Rifleman Archive
Thread: A Veteran Player's Thoughts on Rifleman
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SatansCircus
Tue Mar 02, 2004 12:55 am
#1
I'll start by listing my credentials, I started playing the first week or two of launch. The very first profession I ever wanted to be was a rifleman. Partly because the strategy guide made all the professions sound much cooler then they were but mostly because I wanted to be the lone sniper, tramping through the wilds, one shot one kill the whole deal. This turned out to be one of many fatal errors I made when starting this game, another being I chose a Wookiee. Who knew the the battle raging powerful Wookiee race had been reduced to teddy bears? I sure as hell sh*t didn't. Anyway that's another topic in itself. So there I began on my road to a rifleman ranger.
Months and months passed without the production of our expert weapon the T21 (described in the strategy guide as a repeater rifle) and when it finally showed up they were over 200k credits. I know that doesn't sound like much now but back then it was a small fortune for anyone who wasn't a weaponsmith. Aside from that they were far from being a repeater rifle (and still are).
Armed with my sub-par weaponry (laser rifles, tusken rifles ect.) and a 2.5x melee damage modifier I was never informed of, I sought to make the best of it and did what I could as an unarmored wookiee with a few broken ranger traps and my trusty tusken rifle.
One night I was feeling particularly brash and decided to play my forseen role as the lone sniper. I took up a laser rifle went overt in AH and headed north to Bestine. I began to circle the perimeter of the city in search of targets, I spotted a few, worked myself into position and blew their heads off with one swift shot. This was to be the one and only night I truly felt like a rifleman, since soon after the 75% PvP damage reduction went live.
Thoroughly crippled by that fateful patch I stuck to PvE. Although this was proving to be equally unfulfilling. Since most creatures are melee and my unarmored wookiee ass exposed to the world this was very difficult even with doc buffs. The 2.5x dmg modifier was 100% unjustified and really took away all the fun I could have been having. This and the PvP reduction effectively killed my vision of the lone sniper, and to top things off our one move most dedicated to this idea "Conceal Shot" would alert every agro in the area but the person you were shooting at. You can start to see how frustrating this was becoming for me.
With my initial plans crumbling to dust in my hands, and my recent reading of the "Han Solo Trilogy" I decided to drop ranger (2 days before they fixed it) and take up smuggler (which I still am today). Bearing the frustration as long as I could, and talk of nerfing rifleman even then,I finally gave up rifleman and took up commando as well. After grinding commando and coming to the realization of how worthless my wookiee actually was in combat I took a break, made some toons on other servers which opened my eyes to the wookiee plight,and eventually got my hands on a second account and createda Zabrak toon in hopes of returning to my original desire to be a rifleman.
Now I have a new toon pursuing this profession, and once again I hear talk about nerfing, it really got me thinking of what the real problems with the profession are. What I concluded is that the rifleman profession is one giant fallacy.
How are we supposed to be stealthy snipers when there is a radar that cannot be bypassed, or someone can simply hit tab and target you through terrain? How can we counter-snipe (which we have an entire skill tree dedicated to) when there is no sniping to begin with, not to mention the fact that going prone in combat equals certain death. What sense would it make to cap the speed of a master rifleman? Some masters we would be huh?
There are several other small points to be made but since this is already getting too long, these are the MAIN reasons why a rifleman cannot work in SWG without sacrificing what it means to be a rifleman/sniper.
I do have some ideas but I'll let this sit with you for now, I apologize for making this so long but this has been bothering me for a while, and I thank you for reading the entire post.
Onichi
Tue Mar 02, 2004 3:49 pm
#2
/salute
Great post!
I too chose a Wookiee Toon and knew I wanted to be a Rifleman from the day I signed up, I only caught the tail end of the 2.5x melee Damagemodifier and broken conceal shot. Leveling was a challenge, especially getting to Novice and the levels before I had an area attack. I think I became Master a few weeks after we were fixed up.
Peace.
