Rifleman Archive

While I was reading through another post I came upon a Commando who said "I want all professions fixed, so that there is some sort of balance based on the amount of skillpoints dedicated." His assumption seemed to be that a combat profession that requires more skill points should be able to outdamage an opponent combat profession that requires fewer. Most of his argument relied on this assumption as a foundation for further arguments.I disagree wholeheartedly with this assumption.

If a profession's skills were all a form of "Improved Damage" with weapon-type X, and they used only weapons of type X, then I would have no issue with this assumption. The problem is that this is not the case. A portion of a combat profession's skills can be spread among different kinds of weapons. A portion of a combat profession's skills may be related to things other than increased damage. In any situation where a Rifle is a good choice, someone who spends a year practicing with a Rifle should be a more formidable opponent than someone who spends a year and a half practicing with a balanced mixture of a Rifle, a Carbine, and a Pistol. The dedicated professional who specializes in a single line of attack is more of a danger when wielding that attack than the jack-of-all-trades. Certainly the jack-of-all-trades will nearly never be caught in a situation where he does not have the appropriate tool for the job. But when when the Rifle is a good tool for the job, he will be nowhere near as effective as the dedicated Rifleman. The phrase "Jack of all trades, Master of none" applies here.

A Master "Jack of all trades" is not a Master of each specific trade. He is a Master at juggling them and identifying which to use at any particular moment. When pitted against a true Master using the same kind of weapon, he will fall short. The difference is that the Jack of all Trades will be effective in other situations where the Rifle would not be useful. But this variety of usefulness has no effect once a weapon has been chosen. Its use is only during the time when a weapon is being chosen. If the circumstances dictate that a Rifle is the best choice, the pure Rifleman should most definately be more effective than a Jack of all Trades, such as a Bounty Hunter. The total number of skill points you have spent for your profession is entirely irrelevant. Only those skill points that were relevant to the use of your current weapon matter at all. Take a moment to check and you will usually find that a Rifleman has spent more skill points toward mastering the use of Rifles than any other profession.

How then, are other (jack-of-all-trades) professions meant to excel? They can switch weapon types when a Rifle is no longer a good choice. A rifleman cannot. This makes them more flexible, and hence more dangerous on the whole. But the Rifleman is still more dangerous in situations where a Rifle is the best choice.

-Raystonn

rifleman sucks.... nothing you can do about it except for being patient. i dropped master and eventually the whole thing cause i could get whipped byn a marksman with pistol 3. now i am a bh and eyeshot rocks hehe

Commandos should definetly be better than a Rifleman, a commando is not a jack-of-all-trades, he excels at heavy weapons. If you dont put as much work into a proffestion, then you cant exspect to be as good.Of courseat 64m a rifleman would be better than a commando, but not better than a BH because they are way overpowered. I think the a master rifleman should take like 15 seconds for every shot, but do about 2200 dmg. Some people might say this is too low, buts its not, rifleman should also be more accurate, just about never miss, and remember thats mind dmg, the best type of dmg, and its at 64m, which is far away, the best place to be.

BUT BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO FIX IS A SIMPLE PROMBLEM, PISTOLS ARE MUCH MORE ACCURATE AT 64m THAN RIFLES ARE AT 0m, WERE IS THE LOGIC IN THAT?

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MasterShanghai wrote:

Commandos should definetly be better than a Rifleman, a commando is not a jack-of-all-trades, he excels at heavy weapons.

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Common, a commando should be a great close-quarter fighter. Commandos should be the ranged guys that can storm the med center when three TKA's are holed up in there kicking the ass of every rifle/carb/pistol that tries to go toe-to-toe in that kind of space. A commando walks in and blows them away with a flamethrower, great, thats their place.

But they shouldn't necessarily be 'better' than rifleman. They each have their place. Unfortunatly even in the riflemans ideal place, the commando still roxors the rifle's ass.

