Adressing the Ranged skill - Suggestions

[final60]

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.

Launcher is actually similar, it does drain you stamina an HP, just in a slightly different way. The higher Increase attacks suck up alot of stamina in much the same way that nuke uses up alot of sap. Where nuke also uses alot of HP. The trade of is that upwards of 5 mobs can potentially hit you atleast once before they die. Granted if you only attack one mob at a time with the launcher its credit useage couldn't be compared to a nukers. But by only attack the one mob your wasting the AoE, and would have to use so many bullets for very little exp gain..

[blaah]

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

have you tried leveling (2h) range ? at least to lvl 151 where it splits ?

you only compare hp/sap/stam use, but what about ammo ? healer is able to heal hp/sap/stam, but what about ammo ?

to understand what launcher users feel, try it this way: amp need sap crystals for it to work, you can only hold 12 sap crystals and packer can only hold 33 sap crystals. you need hp/sap and that one sap crystal to be able to cast. if you run out of sap crystal, you need to stip naked from your armor to make more (if range user uses pretty armor like you say, they need to stip to make more ammo).

hows that for fun ?
not saying range user needs to get it easy, but every one who compares range to magic (omg you can run and now you want to do more damage than mage, wtf!!), forgets the damn ammo. if you out of ammo, you useless (cant even throw gun to you enemy)


ohh, btw, if solo ele uses double nukes, he deserves to die.

[sehracii]

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

To make sure there is a good market for crafters to sell ammo if they wish. I wouldn't be completely opposed to max damage, but we thought a slight decrease in NPC damage would stimulate the player market.

Okay, here your implying that "Focus shot" is needed because the launchers are underpowered?

No, Focus shot would only apply to bow/rifle and bow/pistol, not the AoE guns. It says that in there. Launcher/auto aren't mentioned until near the end, the bulk of the suggestions are for the regular guns. They need the most work

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.

That's only with a max range launcher (which needs boss mats)
All the other guns are still in spell casting range to be able to fire, all the way down to a shoddy 20sometihng range for an average pistol.

[iwojimmy]

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..

I have been in hunts when the healer did duty as the tank.. its not a sin to be versatile in how you manage your team roles.
But there seems to be some miscommunication happening here. I talk about dual pistols more suited to tanking, and you talk about launchers and auto-launchers. Pistols are -despite hollywood- close range weapons. Grenade launchers/mortars, and machine guns - again despite hollywood - are not. Rifles are generally not close range weapons although the bullpup configuration does improve their close range utility. Having game mechanics reflect this is not unreasonable and the way it can be done is by scaling the dodge bonus/penalty from light to heavy ranged weapons.

perhaps we need reminding that light and heavy weapons have different roles, making blanket generalisations pretty useless.

[fadebait]

uhh?? healers tanking??!! no further comment on that one...

However I like that guns are very hard and boring to level given that you can run away at full speed facing the opposite direction from your target while shooting. Its just not possible in real life - I dont see why the game allows you to do it. Especially as casting is so incredibly sensitive to movement that you have to not only stop but stand and wait for a second before you cast.
Granted nothing compares to the damage nukes can do in PvE (in PvP this is more debateable if the target is wearing decent jewels), but nukers kill themselves very very quickly.
Sure tanks and ranged use stam (and some hp) fairly quickly but nothing compared to the virtual suicide nukers commit.

Make ranged have to walk backwards facing the target to fire. Much more realistic and means that melee can catch up with ranged units - they cant just run away indefinately while still firing.

So you run away, turn and fire, run away then turn and fire, or you can choose to back away slowly while firing constantly. MUCH more realistic.


