Rifleman Archive

"Now why would someone pick rifleman if it has such HUGE problems? Its because there are NO dabblers to rifleman. Meaning that almost all rifleman achive for master rifleman. So when you nerf master rifleman you nerf ALL rifleman. "

Boborina...good sentence man...I'm sure this is how the majority of novice and elite riflemen feels...

The key thing istrue riflemenare not dabblers in rifle, it's our main profession, why else would we strive to gain those hard earned rifle xps, the irony is we have to dabble in other things such as pistols, 2-handed swords, or CH to survive melee in SWG...but first and foremost we are rifle users...

Urikl D'evrak

Master Rifleman

Gorath Server

Shooting a T21 7.5s will cap to 1.0 second at speed skill 86. Master rifleman (without master marksman) speed skill is 90, so yes, you hit the speed cap before you become master rifleman.

Introducing the 3.0 s weapon delay mean you'll hit the speed cap at speed skill 60 (Rifle Special 3, san master marksman). Yes it suck. Tell the dev capping weapon speed doesn't solve crap. It just waste advancement to Master Rifleman.

hehe if you use any special then your speed is not longer caped ....

When people say they are capped it means, they fire at once a second with specials in mind...

at 95 speed you will fire at once a second with any special...(pretty much)

Taking the 7.5s T21, capping means a special delay of 2.7x. Sorry, don't think there's any special delay that high (maybe Pistoleer Stopping Shot). This is with the current 1.0 s cap.

Using the new 3.0 s cap mean a special delay of 8.0x. Hah, there are none.

3.0 s cap sucks. Don't implement it. Better solution is to cap the speed skill. Pick a number 75, 80, 90, even 95.

IIRC fan shot has a delay multiplier of 3x and stopping shot has a multiplier of 4x. I don't know of any rifle specials with that high a multiplier however (strafeshot2 is one of the slower ones IIRC, and it's around 2.5x).

Like I said, 3.0 s weapon cap sux.

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Phuobar wrote:
Like I said, 3.0 s weapon cap sux.

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I agree, but I feel this is a symptom, rather than the actual problem. The cap at 1.0s is a cap also, which similarly prevents returns from certain levels of skill (it's just due to the numbers involved, it's not felt as much). Having to rely on too much on caps tends to limit the amount of growth agame will allow, which is why a linear DPS/speed equation is probably much better. The linearity also means balancing cross-class skill mods is much easier, as well as balancing gear (both present and future). Just moving the cap doesn't really solve the problem, it just delays it until later. There's really no justification for the equation as it is now, given how virtually every other combat mod seems to act linearlyon DPS.

Almost no one I've met, either in the game or on these forums, understands how speed works in the game. A few people do, including folks on this forum (like Noules), but most people don't ... largely because the Devs haven't put the speed equations in the manual or on-line help.

So here's a quick tutorial, and an explanation of how the new speed change affects you.

First of all, here's the speed formula used in the game ... you've probably seen this in other posts:

(WeaponSpeed * SpecialDelayMod) - (WeaponSpeed * SpecialDelayMod) * (ProfessionSpeed/100)
And if result < 1.0s , result = 1.0 (this is the speed cap)

In this equation, SpecialDelayMod is based on the special attack you use. The fastest attack is the normal/non-special attack, which has a SpecialDelayMod of 2.4. Other specials, like HeadShot2 or OverchargeShot1, will have a longer delay. Look around the forums if you want to know the delays for various special attacks.

Okay, so let's see how this works, currently, using a 115-333 7.5 T21 rifle, which a Rifleman recently posted as a "typical" post-nerf T21 in a post.

As a Novice Rifleman (+30 rifle speed):

(7.5 * 2.4) - ((7.5 * 2.4) * (30/100)) = Fires every 12.6 seconds.

As a 4-4-4-4 Rifleman (everything but Master - +70 speed)

(7.5 * 2.4) - ((7.5 * 2.4) * (70/100)) = Fires every 5.4 seconds.

As a Master Rifleman (+90 speed):

(7.5 * 2.4) - ((7.5 * 2.4) * (90/100)) = Fires every 1.8 seconds.

The first thing you notice, of course, is that there is a dramatic increase in DPS at Master. A non-Master (4-4-4-4) has a DPS of 81.02 with the T21, while the Master has a DPS of 243.1. This is because the speed equation is logarithmic, not linear. If you get the +5 speed from Master Marksman, it more than doubles the Master's DPS.

So how does the new "speed cap" affect Rifleman? It doesn't affect the non-Master at all, because he's not hitting the speed cap (5.4 seconds is much slower than 3.0 seconds). It only affects the Master, and lowers his DPS to 145.83, which is still around 80 percent faster than a non-Master.

You can decide for yourselves what this means for your class. I hope that after looking at the numbers you'll see the change for what it is ... a change that only affects Masters, and still leaves them far more powerful than non-Masters. The question is what should rifle get to compensate for this reduction at Master, and there are lots of options out there that benefit all Riflemen.