Rifles can't beat anyone but a master dancer in PvP. <--- This is retarded. I mean, we have an ENTIRE thread dedicated to some dude who actually BEAT a bh in solo PvP. If the BH's did that for every rifle they were able to take out, they wouldn't have room in their forums for their few complaints =) Hell just yesterday I saw a master musician beat a rifleman at close range by bashing him over the head with his keyboard. I'm not making this up.

We suck.

Krader

LMAO got to love these un supported "Rifleman suck" threads. And people wonder why I say that Novice Rifleman will be the death of this profession.

/clap

Using more skill points SHOULDNT make you stronger in one field but make you stronger in a veriety.

Commandos arent hybrids true and they use more skill points but that shouldnt mean that they are better than rifleman. Commandos OWN in short range, more than anyones else, so i think they are compinsated for the more skill points... Now rifleman should OWN commandos at long range.

IMO i think they should keep the commando dmg do melee dmg but CAP their ranges like for their specials. (ONLY commandos not pistols) ATM flame throwersare more accurate than they should be at 64 and theycan't do that in reality.... This way rifleman have a chance and since commando dmg is melee then melee toughness skills can mitigate some of the dmg... Commandos still OWN short range but are given a real weakness which they dont really have atm.

I most certainly agree with the original post. Why? Well, say a commando spends his points on being a commando and is great because of all his combat points spent. Well, the argument would follow that as a rifleman, if I spend all my remaining points in combat skills, I should always beat a commando. Now, if the commando spends all his remaining points in pvp combat skills we should be equal. So, by the more points means better pvp argument, everyone who spends all points in combat related skills (no matter the profession) should be equal. Well, that is not how it is.

A better system would be the particular role system (like DAoC before the listened to all the complainers). A system where each class has a strenght. A place that each class shines. Right now riflemen shine no place. Anything yuo can do as a rifleman can be accomplished better by some other profession (BH/Commando). This is true of all combat classes outside BH/Commando/CH. Frankly, does not look like a bandaid fix is needed, but, a combat revamp that this game will likely never see.

Well,

BH and Commandos should -on paper- be better than Rifleman, Pistol and Carbine. But there needs to be parity between the three oranges. Right now my only threat is a mind bleed and that's probably going away soon when /firstaid2 and/or /firstaid3 are added.

errr.. no. Im a commando and I dont think a master commando should be better thana master rifleman.

Commandos spend more skillpoints because they get more weapon types. Riflemen dont get grenades, dont get rocket launchers, dont get flame or acid rifles. In a pvp fight, rifleman can only take down 1 person at a time, a commando can take more people at once (ever hit an ATST with a heavy weapon, radius 10m, and see its owner, the medic besides him and the other wannabeATSTowner all drop dead or near dead?)

The argument that "My class should be more powerful because I spent more points to get here" basically boils down to this:

"Since I already get the benefits of being a Master in one or two base profession, I should also get the benefit of being more powerful in my advanced profession."

I agree i'm a commando and i see the flame dot espesially as wrong, its like magic, no matter what the enemy's armor/resits are you get to put the dot on for 300 in pvp or 1500 in pve.

Therefore the coolness of commando, all the guns, is wasted becasue we only need one.

Overall making skill point equate to more dmg makes dmg the ONLY factor in combat, which is wrong, rifleman i think had a good designer, he made a good class with checks and balance, however the other classes got way off track.

As a result riflemen need to be buffed, i want to see one shot kills from this class, not from commandos.

Commandos in my mind should be doing medium to strong, i consider flamesingle2 very very strong, attacks to large areas, and the cone should be changed to 180 degrees with a lot more range this should be there hook, not /flamesingle2 kill, next /flamesinge2 next.

I guess what i'm gettting at is commando's should be uber crowd control they should laydown indirect fire for the most part and direct fire at large creaturs or tanks. Rifleman should do heavey dmg, like flamesingle2 to single targets becaseu they can only do a few attacks before they must rest their minds.

ilcoz

/agree wit the thread starter

Jack of All trades Vs: Master of a particular Trade was a good example.

The only problem with the flame dot is that armor provides no resists for dot's.. Fix that, the flame dot won't be as big an issue. They also need to fix that 2.5 melee damage bs, and make armor work properly in allcases.