Rifleman Archive
Thread: Worst Things About Rifleman
I think we also agree on special HAM costs being moved to Action and/or health. 
It's nice to have a disagreement with someone on these boards and it not result in comments like "you n00b". 
I also agree with the moving of the HAM costs to action and/or health. So we can heal the damage that is caused by specials. Only fair, right?
/still annoyed at melee dmg!
Thanks for supporting the post, guys. Hopefully other people will read it and follow suit. Once we hammer this point home, I think the Health/Action Drain concept should be presented next. We'll save Rifleman yet!
I would like to make a couple of points as well. I think this is one of hte best discussions I have seen in these boards so far, and want to try and keep it so.
Range: This issue can only be solve in a universal way, (fix all 3 weapon types at once). The max range for rifles will also be limited by the draw distance, which is less than 128 meters. I would like to see the maximum range of pistols reduced to 56 meters, carbines stay at 64 and rifles increased to 80. (96 would be better, but this is close to the draw distance.) This would also require changing the optimum range of some rifles. They can also increase the penalty for long range fire as well. Make it difficult.
HAM Pool: the worst part of the whole T-21 issue is that the HAM cost was never addressed. We now actually have a weapon that is more deadly to us than the enemy in PvP. I really like the idea of spreading the cost through the other pools, but leaving a very noticeable mind hit for us. Another alternative is to add a skill modifer to the Rifle Support line that reduces the HAM cost for higher level Riflemen. Personally, this can even replace the rifle speed mods we get now.
Stealth: I think this idea has been covered extensively in the Ghillie suit threads. Several very good ideas are already there.
Weapons: I will specifically discuss riflemen, but i think this applies to all 3 combat professions equally. Each profession should get 2 weapons, one at novice, one at master. For riflemen, they would work as follows: At novice we get a weapon that is basically the nerfed T-21 (AR3 with lower HAM costs!) Make the model look like the MG-34 based rifle used in the movies. This is a weapon that will do excellent armor peircing damage, but only medium damage. Then at master we get the T-21. I would reduce the AP rating to medium, but with a very high damage and high HAM costs. It should also have the highest optimum range and slowest ROF of all the weapons, and a massive close range penalty. A master rifleman should have the hardest hitting weapon in hte game. A master carbineer should have the best SMG, and a master pistoleer should have the best pistol. The BH should have acess to weapons that fall in the middle of the novice and master versions of the elite professions.
Special Attacks: One of the overlooked aspects of ballance is the damage modifer of the various weapon's special moves. The Highest rifle DM is 2, carbine has several 3, and pistol several 4. This is one of the sources of the firepower diferential we are seeing. By addressing this issue the devs can go a long way to balancing the various ranged weapons. Additionally, riflemen don't need a knockdown, we need a good posture down. What we can use is Suppression Fire 2, that last longer and is AOE cone. This should be tier 2 or 3 Countersniper.
Melee Penalty: This does need to be there if the above issues are addressed. I believe 2.5 is excessive. (1.5 or even 2 is more appropriate) There should be a larger penalty for being cought kneeling or prone. As a offshoot, being prone should make you protected from knockdown. You are there already. I think that a working /stick function would help resolve many of the melee kiting issues as well.
Vopn. . . interesting point about the Damage Modifiers. I haven't really looked into that yet, but it sounds like something we REALLY need to explore? Thoughts?
Also, would anyone like to provide us with some more math on this? That sort of thing seems to really get the Dev's attention. It sure did on the T21.
I don't think they'll ever increase our range. People would just cry nerf for us kiting outside their range.
Although it would work for PVE...
joydiv66 wrote:
I don't think they'll ever increase our range. People would just cry nerf for us kiting outside their range.
Although it would work for PVE...
This is the balance problem with increasing range. This is before you take into account the problems the engine will have withpeople shooting at 80m. Don't get me wrong I'd love to have 80m range, but I just don't see it happening.
