Rifleman Archive

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Uthyr wrote:

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Chaosium_451 wrote:

If this is working as intended, then it also makes the ranged defense and melee defense trees in the Force Sensitive skills redundant.

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That very thought occurred to me as I started reading through this thread. I have all my available FS skill points tied up in theMelee Defense branch (and it took me a lot of grinding to get to that point!), but based on what I am reading here, that branch appears to be completely useless for a purely ranged profession. I guess I better start thinking about moving those points over to Ranged Speed or Ranged Accuracy instead, and doing the grind all over again.

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Uthyr wrote:

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Ackehece wrote:

well... if you are going jedi - they are a purely melee profession so those points would help there.

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I'm not going Jedi (I guess I'm one of the few who has zero interest in ever being a Jedi), so it looks like I've completely wasted a lot of grinding time on that branch. But your comment was a good point for other people.

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Ackehece wrote:

also before you do this.. it should have more decisive test done to pin done these results even more. As the person right before you said it really is not all that scientific. But the results as far as anyone can tell are valid.

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Ackehece wrote:

• I did not do the tests.. (read the full post including the person who I quoted)
• Melee defense is useful if you use a cross profession from rifleman such as swordsmen as well
• no idea if it is a bug - but it appears that it is not a recent change
• actually works better for us then if it did not work this way - rifleman have a higher ranged defense then melee so it is better for us if we get attacked by melee anyway

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How many people with rifle/swords or rifle/melee anything templates do you know?

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eapers wrote:

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Ackehece wrote:

• I did not do the tests.. (read the full post including the person who I quoted)


• Melee defense is useful if you use a cross profession from rifleman such as swordsmen as well


• no idea if it is a bug - but it appears that it is not a recent change


• actually works better for us then if it did not work this way - rifleman have a higher ranged defense then melee so it is better for us if we get attacked by melee anyway

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How many people with rifle/swords or rifle/melee anything templates do you know?

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I was under the impression that melee defense applied to defense vs a melee attack. Ranged Defense applied to a ranged attack, therefor needing both?

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Odinwaa wrote:
I was under the impression that melee defense applied to defense vs a melee attack. Ranged Defense applied to a ranged attack, therefor needing both?

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that was the old theory but test results appear to back up another idea.

Okay,I just finished my own testing with Vegeparsine and Pica Thundercloud.

I tested my Master Rifleman/Master Bounty Hunter toon against CL 81 Dune Banthas. I chose this mob type because all the creatures in a lair appear to hit with the exact same damage (both type and magnitude). They all hit me with "Attack," using "Natural Weapon,"(kinetic damage) and they did definitely all hit me with the exact same damage for any given weapon equip and food type. I didn't wear any armor except for boots and gloves. These pieces did contain several SEA's that affected my ranged accuracy, as well as an Aakuan ring and a defensive backpack, but I was interested in seeing my results as I am typically equipped, and I do always wear those. The SEA's shouldn't have affected the test results because I was wearing the same pieces for all trials. My character stats (as shown in the control-C window) were as follows:

With rifle equipped:
Melee Defense:198
Ranged Defense: 263

With no weapon equipped (equivalent to having a melee weapon equipped):
Melee Defense:158
Ranged Defense: 223

I used +98 Melee Defense Vegeparsine, and +92 Ranged Defense Pica Thundercloud. The weapon I equipped was a rifle (an ALR, not that it matters--the results should be the same with any ranged weapon).

I'm posting the results in the exact same format as RegenEdnolb so people can compare easily:

Defense:158 melee, 223 ranged
Defender has NO weapon equiped
Damage: 315

Defense:198 melee,263 ranged
Defender has weapon equiped
Damage: 290

Defense: 256 melee,223 ranged (used +98MD vegeparsine)
Defender has NO weapon equiped
Damage: 292

Defense:198 melee,263 ranged (used +98MD vegeparsine)
Defender has weapon equiped
Damage: 290

Defense: 256 melee, 315 ranged (used +98MD vegeparsine AND +92RD Thundercloud)
Defender has NO weapon equiped
Damage: 292

Defense:296 melee,355 ranged (used +98MD vegeparsine AND +92RD Thundercloud)
Defender has weapon equiped
Damage: 269

I also tested the following buff combination that RegenEdnolb didn't:

Defense:158 melee,315 ranged (used +92RD Thundercloud)
Defender has NO weapon equiped
Damage: 315

Defense:198 melee,355 ranged (used +92RD Thundercloud)
Defender has weapon equiped
Damage: 269

Conclusions: As you can see, my results confirm RegenEdnolb's exactly, and this time against a melee-damage-dealing opponent.

-- Melee Defense mods(at least as derived from chef buffs) do not apply with a ranged weapon equipped, no matter what damage type the attacker is using. Vegeparsine is apparently useless to a purely ranged profession.

-- Ranged Defense mods (as derived from chef buffs) definitely help with a ranged weapon equipped, no matter what damage type the attacker is using. Pica Thundercloud is definitely useful for a purely ranged profession.

-- Melee Defense mods (as derived from chef buffs) do help with a melee weapon equipped, no matter what damage type the attacker is using. Vegeparsine is definitely useful (and Thundercloud is useless) for a purely melee profession.

One interesting observation I made during this testing is that if I took a food/drink after I had already engaged the opponent (or if the buff wore off while I was in combat), my defenses did not change. The change didn't take effect until I engaged a different mob. The moral: Don't bother taking food/drink in the middle of a battle--prepare yourself ahead of time! The flip side of thatobservation is that you apparentlydon't have to worry about chef buffs wearing off while you are in the middle of a battle.

What I would like to know now is whether defensive mods obtained from other sources (FS skills, SEA's, or clothing mods) behave the same way as those derived from chef buffs. If I ever get around to testing that, I'll post the results, but it probably won't be anytime soon, so I invite others to test it!

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Uthyr wrote:

I'm posting the results in the exact same format as RegenEdnolb so people can compare easily:

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Well that answers my question, but heres one. Why in the heck is it left up to the players to test out game mechanics? Why don't the devs just state these things? Last time I checked you guys weren't employed by SOE.

But nice work.

OK we need to know what the dev's have to say about this.

I think this has to be a bug............................

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Odinwaa wrote:


Well that answers my question, but heres one. Why in the heck is it left up to the players to test out game mechanics? Why don't the devs just state these things? Last time I checked you guys weren't employed by SOE.

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I think the devs would probably answer that question by saying that if they posted the details of the game mechanics, then it would be too easy for some players to take advantage of the knowledge to gain an unfair advantage (this was discussed in a recent post here that I recall). I don't personally buy that argument, and in any case agree with youthat these kind of things need to be more clear, at leastin instances where the description of a mod/skill/etc. is misleading or incorrect. If it's a bug that the devs are unaware of (which is certainly a possibility in this case, if nobody else has ever noticed this issue with the defense mods), then that's another matter and I can forgive that. What I would like to see is an asterisk next to every broken or bugged description in the game, with a note saying something to the effect of" **Known bug; fix in progress: See bug note # xxx on game forum."