Rifleman Archive

DarkShade9 wrote:

I just dont understand this, why shouldnt riflemen be nerfed if changes to the game (not riflemen) allow them to become overpowered in comparison to other professions ?.

That makes little sense. You are saying to punish Rifleman for something they haven't done. But not fix the problems that caused it to occur.

Were Rifleman overpowered in the begining? No. Why not? Do you see why the problem isn't Rifleman. It's mostly buffs.

All this bull $hit about buffs and armour etc being overpowered, may be true, but itmeans nothing, because the fact is riflemen is overpowered in this environment.

No. You fix the problem. If you lower buffs that makes HAM costs a factor again. A disadvantage for Rifleman. It you also reduce armor then you have more weapons being useful. Which is a net gain for the majority. From your comment it appears that you are concerned here only about PvP. If you lowered Rifleman to the other levels how long would PvP combat last? Excessively long.

The problem with what you want is that everyone wants to be able to do PvP indefinately. Or just as long as they don't lose. Going your route means almost no damage in PvP since noone would be able to do much damage and that damage could easily be healed.

This is no fault of riflemen themselves, just the chages to the game but that makes no difference. they have higher accuracy,

Not true. Riflemans accuracy is nearly the same as Pistoleer and Carbineer.

are faster,

Again not true. I can show you easily how other ranged combat professions can hit the speed cap much sooner than a Rifleman can.

have a better dps than the other elite ranged professions,

They are suppose to have the second highest DPS. Only Commanods should be higher. It's their advantage.

and are able to attack the mind with crippling efficiency.

Again this is a problem with stims and buffs. Before those did it matter that Rifleman could target Mind? No. Because others could target other areas.

It has become an issue because Health and Action are buffed a set amount while Mind is buffed a percent. That still leaves Mind as the weakest pool. Add in that you can easily heal Health and Action with stims and you've set up a system where anyone with any common sense is going to target Mind.

In the games current state that makes them overpowered, and personally im not prepared to wait for the perpetually elusive combat balance.

So why not fix what actually made them overpowered? Lower armor resists and drop Doc buffs to be in line with Entertainer buffs. Then throw in some Mind stims and you're set. Easy solution.

But lets not forget that all your complaints are about PvP. Something that most people don't do. You also have to look at what your nerf call would do to PvE which is what the majority do.

How many nerfs in this game have been because of PvP? How many because of PvE? You don't nerf things for the minority and have it adversely effect the majority. Not if you want to keep making money which is the real object of this game. You can't do that by alienating the larger player base.

Qwezicul wrote:

The rifleman tree would more closely reflect conventional ground infantry. You know, the grunts. Rifle is a VERY generic term, used to describe ANY weapon with a rifled (grooved) bore fired from the shoulder. True, the T21 is like a light machine, gun, much like the RL M-60,

Small correction. The M60 is not a LMG. It's a GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) or medium machine gun. The SAW is an example of a LMG.

and you probably don't want to snipe with one of those. Other rifles like the E-11 or Laser Rifle could be deemed as standard issue. IMO, The ONLY title that makes sense (relative to this game enviroment) on rifleman is Soldier.

And Gunner to some extent. Many Rifleman have been saying for awhile now that Rifleman are Infantry, not Snipers. For many of the reasons you stated.

That's a step in the right direction. Riflemen make up the bulk of any country's ground forces, do they not? If there were to be a "long-ranged" profession, it should explicitly be called the Sharpshooter profession.
-------------------Actual riflemen comments, the rest is just gravy for boredom below------------------------

Now lets move on to the other ranged professions. Here's a defination of "carbine": A light, short-barreled rifle. Again, there's that generic term "rifle" popping up again. Carbineer is headed in the right direction, from the game point of view. Fast-attacking, hard-hitting assaulters. Carbineer even has titles like Assaulter and Infiltrator to back-up it's role. Hell, even the attacks reflect an assualt status (plenty of state attacks to overwhelm your opponent(s)).

