Rifleman Archive
Thread: Idea to make us snipers
Feynan wrote:
Here's what I have thought up so far:
Make /takecover remove the person from radar.
The Devs said they will not allow people to be hidden from radar.
Make aline of /analyze commands, such as /analyze armor (creates vulnerability to a certain type of damage, though armor is not included in this),
Not sure how this would work. You mean create armor vulnerabilities but not lower the armor rating?
But if you do make a vulnerability you drop the armor to AR0. So it does lower the armor.
Also making a target vulnerable to damage type is not always a good thing. Because you get no AP bonus when attacking a vulnerability you can easily end up doing less damage this way.
/analyze weakpoint (creates a pool that gets a damage bonus against it on the target),
I'm guessing you mean a damage bonus when you hit. Remember the biggest complaint against Riflemen is that they do to much damage right now. Adding more will make this even worse.
/analyze movements (slows targets running rate down, makes it easier for a stationary rifleman to hit), each one has a 5 second delay so you have to be tactical in which ones you use.
Has merit. However how much of a speed reducton are we talking about? The ranges in the game are so short already that you can cover the 64m in a matter of a couple seconds. So there would have to be a fine line between slowing them down enough for this skill to be effective yet not to much to make it easy to kite every melee with impunity.
Haven't really thought it out all that much, but basically it's a way for us to engage targets beyond the 64m range without actually "shooting" them, which seems beyond game mechanics. It's almost like debuffing the target in interesting ways (ie. ways other then just decreasing max HAM).
Some good ideas. However the basic limitations of combat still will not make us snipers. Plus the skills we would have to give up would make try to fit into a sniper role would be unfavorable. Snipers don't use AoE attacks for example.
However I do like you debuff idea. Awhile back I proposed that those kinds of skills be given to Combat Medics. Bascially it would change disease/poison so that it would cancel out a targets buffs in combat by lowering their HAM's by a percentage. Say 50% for X minutes. This would negate Doc buffs in PvP and help in PvE, however the CM would not be doing any direct damage with disease/poison. It would just weaken the target. Of course Docs could cancel out a debuff in PvP. Or you could give that cancelation power to the CM's also.
I can just see a PvP fight where one CM is debuffing the enemy while another is canceling those at the same time. Talk about mayhem.
Feynan wrote:
Okay, it would appear that we will never with the current technology in-game be getting an increase in the max range we can shoot at (ie. 64m). The Devs have been saying this since beta, so not much we can do in that department.
However, the technology for combat from one thing to another is there, in the form of turrets. So we know that you can interact with someone above the 64m range, you just can't shoot them.
So how about we give rifles some "pre-combat enhancer specials"? Basically what this is, is starting at 90m or so you can start using certain specials that will make the target easier for you to hit, or make you do more damage to them, or make them more susciptable (horrible spelling on that one) to rifles or to specific shots, or analyzing what their weakest spots are or something (have to be honest, haven't really thought out what kind of "pre-combat specials" there could be. Basically you're preparing for battle, and essentially doing damage because once you can start firing your damage will be increased in some way or form.
Here's what I have thought up so far:
Make /takecover remove the person from radar.
Make aline of /analyze commands, such as /analyze armor (creates vulnerability to a certain type of damage, though armor is not included in this), /analyze weakpoint (creates a pool that gets a damage bonus against it on the target), /analyze movements (slows targets running rate down, makes it easier for a stationary rifleman to hit), each one has a 5 second delay so you have to be tactical in which ones you use.
Haven't really thought it out all that much, but basically it's a way for us to engage targets beyond the 64m range without actually "shooting" them, which seems beyond game mechanics. It's almost like debuffing the target in interesting ways (ie. ways other then just decreasing max HAM).
While interesting ideas, they do not really address the problem. It is not that they cannot conduct combat at distances greater than 64m. Combat is basically, "Did I hit it?," "What damage did my weapon do?," and "How much of that damage gets applied to the actual target?" Since these calculations are no more difficult if you are at 1m than they are at 1000m, the issue is not that the combat cannot be carried out at longer distances.
What is at issue is that the longer the range, the more objects the client and server have to communicate about. For instance, when you are in Theed, the server does not keep your client updated as to what is happening in Moenia. It just does not matter to the client, so why waste processor time and bandwidth with information that has no direct influence on the client? Therefore, the range limitation is simply a means of reducing the amount of data being passed back and forth between the client and server. They have determined that combat will not occur beyond 64m (in most cases). The server gives you a small zone beyond that where you will be aware of objects at greater distances, but if you exceed that small zone for very long, the server will stop updating your client, and the object will despawn to you until you move back into the awareness range. The greater the combat range, the greater this zone of awarness has to be.
Therefore, your ideas will not work because in order to apply them, the range at which you can affect objects will have to be increased, which means the area of awareness for your client would have to be increased, which means more data would have to be passed, and you end up with the very problems (poor performance and increased lag) they are trying to elimnate by limiting range. If they could do what you suggested, they may as well just allow combat at the extended distance.
Look at it this way, if you recall from geometry, the area of a circle is Pi times the radius squared. We tend to only look at the range as a line from us to the target. But the range is a actually a radius of a circle. That is, we are standing in the middle of a circle whose radius is 64m. That is an area of 12,868 square meters. Increasing the range (radius) by 10m, would increase this area to 17,203. So increasing the range by 16% inceases the area the client has to be aware of by 34%. If they increase the range to 100m, the 31,416 square meters, or anincrease of the area your client has to keep track of by 144%. Imagine running through Coronet or one the other laggy cities if your client had to keep track of objects in an area almost 2.5 timeswhat it does now, and you begin to see why they have to limit the range as they do.
So while your ideas are interesting, it does not really solve the problem. Sorry.
Waste93 wrote:
/analyze weakpoint (creates a pool that gets a damage bonus against it on the target),
I'm guessing you mean a damage bonus when you hit. Remember the biggest complaint against Riflemen is that they do to much damage right now. Adding more will make this even worse.
The complaint is Rifleman do to much damage with its current speed.