Rifleman Archive

I honestly want to know. They should know that our fix, while nerfing them, is to balance the game and not attack their character profession...right? I can understand not wanting to get nerfed but when we have been **edit**ed up beyond relief and request a fix that rights that shouldn't it get some respect and possibly be seen from our point of view. Hell the CORRESPONDENT seems adament about keeping their amazing powers and giving us a piddly ability to fix the game, how do you define compromise again?

Well before I go off on a tangent and start venting I'll end, peace
Kurrin

Cause people dont want anything ever taken away from their class via a nerf. Its real easy to try and balance things when your class is not involved.

Tilen
Scylla

Yes but haven't we been nerfed enough to request something to help us no matter what the consequences it has to other classes? We aren't even asking for unreasonable things we're asking for what I assumed was in the game when I bought it.

No offense but we have no real advantages until master as rifleman. The whiny pistoleers want that taken away, hence there dumbarse correspondant requesting that we get nerfed. Hope is still alive as that Holoclown said that they are reading feedback from there ideas. Hopefully we won't get nerfed.

I have no faith in them, we have been hurt enough as it is with there fixes. Pets and such all doing melee damage now that everyone has them. The commando weapons are another great example of how the devlopers don't have a clue on class balance(yeah melee damage from ranged weapons is great).

They listen to the whining masses and it is proven with there Ideas for fixes for pistoleers and what they did to commandoes and BH. It is now our job to show how wrong they are balance wise and get them nerfed if we are nerfed for no good reason.

Of you could focus on bringing your own class into balance. within the already existing picture.

O WOW WHAT A NOVEL IDEA.

We were, but that scared you so you had us nerfed, then we got stealth nerfed, then we got screwed over with everyone else, now they're nerfing us again...what makes you think we can come back from all that? Tell me what our advantages are that counter all our horrible negatives...no tell me what horrible negatives you get for wielding a pistol copared to all the insane plusses.

Want us to come back in the existing picture? Fine up our accuracy so wehardly evermiss from further out than 40 meters and bring back our gun so we can one shot you...like it let's push for that since we all know the dev's love us so

All i know is several Master Rifleman in PVP have beaten me.. Now if i could buff my mind to 3k like my health and action then you guys would be in truoble

All a rifleman has to do is wear a Composite chest piece with Krayt scales makes Fw innefective. then just put mind bleed on me ..

I guess maybe rifleman on tarquinas are better than you guys

Nice post Philosopher. Excellently written to be fair to both sides.

Pistols, it seems, arethe rifleman'sworst enemy simply becuase there are so many pistol users in the game (pistoleer/smuggler/BH). The rifleman gains a lot of hate toward the pistol becuase they become good at PvP so much faster/sooner than a rifleman. A pistol user is faster, more accurate, and spends HAM much more efficiently all at a comparatively "early level" compared to the rifleman. That and the possibilty for a pistol user to multiclass to gain more accuracy and a wider range of special attacks to use against various opponents makes the rifleman feel extremely gimped. The rifleman is really not that effective at PvP until reaching the extremely difficult level of master. Even upon reaching the suposed master level of "long range combat" (as Philosopher alluded to) any Bounty Hunter with BH pistols 2 can usually defeat the rifleman master from 60 meters with eyeshot. Which is extremely discouraging. The Master rifleman should not feel too bad if the battle was close and he was defeated by a Master Bounty Hunter, but alas often times the pistol user was actually a Pistoleer who wisely spent some points and opened up his BH skill tree only so far as to get eyeshot.

The rifleman then asks himself "why can't can I, with this big ole rifle that's supposed to be accurate at long range, defeat a pistol user who who's accuracy is supposed to decrease at long range?"

Someone above mentioned that any one can where a good quality composite chest plate an render the pistoleer attacks useless. This is not true in the case of a rifleman. The encumbrances conveyed from composite armor are just too much on the all important mind substats of a rifleman.

However a pistol user wearing a good quality helmet can effectively defend against the rifleman's "over-rated" headshots. While the composite helmet does encumber a pistol users mind substats dramatically, this point is null becuase pistol users do not rely on mind to perform their special attacks. I recently was in PvP against a BH who had 1000 mind and being a Master Rifleman myself seeing him not focused on me but chasing someone else, I knelt, and fired a Master Headshot. It was a hit. And a good one too = 593. He immediatly bagan the eyeshots using a scatter pistol. 2 seconds pass and my second Master Headshot lands sucessfully foraround 617. Do the math, that's over 1200 mind damge. Does the BH go down? No, he still has around 200 mind left,I decipher from looking at the target window. Now, I've taken 4 eyeshots for around 200 each.(Not tomention the roughly 200 mind i spent to perform 2 Master HS's)I'm out of mind (I had 1050at the time) to do another Headshot.So, I go down after another eyshot. The values of dmg done to my mindpool and how much i spent don't exactly add up i know, butmy willpower(mind rechage rate) is maxed at 600 so that would have changedfigures some during the battleand im writing this from memory.What the heck? Then I realize his composite helmet with energy resistances of (most likely) around 40% would easily have been enough to reduce my 1200 mind dmg to around 715.

