Pistoleer Archive

Okay, I've read ThisIsTheMatrix's post on Dual Wielding, it's a nice plan, but it's not very flexible and I disagree with giving dual wielding abilities to Novice Marksmen. My Idea is similar, but far more flexible.

At Novice Pistoleer you gain the ability Dual Wield and gain +10 Offhand Pistol Accuracy. You now get a submenu off of Equip on the pistol radial, Equip in Offhand. You should only be able to equip a weapon in your offhand if you are certified for a) the weapon you want to equip and b) the weapon in your primary hand. We know you can equip a weapon you aren't certified for in your primary hand, doing so should stop you from being able to wield a weapon in your offhand.

Offhand Pistol accuracy would be gained in the Pistoleer Marksmanshiptree, upto a maximum of 60 or 80 at Master (you should never be as accurate with your offhand)

Each pistol will have an experimentable Offhand Accuracy Modifier, this has two values, a penalty/bonus for firing in your off-hand and a penalty for your primary weapon whendual wielding, something like this:

-5/-10 -5 to offhand accuracy, -10 to primary weapon accuracy

0/-15 No penalty/bonus for offhand, -15 to primary weapon accuracy

+10/0 +10 to offhand accuracy, no penalty to primary

The min/max values for these would be different for each weapon, for example a Featherweight FWG5 would have bonuses to offhand and low penalties to primary, a DE-10 would have high penalties to both. Having these experimentable means that if you want a really accurate offhand weapon you have to sacrifice damage experimentation, that's the price you pay when you dual wield, accuracy or damage.

Okay, so we now know how accurate we are and how we dual wield, so how do we allow two different weapons at once? Simple we fire both weapons at the same time, rather than alternating, the speed of fire is based on the slower of the two weapons (we use Pistol Speed for both hands), and we do two seperate combat rolls at the same time, one for each hand, using the appropriate accuracy. This is all well and good for auto fire, but what about specials.

Each special needs to be divided into one of three groups:

Single Weapon (only uses the primary weapon, can be done whilest dual wielding but only primary is fired)

Single/Dual (uses both if equipped, works with a single weapon)

Dual Weapon (can only be used whilest dual wielding)

All current bleeds and status affecting specials should use a single weapon only, i.e. HealthShot1/2 PistolMeleeDefence, possibly current AoE attacks should only use 1 weapon as well, this is a balance issue since AoE specials could become massively overpowered if used with two weapons at once.

The rest of the normal specials would fall under this, both weapons are used to do the same special each weapon dealing it's own damage, perhaps thebase 1.5x multiplier should be removed from these specials when dual wieldingto stop targetted shots (like bodyshot) from becoming overpowered (however compared to riflemen this is probably not a major concern)

Here's where dual wielding could shine, specials that require two weapons, to use these you need to be wielding two weapons of the same type (not sure if this should be damage, or weapon based, weapon is easier to check, and probably easiest to understand).

Here are a few ideas for dual weapon specials

Dual Fan - Like fan shot except that the fan is now 180 degrees infront of the player,two 90 degree cones, starting straight ahead and fanning out left and rightwith the two weapons, those on the right are hit by the primary, those on the left by the offhand weapon.

Body Blast - Using two weapons with AP1 we get a special that combines the AP of the two weapons, we all know about our lack of armor piercing gating access to high end content, this would be a slow shot (taking the fact that it's a highly aimed shot), the damage calculated by adding the mins and maxes of the two weapons. HAM costs wouldbe the sum ofthe weapons, and most importantly AP is calculated byadding the AP of the two weapons (the idea is that you're aiming the two weapons at a single point on the armor, and firing the two in quick succession, so the second hits the same point on the armor where we've just weakened it, I did concider calling this shot Armor Hole, after the infamous armor bug), the speed comes from the slower of the two weapons, and the accuracy from the offhand accuracy.

Disorientating Shot - This shot causes minimal damage, and inflicts a dizzy state on the target. Something like Unarmed Dizzy this shot causes two shots to fly past either side of the enemies head, causing disorientation, but not much damage.

I'm sure there are other ideas for dual wield specials, I've seen some ideas kicking around.

Okay here's where people are getting stuck, how do we handle BH and Commando pistols for dual wielding, well I have to say that neither profession specialises in Pistols, if they want the ability to dual wield they'll have to take Pistoleer, thereshould be no accuracy modifiers in either BH or commando fordual wielding, and since the system is designed to only allow dual wielding of weapons you are certified for if a BH or Commando takes pistoleer to use this ability then they can dual wield their ownpistols (I would imagine that the Launcher Pistol would have major accuracy hits to both offhand and primary accuracy, given the nature of the weapon, however it's a pistol and so shouldn't be discounted from dual wielding, it wouldjust be really difficult to use whilest dual wielding)

This idea is designed to give us a method of wielding two weapons at once, taking differing weapon speeds and damage types into account, it also allows weaponsmiths new options when crafting weapons, and a new line of Offhand weapons to sell. There are some balancing issues to take into account, but if this or something like it is done during the Combat Revamp then these issues can be covered at the same time.

Nostaw Dudley
Master BH, Master Pistoleer
Theed,Naboo, Eclipse
Cancelled 11/25/05 - Expires 01/17/06

____________________________________________________________________
Jerriks Calhok

I am a ranged bounty hunter, and enjoy it. Does that make me masochistic?

I'm glad this is hasn't been forgotten, especially as I will be MBH/MP soon. I'm guessing that it's going to take a while to implement as it involved a lot of work on animations etc. Any thoughts on when this might become a reality rather than a pipe dream?