Pistoleer Archive

Sorry if anyone has brought this thought up before, but after coming to the boards and seeing Holo's post (great counter-post Jaegen I just had to mention it.

It seems to me that the real reason Pistoleer seems overpowered, even though we know better, is because of something so common and obvious in the game. Yep, it's right there in the bottom lefthand corner of your screen from the first moment you get in the game. The RADAR.

With weapon range maximums all being equal combined with the ability to 'see' everything in that range, what reason is there for using a slower weapon? A Rifleman may be able to hit better at 64km than me, but not that much better. And I'm far better up close than he is. What should make him better at long-range than me is that I shouldn't be able to 'see' him at all.

So here's what I'm thinking. To bring four combat classes more in line (pistol, carbine, rifle, BH) ranges on weapons should be adjusted slightly. Bring pistol max range down to 48km (and reduce mobs 'notice' range to 48 also), bump carbine up to 80 and make rifles 96. That should balance out the weapons for exactly how 'ranged' each one is and would bring the carbines and rifles up closer to us. To finish it out, Rifleman and BH's need a REAL 'stealth' ability. Since 96km is the real range at which a player or mob first comes into view on radar, give Rifleman and BH's the ability to 'see' non-stealthed players and mobs at 128. Then you give the BH a 'stealth' ability that would allow him to approach within, say, 16km of his target without showing up on radar. Of course, once either fires they should become instantly targeted to keep them from completely dominating.

I really think this combination of changes would balance out the four classes, and it holds much more closely to what these professions should really do. Pistoleers should be masters of 'close range' firing, Carbineers should be able to operate with slightly longer range, Rifleman should be Gawds of long-distance sniping and BH's should be absolute masters of taking their prey unawares.

Just my two cents, for what it's worth

Wow, i fully agree with your entire post. Well thought out, no bias whatsoever.

I really like how you thought of the range modifiers.

I also like the idea about the bounty hunters.

Im interested to see if anyone else likes this idea as much as i do.

I'd support anything to fix this issue, but the current system is a bit more "realistic," or would be if it worked anyway. There's nothing to stop someone from shooting a pistol at someone a kilometer away, but the chances of hitting are slim to none. This is supposed to be modeled in the game with range modifiers, but what do they mean?

Here's how it works for me, and I only have one block of marksmanship.
+anything: 99% chance to hit
0: 95% chance to hit
-50: 80% chance to hit

That's just ridiculous. I'd rather see range modifiers fixed than to have all the weapons with different combat ranges.

I do, however, like the whole stealthing idea with the radar. While I find the radar convenient, I wish it wasn't a part of the game (at least for PvP).

I agree with your range ideas, but I also think the radar should ge gone and only thing showing up on maps is buildings.

I like the idea of some MODEST range differences between weapons (I know people are going to find ways to exploit the differences, I just don't know how yet).

I think having a long range might break things though, I get the impression that things don't appear at longer ranges on the radar because the game would bog down if they did

Although well thought out and interesting to read....I couldn't agree less. I can see these 2 scenarios now without any trouble:

A: Overt Rifleman see's a little red dot at 128m away. Rifleman targets little red dot and gets closer to within range. Rifleman master using an Uber rifle uses /headshot3 or /mindshot2. Little red dot is now a little red splat starting to clone at the nearest facility. Little red dot says to self: "hrmm, **edit** was that?"

B: Overt BH is able to see his prey(little red dot)first with his special stealth/stealth detect abilities. /knockdown, /eyeshot, /eyeshot, /eyeshot, /knockdown, /eyeshot, /eyeshot, /eyeshot, /knockdown, /eyeshot, /eyeshot, /eyeshot.

Until each class is fixed/tweaked/balanced I'd absolutely hate to even see this toyed with on a test server. As I look at one of the more completed/tested classes(pistoleer) and then glance at our fix list...I then begin to imagine how long some of the other professions'(Commando) fix lists must be. At the rate we see fixes and the HUGE list of them(not including balancing) that needs to be addressed it will be months before even a watered down version of this should be seriously thought about. IMO

At least fix the pistol range so it's usless at 40+ meters and ditch the Radar and map so tha tyou can sneak up on someone or they on you.

Get rid of the Radar? I suppose you mean this in a PvP sense not PVE, because if the PVE radar were taken out it would be the last straw. One of the things that distinguishes SWG from DAoC in my mind is my ability to have an easy way to distinguish mobs from the background. Otherwise I'd turn my environmental graphics off and this game would be less than worthless.

Give bounty hunters stealth that works up to 16m? Sorry, that is the worst idea I have heard in a while.

I think the problem is that CERTAIN pistols are to accurate at max range. Scout blasters utterly suck at 64 meters, and I think this is how most pistols should be. However, the ammount of pistols being used in PvP seem to be FWG5s and scatter pistols. I am not sure about the scatter, but the FWG5 hits rather reliably at 64m. Pistols should have a normalized nerf in the max range department. Make thempretty much comparable to scout blasters max range. Then bring scout blaster accuracy up a bit. Right now, scouts are only good for spamming knockdowns. I have an FWG5(53-198) right now that witha 30% slice and powerup would hit 330 damage @ a 2 second delay. Scout blasters are a thing of the past.

Pistoleers are supposed to be the most accurate while moving. That is the perk of having a pocket sized weapon as compared to a cannon or a 3 foot long rifle. Keep our movement accuracy, nerf the max distance accuracy on the weapons themselves.

Past that, the only reason I think pistoleers are overpowered is because we still have disarming shot2. With out that, what are we going to do in PvP? Body shot2? Fan shot? We will be left with some PB skills on a ranged class, a marksman skill and a decent damage random pool attack. Now, if disarming shot2's functionality were changes, and knockdown was actualy made resistable, then that changes everything. I still think a ranged AoE knockdown is a bit to much. If it only lastedone second and had a 50% chance to work(before passive defense to knockdown), then it might actualy be acceptable. After all, that is about the only good skill we get. Pistoleers don't have the damage of carbine users, and don't have the ability to decimate the mind pool like riflemen. The only real perks in PvP is the accuracy and a bugged skill known as disarming shot2. Pistol whip is a usable skill in PvP, but do you really want to run straight at someone while pelting them with body shot2s as they are nailing you for 600+ damage with a carbine or destroyingyour most important HAM pool? Same can be said about all the PB skills. These are useful against brawlers, but that is a whole other subject that I am not going to delve into. My only experience with brawling was unarmed 4 to get smuggler.

I was just cruising your thread and saw this. I am a rifleman and barly have any pistol exp at all. But I completley agree with the range part of it. Most people would probably stop complaining alltogether about nerfing this and that if the range on each ranged weapons class was different. Maybe a max of45 for pistol 55 for carbine and 65 for rifle. With a change like that it would bemuch harder for people to scream nerf. Im sure a few other things would still need to be adjusted but I am 100% sure a change like that would make just about everyone happier.