Adressing the Ranged skill - Suggestions

[tylarth]

Rifle should not be the equivelant damage of a somewhere between a dagger and 1 hand weapon tho, not at a equiv cost of 1/10th mat per shot, Enchanted nukes do superior damage and cheaper too (lvl 250). And spell interruption is not really a viable justification of a skill, after all 2 hand axes are very good at interupting (by actually dropping their target in 2-3 swings). rifles should really be doing 1k damage or so at 250, not 459. People should see a rifle or pistol user and be concerned (much like with the 2 larger weapons), not just dismiss them as an annoyance. At present a 250 pvp rifle user will take 10+ shots to take down a healthy lvl 250 caster target, and hope target is not healed or stops casting and dodges.

If i were to give ranged a boost, i'd increase pistol + rifle damage by 150%, differentiate the bow weapons with a slower speed but better range.

reduce the bulk of the larger weapons ammo by perhaps upto 50%

add a too much weight warning message (for excessive ammo)

make regular and bow ammo exclusive to their weapon types (currently interchangable).

either apply effects of all the craft stats to weapons and ammo or drop the stats, there is to much misleading info for a novice here. eg range and durability on ammo

Give Outpost material Area heavy weapons their intended Area effect. A tekorn Auto launcher loses the area effect making litttle more than an expensive rifle.

[iwojimmy]

I havent progressed to using Auto launchers, but my understanding of their area of effect is that it is a narrow cone originating at your target and progressing away from you.
This may work fine when you are kiting a group of mobs on your own, but it would be almost useless in any kind of team hunt.

At least with launchers the tank can pull mobs onto themselves and use circular attack as the artillerist drops shells on them, but otherwise heavy ranged combat just doesnt integrate with team structures.

As a suggestion to make auto launchers useful in a non-kiting environment, how about alternative(additional) ammo craft plans that uses the ricochet effect... giving the impression of walking your weapon burst from one target to another.

[slay13]

Greetings all!

I'm still rather new to the range skillbranch in general (still in the 100's), but here are more or less my thoughts on the skilltree's that I know about, as well as my observations as someone just starting with range who had been interested in it for a long time, yet hesitant from all the "warnings" of it since I'd began my adventures with Beefy on Atys.

My initial immpressions...- My initial impression was that I was a moron for not letting Beefy play with guns sooner It's seriously the most fun I can think of solo'ing in this game or any other we've journey'd to together thusfar....period.

I came into it with a lvl 120-30 desert dig skill, so granted, it was easier for me to dig ammo than someone fresh off the island, but I seriously didn't (and still dont) get why people are hesitant to do this. In a game where pretty much EVERYBODY digs/crafts better than Beefy does, this really isn't all that hard to accomplish. Lets not kid ourselves either, neither Beefy or myself have ever been accused of being overly bright, if WE can manage to figure it out, i'd be betting most others could also.

Watching Beefy aggro' the majority of Clopper hill and leaving a bloody clopper trail in his wake has got to be one of the most fun and visually entertaining things i've witnessed him doing since we've begun our journey together on Atys.

If you're someone thinking about range combat I have the following advice for you...It's all about your perception of what you're actually doing, as well as your preconcieved notions of what to expect from the skilltree. I came into it with no expectations and am loving every minute of watching Beefy blow things to hell and back, but if you come into it expecting it to be as easy/fast as lvl'ing your elemental skill, then you'll be turned off pretty quick to the whole thing.

I also look at it this way, don't treat it as lvl'ing a combat skill...look at it as lvl'ing a CRAFTING skill that you can actually utilize the product of your efforts effectively and have some fun in the proccess. I'm simply helping Beefy to lvl his AmmoCrafting skills, which is no harder to accomplish than lvl'ing any other craft branch, but has a different payoff for your efforts than a regular craft.

