Rifleman Archive
Thread: Rifleman/Sniper right? Wrong.
Frailboy, question for you, how old are you?
"what they want is to go prone 100 meters from a target,be invisible toradar, fire their sniper attack at 99% accuracy and shoot people between the eyes for 18937 damage.
That is the sum of what all the "we are not snipers" whiners have to say."
That is not what I want as a Master of Sniping Accuracy in SWG. That is, however,almost a description of what a Sniper would do in RL, except it would be a lot farther out than 100m and it would be 100% accurate.
I think a few folks have taken my point a bit wrong. At this point I'm not asking for anything more than accurate skill tree titles. What I would like to see isthe Sniper title removed from the rifleman tree. It's misleading, plain and simple. That's all, nothing more. Leave Sniper Shot where it is, because a rifleman COULD, in theory, pull off a shot thatmight be considered a Sniper Shot. But the skill tree titlesare totally out of whack and it's obvious that the developers wanted more out of the class, they just weren't able to deliver.
Currently in SWG, even a Master Rifleman cannot truly hold the title of Sniper, yet we train in Sniping Accuracy andCounter-Sniping techniques and are able to wear the title. And don't tell me that you've never seen a player running around with (Sniper) as his title.
Grodaak
Grodaak what would you consider 'reasonable' abilities for an SWG sniper then? I mean keeping game balance in mind etc what kind of abilities would we need to have a sniper title? Lots of people in this forum want to be snipers, they play the class based on that dream.
As for the one shot kill issue I thought we did math already, let's do some more, I went to a weaponsmith shop today and saw a sliced T-21 that did roughly 200-500 damage(good slice) so you add a 33% max dam weapon power up go outside and use our best attack on an unarmored player you can do over 1200 damage, that is after the pvp penalty, after armor piercing is fixed that will be about 2400 damage -AOE- we can one shot now, and we will be able to do it better later.
Aldeon has been pushing hard for the armor piercing fix, it will be done eventually.
After the fix we will be able to one shot with Headshot3 as well, that may help the 'sniper' image a bit too.
And what does my age matter? READ the forums, people want high accuracy, extended range, invisibility to radar, and enough damage to take opponents out in one hit, my example just put all that in one sentence so you could see how absurdly powerful all these things are in one class.
OK....... This is my 2 cents on the whole rifleman in PvP question. I am ARebel Sniperon Lowca an set this chara up to be as close to a true sniper as possible. I soloed to master an solo in PvP 99.9% of the time. Snipers do not engage in open battle you do you lose.... its that simple . Becoming a sniper will not make you the all powerful celebrity in the game. What you will get is Hated by the enemy an almost completly unknown by your allies. But with the properskills , tactics an mindset you can do very well.
SKILLS - Master Sharpshooter/Medic with Explore 4 are must haves. This leaves you with 38 points . I recommend novice doctor an some med craft for cure desease an buffs. then novice combat medic an combat medic craft so you can apply desease. (why the craft skills? because no supplier 100% reliable except yourself )
Tactics - If solo use hit an run tactics . Stack your mindshots when you can . Let the bleeds do their job. Snipers arent meant to sit in a single spot firing shot after shot supporting a unit. (thats A designated marksman or sharpshooter) If fighting in a group stay back an choose your targets then pass out the MS2's like candy to your enemies key personel. throw in some strafeshot2 if you see several enemies with battledamage
Mindset - This is war kill the enemy whenever an where ever you find them, NO exceptions (med centers , cantina's , starports ect) If you can target a healer in the med center then you shouldn't kill him, Incap then apply mind desease so he gets taken out of the action for awhile. Yea this isnt honorable but being a sniper has never been accepted as an honorable way to conduct warfare. And if you let that healer continue to heal then those he heals will be ones delivering your death blow
Hard Core
OK maybe that was 3 or 4 cents : )
Okay lets knock off a few key-points real quick.
1st off, don't complain about not having enough melee defense, and ESPECIALLY don't use Pistoleers as scapegoats for having it. The fact is any class in a skill tree that goes straight up is meant to be complimented by another skill tree. Its not going to stand alone and give you EVERYTHING...thats what they call a Hybrid profession, and they use up more points.
2ndly Yes Pistoleers have some Melee defense and even a melee attack, but lets look at this closer....
A rifleman can take what shots he needs with his profession defining weapon at what...30?-60? range? I honestly have no idea, but did you know the pistoleers Dx2 Acid based pistol is best used at a whopping range of 8m? 5 more meters and I can pistol whip the fool....don't you think Pistoleers would have a little bit more melee defense than another profession?
Besides of which, the rifle man has better RANGED defense and thats the trade off.
