Rifleman Archive
Thread: The poop on the Combat rebalance, someone FINNALLY got answers from Fan Fest.
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
My Bothan right now could very easily get killed in 2 or 3 shots by a pistoleer/smuggler's rawpowerif we were to fight both of us unbuffed.
Wow 2 to 3 shots, as an exploiting human with 400 in everything except mind, I am lucky to withstand one and that is in low encum composite armour. I know this for a fact.
Honestly I think they should make doc buffs like Muscian/dancer buffs. This would make people think how they actually set up their ham bars and would be far from overpowered, just makes more sense to me too.
BaronJedi wrote:
Repaq wrote:
BaronJedi wrote:
Umm, how will Riflemen be even more powerful if armor and buffs are nerfed? I use to get hit with last ditches close to 1000 damage. Point is you can't just point the finger at Rifleman now when you didn't before, when the profession was basically the same. It just makes it obvious that nerfing Rifleman does absolutely nothing to help the game, because it is not the root of the problem. If it was then it would have been nerfed in September..
Buffs just made attacking the mind pool an even more appealing option. Armor made it so Rifleman had an even bigger advantage. They damage their opponents while their opponents have to deal with insanely overpowered armor. And yet they increase the potential of the other combat professions more than a Rifleman's? I'd like to know how.
because that was probably a pre-nerf fwg-5 (zero AP) take into account armor lets say combat balance armor is50 effectivnesson the high end. that 1000 points of damage will take a 50% hit just from the ap (down to 500) add in the 50%resistance wow a whopping 250. now take into account the last ditch speed mod with a master pistoleer shooting you're firing that at around once every 2 seconds (and he had to take two classes to do that)
now i can hit close to 1500 with strafe 2 using a high damage sliced T21 against the same armored person ... i'll take 25% off that for a guy wearing armor (being he's ap1 instead of zero) you're down to 1125. now i'll take 50% off that we're at around 550 (rounded down) firing at around the same rate the pistoleer is.
now if both of these guys wanted to shoot at the cap, the rifle would only have to aquire +7 in skill tapes (2 if master marksman.) the pistoleer (if i remember right from my smuggler days) would have to find over +15 in skill tapes.
point is that's double the power for much less skill point cost.
a side note. - the downside of rifle was not only the 2.5 melee damage bonus but the heavy mind cost to fire the rifle. that's not an issue anymore with the food on the market today.
My question still stands. How does toning down buffs and armor make us more powerful than we are now?We do way more than double the damage than pistoleers against insane armor. I also don't believe they need anything near +15 in speed skill tapes because of their weapon speed.
And people need to accept that there is more to balance than DPS. It has worked that way in so many other games I thought it would be obvious by now.
Repaq wrote:
To your second point. firing a 2.2 speed pistol you need an 89 pistol speed mod to fire Last Ditch at the cap. that would require a +15 pistol speed tape.
That is a problem with the delay mods in the specials themselves. With a 2.2 pistol you will hit the speed cap at a little over +50.
Do you think rifle is balanced to pistol? pistol has zero status changes, while rifle has area stun and area dizzy.
Pistoleer, Smuggler, and BH have pistols specials with status change attacks. For BH they have EyeShot which causes blind. Smuggler has LowBlow which isa ranged KD. Pistoleers have PistolWhip which is a non-ranged KD attack. Stun and Dizzy have their place, but most people would think that KD is the best of the status effect attacks. Especially in PvP.
the target an easily healable pool. all while having half the DPS of a rifleman. i'm having trouble understanding. but i'll give it a shot...please explain to me what else there is that balances pistol with rifle?
Defenses for one. Riflemen have very few defenses vs status attacks. Pistoleers have many. Pistoleers have more defenses than Riflemen. Also Dodge allows you to complete negate an attack. The Riflemen equivelant is Block. Block reduces the damage by 50% but you still take the status effect if it was a status effect attack you were hit with. Block for Riflemen caps at +80 while Dodge for Pistoleer is above +100 if I remember correctly. However the Pistoleer defenses do need to be increased some.
