Rifleman Archive

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SpecialForces wrote:
Just give us our stats back on the T21

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Yea what he said.

1. T21 back to its prenerfed state damage, but with the AP3 still

1. Keep the 2.5 x melee mod. That's the challenge. You aren't supposed to EVER let them close on you. However....

2. In order to keep them from closing:

a. I shoot a mob his friends come right for me instantly. that HAS to go. HAS to.

b. More damage from prone, possibly with Aim being dmg modifier in addition to accuracyonly for rifleman.

Rifleman.... what comes to mind when you think of this profession? I would bet everyone thinks "sniper"...the kings of precision long range heavy damage. Its too bad Rifleman are NOTHING of the sort anymore. I have played a rifleman since beta, and I have continued to play one since day 1 of release. I made Master Sharpshooter 32 days after release and with nothing more than a sliced DLT20. So I consider myself pretty experienced and skilled with the particular profession.

Lately we have seen changes made to professions and their weaponry such as the Commando. Honestly we all know they needed the changes and the help. But I am wondering if it was maybe too much. Yet at the same time Dev's have said that the damage they are doing now with their weaponry is where they want it and it won't be changed. Well that screws all the other combat professions since they are left SO FAR behind in the dust. A novice Commando using regular attacks (not specials) can do the same, if not more, damage to a target than a MASTER Rifleman! Isn't there something wrong there? If Commando damage is where its supposed to be, then Rifleman and other combat professions need to see some serious love!

Honestly I am surprised to see so many AE (area affect) attacks in the Rifleman skill trees. I percieved the Rifleman profession to be the best as precision damage, not area effect attacks. They are snipers. Commando's on the other hand should be the best at explosions, mass damage, and AE damage. I would suggest making more of their (commando's)attacks AE and taking away allot of the AE effects of the Rifleman attacks, yet at the same time boosting up the rifleman damage at higher levels/skills. With single precision shots at long distances no other combat profession should be doing the same, or more damage than a Master Rifleman. Thats what their specialty is supposed to be for pete's sake.

In my opinion these are the top 6 issues with Rifleman at the moment.

1) Rifle Damage: Rifles have very few advantages in combat. They are the slowest of the ranged weapons (in equal comparisons), they have no range andvantage (which they should). Yet their damages remain equal with other ranged weapons (IE pistols/carbines). The only advantage I really see to rifles is the fact that they can target mind pool (which cannot be healed in battle....YET). Where people might think this is a huge advantage I do not for a few reasons. Rifles across the boards need to have their damages SLIGHTLY increased. Its pretty depressing when I am a master rifleman and a pistoleer can match my damage half way through their profession, yet at 2-3x my shooting speed. Not to mention they can shoot at the same max range and with very little difference in accuracy. This issue has been present since beta and continues to be an imbalancing factory in the game.

2) T21: This gun in may ways was the Rifleman's last hope. It has very slow delay and very large costs on the mind pool...as it should I believe. Yet the damage it does does not justify these penalities. The T21 should by all means be restored to the state it was in pre-nerf. As I have said before, the Rifleman is the sniper of the professions and should be the king of heavy hitting precision damage. The T21 was the Rifleman's last hope in actually fitting this bill and being what they SHOULD be. Currently in its state (as are many of the "elite" weapons) it is actually worse than a few of the lower certification weapons. Also it is a fact that the materials to make these guns are so incredibly rare that even today on many servers not one singleT21 has been made. Commando weapons and such had their requirements changed for the exact same reasons. The T21 should see the same changes since they are facing the same issues the commando weapons were.

3) Mind Costs: As we all know mind is mainly used for 1 thing outside of the Rifleman profession...healing. Yet allot of us (I would guess 90%+) have novice medic skills in order survive. Everyone gets them. So we as Rifleman use mind for our healing as well as our attacks. Our mind pool gets depleted 2-3x faster than any other profession in the game. On top of this our special attack costs are pretty high, and I think they should most defenitely be lowered. Along with this you can thow in the fact that Headshot 3 has a very small increase in damage compared to Headshot 2, yet the mind cost on the attack is considerably higher!

4) Accuracy: Currently there is very little difference in the regular ranged weapon accuracy at long ranges compared to rifle accuracy. Rifles should have long range advantages, yet they don't seem to be presenting themselves properly. Either Carbine/Pistol accuracy at 45+ needs to be lowered on their end, or the Rifle needs better bonuses and maybe a slightly larger range of bonuses to their ranged accuracy (extending towards 64 meters and the longer ranges).

5) Crawl Speed: Currently there is no increase (at least visibly) to crawl speed in the Concealment skill line. Crawl is still EXTREMELY slow and is of no use. This really needs to be increased greatly in order to give Rifleman more reason to go prone and use the position more.

6) Cover: As we all know firing from cover and using attacks such as conceal shot do not work properly. The Agro AI in this game really needs some serious changes and one of them is that the social agroshould not kick in when using these abilities. Its also a bit strange when you can target a mob from WAY out of range (IE 100+ meters) hit attack and have all the mobs instantly agro on you just for turning on attack. You don't even have to hit them with damage. Its pretty stupid in my honest opinion.

