Rifleman Archive

Well, after several attempt today to try do something constructive today I finally logged off the server more than abit depressed over the time I have put in to my character. When I first bought this game and read what I would be able to be, the first and only combination that made sense to who how I see myself and my style of gaming to be the Rifleman/Ranger line. While everyone dropped this profession or that profession to run to the latest thing, I keep telling my friends that I was happy with where I was. I never jumped track. Just put my head down and bullied my way up to the next box on my way to novice Rifleman and novice Ranger. Heard about the exploits, decided that at the end of the day I would appreciate where my character was if I did it the right way. Call that silly if you want, but I have to admit to a certain amount of pride in a "Clean" character. I also read the forums to try to keep up with what is happening with my professions and the game in general. When the T21 was altered, I didn't feel particularly impacted as it had been been 3 months or so since the launch of the game and Ahazi still doesn't have the resources to make that weapon. But I realised that when I finally was able to obtain one I would not be using the weapon I had read about but one that merely looked like a T21. So far, that doesn't bother me enough to want to quit this game. Slow as the climb has been, I have steadly worked on rifleman skills. I am a mere 3-1-1-2 in the rifleman tree. I believe this is more to do with the fact that my rifle is all that I have to defend myself with. 2.5x melee dmg. Most creatures of xp to resource parity to my character (And I include my Ranger 3-3-4-4 tree in that as well) All mob, kill, warp, or in some fashion negate any benafit of what skills I have aquired in rifleman. The biggest boon to my struggle has been looking forward to the eventual special actions I get as I move up. Well, now those specials that would have made me able to atleast attempt to stand at parity have become a novel way for me to try to ineffectually break contact before I get killed. I understand the developers would like to slow the rate of xp climb for classes, but power gamers will always be around. You cannot stop someone that wants to grind from grinding. When you target a specific class of player with changes that effect the whole game system, you are crippling those that are casual gamers more than you convince power grinders to switch to your vision of game play. I would like to know the reason behind being forced to group to make the most of my character? You still have my 15 a month, why not allow me to retain the skills I need to make the most of my money. I'm not even mad really, just rather depressed with the whole thing. Was the potential for PVP exploitation from the riflemen as they orginally where so huge that we have been penalised so much? From what I have gathered, we have been the extreme minority for combat related classes. Even lower than the pre-patched commandos and yet enough people made an outcry over the handful that threw their hands into the pvp arena that the whole line was revised. Can you not specifically target a certain special to not be over powered or unfairly used? If so, why have ALL effects that cause a delay in our being killed been worked over.

You must realise that with the way things stand now, you have sentenced every non-master rifleman to a hellish existence of fighting creatures lower than their own theoretical level for longer than any other combat related profession without the benefit of providing us with something to actually look forward to. I have asked a Master Rifleman what life at the top is like and he admited it was sweet. On further discussion with him on how it was made so sweet I find that the most we can look forward to is increased speed. For me speed was not the problem. Meager specials and the hurting of the one obvious plus to us...dmg where always my main concern. Well

Anyway, I guess this turned out to be a rant after all. Holocron, you have my money and my time. I have invested enough of my private life to this game to want to see it through to the end no matter how depressed over the whole thing I get. And I will continue to follow the line I have chosen to the end, but I also realise that I will never believe you have our gaming enjoyment at heart again. I do believe you want this to be the best game you have every worked on and that you are serious about wanting to make this game into more of your vision of an online star wars world, but I feel that customer satisfaction rates lower on your development criteria then more effective ways of making this game take longer to master. People complain of no high-end content after mastering. After what has been done to my profession, I realise that the most high-end content I can aspire to is simply reaching master. As for those of you that have made master already I ask you this, would you be so happy with your profession if you where at the bottom rung looking up at what you had to work toward and the eventual payoff or would you go the easier route with all the others? Never mind that as a ranger, to get the most out of my character I NEED TOHUNT ALONE TO GET THE MOST OF THE RESOURCES I CAN HARVEST, thanks to the 60% cap with groups. So on an average gaming day, I can either group to get better rifle xp and advance at an acceptable pace or I can hunt alone and get more resources and better xp do to the fact that I am the only one dmg'ing the creature and fighting novice level creatures or I can spend the downtime hunting for something that doesn't pack and pray that I get all successes before it reaches me.