Also at non-Master level the Pistoleer has much more speed than the Riflemen and at Novice level they even have more DPS. Reason being the very low accuracy of rifles at anything other than ideal range and their very slow rate of fire at Novice.
Waste93 wrote:
Repaq wrote:
To your second point. firing a 2.2 speed pistol you need an 89 pistol speed mod to fire Last Ditch at the cap. that would require a +15 pistol speed tape.
That is a problem with the delay mods in the specials themselves. With a 2.2 pistol you will hit the speed cap at a little over +50.
Who uses auto attack???
Do you think rifle is balanced to pistol? pistol has zero status changes, while rifle has area stun and area dizzy.
Pistoleer, Smuggler, and BH have pistols specials with status change attacks. For BH they have EyeShot which causes blind. Smuggler has LowBlow which isa ranged KD. Pistoleers have PistolWhip which is a non-ranged KD attack. Stun and Dizzy have their place, but most people would think that KD is the best of the status effect attacks. Especially in PvP.
Those are effects that you get by dabbling in other classes. my rifleman has +100 defense to KD, +90 defense to dizzy, and +70 defense to posture change down, and at the 125 cap to block by dabbling. if you're going to bring up the dabbling point just remember you can do it too.
the target an easily healable pool. all while having half the DPS of a rifleman. i'm having trouble understanding. but i'll give it a shot...please explain to me what else there is that balances pistol with rifle?
Defenses for one. Riflemen have very few defenses vs status attacks. Pistoleers have many. Pistoleers have more defenses than Riflemen. Also Dodge allows you to complete negate an attack. The Riflemen equivelant is Block. Block reduces the damage by 50% but you still take the status effect if it was a status effect attack you were hit with. Block for Riflemen caps at +80 while Dodge for Pistoleer is above +100 if I remember correctly. However the Pistoleer defenses do need to be increased some.
Rifleman have much more ranged and melee defense than a pistoleer. and this works much better than dodge does for a pistoleer that doesn't have fencer or eats food. and the defense vs. mods that pistoleer are pretty worthless without dabbling for more. i know i didn't see much of a difference when i was just fencer/rifle until i picked up the pistol line. and i sure didn't see much of a difference when i was just smuggler pistoleer.
Also at non-Master level the Pistoleer has much more speed than the Riflemen and at Novice level they even have more DPS. Reason being the very low accuracy of rifles at anything other than ideal range and their very slow rate of fire at Novice.
this is a valid arguement.
Repaq wrote:
Who uses auto attack???
Noone. However the point was to show the problem is with the delay mods in the specials themselves.
Those are effects that you get by dabbling in other classes. my rifleman has +100 defense to KD, +90 defense to dizzy, and +70 defense to posture change down, and at the 125 cap to block by dabbling. if you're going to bring up the dabbling point just remember you can do it too.
No you don't. Those status effects I listed are all in those professions. In fact you can't dabble for combat skills like that since they are weapon type specific. You can not do a LowBlow, EyeShot, or PistolWhip with any weapon other than a pistol.
You can dabble in defenses to a point. Your +125 Block ability only works if you are wielding a rifle or a pike. If you are wielding a Pistol you can not Block.
Rifleman have much more ranged and melee defense than a pistoleer. and this works much better than dodge does for a pistoleer that doesn't have fencer or eats food. and the defense vs. mods that pistoleer are pretty worthless without dabbling for more. i know i didn't see much of a difference when i was just fencer/rifle until i picked up the pistol line. and i sure didn't see much of a difference when i was just smuggler pistoleer.
No the don't. Here is a breakdown of the defenses.
Rifle:
+80 Block
+72 Ranged Defense
+45 Melee Defense
+10 Dvs Blind
+10 Dvs Dizzy
+30 Dvs Posture Up
+10 Dvs Stun
Pistol:
+105 Dodge
+7 Ranged Defense
+45 Melee Defense
+40 Dvs Stun
+40 Dvs Blind
+40 Dvs Dizzy
+50 Dvs Knockdown
+20 Dvs Posture Down
As you can see the melee defense is the same. Riflemen do have more ranged defenses. However the Pistoleers have much more status defenses. However also remember this. Meleeweapons have a to hit bonus vs Riflemen. So that lowers the Riflemens Def vs melee which means the Pistoleers effect Def vs Melee will be higher than the Riflemans.
