Rifleman Archive
Thread: Carbine/pistol/rifleman balances from a PvP Rifleman.
Some of you may read the title and think im a proponent for rifles doing insane ungodly amounts of damage and pistoleers/carbineers not being able to hold a candle to us. This is not true. I have devoted a lot of thought to this and, as an experienced MMORPG player, i feel these changes will make combat in both PvP and PvE much more balanced.
1. -AR- Rifles, ALL rifles, should have armor peircing values that are higher than pistols and carbines. I am not necesarily suggesting that our laser rifles go beyond AR2 but i AM suggesting that DLT20a's be given at least AR1 and that carbines and pistols (especially pistols) have their armor peircing values lowered. For overall balance: ALL rifles should have armor peircing and they should have the MOST armor peircing per weapons of equal level. Pistols should have little if any armor peircing except at the most advanced and powerful pistols and even then it should not surpass AR1 (perhaps the SR combat with its slow fire and medium damage could be kept at AR2). Carbines should be somewhere in between, with most carbnies having armor peircing but not as high as equal level rifles.
2. -Speed- The speed at which rifles fire at master rifleman is ludicrous. We should NOT be shooting that fast. Rifleman are supposed to be the guys who dont hit more than once every few seconds, but who are capable of one-shotting whatever they hit. Rifleman need a speed nerf at the top, this will balance out with AR changes and
3. -Damage- Im reasonably happy with rifle damage (a slight upgrade needs to be made, or a slight downgrade to pistols. Carbines are fine). I am NOT happy with the AR. DLT20a's NEED armor pericing. Conversely, the armor peircing of pistols needs to be lowered to AR0 for the lower pistols and AR1 for the top levels. Carbines should mostly have AR1 and the best carbines AR2. Rifles should ALL have at least AR2 and the top rifles have AR3. Pistols should have AR0 except for at the most advanced models which might have AR1.
4. -BH- Bounty hunters are extremely anti balanced right now when it comes to speed/accuracy. The ability to combine a pistol/carbine branch from the BH tree (+40acc/+40speed)with the accuracy and speed branches of pistoller/carbineer trees allow for speeds and accuracy that are completely out of wack. A BH who JUST takes the pistol branch and then goes up the speed/accuracy branches of pistoleer is able to shoot 2-3 times a second at 60 meters with pinpoint accuracy even while running. Furthermore with eyeshot they are able to do 600-800 mind damage a shot. That averages out to 1.5k mind damage a second with pin point accuracy (much greater than even master rifleman accuracy). In order to balance BH's their needs to be a fix that prevents the accuracy/speed bonuses from one tree to overlap with the speed/accuracy bonuses from the other.
5. -BH (and other class's) knockdown- Something NEEDS to be done about knockdown. It is completely and utterly unabalancing the game in both PvP and PvE. Changes NEED to be made.
5a. Situational modifers need to be added to knockdown. If the target is running then the chance of knockdown on a hit should be 100% (not counting knockdown resistances). If the target is standingthe chance should go downto 66%. If the target is kneeling: 33%. If the target is prone there should be NO chance of knockdown. If you cant figure out why prone deserves a 0 chance ofknockdown then your either an idiot, or you honestly dont understand what the prone position is.
5b. Theelite combat trees need to have more skills devoted to preventing things like knockdown and stun, etc.
6. -Defence Skills- Defencive skills need to make more sence and be made more effective. Besides the knockdown defences i mentioned in 5b, there needs to be other revisions done. The +20 melee defence gained from the rifle special abilties is ludicrous. We take x3 damage in melee. +20 melee defenceis meaningless. Those points should go to something that actually benifits us like, say, ranged defence. Not only did rifleman get shafted with melee defence but we got shafted with block as well. Either make this skill do something or get rid of it and substitute it with more ranged defence or defencive skills that protect vs knockdown and stun. Im sure those who went down the pistoleer or carbine tree can voice their dissapointment with some of the defencive skills they have recieved.
7. -Accuracy- This is my last one and its a toughie. It has mainly to do with range vs accuracy. I am certain, without any doubt, that making max ranges for weapons different will unbalance the game too much. Instead, range penalties and bonuses need to be put in that define the roles of the weapons in a more effective manner. Rifles should get INSANE accuracy bonuses from 40-63 meters.. enough so that we almost never miss. On the flip side moving while firing should lower it an insane amount, so the certaintly to hit would only apply if the rifleman was standing still. Shooting at ranges from 20-30 should have no obnuses and below 20 should have stiff penalties due to the unweidly nature of a rifle. Pistols NEED to have their long range accuracy nerfed straight to hell. A pistoleer shot that lands at a distance over 30 meters should be a rare and lucky event. RUNNING while shooting past 30 meters with a pistol and hitting should be like winning the 5 million dollar lottary. Conversely, at ranged closer than 30 meters a skilled pistoleer should have the penalties drop stiffly and go towards the positives, insuring good accuracy so long as the target is close. Carbines, again, need to be somewhere in between.
