Rifleman Archive

A few observations on Rifleman

1. There seems to be a real problem with the developers and rifles. They nerfed the T21 max base damage as I understand it to prevent one hit kills. So it would appear that the max damage they are willing to allow is already set. This is regardless of damage per second. In other words as the amount of time a shot takes changes they seem unwilling to allow a greater top damage level so the damage per second just decreases.

If they did increase the max damage after slowing the rate down then one shot kills are inevitable. So they appear to be doing two opposing things at one - slowing down the rifles and keeping a cap on damage or allowing one shot kills. You really can only have it one way or the other.

There is really not a lot of harm in one shot kills in themselves. Does it really matter if you are killed in two shots that are one second apart with a pistol or in one shot with a rifle? What you gonna do - target the guy and kill him in one second or run away in one second?

2. The complaints about the teleporting monsters are valid but remember it is not a bug. The designers placed this code in the game to do what it does. It works exactly as designed.

If you are a pistoleer its tough but if you are a rifleman you are dead. I hunt with a friend who is a pistoleer and he kept saying just raise my health. I finally got him to understand that I would need to have 2500 health to last as long as he did in melee. When he finally understood - he commented Well that sucks.

Several people have mentioned the best way to deal with it is to equip a pistol and spam warning shot. That sounds right. So if youhave no pistol skills,just novice markman you have a chance but if you are a master rifleman you are dead. Yeahthat is balanced.

3. Hmm my spraystick - I'm a low level rifleman and I use a laser rifle and a spraystick when something is close. The spraystick will be slowed a bit at three seconds but will still work about the same. The problem is I have norifle speed increases yet - none, have not invested any combat points in them. Probably won't as things are proposed. The benefits will befairly small. My sliced 4 second laser will become a 3 second laser after leveling all four combat boxes and master rifleman. I will get a 25% damage increase by completeing the entire tree. woot - what a waste of skill points.

I guess what im complaining about is the fact that the information we are getting from developement does not make a lot of sense.

One other note - this is just a guess but it makes sense. I believe with no proof ,that all wep developement is done on pistoleer . The do design changes and testing on pistols to balance them which is fairly effective. They then modify what they have done in pistol and apply it to rifles and carbines. That would explain why pistols seem to be fairly effective and balanced and the changes to rifleand carbine are disjointed and seemingly random.

Just my two cents.