You're lvl'ing 2 crafts at once...ammo and its weapon. By lvl'ing ammo you get to enjoy increasingly awesome firearms, and you get craft lvl's without ever really noticing your doing much crafting. There hasn't ever really been a "Ok..lets sit down and lvl my craft skill up 10 lvls.." type moment for me so far, and I love that.

Each craft action has a purpose, and you get to enjoy the products of it much more than just turning around and selling your crafts to NPC's for some money (which often isnt even needed). While the product of "normal" crafts is money, the product of this is XP, which I think is a much more worthwhile product than some fast cash. With a normal craft, you get xp for the dig, xp for the craft, and money for the sale. With ammo crafting...you get xp for the dig, xp for the craft, and xp for the usage of the craft each time, its that awesome. Then you can always turn around and craft some sweet guns for people without even having to grind on weapons ever.

The whole "AMMO" thing....- I think Final's proposal for selling either max or improved quality ammo from the NPC's is a splendid idea. It'd make it more accessable, as well as create another much needed moneysink for the economy. As it stands, I don't think its really that hard to dig for ammo, and I quite enjoy it as does Beefy, but I totally agree that the main reason the classes arent used is that it's just too much of a challenge at the moment for someone who comes to the ML with a lvl 20 something dig to be successful with it right off unless their dig lvl is a ways in front of their combat lvl.

Another alternative which I'm not really too fond of personally (but i'll throw out anyhow =P) is to decrease the ammount of mats needed per crafting action for ammo, but give the same amount of ammo per craft. A SMALL decrease of 2-3 mats or so per craft would lessen the dig time needed substantially in the long run. My only main qualm with this though, is that less mats per craft, leads to less XP per craft action. One of the things that I love about range is that by making ammo, you more or less have little difficulty in keeping your rangecrafting skill up with your combat skill. This alternative would cause the craft branches to lag behind the combat skills more, and mean more gungrinding in the longrun.


2HFirearms- I think Launcher/Autolauncher are great as is. It all comes down to intellegently selecting the right mobs, pulling with a little sense, and getting the most xp/per ammo round you can get in the longrun.

With the exception of the mentioned autolauncher bug brought up before, I worry that any tinkering around of the class would cause a decrease in their usefullness. I'm just fine with only being able to hold 8-12 shells on me at a time and relying on packers or friends for holding mats for me. If it comes down to making a choice between bulk or a decrease in any of the 3 DMG/SPEED/RANGE stats, I'd choose bulk everytime. If it was a SMALL decrease in bulk i'd go for it, but anything substantial that let you hold 20> shells on you would make it a bit overpowering in PvP i'd think, which would probably cause them to "Rebalance" the stats to compensate. I haven't used the rifles yet, so I don't really have any thoughts on them.

1hFirearms- Pistols also make little sense to me. They shoot faster than other range, but not fast enough to make them usefull IMO, and their damage/range are lacking. I think if you double'd their rate of fire to something akin to dual dagger speed in the 60 hpm range(IE dual pistols =P ) it'd at least have a place somewhere in gameplay as a harrassment weapon. As is stands..they just shoot too slow...dont shoot far enough..and do too little dmg to be of much use.


Thanks to anyone who actually took the time to read my freaking HOOGE post It's really been a joy for me to be using range finally, and I truly hope that more people would give it a real try instead of just going with the mob mentality against range combat that exists currently. Instead of just going with what your friend told you about it, or what you read about it on the forum, try it out, and make up your own mind before asking for a total overhaul of the skilltree. Take care all, and have a great adventure today .

[final60]

Ranged Skill Restructuring:
Joint proposal by Sehracii and Sidusar

General Ammo:

Allow purchase of high damage ammo from NPC vendors at any time. Don't make it maximum damage, but the equivalent of what would be produced from fine-grade high damage materials. Make it available for all weapon and for all Q's, but only of slashing damage type. Reduce the currrent prices of the (junk) NPC ammo to match the change in output per craft as detailed above.

This idea seems to have been brought up by a few of us now. Can anyone think of a reason why High damage ammo shouldn't be sold on the merchants?

