there is nothing wrong with range weapons. :)

[lordzren]

ok hear me out.


we all talk about balance. every skill has to be as good as every other skill. no matter what you pick you must be as good as the next guy.. nobody can be better than you if they are the same lvl . no matter what skills they have..

boring.


in SOR skills work very diffrent to other mmorpgs. the main diffrence is that you dont gain player lvls. you only gain lvls in skill lines. and there are lot of them to choose from.

now range weapons people say the ammo is too expensive , hard to make etc.. and melee fighting is so much cheaper and easyer.

if you look at it from a diffrent point of view range is the rich mans skill. the players who have done many quests (which will be added) havent focused on power lvling so much and have raked in lots of cash may choose to raise range to stand out from everyone else.

and cafting range weps costs alot of skill points... that again is a good thing.

think of it.

when your a high lvl crafter a few months down the line 95% of fighters will be melee and like 5% will be range. a fantastic ql 150 melee wep may set a player back say 500k because everyone crafts then. if you need a fantastic range wep + ammo you may be looking at millions. very good for the few crafters focused on range.


the other reason why range is good.. have you played around with useing range + magic in pvp? that is a deadly combo. when pvp becomes bigger high lvl range / mage chrs will own.

i say leave it as it is. its nice to have some easy skill paths and some hard ones.

and at the end of the day. if you get fedup with lvling range, swap to magic.


myself im going for magic+range killing combo.


dont instantly say ARRRRR when something is expensive. you can sill lvl so many other skills cheaply and easly.

[borguk]

ok hear me out.


we all talk about balance. every skill has to be as good as every other skill. no matter what you pick you must be as good as the next guy.. nobody can be better than you if they are the same lvl . no matter what skills they have..

boring.


in SOR skills work very diffrent to other mmorpgs. the main diffrence is that you dont gain player lvls. you only gain lvls in skill lines. and there are lot of them to choose from.

now range weapons people say the ammo is too expensive , hard to make etc.. and melee fighting is so much cheaper and easyer.

if you look at it from a diffrent point of view range is the rich mans skill. the players who have done many quests (which will be added) havent focused on power lvling so much and have raked in lots of cash may choose to raise range to stand out from everyone else.

and cafting range weps costs alot of skill points... that again is a good thing.

think of it.

when your a high lvl crafter a few months down the line 95% of fighters will be melee and like 5% will be range. a fantastic ql 150 melee wep may set a player back say 500k because everyone crafts then. if you need a fantastic range wep + ammo you may be looking at millions. very good for the few crafters focused on range.


the other reason why range is good.. have you played around with useing range + magic in pvp? that is a deadly combo. when pvp becomes bigger high lvl range / mage chrs will own.

i say leave it as it is. its nice to have some easy skill paths and some hard ones.

and at the end of the day. if you get fedup with lvling range, swap to magic.


myself im going for magic+range killing combo.


dont instantly say ARRRRR when something is expensive. you can sill lvl so many other skills cheaply and easly.

Ive heard you out but very few of used range and since the patch virtually none. Ive sold my gun and now sell any ammo I craft.

Very simple if no ones using range (or any other skill) then the devs have got it wrong.

[ayne31]

Well...the desert raiders hit my toon for 100 dmg at a range of 100+ with a decent fire rate AND even inside the city of Pyr so ranged can be THAT bad....

[babaloui]

Well...the desert raiders hit my toon for 100 dmg at a range of 100+ with a decent fire rate AND even inside the city of Pyr so ranged can be THAT bad....

In the end I think ranged either has to do a ton of damage with ammo being very expensive (plus some nice ranged skill wouldnt hurt) or ranged damage has to be about the same to less as melee weapon with easy/cheap ammo. You cant have ammo do the same or less damage as melee and be super expensive and labor intensive.

