Pistoleer Archive

With regards to the recent developer's comments about how the "con" system works.

I hear a lot of folks saying "Pistoleer is a working profession", "CH is a working profession"...

But with regards to the developers desire to make the CON system work where a white is a 50/50 proposition, how does the pistoleer profession, "work" with respect to this paradigm that the developers have.

Looking for constructive thoughts on the above information. Is a white CON target a 50/50 proposition for a pistoleer? If so it works with regards to the developers concept. If its a 100% win fight then it dosn't fit with what the developers have in mind.

I see the phrase "Working Profession" but the question remains. Working based upon who's definition? The game player or the designer?

Players use tht phrase, not developers.

Generally it seems to be a profession where at least some of the 'cool stuff' in the profession does what it's supposed to do, and is cool.

For combat, i'm pretty sure that any player that dies half the time against a white mob would consier their profession 'broken'

Agan.. Thats a player preception.. If the devs stated that they want white cons be a 50/50 proposition, and when a player states that their profession is working, but it breaks this paradigm the developers are going for, how can the profession truley be working as intended. Remember only the developers can define the term, working as intended... Not the players.

That's a really good question KenobiWan, and unfortunately I don't think there's a simple answer.

There is certainly the Dev / rule based definition:

- Can solo greens and blues, with right equipment and correct use of abilities, can kill whites, can't kill reds except maybe once in a blue moon.

- Takes at least xxxx amount of time to master, but not more than xxxx, based on data culled from the player population.

And other things like that.

Then there's the more player oriented views - things that aren't necessarily true, but we as players would like to be true (and hopefully the Devs do consider these as well):

- Each profession should have skills and abilities that are "useful", a way to gain experience using their own abilities, and a way to gain money using their own abilities.

- Each profession should have some form of uniqueness and something that they're best at - something that gives them a role in a group, guild, and the general economy / world.

- Each line in a profession and the master level should be "useful" and give players a reason to want to spend some of their valuable 250 skill points on them.

- Each profession should be fun to the types of players that would like to play it (a fighter type is never going to find crafting fun, but they should find the combat classes fun to play, and the crafters should find the crafting system enjoyable).

- And a real toughee to do - while the professions shouldn't be exact duplicates of each other (you don't want rifleman, carbineer, and pistoleer to be identical with different graphics), they also shouldn't be horribly unbalanced from each other either. Obviously a chef/tailer should never be as good a fighter as a combat profession, but the combat class should also have minimal if any ability to cook and create clothing. And no one of the crafting classes should be 10x as easy to gain exp in, or create items that are 10x as useful, etc... (you could argue that the crafting classes are pretty unbalanced currently...) The same of course goes for the combat classes. A well balanced group with some of each should be better over the course of a day than a group with all one profession in it, and no one profession should be better at everything combat oriented than the others, although each should also have their own strengths.

We have to remember too, who Kenobiwan is. He's the chap that has consistently posted things like:

"Nerf them till they are the most gimped combat profession in the game!"

On every board and designer post he can.

But that's just a little historical background. I'll be constructive and help you out:

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Kenobi,

By pistoleer profession, or rifleman profession, or BH profession...you need to elaborate, just as the designers need to elaborate. 50/50 on white con vs pistoleer is such a meaningless statement it surprises me that you use it. Well, no, it doesn't surprise me. Instead of crying nerf pistoleers, you should have been saying "nerf knockdown", because that was the ONLY thing pistoleers had that was superior (and it was WAY out of whack, everyone knows that).

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First, it depends on what skill boxes you takein what order. If you go up the speed line and use BS2 (marksman), you are probably FAR more effective than some idiot that went up the almost useless tactics line, and uses BS3. Huge differene in overall DPS, just from skill boxes taken, and BS2 does more damage over time. That's just one example.

Weapon choice. How much does weapon choice effect con? Does a 20-100 FWG5 give same mob con as 40-200 +32% max damage +16% min damage, sliced 32% damage...for instance? You can output 2-3x more damage just using better gear...of the same "type". If you stacked those two points alone, you could have one pistoleer that's say, 1x effective, and one, with the same XP, just better gear and better skill selection, at 6x effectiveness. Amazing isn't it? Same for all professions of course.

So you have medic skills and high stim B/C/D/E? Is your other profession a doctor and you're fully buffed? Buffs alone can turn a sure loss into an easy win.

Do you have CH and use invulnerable tank pets that have AR2/10K ham?

Do you use a droid tank?

I think you get the picture.

