Production: Range fight skill tree

[sidusar]

as for PvE all the added effects are going to be pretty useless in the grand scale of things. this is going to turn ranged into the PvP super death weapon, and force pretty much everyone to use it who wants to pvp with a glimmer of hope for survivng for more than 3s.

That's what I'm afraid of too.

Either that or all these added effects will be relatively useless and almost never used. It's not that I have so little faith in our devs, but it's hard enough to find a comfortable niche for ranged weapons as they are. Making it a skill that can do psychical damage, elemental damage and afflictions, at range, while moving, that's a balancing nightmare.

I don't think ranged in PvP is currently too strong, but I do agree it doesn't need a huge boost in that department. Where it does need a huge boost is in PvE, and unfortunally the only thing that really matters in PvE is the damage output.

[meloner]

can i just say, ranged in pvp is allready WAAAAAAAY too strong.

and everyone here knows it. even rifles at OP battles are a pain in the rear.

even in duels, Ranged v mage, ranged wins (interupts - its the same as mage v melee), ranged v melee (melee cant get close and HAS to root enchant), fairly even but ranged stands a high chance of winning still. and thats right now.

how about removing the rangers ability to shoot behind their backs running around out of range of melees / spellcasters ? it'll complicate solo grinding but hey, you can't run around nuking behind your back either, but it doesn't stop 3/4 of the server becoming AoD's. In duels, like xtarsia pointed out, their advantage of running around out of reach while shooting could at the very least be qualified as unfair.
*puts flame proof armor on* come on rangers u know im right

[sehracii]

Making it a skill that can do psychical damage, elemental damage and afflictions, at range, while moving, that's a balancing nightmare.

Agreed- that's far too complicated and not even what players want out of ranged.

Simpler: Add one new ammo recipe for each race that does elemental damage.
For example, at the Matis crafter trainer, I could learn rifle smash ammo, pierce ammo, slash ammo, OR poison ammo. Keep it a physical attack that can only be dodged/parried, but the damage goes against the magic protection stat (not resist) for poison rather then the targets armor. Exactly as say, kincher electric attack works right now.

I think its reasonable to expect homins are capable of crafting bullets capped with poison, loaded with a small fiery explosive, able to unleash on electric shock on impact or perhaps trigger a sonic blast (shockwave?) on collision. But its not magic.

And please please please don't just completely remove the ability of launcher/auto to move while shooting. The ability to move is why rangers like ranged. We can nuke if we want to stand still.

In stead, try this simpler suggestion Sidusar and I previously made:

Allow launcher/auto users to put many more shots in their bag, but if they exceed the current bag limitation, it drops their movement speed quickly to zero. The ranger can hold more shots if they want, but then they're stuck in spot. If they want to be mobile, they can, but will only be able to hold limited shots.

Other "must haves" for a ranged revamp (some you seem to be doing, but documentation wasn't very specific )
-More range on rifle
-A"snipe" skill that increases damage but can't be performed while moving (need not be compatible with launcher/auto)
-More damage and less stamina usage for bowrifle/pistol/bowpistol

Would be really super awesome great if you could:
Dual pistols

[sidusar]

Sounds good. Leave acid/cold/rot as the sole terrain of the elementalists, they should still have more elemental damage options than rangers.

As for the affliction effects, I think it would be best to just leave them out. As others have already pointed out, from a lore perspective it doesn't make much sense if a bullet can root someone. From a mechanic perspective, it just makes the ranged skill much harder to properly balance for too little gain.

Also, we already have a system for physical debuffs that is currently hardly used: The critical hit effects and the aim stanzas. Aim head (stun) is used often enough, but the other 5 are seriously lacking in comparison. Those effects are stamina drain for the body, slow attack for the arms, slow movement for the legs, parry penalty for the hands and dodge penalty for the feet. Why give the ranged skill afflictions to slow attack or slow movement, when it already has a way of inflicting those effects that nobody ever uses?

Expanding the critical hit system would be a much more simple and novel way to give rangers some debuff effects. You could introduce new stanzas or ammo stats that increase either the chance of getting a critical hit or the effect of the critical hit itself. You might even consider giving critical hits completely new effects, as some of the current effects are rather poor next to the afflictions.

I'm also against completely removing the ability to shoot on the run for launchers and autolaunchers. The ability to shoot while running is what gives ranged it's own unique experience and seperates it from magic.

Please, give some advantage for standing still while shooting, but don't make them completely unable to move. The ability to carry much more ammo at the cost of moving is ofcourse my favourite. But I wouldn't be opposed to expanding the "snipe" skill to work for autolaunchers and launchers either, so that they can simply do more damage if you stand still.

So much for what I don't like. What I really do like about the proposed changes:
The increased range on rifles, the "focus shot"/"snipe" skill, the cartridges concept, and a new range credit.

