Rifleman Archive
Thread: So they want us to be snipers...
Belegdae wrote:
ZionHalcyon wrote:If we are to be snipers, fine.
Then get rid of the bleed nerf from conceal shot, that or make it possible to 1 hit kill 90% of Humanoid NPC's.
For snipers, we can't snipe all that well against higher end Mobs, which is where I would think a Master Rifleman ought to be.
I totally agree snipers find a single target, take aim, and dispatch them in one hit from long distances. Even though TH said that we are snipers we are just like any other ranged prof. We can only shoot as far as 64m away which any other ranged can do. There is only one special we have which allows us to actually be snipers and that is conceal shot, but who wants to spam that all day. We are not snipers but more like infantry men with big guns.
I'm kinda going through that now, just pull out my trusty Laser rifle (yes I still carry around my laser rifle it's very powerful) and at 60m I just 1 shot kill things, I'M LOVIN' IT!
Regarding the "every master should do same damage"-statement..
Imho Rifleman should destroy the targets while Carbineers keep them pinned and Pistoleers take care of those who manage to break free and come close.
I'm a Carbineer btw 
Ori666 wrote:
wow nice postings waste, very cool stuff there. i think the devs have got themselves into a bit of a muddle. continuing on your comparison with real life militery theme (im no expert and definatley don't have the knowledge uodo sotho so bear with me) its a bit confusing. they want us to be the snipers of the game. yet the T21, our main rifle really, sounds more like a light/medium machinegun of the SW universe when you go by the cool extract that you got us; itcan be carried and fired by one person,
often used in conjunction with a tripod, high rate of fire (at least by SW standards) and really is a support weapon to back up squads. cool as it sounds, its not really sounding like a perfect sniper rifle, which apparently the devs want us to be. so theres a whole bunch of roles for the rifleman floating about: light machinegunner (if you go by SW lore and use the T21), standard infantryman (what a rifleman really is in rl militery, example is anM16a2 chappy), sniper (what the devs have planned for us) and then whats actually currently going on in the game, which to me seems like all those elements combined. personally i don't like having all these ideas, rather concentrate on filling just one of those roles.
Yes the T21 does sound like that. It is a light support weapon. Though that does not mean it isn't a infantrymans weapon. The SAW is like that and is a standard weapon for a US infantry squar. I tend to think of the T21 as a combination between two weapons. The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) from WWII, and the Barrett M82A1 (light .50). A heavy select fire rifle like the BAR but with heavy AP like the Barrett.
As for the Devs trying to make us snipers, I've stated before why I don't think this is possible with the present combat system. Especially with the 64m range limit. Though I understand why the Devs would like us to be.
Snipers have a mystique about them that attracts people. Especially in computer games. How many first person shooter games have you played that did not have some kind of sniper rifle in them? It has become a staple so people, and the Devs, expect it in the game.
Now there are a couple of ways they could make Rifleman more like snipers. Though without a range increase it will still be a minimal effect.
One is a new special that didn't do a set amount of damage but a percentage. Lets say its 50%. You could never kill a target with this ability of course, but it would work to counter heavy buffs and make the Rifleman act as a de-buffer in effect. Though this ability would probably have to be limited to use against players only. Other wise you would be able to tear down high HAM content MOBs with relative ease. See the 150k NS there? Oh gee, first shot took off 75k. That would be way overpowered.
Personally I don't want an ability that is only of use in PvP though. I'd rather have something that we could all use. So my second idea is along those lines. If you have done any crafting you know about exceptional success while experimenting. If you don't craft let me briefly explain. When a crafter makes something they can experiment on it to improve its stats. When you experiment you can get a range of possibilities on how well the experimentation worked. You can have a failure, complete failure, moderete success, etc. The top success is exceptional.
So we take that concept and apply it to ALL the combat classes. Basically when ever a player attacks something there is a small change that they would get an "exceptional" success. This would act as a damage multiplier. It would be random, with the chance of it occurring going up depending on how many boxes in a profession you have. Since there are 18 boxes per profession, you would get lets say 1% perthree or fourboxes in an elite profession. That comes to This would mean you would have the best chance at Master. The chance of it would still be low.I'm thinking around 5% at Master.
Enter a new Rifleman ability. This would be like the Aim skill. I'd like to call it SniperShot but we already have something called that. But it would queue in your combat list just like Aim does. So it would count as an attack (here we have the lower rate of fire for sniping) and you would line up another type of attack behind it like you do with Aim. When it went off it would dramatically increase the chance to get that exceptional success hit. So it would increase our chance of more damage but with a time delay. This would represent the "sniper" taking time to aim and picking a vital spot to hit.
