Rifleman Archive

Guys, we need to define our class and move from there. All this talk about getting things removed and reduced is rediculous. Its getting old and in the end, we're gonna get severely hit with the nerf bat. Trust me, I've seen it before, and its not pretty. We are an offensive class with defensive liabilites. If you dont like the liabilites, jump ship and go somewhere else. Cause, to be frank, this is how balance works. And all of you people from other MMORPG's know it.

Lets start. The defining characteristic of the Rifleman class is higher ranged DPS. We dont compare to a BH or Commando, but we should be doing more than a pistoleer, smuggler, and carbineer. That is our trademark, accept it.

This does not mean we get our 2.5x melee modifier reduced. This does not mean that we get higher accuracy mods. There are other things but you get the jist. The things some of you people ask for are plain absurd. How can you define balance if there are no drawbacks to our class. You all wanna know why Samra is trying to help us. Cause if we get what we want, they are gonna get what they want, and this is NOT A GOOD THING. If our 2.5 penalty goes away and the accuracy mods get changed..etc, all we are is a pistoleer with 2.5x better damage. Well, why the hell would anyone pick pistoleer when rifleman is the same thing with better damage. Or the flip side is we lose our dps edge. Then we hit hard but INSANELY slow (I'm talking greater than 5 seconds here folks). Who the hell wants that?

Now, that isnt to say that there isnt room for improvement. There are definately bugs in our class that NEED to get fixed. Currently, the 2.5 multiplier is a huge disadvantage due to mob warping. That is a game bug and something should be done in the interim until they can get that fixed. Noulles has done some amazing work with accuracy (you're a hero man...really) and I believe it shows that pistol specials (I didnt really read it all...so u can correct me if I'm wrong) have high accuracy mods where as rifles are relatively low. Since the mods are hard coded, there probably should be something done in regaurds to their accuracy at long distances. People want the T-21 un nerfed.......why? Whats your justification? And no, "I saw the LLC stats on a vendor and they looked really good," is not a justification. PROVE that the T-21 deserves to be un-nerfed in proportion to a LLC, and know in doing so, you are probably going to bump up pistols and carbines.

Theres tons more issues, HAM for instance, which need to be addressed and can in a logical manner. Cause franky, the nerf bat is aimed right at us. Asking to remove our class defining disadvantages is just like asking to remove our class defining advantages. Again, if you dont believe me, go back and see what issues the pistoleers support us on. All of our justifications, they would love to see gone simply because its gives them all the cards in demanding upgrades for themselves or nerfs for others. Think about it.

And Aldeon, you need to get your act together. Stirring the pot on some of these issues is not helping anyone. You need to be putting up some hard facts on some of these issues (and you have done it on some). You are our correspondent. You need to be the level head in all this. You need to look at some of these issues and realize that changing them would do far more harm to this class than good. And the reason you need to do this is because not everyone (especially people new to MMORPG's) can see the pontential ramifications. If you dont think you can do this, then I ask for you to voluntarily step down, because you will do far more harm to this class than any good.

Tilen
Scylla

That was a lot of words to not say anything with.

You also don't seem to understand the 2.5x penalty. In this game 90% of the things we fight are melee. They will close with you and attack, thus you have created an unsoloable class (or a class that mandates creature handling). This is a serious problem, especially for PvP where 100% of the population can have a melee pet that hits riflemen for over 400 damage, no skill points required.

You basically don't seem to grasp the full range of the imbalance between us and pistoleers, especially the typical pistoleer/BH template. It's a huge gulf. It's the Grand Canyon of balance issues and it won't be solved by minor tweaks.

Pecos, Im not sure if u grasp it. If rifleman loses its 2.5x modifier, gets boosts in accuracy, you really think we're gonna keep our dps. If we do, whats the differnce in pistols and rifles now except for the dps gap. Yeah, there are drawbacks to our class, but thats balance my friend. Gotta live with it.

We are having ourspeed nerfed because other classes dont want us to have that DPS. The only thing i can say is we move on and try to get a new advantage. I want more DPS because i think we sacraficed far moreand deserve it but we will never have it. Knowing that fact we should just move on and try to get a new advantage. Range is one that would give us an advantage but thats what the next big arguement is about. But i do find it funny that pistoliers compain about being kited in the range proposalbut atm they can reverse kite us and we arent complaining... Im not sure on what to do though, being blocked from radar is an idea but as long as we can be tabed then its only eyecandy.

Best post I've seen in a while. We do massive damage and we pay massive costs for this damage, if you want low damage and low costs I've heard pistoleer is a good choice.

