Rifleman Archive

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Veustuh wrote:

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Seraph00X wrote:
I'm with the "wait and see" people.

reasoning: this morning before work I was hunting ravenous tortons, and I am a 1/1/0/0 rifleman, master ranger. The rav. tortons conned red to me, but by planting myself /prone /takecover /maskscent and then spam /concealshot1 I dropped it without it even knowing I was there. There was almost no risk, I took absolutely no damage, and got almost 4k rifle xp out of it. While I'm not complaining about it (in fact it was prett damn cool), I have to agree that we are pretty powerful, even at my lowly 1/1/0/0 skill.

conclusion: while I don't want anyone nerfed (especially riflemen), some things definitely need to be readjusted a little.

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Conceal shot and take cover is not the solution to our worries. This will work on low and mid level creatures and npc but is not viable with high end mobs (try conceal in the DW Bunker), running with groups and especially in PvP. The real problem with the proposed nerfs is that they're targeting the rifleman and not one of the biggest reasons for the current FOTM and imbalance between professions.

In the early day’s rifleman were few and far between. Many players took to pistols as they were the best weapon to fight with for their speed, accuracy and damage were far better than any rifle available. Shortly after release and when the laser rifles and T21s became available we saw a small increase in numbers though this was kept in check by the 2.5x melee damage modifier and most importantly there were no buffs.

Rifleman of the old school era did not depend on 2k+ buffs, advanced armor or chef food to allow us to endless spam specials. Also, in our time conceal shot didn't work and mobs would warp on top of us with little to no warning that it was going to happen. Up through December of 2003 buffs and armor had yet to gain popularity among players and especially among PvPers as the costs for armor vs. specials weren't worth the trouble. Add to this before January there was no such thing as defense templating or stacking. It was not an uncommon sight to find rifleman running in regular clothes and high on muon.

The beginning of the combat balance rolled out in January which brought about the changes that have forever tainted this game. With the first of 5 patches for combat, buffs began to work and at the same time armorsmiths had found ways to make 70% resist composite armor. Also with the update brought about the use of damage mitigation, defense templating/stacking and the spreading of the damage potential gap between classes. Melee could now effectively template and with great buffs and armor would become one of the more powerful classes in the galaxy. Add to this rifleman were now able to wear full composite suits and spam specials with little to no recourse.

Six months later and many patch notes tossed around there is a proposal that's been dropped on us that says "The game is broke, you're too powerful so you must be the problem." The developers will not admit that 2k+ secondary buffs with 90% resist armor killed the game. The developers will not admit that programming glitches in their code allowed for higher minimum than maximum damage bones that allowed melee weapons to reach well into 900 DPS from a stun baton in PvP. The developers will not admit that the Geonosian venom before the fix lead to the great fluctuation of CMs and their attacks that did well into 1k of damage in seconds. The developers will not admit that composite armor for all its resists would have one damage type as its weakest point which would become the favorite damage type to use. The developers will not admit that no one player should be able to dabble defenses enough to lay waste to 10 buffed combat elite players.

So from all of this players have come accustom to being mini krayts and able to being able to solo almost all content in game. When they are beat by somebody better the outcry comes and yells for nerfs reign supreme on the forums until the devs decide that one class must be to blame for their mistakes.

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/Mod's Tackle, Handcuff, and then drag awayVeustuh for talking against the State.... err SOE

Good post

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Sotaudi wrote:

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McFlyGuy wrote:

lol... These newcomer fotm people whine too damn much. If you were here at the beginning of the game you would have seen it was much worse and we stuck to our profession. If you wanna leave we'll be glad to kick ya out..

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Or maybe it is that those of us who have been playing rifle from the beginning just do not want to go back to dying to Durnis. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a FOTM.

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That is my line there bud.

And to complete the thought, Don't make me have to get another profession to be a hunter. All you nerf herders that want your armour will be paying a LOT more if I can't kill anthing the armourer needs.

