Rifleman Archive

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=fencer&message.id=10348&page=1

1. Added to-hit bonus for melee vs. rangedweapon attacks

This is a replacement for the damage multipliers and a sub-feature for the damage mitigation addition (detailed below). If you use a ranged weapon against a melee combatant, you will be easier to hit.

2. Damage Mitigation

Damage Mitigation is an ability to reduce the maximum potential damage output inflicted by your opponent. There are two forms... Ranged Mitigation and Melee Mitigation. As Fencers, we have Melee Mitigation.

There are three levels of Mitigation that you progress through on your path to Master Fencer.

• Mitigation 1 = 20% damage range reduction
  
• Mitigation 2 = 40% damage range reduction
  
• Mitigation 3 = 60% damage range reduction

What this does is reduce the MAXIMUM damage a melee-category weapon can do to you, not the whole scale.

For example, if a melee weapon is listed as 100-400 (Average damage of 250), and you have Mitigation 3 (60%), the damage is NOT reduced to 40-160. (Average damage of 100)

What is reduced is the offset of the maximum damage from the minimum. On the example weapon above(100-400), the base (minimum) damage is 100, and the maximum damage is offset by an additional +300. It is this +300 that is reduced by 60%, bringing it down to (300*0.4)= +120. Adding this +120 to the base damage we get a new maximum damage of 220.

Now the weapon's effective damage range is 100-220.(Average damage of 160)

This will not have a tremendous impact on weapons that do not havemuch offset between the minimum and the maximum damage values, such as lower-end mobs and player weapons. It was not designed to target these attacks (although it does help).

What thisis designed to do is to make it more practical for melee players to tank higher end mobs... instead of absolutely requiring creatures for this. The higher end mobs have a MUCH higher offset between their minimum and maximum damage values, so this mean a melee profession player will become a far more viable tank against such opponents.

In other words, the Devs have heeded to our wishes to claim a significant combat role during high-end encounters, whereas before all you needed was a creature, a medic,and some ranged players. Melee were optional, and often ineffective. This fixes that.

Oh, ranged professions get a ranged version of this that does the same thing against ranged attacks.

I'm very excited about this change!

3. HAM Changes

The Developers are working on an experimental change to the way HAM is use for specials. They plan to bring it out in stages so each part can be examoined for validity. Just looking at any one part can lead to exaggerated expectations both positive and negative, so until the entire system is revealed it might be hard to see the end result.

Phase One:

Now the HAM cost from executing a Special Attack Move is not directly deducted form your current HAM pools. Incoming damage form an oppoent's attack still is, however. Instead, HAM costs are deducted from the maximum value of the HAM pools. If the cost of a Special Attack Move is greater than your current HAM pool's maximum, then it cannot be performed. This means that you cannot incapacitate yourself through the use of Specials.

Example: You begin with 1000 Health. You execute a special that costs 100 Health which reduces your maximum Health to 900. You are hit with 200 Health damage which reduces your current Health down from 900 to 700, but your Maximum remains at 900. You then execute another 100 Health special and it brings your maximum down to 800, but your current remains at 700. You execute another special (a big one) that costs 300 Health. This brings your maximum Health from 800 down to 500. Since 500 maximum Health is less than the 700 you previously had in current Health, your current Health mustobviously be dropped to the new 500 maximum.

What this accomplishes is the alieviation of both incomming attacks and performing specials to be eating away at your current HAMs in the same manner, and will permit you to avoid making yourself as vulnerable as the way HAMs used to work. ... this is a good thing.

Ok, now for the second part of the equation.Some of you will like this, and some of you will not. At this time I must reinforce the knowledge that none of this is set in stone, and subject to tremendous change as the need arises.

The "damage" (if you can call it that) to your maximum HAM pool size.... is NOT healable via Stimpacks. A Stimpack can still heal damage done to you by an attack, but only up to your current maximum. This is going to require a change in strategies for many of us that used the occasional Stimpack. (And any of you Doctor/Melees out there that were constantly boasting and bragging all over the place about how effective you were in melee combat... guess where that just got you?) In fact, part of this change was to allow us combat professions to be able to be effective without requiring a SWG PhD. Just a wee bit of Medic ability is going to take you a long way, since you won't we worrying about healing Specials costs.

Hold on... before you panic... that's not all. We aren't left this way. The maximum value of you HAM pool can be restored! In fact, it regenerates. Not at the same old creepy crawly rate that your regular healing regeneration provides. The damage from specials is on it's own timer completely independant of the regular regeneration rate. In fact, the damage form each special you perform is on it's own regen timer.

To find the regeneration rate, take the total HAM cost of your special (to that pool) and divide it by 25. This is the regnerate rate "per second." I put "per second" in parenthesis because the "ticks" may not be exactly on the 1second interval... but the total regeneration rate is the same. In short, regardless of how much HAM a special uses, it will be completely restored within 25 seconds of when performed that special.

This is a very significant regeneration rate... and the nice thing is... you didn't require Doctor buffs to have it.

The good: You no longer have to either BE a Doctor or have access to Doctor buffs to be a competant melee profssion. Yes, Doctor buffs will give you a larger HAM pool which helps. But by reducing the negative impact of performing special on your HAM, and the greatly accellerated rate at which it regenerates, we can last much longer in combat before requiring any healing.

The bad: You must now be more observant of the use and timing of specials. You cannot bring yourself down to a bare minimum HAM and pop a Stim to make it all better. When you get a reasonable ways down in maximum HAM, you will want to fall back on regular attacks for a few seconds to allow your maximum to regenerate. You will want to time the use of your big Stims to when you maximum HAM pool is higher rather than lower, and have some small Stims on hand for when your maximum HAM is lower. Not that big of a "bad"... we just have bene presented with a system that relies a bit more on strategy than it did before.

4. Extended Range

Extended all weapon ranges under 10 meters out to 10 meters. This should diminish the number of "out of range" messages you get due to server-client synch issues. Woot! This should be a nice boon to us Fencers!

Please place your comments on these changes below. I will ask that if you have not experienced these changes first hand that you do not go berserk with your comments on this. It's very hard to envision the reality of this new potential "proposed" system jsut through the description. I know that when I first heard it described I paniced. It took quite a bit of discussion with the Developers intentions, and some clues as to where they are going with this before I could see the beauty in this system. My hopes are that I described it here well enough that I don't inspire that same panic.

Please include with your comments whether your opinions are strickly from your understanding of the concepts I detailed here, or if you went to TC and experienced them first hand. I'll be relaying this information back to the Developers.