I feel that is a problem with carbineers and pistoleers not riflemen. I'd enjoy the game more if all weaponshad multiple advantages and disadvantages.
My reasoning behind liking the 2.5 melee penalty are not purely because it helps define our class as a long range one.
I'm hoping that when the Devs implement Holos mass nerfing of combat classes so we can no longer solo reds, we will be able to go back to them and say: "Here are our weaknesses, now we would like some good advantages". Pistoleers, and Carbineers to a lesser extent will not have that same option.
When some of the other combat classes have their penalties put in they might not have any say in the matter. We know what our penalties are already, better the devil you know.
Seflyn,
You like the melee dmg multiplied?
I agree with you that making all the proffessions unique is important, but making us easy to kill in melee isn't what I would choose as our "class defining" attribute.
We suck at close range....we can't hit anything...isn't that enough?
Thoth
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Aden_Nak wrote:
The second option is to make medicines or buffs for the Mind bars. Let the Doctors craft Asprin or something. Let Entertainers buff our Mind primaries and secondaries the same way that Doctors can do for Action and Health.
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This is a very dangerous request and should be carefully thought out. My gut reaction is that I am against it. One of the rare advantages that we riflemen do have is the ability to damage a mind pool that can't be healed. The minute you introduce a way to heal it, everything changes. I realize you were saying riflemen's minds could be healed, but that implies that anyone's mind could be healed. Including the guy who's mind pool you're pounding.
Overall, I like the discussionyou guys are having here. I know Seflyn always has some good opinions and ideas, and at least you guys kept it civil ! A lot better than those "You're a retard!" , "No, you're the retard!" threads that seem so common! lol.
BTW .... Threads were insanely slow earlier but seem ok now...
Yep I like it. Ido find it very annoying when the mobs cheat and teleport next to me, that isa bit much.
I find pistol far too easy to use. I like knowing if I don't kill that Baz nitch in the next couple of seconds I'm going to get beat up bad. It adds more excitement. I enjoy not knowing if I should follow that Polearm user that I've left on 100 mind into a building because if I miss my 1 shot it's game over.
Without the melee penalty it's just too easy.
There are plenty of ways to get around the 2.5x melee penalty BUT if you're caught with your rifle out then you should be hurt bad in melee. Even someone only taking master marksman has the tools to keep things at range, between suppression fire and warning shot you should not be letting things close, unless they teleport.
We should be the kings of damage at long range, we should die in melee, that is how I view the rifleman.
Wayne, believe it or not, but I AGREE that the ability to heal Mind Damage would be a bad idea. I only offered it because it's obviously one of the ways to combat our disability. I much prefer the idea of shifting most of our HAM costs over to Health/Action. So instead of a T21 doing 43/21/75 it would do 59/59/20 or something like that. Less Mind than we normally suffer, but higher Health AND Action costs than A Pistoleer or Carbineer (and incidentally, that comes out to roughly the exact same cost per shot).
Seflyn, I usually like playing the trickier classes of character as well. I mean, I'm a SQUAD LEADER after all. Heh. But I believe that those more difficult classes should have certain advantages that others do not. Riflemen may not be as EASY to use as a Pistoleer, and perhaps it should not be. But the difficulty should be made up to us elsewhere. Currently we get the smackdown without the benefit.
I'm almost remiss to suggest ways to penalize the Pistoleers and Carbineers. Then I think we WILL get some flames going on in here. But there is reason to believe that the other gunners should get a different sort of penalty. The trick to these penalties is to only set the player back when they are using the character POORLY. A Rifleman is king of the distance shot (in theory). So if you use him like that, you won't get stuck with the penalty. The penalties for other classes would have to prevent them from doing the things they aren't meant to do. Which so far I haven't seen.
And as for us not being able to solo red MOBs. . . I've been hearing that since Beta.
Still, since our range can't go up, I'd really like to see Pistol users have the same obnoxiously lousy chance to hit when MORE than 20m away that we do when we are LESS than 20m away.