Part of the problem is MOB's don't use enough status effect attacks. The other part is that they are passive. You don't know when they actually work unless you are carfully watching the MOB. If you see a little sign over the MOB that says +Dizzy+ that means it tried to use a Dizzy attack on you. If you don't get Dizzy that means it failed and the defenses worked. But your combat spam does not tell you that you resisted so it's easy to miss these passive defenses.
I wouldn't say Dodge is worthless. I picked up Swordsmen which has CounterAttack. It's nice being missed like that. Besides you have to remember, that you don't get one defense or the other. You get both your roll against Def vs Melee/Ranged and you get your Dodge/CounterAttack/Block rolls. So if your roll against your melee defense fails, you still get another roll vs Dodge.
Pistoleers do however need a bump up in their defensive stats. They aren't quite high enough. But they do work. It's just easy to miss them since they are passive abilities.
Message Edited by Waste93 on 06-08-2004 04:28 PM
Waste93 wrote:
Repaq wrote:
Who uses auto attack???
Noone. However the point was to show the problem is with the delay mods in the specials themselves.
Those are effects that you get by dabbling in other classes. my rifleman has +100 defense to KD, +90 defense to dizzy, and +70 defense to posture change down, and at the 125 cap to block by dabbling. if you're going to bring up the dabbling point just remember you can do it too.
No you don't. Those status effects I listed are all in those professions. Those status effects are in BH and smuggler NOT pistoleer you have to use more skill points to get them.In fact you can't dabble for combat skills like that since they are weapon type specific. You can not do a LowBlow, EyeShot, or PistolWhip with any weapon other than a pistol. the point was rifle gets them without dabbling and using up other skill points. i want you to show me where i said you can get low blow ect. by dabbling. i only said you can dabble too.
You can dabble in defenses to a point. Your +125 Block ability only works if you are wielding a rifle or a pike. If you are wielding a Pistol you can not Block.I'm a rifleman/fencer. you will never see a pistol in my hand. I don't really even know why you wasted time to write that.
Rifleman have much more ranged and melee defense than a pistoleer. and this works much better than dodge does for a pistoleer that doesn't have fencer or eats food. and the defense vs. mods that pistoleer are pretty worthless without dabbling for more. i know i didn't see much of a difference when i was just fencer/rifle until i picked up the pistol line. and i sure didn't see much of a difference when i was just smuggler pistoleer.
No the don't. Here is a breakdown of the defenses.
Rifle:
+80 Block
+72 Ranged Defense
+45 Melee Defense
+10 Dvs Blind
+10 Dvs Dizzy
+30 Dvs Posture Up
+10 Dvs Stun
Pistol:
+105 Dodge
+7 Ranged Defense
+45 Melee Defense
+40 Dvs Stun
+40 Dvs Blind
+40 Dvs Dizzy
+50 Dvs Knockdown
+20 Dvs Posture Down
As you can see the melee defense is the same. Riflemen do have more ranged defenses. However the Pistoleers have much more status defenses.i was lumping them together i find 65 more range defense significant.
Part of the problem is MOB's don't use enough status effect attacks. The other part is that they are passive. You don't know when they actually work unless you are carfully watching the MOB. If you see a little sign over the MOB that says +Dizzy+ that means it tried to use a Dizzy attack on you. If you don't get Dizzy that means it failed and the defenses worked. But your combat spam does not tell you that you resisted so it's easy to miss these passive defenses.i make my comments from a PvP prespective. only time i PvE is when i need to level or i'm looking for loot. i'll leave the PvE aguement to you. i care not for it.
I wouldn't say Dodge is worthless. I picked up Swordsmen which has CounterAttack. It's nice being missed like that. Besides you have to remember, that you don't get one defense or the other. You get both your roll against Def vs Melee/Ranged and you get your Dodge/CounterAttack/Block rolls. So if your roll against your melee defense fails, you still get another roll vs Dodge.no it's not completly worthless, but it's pretty damn insignificant. unless you're going up against another class with low accuracy (another area the rifle wins).
