Rifleman Archive

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Holocron wrote:

So yesterday I passed along this math to the design team:

With a max damage slice, and max starting stats, the T21 DPS can be liberally estimated at (400 average damage / 8 speed). Again, this is assuming a -spectacular- slice with starting stats far beyond anything presently avaliable. A similarly uber Scatter Pistol could manage an average of over 120 damage with a 1.5 speed (speed slice). 120/1.5= 80. The T21 DPS, on the other hand, would be 50. If you'll concentrate for a few hours, you will come to the startling conclusion that 80>50.

The Scatter Pistol's AP is 1 and the T21's would, after the fixing, be 3. Meaning that against an AR 0 opponent, the DPS would be (1.25x80) for the Scatter Pistol, or 100. T21 DPS would be (50x1.85, roughly), or about 92.5. So here the Scatter would be better. With an AR 1 opponent, the DPS would be (1.0 x 80) or 80 for the Scatter, and (1.56 x 50) or about 78 for the T21. Against AR 2, the Scatter would be markedly worse with a DPS of 40 compared to the T21's 62. The T21 would only be far better at AR 3, doing 50 DPS compared to the Scatter's 20. Meaning that the T21 would be far superior against AT-ST's and pretty much nothing else.

Meanwhile, all PC Crafted armors have an AR 1, meaning in P v P, against unarmored opponents, the Scatter would win 100 to 78, and against armored the Scatter would win 80 to 78. In other words, the T21 will only be better against certain high end mobs and AT-ST's.

Unbalancing? Are you joking?

Not to mention that Eyeshot blows Rifle moves away and the Rifleman will literally kill himself with the T21's spectacularly high HAM cost.

Now, here's the math we did, and the response. But here's the thing--the math clearly doesn't match. One of us is off somewhere. Who is it, and where?

T21 max speed is actually 5.1 seconds, not 8. This is before a slice. After a speed slice, the attack speed is around 3.3.. Max damage is 290 before we factor in armor.. That gives us a "dps" of 87..

The scatter pistol math isn’t completely correct.. going from the schematics and slicing script, the actual speed of this weapon is 2.1 (35% slicing bonus max).. So you end up with a dps of 49. (Max damage of 104)

However, this isn’t the complete story..

At the point where you receive these certifications, there are additional skill mods that come into play..

Scatter pistol certification is gained at bountyhunter novice. All of the pistol skills gained up to this point give a speed bonus of 25%..

This drops the attack speed to 1.5, and gives us a dps value of 69. (the damage below seems to be high by around 16 points.. I’m using straight draft schematic max numbers..)

T21 certification is gained at novice rifleman. The rifle speed modifiers are 30%. This gives the t21 (when the cert is gained), a modified speed of 2.31. This gives us a final dps value 125..

And a personal note from the designer:

I still think they’re missing the point that the t21 against an unarmored opponent (or an unarmored hit location) with armorpiercing level 3 will do 2700 points of damage.. before the weapon is sliced.. And it can do damage that cannot be healed...

I’m actually not that averse to bumping up the max damage on this weapon if it would make people happier about it.. but we didn’t just nerf the weapon.. we sped it up and we made it easier to shoot..

I want to emphasize that we're not trying to just nerf out of the blue here out of spite or something--we're trying to be careful about our choices here. We need to track down how it is that you and we are operating from such different premises here, so we can all agree on the choices made.

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I'm thankful that this issue is actually getting some attention, since most of us riflemen are verrry not happy about the change. But this math is a little suspicious to me... the following is what I posted in that thread.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=370235

I think the second set of math is pretty biased (ok, maybe the first one too). For one, the skill trees are not just a bunch of numbers (fyi: this kind of math can only apply to numbers). Yes, there are speed increases here and there in every profession's tree, but there are also different skills that are different in each tree. For example, if riflemen got +10% and pistoleer got +5% in a certain block, that doesn't automatically mean the rifleman has the advantage. The pistoleer also has a knockdown, and all sorts of other things that make this comparison like comparing apples and chimpanzees.

Second: I have never seen a T21 with a 5.1 speed. Maybe it's due to the rarity of quality resources, but my new T21 had a speed of 9, and I bought it for 55000 credits. The highest I've seen is around 4.5, after a superb slice.

