Rifleman Archive

This is posted, so people know where I get my numbers from, and so they can see it for themselves. Aparently, people can't trust that the numbers are correct, so you can have a couple HONEST riflemen go in game, and get the same results.

Maybe then we could move on to something more produtive of our time than arguing about the results of my test.

1) You need a bounty hunter with eyeshot (duh) and a rifleman

2) Just for the sake of argument, the rifleman should be as close in comparison to the bounty hunter's skills as possible. At the time of the test, I was 0-1-2-2, and all I could find was a 3-3-3-3 rifleman. If you can do better, great.

3) On the above rule for the test, make sure the rifleman is using a mind damaging skill of comparable experience cost. IE If the bounty hunter only has 0-0-2-0, a rifleman with 0-0-2-0 isn't a fair contest because there's no new mind damaging skill there.

4) It would help all of us if the test is repeated with mindshot 1,2, and 3, just for the sake of accurate data.

5) The rifleman should use the rifle they would normally use at this point in their progression. T21 is fine, I guess.. I'm no rifle expert. If the test can be performed with different rifles, great.

6) Neither the scatter pistol nor the rifle should be sliced.

7) You must fight mobs with no resistance to either weapon, or you will not obtain clear results.

8) However many PvE fights you do to obtain your PvE averages, you should do PvP fights. The more fights, the more accurate the averages will be.

9) Neither participant should use any buff of any kind, including spice, doctor buffs, etc. This is a comparison of damage based on the skills, not who can get more quickness buffs.

10) Neither participant should wear armor during the PvP portion of the test.

11) If any of the above rules are not observed, or either participant attacks once the mob is damaged beyond 80%, that particular fight is void to prevent bad data.

Now, when me and my buddy (sorry not giving out in game names so he can be harrassed by griefers or trolls) did this, we went to the Giant Decay Mite cave in southwest Talus. Sorry, I don't have the coords with me here at work.

We fought ten fights against 10 mobs named the same thing observing the above rules. Fights agains mobs with different names (IE Harvester, Guard, Soldier) were not counted, because that leads to possible corruption of data.

We fought 10 duels.

After each fight, open the combat window, and write down the damage done by each during the fight. Add it up. After the ten fights, add up the total damage done throughout all ten, and then divide by the number of shots.

Granted, this is not pure DPS, but this is still a head to head comparison of damage throughout the same number of fights against the same mobs.

I have squad leader ranged defense skills, so I made sure not to be grouped when we did the PvP portion of the test. Pay close attention to detail, or the results will not be accurate.

Now, what I found, and excuse me for not bringing all the papers to work with me, is that in PvE my rifleman buddy was doing twice the damage I was. Please note, if you don't know by now, that this is a comparison of mind damage.

In PvP, it was reversed, and yes, we did count the encumberance and skill use cost hits to his mind, and added them to my damage, because in a PvP contest of taking out mind, it IS a factor.

What was found was that in PvP, I did twice the damage as my rifeman friend.

There are three factors that go into the difference:

1) PvP damage reduction

2) Speed mods. Bounty hunters get +10 to +15 speed mod through each skill box, while riflemen get +6 to their speed box, plus the scatter pistol is a faster weapon.

3) The rifleman was damaging his own mind, which was added onto the figured for my damage.

To determine how much mind EXACTLY you use when you use your skill, simply press ctrl+C, look at your mind, do the skill, and note the values. Subtract the second number from the first, and you have the exact cost of that skill.

This test could be perfomed more accurately than I did IF you can manage to get weapons with either the exact same special move cost to mind, or both weapons with none. This is difficult, and doing this would have taken so much longer for me and him that we couldn't. If you can, then it is great.

Performing the tests multiple times, and averaging the results will provide even more precise data.

If a couple riflemen can step forward, promise to stay within the rules, and do this, then the data would be invaluable to both the BH profession members and the rifleman profession members, whether we agree with eachother on anything at all or not. Data is data.

Note that if you lie about the results, or do not perform a pure test, the devs will eventually, sometime down the road, not listen to your data because they will see different results when they do their own test. The goal here is to provide data for US, not them. They will always do their own tests. If you lie about your results, it WILL come out one day, so I suggest you don't.

The more people do this, the more accurate picture we will have.

As it stands, I saw that riflemen are far superior to bounty hunters in PvE when it comes to mind damage, but the reverse is true in PvP.