One important thing. This new "Aim" like ability would NOT work with AoE attacks. Snipers don't spray their targets. So you wouldn't be able to increase the chance for "exceptional success" for StrafeShot2 or any other AoE. It would only work on single target type attacks.
But even if this is not possible. I'd still like to see something like the "exceptional success" put in for all combat professions. It would be another added bonus for Mastering a profession. It would also add more of a random element to combat.
Message Edited by Waste93 on 05-06-2004 08:18 AM
Message Edited by Waste93 on 05-06-2004 08:49 AM
Another nice post. I've actually thought of this 'exceptional' success idea recently, but you've fleshed it out much better here. Something to look into for sure.
As for the 'de-buffer' skill, why not implement something to that effect in PvP and give it an alternate effect in PvE? Our /snipershot is nice, but benefits PvEers not one bit 
My thought would be to use this 'de-buffer' to gradually break down enemies' resists. So those 100% kinetic resisters could be brought down to 95% the first shot and then to 90% and so on. This would likely need some sort of timer (30 seconds sound fair?) and would allow your friends to participate in those fights when they would otherwise be forced to simply sit back and watch.
After all, we need to think of some things to present to the Devs to replace our worthless skills. So far, /takecover, /startleshot, /surpriseshot, /strafeshot (as well as SS2's delay effect) are all pretty crummy in my opinion. It'd be fantastic to replace them with some useful (however limited) abilities.
Message Edited by XaverriJade7 on 05-06-2004 07:35 AM
XaverriJade7 wrote:
Something that may need someclarification (or not, but here goes):
Master Riflemen do not even fire at the speed cap. At least not while using SS2 and a T-21, which is what matters for me
And on an unrelated note,I like the green font, Waste(I know you've been getting some criticism)
The speeds suggested weren't really meant to be serious- I don't think changing them would make anything 'more balanced' or anything. As for the last paragraph, you're dead-on. Problem is, raw damage is overrated. Non-riflemen ranged professions don't generally seem to notice that they don't need more and more damage, but rather something to make them special. Rifleman DPS is garbage if we're KD/Dizzied. Goodness, I hope this is all cleared up after the Devs CB...
Waste93 wrote:
XaverriJade7 wrote:
Something that may need someclarification (or not, but here goes
Master Riflemen do not even fire at the speed cap. At least not while using SS2 and a T-21, which is what matters for me
And on an unrelated note,I like the green font, Waste(I know you've been getting some criticism)
I disagree about the speed caps you mentioned. FIrst there is no real difference between what you suggest and making pistols 1se, Carbines 1.5sec, and Rifles 2sec. What that does is cut down on the Rifles advantage (Raw Damage) while not increasing the other areas to achieve balance. You cut out relative damage in half while not touching other areas that makes the other professions strong.
Secondly there is no real basis for it. The internal mechanics of a Pistol, Rifle, and Carbine willbe nearly identical. They'll look different, be different sizes, but serve the same pruposes. And the tech used in them will basically be the same.
So there should be no real mechanical reason they would have different firing rates. Think of a real worl example. Look under the hood of any car made by any manufacturer. You see an engine. They look a bit different, they have different amounts of power, but they all work the same. Firearms are the same way. You have a firing pin, spring, hammer, trigger, etc. Some may have an internal hammer while other an external hammer. But they have them.
The difference between a rifle, carbine, and pistol is just one of size and external cosmetics. I can give you a semi-auto pistol, carbine, and rifle and you would fire them at the same rate. The reason being is the mechanics of them are virutally the same and the mechanical limitations are much higher than you can actually pull the trigger.
If we want the whiners to grow up we have to demonstrate that DPS is not the sole defining issue for a profession. Show them how they can cause more status changes (BH or Carbineer) or have better defenses and lower HAM costs (Pistoleer). We need them to look at all aspects of a given profession, not only the easy to see such as damage, but also the passive (defenses) and those that can effect the situation (status effects).