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Fred_Skinner wrote:

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Sotaudi wrote:

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McFlyGuy wrote:

lol... These newcomer fotm people whine too damn much. If you were here at the beginning of the game you would have seen it was much worse and we stuck to our profession. If you wanna leave we'll be glad to kick ya out..

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Or maybe it is that those of us who have been playing rifle from the beginning just do not want to go back to dying to Durnis. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a FOTM.

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That is my line there bud.

And to complete the thought, Don't make me have to get another profession to be a hunter. All you nerf herders that want your armour will be paying a LOT more if I can't kill anthing the armourer needs.

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/Acknowledges reference to Fred's "I will not go back to dying to Durnis" line.

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Zeritul wrote:

Sotaudi,

I'm pretty sure the Dev's know what we want, we have a list and all that stuff. They have a plan for the combat balance and they are going to implement it. Maybe, just maybe, they will make minor tweeks. But all the complaining, bitching, and whining will not change their plan. It just won't. They started the combat balance in Dec. There was some forum bug that happened awhile back and some people got into the correspondant forums and looked around. The proposed changes back then are essentially the same as what they are now, in 6 months it hasn't changed.

I agree CH got shafted, but after the rest of the balance they might actually be pretty good again. I just think everybody should calm down, let them finish and make new lists after it is done. You never know, maybe it won't be that bad. There may be alot of other stuff that we don't know about that might even out the bad stuff.

People just don't want to admit that armor and buffs are the main problem. I fired the same shots at the same speed with close to the same weapons in Sep. as I did last month. The only difference is nowwith 90% armor and 2500 buffs pistols don't hurt me. I am the kite master, so melee doesn't hurt. But with my T-21 I can still put them down. I truly want to see pistols and carbines just as good as rifles. Melee, well I will always be the kite master, no matter what.

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Zeritul wrote:

Everybody knows the FotM people will leave if rifleman gets any kind of penalty at all, fine nobody will care if the FotM people leave. The rifleman forums used to be a great place with great people to chat with, nowadays its not, I don't even check here that much anymore.

Those of us who have been here since the beginning knew this was coming(check some of the posts from Nov-Jan), it's not a surprise. I hope they don't nerf rifleman, but I do hope that pistols and carbines are just as good as rifles after the balance, then alot of the FotM can go to whatever professions they want and the riflemen that stay won't have a **edit**ty profession.

There is no sense complaining, just let it ride out and see what happens. If you are here as a FotM, don't worry there will always be a new flavor for you somewhere.

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The whole point of my earlier post is that this is exactly the wrong approach to take.

As I tried to point out, the evidence suggests that they are indeed going to try to make us into snipers (the suggestion that we will be most powerful when setup and prone, the comments about slow weapons being slow even when fired by a Master, but, most importantly, the specific statement that, in answer to our question, they always intended us to be long-range snipers). Many, if not most, of us have come to the conclusion that this cannot work because of the abbreviated distances in the game.Combinethat with the fact that mind will be healable,that kiting will be greatly nerfed, and all the other changes that have been suggested, and these changes will, in my opinion, result in disaster for our profession. Sniping is simply not possible in a gaime where the max range is 64m and people can cover that distance in a matter of seconds.

And if we sit by and "let it ride out and see what happens," unopposed, they will simply make the changes and we will become as useless as a CH is right now.

That is why it is supremely important to let them know now that we are opposed to what it looks like they are doing. They need to know now that many of us will not just accept becoming the next CH. We all want balance, but I see no suggestion of balance in anything that has been said of what is going to happen to us. All I see is nerf. And that must be opposed.