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All that aside, to answer your question, with knockdown delay (to opponent) being 5s, and 30s immunity to knockdown, my guess is yes, pistoleers will be balanced when it's an average pistoleer, with average weapons, average tactics. I recall the glory days before I had pistol melee defense, and the best XP was general blue con mobs, and the "ideal" was a very weak white con, usually a flying mob (foaming vynocks I recall were OK before knockdown). It also really depends on the mob AR/resists. Best was blue con usually because they were easy kills, and didn't leave me with a lot of downtime. Same went for rifles/carbines, as I worked those up too.

From what I've seen, pistoleers top-out in damage far below carbine/rifle professions can achieve through high speed/high DPS/high AR weapons (probably as it shoudl be). And DPS, aside from other skills that aren't related like CH/medic/doc/CM, etc., etc., is one of the biggest balance factors. Carbine gets ranged KD and dizzy, we get melee KD, rifles get dizzy, we can all get posture change, rifles cant stim pack regen mind, carbines/pistols can, etc. With the knockdown changes, pistoleers cannot spam AE KD and win the day any longer (when its patched), and without being able to spam pistol whip, PvE will be a whole new interesting experience.

It's interesting that you say "balance" when you say "even chance vs a white con". I can think of one profession in particular that can bring to bear 2 red con mobs vs a player...which leaves your definition of balance, putting them in an interesting spot...

I was tired of seeing Pistoleers post on my class forum, so it was an outburst on my part, and I ask that it be placed in the past.

Well, I can certainly understand that. I'm pretty tired of seeing trolls/flames on our forum, especially when the majority of folks here are pretty cool and level-headed.

Anyway, all that aside, the developers have an interesting delimma. I have seen games balanced using this metric, for both PvE and PvP. PvP of course adds additional balancing, but the core balance was determined by testing combat classes vs appropriate con mobs, and weighing downtime, time it takes to kill the mob, etc. Some classes might take forever to kill a mob, but might incur 0 downtime, while others might kill with amazing speed, and then have to sit around for minutes waiting for stats to regen. I've seen it be successful to a large degree.

However, they didnt' have the HUGE number of variables SWG has with things like the wide variation of skill combinations, pets, droids, the huge variability in gear crafting/powerup/armor/shields, etc. Multi-professions games are notoriously hard to balance.

I'm just not sure such a simple metric is possible. With good medic skills alone, I suspect you can jump from white con to yellow con. Stat migration tailored to yourperson needs can also have a hugeimpact on overall downtime. Does this mean the combat profession in question is overpowered? Or that combat needs to be reduced to account for healing. But what if they dont want healing? It starts to get messy.

I don't see it any time soon, and I think at LEAST you'd need a range of con that is appropriate, depending on skill choice/equipment, etc. Sorry, if I get buffs, I will HAVE to take higher con mobs, otherwise, buffs are useless, no?

Long and short is, I think with the knockdown nerf, you and I and everyone playing will see a huge shift in PvE balance, in favor of the mobs. After the fall-out of that hits, then we can start seeing what's tough, and what's not.

Definition of working proffession=not SWG

Look on the bright side

World of Warcraft comes out soon, and it looks freaking unbelievable.

Sorry about you pistoleers getting screwed. I feel your pain as a worthless TKM.

Now another class will "seem" more powerful and it will get nerfed next, till we are all worthless.

Enough of this game for me, just waiting for the WoW beta to start

Jaegen,

I guess you must have a great memory.. Yes I said that. And yes it was a tirade... And I ask that we call a truce. I was tired of seeing Pistoleers post on my class forum, so it was an outburst on my part, and I ask that it be placed in the past.

Now on to the topic at hand. Due to the flexability of SW:G.. we are placed in a position where people who take skills in disparate professions make some very potent combinations. It still dosn't answer to the overall game design that the developers are trying to achieve with respect to combat. There will be a lot of dissapointed people as their skills are toned back to help the developers achieve a true "con" system.

We cant think of a profession as a whole. We have to look at what can be done with the 250 skill points. Some might argue that this might be too generous a point total in respect to the skill cost.

But even looking past this. If we are able to kill a white con solo, with just one skill from a given profession 100 percent of the time, that skill in the eyes of the developers will be looked at since it alone causes an issue with their design intent of a 50/50 fight.

You then have to go to the next logical step. If a professions skill set makes a white con encounter a trivial event, the skill set will be looked at.

This then leads to the final step. If a mix of professions make a white counter a trivial event, the devs will look at how to make the use of the combination of skills unatainable, via changing pre-reqs. Lowering skill point pools or increasing skill point requirements based upon spent points. (ie If you have a combat profession learned, the costs for medic skills are doubled..)

This is just an observation that I believe might come to pass and something all must think of when one states that theirprofession is "working"