemen side. As you know, there are posts on your forum from riflemen that reportedly do more than "OK" in PvP. I think that speaks enough volume for you to agree that if that's the case, then maybe continuing to fix your profession is the right thing to do at this time. Huge imbalnace issues ARE important, many of the critical ones (like knockdown being nerfed..that didnt affect riflemen, did it? Lucky you) have been fixed however.
Bare number by themselves is utterly meaningless; eg it's meaningless to say pistol hit 40% at long range, just as it's meaningless to say rifle hit 95% at long range.
Balance imply comparision. For rifleman to scream Master pistoleer hit 80% at max range is unbalanced, nerf them, is utter non-sense. Balance imply comparision. Once can't assert unbalanceness without comparision.
One comparision is how well a Master rifleman hit at a pistol ideal range. If they hit 80% at 8m, hey, guess what, everything is balanced. Now, if they only hit 40% at 8m but we hit 80% at max range. This is a flag. Doesn't mean it's unbalanced. There may be other factor we're not aware of.
The best way to address this is not to tell the developers how to do their job--they have access to much more info than we can ever reverse-engineer. The best way is just to raise the issue and let the developer decide for themselves.
Just tell them, hey, does it seem right that BodyShot give you a +50 accuracy modifier, the equivalent of 5 to 7 skill boxes gained?
Or is thisless than the accuracy gained just by going prone? (it is). What about the "Aim" modifer? See, +50 accuracy is given in one case, and "easily" achieved through other means available to all ranged professions. Huge difference when you try to isolate +50 as some professions-specific advantage, not related to everything that has to do with accuracy. What about the +13 net ranged defense riflemen have? Does that not negate some of the pistol accuracy (13 points of it). What about "cover", does that not only add the negative accuracy to your opponent from being prone, but you get "cover" ranged defense stacked with that? How does that factor into your thought process when it comes to accuracy if pistols vs rifles? Vs Carbines?
Hey, does it seem right that BodyShot modifier is the same +50 at 64m as it is at 8m?
Hey, does it seem right that pistool special to-hit modifier is +40 or +50 whereas rifle special to-hit modifier are +10 or +20?
But it's counter-productive to scream, pistoleer correspondent want to be in god-mode, they can hit at will all day long at long range, prove me wrong, nerf them, handcuff them with these restriction-we-didn't-think-through-the-consequencesof.
Yes! Aldeon and I discussed this on the corr forum. My very first, very rational response was "my gut reaction is that we should find out "WHY" it was designed this way" before asking for this ranged hard cap. Also, just as importantly, I pointed out to him that rifles often have a larger decrease in accuracy per meter than pistols, (especially at long range in some cases), which might be a VERY good place to start proposing fixes from, combined with the "why" from the above. That was all promptly ignored.
Yes, see, that's a very reasonable question, and you're right, the devs WILL get bubbled up questions, even if there is an answer to be had by crunching numbers. Sometimes just asking the question gets enough people discussing it to find an answer. However, my comments on how to word/present this were ignored. You aren't the one that asked specifically for ranged caps to be imposed on pistoleers (and carbineers), we wouldn't be having this discussion if things had been presented in a "questioning" stance like you present, or I requested.
Balance doesn't mean equal. Just mean equivalent. Just because pistoleer can hit at max range on the run 80% of the time whereas rifleman can only hit 40% at short range doesn't mean it's unbalanced if there are other factors out there.
For example, the dev may just come back and say, well that scenario only happen a small % of time. In the other % of time, pistoleer get jacked. In other % of time, carbineer get jacked. In the end, a small number of situation highly favor pistoleer and a small number of sitution favor rifleman, everything in play is balanced.
If the developer come back and say, well 90% of the time, pistoleer benefit, yet only 10% of the time, rifleman benefit, then I say nerf the pistoleer.
But so far, I only see one side of the argument: Pistoleer special at long range is +25% to-hit. That's too powerful and unbalancing. Nerf them.
Hm. Tricky. You're isolating the benefit from accuracy as being a candidate for "nerf" in terms of balance. You already said, and I agree, that individual advantage factors need to be looked at with the entire picture. But I'll even cut you slack there and agree that we could just first examine "accuracy" as a whole, that is, including max/min accuracy at ranges, when position changes, ranged defense, cover, and aim, are all taken into account. Comparing the max/min accuracy could quickly lead to a more...balanced look at accuracy, which can THEN be compared to the overall pros/cons of each profession.
So what you and I are then discussing is balance, and the question stands, should we be worried about inter profession balancs as much as fixing each profession first THEN balancing? Note: Speed affected all professions, even within the profession. I have issues with speed because it makes it difficult for players to understand why their special attack is worse than the 2 below them, but suddenly if they add BH pistol, it's better. We know speed has issues, not related just to balance between professions, but inside the profession itself.
The next step after discussing accuracy as a WHOLE, is then discussing what you do with the accuracy, and again, that's only if you're trying to balance professions. I also think it's important to note that the devs have been less then able to quickly figure out balance issues when presented with numbers. T21, good example. The new speed forumla, another good example. IMO it's more likely that if you say "pistoleers are too accurate", without justifying that, showing why "too accurate" means "not balanced", that the devs will knee-jerk reaction and make the change. That's a danger which makes asking for nerfs on other professions a serious thing. Note, this was posted on the dev board, not just in general discussion, and it lacked all of the context which you in part, use in your framing above.
The problem is not that pistoleers (pistol users) are overpowered, the obviously are not by any accounting. The problem is a lot of people struggle with accuracy and how it works as a complete picture, and how they feel pistols should not shoot as far as rifles based of real world physics. And that's where you get into trouble.
DiLune wrote:
In a perfect world, in a 12 second combat rifle dmg will = pistol damage = carbine dmg.
ROFL.
Then in a perfect world, everyone will be pistoleers cause missing 2 shots is death. Never, EVER, will dps be consistant throughout the classes. That is just plain and simply not balance.
Sorry, comments like this make we laugh.
Tilen
Scylla
DiLune, calm down. I don't want anyone nerfed.
I do agree that the three classes should spit out equal DPS. They spit out equal DPS throughout the marksman tree, and they spit out equal DPS at the Novice elite level ... but that breaks down at high levels because of the speed bug.
There are a lot of differences between the classes. If we all have the same DPS, the difference is that in rifle you'll kill someone in 1-2 strong shots while a pistoleer will kill someone with 8-10 weak shots. The idea is to have diversity but keep the classes balanced.
Noules had some good ideas about class balance on the Rifleman thread. I think it's important to try to come up with some sort of balance instead of asking for every kind of goodie possible to make your class overpowered, and I think Oaktree and Noules and many other rational folks will hopefully try to get theo thers to consider that perspective on the Rifleman board. 
DiLune wrote:
Well, that's okay that you can't see the forest for the trees. Its what the devs have implied they want. But we'll fight hard to get you a damage nerf along with speed. Then you all will be pistoleers.
Show me that post.
You show me that post and my views on ALOT of things just changed.
Tilen
Scylla