Swordsman Archive
Thread: Hmmmm... I have terrible news guys.
In a recent post by Q:
--------------------------------------------------------To us "balanced" means the professions are worth playing to the types of people who like to play them; the skills are fun, they excel at some things, they are weak at other things. We do want combat to be engaging and it usually isn't if everyone feels they have to have one certain skill set in order to have any chance of success. But we are more on your side, the professions should be different. Prone riflemen should get killed by TKAs in close quarters, melee guys should fear ranged weapons, medic should pick up some weapon skills if they want to survive a firefight. Our system hopefully encourages people to find the skill sets that are right for their style of play.
So don't think we are "caving" by addressing the top concerns of a profession. We'll be careful to give them what they need to have fun and not give into the "the other profession is better than mine because it has..." arguments.
--------------------------------------------------------Um, did you read the part I put in red?
There goes our hope of PvP, getting a /stick command, and generally EVER being equal to the majority. 
Gonna be a lonely road guys, hope you packed well.
Maybe I'm completely wrong...however....
1) Personal Shield Generators stop Energy blasts cold.
2) Doctor buffs. Use 'em.
3) Chef buffs. Eat 'em.
4) Speed Burst. Kick it.
Those are things that could gap the Ranged/Melee gap, if the Melee fighter is smart enough to use them. However, anybody that ambushes you is going to kill you...so I wouldn't even stress over that. If you get snipe by a Rifleman...well, just accept it...can't really do much about it anyway (would've happened to anyone else too). However, in a known combat situation, you do have the ability to narrow the gap between yourself and the Ranged user, however you do have to consent to the Ranged user's distance advantage (I just equip my own Rifle as I make my way in to chop off their head).
The biggest issue I find is the inability to hit while running. Once that's fixed, I think it'll be ok, in my book.
2) Doctors can only be found in hospitals or static spawn points.
3) Chef buffs and spices require high level medic skill to use in a PvP situation.
4) Marksmen burst run just as fast as us and suffer a minimal accuracy penalty. If you burst run first, your burst run wears off first.
Toxotes, that sort of negative nonsense can be made about any profession. If you just look at the bad side of everything and ignore any possible advice/solutions you're never going to get anywhere.
Frankly, I think many swordsmen are oblivious to the insane amount of damage we do in comparison to ranged weapon wielders. If you get into melee with them, they're dead, even without taking into account the bonus damage. A lot of the current problems with PvP will be fixed with the 75% reduction in damage that's going in.
About the sheild generators: Their effictiveness is only droped to half when at 0 con (like all armor)
To be true; ranged Kiting sucks for us; but thats what we signed up for. We run and hack them; and hope we dong get rained down by blaster fire in the process!
Well, as a ranged fighter I should point out that the design does work both ways somewhat. As a strictly ranged fighter if I'm stupid enough or careless enough to let myself end up in melee - then the situation becomes reversed. There should be a little clause attached to Q's statement that says: "Ranged fighters should fear being in melee". If I end up in melee then at least 98% of the time I'm as good as dead.
Realistically speaking though, battlefield combat and duelling are two very different things. On a battlefield style combat, I don't think you'll find quite as much of a problem closing the gap to melee - especially if you have shooters on your side as well keeping your enemies distracted. Its mainly duelling that can provide a problem, as your opponent has only you to focus on, and your method of attack will be quite predictible.
My problem is that even in melee, a pistol-user can defeat me. It's not that I suck, it's that they have moves that I can't counter.
The thing I've noticed is that every other class has some kind of skill that adds an effect, whether it's bleeding, dizzy, knockdown, whichever. I dueled a fencer a couple of days ago and when the combat was finished,I had all of the above. The only thing we have is a move which could possible lower the posture of a target, which, if we had a dizzy move, could be a poor man's knockdown. But we don't have a dizzy move, and the posture thing rarely works when I do it.
I dunno. I guess swordsman were made strictly for PvE and we shouldn't concern ourselves with PvP. It's just not our thing.
PvP IS your thing guys. Here's a scenario;
I have been part of one of the only successful Imperial raids on Anchorhead. We all gathered at the front of town while a covert swordsman ran to the back. We opened fire, waited for the return volley. As we were duking it out at range, our covert snuck into thier line of prone riflemen and used his area attack thingy. Two shots, 3 down. He then walked among them hacking and slashing, killing what he said was 7 before they noticed and started attacking. By then we poured into the city, and the rest of us with melee skills were having our way with them.
The arrow didn't make the sword obsolete; it just forced the generals to be more creative in getting the sword to the bowman.
No wonder this game is getting bad reviews, constant complaints, and generally pissed off consumers. They aren't listeningto what people want, they'retelling people what they want! I for one did not choose swordsman becauseit fits my"style of play", this is my first online rpg game, i didn't even have a style of play until a month ago. Now i've leveled my swordsman up to tier one and theyre saying these problems weve been having aren't going to be fixed, you've got to be joking! Brawlers should not fear marksman, it's completely unbalancing. In groups of marksman we can be usefull like bennedict said, but think about it for a second, that means we need marksman to watch out for us, we shouldn't.
NPC combat is fine with me, thats were your "style of play" should be taken into account. But in pvp it shouldn't be about "style of play"it should be skill versus skill. Whoever is higher up in there proffesion should be the victor, regardless of if they are a tka, swordsman, pistoleer, carbineer etc. Obviously the hybrid proffesions can't be looked at the same way because whoever has gotten to them has obviously worked long and hard and should be compensated for it, a novice bounty hunter should bestronger thanan intermediate or advanced swordsman, though not overly so like it is now. But an xpert swordsman and xpert pistoleer should be equal in terms of chances, and it then becomes decided by armor, weapons, and the player in front of the screen.
My idea on balncing it out is this.
Number one has already been stated and thats to remove pistol whip
Number two, let us attack while we run
Number three, lower damage by 75%, already being done according to the devs.
Number four, make brawlers 1.5/2.0x faster than marksman. I don't mean attack speed, i mean how fast we run. This would only work in pvp though.
Number five, give marksman a damage penalty for running while shooting
See my take. Right now the biggest problem is knockdowns from marksman, but those are players at higherlevels. Lower level players also have the advantage of being able to run and shoot us. This way we could be fast enoughduring pvp to catch up with them and attack them. After one attack we would have to stop though, giving them time to attack us, this is because we deal so much damage if we could actually keep up with them to easily we would be to powerfull.
Now running from us is still a strategy, but not an unbalancing one. The best strategy is to hit us from a far so they have a chance. But if there to close when they attack, it's up to who has more skill who wins