The second set of math is using a maximum sliced T21 speed of 3.3 (go ahead and find me one of those), but it's using a scatter pistol speed of 2.1 (unsliced?). Again, these 2 numbers are like comparing apples and chimpanzees, because as a worst case, the scatter pistol will be a little slower than that... but the T21 will be MUCH MUCH slower than that. You can't just take into account best cases, when the statistics on a T21 vary so much.

Everything in the bottom set of math has been twisted to the T21's disadvantage. Tell me, what's the DPS of a T21 when I'm lying on my back after a knockdown? I understand that you see a problem in the strength of the T21, but it isn't THAT unbalanced if you consider more than just a few select arbitrary numbers.

i agree completely

it's not about the math, you also have to take into effect that we can be knockeddown while prone and our ideal range on most of our weapons is like 3 feet.

And we can only fire about 5 specials before we need to rest...

Well the speed of a Scatter BEFORE a slice is 2.1. I have a scatter with a 29% speed slice that has a speed rating of 1.5. Saying a Scatter is 2.1 after a slice is BS. Also a scatter does ACID damage, which is resisted more, Acid or Energy?? Hhhhhmmmm. The Scatter that I use is not sliced for speed, I prefer damage instead. Its 122 to 169 2.1. I hit for upper 500s to over 900 using eyeshot!!! The rate of fire is MUCH faster than a rifle. It does mind damage, WHICH WE ALL kNOw CANT BE HEALED, I hate how they have to throw that in every chance they get. Anyway, I can take mobs down much faster with my Scatter than I can with any of my rifles, although I do not have a laser or t-21. Our HAM costs are also much higher. It costs me 64 pts of action to shoot a Scatter with an action rating of 51. It costs me 69 pts to use HS3 on a DLT with a mind rating of 26!!!! The damage is about equat between the 2 but it comes out a hell of a lot faster with the Scatter. I think the developers actually need to try PLAYING the game. Rifle is much harder to gain xp in, especially since mobs have learned how to do the time warp. We hit for equal damage, in a lot of cases less. We hit less often. We drain our mind pool more per shot. When our mind pool is tapped we have to sit. A pistoleer or carbineer, I dont understand why we use mind and every other ranged class uses action, can just shoot til they are out, use a stim and are right back to xping. So we kill slower, with more down time, and get killed more often because of the penalties we have to melee damage. How is this balanced. Now some moron will just say hey each class has their own strenghts live with it. MORONS i tell you MORONS, no other word to describe the developers.

It may not be about the math, but one way or the other it is the math that runs the game, and if its bad math, well....

I posted the following in the thread refered.

Please look it over and tell me if i am totally mistaken in my approach and the problems leading from it.

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ok, from the math you posted

T21 max speed is actually 5.1 seconds, not 8. This is before a slice. After a speed slice, the attack speed is around 3.3.. Max damage is 290 before we factor in armor.. That gives us a "dps" of 87..

T21 certification is gained at novice rifleman. The rifle speed modifiers are 30%. This gives the t21 (when the cert is gained), a modified speed of 2.31. This gives us a final dps value 125..

max speed is 5.1, sliced with 35% speed it will be 5.1*(1-0.35) =3,315, at the point where a rifleman gets the rifle cert it wil be 5.1* (1-0.35) * (1-0.30) = 2.3205

a reduction of 5.1 - 2.3205 = 2.7795

This fits with what you wrote, soI assume that the formulas are correct, the + rifle speed modifyeris %off the current speed of your weapon.

Lets take this further and look at the master rifleman using the same rifle.

the max + rifle speed is + 90 so a master using the same rifle should have a speed of

5.1 *(1-0.35)*(1-0.90) = 0.3315

well, thats just around 3 shots per sec, which i know does not hold up in the real world, so there must be a cap somewhere. I assume that ist one shot per second (no proof, just assuming)

This means that anyrifle with a speed equal to orbelow

1/((1-0.35)*(1-0.90))= 15,385...

would be reduced to a1.0 speed weapon with a 35% speed slice and +90 rifle speed.

if the cap is different than 1 please substitute the 1/ with cap#/ .