It allows those not keen on digging and crafting to still be able to level the combat skill.
I don't believe it would take anything away from those that previously level their harvesting and crafting, as they will see a increase in craft requests.

Why do you think it should only be reduced damage and not full damage though?

Important: Bow and regular ammo can no longer be interchangeable.

Great idea, its odd that these two amo types have ever been interchangeable to begin with!

New Skill: Focus Shot

The strength of ranged weapons is their mobility, but they suffer greatly in damage because of it and it means they can't offer significantly as a damage dealer to a team (which stay stationary so no mobility benefit) This skill, Focus Shot, would be useable by any gun except launcher/autolauncher. It will significantly increase their damage without overpowering ranged in general.

How it works- while performing a Focus Shot, your damage is increased to 2.5 times listed ammo damage. However, your mobility is removed. You can not run, and in fact can be interrupted. Consider it exactly like casting a spell. If you take a physical damage attack, the level of the attack is checked against your level in the ranged weapon you're using to determine chance of interrupt.There is no way to decrease your chance of interrupt. You can NOT dodge or parry while performing a Focus Shot. The shot actually fires at the completion of the action, not the beginning like shooting usually works. Focus shot can NOT be combined with increased hit rate, you will be using default attack speed.

Okay, here your implying that "Focus shot" is needed because the launchers are underpowered?
My personal view is that the launchers are amongst the most powerful skills of all the combat skills. Launchers in OP wars will bring the fear of death into the opposing side.
It is an interesting idea. But from my perspective it would hugely over power the skills. Because I simply don't think there is anything wrong with the effect of either launchers. Both have perfect damage and Hit per minute.

Gun Stats:

After extensive consideration of the Damage modifier when crafting a weapon, we find it may be best to leave it off. It results in ranged damage being reliant on materials twice- both the gun and the ammo, and would benefit only those who have extensive access to high grade supreme materials. For the same reason, we should not implement the range and speed modifiers for ammo crafting. We want to make ranged more accessible, not less.
Currently, Parry Value is based on hand-to-hand skill lvl when using ranged. This will stay the same, except for with bowrifles and bowpistols. Parry when using these weapons will be based on your skill in that weapon, and even possibly benefit from modifiers on the gun. The rest of the weapons will have 0 parrry modifer because it is not based on your skill with that weapon.

Good points on the cratfing. Damage on the gun and speed and range on the ammo have no use, and shouldnt be in the crafting plans at all.
The second point about the parry. The reason there is no parry on guns is because your not expected to be stationary and parry an attack from someone lunging at you with a almighty axe. You have up to 60m to keep away, and stay away from advisary.

Specific Guns:

Pistol-
Pistol needs dual wield. It's what everyone wants. As is, its like offering a 1-handed sword next to a 2-handed and not letting them use a shield or dagger.
The new pistol will be a dual wield, high-damage, high-material consumption, low accuracy, low range skill. Bow-pistol will not be dual wield, see following section. To compensate for doubled output, damage of the ammo must be reduced to 75% of current value. Current Q250 pistol ammo does 345, new value would be 259.
The pistols themselves would have a chance of improving the users dodge value, and not affect parry.

Pistol Stats - change to dual wield and reduce damage 25%
Max Range: 30
Max Speed: 30
Old damage per shot: 345
Old damage per minute: 20700
New damage per shot: 259 X 2
HR damage per minute: 31050
FS damage per minute: 38850
Adv mods: 20 to 0
Dodge mod: -5 to 5
Parry mod: 0

Amen to the above. Pistol does need to go dual weild, and this proposed idea, is a great place to start. I would only disagree with the dodge modifier, as I feel the ability to neither dodge nor parry is a good one, as the advantage we have to be mobile is so huge, in my opinion!

[final60]

What are everyones opinions exactly on the Launcher ammo bulk? Does the bulk really need addressing? Or is the bulk a fair trade-off for the benefits given by using the launchers? What are your suggestions?