I definatley like the Aim/sniper (im gonna callit /lineup just togive it a temp name if thats ok) thing, very nice idea. Would you it for them to stack like aim too? So the longer you spent lining up the shot, or in game terms the more of these specials you did before the damaging shot was reached in the combat que, the higher the chance the exceptional damage was done. So say one lining up special increased the chance of the exceptional damage shot by 25%, and up to a total of three of them were stackable, plus the suggested 5% of the mastered rifleman, you'd have 80% chance of sucess for this exceptional shot. It would look a bit like this if you tried to get the highest chance of the exceptional shot with a headshot3:
/lineup; /lineup; /lineup; /headshot3
If it took 3 seconds for every one of the lineups, it would take between 10 and 11 seconds to get all that done, for an 80% chance of an exceptional headshot3. Thats just the wayI see it working,you possibly had a completly different wayof imagining it working when you thoughtof it, let me know 
Bear in mind this is all just pretty random musings on my behalf, but hows this to carry on the idea and hopefully solve another RM issue. You could possibly use this special whilst being under /takecover. Whilst under /takecover, your removed from the radar and are no longer tabable by player enemies. After all, what good is a sniper when your target is almost certain to know where you are because of a big fat red dot, and can simply tab their way to you to get an exact position. Would like to make clear right now that your not stealthed or invisible in any way: thats up to the player. They have to choose the right clothing to wear that makes them hard to spot (so theres a real purpose to camo clothing other than 'looking cool'), and choose the best spot where they think their hard to see and have a good view point of their enemy from their position. Possibly even make it possible for the sniper to start using the /lineup without actually initiating combat with the target. If the RM uses an attack other than /concealshot or a certain amount of /lineups followed by an attack they are plonked right back onto the radar and tabable, think as it the RM giving away his position with a burst of auto fire.
Of course this is just first thoughts, expanding from waste's aim/sniper idea. But i think it would be pretty cool. Imagine a rebel sniper moving slowly into position outside an imperial player city. If his clever, he'll be able to pick off a couple before falling back: after all, after even the first kill the alarm would be raised (the victim complaining over guildchat at least hehe) and you'd have armed milita looking around for him.
Anyway, let me know what you think waste, for all i know ive just gone and mutilated your aim/snipershot idea into some kind of ugly monster
Ori666 wrote:
/lineup; /lineup; /lineup; /headshot3
If it took 3 seconds for every one of the lineups, it would take between 10 and 11 seconds to get all that done, for an 80% chance of an exceptional headshot3. Thats just the wayI see it working,you possibly had a completly different wayof imagining it working when you thoughtof it, let me know
Bear in mind this is all just pretty random musings on my behalf, but hows this to carry on the idea and hopefully solve another RM issue. You could possibly use this special whilst being under /takecover. Whilst under /takecover, your removed from the radar and are no longer tabable by player enemies. After all, what good is a sniper when your target is almost certain to know where you are because of a big fat red dot, and can simply tab their way to you to get an exact position. Would like to make clear right now that your not stealthed or invisible in any way: thats up to the player. They have to choose the right clothing to wear that makes them hard to spot (so theres a real purpose to camo clothing other than 'looking cool'), and choose the best spot where they think their hard to see and have a good view point of their enemy from their position. Possibly even make it possible for the sniper to start using the /lineup without actually initiating combat with the target. If the RM uses an attack other than /concealshot or a certain amount of /lineups followed by an attack they are plonked right back onto the radar and tabable, think as it the RM giving away his position with a burst of auto fire.
Of course this is just first thoughts, expanding from waste's aim/sniper idea. But i think it would be pretty cool. Imagine a rebel sniper moving slowly into position outside an imperial player city. If his clever, he'll be able to pick off a couple before falling back: after all, after even the first kill the alarm would be raised (the victim complaining over guildchat at least hehe) and you'd have armed milita looking around for him.
Anyway, let me know what you think waste, for all i know ive just gone and mutilated your aim/snipershot idea into some kind of ugly monster
The other possibility is for the snipers to work inconjunction with rangers: have the rangers camo kits make a visual effect on the avatars, camoflaging them better for the particular planet their on. I know many rangers would love that idea, make their camo kits actually useful. Anyway, im just bouncing ideas around right now, let me know what you think. Waste for Rifle correspondent!!
Damn bro, i really enjoyed reading your posts.
Ori666 wrote:
Yea i agree with the restiction on no AOE specials with the /lineup abilities, you can't really aim for critical areas whilst hosing down an area with blaster fire after all, but this doesn't mean you can't hit a critical part by luck. So i also agree with you in keeping the standard 5% (at least standard for master) excpetional shot chance for AOE attacks too. Returning to the idea about removing the sniper from the radar and being untabable, i think it fits in pretty well with your description of key sniper qualities:
Observation, Camo, Accuracy, and Range
Firstly we can pretty saftly rule off the last two, accuracy and range. Whilst RM can't get the huge ranges rl snipers can, have to be realistic within the game terms, and we know at large ranges we're the most accurate. Now for observation and camo.Firstly it seems that the sniper can'tdo any any better thana covert faction member could in observing an enemy group. But a covert faction member can't engage at will like a sniper could, and if well hidden can do so without the enemy groupeven knowing they're being watched. And the whole idea will be pretty much reliant on camo, you can't really be a successful sniper if your easy to spot wearing bright red composite armour. This would benefit tailors immensly for one thing
BountyHunterReb wrote:
idont know bout u guys but i like that fact that master rifleman isnt a sniper,we are damage machines, i hope they dont **edit** this up and make it so we cant pvp without a tank.