[aether4u]

In the end I think ranged either has to do a ton of damage with ammo being very expensive (plus some nice ranged skill wouldnt hurt) or ranged damage has to be about the same to less as melee weapon with easy/cheap ammo. You cant have ammo do the same or less damage as melee and be super expensive and labor intensive.

I always keep a pistol handy which is custom-crafted by myself for maximum range. I can get off 2-3 shots before they close melee range, which usually amounts to about 60dmg with q10 ammo and a q20 gun. Then I switch to melee and finish-up. I really like guns to pull mobs out of a crowd, since the rest never seem to aggro. I plan to eventually get the bowrifle plan.

[vanderpm]

Well...the desert raiders hit my toon for 100 dmg at a range of 100+ with a decent fire rate AND even inside the city of Pyr so ranged can be THAT bad....

If I could do that damage, weather or not I had that far of a range I would be extatic.

[svayvti]

The damage itself might be okay...

if there were ranged stanzas to augment it and more meaningful guns. Pistols and Rifles definately need a boost. Except on NPCs of course where they need a range and LOS nerf. They also badly need their modifiers to be displayed before we really can tell how good or bad it is. Only by using it can I tell what kind of damage a gun will do.

I think rifles and bow rifles should definately have some kind of damage increasing called shot and sniping abilities. They should also be subject to interruption in melee.

Ammo also needs a serious look at the ratio of mats to shots. Both a reduction of mats used and an increase in clip sizes would seem decent to me.

How often are you in a team where anyone is using ranged combat?

[jesder]

Ammo also needs a serious look at the ratio of mats to shots. Both a reduction of mats used and an increase in clip sizes would seem decent to me.

clip sizes should be 3-4 times what they are for all but the AoE style weapons. I think that would actually make it worthwhile but would still cost a hell of a lot more than any other fighting skill.

[crames]

I'd really like to invest in rifles and rifle ammo, but I'm still unsure about whether it's worth the points, after reading this thread.

It costs me 100 for the rifle ammo, 30 for the rifle plan, and I believe 30 more for ranged weapon crafting 2. That's 160 points ... so my question is: do rifles do more damage than axes, or swords? If so, how much?

Or is it mainly to look really cool?

[usinuk]

I'd really like to invest in rifles and rifle ammo, but I'm still unsure about whether it's worth the points, after reading this thread.

It costs me 100 for the rifle ammo, 30 for the rifle plan, and I believe 30 more for ranged weapon crafting 2. That's 160 points ... so my question is: do rifles do more damage than axes, or swords? If so, how much?

Or is it mainly to look really cool?

Let me first respond to the OP, who it looks like hasn't played up the ranged tree much. They will find that a magic/ranged combo is more or less unplayable solo, incidentally...I tried. You'll simply get hit too much close using any sort of magic, the range on your weapons isn't good enough should you try to fear the mob, and exp division will be heavily weighted towards magic. As someone who has leveled up in everything more or less evenly, I can at least compare properly...and I am also one of the few who specialize in ranged crafting as well as combat.

There are several basic issues with ranged combat which I think a lot of people don't get.

1. Expensive. OP's post dealt with that, and in fairness, I think the expense factor is probably the least important and most whiny issue of them all, although in going from 21-45 in ranged combat cost me something in the realm of 1M dappers. (Granted, going from 51-61 in all my jewelry skills cost about 2M.) Compare that to melee/magic expenses and its way out of balance. An example - a 12 round q50 set of ammo costs about 6500 dappers for me (with 95 race fame)to make. If you can't craft, it costs about 1000 per round for q25 ammo at the store...uck. While you can get ammo bullets (3 mats/clip) and explosive (2 mats/clip) readily enough from mob drops resin seems to only drop in the form of a rare tooth or two...so your choice is to either harvest for glue (4 mats per round) or pay up at the store.

