Rifleman Archive

Okay, its obvious that riflemen are supposed to be snipers (theres a title to prove it, so don't flame me on this one), but in my opinion they just don't make the cut. I'm going to try to compare them to my real life knowledge of snipers which is not perfect, since it is all derived secondhand from veterans or books.

First off - ACCURACY

-

Okay, its obvious that riflemen are supposed to be snipers (theres a title to prove it, so don't flame me on this one), but in my opinion they just don't make the cut. I'm going to try to compare them to my real life knowledge of snipers which is not perfect, since it is all derived secondhand from veterans or books.

First off - ACCURACY

- Snipers should have near perfect accuracy when firing from a stationary, prone position, but this isn't so in the game. Even highly skilled riflemen sometimes miss 25% of the time when at ideal range. Maybe a skill that is a sort of revamped version of aim would be helpful here, which improves accuracy a lot and is recieved at novice rifleman, but is very slow to use, could be implemented. Even better would be ifthe higher up the skill tree you go, the faster the skill is used.

- Why are we even HITTING things while running with a rifle??? I know I'm calling for a nerf here, but from my own personal paintball experience, I know that carrying around a bulky gun (my paintball gun is a m98 custom with a fx stock and a flatline barrel if yer curious) really hinders your accuracy if you are moving at all while shooting. This is because not only is it harder to move through dense foliage with one, but the shaking produced when you run is multiplied the longer the gun is. I think that we should get penalties when firing while moving, and I know a LOT of people will disagree with me here, but its for the sake of realism.

Second - DAMAGE

- Sniper rifles in real life are highly powered, accurate weapons. I know this is a sci-fi game, and we are firing lasers in most cases, but shouldn't we at least be able to fire a one-hit kill? I wouldn't mind a move that could kill ANY player in one hit, but almost completely drained your mind pool and and took a LONG time to use (say a 15 second delay or something). This skill shouldn't be overpowered to the point that it is the ONLY skill a rifleman uses, it should be a skill that gives them the ability to ambush isolated targets. The time penalty would make it useless to attack a group. This would really make assassins possible, which is one of a sniper's two functions (the other being support).

- Also, these rifles should have a higher base damage. There are weapons out there that do damage in the thousands, so why not have some rifles do damage up to 1000? Rifleman is an elite class just like Commando, and Commando is the anti-vehicle one, Rifleman is anti-personell, but in game classes like Pistoleer are more like anti-personell classes thanthe Rifleman. What's going on here? Just give Riflemen a lot more damage, but HUGE penalties against vehicles, such as AT-STs.

Third - SPEED

- In real life, an unskilled rifleman has an unsteady arm and takes time to control his breathing to prepare for a shot. This is already impelented in the game with the fact that rifles are SLOW. Highly skilled snipers, however, have the ability to shoot at incredible speeds while maintaining accuracy. I've heard the story of a Vietnam (or Korea, can't remember) era sniper named Hatchcock I think, who waited three days to kill a Vietnamese woman who had been torturing American soldiers, and when he saw her he shot her twice in the chest at extreme range, BEFORE she hit the ground, with a BOLT ACTION rifle! In the game, master rifleman have this ability, so I think that this is one area that the devs truly did a great job. Congrats!

Fourth - MELEE

- Why in the world would riflemen have a 2.5x damage modifier at close range??? I understand why it would be hard to shoot a guy in the head when hes beating you up with a sword, especially with such a huge gun, but he shouldn't do so much damage! In real life, every single soldier learns to fight at point blank range with his rifle, be it through using the stock of the rifle like a club or using a bayonet. I'm not asking for skills, I'm just saying take away the penalty.

Fifth - CONCEALMENT

- In real life, most snipers hide in the woods and make it very hard for the enemy to find them through such skills as not leaving tracks and using ghillie suits. In the game, the devs attempted to do this through cover, conceal shot and sneak, but it's broken because when you shoot, your target doesn't see you, but everyone else does. However, the devs said that they are going to work on this bug, so I'm not complaining.

- Some people want to be able to be immune to tabbing and be invisible on the radar when using take cover in PvP, and I agree with this idea to a limited extent. Invisibility is too much to ask for, so I think that the best idea would simply to appear as blue on the radar. That way there wouldn't be an unfair advantage, and most enemies wouldn't be alert until you opened fire. Immunity to tabbing is a bad idea, because it would lead to the same problems as the TEF flag killers. Maybe even include ghillie suits, like the ranger's camo kits, but they are crafted by tailors and actually change your appearance along with improving camo (though not as well as the ranger versions). The certifications for these would be in the rifleman tree.

Sixth - RIFLES

- I would really like to see a bigger variety in weapons in ALL the classes. Why do we only get one new rifle in the ENTIRE rifleman tree?? Same thing with pistoleers and carbineers. I think that we should get far more new weapons, released over time. These new weapons wouldn't necessarily have to be stronger or faster, they could just be a new damage type for variety.

- Rifles should look more like rifles. I understand that this is the star wars universe, but why does the laser rifle look more like a shotgun and the t21 look like a cannon? The tusken rifle was well made, however. Maybe someone with a more extensive star wars knowledge should list some viable options that not only exist in the start wars universe, but LOOK like rifles -long barrel, sock, scope and all. You can't hold any gun accurately without a stock unless you've taken some relaxants or you are simple extremely gifted with guns.