As far as this sniper buisness, I agree with the one guy that wants "sniper" taken out of the tree. Thats reasonable, however if Frailboy is right in his math, you might be close to a one-shot one-kill profession. As is I don't see why you think you are so far off. When I Pvp I see my enemys health and action bars extending into the wild blue yonder, buthe doesn't have enough mind pool to beable to properly work a doorknob.
Oh, and for the people that want snipers to be more in line with real life. If you did that you'd have to take basic brawler skills...basic carbine skills...survival and terran negotiation from the scouting tree to be a sniper.
Maybe another profession tree is in order to solve this problem....
"the pistoleers Dx2 Acid based pistol is best used at a whopping range of 8m?"
True, but as I'm sure you are aware there are other trees where pistoleers can pick up additional pistol accuracy bonuses, making them extraordinarily accurate at all ranges. Is there such an option for rifleman? No.
Again, the problem is that SOE has not provided a clear description of the role each class is supposed to be playing. Don't keep assuming we're supposed to be snipers.
Well I think the main problem with the rifleman is the range of our best weapon the T21 and weapon ranges in general. I think the Dev’s tried short-cutting here by making everything have the range of 64m with out taking into consideration the skill mods and other +&- modifiers you can get. No matter how good I am with a pistol, I should not be able to hit something at the max range of a rifle. Actually you can in RL, It’s called a luck shot. Don’t think that’s worth coding in though. It is stupid to have the pistol, carbine, and rifle all have the max range of 64m. The ranges should be more like:
Rifle…75m
Carbine…50m
Pistol…25m
Heavy weapons should fall somewhere around the pistol range.
Rocket launchers should fall around the rifle range.
We should be snipers in the game. If you don’t think we were intended to be snipers or have sniper skills try reading the skill tree sometime. Rifleman for the most part did very well before the PVP damage nerf. 75% damage reduction + the slow speed of the T21+ the Mind Ham costs + having the same range of faster pistols and carbines = Rifleman Nerf. We should not necessarily have a 100% one shot one kill attack though, that we could spam. That would be plain stupid. We should however have a sniper specific skill. Let us take sniper shot for a second. Not only should it kill incap targets, but also it should be changed to allow us to do max damage every shot. It should have a timer just like the posture change attacks do and require even more ham than HS3 maybe. It should have to be fired from the prone position. You should have to be Master Rifleman to get it. Although, if they would change the ranges we might not even need that. As mentioned above there should be different ranges for each weapon and weapon specific classes that would give them the better advantage at that range. Somewhere I read our melee sucks. Well, close quarters with a rifle should suck. Train in master marksman and have skill in all three weapons. We cannot ask for better range, better one shot one kill skills, and great melee. There only needs to be some slight changes made to make us a great class compared to the other combat classes. They also really need to fix this ability to shoot each other through terrain. It is stupid to be able to shoot someone through a mountain. Muir Novice Rifleman Master Scout Master Marksman
Well I think the main problem with the rifleman is the range of our best weapon the T21 and weapon ranges in general. I think the Dev’s tried short-cutting here by making everything have the range of 64m with out taking into consideration the skill mods and other +&- modifiers you can get. No matter how good I am with a pistol, I should not be able to hit something at the max range of a rifle. Actually you can in RL, It’s called a luck shot. Don’t think that’s worth coding in though. It is stupid to have the pistol, carbine, and rifle all have the max range of 64m. The ranges should be more like:
Rifle….75m
Carbine…50m
Pistol.…25m
Heavy weapons should fall somewhere around the pistol range.
Rocket launchers should fall around the rifle range.
We should be snipers in the game. If you don’t think we were intended to be snipers or have sniper skills try reading the skill tree sometime. Rifleman did very well before the PVP damage nerf. 75% damage reduction + the slow speed of the T21+ the Mind Ham costs + having the same range of faster pistols and carbines = Rifleman Nerf. We should not necessarily have a 100% one shot one kill attack though, that we could spam. That would be plain stupid. We should however have a sniper specific skill. Let us take sniper shot for a second. Not only should it kill incap targets, but also it should be changed to allow us to do max damage every shot. It should have a timer just like the posture change attacks do and require even more ham than HS3 maybe. It should have to be fired from the prone position. You should have to be Master Rifleman to get it. Although, if they would change the ranges we might not even need that. As mentioned above there should be different ranges for each weapon and weapon specific classes that would give them the better advantage at that range. Somewhere I read our melee sucks. Well, close quarters with a rifle should suck. Train in master marksman and have skill in all three weapons. We cannot ask for better range, better one shot one kill skills, and great melee. There only needs to be some slight changes made to make us a great class compared to the other combat classes. They also really need to fix this ability to shoot each other through terrain. It is stupid to be able to shoot someone through a mountain.