Hard-hitting: Cripping Shot is a 7.5x damage attack, and most people don't know this, but assuming you have bh carbines, you can beat w/o ranged mitigation, even if they have 80% comp. If they have ranged mitigation, some people prefer to use elite carbines because of the tighter damage, but many can't afford a good elite carb (which would have to be krayted to be good). I still use my laser carbine, unless I need to break a psg, then I'll use my DXR6.

Fast-attacking: ...well, maybe if they got a speed boost from their at-master +60 (ouch). But a bh/carbineer can't be taken lightly though, unless you have 90% composite, ranged mitigation, templated defenses, and access to C-stims (the bane of bh/carbineers). And yes, to reiterate some comments earlier on their HAM costs, the good laser carbines made with adv stocks cost around 60 mind. That's pretty high for having to spam specials that attack random pools, and on a weapon that has a large damage spread (yes I know laser rifles have the same issue) but that's a story for a different forum for a different day.

Pistoleers. Ah yes, the 3-working specials-prof. True they get dodge. True they get good defenses with minimal skill investment. True they have access to stun. But needs reinvented like rifleman. I think every class should be able to do a high amount of damage in some situation. Fix the specials (duh), and introduce a new damage type: disruption. In SW lore, the Tenloss DX-2 pistol is a very short range, but very powerful weapon. The range is only a few meters (melee range basically), but emits a disruption charge, not acid (**edit**?) that demolecularizes it's target, hence Boba Fett being told "no disintegration" by Lord Vader in ESB. Strangley enough, the Tenloss DXR-6b rifle actually has an animation that better represents a disruption charge rather than the green-stuff coming out of the pistol and carbine variant. Oh ya, give those pistoleers their duel Westar-34's

Disagree with this partially. Not all professions are suppose to do lots of damage. there are three areas for combat professions. Offense, Defense, and Combat Multipliers.

Combat Multipliers are status attacks, AoE attacks, DoT's, etc.

Pistoleers are suppose to be high on defense, mid on combat multipliers, and low on offense.

Carbineers are high combat multipliers, mid offense, and low defense.

Rifleman are high offense, mid combat multipliers, and low defense.

Now they aren't perfect as is. Pistoleers need increased defenses for one. Also the delay mods on both Carbineers and Pistoleers probably need to be lowered. My view is that at Master just about everyone should hit the cap with any attack. Or at least with most of their attacks.

As for a new damage type. That isn't required. Acid is suppose to represent Disintegration. They just chose the wrong word for it.

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MagicalHAt wrote:

Im not going to read all that but I will say....

After saying that, why is anything you have to say supposed to be important? I wrote something that would educate on the facts and truths about our misunderstood position and you basically told me to f*** off. Thanks

With trees called snipering...concelement and counter sniping that rifleman IS asniping proffession I am not calling for a nerf but rather for changes. A lot of Rifleman want these changes too, but given the combat system, they are not possible. See that stickied thread at the top of the forum? It's got my name on it. Please do read at least the first post. The details what we want from our profession since we cannot possibly be snipers.

Buff and armor nerfs are gana make it easier for you to kill things....

That was not true in the beginning of the game and it will never be true in the future. I have my Mind mitigated the optimal way for being a Rifleman. This leaves me with 400 in both Health and Action as well as their substats. Without buffs or armor, I am dead in PvP in 1 or 2 hits. With buffs and armor, I can live much longer and spam specials all day. Without those buffs, I can fire very few specials. If you did not know, Riflemen have extremely high HAM costs. In order for us to target Mind, we have to use Mind. It takes 2/3 of my Mind bar(Mind stats mitigated to 1100/1100/800) to take out someone elses Mind bar. Assuming I can kill that person(we do have next to nothing for status defenses), I am dead as soon as the next person walks up to me.

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MagicalHAt wrote:

Im not going to read all that but I will say....

With trees called snipering...concelement and counter sniping that rifleman IS asniping proffession I am not calling for a nerf but rather for changes.