Ignore this whole post, I am merely depressed to day over the uselessness of my character.

Yea its sad... I'm only going up (3,0,0,0) and marksmen with pistol III laugh at me when thugs outside of coronet jump and kill me. Sure they were impressed with hte 2000 damage headshot on one of the thugs but that was negated by the instant melee death of the other 5 warping thugs. Sure if I had lived another 4 seconds to recharge a shot I might have killed another, wait, probably not becuase I'd miss.

This has to be the MOST sound and *From the Heart* post I have seen on these boards for a great long time. I would have to agree with you 100% and I have to 100% Salute you from saying it Perfectly in every way! *Salutes you*.

-=Sazo Stoneski - Mos Espa - Radient=-

I think you forgot to mention the fact that when you killed the first one the stutter step bug while you automaically fire at the next mob allowed the other 5 thugs to catch up to you.

This post just pretty much summed up everything.

Our proffesion has been run into the ground. Were 100% useless in PvP (even at master now). Were totally gimped in PvE (cause the only people that PvE are below master).

We will stay gimped until Aldeon is removed as our correspondent. We need someone in his place that actually represents us and doesnt sit back and ignore us.

Well, it seems I am not alone in my feelings today. Before it can be said, I want to clarify that I don't want to be a super character. I simply want to know that my profession is equally as worth attaining as any other. PVP concerns me little. I bought this game more for the PVE side. Unfortunanly, there seems to be no way at present to seperate the concerns of one side from the other as all changes cross over between the 2. Will I eventually want to work in the PVP arena, well yes ofcourse but I also realise that until I can master the aspects of PVE that PVP will not be as an enjoyable event as I think it could be. As things stand, the developers have addressed so many problems to an area that doesn't effect me that they have taken away the thrill of the one aspect of this game that can keep me at my computer for hours with visions of the book series I have read flashing through my head. God, I realise I sound like a whiner. I hate the fact that I even wrote this post, but even a normally congenial person can have moments of doubt and dispare.

If there is any one post that Devs should read its this one. No noobish flaming, just thoughtful discussion on what is wrong with us. You are 100% not whining Tsalmaveth. Thank you.

Thanks for this post I could not have expressed it any better...bottom line...its a game...its supposed to be fun, thrilling, exciting, relaxing...instead it's VERY depressing...I found myself loggin last eve with exactly the same thoughts...I hope there is a distraction as right now I am halting my advance in the rifleman tree, maybe quests...well maybe not...all I know is that if you are a casual player and are a rifleman you must be very irritated now...

