Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Legendary new gun arrives; Weaponsmith left in bewilderment
I generally agree with most the fixes that are made to this game in the name of balance, and bug fixes, regardless of all the whining about how every change is a "nerf,"but this one has me totally thrown.
According to the patch notes, the DLT20 (the formerly absent novice marksman rifle) has been added to the list of craftable guns.
Ok, so I understand that there should be symmetry along the marksman lines, so having a rifle available to novices is sensible. But, seriously, there are enough useless guns that we don't need any more. What's going to happen is that right after the patch, every weaponsmith in the game is going to make one, just to see how it is. They're concurrently going to realize it's crap, like the D18, and never make one again.
The reason? This gun is only useful to those who have been using a rifle for less than an hour. In that time, probably less even killing the easy blue cons outside of every major city, anyone can get enough rifle XP for rifles 1. Even a looted CDEF is plenty enough for this (i know, i've done it), so why would anyone ever buy one of these, especially since masters will never make them, and thus CDEF's will likely be significantly better. Then they become certified for the DLT20a, which is a quite good rifle and will last the additional max day or two that it will take for them to become able to use the Laser, the last rifle they'll ever buy for the most part.
Despite the reasonable desire to add in this gun that had been missing, i think there were fixes that would have been just as easy (Chemical dispersion mech.) and would have actually been used by players. As it stands, I believe this will become another totally unused aspect of WSing, which is disappointing when there were several other things which needed attention.
I know you guys already know all this, but i felt like ranting a bit. The worst part is, that we WS's are generally a tolerant bunch. It takes a nontrivial amount of patience to deal with sucha rabid customer base, as well as do all the resource hunting and such that go along with making good stuff. So Iunderstand how the majority of us were content with our mostly-working profession, and sitting by with just the absolutely necessary changes while other needier classes were getting the attention they needed. But now, it just feels like that even-temperedness we have shown is being taken advantage of. We have said ad nauseum that the novice guns are totally useless, and the first new gun they give us....the most novice gun possible.
Sorry, but that's just frustrating. Grrr...ok, i'm done now.
Well said.
Same applies to the metal staff, only more so because it's PIKEMAN.
Amen to that. As long as they see fit to continue gimping and punishing the novice WS's people will continue to do nothing but grind up to the top. And as long as there are such a limited supply of actually USEFUL weapons, masters will continue to run everyone below them out of business because those are the only weapons anyone's interested in buying. Case in point: you can make a scout blaster at FA1. However, if that's all you have, you will not SELL a scout blaster. People will just buy them from masters for the extra 5K it costs (that's 2-4 destroy missions, mind you) instead of buying your gun on the bazaar, even if you charge 3K.
The solution isthreefold:
1.) Make top-end resources better. This will, in turn, make the "elite" weapons better in quality. Neutronium steel with good qualities will be useable in T21s and riflemen will have an incentive to actually BUY them.
2.) Provide a range of new schematics at EACH level of crafting and that are useable at EACH level of marksman or other brawler. These weapons should do more of the various damage types than simply yet ANOTHER energy gun with crappy speed, HAM, and/or damage.
3.) Allow novices to maximize experimentation on lower level weapons. A master should not be able to make a D18 better than a novice. why? Because it's a simple gun to make. If even an idiot novice can make one, how much improvement can a master actually provide? It's like saying you did a "master-level" job of making a snap-tite model (no glue required! ages 6 and above). At a certain point, you just can't improve on the thing any further. That's how experimentation and assembly should work for the various schematics. Sure, masters can make the weapons as well as everyone else, and they can make more TYPES of weapons. But the current system just punishes novices. And I'll say that even after I hit master. Which I WILL do, if only to prove my point.
I agree. And just to add a bit...
They could have added any number of weapons: a pistol with cold damage, a carbine with cold damage, and a rifle with heat damage just to name a few.
Or how about fixing the republic blaster or beam rifle certs? I didn't see these cert fixes listed and these seem trivial to fix.
Now, let's remember, it is the addition of TWO new weapons to the novice box, this REALLY IS progress, because now a novice can make FOUR weapons instead of two, and can cater to two classes it couldn't before.
Plus, reinforced combat staves are popular with some pikemen because of their low HAM. There's a chance a metal staff might be even better, because it can presumably use metal instead of wood.
EasyMcRhinopants wrote:
Now, let's remember, it is the addition of TWO new weapons to the novice box, this REALLY IS progress, because now a novice can make FOUR weapons instead of two, and can cater to two classes it couldn't before.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...
Being able to craft two more useless weapons that no one will buy does not allow you to cater to anyone.Any marksman who is into their profession enough to even consider buying something other than a CDEF will only be a potential customer for two days.
They need to spread out the certifications further. Like the original poster said, it takes all oftwo days for a casual marksman to get to level III of their gun class, at which they become certified for the same gun that most masters of their class use. How does that make sense?
deadnewbie wrote:
On a brand new server your options are pretty limited if you want weapons. All the Marksmen no FarStar are going to be firing with CDEFs until someone makes a weaponsmith. And once that weaponsmith is made, all of the Marksmen will clamor for the newbie weapons because that's all they can get.
considering theres discussion of decommissioning some servers i dont see that as much of an issue
deadnewbie wrote:
On a brand new server your options are pretty limited if you want weapons. All the Marksmen no FarStar are going to be firing with CDEFs until someone makes a weaponsmith. And once that weaponsmith is made, all of the Marksmen will clamor for the newbie weapons because that's all they can get.
If it's similar to the novice D18 then only idiots who can't read stats will want one because it'll end up worse than a high-end CDEF.