Buff and armor nerfs are gana make it easier for you to kill things....

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So why should we listen to you or even give you reasonable ways to fix combat that don't involve breaking 1 more profession if you won't read any response? You aren't having an argument or trying to persuade us to your camp of thought, you're just waiting your turn to give a halfassed reply from left field that has truly nothing to do with the discussion. Congrats, now learn how to debate.

My politician has the titles of Accountant, Warmaster, Statesman, and Urban Planner. Does this mean he is given special abilities and is given a better wealth of tools to manage my cities taxes or even see what money comes from where? No. Does it mean he is given a combat edge so that in PvE or PvP he is better then a straight master rifleman because I'm also a master politician? No. Does it mean I am able to go and have political discussions and attempt to persuade other politicians to my point of view with gifts and state functions? Yes but only by my own actions of roleplaying rather then anything within the game. Does it mean I can move homes to fit the plan that I have laid out or even truly enforce the vision I have as far as urban development goes? No. Gee so why do I have those titles? No apparent reason beyond a carrot at the end of a stick.

However that is a different profession perhaps rifleman fairs better in the accuracy of titles?

Sniper, means we can target 1 of the HAM pools just like every other elite marksman prof. Tell me, is a pistoleer a sniper because he can hit my torso from 64 meters? No! Then why am I a sniper because I can do the exact same thing only up half a foot? It also does give us snipershot, a ranged deathblow. However that useless for anything but PvP and in PvP it only means you don't have to walk up to 60 meters to kill the guy.
Assassin. Hmm that means we get the ability to move around while under cover! Wait a second to get under cover we have to go prone and that is instant death for anyone in PvP and most cases in PvE. Hmm sounds like a wasted skill beyond the mitigations and the skill we get at the first box. But concealshot is useless in PvP and easily outweighed by other skills for PvE at mastery. Being a great novice lvl skill doesn't make it a great skill all around afterall.
Gunner. Hmm we get cone shots that are able to damage a lot of people by spraying bullets everywhere. Similiar to what a grunt would do with an assault rifle. Funny how that works.
Soldier. We get to fire cone shots that can damage a lot of people by spraying bullets everywhere. Similiar to the average combat soldier...funny how that works isn't it?

Now for the silliest statement of yours.

Well yes that's true we will hit for more damage relatively but guess what? That is what we are supposed to do. It is our "pro" if you will. However, you seem to overlook all the cons that this would bring to us. No armor. All the rifleman you see in full 80% base comp will be replaced by guys wearing a helmet max. Our HAM costs are so high that any encumberance factor reduces our power significantly. Full bone armor would be a stretch. What does this mean for a pistoleer or carbineer? Simple. Your shots do the full amount of damage against us meanwhile your ability to wear armor sparingly soaks up our damage so you take a percentage of that.

Beyond the inability to wear armor and therefore die in a few shots from any profession we also have the worst HAM costs on record. After 10 or less (severly less with armor on) strafeshot 2's our mind bar goes from max possible to 30. We can't heal that back and have to wait for the natural regen meaning that we are literally killing ourselves with every shot we take.

This also brings up a second con that works to the advantage of pistoleers and carbineers. That is the way we are forced to migrate stats. I have to have maxed out mind and mind substats in order to fire my specials with any regularity while not buffed. Being a bothan this means I still have a fair amount of health and action as well as their subs (check the friday feature to find out what all the minimums are for each race) but people with larger mind pools are able to delve even deeper into the mind pool at the cost of their greens and reds. So? I find you asking. Well this means that our 2 targetable pools by carbines and pistols are our weakest pools. Any hit there is a large hit because of this. And the fact that all our specials cost mind any healing done to these HAM pools takes away a special attack or is impossible thanks to all our special attacks.

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Tyrst wrote:

I agree but since SOE keeps breaking professions instead of fixing them it is starting to come down to DPS. Every working profession has been broken and its just a matter of time before they break rifleman also.