Pistoleers do however need a bump up in their defensive stats. They aren't quite high enough. But they do work. It's just easy to miss them since they are passive abilities.yes they do work, but maybe 10-20% of the time with a +40, i agree it does need to be boosted.
LLJK_Griz wrote:
block doesn't even work get 125 in block and say this, the melee defense is worthless since all melees have a massively increased chance to hit riflemen it's not just rifleman they have the bonus to hit all ranged classes, and 105 dodgestops a hell of a lot more attacksthan 72 ranged defense. i disagree, however i have no solid numbers to back this up. just that i know i live alot longer as a rifleman than i did as a pistoleer. i'd take 125 ranged defense over 125 dodge anyday.
Repaq wrote:
LLJK_Griz wrote:
block doesn't even work get 125 in block and say this
Block does work. I think the misconception is in that some expect it to work like Dodge and CounterAttack in that it negates the attack. Block reduces the damage by 50% and you still take the status effect if there was one. Block being different than Dodge and CounterAttack leads people to think it is broken when it is not. It's working as intended.
it's not just rifleman they have the bonus to hit all ranged classes,
True. However I believe that their bonus is based upon the type of weapon the target is holding. The larget the weapon the greater the bonus. So from low to high it would be pistol/carbine/rifle/heavy weapon. At least that would make the most sense. Which may mean that isn't what happens.
i disagree, however i have no solid numbers to back this up. just that i know i live alot longer as a rifleman than i did as a pistoleer. i'd take 125 ranged defense over 125 dodge anyday.
Hard to find out. However I'm a Master Rifleman with +80 Block total mod. I'm also a Swordsman with 0/0/4/3. I can say it seem my CounterAttack goes off a lot more than I've seen Block go off. But I may also being much more attention now then I have been in the past. If you are on Wanderhome some time and would like to do some testing let me know. It would be interesting to find out about these.
xZeroSignalx wrote:
Yeah, because you can't already spam HeadShot3 and StrafeShot2 once per second already. Quit whining.
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
So we're back to novice speeds and can't even run away if **edit** hits the fanIf they don't double/triple our damage we're pretty much dead in any situation. Ah well, it'll be nice to be the only rifleman in a 4 klick radius.
Waste93 wrote:
PistolWhip is a Pistoleer special. And it's a KD attack.
This is not a status change it's a posture change. and you have to be within melee range for it.
So do Pistoleers. Look up PistolWhip, a Pistoleer ability.
low blow and pistolwhip are completly different. pistolwhip has a range of 10m. if i have to be 10m from someone to be effective, why wouldn't i just be pure melee?
Then Dodge will only work when you are wielding a Fencer weapon and Block only when you wield a Rifle weapon.
Yeah and? i'm just below the cap with dodge too....i'm still lost on why you would bring this up.
Actually it doesn't. Melee defense is higher for the Pistoleer if you factor in the bonus to hit melee have vs Riflemen.
Actually it DOES. melee have a bonus to hit ALL ranged classes. it's not greater with a larger weapon.
Why they did that instead of modifing the Riflemens def vs melee I don't know. Figured it would make a cleaner code if they had.
Remember Dodge lets you negate the attack completely. It is just as good as a miss. So the first roll is vs your ranged defense. Not sure of the exact formula but I suspect that you roll then compare the number to something to determine a hit. So it would be +accuracy +other positive mods (aim, prone, etc). -Ranged defense -movement mods and +/- weapon range mods. So lets say it shows a hit.
That means the Riflemen will be hit and take damage. The Pistoleer however has a chance to dodge. So they would have a second roll to see if the Dodge. Not sure what calculations are used. It would be nice to find out.
And the rifleman has a greater chance to evade the shot on the first roll.
The other possibility is that there is no second roll. What you do is take the first roll and see how much over the min to hit it was. If it was within 105 of the min roll then the Dodge kicks in. Personaly the second possibility would probably be easier to do and require less coding. But I don't know for sure that is what happens.