2. Damage. The first real issue. If the damage was significant from that q50 clip and could take out a lvl 50 mob, you can make an argument that we're just whining about paying up. But the problem is that the base damage on a q50 ammo set is somewhere around 50ish per shot for a pistol and 60ish for a rifle. (The recent fix seems to have at least counted choice mats towards damage - which were counted as 0 before - but also reduced damage in general to roughly what the q of the ammo was.)

A good q50ish pistol or rifle seems to add maybe 8-10 points or so to damage per shot; I need to test out differences between 3 different q sets of pistols and rifles I have sitting around now to confirm this with the new patch. My weaps are not maxxed for damage typically (see below for range comments) but the couple of times I've built out a ranged weap maxxed for damage the mod is maybe, maybe +25% for the white line all the way over on damage.

So you're talking maybe 70 per shot if you're lucky with a good weapon and good ammo. At that rate against a lvl 50 gingo it takes me - if I were to use ranged solely, which I don't - something like 6 clips of ammo to kill it. 40000 dappers on ammo aside for a mob that would drop maybe 4000 dappers if I'm lucky, the other real issue is if I stand there long enough for me to go through the 72 rounds of ammo, the gingo will have done something like 2000 points of damage to me even through good choice heavy armor. 2000 damage versus me at level 50 ranged = 700 hps and self-heal 600 every 2 minutes = dead player.

There is no way to increase damage, stun the mob, or get the mob to bolt using skills on the ranged tree. Nor do specific ammo types have significant differences that I've seen on mobs. (Caveat...I don't have smashing, only slashing and piercing...but, piercing ammo doesn't pierce armor...duh!) Once the mob is on you, its just you and your peashooter damage. I have enchanted my pistol and rifle with fear as a substitute, but that's not something I should need to do.

Oh, and if the ATS patch holds true per Silv's review, mob damage goes up making this problem even worse.

3. Range. Ranged is a bit of a misnomer. Max range on ANY ranged weapon is 50m. There are no skills to increase this on any tree.

And...one problem with crafting ranged weaps, btw, is that I have yet to run across a choice wood/armor shell/barrel mat that maxxes range out...and have been looking for one for a month. Ones that I've seen have maybe 50% range at best. Best drop I've seen so far is ragus hide, with the caveat that if you put a mat high in damage or parry elsewhere you end up nuking your range again (have to be very careful with triggers as they often do this despite having no range component on them).

So...you can either get a weapon that goes 25-30m (That 30 is in the case of a rifle, which has about 5m more range base than a pistol, partially cause it takes 3 barrels that can hold range increases on them) or one that goes 20-25m with maybe 20% damage increase on pipsqueak numbers. Given that the multiple increase is so low on damage anyway, I'm not sure why anyone would trade the opportunity to not get into aggro range to add a whopping 10 more per shot...so my weaps are ranged maxed. Even then, its still 20m less than my poor acid 1 (or good acid 4) for pulling stuff.

4. Plus side: Because ammo is so expensive (4/3/2) you can level up in ammo crafting very quickly with it. Ranged weapons also do not miss thus making stamina use irrelevant.

Solutions:

1. Increase base damage of ammo and increase damage modifier of weapons. Slightly decrease cost, but that's the least important part of the equation.

2. Dramatically increase range somehow...weapon, modifier, skill, etc. There's no reason a ranged weap shouldn't be the weap of choice for sniping something at 200m.

3. Increase base speed.

4. Make ammo do what it should against mobs. Piercing ammo should have option/chance to negate armor, slashing bleeding, etc...

5. Add ranged specific skills. I can do 280 damage with a q50 pike using increase acc/damage 3. No reason I shouldn't be able to spend stam on things to get my ranged up there for a little while.

Caveats: I have the launcher/autolauncher plans but haven't spend craft points on ammo for them yet, as I don't plan on taking my mektoubs with me hunting...but will have more to say after I experiment with them.

To answer the second question - use pistol and pistol ammo up until you hit 50. No reason to add the other skills until then; you'll be killing stuff with a pistol/melee combo anyway.