We all know that rifle is the ranged weapon who has the worst attainable + speed as only marksman and rifleman can add to it. So its only worse for faster weapons with more + speed, the cap will be hit long before and alot of + speed will actually be wasted, i.e. a weapon with 2.0 speed after slice will cap at 1 speed at +50 weapon speed. (2 *(1-0.50) = 1

Considering this regarding the changes to the T21. assuming the following, not exactly accurate, but the effect will show clearly what is happening.

max speed attainable before slice : 10.2 (set a bit high maybe)

average dam: (500-200)/2 = 350

what would the speed be at master? well, capped at 1 asit calculates to 0.663

Now lets try cutting those numbers in half, then we look at the result.

well the speed would be 5.1 before all the reductions leading to a speed of 1. 0r as calculated above... 0.3315

so, basicly the only thing cut in half is the damage.

So we end up with a weapon with the same speed but half the damage, approximately.

And the reduction to AR just adds even more damage reduction to this picture.

The main problem is the way +speed figures into the equation together with the assumed cap.

If my reasoning is correct, the cap is the main reasonthe t21will seem overpowered, as it makes all weapons faster than 15 equal in speed as one gets more + speed.

On a sidenote, with this in mind, why would you ever get + speed slice, as any weapon with 10 or lower speed would be made 1.0 speed at +90 weapon speed, and a 15 speed would be made 1.5 speed.

I sincerly hope i have done something wrong in my calculations, as this system is utterly horrible, as some weapons gain alot on the way to master(slow weapons), while others hit the cap before finishing marksman(fast weapons).

I hope some of you a bit math inclined riflemen out there will take a look at this, and tell me where i went wrong.

Paragon, Rifleman, Eclipse. Yeah i am a SL as well, but dont tell anyone.

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it seems that high delay, high damage weapons just gets the mark of uberness, as the delay goes to 1 for all weapons with 10 or lower delay, even with our +90rifle speed.

I think alle special move delays are calculated from the reduced speed, so everyone fires the same specials at same speed, disregarding the base speed of the weapon.

Paragon out..... good math in....

holo said it himself, they barely even play their own game.

They look at the T21 as a number , instead of a tool in-game. Oops , many whiners + high numbers = nerf.

Nevermind that you have to use your OWN mind pool to damage the other's mind pool. Can't heal that, except the other mind damaging class uses action to fire it's special. Ain't that grand? But they don't see that, it's not a number! Oh no you can do 3000 a shot on someone! Guess what, if a melee comes and smack us while we hold the rifle, there's a nice little 2.5 modifierplaying against us. Funny how it isn't mentioned. You just got knocked down by abouy any other class in the game that DO have a working KD attack? BANG, watch the pretty numbers going over your head while you get sent to the cloning center.

You see any nerf to pistols? Nope, they have a low modifier, great overall attacks and such. but they're still not nerfed.

This game is not about DPS, it's about way more than that. If you nerf the t21 just because of a THEORICAL number, you're sick. Play the game freaking more. Riflemansuck bad enough as is, they nerf the t21 without giving it any advantage over the laser rifle which cost way less and won't get used as fast(including not killing ouselves from depleting our mind for 4 specials).

It should be a requirement to play your own frikken game when you are a designer or have a say in design discussions.

I posted on this topic on the Development Board.

Took em almost 40 days or so to unnerf

Took em 1 day to fix

Took em 10 hours to nerf WORSE

Just impossible to believe they know what they're doing over there. What made the T21 an AP 3 in beta? What did they observe about the weapon in beta? Why nerf it and then unnerf so much later? Why nerf it worse without a Test Center check, which WAS the way they did everything until yesterday? (And hotfixes according to Holo were for critically important issues -- why was it important to fix the gun and nerf it so quickly)

My theory: management (whoever they are) nerfed the gun, and someone prematurely fixed the AP without clearance from the top. Once the disaster (from Holo's standpoint) occurred, they were in a jam: cannot go back to AP 0. So let's just break it for now and deal with it later.

Guys, the devs seem to be making importance of the mind damage dealt, being unhealable.

I've seen little notice by them though of the hugemind -cost- which is also unhealable. Vs other classes healable special attack costs. Lower damage and AP much and you risk damaging yourself by firing the rifle as much as damaging your opponent, and damagin yourself in unhealable manner.

Killer it's been posted countless times in that thread that we can't heal our special pool whereas other classes can. I've said it myself about 3 times. They just arn't listening, as can be shown by their dodgy maths working out the DPS.