I'm not sure about the focus credit. I like the idea of a focus credit on certain special skills, with focus being unhealable that wouldn't be very different from having the skill on a timer. But I'm afraid a generic focus credit that can be used in any action instead of health/stamina credits would quickly make ranged too powerfull.

[blaah]

how about removing the rangers ability to shoot behind their backs running around out of range of melees / spellcasters ? it'll complicate solo grinding but hey, you can't run around nuking behind your back either, but it doesn't stop 3/4 of the server becoming AoD's.

yes you can nuke behind your back, i'ts called enchant does the same damage as "normal" nuke too.

In duels, like xtarsia pointed out, their advantage of running around out of reach while shooting could at the very least be qualified as unfair.

unfair is that mage does most dps. unfair is that melee can use heavy armor and jewels to absorb physical and magical damage.

range does not do much dps, they can use jewels and heavy armor, but that requires range user to drop dps or he/she will be out of stam faster than light/med armor. med armor is good for ranger, but mage can use it too and be efective. shooting while moving is nice, but mage can compete there too. so, ranger only have range, for that they need to keep moving... and now you want to limit that too ?

btw, homins have root spell. it can stop ranger from running out of range. if you too low level to use it, level up.

[norvic]

Undecided on Auto but firing a Launcher stationary seems fair enough to me.

Sidusar is correct crit hit system would be better to look at, have done a fair amount of experimentation and atm they are not worth using when compared to "Kill" time and stanza cost.

[wyeth]

Why not putting penalties on rangers when they run like using more hp/stam or not being able to use some stanzas like aim or accurate ?

[iwojimmy]

Why not putting penalties on rangers when they run like using more hp/stam or not being able to use some stanzas like aim or accurate ?

They are just fixing the irritating issue with magic - where it fails the spell if you havent come to a complete stop before starting to cast it (and the game doesnt seem to beleive that no-longer-pushing-the-move-key means stopping). How many times have you stopped moving to cast a spell, only to get "spell failed"..
By bringing in bricks that dont work while moving, you will recreate that same issue in Ranged.

Now the problems in ranged are low damage output, need to carry ammo, high stat use. and the only advantage is ability to attack while moving.
Mobility is useless if you are in a team.
Having a new stanza that swaps mobility for damage will make Rangers less useless in parties, but if they are going to solo, they cant afford to nerf what little benefit they have.

The only "drawback" to making it more efficient to stand-still-and-shoot is that it will encourage people to level on plants even more..
Atys was a better and more interesting place before plants became so easy to level on

[norvic]

Why not putting penalties on rangers when they run like using more hp/stam or not being able to use some stanzas like aim or accurate ?

Because of relatively low damage output use acc attack is virtually a must as you dont want to be wasting what damage you can do by missing aswell.

And as to using more Stam with ranged, sheesh we burn stam faster than a big burny thing already, also movement is one of the plusses we do have (with the exception I think launchers should be static firing)

[sidusar]

Maybe I should explain why I'm so completely against forcing auto/launcher users to remain static.

The majority of skills can be trained solo. Elemental has enough damage to kill a mob before it reaches you, melee can suit up in heavy armor and exchange blows up close, rangers can shoot mobs while running away from them. The skills that can't be trained solo however (daggers, staffs, unarmed, afflictions ) are usually forced to leech experience from a team while not contributing much.

Launchers and autolaunchers can currently be trained solo by getting 5-6 mobs to chase you and blowing them all to bits while running from them. It's by no means easy, but it can be done.

But take away that ability to shoot while running, and suddenly the above scenario means those 5-6 mobs will reach you long before you can kill them. Then with that many mobs hitting you at once you'll be down on the ground within seconds. A healer won't help much either, as half of the mobs will turn on them.

You'll just have to train on one mob at a time then, won't you? But the strength of those guns lies in their AoE, against a single target they don't do much damage at all. An autolauncher does less than a 1-handed sword, and a launcher only slightly more than a 2-handed axe. The single mob too will easily reach you before you can kill it, and proceed to attack you while you can't dodge and it's attacks can interrupt yours. You might win, but I doubt you would, and you'd be consuming insane amounts of mats.

Cheap training ammo will be offered, but this'll do even less damage. How much less is still uncertain, but let's assume it's at 50%-70% of normal damage. Then in terms of both damage output and vulnerability, that auto/launcher user would be like an elementalists who tries to nuke a mob with single spells, without amps.

In short, this will pretty much kill the option to level auto/launchers solo, and turn it into yet another skill that is forced to leech experience off teams. I welcome the cheap training ammo because it will give us the option to train those skills in a team if we choose to. I don't want to loose the mobility because that will make teams the only option and thus take the choice away again.