But if the second version is the correct one, then you can bascially add that +105 Dodge to their Melee and Ranged Defense skills to get their effective levels. Which puts them higher than the Riflemens.
There is NO WAY a pistoleer has the equivilent of 110 plus ranged defense by adding the 2, you can probably throw out your second theory.
It is. However if the second version of calculating to hit is correct then it would actually be +40 in favor of the Pistoleer if you factor in Dodge. But that is speculation since we don't know for sure how Dodge/CounterAttack/Block are factored in.
The same applies in PvP. You don't see the passive defenses when they work. They don't show in the combat spam. So your status defenses could be going off frequently but you wouldn't know it.
But i know the +40 is ineffective because this is one of the things i've tested in duels, they resist less than 20%, there is no way it's a straight percentage. as you argue later in this post.
Actually Pistol and Rifle accuracy is pretty close. I know it doesn't look that way but there are two factors you need to know. The first is that accuracy caps at about 95%. I'd like to know who fed you this garbage, tell a swordsman that he's just as accurate with as a TKA becuase it caps at 95%. I'd like to see his response. There is always a chance of a miss even if the number add up to 100%+. Secondly is that specials have built in accuracy mods. I think you think that accuracy works like the speed mod. I can tell you with certainty it does not. Rifle specials have an accuracy mod of +15 or less. Pistoleer specials have accuracy mods of +50 or less. Those two factors give the professions nearly the same accuracy. Which is why a Master Rifleman at min range will hit most of the time. Just like a Master Pistoleer will hit at max range most of the time.
In PvE yes becuase mobs have little if any defense. but pvp, against a defense stacker the rifle is more accurate than a pistol in ANY range.
I don't know how often they do work. Like I said it's hard to tell because you are not informed that it has gone off. It would be interesting to find out though. But I suspect that the modifier acts as a percentage. So +40 should translate to 40%. Kind of hard to test though. Best way would try to get something over 100% with foods and have them throw that status attack at you and see. Though I would also suspect that defenses would cap at 90-95% like accuracy so there is always some chance it would take hold. I can tell you that at 100 def to KD i can get KD (although very very very difficult, and usually only by a TKA so i would assume your opponents accuracy comes into play here.)
my personal take on how it should've been all along....
1) speed mod for all the ranged professions should've been equal...i'd say a speed mod of 75. the reason for this is that there is a innate balancing of the weapons speed on creation. pistols themselves have low speed and damage. carbines med. and rifles slow and more powerful. there is a DPS balance in the crafting of the weapons. but the speed mods screw this all up.
I disagree. I think that the time delays should be tweaked so that at Master levle everyone can hit the cap. There is no mechanical reason for rifles to fire slower than other weapons. Also you can't make DPS the same. See my prior arguement about circular balance vs linear balance. with 75 mod, everyone could hit the cap with the right loot. would set some gamers apart.
2) each class should have his nitch. i would propose, that pistoleers would do the stat changes, carbines be the only class with area/cone attacks. and rifleman should be able to target any pool they desire (see a target with low action shoot him in the leg for a quick kill, same with mind and health) the rifleman should be the oppurtunist on the battlefield. laying back and choosing his shots carefully. this ability along with sniper shot would really give the rifleman his nitch.
Everyone should have a role. However the Pistoleers as I see it are the defensive and anti-melee types. why wouldn't other melee be anti melee?
Your role for Riflemen seems to be that of the sniper. A role that is not possible given the range limitations, radar, etc put in.oh but it is, you said yourselfthat the role seems to be sniper. think about being the only one that can target a specific pool. i would think that would be DAMN fun.Riflemen are the infantry with assault rifles. Their AoE attacks represent the automatic fire from these weapons.Then be a carbineer if that's what you like about rifleman.
the above is just my opinion on how i would've liked to see it. it is by no means an absolute statement. just wishful thinking.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. At least you haven't resorted to name calling as many that come here to.
Message Edited by Repaq on 06-09-2004 01:14 AM
Repaq wrote:
LLJK_Griz wrote:
The melee defense is worthless since all melees have a massively increased chance to hit riflemen it's not just rifleman they have the bonus to hit all ranged classes,