SWG has alot of potential with its tri ranged system. However, alot of work needs to be done to make it a balanced system with clearly defined roles and advantages/disadvantages. As it is ALL the weapons are overpowered and pistols are extremely so. Meanwhile defensive skills are either lacking, stupidly assigned, or not working at all.
I welcome any constructive critisism to this.
Mostly im hoping for a responce from our rifleman corespondent. Im hoping he can address my concerns about the armor peircing values given to the 3 classes of weapons. Aldeon, can you please tell me why just about every pistol has AR2, meanwhile our DLT20a and T-21's have AR0? I realize the T-21 is a bug but the DLT20a NEEDS to have AR and pistol AR NEEDS to be nerfed. They are RIFLES and PISTOLS for god sakes: there IS a difference!
Im also wondering if you would care to offer your opinion on the defencive skills that i believe we have been shafted with. Im hoping you would be willing to press the devs for a few changes. Melee defence, defence vs status change (up), and block are all entirely usless to us either from common sence or because the **edit** things are broke.
Thank you.
This is the best post I have seen on the subject.
The AR issue and the range issue, so true.
In general I dont think its as much about rifles beeing underpowered as pistols beeing overpowered.
All pistols have AR0 except srcombat and scatter pistol who both have AR1.
Very good post. The point about the range modifiers is a good one.
While I would still LOVE to see a rifleman's range extended out to around 75-80m ( so we could actually call ourselves snipers and have that title actually mean something ) I've recently had a change of heart. After watching the way people hold up the combat profession flavor-of-the-week and scream for a nerf, I have no doubt that if we had a 75 meter range, our head would be on the nerf chopping block next.
*bump* Excellent points. Excellent Post. You took the words out of my mouth.
I will say one thing in SOE's defense. When an Army goes into the field, what does it carry? Rifles. Why doesn't it run into the field toten' pistols? Because the range and damage on pistols suck. So if you compare this to real life, this is a seriously stupid system. But this isn't real life, its an MMOG. Granted, it is way unbalanced and needs fixing. But in real life a pistoleer would have his head shot off from 800 yards by a rifleman sitting backin a lawn chairsipping lemonade. 
- Nighthawk
"All pistols have AR0 except srcombat and scatter pistol who both have AR1."
Scatter Pistols and FWG5's have more than AR1. I know this because i use Ubese armor and I recieve ZERO reduction from damage against those 2 guns. That means it has to have at LEAST AR2 to fully punch through the armor.
SR Combat, i believe, also has AR2.
Meanwhile Laser rifles have AR2 while DLT20a's and T-21's have AR0. *coughbullsh*itcough*
It makes sooooooo much sence for rifles to be doing less armor peircing damage than pistols. Yep. Makes just as much sence for BH's with pistol branch and acc/speed braches in pistoleer to be doing 2-3 800 mind dmg eyeshots a second with pin point accuracy while burst running at 62 meters.
All player made armors have an AR rating of 1, being ubese, bone or composite, all ar ar1. So that is why the scatter pistol does full damage on it, because it is an AR1 gun.
The FWG5 is an ar0 gun, believe what you want it has been tested numerous time. The only advantage the FWG5 has is that it does heat damage instead of energy, but it IS ar0.
If you don't beleive what I say here, just go out and make a field test. Get a monster with ar1 and 0% resists and shoot it with a scatter pistol, if your combat window reports 100 damage you will have 100 damage overhead (it would be 50 if the scatter was ar0 and 125 if it was ar2). The fwg5 will do 50 dmg on that same enemy.
Please stop spreading false information.
I'm wondering why our correspondent hasn't replied to this. This was a perfectly good post, and we could at least get some opinions. Since it seems our only communication line to the dev's really seems to be our correspondent, we should at least get some opinion I would think.
Personally, I think I agree with almost every statement. Usually people actually playing the certain class ask to nerf others, make ours better, and leave it at that. I being a master sharpshooter for the last 2 weeks even agree with nerfing our speed. But at the same time fix the other stuff that doesn't seem to work.
One thing I have is faith though in VI / Sony / Lucas Arts. So far I think for the most part they seem to listen, and setup the channels to do so correctly. The only thing that would hurt us is our own correspondent ignoring posts.
Even with the Frustration of a class that seems to be underpowered,I also know there are others that need fixing as well. I am not going to give up on my class like others have said"Trash the class now while you can because it sucks". I couldtoo hope on the BH train, and get master pretty quickly, but then i'd be what 2/3rds of the population already plays (slight exaggeration).
Inclosing, I appreciate the opinions so far on this board, it seems weat least have some mature people posting things that are reasonable, and I amhappy to be the class that I am.