Rifleman Archive

Well once I acquired sneak and found out that is was next to useless; I decided that we do not really deserve our "Sniper" title, since we can hardly snipe in a true sense. What good is a sniper that you can see?

I don't know if this idea has been passed around before, but I'd be fine with the 2.5x damage bonus given to melee against us, I'd be fine with being slower to fire than the other classes (considering I'm allowed to do comparatively high damage.) But only if I'm allowed to play as a true sniper.

So I propose that Riflemen receive hides, or kits, or ghillie suits that allow us to camoflague ourselves from player radar, and from other players until we take a shot, or until they stumble upon us. Basically, we need a skill set that could actually define us as Snipers. Of course, having a skill like this, we'd also need a /hide tracks sort of ability to conceal ourselves from Rangers, or perhaps they would be the class that would be able to pick us out of the woodwork, but bottom line, we need skills that help us live up to our namesake as snipers.

Ifthe rifleman isgonna get spammed to death, or dropped in one-twohits to a melee person,the riflemanshould at least be able to hide and fire the first shot, to pickhis/herbattles.

Do you realise it is a free kill you're asking for ?


For sure many things are unbalanced but do you realise you just asked the ability to hit someone in pvp for a huge amount of dmg without leaving him the tinier chance to defend himself ?

You wanna be perfect sniper and would like to see it implemented ? Ok, what about Line of Sight ?


FYI, a sniper isn't someone we can't see, it is someone that can hit you but you're too far to hit him. The real problem Riflemen have today is that anyone can hit at long distances almost as well as Riflemen. This doesn't make sens, we all agree with that.

But your suggestion is simply a free kill move that won't correct the whole thing at all.

I was Master Rifleman in beta so I am quite aware what problems you guys have.


Frankly, as I was stating while beta, it is not accuracy or weapons that is the problem, it is defenses. It seems that defenses aren't lowering at high distance due to slower relative movement. Someone moving at 64 get the exact same bonus that if he was running 2m from you.

With your accuracy bonuses AND far distance defense lowered, you'll how balanced the whole thing can be.

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Snipe: to shoot at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage.

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Sorry, merriam webster didn't have an entry for sniper, but snipe was close enough.

Iodan, I couldn't disagree more. It specificly says in the marksman tree Rifles: Long range, Carbines: Medium Range, Pistols: Short Range.

That pointed out, Pistols are guns for close combat, though not neccesarily hand-to-hand combat. THey're good for short range, have less power than larger guns and are thus effective at shorter ranges. They also move easily for quick tracking.

Carbines are similar to the guns carried by infantry. You see these all over in the movies carried by troopers. They are good for a wide range, but mostly for medium range. Their higher damage and ease of use makes it choice for armies.

Rifles are like sniper rifles, and thus they go on to become Sniper skills. Snipers are good for assasination, hitting a target from a spot where they are unnoticed. (be it far away or hidden, it matters little.) To hit from far away, a sniper must use a long range weapon, namely the sniper rifle. Somewhat bulky, it shoots slow but with a lot of power an accuracy so targets at a distance can be eliminated with only one shot.

As Riflemen are implemented now, they are neither snipers nor sharpshooter infantry. They're too slow and narrow-ranged to be infantry, and too inaccurate and low-ranged to be a sniper. But judging from everything present in the game right now, Riflemen were indeed aimed to be long-range accurate, high damage/slow firing, cover-dependant ranged-fighters. aka snipers.

As a rifleman / scout / combat medic I was humiliated last night getting incapped by a song rasp....

/shakeshead /frowns

there still is a problem with tthe 2.5 modifier. Why do we take that much damage when at worst case we could swing the rifle like a club?

Polt
Rifleman / Scout / Combat Medic
Freedom Syndicate
Warrior for the True Cause
"No Don't pet that dog...you pet the dog? RUN!!!!!!"

We will just have to agree to disagree.

Only a part (1/2) of the rifleman tree involves "shoot at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage."

The rest involves fire support with AOE attacks.

I don't think what modern infantry takes in to battle is a carbine. I think they are classified as Assault Rifles (M16, AK47 style). Medium to long range, can be fired accurately single shot, or spray an area with fire.

