Note: While typing this, some things have become a bit more clear, but a look on the clock tells me it's better to head to bed than to rewrite some parts
Here's what I think of it:
New stanzas that inflict aflictions:
One of the things I like about range is that you got to think about what's the best way to hunt with it. The ranged stanzas, give you way more straregies to hunt. Ranged may become a fullgrown skill with these stanzas. Even though ranged is my highest combat skill, I have never realy used it during a trek or a boss hunt. You do lots less damage then with ele or melee (unless you use a launcher, but you can just cary 12 ammo and usually causes more problems than it solves) and the mobility you have is very hard to use in an effective way. These afliction stanzas might become very usefull for trekking and boss hunting. You can become some sort of hybrid between a damage dealer and an aflectionist. I'm just curious how these aflictions work. Will they affect the mob for a set amount of time, or will you get a link, like a with regular aflictions. Will it land everytime you hit the mob or you have a certain chance that it lands. Altogether I'm realy excited about this
.
Racial damage added to ammo:
This idea has two sides. For all other crafting trees, other race skills are just a luxury, just a change of the look, it will still do the same damage. But if you wanna do max damage against mobs, you'll have to be able to craft ammo from at least 2 different races, and if you're unlucky all 4 (because of the resistance of mobs against certain types of magic). This will fourfold the skill points needed for ammo! If you wanna be able to craft all types of ammo on lvl 250 you'll have to spend (25x25x4=)2500 skill points, and when you finish one skill tree you'll just have 2500, so you won't have points left to spend on ranged weapon crafting (you'll need 625 to be able to craft q250 guns),diferent weapon plans or different types of ammo (slashing/smashing/piercing). Besides the number of skills needed, you'll also have to master different digging trees, or become a PR digger (which isn't the first digging tree people tend to master, some try though
). I might be making an elephant out of a fly here (dunno if it's an english expression, if not, I ment to say: make a big point of something small), depends on the amount of damage that's inflicted. On the other hand, this might increase the trade in ammo, which is nil atm.
Influence of the weapon and ammo on range and damage:
I love this idea, I was kinda disapointed when I found out that damage solely depended on the ammo and the range just on the gun. This will add even more posibilities to consider on your hunt. I'm looking forward to trying to get the perfect mix for different targets during a hunt or an OP battle. I'm just wondering if they will add new ammo mats or maybe change the stats of the current ammo mats. None of the dug mats has range as its primary stat atm, and it would be a masive pain to use mob mats to get the desired mix of mats for ammo.
Merchants selling cheap/low damage ammo:
Another good idea. This will decrease the amount of time you need to get ready to hunt with ranged weapons. You'll never have to skip a hunt anymore because you're out of ammo (mats). You might even go ranged without digging and crafting at all, but you'll miss out on a lot of nice features.
New range and dps stats for ranged weapons:
Another promising idea. Finaly there will be more difference between the weapons. And with this, more different roles for the weapons. Combining it with the different special effect for different weapons they will finaly be realy different weapons. The (bow)pistol will become more than just a lousy (bow)rifle. I'm starting to look forward to this more and more
.
Launcher and autolauncher specific modifications:
I have no idea how to lvl autolauncher or launcher effectively without being able to kite the mobs. It's prety hard already, but when you found the right spot and the right mob, you can lvl it slowely. But without being able to kite mobs, I just don't have a clue how to take advantage (an advantage payed dearly for) of the area of effect ability. Will multiple melee have to keep the mobs in the right spot while you shoot? Depending on the size of the mob, you might not be able to hit all of'm when there's just a single tank. And I don't wanna imagine what the increased agresiveness of the mob means. Argh, did it anyway. Sounds to me like a single tank won't be able to keep multiple mobs focused on him, that they will find you a more more atractive target than the rest of the team.
New stanzas:
Activate effect: It isn't realy clear to me how this works. Will the afliction effect be determined like a stat of the ammo (i.e. different mats needed for different effects and sacrificing damage for a good afliction) or is it just like the bleed stanza for slashing weapons, you put it in your stanza and it works regardless of the stats on the weapon? In the first case they will have to change the mats and making your own ammo instead of buying it from the vendor will have some real advantages. This would also make ranged users pay a price for their versatility, which would be fair (you'll have to figure out more recipes, dig more diferent kinds of mats, you'll have to bring different kind of ammo). In the second case, ranged might become a bit overpowered I think.
Focus shot: A good way to sacrifice the mobility for damage. When you solo you can kite the mobs, and in a team you can finaly deal decent damage. It doesn't say what the effect of this will be for the dps, so it might just be an ammosaving mode.
Accurate Attack: Hm, have I been adding this to my stanzas for nup? I think they forgot to say it was already in game.
New credits:
They wanna implement two new counters, a range counter and a focus counter, the stamina counter will stay and they might drop the HP counter (not sure about that). About the focus counter, I don't think they will be adding a "heal focus" spell as that might (understatement) mess up digging. So you can either use it at a rate equal to your focus regeneration, or just to activate the new afliction effects from time to time. Would be a good way to balance these new effects, you won't be able to use'm all the time, so you can make'm quite powerfull, so that when you use'm, you know you're using'm. I think this is what they're aiming at. You can use the range and stamina counters for hitrate and accuracy, and focus counter for the special tricks. And this would again reward the people who dig and craft their own ammo.
New ammo selection interface:
This doesn't affect game mechanics, but it's prety usefull or even necessary. From just 3 types of ammo (type of damage), you go to about 9 (type/afliction/highest stat) or even 36 if you add racial damage.
Conclusion:
All in all I have the feeling they thought the whole thing through prety well. It will add loads of new ways to use ranged weapons, so it might become a real skill, instead of a tree people usualy just level when they already have some other masteries and are looking for something different. I'm realy looking forward to the changes. The only thing I'm a bit woried about how to level the big guns when these changes go live.