Before anyone goes off on one about all masters being exploiters etc. I leveled off warping GBN, which are the same now for you, as they were then for me.

Last night Tarq had a battle, a BIG battle, halfway between AH and Bestine. In this battle I incapped 140 people while being incapped 7 times myself, how is this a gimped class? Thiswas with no doctor buffs, just solo with some spices, hell I don't even have a T21.

We do have problems, but taking the 2.5x melee away is going to get our damage nerfed, I like my damage and I'm willing to pay the price in terms of disadvantages, if you're not willing to pay the price then please don't ruin it for those of us who are.

This is why I'm having a problem with pistoleers asking for the same DPS, they won't take any disadvantages to pay for that DPS.

I dont think a good post its very high on morals and offers very FEW solutions its very easy to shot down every ones elses ideas and offer nothing yourself.

Very easy indeed what most upsets me aboat this post is attacks on Alderon someone you are free to disaggree with but is putting a lot effort into class.

I dont aggree with everything he writes but then again i am free to argue to points rather then put up a post no matter how well writtern saying that not a good idea.

You mention 2.5 melee penalty under current system any PVP player with a none creature handler pet can defeat a rifleman 1 on 1 100% of the time if he uses his brains.

If sets the pet on you then you must warning shot it off OR uneuip your weapon eather way your dead. While your warning shotting it he gets the advantage and that normaly all you need in pvp encounter.

Sorry being hit for 300 to 500 by none creature handler pet which hits for only 100 average vs none rifleman is crazy.

My idea is that 2.5 melee damage penatly should only apply to Player character melee not mobs.

We do not have the best DPS in the game so i not understand you saying that we do and to further explain that a pistoler can get a pistol 140 to 280 none sliced and without a power up. That better then all rifleman rifles bar the T21 and laser rifle. And it shots at 10% of ham costs.

Now i am primarly interested in pvp so i know what weapons are out there a BH in our guild has that gun i seen it he also has a MORE powerfull scatter laser (140 to 380 sliced)and a lot of pistols which 100 to 180.

He used a +81 kyrt tissue to make it and yes its rare but its still possible and i seen him take out 6 on 1 groups before simply because those guns.

Anyway i still beleave pistolers should have best DPS in game but should not have best range (see thats balance )

Rifleman should have decent hitting abiltiy and great accuracy at range and should have an advantage if fight is over 50m.

We also need some perks to make cover more attractive to use and the invisablity to radar idea seem a good one. Other idea i have are reduced ham costs for being prone or kneeling and increased ham costs for shotting while running.

I personly beleave ham costs are to extreme at moment but should not be overly reduced says 20% reduction and then increase the duration on food and spice buffs. In that way can solve the problem and also make another class more effective. I would not wish to see ham costs reduced to points where can shot all day.

Major advantage rifleman have currently is mind damage but that advantage wont be so great once entertainer and Food spice buffs have been looked at. Our Aoe is extremely effective in large group combat except we cannot sustain for more then 6 or 7 shots and then we are out the fight.

That does not make for fun pvp no other classes suffer for extreme ham penalties rifleman do nor can they be easyly defeated if a CH 15 pet happens to get close to them.

As i said earlier i got no problem with a MELEE player kicking my butt if he can get to melee range then good on him he won the fight. What i had is having cowardly gurrcat sent at you miss the warning shot and things hitting you for 300 to 500 damage per hit if you keep your weapon equiped.

Just a quick note, I should have said good post except the Aldeon bit. He's only saying what a lot of riflemen are telling him, if lots riflemen keep telling him that we need to remove the AE from SS2, take no melee extra damage and he hears noone disagreeing with them what is he meant to do?

I agree to a pont with the first post, but let me explain the problem with the profession and the community.

We don't know exactly what thisprofession is supposed to be. Currently we are defined as big M-60 carrin Mo-Fo Bad Azzez taking out groups of people at Master. Well if were that,WTH is the role of carbineers? Are not carbineers supposed to be AOE gods too? And if so, what is the diffrence between them and us?

This ain't our fault, even in the manuel the Elite professions aint defined. I believe there are two communities in Rifleman but are only seperated because we don't know what the purpose of our profession really is as it relates to pistoleer and carbineer. Some of us see that sniper crap taking up half our tree and say "Well carbineers got to be AOE suppression, so we gotta be snipers." Others, more experienced rifleman see us as "Well we got all these AOE's and their our strengths, we are the big badd azzed M-60 slaughterers.

So our community don't know wich way to go, so obviously we are going to differ on what penelties should be kept and what should be removed.

So the major question we have to ask ourselves is "How should we and how do we relate to the other combat professions?" Then once we all agree on this we can start asking "How do we fix our profession?"