7) Rifleman and PvP: Again I will ask the question, what is a Rifleman? If you put a list of the possible professions in front of anyone who is playing SWG for the first time they would tell you they would see the Rifleman as the "sniper" of the classes. Yet the rifleman does not fit this bill (not even remotely)and does not have its proper place in SWG. There are a few things that need to change in order to bring the Rifleman profession into its proper place. As I have discussed the Rifleman needs more hard hitting damage (precision ONLY). Also they need a way to use their concealment skills in pvp. I however do NOT believe they should have some sort of instant invisibility ability. I have been through games such as DAOC and believe this sort of ability is just plain stupid and unrealistic. What I personally believe is that the Rifleman should have a skill/ability in the Concealment skill line (possibly level 4, or maybe even master rifleman) which allows the Rifleman to make him or herself invisible to radar ONLY. They can be visibly seen however which promotes tactics and use of terrain. But on radar they do not show up until they attack. This would not be an overpowered ability or skill, yet give them a little more edge which the Rifleman are in so desperate need of. It would in essense allow a rifleman to lay in wait...using the terrain for cover and patiently waiting for their pray. At the same time they would be invisible to radar until their first shot. At that time they would appear on radar and would not be able to use the same ability again until maybe a minute or so after combat has ended. I think this would be a GRAND addition to the profession!

Scarl Nightrunner

Master Rifleman/ Master Heavy Swordsman -- Starsider

One other note....

I am also one who believes the 2.5x melee mod should stay as is. Rifleman should be the kings of ranged combat but the most vulnerable to melee combat. Rifleman should get their arses whooped when melee/close range combatantsget to them. But they need to have that ranged advantage which they currently DON'T have!

But I personally think that the fact that Rifleman get pretty roughed up by melee is proper, AS LONG AS our other many issues are fixed to compensate.

Scarl Nightrunner

Master Rifleman / Master Heavy Swordsman -- Starsider

1. Comando weapons counted as melee

2. Mele damage modifiers, this combined with the warping mobs is deadly. Maybe an explanation on why this damage modifier is needed?

3. Adjustement to the aiming reduction we get while moving, I dont think others gets this. If they dont an explanation on why we do.

4. Only our attacks aimed directly towards the targets mind pool should cost us our own mind (that MS and HS) rest of the attacks which hits random pools should costs either H or A

5. "Stutter" this combined with the damage melee modifier is a killer aswell.

I agree of lowering the 2.5 increase vs melee but not removing it, because this will be imbalancing melee classes vs the rilfeman in pvp but I do agree that 2.5 vs mobs is alot of dmg to be taken since most mobs are doing melee dmg.

As a master of a long ranged weapon you're not suppose to let melee'ers get close because thats where they have the advantage.

1: Warping, I have had enough of this beta bug.

2: Accuracy or rifles and pistols from a range. rifles should be like 80-100% accurate from 32 meters and up depending on skill. Pistols at 0-32 and carbs at like 20-52 or somethin.

3: Better skill at master level.

4: Fix surprise shot.

5: Fix rifle crawl speed.

6: give us some sort of cool camoflauge skill that removes out dot from the radar, so we can be true snipers.

1. 2.5 melee damage modifier -I think the 2.5x melee damage modifier should stay, asking for it to go away would be too greedy, but the only reason it should stay is if we hold some sort of advantage shooting from far awayover other ranged combat professions. Currently a pistoleer can hit someone accurately at 64m especially if they combo the pistoleer accuracy with other professions (smuggler, bounty hunter). My solution would be to increase the max range of rifle attacks, it may sound greedy at first but why not? We are using a rifle we should be able to hold advantage over other ranged combat professions because of the 2.5x damage modifier. If we don't get this granted I would atleast like to know why.

2. Mind damage -Currently, being able to attack mind isn't an advantage. I would like to get that straight if the devs feel that we should be weaker than other professions in other departments because of our ability to attack mind. Other than bleeds (which are easily first aided) attacking mind has no benefits whatsoever because we use just about the same amount of mind as the amount of damage is done to the target because of the 75% reduction in pvp.

3. Cover - What exactly is cover supposed to do in pvp? It does nothing. Even if you go cover players can easily target you or see you. This is just a suggestion but I feel cover should remove the player from the radar... and if it isn't asking for too much destroy the ability to auto-target (tabbing to target) on players that are in "cover." I think this would give a really neat realistic sort of aspect to it forcing you to manually click your target. If that is asking too much then how about doing that when riflemen use conceal or surprise shot? That should definitely be fair. Also, the description for cover says it reduces the amount of damage taken from ranged attackers. Can we please confirm that this is true ? The amount doesnt seem nearly significant enough at all to take up a turn and use a large amount of your action pool for an attempt that usually fails even at master level. Some argue that cover should be done before the attack, well, if you're a red dot on someone's radar that will be impossible to accomplish. Please consider this.

4. Rifle crawl speed - this is self evident, currently it doesnt make you crawl any faster even when maxed out than not having it.

5. Surprise shot - If anyone knows what this does please clarify the difference between this and conceal shot. If not then ask the devs about this please.

6. Last but not least I would like a clarification on what the rifle skills do. Alot of them such as flushing shot says startles them. Does that mean it pushes them up in position (prone to kneeling, kneeling to standing) ? If that's the case then what difference is startle shot from flushing shot?

1.2.5x Damage Modifier MUST GO [God knows why they implemented this]

2.The teleportation Bug [The most irratating Bug to date]

This to are the most wanted fixes. Hope they get fix in the next big patch.

Why don't they scale down the special move costs in pvp like they do the damage. With 25% damage and 100% cost to yourself, you can easily do more damage to yourself then to the opponent. Especially when you hit at the min. levels. The cost/benefit ratio ismore acceptable when we randomly do really high damage in non pvp. I had to laugh as I watched a rifleman with a T21 try to duel an eyeshot spamming BH. Totally lopsided fight.

-Drache

Ham Cost Ham Cost Ham Cost HaM CoSt hAm cOst

and freaking fix /takecover so it doesnt make me walk after using it