Message Edited by eq_mind_wipe on 06-16-2004 12:57 PM

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Zeritul wrote:

Sotaudi,

I must not have been clear, but I am not saying that everyone who doesn't want to wait and see how it turns out is bitching and whining. But constructive criticism and suggestions to the devs and correspondent are alot different than starting threads like "I will quit if they nerf us" or "sign here if you will quit after they nerf us". I know you feel the same way about buffs and armor. I know you have been here for along time, I agree with you most all of the time. I just think threads like this don't do any good. The devs won't look at a thread like this and say "wow, lets scrap the last 6 months of work we have been doing because 843 rifleman are going to cancel their accounts". Sorry for the confusion, no hard feelings.

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/deepbow

My apologies for misunderstanding you then. And I do understand your reasoning. I just disagree that standing up and saying that we are not going to take it if they do xxxx is of no value. Actually, I feel that saying no matter what they do we will just adapt is the danger. That gives them permission to do whatever they want without regard to what we think. And standing up and saying, "This is wrong," is of value.

They fixed some of Commando, but because Commando damage was considered melee damage, we were taking 2.5x the damage from Commando attacks. Both communities complained about this, and they changed it. They then gave heavy weapons the same 2.5x melee modifier we had. The Commando community complained as did those of us who recongized that it was wrong to force a class to be in melee range to use their specials then give them a 2.5x penalty against them for being there. Again, both communities complained about this, and again it was changed. In fact, after months of complaining about dying to Durnis (see note below), the 2.5x modifier wassoon thereafter changed to the current more reasonable to-hit bonus against us. Had we simply sat back andaccepted whatthey gave us, we would still have this modifier, as would theCommando community.

I just does not make sense to sit back and take a wait and see attitude when all the indications we have are that they are planning to implement something we have been arguing as unworkable for months, that they are going to make us more vunlerable, and take away the one thing that counters our vunlerabilities, our speed. I am seeing a lot of nerf and no balance, so they at the very least owe us an explanation of what all this is to mean, and "wait for the rebalance" is an insufficient answer because if it turns out as the evidence suggests, then we will spend the next year hearing how they cannot undo the rebalance, they will just have to fix it, so wait and see.

Now is the time to stand up and tell them we do not like what we are seeing. This is our profession and we deserve a say, or at the very least, a much better explanation than what we got.

(Note" "dying to Durnis" is a trade mark of Fred Skinner, Inc.)

Message Edited by Sotaudi on 06-17-2004 09:36 AM

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XaverriJade7 wrote:

Sotaudi, I had a thought while reading your post. What do you think abouttaking the 'CB facts' we have thus far andmakinga list with somedetails for each of thechanges? Then you could put it in a nice, safe place and update it if/when we get more information until we get a chance to present it to the Devs(probably in two weeks, yeah?) and basically say, 'So given all this, how do we not die?'. That would give them the opportunity to share with us the more positive aspects of their post-CB plans for Riflemen.

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I think there is value in compiling all that we "know" about what they are planning on doing. We should gather any information we can and organize it and come up with a consensus view of what it all means, but we need to take care to divide it between official quotes and something someone heard a friend mention that his cousin's dog heard from the cat of a Dev that works on EQ who is a friend of a Dev on SWG.

Once we have all the information we can get, we can discuss what it looks like they are going to do. We can then say, is this what you are planning to do and if so, as you said, how do we keep from dying?

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Sotaudi wrote:

I think there is value in compiling all that we "know" about what they are planning on doing. We should gather any information we can and organize it and come up with a consensus view of what it all means, but we need to take care to divide it between official quotes and something someone heard a friend mention that his cousin's dog heard from the cat of a Dev that works on EQ who is a friend of a Dev on SWG.

Once we have all the information we can get, we can discuss what it looks like they are going to do. We can then say, is this what you are planning to do and if so, as you said, how do we keep from dying?

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You seem to me like you know the difference between fact and rumor quite well. If you're up to it, I think you'd be well-suited to compile this data. If you don't have time or whatever, lemme know and I'd be glad to sift through posts I can find and seperate the truth from speculation so we can look at everthing in one place and 'assess the damage' to be done by the CB.