We don't have good DPS.

We have high DPS for about 30 seconds, then we run out of mind pool and have to use autoattack while pistoleers, carbineers, bounty hunters, fencers, smugglers, pikemen and swordsmen are all still going full blast.

We are the ONLY combat class in the game that gets shut down after less than a minute of combat.

We have some worthless defense mods and we get owned once our target gets close to us. If you can kill it before it gets to you, chances are it's only worth 1 xp -- or you can warning shot it and watch it die out of range so you get no XP at all.

If they cancel the 2.5x damage penalty and give us lower DPS so that we continue sucking, then guess what? We continue complaining until they fix it.

Worked for commandos, didn't it?

Dont forget that us rifleman have horrible accuracy at the point blank range. It is not that we dont have ANY drawbacks/penalties ...

Ok, I may of been a bit hard on Aldeon. Im not trying to be and really do appreciate all the work he/she does. I'm not trying to put Aldeon down. What I'm trying to point out is that 30% (include text) of the people have admitted that they have never played a MMORPG before. Aldeon needs to have a vision of the class that coincides with the dev's vision and stride towards that. Listening to all the rambling and whiney posts saying this sucks, that sucks....etc and bringing them up is not a good idea. All it does is stir the pot and people that believe they are really good ideas can add fuel to the fire. Aldeon needs to be a filter from us to the devs. We, as a class, cant have people suggesting things that are gonna bring the nerf bat down on us in a bad way, and then have Aldeon give some credence to those ideas. It's just counter productive.

Tilen
Scylla

I agree with the original post.

I dont think the 2.5x melee dmg mod is the problem with our class. The combination of the mobs warping and us warping when going prone is a major game issue that makes our 2.5x dmg mod a brutal handicap *under certain conditions*. Fix the warping and teleporting (both mobs and /prone-players). Part of the reason that some people see it as a major issue, while others find it less so is their respective play styles. Some people use pets, if they are careful the pet draws the agro and all the warping effects the pet but not the rifleman, same with people who are fighting in groups most of the time. The dmg mod is also less of an issue for riflemen who planned for it in their template and have taken up a second combat skill for close range use (TKA or 2hSword or pistol). Play smart people, plan ahead and have a backup plan.

We need class definitions. Half of the posts I read on the rifleman forums are from the <"hi, I'm a rifleman, I have rifle2 in mraksman right now and I still cant One-shot/One-kill everything in the game. I shuld be a SNIPER!1! so nerf pistols and give us 10,000 dmg per shot,per second. thx oh yeah, and inivisinbility too. thx, oh yeah and I'm a real life navy seal marine spec forc sniper so I know it should be this way, I'd post more about it but my mom says I need to get my algebra homewrok dun. k,thx "> crowd. Dont let those people determine the future of the proffession. If the devs have a "vision" of which niche they thing each ranged proffession should fill, they need to share that with us so we can have an idea which direction they are going and help them with information to get them there in a fair and balanced (tm Fox News, doh!)manner. If for some reason they dont, thenthey need to get one...

I honestly dont think they intend for us to be "Snipers", at least not in the traditional way that people here are expecting. When they finally fixxed the T21 a while back, they were instantly talking about being concerned that it was suddenly overpowered and it might need a nerf**because there was the possibility for that rifle, if used correctly, to give riflemen One-shot kills**, and they felt this would be a severe balance issue.

Riflemen, be honest in your posting. Honest with yourself WHILE posting... Far too many posts about "rifle damage sucks and speed sucks and my pistoleer/BH friend outdamages me all the time and it's unfair" posts coming from someone who signs their post with "master basket weaver, novice CH, novice rifleman 1,0,0,0". Dont expect balance between one player who has 'dabbled' in combat skills and another who has focused on them. Same for the Master CH, Novice Rifleman 2,0,0,1 or similar template... if you want to compare your combat damage to that of another combat class, you need to include the both the damage that your pet is doing, and it's overall effect on the combat since your character is more focused on the pet handler aspect.

Low end Novice rifleman is underpowered, it needs some help, but it's not as gimped as alot of folks make it out to be. High end rifleman is quite effective. Still could use some tweaking, but if played correctly the higher level and master rifleman is an amazing damage dealing machine.

Aldeon, I know you say you have asked before, but please keep hounding them forclass definitions...

Oaktree and Noules, you guys are on the money. Noules should be teaching classes to the devs at sony .

Malkyn, Rifleman 4,3,4,3 and VERY soon to be Master

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=rifleman&message.id=18567

an example of the type of definition information we need from the devs

thanks Noules000