Rifleman Archive

Believe me, most of us Riflemen are wondering if the accuracy mods and indicators mean a single **edit** thing at all in this game. That tends to happen when you are stuck killing worrts outside of town at Rifle III and you miss with four headshot2's in a row, prone, with /aim, and a +50 chance to hit on each shot. That's a Rifleman's normal experience. Now granted, we don't have a lot of accuracy mods yet, but one would think that under those "ideal" conditions we'd be hitting more often.

A similar pattern emerges even as we crawl up the tree. I seriously wonder if our +Rifle Accuracy mods are functional.

Accuracy becomes more important in a game like this the LESS frequently you can hit your target, too. That's the other problem. Having played a Pistoleer, I know you guys miss some shots, too. But you have another shot coming about a second later, and another after that. So missing, say, one out of five shots isn't that big a deal.

However, if you miss one shot, and you only get two, well. . . that's called death. When we miss a shot (in any given fight) we are missing out on dealing 50% of our damage for that fight. It is not entirely fair to look at the accuracy issue from a "total accuracy" standpoint because, as any player knows, you live and die by the fight of the moment. And I can say, having played Carbineer, that the issue is harder on them than on Pistoleers (though not as bad as on Riflemen) because, primarily, of weapon speed and damage per shot.

I think many Riflemen would be willing to take a bit of a speed hit if we got what Riflemen ought to have. One of those things is better range, but that's not going to happen. The game engine prevents it. The other is superior accuracy, and that's just a matter of either changing our skill mods or MAKING THEM WORK.

As for how I see Riflemen? We're clearly not Melee Defense. I don't think there should be any dispute there. And we probably oughtn't be AoE experts, as that niche seems Carbin-istic to me from the get-go. So what are we? We're the ranged, heavy strikers. The trick to making Riflemen work is going to be balancing that role against a character that at least has a chance of SURVIVING any other kinf of encounter. Carbineers and Pistoleers have a better chance of dealing with an enemy at extreme range than Riflemen have of dealing with an enemy up close. That's our beef, I believe. Well, that and being killed by Kreetles.

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BaronJedi wrote:

We should just start a post on the discussion board demanding that the devs tell us what each combat profession is suppose to do. Just keep bumpin it like the classic T21 crusade. Then, and only then, can we balance things properly from there. Because right now we don't know who is suppose to be the AoE king. Or just how much of an advantage a Rifleman is suppose to have over a Pistoleer at long range and vice versa.

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i agree we should make the post and keep it bumped. Go for it Baron

As an aside, speaking of missing...its been discovered that the SL ability Steady Aim makes you 100% accurate. Or thereabouts. I guess commandos are hitting 100% of the time when they get a steadyaim. Just thought I'd throw that out...could use more testing though.

Swiller, that is a counter to our "hitting mind" benefit that does need to be gone over, and I'm glad you brought it up. What I find aggrivating is that not only do we spend Mind Pool to attack Mind Pool, but we even spend Mind Pool to attack random pools (Strafe Shot 2, Conceal Shot, Flushing Shot, Flurry Shot). As a Zabrack, I can almost mitigate the Mind Pool cost if I wear no armor (1000 Mind, 500 Focus, 900 Willpower) but it still hurts, and it doesn't leave me many stat points for anything else.

Thankfully, one of the things that they DID promise to look at was HAM cost. The Devs didn't originally intend for people to use style shots constantly. They've said so. But that's the nature of the game now, that is how most classes fight, and it's what the MOBs in the game REQUIRE you to do. So the Devs need to adjust for that, and I think, at least in this instance, they will.

I mean, how can you **** up lowering HAM costs? You take them and then you lower them. It was 77, now it's 47. They ought to be able to get that down. As long as they don't add some freakzilla penalty:

"We've reduced the HAM costs for all style shots and special attacks! In addition, using special attacks will now give you wounds in all nine attirbutes."

Squad Leader abilities. . . working. . . does not compute. . . *smoke comes out of ears*

Yes but it should be someone with an attractive blue name.

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BaronJedi wrote:
Yes but it should be someone with an attractive blue name.

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lol your's is kinda blue

no i agree with ya,although i did make a post to see what trouble i could stir up

Yes, the mind pool is an awful thing for both sides. The fact it sin't healable is a great factor of unbalance.


Guess who is AIMING but not USING the Mind Pool ? Yeah right, BH again, all is given to the BH and nothing is missing.



One thing would be to change Mind Pool as any other Pool : being able to heal it and to buff it. It would make some balance increase.


Not sure it would change many things for Riflemen btw, Mind cost of your moves seems a bit too high.

Also keep in mind if you are firing much less often and Mind Pool being the fastest one (no contest here) to recover, it is a bit negated. But it is still impossible to heal.




Yes, add Mind Pool to the common list, it affects everyone as a target plus Riflemen as an user.

Well, Mind Heals were originally in the game. Medics could do them. But that didn't last long, since a Medic could spam Heals until they were out of Mind, then HEAL THIER OWN MIND and continue spamming Heals.

So it got yanked in Beta.

And they never bothered to give that ability to anyone else.

/smackforehead

We don't know if they will or not, but the Mind Pool Hits are often touted as our primary advantage. We never really feel that way, though. We just feel as though it's something they say to placate us.

It'll be an advantage when our normal shots hit Mind Pool. And THAT would be just sick.

Baron, you going to link that up here?

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Aden_Nak wrote:
Baron, you going to link that up here?

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if you're talking about the post on the main boards i dont think baron made on (i might be mistaken).

but heres the one i made

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=610024

One thing I think people overlook when they compare the speed mods you get as a rifleman vs the speed mods you get as a pistoleer or carbineer is that Riflemen have no auxiliary class which stacks speed mods... yes, Bounty Hunter. Pistol has a good synergy with Bounty Hunter and Smuggler, although Smuggler quite arguably gives you way less benefit than the BH tree. Carbineers have synergy with BH. Riflemen have nothing else. So when you're talking about a proposal to speed mods like Pistols 80, Carbines 70, Rifles 60, you're really saying Pistols 130, Carbines 120, Rifles 60.

The speed problem with dabbling in multiprofessions has been a big source of complaints about pistols and, somewhat inappropriately, about pistoleers. Unfortunately, the only real practical solution to the dabbling/mix and match problem is a drastic nerf on the speed mods available to Bounty Hunters. A logarithmic scale doesn't apply as well to a multi-tree speed mod combination as it does to a single tree; when do you calculate the real modifier from tree 2? It could be done of course, but would require a lot more realtime calcs and server load every time a shot was fired. Better and simpler to simply reduce the values and leave it flat(tish).

well changing it to BH pistol speed

and then pistoleer pistol speed..

then both stack with speed from marksman