Rifleman Archive
Thread: Ackehece, question about the future of Rifleman Cover
I also asked this in the Ranger Revamp thread, but you might know the official answer, or be able to get an answer more quickly than I.
Jedi earn Force Cloak in Force Powers as a Tier 4 skill, and it uses their Force Bar. It is a higher level skill, so it makes sense to me that the Jedi is able to move while hidden.
Rangers have 1 branch that allows Concealment without movement, and it requires special equipment. A second branch allows movement while hidden, but you must be hidden with the special equipment. To be hidden in an Urban area sounds like Master Ranger is required and special equipment is also required.
Under current implementation, Rifleman earn Cover as a Tier 1 skill. No special equipment is required and are also able to take Cover ANYWHERE, Urban or Wilderness. While the Rifleman must be prone while under Cover, we are able to move (crawl) as soon as we earn the skill.With the statement made that "stealthiness" will use a common ruleset, it would seem to me that Cover in its current implementation does not conform.
How will Rifleman Cover be altered to be more consistant with the 2 other forms of Concealment - or what will the differnences be? Will we Rifleman be losing the Cover ability in exchange for somethng else? If we lose Cover, will Conceal Shot be moved to the Ranger Tree?
Darth_Spike wrote:
How will Rifleman Cover be altered to be more consistant with the 2 other forms of Concealment - or what will the differnences be? Will we Rifleman be losing the Cover ability in exchange for somethng else? If we lose Cover, will Conceal Shot be moved to the Ranger Tree?
miodac wrote:
Begone from our board with your obfuscated requests for riflemen to be nerfed.
BruSwillis wrote:
Darth_Spike wrote:
How will Rifleman Cover be altered to be more consistant with the 2 other forms of Concealment - or what will the differnences be? Will we Rifleman be losing the Cover ability in exchange for somethng else? If we lose Cover, will Conceal Shot be moved to the Ranger Tree?
I think you have got it all a little wrong. The Riflemans cover wont be changed at all. The difference is, we cant cover when someone is close to us and us moving (apart from crawl prone) breaks cover whereas the Ranger ability will allow him to move freely past NPC's etc. Two completly different skills, Riflemens cover skill wont be effected by the Ranger revamp (in my oppinion)
Again I think you are missing the point. The Riflemans abilities fall into the ruleset as they are, so I dont see the need for change, the problem was that cloak for Jedi didnt fall into the rule set so they have to come in line.
Re-read, the way the Devs explain the rule set is exactly how cover works right now, anything we do (other than conceal shot) breaks cover and being close to any mob or NPC breaks cover also, this is all within the rule set and therefore has no need for change.
Riflemans stealth abilities are the rule set.
BruSwillis wrote:
Again I think you are missing the point. The Riflemans abilities fall into the ruleset as they are, so I dont see the need for change, the problem was that cloak for Jedi didnt fall into the rule set so they have to come in line.
Re-read, the way the Devs explain the rule set is exactly how cover works right now, anything we do (other than conceal shot) breaks cover and being close to any mob or NPC breaks cover also, this is all within the rule set and therefore has no need for change.
Riflemans stealth abilities are the rule set.
Bru, I desperately want to believe you. I want to believe that nothing will change for Rifleman in terms of Cover and Conceal Shot. I will be very happy if Ackehece comes back with an official statement from the Devs that confirms exactly what you are saying.
But we get to move and hide withour special equipment or the Force, and do it with one tier 1 skill, but Jedi have a tier 4 skill and Rangers (the NEW lords of Stealth) require special equipment and need 2 seperate branches of their tree, and they cant even shoot while hidden. I smell blood in the water, and the Dev Nerf Jaws are comming for us. I am hearing the theme music...daaaaa dum...daaaaa dum
Bru, you and I have opinions, but not facts...lets wait to hear from Ackehece on what the Devs officially have to say on the matter.
To be expected, nothing for us to worry about there.
Helios_SOEwrote:
Currently, Force Cloak is considered to be a mind-trick - hence it cannot be detected by someone trained to see inconsistencies in their surroundings (such as is the case with "Detect Camouflage"). Riflemen, on the other hand, will probably be vulunerable.
Now this to me is the most interesting, the "rules" and the way I read them, they apply to us as Riflemen allready, so no change there as far as I can see.
Helios_SOEwrote:
Here are some rules common to all types of buffs that remove you from sight (including Force Cloak):
1. Taking any offensive action reveals you instantly (currently the only exception is the Rifleman's ability Conceal Shot).
2. Interacting with some objects in the world instantly reveals you (could be switches, terminals, containers, etc)
3. Some commands cannot be executed and require you to reveal yourself before executing the command
4. All of these buffs can be "toggled off" at any time you wish to become view-able by others
5. Some non-combat actions can also reveal you (like healing for instance)
6. You are afflicted with a movement snare when you are stealthy (rooted when just camouflaged)
Again reading that, it's cloak that is the problem, that has been abused. I dont see in there anything that suggests Cover is to be changed in anyway.
