Rifleman Archive

To whomever it may be that is our rifleman correspondant, if there is indeed one yet...

In keeping with the idea that a rifleman is a sniper what I would really LOVE to see is to have the Take Cover ability (at higher levels) not only provide the defensive bonus to your avatar, but also to eliminate their blip from the radar. Since riflemen have absolutely no range advantage over other classes, other than accuracy which is not a big deal, since the mark can close on you before you get the 2nd shot off, and the devs can't increase the range we are able to fire due to game mechanics and weak programming/hardware restraints, riflemen need something to compensate for this when entering PvP combat.

Now I know that at high levels, with a T21 and headshot3 we more than likely will be able to 1 shot most other PCs...which I don't personally agree with, but that's the way it is. So you may say, well they won't have a chance to close because they'll be dead. Well what if you are fighting another sniper? Then it's basically whoever gets the first shot. Or if someone burstruns up to you before you get a shot off then you're screwed (since you'd be prone and at an accuracy disadvantage by the time they are within 45m or closer.)

The fact that Take Cover adds a defensive bonus is cool, but like I said, anyone who knows the slightest bit about Riflemen won't stay at a distance and fire at them while they are prone...they will simply run up to them and then engage. Now if they didn't know where the firing was coming from, and instead had to actually trace the blaster fire, that might just give us that element of surprise that snipers are known for or in the least, the extra 1-2 seconds we need to stand up from prone and run away like girls.

I am not sure how cohesive this post is, but hopefully you can pick out the good stuff from the bad in my ideas and pass them on to the devs. If anyone else has any constructive criticism or agrees with my idea, please post. Thanks.

~jeff~

I could not agree more.

I noticed at higher level of camouflage skill that I started to somewhat "disappear", turn invisible to other. yup yup yup all good!!!! WRONG! They still get me on their radar! Now you mean to tell me I train so hard with all those camouflage skill to be spotted by the first novice entertainer with a BB gun!!!

There is defenetly something to be adressed here and thanks Jeff for bringing it up.

Dimitrius.

Novice Rifleman - Corbantis

I agree. When I think of a rifleman in this game - I think of a sniper. When I think of a sniper, I think STEALTH - the guy who blends into the background, wearing full camo with leaves and branches sticking out of his helmet. Unfortunately thats not the case in this game. Range is our only advantage, an advantage that is quickly neutralized by the enemy's abilty to just run up to us and pound us to death. Besides, half the time they notice you on radar long before you can get into firing position. I think we should be invisible on radar while under cover - or at least invisible unit after we get the first shot off.

Sign me up for some of that; I completely agree with the above. Let us use the camo ability to remain invisible for at least the first shot fired from a prone position, then after that you show back up on the radar. Sounds both realistic and fair to me.

What about distance based? When you take cover you are invisible on radar only and the system does a check based on your Cover and Focus [if you focus harder you should be able to hide better keep still etc.] against your oppents Counter sniping tree and their focus based on distance until you fire your first shot. They probably won't spam Tab until you fire your first shot anyways. This way we are not completely invisible but still have a big enough advantage where we could launch an attack and have the first strike capibility.

I would agree, I think that if anything should be added to the Rifleman lines, it should be the ability to hide yourself from Radar. But it couldnt be permanant, if it were perm. It would be over powering to the class.But there are other classes that would deserve this to, it would force them to spec in Rifleman. I would also say that awhole lot of people would be changing RIfleman to get that ability. I would see it more in the Ranger line, then in the Rifleman line. Wich, would force alot of Rifleman, to respec to be able to gain that ability, I know I would.

I could see this as a Master Rifleman Ability - or at least the 4th tier of the Sniping Accuracy branch.

The problem with this idea --- and one of the reason the Devs put the radar in --- is that elite powerhacker d00ds will discover a way to get the data via third-party software, etc. so the only people getting hurt by hiding the sniper's radar blip are the non-d00ds. While they may be in the majority (I would hope), the PvP'er that I'd MOST like to avoid is the kewl d00d type and this would only slow them down a little.

I thought briefly about changing the color of the radar blip (to white or yellow) but that wouldn't really do much --- it's too easy to watch the movements of the dot and figure out that there's a person there. Also, there may be some faction issues, like an Imperial Overt should appear as a red dot to an Overt Rebel (I'm guessing - no PvP for me).

Since the ideal solution --- give rifles longer ranges than other weapons --- isn't practical, I'd recommend giving us greater accuracy bonuses at range. I believe 45m is our "ideal" range... that's pretty close for my tastes. I usually begin combat at ~60 - 62 meters or so. Assuming my NPC humanoid targets don't instantly rush me when I cross the magical 64m line and they suddenly recognize I'm there. The farther they have to run to get me, the better.

I've heard talk about an ability to make us "invisible" to humanoid NPCs, much like maskscent is supposed to work for animals (I'm also a scout). THIS would be quite handy, but I heard it was taken out during beta, some say accidentally, and may come back... no use against players, of course, but I'd love an edge against NPC humanoids.

If someone developed a program just so they could see a red dot on their radar while I lie prone less than 65m away and need to use this to beat me then they have some serious priority issues in thier life because this really wouldnt be that large of an issue for the majorityof players. As someone else said, this 'bonus' could disappear as soon as you fire you're first shot which would only give the element of surprise and nothing more.

As for the other ability you spoke of regarding hiding from NPCs that was a ranger skill named Conceal which was supposed to take its skill check from the skill camoflauge and was supposed to hide you from npcs, but it was never officially taken out as far as the dev who posted knew (from a post I read). There are plenty of people in the Ranger profession forum who want this skill back and all of them want this skillto do the same thing as what i'm proposing here for pvp purpose since rangers are 100% useless in pvp situations since traps dont work on pcs or npcs. I think it should be implemented for them as well as for riflemen in the way i suggested (high level take cover ability granted as a tier iv skill or at master rifleman).

as far as you being able to fight things from far away and having an accuracy bonus...thats good and all, but as i said, in pvp you attack someone and assuming they havnt seen the red dot on the radar from 128 or 256m away, you will, at most, get 1 attack in before they charge and are only a matter of <30m away at which point your accuracy drops to hell and you are forced to run away.

~jeff~

Very good ideas.....I agree