Rifleman Archive

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Xodarap777 wrote:

I don't think that the sniper idea needs to be so unbalanced. As it stands, every profession hits at an insane speed at master. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- in the long run, it is damage/second that matters for the purpose of balancing. If riflemen shoot at 1/10th the speed of other professions, they can do 10x the damage. Add that to a horrible inability to move while shooting, and a partial inability to stand while shooting, and you've got balance in a sniper. This is also exactly what I would like riflement to be. This also fits with ranged deathblows.

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Absolutely incorrect. There are many other factors for balancing besides DPS. Other factors are HAM costs, status effect attacks, AoE attacks, and defenses to name some. Basically the factors for balance can be put into three general categories. Offense, defense, and combat multipliers.

For example I could have great DPS but low defenses. Another profession could have low DPS but great defenses. Those balance.

DPS is not, nor can it be the determining factor for 'balance'. If so you would have to make all the professions identical. The only differences would be the graphic in their hand.

Also your SniperShot idea will not work. The Devs have stated they do not want one shot kills in PvP. So you can toss that idea. Furthermore you only looked at the PvP side. Something only a minority do. What would this abilities effect be in PvE? You think people are screaming nerf now, wait until someone uses that SniperShot to one shot kill a NightSister or Krayt.

Message Edited by Waste93 on 06-20-2004 06:31 AM

Thank you Waste!!

I am soooo tired of seeing people claim that DPS (Damage Per Second) is the only thing that matters. Ha!! As a Master Rifle/ Master Dancer I'm not template stacked with defenses from any other profession (other than the tiny bit of melee defense I got as dancer which does nothing vs 2.5 melee penalty). And let me just say that against any melee creature or close range combat, my defenses suck! Even buffed and sitting in 80% kinetic armor I get pounded back to the clone center in no time vs. any decent critter, while I watch everyone else tanking them without too much problem. THAT is the balance with the Rifle profession - high damage output and low defenses! If a Rifleman is tanking - I bet you my brandy that they've got another profession for melee defenses alongside that Rilfe title!

What worries the heck out of me, being a pure Rifle, is this notion of slowing down my running speed because of my rifle, making it take longer to swap guns so when dealing with multiple types of MOBs getting the right gun out is not going to be worth it. And don't even get me started on the 64m range cap!! I understand the programatic issues, but dangit... if anyone with a fencer's foil can charge me down and make mincemeat out of me before I can drop them at range, the Star Wars feeling of this game is down the crapper. The ONLY melee profession in a true Star Wars Universe should be Jedi - why? Because they can deflect blaster bolts with it!!! The fact that you can bring a knife to a gunfight and win Master vs Master is ridiculous! This is Star Wars! PvP should be everyone taking cover and tons of little red bolts flying back and forth! Not someone with a huge hammer bonking people on the head! Melee professions belong in a fantasy-based world! Or a Sci-Fi world where personal shields are so dang powerful that blasters are useless - but if that was the case then the Empire's Stormtroopers wouldnt be lugging around blasters, now would they??

Nerf a Master's Rifle's speed and frankly, this profession becomes useless. No defenses + no compensating damage output = lame. No defenses + high damage = cool and fun. I happen to love the supporting fire position with friends tanking the high level mobs, its a thrill if they happen to get incapped and suddenly I'm running for my life... that's exciting and teamwork! They protect me and I dish out the damage... that's the way it should be.

But let's be honest, that only works in PvE. In PvP your melee/tanking friends CANT stop someone from charging a Rifleman and taking them out first. You can't block where people run! There's no collision detection in this game between toons! The fact that a Dev responded to this concern that the Rifleman just needs tanking buddies to defend them in PvP is absurd. If, as a Rifleman, I have to set up a 'gunner's post' of some kind - thats the first thing any smart enemy is going to charge - and nobody will be able to block them, rendering it useless.

Okay, enough ranting for now. But DPS as the ONLY thing that's important for balance.. GRRRRRR!!!

- Aradia

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CenoKreFey wrote:

In my mind, the combat balance is going to be a damage nerf for Riflemen. They may make us shoot slower, but they'll definately lower the damage on our specials and lower the max on our wpns. I think the mainissue that should be addressed is: if we're going to be balanced, will our specials still come from mind, and if so, will mind be healable like other professions' special pools? If that's not addressed, and our damage/speed is nerfed, Riflemen will be flung back into the dark ages of last year. 3-4 specials is really all we need. PVP is great, but it is really the minority of gameplay. Our professions should not center around those ideals. In PvE, I doubt anyonewould use 4+ types of specials (especially since the posture change attacks don't work correctly, which is not just a Rifleman issue), so I'd rather not see our question be used to ask about them. Having to keep our bellies full of food to compete with melee/unarmed classes should not be the way things should be, now or after the balance.

Just my opinion in this discussion.

Crazy P.S - What about pushing for a damage type change on T-21's? Doesn't it seem unnecessary to have the Rifleman's certified weapon 'energy' damage, when the Rifles II certified Laser Rifle can easily outdamage them and at a much lower speed? If I had to pick, Blast would be the way to go . Yes, I'm crazy. They'll never do that.

Ceno

Master Rifleman - Gorath

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Ceno,

We do not really need to ask those questions. We already know the answers.

Do aquick search on "special damage type," and you will find a number of discussions in both this and the Swordsman forums where people were panicking over some statements the devs made wherein it was interpreted that they were taking away targeted mind damage from us and any class that can target mind. However as I frequently argued in those threads, if you carefully read what they said, the only reasonable interpretation of those remarks is that they are going to make mind healable. How they will do this, I could not say, but they what they did say is that they wanted to put "equal emphasis" on all damage types and that mind would no longer be a "special damage type." That awkward wording was interpreted to mean "damage done by specials," but mind is a "special damage type" because it is the only damage type that is unhealable (except for a Combat Medic which has to take mind wounds to do it). Between that and the context of what they were saying, the only reasonable interpretation of what they were saying is that mind would become healablelike the other pools. This may mean that mind damage healing will be added to stims (what I expect to happen) or it may mean that they will create a new "mind stim" or it may mean something we have yet to imagine, but it is, in my opinion, a virtual certainty that mind will be come healable by more than Combat Medics after the balance.

Likewise, we have already seen a preview of the new HAM cost system on Test Center in January. While the actual mechanisms will likely be different from what we saw in January, we do know one thing that will not change. Costs of specials will no longer be assessed as damage to the pool itself.That means that no one will be able to heal the costs of their specials. So rather than the balance being that we will be able to heal the damage we do to ourselves using specials, the balance will be that no one will be able to fire specials without stopping and no one will be able to heal the costs of their specials. Everyone will have to wait for their regen to recover the costs of specials.

Therefore, it is not necessary to ask the questions you have posed. We know the answers.

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Thebiglizard wrote:

I want to be a sniper actually. So call me crazy.

Cradossk- Master RifleLizard

“I am no man!”

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