Therein lies the much of ther animosity between pistols and rifles.

Grahd, I see where you're coming from and I pretty much agree with you about what the problems are.

One problem right now is that too many professions all use pistols as a primary weapon -- Bounty Hunters, Smugglers, Commandos, etc. Frankly I have no idea why that is, and I think they need to make it so some of this stuff doesn't stack (like BH and Pistoleer bonuses). Right now it's just a big problem. Right now when a BH kills someone with a pistol, that person gets pissed and want to nerf Pistoleers. Meanwhile the "pure" high level Pistoleers hate all the broken skills in their tree,so theyend up picking up being forced to getthese other professions (like BH). On the Pistoleer forum probably the biggest gripe is that there is nothing on our tree that is worthwhile and that you'd be better off just taking one box of Pistoleer and going up BH + Smuggler and getting Novice Commando to be the best pistol user.

I also agree with you that pistols are way easier at novice levels than rifle and are more rewarding at low levels. I think the issue is an even bigger one, actually -- I think that pistols are very n00b-friendly while rifles take a lot of skill and strategy to use correctly. If you're a really smart player you can be very powerful with a rifle, and personally I enjoy playing rifle because there is some tactics involved ... in pistol and carbine it's mostly just a matter of running up and spamming a special. But the reality is that most players, especially at lower levels, just find rifle frustrating ... and some things about rifle (like the dang warping mobs and 2.5 melee) are just stupid and frustrating, period.

I think there are some answers to all of this. The problem with Eyeshot and the BHs is a big one and really a SWG-wide issue, so I'll put that to one side. The problem with all those pistol skills stacking is to make them un-stack so people pick one or the other. Then they need to fix both Rifleman and Pistoleer to get rid of the problems with both classes. Make Rifleman more enjoyable and easier to level by getting rid of the 2.5 multiplier, lowering HAM costs, upping damage, and maybe adding a PvE snare (sort of like WireMeshTrap) to a special so you can keep mobs at bay. And on the Pistoleer side they need to fix our special attacks so they are worth using and reward you for climbing up the tree. All that stuff will help a lot.

Reduce damage of all rifle attacks by 30%.

Is that an attack on rifles?

Reduce range of all pistol specials to 32m.

Is that an attack on pistoleers?


I think in spirit, some people keep thinking that pistols will get a 2x increase in cap damage, and rifles will be reduced to 1/3. Then rifles will get a slight boost in damage, and be left in the dust of the outrageous increase in pistol damage.

IF that happens, yes, drastic steps would need to be made to fix it, or re-balance.

Personally, I'd rather show clearly, to the devs, what the issue was with speed (again), why their current plan is not the best thing, and what other options might be out there (new calculation, etc.) We can post easy to understand things about what works, and what doesn't.

Can we just please work towards that end? Or should the pistoleers have to campaign, alone, to get something fixed that hurts rifles? NO! Quit asking for nerfs, start fixing rifles..and START with speed. You'll get our support there, as I've said in every post that speed is mentioned. I already have Noule's new formula written up with a way to keep balance below around 60 speed, identical to what it is now, and make the high end speed more smooth. And that's with the assumption rifles will get MORE overall speed (as they do now in skill mods). There are better ways for all of us to spend our energy. And face it, anything we dream up will take 3 months to implemented, and another 2 months to get bug free. So we better start now.

I don't think this conversation is going in a productive direction.

Here's the bottom line, in my view. Rifleman has a lot of problems right now. You have warping mobs coming after you, you have the 2.5 melee modifier, you have crappy HAM costs, your T21 got nerfed, take cover is bugged, heavy weapons hit as melee, etc. I think if you came up with a list of 10 things to fix with your profession -- more damage for rifles, more accuracy at short range, no more 2.5 melee, lower HAM costs, etc -- then Pistoleers would /applaud.

The problem is that your correspondent suggested that pistols have a 35m hard cap so we could be kited, and then has said that his #1 priority for rifle is to make pistols inaccurate. If you guys have accuracy problems, then ask for an accuracy increase. Frankly I think the biggest problem that rifles face, as someone who also plays a Rifleman character on another server, is the 2.5 melee modifier. In PvE my problem as a Rifleman is not that some pistol guy is accurate but it's that I got killed by warping mobs and my HAM costs suck. And in PvP it's not the Pistoleer using BodyShot2 or DoubleTap that's beating anyone, it's the BH/Pistol guy using EyeShot.

I think that the reality is that there probably wouldn't even be that much animosity over an accuracy nerf for pistols if it were asked for in the right way. If Riflemen asked for HAM costs, 2.5 melee, etc and then made an accuracy request -- maybe 20% more accuracy for Rifle and 20% less for Pistol -- then it wouldn't get people upset. But Aldeon didn't go about things that way at all, and I think it's the way he's handled the situation that has gotten folks so upset.