In my opinion, this shows the bounty hunter profession is meant to be superior in PvP (duh), and if that is not liked by the community, then THAT should be addressed. If you even succeed in getting eyeshot nerfed, as long as bounty hunters are designed for PvP, something will be done to make up for it, and we will still always be superior in PvP. Address the forest, not the trees, and then be mature enough to accept whatever answer they give you.

If you have any ideas on how this test can be made more accurate, please state it here.

If you don't want to perform this test, and make sure it is a clean, fair contest of mind damage with no external corruption or influence of the results, then you do not have to right to call the results wrong. Either accept it, or see it for yourself please, so we can move on to something more constructive, and more solid as toward long term effects.

As it stands, even if you get eyeshot nerfed, there will ALWAYS be SOMETHING the bounty hunters can do that you don't like. The issue is that we are people killers. We are bounty hunters in the Star Wars sense of the title, not the real world tracking down bail bond town jumpers sense of the title.

We hunt down people, and we kill them. We don't have tea and crumpets with our enemies, we don't play patty cake, and we don't mess around. We are swift, lethal, deadly killing machines when it comes to PvP, while you have the upper hand in PvE. This is what we get for spending three times the skill points for our profession. If you don't like that, then address THAT. We don't piddle paddle around with you when you come up in our crosshairs, so don't piddle paddle around with us by attacking specific skills.

Can we agree at least on the test? I know, whiners considered, we will never agree on that rest, but at least there is a way to get conclusive data. You just have to get off your arse and go get it. Green? Good.

A Master Rifleman spends 23 skill boxes learning how to use a rifle,

A Master Bounty Hunter spends 12 skill boxes learning how to use any one of his weapons.

Who do you think should be better at doing that type of damage? 23 skill boxes, or 12 skill boxes? I say 23, you say 12. Hmmmm.

And even PvE, you need to count downtime. BH downtime = zero. Rifleman downtime = significant. BH can heal his action usage at a very nice ratio of mind to action. Riflemen burn mind and have no choice but to sit and wait out the regeneration.

Wait a minute! This thread is about the comparison of damage, and you start in on THAT?

A bounty hunter masters two PROFESSIONS to become a bounty hunter. A rifleman masters ONE COLUMN to become a rifleman.

Seriously, though, man if you try to make it look like riflemen spend more skill points than bounty hunters, you're gonna make yourself look like a moron. Matter of fact, are you even playing SWG? Is there some other game out there with both riflemen and bounty hunters?

Come back to reality. Really, I know you've been having fun wherever you've been living, but we miss you out here in the real world.

And you may have a point with the downtime, I forgot to say. That's another issue for another day, though. The issue here is eyeshot in PvP, not riflemen in downtime after PvE.

I would make one suggestion, set your logs to timestamp & record them. Then just cut and paste the results. Then you can see the special move delay, etc...

Also one thing to keep in mind is the HAM used per second. Because, a T21 can only headshot about 10 times before you use up 1k mind, but a DLT20a can go a lot longer. Mind you the damage is going to be WAAAAAAY different.

Remember, the argument is not just about damage, but also the HAM used to do it.

Um, your 'test' is bunk. You considered the rifleman's damage to his own HAM as part of your mind damage? Uh, this doesn't show BHs have better DPS in PvP than riflemen, it shows that rifleman + BH have a better DPS on the rifleman than the rifleman on BH. It is an inaccurate and misleading statement to say BHs have a better DPS than riflemen in PvP based on your 'duels'. This seems to pretty plainly indicate just why Eyeshot needs to drain mind pool. Your tests also don't mean much since you don't include any useful information - the specific weapons and strategies employed in the duel (as well as the HAMs, and possibly the specs) would make all the difference in the outcome, but we aren't provided that information. As a note, it does not seem as if ranged defense does anything to the damage taken, just the hit rate (which is ANOTHER thing which influences the result of the duel, and is not mentioned).

You don't need to reinvent the wheel. We already know how specials and listed weapon attacks affect the damage. The expected damage is
Expected damage = 1.5 x (Specials Damage Multiplier) x (Listed Damage)
If you have a 50-200 gun and you're using a 3x special, you should expect a range of 225-900 damage, with the average being 562.5 (listed in the combat window - this is pre-AR/resists, of course). If your results are wildly inconsistent with the expected, THEN you have something to talk about.