Blixtevwrote:
Qui-Gonzalez wrote:
Why weren't these rules put in place when the CU went live? There have been more people abusing cloaking abilities than most anything else of late.
Helios_SOE wrote:
Here are some rules common to all types of buffs that remove you from sight (including Force Cloak):
1. Taking any offensive action reveals you instantly (currently the only exception is the Rifleman's ability Conceal Shot).
2. Interacting with some objects in the world instantly reveals you (could be switches, terminals, containers, etc)
3. Some commands cannot be executed and require you to reveal yourself before executing the command
4. All of these buffs can be "toggled off" at any time you wish to become view-able by others
5. Some non-combat actions can also reveal you (like healing for instance)
6. You are afflicted with a movement snare when you are stealthy (rooted when just camouflaged)
Some of these rules were in place post-CU. However Helios found it better to rewrite the custom coding we did for cloak/coverdone in the CU and make it a much broader system. Post CU we did see many uses of cloak that were never intended when it was implemented. This seemed an opportune time to clean it up, and Helios did a bang up job of it.
Cloak, again.
Helios_SOEwrote:
Force cloak is currently intended to be an alpha strike facilitator, not a "get oufa fight and regenerate free" card; nor was it intended to letme selectively bypass content. Force Run was designed to be a (more) balanced escape mechanism for Jedi. With the new hiding/stealth system, you can probably count on mostany action that would let you get backin the fight for free (after you would have probably lost) to breakstealth(including Force Cloak). That includes the abilities you asked about. As a general note, logging out/in whilst having a hiding/stealth buff on you (including cloak), removes that buff. If it looks like the fight is going southI tend to Burst/Force Run now.
Darth_Spike wrote:
Bru, you and I have opinions, but not facts...lets wait to hear from Ackehece on what the Devs officially have to say on the matter.
I agree, but I'm not reading anything that even hints at cover being a problem in the Devs eyes that needs a change. From the way they have described cover and the rules about camo/cloak, that coupled with the fact the Devs have not once discribed any problem with the current way cover is working, leads me to believe nothing will be changed.
The way I see it, there's no way for cover to be used or explioted in anyway, if you stand you break cover, use any offensive move (apart from conceal) and you break cover and if any mob, NPC or player comes within close range it breaks cover. All this is different to what was happening with cloak and the way that was being used in ways that was "never intended when implimented" the same cannot be said for cover. I believe cover is working as intended and cannot be abused, so I will be VERY surprised if we see a change.
*Quotes above are everything I could find from the Devs with regard to cover/cloak.
BruSwillis wrote:
*Quotes above are everything I could find from the Devs with regard to cover/cloak.
Darth_Spike wrote:
First I look at the differnce in the dabble-value. If another profession wanted to be able to hide themselves - why would they choose Ranger. It requires special equipment for them to hide and they cant move. If they want to move, it will cost another skill block, but for Rifleman, it is one skill block, and we can crawl(move). We also dont have a restriction on WHERE we Cover, it can be in the Wild or in an Urban environment. Why go Ranger when Rifleman x1xx gives you the same thing without the added costs?
You are kidding right?
You realise you are talking about two completely different skills and in no way would someone save points to have cover instead of going Ranger.
Let me explain why I think you are reading a completely different hymn book to me.
Riflemans Cover ability
This skill allows a Rifleman to blend in with the environment around him making him highly camouflaged in a stealth like state, unseen from NPC's, MOBs and other players. It has many limitations such as the only posture allowed while in Cover is a prone postion. Movement can be made but it is a very slow crawl. The main limitation is that only oneaction can be made while in a "Covered" state and that action is Conceal shot, where you can make a shot under cover of "Cover"
The main limitation of Cover is the fact that if any mob, NPC or player comes within (not sure the actual distance but I think it's roughly) 40ft of the Covered Rifleman, then Cover is broken and the Rifleman is visible by the mob, NPC or player. Note that in a heavily populated City, Cover is useless as NPC around the city stop the skill being used.
Current plans for Ranger
The camo skills of a ranger after the revamp will have the roll of the Ranger as a type of spy. He will have the ability (with the use of camo kits and gadgets) to roam in any environment in a stealth like manner, freely with little limitations (depending on his skill) The Ranger will have free movement and will be able to stealth past mobs, NPC's and Players to the extent that their skills will enable them to actually steal from the pockets of NPC's and eventually Players in game.
The limitations that we see with regard to Cover for a Rifleman will not be evident in the Ranger proffession as the main aim of the rangers skill is to freely move undiscovered by security to the point that even their armour certs will be changed to Recon for quickermovement.
Actually thinking about it, you are not reading a different hymn book, you are reading some foreign book from the other side of the World mate.
There's no way in the World that any sane SWG player who wants to have stealth skills would even contemplate giving up going for Ranger just because a Rifleman can crawl very slowly on his belly up to 40m away from any mob, NPC or player.