Main Entry: Assault Rifle

Function: noun

Date: 1975

: any of various automatic or semiautomatic rifles designed for military use with large capacity magazines

Main Entry: Carbine

Function: noun

Etymology: French carabine, from Middle French carabin carabineer

Date: 1605

1 : a short-barreled lightweight firearm orig. used by cavalry

2 : a light short-barreled repeating rifle that is used as a supplementary military arm or for hunting in dense brush

Main Entry: Rifle 3

Function: noun

Date: 1770

1 a: a shoulder weapon with a rifled bore b : a rifled artillery piece

2 plural : soldiers armed with rifles

"But judging from everything present in the game right now, Riflemen were indeed aimed to be long-range accurate, high damage/slow firing, cover-dependant ranged-fighters. aka snipers."

Unless they force us to start using cover a whole bunch, remove our AOE attacks, and WAY improve our accuracy, I just don't buy the sniper thing. After playing a Rifleman for 2 minutes I figured the sniper thing was bogus. I don't see how Riflemen are slow or narrow to be infantry either.

I don't know how the Rifle got so wrapped up with sniper. It has been the staple of infantry for 100s of years. Do this, go get Episode II. Look at the clone army. They are almost ALL carrying rifles. They look like T21s only bigger. My personal opinion about the Stormtroopers was that they were carrying E11 rifles, not carbines But that's just a biased gimmick.

BUT, every one is going to believe what they want to believe. Play the way they want to play. If you are a Rifleman & think you are a sniper, more power to ya. Same thing goes for the Hunters, Gunners and Soldiers of the Rifleman family.

In the end, those who last will not be known as any of those things. They will be known as Master Sharpshooters, and they will be bad azz Mo Fo Party Playas

Excellent, five star response. (does anyone ever really use those?)

You're correct on the definition of rifles and carbines, of course. But those are from real life, and SWG is hardly real life. I'll still refer to the definitions of level one skill branches in the marksman profession. Rifles longe range, carbines med range, pistols short range. But of course in the game, each is rated for the same maximum range, and I've been out shot (in both accuracy and damage) by pistoleers at 60 meters!

Of course I could refer to the title of the Rifleman's skill branch, Sniper. But then again, it's hardly the makings of a sniper and shouldn't deserve that honored title. We, the assassins, don't give the one-hit kills, we recieve them!

I admit, then, I have no grounds to say the riflemen are snipers. SWG has robbed me and many others of that. Nevertheless, I can say a couple things:

I can't think of one instance in the movies where a rifle was used for long range, except maybe when the Tusken Raider was aiming toward Luke in the Sand Dunes of Tatooine in ANH, and when Zam Wessel was aiming for Obi-Wan (holding onto the assassin droid) on Coruscant in AoTC, missed and hit the droid instead. Most of the firefights in Star Wars have been at medium range using smaller rifles. (the droid armies in TPM did have huge guns, but they seemed more for ultra-fast firing than power) and then at short range. These smaller rifles could easily be assumed to be carbines.

The E-11 rifle was the smallest "rifle" named, and it hardly seemed accurate enough to be called a rifle. Can anyone recall a ST using the sights to aimt he E-11? It was fired more like a large pistol!

True, only 1/2 the rifleman skill tree involves shooting for assasination, but I will say the counter-sniping skills are justified,though completely worthless. If you know how to fight a certain way, chances are you'll pick up how to defend from that same attack type.

Anyways, yeah. It's depressing.

Yes, good ideas and good discussion, thanks guys. :-).

When I say "Sniper" I'm referring to military snipers, who make extensive use of camoflague. Their fieldcraft is just as important as their ability to shoot.

So when I say we should be Snipers, like the game says we are, I mean, more like a USMC Sniper, am I asking for a free kill? No, of course not, this is a game. But since we take heavy penalties for everything we do, (can't run, can't do heavy damage anymore, pistols can shoot as far as we can, melee wastes us (which I don't have a problem with, but I do with the previous ones) we should be able to make a hidden shot, make it a good shot and pick our battles.

Having a sniper class on the battlefields in the future will do alot to improve gameplay and make people use tactics, imagine a hidden sniper squad waiting for you to run along with your Rancor? :-).

My ideas to make it more Sniperish

I would like to see some sort of High damage Long "reload" time shot that requires a fewConditions to do the damage.