We also know how the speed equation should work. Your net delay should be
Net delay = (Specials Delay Multiplier) x (Listed Delay) x (1 - Speed/100)
capped at 1.0s. Again, if you find something wildly out of line, you have something to talk about.

There's a list of the known specials in the pistoleer forums. It's a sticky.

There's a thread on weapon accuracy in the pistoleer forums. It's not yet a sticky. It's not directly related to this specific case, but it's a pretty decent example of the description a good test should provide.

Finally, when doing a test write-up, the most important thing to remember is *REPRODUCIBILITY*. Something reading your data should be able to run their own, similar test to independantly verify your results. A good way to check is to look through your write-up, and pretend to step through it yourself. If you see something missing, add the information to the write-up. Any information that could change the result needs to be in there.

A few reposts:

From the BH Board:

Meyree,

You should really calm down and re-read what you are writing. Calling folks children for disagreeing with you and for having a different experience than you had is not something that a so called "mature" person does. I posted in the rifleman thread that you started with an entirely different experience from having played with a bounty hunter since the game was released.. not for just one hour on one weekend. My conclusions in that thread still stand. You have not shown any data to prove your new found "enlightnment". The bounty hunter that I fight with can and does do over 1000 damage eye shots in pve at the speed cap. He can do this at a sustained pace by healing himself and never has to slow down or rest. That is on a light armor mob with low to no acid resist. He does less using a fwg5 or scout due to no AR on the pistols. I on the other hand have every rifle in the game crafted by me personally so I know what went into the guns (I also crafted all of his pistols and new LLC). If I use my grinding t21 on a target with low to moderate energy resists and light armor I can do decent damage using head shot 2. I usually hit in the 600 - 2100 range using that gun depening on power up and how the roll of the dice goes. However, since I am not a master rifleman I am shooting this gun with the special delay tacked on every 8 - 9 seconds. So I can do a theoretical max damage of ~2100 damage every 9 seconds while he does a theoretical 1080 every 1 second. So for each shot I land he does over four times my damage in PVE just on the shots that he lands. Now couple to that the fact that I only have so many shots that I can do with my t21 before I have to rest. I believe I can get off10 shots with a full mind bar and maxed focus and willpower for a human. I have no way to heal this ham damage that I am inflicting on my self except for resting while my BH partner can continuously use his specials while hittingthis stim b heal occasionally. That is my experience since release when playing with my BH partner. That is the same type of data that you are trying to offer up as indisputable. It is not hard data as you claim but is a very soft form of observational data. However using your logic it is possesses the exact same validity that your data does.

Now after having seen my data that is in direct contrast to your data lets see what the impact in pvp play is.

25% of 1080 is 270 damage, 25% of 2100 is 525 damage

Combat time against an opponent is say 18 seconds.. enough for me to fire twice

In 18 seconds of pvp play a bh will be able to shoot 16 times, stopping to heal themselves twice ( and probably less, just being generous) doing a maximum 4320 damage if they hit every time, 2110 damage if they miss half their shots assuming we are still dealing maximum damage since that is what you like working with.

In 18 seconds of pvp play I , a rifleman (not master), will shoot twice, dealing 400 damage to my ham pool and doing 1050 damage to my opponent assuming I do maximum damage each time and do not miss, if I miss once I only do 525 damage. I cannot heal the ham pool that I am using to do this damage with, but then neither can my target.

Simple fact is that Eye Shot does approperiate damage, and an approperiate speed to an approperiate pool. But it does not draw from the correct pool to do this damage.

So tell me again, based on my contrasting data that I can run logs of, why riflemen are wrong to be upset that bounty hunters do not follow the games combat system of rock, paper scissors? health attacks require health ham, action attacts require action ham and mind attacks require mind ham.

From Ours:

Meyree,

Your conclusions are flawed. My brother plays a BH and I play a rifleman and I will tell you straight up he will out damage me every time in PVE and in PVP without downtime. In PVE it is due to two factors:

1. He can use specials continuously and heal the ham pools that he depletes. I cannot. He gets a sustained DPS far higher than I could ever hope to match and this would even be the case at master rifleman. The key here is he can do large damage without depleting an unhealable pool using any special that he feels like using while I do not have a way to sustain my dps.

2. He is capping out his pistol speed without being a master BH and I am not a master rifleman yet so I cannot match his pure DPS due to lack of speed until master.