I would just appreciate it if they would tell us if they had planned on the riflemen being primarily PVP classes. It seems that is where we are being pushed since we are more effective in PVP than PVE. I know alot of you will ask how the hell I can say we are effective in PVP, but you have to admit that are skills as stand are better suited to it than for hunting creatures in the wild. I know rifles make more sense to be the weapon of choice for hunting creatures, but sense weapon issues cross from PVP to PVE anything they do to balance the fighting ground there harms us when carried over to the hunting aspect. To be honest, till they give us a better idea of what they are looking for in a "Balanced game" we will continue to get ever worsening effects to our weapon. Part of the problem is that the weapons don't have their "Own" types of dmg. For instance, the rifles should have been given huge dmg, but no dmg over time. When you think about it, something hit with a T21 shouldn't have time to bleed to death before you blow it's head off. Pistols should have had lower dmg, but gotten the bleed shots. since it's more likely that you would bleed to death or die from shock induced trauma before a bullet actually destroyed a vital area unless you are an excellent shot and aim straight for the heart or the brain. Besides, a pistols round will usually stay in the body and cause more harm over time than a rifle bullet which usually passes through creating all of it's trauma at one time. As for carbines, since they are the mid-range machine guns of the star wars world, their dmg should meet the mid-range except at extreme range. At mid range they have normal modifier and the closer they get the more dmg they get but, also get a negative toward and dodge or save like ability from return fire as it is harder to use an assualt weapon in close surrounds then it is for a pistol. Also, they should be the only class that has multi-hitting specials as machine guns are more often to "Spray" a crowd than a rifle or a pistol. The only exception to this is if they used the description of the T21 as a gatling laser to make a logical step to commando having the heavy weapons and major full auto weaponry. I picture a pistoleer with a desert eagle, the carbineer with a mp-5 and the rifleman with a Berret Light 50. The commando would have the rocket launcher, satchel charges and M-60's "the Heavy assault weapons". Bounty hunters would have a pistol, probably a carbine of some sort for sligthly harder work and a Good rifle. But also have their own types specialty weapons, such as a stunner grenade or sleep gas or some such. Bounty Hunter are required to bring back their traget not Kill it. If it all about killing their target, then rename them assassins and load them accordingly. As for smugglers, I think they should a weapon from each line as their cert. After all, they will probably smuggles guns at some time and to properly work that angle, as far as price and risk, they need to have some idea of what it can do. Also, with their access to illegal arms shipments, they are more likely to come across something exotic and learn how to use it. I.E. a rocket pistol, launcher, acid rifle, grenade, etc.

as an addition to the above post, I think that a renaming of some the weapons might help to smooth over some issues. It would only be cosmetic, but if it says rifle in the name, then it should be a cert in the rifle line, smae for pistol, in the case of Carbine and heavy weapons, it would have to be common sense. As for weapons slicing and alteration, who would more likely learn how to slice a weapon, a bounty hunter who need to get special properties out of his weapon, such as sawing off the barrels on a double barreled shotgun so he can sneak it in to deal with guards a mark has hired for protection or a gunsmith that makes the things to start with. A smuggler is more concerned with selling the **edit** things than tinkering with them. same with armor. A smuggler might know some slight modifications to get the most out of his weapons, but those that use the weapon the most would know the most about how to alter it. A pistoleer would know that if they file down the sights on their gun, they get a few seconds drop on unholstering their weapon in a quickdraw situation. A person using mostly semi-auto firing weapons would know that with a certain modification, they can convert their weapon to full auto and rifleman would know that by special making their ammo they could pack in more powder for a more dmg'ing projectile same for armor piercing capablility,. It is easy to make a pistol round that will slice through a police's man vest. That is why there is such a bullet like Talons. A barret light 50 is designed to take out vehicles at LONG range but are over kill for human targets unless you just need to fire from that long of a distance.

as a master rifleman i am considering changing profession

i was one rifleman in beta, but didnt had the chance to experiment it good.

but now with all the change they made with rifleman and our T21 whats the use being one?

i said it on lots of place but is it wrong that it cost me 387 ofmy mind for 2 headshot3 with my T21 rifle to take out one person who had only 420 in mind?

you know in pvp i still use overcharge, yes you hear me OVERCHARGE cause the special we got are useless except perhaps mindshot

warningshot dont work in pvp neither threatenshot

well either they fix our class, or i change profession or simple i should cancel my account

I 100% agree with this post. I'm also a ranger/rifleman. As a master ranger, all I have left to work on is rifleman. I'm tired of missing and getting incapacitated. So tired...

I guess the stubborn, sadistic side of me won't let the class go. I've already put a lot of work into it and I would hate to see it go to waste.

I'm sticking with it. I'd rather be one of the rifleman minority than the pistoleer/bounty hunter majority.

*sigh* Yes... a glutton for punishment I certainly am.