Say for example if the Radar block was put into effect.

you would have to take cover from outside the persons radar range > sneak/crawl within range and then use this new single shot high damage attack. That would Uncover them (showing thier position on the radar).

Or if you want it even more difficult and slow for the power ... Take cover outside the person radar range > sneak/crawl > use "sniper aim" which has a 5 second run off before you can shoot. then fire and do mass damage to a single player.

Have it also where the rifleman can target whichever pool he desires. Have these shots do a minimum of 700 damage in PVP and a maximum damage of 1000 depending on the gun they us of course(obviously wouldnt be doing 700 damage with a CDEF rifle)

would this be overpowering? not really its actually very stiuational unless the sniper is gonna sneak/crawl all over which would take forever.

I think this is needed for riflemen to survive ... the devs have said that its extremely hard to give more range. With this idea all range can stay the same.

This skill would be obtained at master and you must have a rifle in your hand in order to use it.

The one flaw in this argument?

Riflemen are not snipers.

Actually, Riflemen are snipers but they don't seem to understand what a sniper is.


A Sniper isn't someone that can kill other without any risk, it is someone that have a fair chance to hir his target from higher distance without using mass destruction weapons.


Somewhat different and this is exactly what Master Riflemen are. The difference in SWG is that this "fair" chance turned into something really unfair : they can kill at will, without the tinier risk but being inca by someone able to hit their mind pool, because they use it to shoot.


Really, you're underpowered.

I agree and disagree Dyriel.

I should probably clarify my above statment:

1/2 of it (the half that is borked right now) has some sniper skills.

The other 1/2 is more like Rifle Infantry and fire support.

All together, my opinion is thatRiflemen are not snipers. They are more like sharpshooter infantry.

Sorry, Ralroon, still not viable in my book. Unless 'creep' is the same speed as running, I don't want to spend 64m+ creeping...since the target is likely to be moving that whole time.

Range needs to be increased for the following reasons:

x2.5 multiplier to melee damage.

If they take that out, then the accuracies need to work better, but anyone can still rush 64m within the time of one rifle shot, making the accuracy fix issue irrelevant. They'll still be on top of you after your second shot making your rifle completely useless.

Until a target cannot rush you within the span of one shot, range needs to be increased.

My suggestions:

1. A range of 128m I think could work. If things are spawned already, I can see them and target them at this range (I'm pretty sure)... at least 100m should be plausible.


2. Make New Ability (tree2, tier4) give Radar Inivs, and target doesn't go into combat mode, until sniper is actually targeted (this prevents /assist command, and auto return firefrom defeating this ability). If radar invisible, then all shots (except concealshot) make you visible to target. Concealshot makes you visible as a momentary blip, when the shot goes off.


3. Make Take Cover like Mask Scent for Scouts (skill mod based, NPC and Ranger /areatrack unable to detect v. skill mod).


4. Make a higher version of Take Cover (tree4, tier4?) that allows for lack of targeting by TAB (again based on skill mod that factors the number of times TAB would have targeted you until it actually does target you- facing the right direction, elevation, etc).


5. Give us Ghille Suits that increase the mod to the Take Cover skill mod (these would have to be planet specific like the Ranger Camo ability).

Give us this and leave in the x2.5 dmg for melee, and I'm all good (even if you remove all the useless tree3 & 4 abilities). This would make us a true sniper.

The only other thing I would like to see is the inclusion of a melee defense ability for rifleman like /buttsmack, similar to pistolwhip that uses the butt of the rifle to smack someone upside the head (mind dmg, poss minimal dizzy effect, long timer use). But this isn't too important to me if the range gets increased.

I like Ton's Idea.

About the spawning issue they really don't have to change the spawn rate. When something comes on my radar I can move away from that object and it stays on my radar much futher out than it spawned. So instead of us have the creature spawn far away it spawns close, we target it, and then move to a safe distance, use cover, and snipe. Infact would a sniper not do recon of an area before he sets up? Same with PVP, our target pings our radar, we target the subject, wait till he is a safe distance, and let a round loose.

But 128 is much too far because you need to giveroom for errorbefore the target dissapears from radar, 100m should be fine as a maximum range.