The second PVE issue can be remedied once I hit master level, however the sustainability of DPS will never remedied. This is due to the fact that a BH's specials only drain from healable pools while having the ability to damage unhealable pools in a targeted fashion.

My conclusions based off my experiences having played with a bounty hunter since release is that a bounty hunter is better at PVE due to the sustainability of their DPS. No downtime = faster killing = better in PVE. More speed early in the profession = faster killing = better in PVE when XPing is necessary.

In PVP the imbalance is the result of 1 factor only:

1. BH's may target and damage any HAM pool while using healable HAM pools to do it. A master rifleman is a terror in PVP, but they will always lose to a eye shot spamming bh due to the fact that to kill the BH a rifleman HAS to use an unhealable HAM pool to use his specials whereas a BH is able to use healable HAM pools to damage unhealable pools.

My conclusions based off my experience is that a bh will win even is the element of surprise is with the Master Rifleman due to the Eye Shot Special using a healable HAM pools to do damage to an unhealable HAM pool.

Solutions that I would present to correct this imbalance:

1. Make Eye Shot use the mind pool while dealing mind damage. (solves all problems while not changing the bounty hunters effectiveness in 1 v 1 combat)

2. Make Eye Shot hit a random ham pool while still causing blindness. (solves all problems while allowing BHs to still take advantage of the blind status effect.)

I will not offer mind heals as a solution as it would only worsen the problem due to balance ramifications across the entire game.

Simple fact is that you are a bounty hunter and you do not wish to be lessened in effectiveness. The proposed changes would have a minor impact on your effectiveness in PVE or PVP unless you are participating in group PVP.

As an aside I also do not wish to see Bounty Hunters reduced in effectiveness as that would impact my PVE and PVP play since I play with a BH quite often. However, one cannot state that because a bounty hunter requires so many skill points that they are a collage of the three elite combat professions and should thereby be better at PVP than any one of the other combat professions. I submit that a Bounty Hunter is not a compilation but a unique combat class that is on par with all other classes and should not by default be better at combat than the other combat professions but should have more options at their disposal to compete than a one line elite combat class should have.

Having more options should not equate to more power, just more flexibility.

In the end we all have 250 skill points to spend and we should all be subjected to the same combat rules as everyone else.

Targeted Health attacks require Health HAM usage.

Targeted Action attacks require Action HAM usage.

Targeted Mind attacks require Mind HAM usage.

Random Attacks require HAM based off the profession: Pistoleer health, carbine action and rifleman mind.

Once a profession breaks away from this combat model an imbalance is created and should be fixed. Bounty Hunters have broken away from this due to their Eye Shot special and should be corrected.

New for this post:

Now I realize that you are trying to setup a controlled test. That is great.. a controlled test, that has been done before, will prove that your throught process on this matter is not logical.

If I do 3000 damage per shot but only shoot once per 9 seconds then I am doing less damage then a bh who shoots for 500 max damage 9 times over the same 9 seconds. But the reality of the matter is that bh's have a much higher max damage than 500, it is around 1080 with a nice scatter pistol while 3000 max damage is stretching it a bit for riflemen.

Now I am fine how eye shot works currently except for the fact that it pulls from a healable ham pool to do mind damage. The ONLY way to balance it out is to either have it pull from the mind ham pool to do mind damage or to have it do random damage and keep the status effects.

You cannot break the combat design and remain in balance.

Also please note that I am not saying that riflemen should be able to kill BH's in pvp or should "own" in pvp. But I am saying that prior to Master level riflemen are not that great in pve nor pvp and that by having another class that can use a mind damaging special that does not require mind pool to use is what is breaking pvp for everyone.

I am a master weaponsmith first and a rifleman secondly, so maybe I am not as combat oriented as many other fine riflemen on this board but I do have a desire to be competitive when I do eventually reach master rifleman. I would like pvp to be fun where we are all vulnerable to some extent and there are no sure victories. Currently due to the, in my opinion, broken BH eye shot special pvp is a sure thing. If you go up against a fully healed bounty hunter in pvp and do not one shot him then you are dead before you can take your next shot and in many cases you are dead before you can shoot your first shot. That same bh can just pop a stim b and kill off the next person because he is doing unhealable damage using healable ham pools.

Remember that balace says nothing about all combat classes should be able to kill each other equally.. but it does call for all combat classes to be competitive, else you will have a small pvp environment.