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Yes, but when it breaks, the FOTMs will leave

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Sleksheea wrote:

I just think that riflemen shouldn't be able to target the mind pool AND shoot faster than anyother ranged profession, AND do 4 times the damage AND have higher accuracy even while moving than any other ranged profession AND have AP3 weapons, AND stun damage....

That's a nerf waiting to happen. You ever see a pistoleer ever drop an enranged rancor dead in it's tracks before it could get to him? LOL. NO! Rifleman can do it though.

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Message Edited by LiakyK on 08-01-2004 09:08 PM

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LiakyK wrote:

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Sleksheea wrote:

I just think that riflemen shouldn't be able to target the mind pool AND shoot faster than anyother ranged profession, AND do 4 times the damage AND have higher accuracy even while moving than any other ranged profession AND have AP3 weapons, AND stun damage....

That's a nerf waiting to happen. You ever see a pistoleer ever drop an enranged rancor dead in it's tracks before it could get to him? LOL. NO! Rifleman can do it though.

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We dont have high moving accuracy stats, (After calculating your base accuracy advantage over pistoleer, your accuracy while moving isSTILL the same as pistoleer's even with the accuracy while moving bonus they get) we dont have AP3 AND Stun on the same weapon (OK, and I didn't say you did.You do have AP3 though and none of your ranged counterpartsnore most melee professions have it (and thoes that do can't attack nearly as fast). You also have a stun weapon that again, half the combat professions don't get. Sure pistoleer FINALLY got a geo pistol that has stun on it but compare it's damage output (inital or over time)to that of a rifleman's Jawa rifle... no contest, jawa wins. (not to mentionthe rarety of any kind of decent geo pistol).And if we could kill the rancor before it got close we would be dead. (What? I don't understand this sentence). And what does the 4 times the damage come from? (LOL... are you actually going to deny this? Master pistoleers hit creatures for 700-2000 using their most damaging special stopping shot depending on the uberness of their pistol. What do master riflemen hit creatures for using their most damaging special? 4-6K? YUP!).

I TOLD them they should have made our spherical space station out of the same magnetically shielded walls as the garbage compactor! -Sleksheea

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Sleksheea wrote:

(After calculating your base accuracy advantage over pistoleer, your accuracy while moving isSTILL the same as pistoleer's even with the accuracy while moving bonus they get)

Total accuracy between a Pistoleer and Rifleman is less than 10% difference of the total. Once you factor in that there is a to hit cap of 95% that really doesn't matter.A Master Rifleman is going to hit at close range just like a Master Pistoleer and the Master Pistoleer is going to hit at max range just as often as the Master Rifleman.

(OK, and I didn't say you did.You do have AP3 though and none of your ranged counterpartsnore most melee professions have it (and thoes that do can't attack nearly as fast).

Not true. Commandos have AP3 weapons.

You also have a stun weapon that again, half the combat professions don't get. Sure pistoleer FINALLY got a geo pistol that has stun on it but compare it's damage output (inital or over time)to that of a rifleman's Jawa rifle... no contest, jawa wins. (not to mentionthe rarety of any kind of decent geo pistol).

So? Not everyone is suppose to have all the same stuff. Rifleman have no Kinetic weapons but Pistoleers do. Neither of us have a Blast weapon but Swordsman and Commandos do.

The point is that the professions are suppose to be different. They aren't suppose to be the same nor have the dame damage output. Riflemans advantage is offense and their weakness is defense. The Pistoleers are the opposite. High defense (though it needs to be increased) and low damage.

LOL... are you actually going to deny this? Master pistoleers hit creatures for 700-2000 using their most damaging special stopping shot depending on the uberness of their pistol. What do master riflemen hit creatures for using their most damaging special? 4-6K? YUP!).

Again. Profession are not suppose to all have the same damage output. It's the Rifleman advantage. You aren't suppose to be able to compete with it. Just as a Rifleman can't compete with the defenses of the Pistoleer.