Muir
Novice Rifleman
Master Scout
Master Marksman
SRTSniper wrote:
What I think would be nice, is if the developers would step in and say something, which in the Rifleman forum they have not. If they said that we weren't meant to be snipers then fine, I'll move on to something else. But if they said that we were supposed to be snipers, I'd hang in and make a few suggstions as to what a sniper is. However, the biggest problem isn't what our issues are about the profession. It's that the developers are completely ignoring us. They're one day gonna grace us with they're presence, and there will be a hell of a lot of "I told you so".
This is why I suggested asking about our 'niche' in the Top 6 issues for this month. If you agree bump it and second the idea.
"Grodaak what would you consider 'reasonable' abilities for an SWG sniper then?"
I'm not a game designer, I don't know C++, and I have no experience coding a game of this magnitude. Therefore I have no place to say. But if you're going toname the skill trees Sniper based titles, then the abilities granted by those skill trees should reflect a "Sniper", should they not? Let's examine the very meaning of the word, sniper.
According to the online Webster's dictionary, sniper means:
1. A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place.
2. One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.
Ok, first thing I notice is "concealed". Second thing is "skilled military shooter". Third thing is "pick off enemy soldiers".
This is quoted from the Marine Sniper/Scout webpage, found at www.marinescoutsniper.com
The sniper is a "work in progress" as are all true professionals in the art of warfare. He is an artist of the highest order in this most demanding of arts. Constantly honing his edge and perfecting his skills to the point of obsession. His profession demands a dedication to excellence that few others ever even consider...some say he is obsessive..almost cultish. Sniping IS a cult, it's a lifestyle, it's our religion. We are what few other people in the world would want to be, and even fewer are capable of. We live in a world of macho ideals and chauvanistic brotherhood. Outsiders are not welcome and those who betray our way of life become outcast. A hard life of extraordinarily high expectations with no allowance or tolerance for failure. Like the wolfpack, snipers are a tight community with a strict pecking order, the pack mentality prevails. It's what keeps us sharp, the knowledge that if we show weakness or incompetence we will suffer the worst fate possible by unwritten but universally understood "pack law." Shame. To shame or dishonor yourself in front of a brother sniper is to suffer vocal ridicule, or much worse...silent rebuke. To lose the respect of your brothers is damnation. That is why we are the best at what we do. Why we will sit for days at a time in the most punishing cold, the sweltering heat, or the pounding rain, fighting the elements and our own fatigue and biting hunger...to take that one shot...the shot that might save the life of one of our brothers. And despite the impossible conditions and handicaps placed on us by circumstance, we WILL put the target down....because that is what we do. That is who we are. Marine Scout Snipers
MB 3/5 '99
Now, with all that being said, I still think the title "Sniper" should be removed from the Rifleman profession altogether. Sniper should be a totally seperate and different elite profession.
"for the people that want snipers to be more in line with real life. If you did that you'd have to take basic brawler skills...basic carbine skills...survival and terran negotiation from the scouting tree to be a sniper."
I almost agree with this statement, however remove the brawler part of it. Snipers are not brawlers by any stretch of anyone's imagination. They are however, masters of the Scouting trade: Sniper and Scout go hand in hand, one cannot survive without the other. So to successfully train to Sniper in SWG, you should be required to train scout and marksman, climb the rifle and ranged support trees for marksman and exploration and survival for scout. To be a Sniper should not be cheap on skill points at all, in fact they should cost more than for any other marksman related elite profession. The weapons for Snipers and Rifleman should be very different as well, as they are on any battlefield or in any universe or science fiction story.
Please remember that this is all IMHO and like I said, I have no idea what can and cannot be done in SWG as far as coding all of this. It doesn't seem all that difficult or unreasonable to me after having seen my Ranger Field Bio-Science tree re-named and re-built into Tracking, however.
As for why I asked your age Frailboy, it's because I want to know what kind of life experience you're drawing on when you criticise my comments, nothing more, nothing less. I'm not here to make fun of anyone, put anyone down, or "flame" anyone in general. I'm simply here to voice my opinion. And one more thing, I play on Starsider, and T21's are still not available there as the proper resources have not yet been added. So once again I'llask toplease leave the math out of this. I'm concerned about the way this game presents Snipers as professionals.As it stands, itis an insult to anyone who knows the trade from the inside and as the quote above states, "Outsiders are not welcome and those who betray our way of life become outcast."
Sniping is a far more elite and specialized profession and cannot just be "thrown into" the Rifleman profession as an afterthought or just to have a cool title.
Grodaak
Pretty much how I thought you would answer, if snipers in SWG can't live up to your standards then they shouldn't exist at all, who cares about all the people that are content with trying to be a sniper and take enjoyment from that right?
I deleted the rest of my response, this threadis meaningless.