WookieeTumble
Tue Mar 02, 2004 9:08 pm
#3
You're not the only wookiee of launch who picked a nerfed Profession. Lol. Remember Commando back then. Wow, couldn't kill a jawa with my heavy weapons. Not to mention as you stated our bare asses with no armor. This is a very good post though. It opens my eyes on a rifleman (which I've been working on lately).
Bountywookie24
HARP00N
Tue Mar 02, 2004 10:54 pm
#4
i remember pvp before the75% pvp damage reduction... man that was awesome. You hurt the enemies mind more than your own HAM 
Yettii_TUS
Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:36 am
#5
I started playing on day 2 as a wookiee. Rifleman was my goal since the moment I logged in. I took some time off which is why I'm still not master but I do know the gripes you speak of.
Really it all comes down to enjoying the game, and hoping the devs don't do anything to make that more difficult.... As far as being lied to, well, I don't really think they lie outright. Look at how complex the game is and how much "information" has been created because of it. Perhaps it is just too huge and no one person has a grasp on it all, so they let misinformation slip from time to time because it's almost impossible to proofread everything and understand every system in the game.
The prime example for me personally is that they used to say wookiees would be wearing armor at some point. Oh well that's what doc buffs and synthsteak are for.
Shandale_Arlan
Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:57 am
#6
I've been a rifleman ever since the days when people laughed at me for choosing a "broken" profession. After my increadibly long grind to master I have found that all the grind was worthwhile. Although it is impossible for us to be snipers with the current set up, I enjoy rifleman very much.
Barb-Wire
Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:16 am
#7
well i would like to correct ya on something: your first mistake was buying the strategy guild
those strategy guilds for mmorpgs are more like a roadmap to failure. however if you like to be challenged and doing things in the hardest way possible those guildes excel in that advice.
those strategy guilds for mmorpgs are more like a roadmap to failure. however if you like to be challenged and doing things in the hardest way possible those guildes excel in that advice.
demmoc
Wed Mar 03, 2004 10:11 am
#8
Great post..... I have been a master rifleman for 3 months now and don't see how we will survive if they nerf us. I had a duel in the Coronet starport last night with a friend. I was buffed, had on my comp armor, and +600 or so vasarian brandy in my brain. I won, with no contest, but he still did 1400 points of dammage to my health. He is a novice pistoleer with a270 max Republic blaster, no armor, no buffs. Oh yeah, did i mention he is a master cheff? The reason he did so much damage to me was because he knows my weakness is my range. He just stayed right on my a@@ the whole time and wouldn't let me get outside of 10 meters from him. And now we are going to get nerfed? Ok, we may have some shots that are a little to powerful, but hell, that is to account for our lack of close combat. Anything within 20 meters of us and we are dead in pvp. At least there will be fewer rifleman after the nerf. At least one less for sure. I may take up dancing or something hehe.
In memory of Oreet, the greatest Rodian ever
SatansCircus
Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:33 pm
#9
The stategy guide was actually pretty helpful when the game first came out, it had nice maps and descriptions of all the planets and cities including trainers and all that. With all the updates though the info became pretty outdated since most of it was from beta. Anyway I was suckered into buying it from some little punk at Gamestop.
beamstalk
Wed Mar 03, 2004 3:09 pm
#10
SatansCircus wrote:
The stategy guide was actually pretty helpful when the game first came out, it had nice maps and descriptions of all the planets and cities including trainers and all that. With all the updates though the info became pretty outdated since most of it was from beta. Anyway I was suckered into buying it from some little punk at Gamestop.
yeah those gamestop bastards got me too
SatansCircus
Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:42 pm
#12
I would have gotten it at EB but they were sold out so I sucked it up went to Gamestop.
Tinnitus
Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:24 pm
#13
The strategy guide said that commandos would be the gods of the battlefields....Broken profession for a broken feature. It also said commandos could use E-Web blasters.(those kickass gats the snowtroopers used in the attack on Hoth) Yea that was really worth the money...
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