Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Recompiling the Top 5 Issues
biwan:
Message Edited by Kevie on 03-24-2004 12:33 AM
Its a good list, but I would make one change. The DX2, one assumes is being looked at in the combat revamp with the other weapons.
My suggestion is we desperatly need an increase in accuracy. Plain and simple, even whiling moving at point blank, someone with a measly +50 ranged defense can be hard to hit, get above 90, and its near impossible for us to even land a shot. With defenses supposedly capped at 125, you basically have taken pistoleer out of commision. Look at it this way, we miss, ALOT, and we are slow with any decent pistol. So, we are stuck in the situation where every shot counts, especially when we are unbuffed(with the new ham system removing the ability to spam specials in mind), but in the end are forced to spam our shots to come to an expedeint conclusion to many fights. INCREASE OUR ACCURACY. If you increased our accuracy to say 110, still I beleive the lowest in the game, that would greatly help, (although 120 would be better 
) and our speed, and fix our specials, you dont nessisarly have to boost our damage. We would be able to consistently hit our targets, very fast, chipping away at anyone. As it is now, its kind of a mixed bag, even with the supposed defense cap, with a accuracy made pistol there are still some templates I just plain cant hit to save my life. This I beleive needs to be adressed, and is more important then the DX2 issue, again because I assume the pistol will get its fix in the upcomming weapons revamp in publish 8.
Message Edited by Taewyn on 03-24-2004 01:10 AM
Taewyn wrote:
Chance to Hit = 0.66 + (Accuracy Skill Mods - Ranged Defense Skill Mods + Weapon Range Mod - Target Posture Mod)/2 + (Shooter Posture Mod) + (Special Move Mod) + (Target State Mod)
Thats the to hit formula.....
Message Edited by Randonb on 03-24-2004 04:05 AM
well any pistoleer (master or not) knows all too well that without specials we have no chanse at all.
even in the discription of our professionsay
"The Pistoleer gains significant improvements in short-range firearms along with a series of special abilities for nearly every situation."
Randonb wrote:
We will soon be asked again what our Top 5 Issues are (yes, before the Combat Balance). I recognize that not much has changed since Philosopher1976 compiled our current list in December, but I wanted to make sure we discuss the matter thoroughly. Here is our old list:
1) Almost all of our specials are broken or useless.
2) Our pistol (DX2) is worse than Marksman pistols and is not used by most players.
3) Our defenses don't work.
4) The way speed works in the game is completely screwed up.
5) We are not fast enough with our weapon at the master level.
Specials: Our specials are outlined in Status of Pistoleer Specials. As you can see, they are still mostly broken or useless. I fully expect this to be a Top5 Issue again this time around.
The DX2: The accuracy of our DX2 pistol was recently improved for ideal range. Is it now good enough to be removed from the list?
Defenses: They got buffed up some time ago along with most other combat professions. What are your thoughts? Ranged/Melee defense don't seem to work as well as advertised, our Dodge animation is still tripping us up, and State Defenses don't seem to win any battles unless stacked. The state effects just get spammed, and it sticks after a couple of attempts regardless.
As near as I can tell, ranged/melee defense works something like this, but it is unconfirmed:
Accuracy of opponent - Defense of player = to hit modifier. Because of this, acharacter with 126 accuracy (defense caps at 125)will always have positiveaccuracy modifiersno matter who they are facing. Only TKA, Riflemen, and Carbineers have greater than 125 accuracy. Our 45 Melee Defense is overcome by even the most inaccurate hybridbrawler profession right at the novice box, and our 7 Ranged Defense is overcome by a Marksman.
Even if we are wrong on how it works, the end result is the same - there is no detectable difference in hit rate when facing a Master Pistoleer or a Chef, if you take out the Dodge (dodge only rolls when a hit is imminent). Ranged/Melee defense is doing next to nothing for us in PvP.
Speed: The equation is the same as it was in December. Nothing new to say here. For an oldthread outlining the system and some of it's ugliness, click here.
We aren't fast enough: This goes hand in hand with item #4. Something I wanted to talk about is the speed cap. It is placed at 1 second for server stability reasons, and isn't going away any time soon. Increasing our speed would help, but there isn't a ton of room to improve. There is some, but I don't think we can fix our DPS byraising speed alone without causing us to ignore the speed stat on weapons (generally regarded as a Bad Idea). We might have to look at it in the other direction as well: Increasing our damage.
So I have3 questions for you all:
1) Can any of these items be removed from the list?