Be nice to actually see the bullets too - currently the only way you can tell you are being shot is watching sys. info

[blaah]

However I like that guns are very hard and boring to level given that you can run away at full speed facing the opposite direction from your target while shooting. Its just not possible in real life - I dont see why the game allows you to do it.

ohh really ? it just means that game dont have correct animation ingame. you know.. in virtual world, everything is possible

Make ranged have to walk backwards facing the target to fire. Much more realistic and means that melee can catch up with ranged units - they cant just run away indefinately while still firing.

you gotta be kidding... but if you not, then to balance it, bullets needs to do way more damage so it would be possible to kill said melee.

if anything else, make it so homins and mobs cant dodge/parry bullets and if it's head shot, then make the target dead lol.
.. or is it too realistic for you ?

btw, if you start comparing Ryzom range and real life range, then better dont or start with 1 bullet vs 30+ bullets to kill a mob.

[tr808]

He has a point about the animation imo, in a world that looks so realistic that really amased me

[fadebait]

Ranged has a max range of 60m - thats a pretty big advantage. It has a high RoF (well at 250 anyway) and can be aimed so you can pound a healer 60m away in the head. only takes 2 or 3 shots to kill a low to medium level healer.
the advantage of ranged should be that it has a high RoF, can be aimed like melee and has a much longer range than anything else.
adding running around at full speed while firing tips the balance in my opinions - especially if you fix the (numerous) issues with it to make it more powerful and easier to learn.

And I am not talking about realism in terms of damage - after all this is a rpg - or in fact realism at all as this is a fantasy/scfi game. But it does not make sense to be firing away from your target and still hit

The ideal level of ranged to me is as a combat support class - to target the weaker healing and nuking units from a long way off but not able to destroy everything on the battlefield. Low(ish) damage and reduced movement fulfills that imo.
Otherwise you quickly end up with a unit that is materially better than anything else on the battlefield - as it can stay way out of range running away from anything that gets close, killing anything on the battlefield. This is the way games get broken.

[sehracii]

Ranged has a max range of 60m - thats a pretty big advantage.

ONLY Launcher has 60m range. ALL other guns are same range or less than magic.

If you want to shoot a nuker with a rifle, he's going to be nuking you for 10m before you can get close enough to fire your first shot. If you try to run away, again he gets 10m to blast you after you're too far away to keep firing. And he's doing 3000 damage and you're doing less than 500.

[huntar]

Ranged has a max range of 60m - thats a pretty big advantage. It has a high RoF (well at 250 anyway) and can be aimed so you can pound a healer 60m away in the head. only takes 2 or 3 shots to kill a low to medium level healer.
the advantage of ranged should be that it has a high RoF, can be aimed like melee and has a much longer range than anything else.
adding running around at full speed while firing tips the balance in my opinions - especially if you fix the (numerous) issues with it to make it more powerful and easier to learn.

And I am not talking about realism in terms of damage - after all this is a rpg - or in fact realism at all as this is a fantasy/scfi game. But it does not make sense to be firing away from your target and still hit

The ideal level of ranged to me is as a combat support class - to target the weaker healing and nuking units from a long way off but not able to destroy everything on the battlefield. Low(ish) damage and reduced movement fulfills that imo.
Otherwise you quickly end up with a unit that is materially better than anything else on the battlefield - as it can stay way out of range running away from anything that gets close, killing anything on the battlefield. This is the way games get broken.

blanket generalisations anyone ?

Launcher CAN have 60 m range
.
Rifle /pistol can have high ROF
.
2 to 3 hits for a kill, out of how much ammo carried ?
.
killing low to medium healers is a tertiary objective, if we want ranged to be more attractive, it has to be reasonably effective against HIGH level casters... at least at equivalent levels.
If rifles had similar range to magic then a rifler could duck in and out of range and nibble an AoD to death.. unless the AoD had a healer further back..
Are we still trying to do the paper-rock-scissors thing ? where melee kills nuker, nuker kills ranged, and ranged kills melee maybe ? How well does a rifle kill someone in HA.. how about a Launcher ?

all of the above is pretty much PvP, which isnt what I play Ryzom for. in PvE success would depend on choosing the right tactics.. eg not kiting things faster than you , teaming with afflictionists, ... ... ... ?
what are some TEAM tactics for ranged users which arent just imitating a nuker half their level ?