Jac Amber

Master Weaponsmith

Scarlet Horizon PA

Corbantis Server

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Meyree wrote:
And you may have a point with the downtime, I forgot to say. That's another issue for another day, though. The issue here is eyeshot in PvP, not riflemen in downtime after PvE.

---

The *original* issue is that Eyeshot should take mind pool. How exactly does this support your case that it shouldn't? I don't mind having a different thread to discuss a different topic, but that's the issue you have not addressed by bringing up related, but irrelevant, topics in the original thread.

It is okay if this thread is strictly about damage. But you must then realize that damage is only ONE piece of a comparison between classes. By basing your "no changes are necessary" argument strictly on damage you purposely choose to ignore other factors that don't supportyourargument (down time, etc.).

So even if youprove your damage point here, it doesn't mean changes aren't necessary. We all have to look at the whole picture and not just the piece you pick.

ALL.... lets please keep this thread sane.

He still makes a valid argument IMO. I concentrate on one weapon and gain a lot more Rifle xp than a BH does pistol xp. But his pistol is suppose to be more effective than my Rifle? Again, it goes back to one of my other points. BHs should be combat masters because they are versitile and can use different weapons in different situations. Three different weapon types in one profession. A BH shouldn't necessarily be as good with a pistol as I am a Rifle based on how much camps they had to maketo getMaster scout, or carbine xp for Master Marksman, or Rifle xp for Master marksman.

And Iodan is right about logs. And you also need to figure HAM into the equation.

Noules how can you say that immediately after saying the whole problem with eyeshot is that it doesn't take from the bounty hunter's mind pool.

Okay, here I'll paint a pretty picture. Let's say I'm hitting you in the head with a hammer. Are you going to get hurt more if I'm hitting you in the head alone, or if you're bashing yourself in the head with a hammer too?

Yes, the rifleman uses his mind pool while I am shooting his mind pool too, so his special move costs do count against him. They don't count the same way against me, because while Mr Joe Rifleman hits my mind pool, I am not hitting my own.

First you ask for numbers, then I give them to you.

Then you ask how I got my numbers, and I give you that.

Now you contradict yourself and say my whole test is bunk.

If I say the sky is blue are you going to argue with that too?

Honestly, Noules, you're a troll. Stop it.

Your statement was that BH DPS in PvP was greater rifleman, but reversed in PvE. This statement is *completely* misleading. It implies the BH does more damage in PvP than the rifleman does but the rifleman does more damage in PvE. If you *include* the rifleman's HAM usage as the BH's damage, you're REDUCING the rifleman's HAM, not INCREASING the BH's damage. This is a pretty important distinction. Otherwise, by your reasoning, the DPS of a *non-shooting* lair is greater than the DPS of the rifleman since the rifleman runs out of HAM before the lair does. Uh.

You didn't give us numbers. You did not give us the average nor the standard deviation, which is the minimum amount of data we need to make any sense of what you're saying, at all. You didn't give us information on the weapons used. You didn't give us information on the player HAMs. You didn't give us information about specs, or any skill-enhancing items. That's just for the -DPS- side. You didn't give us most of the pertinent information required about a 'duel', such as the range and the range modifiers of the weapons.

I already explained why your methodology is flawed. You're not actually measuring anything useful. I don't see where I contradicted myself. You have not provided accurate values. You have not provided a good methodology. You have not made your point as to why Eyeshot should not take mind. Please point out the contradiction.

If requiring evidence and providing currently known information is trolling, I guess I'm a troll. Eyeshot and Headshot3 are both known to be 3x damage multiplier attacks. Headshot3 has a 2x delay mod. Eyeshot delay hasn't been accurately measured yet. You have not provided anything which contradicts known information, and your statement that Riflemen have better DPS in PvE but BHs have better DPS in PvP is misleading and inaccurate. Furthermore, none of this explains why having Eyeshot drain mind pool will suddenly kill BHs as a profession, which was your assertion as to why Eyeshot could not drain mind primarily.

I DID give you numbers. It's buried among your tons of flames in the other thread, Noules.

What are you five? You spell pretty well for a five year old.

YOU said REPEATEDLY that the rifleman's mind cost counts against him in this problem.

YOU said REPEATEDLY that the whole problem is that eyeshot doesn't drain from the mind

Now that you are asked to actually do some work for what you want, you contradict yourself.

Do youself a favor and shutup while you're ahead.