Seventh - RANGE

- I disagree with most people saying that rifles should have longer range, because in real life, if two guns use the same bullet, range is identical. However, the barrel makes the difference of ACCURATE range. Therefore, if rifles get extended to 128m range, so should every other weapon.

bump

If you don't mind, I'd like to add a few things. The man you were talking about is Gunnery Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock, Marine Corps. He became a sniper during Vietnam, with 91 confirmed kills and a couple hundred unconfirmed kills. His nickname from the Vietnamese was "Long Trang" which meant White Feather. He had something like the equivilant of a 10 or 25 thousand dollar bounty on his head. Sorry Bounty Hunters he passed away around 1996. It was a Vietnamese General that he had stalked for three days, sometimes moving only inches an hour, if at all. He would relieve himself in his pants. All he had for food was a few c-ration crackers and peanut butter. Carlos Hatchcock also has the farthest confirmed kill at about a mile and a half with an M2 .50 cal and a 10 power (don't qoute me on the scope, but it was an M2 that he used). On another mission he shot another sniper through the scope. Being the other sniper was almost as good as Hathcock, they stalked each other for hours. The other sniper actually had his scope on Hathcock, until Hathcock noticed the reflection of the sun off the other sniper's scope. Like I said he was alomost as good as Hathcock. The man is the most accomplished and respected sniper in the all the military and law enforcement communities. Hathcock's end to his service in Vietnam, was suffering burns over 70% of his body while recueing other Marines from a burning track vehicle that had struck a mine. Enough of the history lesson, but like I said the man is a true hero.

1) Rifleman rarely miss at an ideal range while prone, and rarely hit while running and turning with a rifle at the same time.

2) The x2.5 damage modifier: Makes no sense, if you hit a lawyer with a bat, and a salesman with a bat, would one of them get hurt more than the other. If anything, everyone should take x2.5 damage when laying on the ground, not just because we're Riflemen. According to the Devs, a Dancer is better equiped to take melee damage than Rifleman. That doesn't even make sense in fantasy role playing.

3) As far as the rifles are concerned, we get one at Novice Rifleman, and it's not that good. That's all we get, make it better or give us some variety.

4) I disagree with you on the range issue. Yes, two identical bullets have the same maximum effective range. But rifles generally don't use the same bullets. Even when they are the same calibre, the rifle round has more grain, giving it a higher velocity and range. Most pistols aren't worth much past 50 or 60 yards, yet novice shooter with a Winchester 700 could almost hit someone's freckle. It's not that hard with a rifle at 100 yards, and that isn't even close to were most snipers practice at. At the US Army's Sniper Course they are shooting at 500 yards and further. So yes I feel that range is an issue. Don't get me wrong, I also understand that the game isn't or cant be made for 500m shots, but 64m??? A true sniper could spit on a target at 64m. We should get a few extra meters on our max and ideal range.

Like I just stated, some things probably aren't possible inthis game, but I'd be overwhelmed with joy if they would (1) fix the accuracy, (2) take away the damage modifier, and (3) unnerf the T21.

I hope you don't think that I am trying to flame you, as that is not my intent. Just adding my own opinion.

great post, and thanks for that great info on Hathcock. Although I don't agree with it all, you've made some great arguments maturely.

About your point on pistols not being any good past 50 or 60 yards, I have to disagree - extremely skilled shooters can shoot the head off a moccasin snake at about 60 yards in one shot. My neighbor (who was a Vietnam vet.) did this once with an old gun of his when a moccasin got in his yard, and he just glanced at the snake, pulled out the gun and shot it in a matter of seconds. But your point is still true, a rifle is FAR more effective at greater ranges than a pistol or a carbine.

This was a very well thought out and intelligent couple of posts and I completely agree with them.

Chato

Very interesting post & I have to say that having read it I agree with everything accept your point about range. As you point out in your paragraphs about damage & SRTSniper also mentions rifle generally fire morepowerfull munitions that pistols. Even in the laser universe a bigger gun can carry a bigger power generator (or whatever the compnent is), after all the components with which the Rifles are made in SWG are rifle specific.

I wrote in another post (http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=rifleman&message.id=12489if you're interested) about how increasing the range of rifles, without necessarily increasing the ideal range could be the best way to balance the proffesion with pistoleers as well as give the rifleman a more defined role.

Currently I find it completely unrealistic that I can have a laser rifle that has an ideal range of 63m, bonus +28, yet if I move one meter back to Max range I am penalised -50.

Again this is not meant as a flame, I just feel that range could play an important part in making rifleman a really fun proffesion.

OB

Would be a good post if Rilfeman were Snipers, seeing that we arnt it is nothing but someones wet dream.

We have ONE line that uses the sniper title we have 3 others, one being SOLDIER. Looking at our attacks it is very obvious that "Sniping" is a fraction of what makes us a Rifleman. Our best attack is not a "sniper" type attack, it is a Area Effect something you would expect from a Soldier not a Sniper.

I am seeing it is hard for people to understand, but trying to change the profession to match a title instead of changing the title to match the profession is absolutely retarded.

Oh and the real life refrences have absolutely no place in a discussion about a game. Real life doesnt care about balance, the goal is to kill someone before they kill you there is no rules, not the same in a game.

/Bump.............

Good rational conversation with good points on both sides........... maybe if we can keep it going while keeping the flamage the devs will take some of the good points here.

---

ChatoSul wrote:

Okay, its obvious that riflemen are supposed to be snipers (theres a title to prove it, so don't flame me on this one),

---