Personally I'm of two minds over it. Part of me thinks it would only serve to make the skill easier to level and add very few other benefits. My experience with leveling both launchers; I'm used to the large bulk, I expect to have 3 packers with me while I level, I expect to have to stop every 5 minutes to craft more ammo. For me thats part of the launcher experience, and is unique to the launcher skills, it shoudln't be compared to the ease of leveling of other skill types. hmm..

*Also on animations - what specific animations would people like to see introduced. Running being the obvious one!
Racial animations would be cool for one!

[slay13]

What are everyones opinions exactly on the Launcher ammo bulk? Does the bulk really need addressing? Or is the bulk a fair trade-off for the benefits given by using the launchers? What are your suggestions?

I think the bulks fine personally. I love packers/mounts....and it gives me a change to lead the mektoub parade around town every once in awhile.
Like I said before, I would be OK with a small amount of decrease in the bulk...but if the trade in capacity ever meant the lessening of either damage/speed/ or range, then I love em just fine they way they are.

[xtarsia]

theres a point that seems to be being missed with ranged skills (launcher in particular) when compared to others. (from a solo perspectiv)

that is this :

Elemental magic u have to sacrifce considerably large amounts of sap and hp in order to do huge dps. ie, it is generally possable to cast only 5-6 times with a full credit double missile before becoming a 1 shot kill from a yubo.

with ranged, there is little danger of partially suicideing while killing something. dps is less, however with 3 packers ur ability to keep fighting for a longer duration is much greater then ele, and dont forget, when u do run out of ammo, u will most likly have more HP remaining (especially i u run around alot) than the poor mage who drained every last drop of his energy while standing still. PLUS u get to wear nice Armour too LA aint so great when u have 300 hp left and theres an angry mob poking u in the eye.

Most of ranged should be left as is imo. Yes its hard to level.. but anyone whom i meet who has leveled it i have deep respect for, i also have to respect the huge amounts of pain they can cause me too xD.

[rushin]

one of two things i'd like to see (one much easier than the other to implement i imagine)

1) ammo packer (its about time we tamed something else) being able to hold 9 shots of launcher ammo if i really clear my bag just takes the fun out of ranged having to craft constantly, drag your packers with you, only hunt in the land your packers are in.

2) let us buy things back from hawkers not just merchants. then at least we could put up an afternoons ammo, and retrieve it from a nearby hawker when hunting.

i really enjoy ranged, but get incredibly frustrated with whats required to level big guns, its just not fun even if technically possible.

[iwojimmy]

..............

Amen to the above. Pistol does need to go dual weild, and this proposed idea, is a great place to start. I would only disagree with the dodge modifier, as I feel the ability to neither dodge nor parry is a good one, as the advantage we have to be mobile is so huge, in my opinion!

the biggest disadvantage with ranged.. is that it is team unfriendly
having one skill that only suits mobile tactics when all the rest require standing in place doesnt lead to succesful integration.
Ranged fighters need to be able to work with spellcasters and melee fighters when the situation calls for it. Including "tanking" when necessary - and that involves standing in the front and dodging.. the close-assault dual pistol wielder is better for that role.
The "focus shot" suggestion is another step in the right direction, I would have called it aimed shot but then it would get confused with the aim body location skills

[final60]

A person using ranged should nether have to resort to tanking. This is what i'm talking about with using some intuition. It applies to getting a hunt team together, if you don't think you can level range with any less then a healer, get a tank and a nuker and use your roles in the team accordingly. It is similar to nuke in that a ranger should not be expected to tank when there is a tank present in team.

The range skills are group friendly skills to level, just don't expect them to tank, that's not what their role is for in any given situation. Think of it in logical realworld terms for a moment. Your just as likely do kill yourself as well as the person you shoot at point blank range with any of the heavy guns. It just doesnt make sense that with atleast 40ms and upwards of 60ms to use, why would you ever consider being close to the enemy..