Rifleman Archive
Thread: Killing a couple birds with one stone
Rangers aren't really useless anymore, as we can now track and apply camouflage. Add the fact that we'll get more camps(including a hunting blind), and better traps.
I think Rangers(and scouts) have abilities that make up for the lack of combat skills, mainly being traps. We can slow down, stop, reduce defenses, injure, and who-knows what else when they add the better traps in. We can also crawl really, really, really fast......
Also, not all Rangers use rifles or want to use rifles, in fact, a fair number don't(probably because the rifle generally sucks though). Adding rifle skills to the tree would, in essence, penalize those players that don't use rifles for whatever reason, as they wouldn't be able to fully utilize the skills. If Ranger's were given rifle skills, they would also have to be given pistol and carbine, which would then make the class 'overpowered' or, sit down, 'un-balanced'!
You wouldn't have to make rifle iv a prereq.
Ideally in development they would have done that (ideally from my POV anyway) but now it wouldn't be fair.
Just give the novice ranger the cert to use the DLT and the laser rifle.
The argument we would have to give them carbine and pistol skills doesn't hold up. Rangers are hunters. Hunters use rifles. It's like saying smugglers should get sword skills. Smugglers use pistols. Everyone knows this. I've never seen anyone in a civilized country ever hunt with anything other than a rifle, except a bow, and there's no bows in the game. (Cept the bowcaster, which is a rifle.)
This is a problem with pistol (and BH pistol line, carbine as well but to a lesser degree) more than a problem with rifle. You don't want abilities that stack perfectly between two classes. A carbineer/rifleman can only use one gun at a time. You don't get all the abilities of both classes being used simultaneousy. A medic/rifleman can only heal when the gun is not firing (because heals go through the combat queue). Again, abilities complement each other, but do not 'stack'.
Whenever you have an ability that stacks perfectly, you run into balance issues. This is because if you balance the classes individually, the class that stacks is more powerful in conjunction with other classes, relatively speaking. CH is a perfect example of this. A CH/rifleman can use their CH combat abilities (the pets) in parallel with their rifle abilities. In this sense, CH 'stacks' perfectly with rifleman (or any other combat ability). This meansa CH/anything is better than a rifleman/anything, because rifle abilities can't be used in conjunction with other abiltiies besides CH. This is also why CH is still so powerful now - not because it's individually powerful, but because it stacks with everything else.
Smuggler abilities are okay, because they only provide new special moves. This isn'ta perfect 'stack' because you can only use one special at a time. It's more convenient than switching weapons and then using a special, but only just, and because of that there aren't many balance issues. Combined with smuggler providing no other 'stacking' benefits (no defense mods, for example) and you don't have a problem with smugglers and pistoleers having a bit of synergy.
BH is a much bigger problem because their pistol skill stacks with pistoleer pistol skills. It effectively lets them use the abilities of two classes at the same time, and that's why BH/pistoleers are so effective, and hard to balance.
If you want a rifle-complementary spec, you need to keep those above in line. Giving rifle specials to other classes won't be too terrible (assuming they aren't overpowered on their own) but giving rifle -mods- (or anything else that canused at the same time as rifle skills)will make a big difference.
My suggestion is to give Rangers greater complementary skills to Rifleman that are still usable by Pistoleers, Carbineers, or even non-combat professions. For instance, a form of visual stealth that relies on the Camouflage skill mod (that would assist in warding off animals for PvE like an advanced Mask Scent, as well as the obvious benefits in PvP) would be beneficial more to Rifleman then a Pistoleer because we get +Camouflage in our skill tree as well. If they could make the Cover skill give some limited radar stealth for Riflemen (since we get so many +Cover mods on our tree) then that would compliment master Ranger/Rifleman hybrids tremendously with almost complete invisibility (which would only last for one shot, but our profession relies so heavily on the first shot anyways). Having some type of completely immobilizing trap that lasts for 15 seconds (or until the person is hit, whichever comes first) that increases in duration and number of max targets per hit would also help Riflemen in particular by allowing them to pick a target, hit it with their most powerful shot, and engage in a battle that favors the sniper because he had the element of surprise (which is much more important to Riflemen then, say, Pistoleers). Bonuses to accuracy vs creatures would also help, but would be good for all combat professions as well.
Our goal shouldn’t be to transform a hybrid profession to rely on rifles or complement only Riflemen, but simply allow the skills to benefit us more then other marksman professions.