2) What would replace the items we remove, if any?
3) From the ones that we want to keep, what new information do we want to reflect?
Specials: Our specials are outlined in Status of Pistoleer Specials. As you can see, they are still mostly broken or useless. I fully expect this to be a Top5 Issue again this time around.
This should be #1a in the list of issues that you present to the devs.
Other then Stopping / Fanshot / BodyShot3/ PMD....how many people use other specials?
Same question as above, but throw in someone who has also taken the Rogue line of Smuggler....
I personally only use FanShot in PvE, and unless I accidently hit my Stopping Shot function key...always use Last Ditch. As for PMD...once you hit Dirty Fighting 3 and get Low Blow, your need to use this goes way down (especially since against a master melee person, you miss more then hit...and with the 3 sec KD Cap [since there is no dizzy] the person gets shot at [not hit] 1 maybe 2 times.
I believe that we need to get some state based specials....not only is Last Ditch the most powerful pistol attack in the game (damage modifier wise), but it also Stuns an enemy....which as most vet. PvPers know is a key to winning battles...
We could use a nice Dizzy or Blind attack (Eyeshot, not only attacks the mind, but blinds....which like stun changes the outcome of a battle)......an intimidate would also be nice, but I believe thats more melee based.
Rifleman have - stun, dizzy, posture changes
Carbineer have - Dizzy, kd, posture changes (that I know of)
Pistoleers have - none
Number 1b that I think should be presented to the devs on our part is the speed issue. I am sure we all here know the following, but lets state it again:
Master Rifleman - 90 Speed
Master Pistoleer - 74 Speed
Master Carbineer - 60 Speed
Throw in Master Marksman and you get +5 to each of these stats, but that helps Rifleman much more then the other two professions.
My thoughts (and I have posted and talked about this since August) is to revamp these settings to:
Master Pistoleer - 90 speed (We are supposed to be Fast and Inaccurate from anywhere other then melee range)
Master Carbineer - 80 Speed (Moderate Speed - Moderate Acc)
Master Rifleman - 70 Speed (Slower Speed - Higher Acc)
Add in Master Marksman and you get +5 again to all.
I don't want this to turn into a nerf the other ranged professions post, because thats not what it is...
Whether or not they adjust the speed mods that you get for the Master Level Ranged Professions, I believe another way to get around this would be to give a ToHit minus or delay to the professions....such as:
Pistoleer - 1 Shot per second at Master
Carbineer - 1 Shot per 1.75 Seconds
Rifleman - 1 Shot per 2-2.5 seconds
Capping Rifles at 1 Shot per 3 seconds would put there Damage Per second way to low, and thats not fair to them....
Doing a decimal number and not whole numbers should provide at least a little change, but not a game breaking one.
Other then the above 2 changes (which I am guessing will be looked at in the next 2 publishes) and maybe the addition of new weapons (since I almost never use my DX2 - because both my Sonic Blaster and Republic Blaster have better stats) I think Pistoleer will be much better off after the combat rebalence then before it.
Thoughts?
Dubious' list of pistoleer issues:
1) the creation of redundant health targeted attacks with the bleed DOT "fix"
Healthshot and bodyshot are one in the same now
2) Speed needs to work
the short term fix is get us to +90 speed at master so we at least will be as good speedwise as a rifleman but combat is getting rebalanced soon so who knows
3) Lack of "hunting" viability
We dont have enough damage or armor piercing to really do all that much to a nightsister elder or a krayt because they are so armored. we cant tank them either.
4) accuracy isnt good enough.
We should be the most accurate from short range. we arent.
The dx2 and every other pistol should be "+50" accuracy inside 20 meters
5) ranged defense too low
ranged defense isnt all that great for a pistoleer and that hurts us very badly considering most of the time we are trying to make space between our opponents and us, making most of the damage we incur ranged damage.
Message Edited by Doobeous on 03-24-2004 11:44 AM
It's really tough to say without knowing what specifically the Combat Revamp is going to address in terms of balancing things. There are hints and allusions to the mind pool not playing as great a role as it does now for example. That will effect rifles which in turn will effect us and carbineers somehow.
In general these issues are important regardless of the revamp.
- Fix the specials. obvious
- Speed issues vs the other ranged classes.
- My pet peeve... why should the most often given response to "how do I get better with pistols" be pick up DF or BH Pistols? Personally, DF and BH pistols need to be separated somehow from Pistoleer. I won't even go into how I think they screwed up Smuggler by adding pistol skills as a necessary part of advancing in that profession.