Pistoleer Archive

1) UPCOMING COMBAT BALANCE: Thunderheart has just announced the Devs' new four-part revamp of the SWG combat system in this post. Thunderheart's post is extremely important to read, and everyone should go take a look at it. It sounds really good to me. I don't know what it means for us specifically, but it sounds like big changes are on the horizon. I'll keep you guys up-to-date with the latest.

2) TEST CENTER CHANGES (OR LACK THEREOF): As most of you know, before Thanksgiving I made a post that detailed two big changes that had appeared on TestCenter -- a new HAM system and a new "damage mitigation" ability. Both of these changes will NOT be in the next patch, because they both caused balance issues and the Devs felt that they needed more time to tweak them. These changes will likely arrive in the future, in some form, so you might want to check out this thread for more info.

3) ARMOR PIERCING RUMORS: If you've taken a look at the Rifleman forum lately, you might have read about rumors that armor piercing is going to be changed in the next patch in a way that nerfs Riflemen. Those rumors are NOT true. The Devs ARE NOT nerfing armor piercing, reviewing armor piercing, or anything of the sort. There is NO CHANGE to armor piercing planned in the next patch or being proposed by the Devs. There was just some miscommunication from the Correspondents. That said, maybe there ARE some problems with armor piercing -- if you want to test and run data, post your stuff here and I'll re-post it on Correspondent Forum. The Devs are open to looking at armor piercing at some point, so if it's not working correctly we should get them data so it's fixed. If anyone has questions about how AR is supposed to work, I can answer those in a separate thread -- the "Armor Guide" equations are wrong, but the right equations have been public for a while now.

4) COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEVS: As I mentioned in my last Update post, before Thanksgiving I received an initial response from Thunderheart to the "Top 5 Issues" list he asked me to prepare a month ago. He also responded to the other professions, and the Correspondents have all responded back to him. I posted a very long and detailed response to him shortly after his initial answers were posted, and supposedly he's going to respond back to me at some point and we'll have a back-and-forth about our issues before coming up with a final conclusion. This looks like it's going to take a while for him to do, so don't hold your breath waiting for answers. *shrug*

5) DEFENSES: I have no new news on defenses. The TKA Correspondent and I have both asked the Devs to give us info, particularly on whether defenses stack, and we haven't received a response from them. I want to run more tests myself, since the Devs aren't giving us any new info, and I'll do that when I have the time.

6) FAN SHOT NERF (OR LACK THEREOF): There have been a couple of recent posts asking about a future FanShot nerf. As far as I know, FanShot is *not* going to be changed or nerfed in the future. Prior to the *last* patch, the AOE was taken off of FanShot on TestCenter. I was concerned about it, made a bunch of posts on Correspondent Forum, but received no reply. Then magically the AOE was back in before the patch went Live. The AOE is still on FanShot on Live and on TestCenter, so I think the removal of AOE was just a bug. We can breathe easy about that.

7) REPUBLIC BLASTER: Just because people still ask about this, here's the lowdown on the Republic Blaster. The Republic Blaster is now usable by ANYONE, even non-Marksman, without needing a certification. Now that many pistols have been nerfed it's probably the best pistol in the game. It has similar damage to a pre-nerf FWG5 but it's AR1 and spits out energy damage. IMPORTANT NOTE: Only new Republic Blasters work. Republic Blasters made before the latest patch still tell you that you're not certified to use them. I've asked the Devs to A) tell us how you get the certification, B) move the certification to the Pistoleer tree, and C) hotfix the old Republic Blasters so they work. No response.

8) NEW VERSION OF FAQ: We really need to update our FAQ, since it's out-of-date. Is anyone interested in helping me with this? I'll try to do it this week if I have time ... I've just been really busy at work. Let me know if you have facts that you want to add ... I know there's a bunch of stuff we need to update.

Message Edited by Philosopher1976 on 12-04-2003 06:09 PM

Message Edited by Philosopher1976 on 12-04-2003 06:47 PM

Thanks for the update, Philosopher.

At least somebody on these forums is trying to keep us in the loop -loopy as that loop may be.

This just in:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=14605#M14605

---

electricnomad wrote:

This just in:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=14605#M14605

---

Dang!!! Okay, I'm going to edit the original post now.

thanks Samra, its nice not to have to scour the board looking for updates and TC changes, since I dont get on here too much

keep up the good work,

This HAM thing still makes me nervous. We could end up having our spamming ability reduced to that of an unbuffed Rifleman, while retaining the weak damage of the Pistoleer. Meanwhile, those heavy damage classes that currently are held back only by HAM costs gain a big boost -- combined with a creature rebalance it could be a de facto nerf to us.

THs post was great. Looks awesome.

I like that thing about the "low level T21s and high level T21s" of cours not only for the T21

On the defenses issue, a nerf alert:

There is a ton of chatter on the Fencer and other Brawler class forums about Master Pistoleer+Master Fencer + CoB defense, with some saying that this combo cannot be hit (except by flame cone, AOE Combat Medic stuff, and the like). Some on those boards even consider this the uber-template in the entire game, and have already concluded that this template has to be nerfed.

Now, my character is still well away from the Master Fencer box, so I cannot determine for myself whether any of this is true. And still no one has posted much real data on the matter (% hit/miss/dodge charts and the like); we here on the Pistoleer forum supply a highly disproportionate amount of the real statistics that people post on these forums, and we still need a lot more. Furthermore, people have also posted a number of other templates, taking mods from Rifleman, Swordsman, TKA and elsewhere that might be just as effective as the more obvious Pistoleer/Fencer one, so just because we are involved in one of the more obvious theoretical nerfs, it does not mean that others should be exempt either.

Anyway, the worst thing that the devs could do is something like halving both classes defenses. Another rather blunt solution would be to completely unstack the defenses, or stick an arbitrary cap on their effectiveness. I do not like these solutions because cross-classing is something that should be encouraged in the game; neither of these two classes is great on their own -- they are easily inferior to Rifleman or TKA, respectively; if you spend the skill points to master two combat professions it is not unreasonable to expect some synergy. Better perhaps would be a diminished effectiveness, maybe half effectiveness,for the defensive contributionof the weapon not currently held -- for example when holding a Pistol you get 157 Dodge -- better than the 105 for Master Pistoleer alone, but not as good as the current 210 combined from both classes. Or something; this presuming, again, that a nerf be necessary at all, which may or may not be true.

So, just something to look out for.

the idea of just making the skill not as important after +105 sounds like a good one to me, as I had personally considered this template until I discovered I enjoyed being a Ranger. What we'd need to find to simplify the process is an effective forumla so the devs don't need to spend 5 months figuring one out on their own and in the mean time completely nerfing the ability to stack mods from classes.

---

Tullius_Cicero wrote:

On the defenses issue, a nerf alert:

---

Thanks Tullius -- you've been one of the best posters on the forum lately, keep it up. I am aware of this issue, and I have some news on defenses.I also have to edit my original post because TH screwed up when he said that Damage Mitigation is coming out of the next patch. It's in and I'll edit my post to reflect that, as well as start a thread to discuss Damage Mitigation. It's a pretty big deal and I need to make sure everyone on this forum knows what's going to happen.

But right now I'm busy with something else, so give mea little bit oftime ... I just got to work 30 minutes ago, I've got stuff to do for work,and I'm trying to write a big post for Correspondent Forum. So give me a little bit of time and I'll update you guys.

Thanks for keeping us informed!