questions about ranged combat

[angus858]

Hello folks. I just returned to Ryzom after an absence of several years. When I left, ranged weapons were extremely underpowered compared to other combat skills. I'm wondering if that is still the case.

I know there have not been many patches over the years but I'm hoping a fix to ranged weapons was one of them.

Also, is it possible to use a pistol and shield combo?

Thanks!

[vonzuben]

I don’t believe anything has changed, nor do I believe anything needed or needs to be fixed.

In order to be effective you need high level ranger skill plus you must have both dig and craft ammo skills to match. So you pay the large price of leveling 3 skills, in order to have the most useful skill in PvP. It’s not a useful skill for most other things because it’s high maintenance.

[blaah]

launcher and autolauncher are now extremely OVERpowered compared to other skills, especially in pvp battles.

you need multiple auto-/launchers to call them overpowered. both guns also need targets close by (auto- needs them to be perfectly behind you first target, for launcher they just need to be close to target) and targets need to wear light armor. gun also needs ammo which you have very limited amount (less than 100 rounds pre-crafted probably).

if you want to know how un-/effective auto-/launcher is against PvE, go to clopper hill and see if you can solo spawn boss with your weapon. melee user can btw. close by healer allowed. you run out of ammo pretty quick to be called overpowered

pistol/rifle is again different. they single targets so no use for PvP. in PvE they not exactly damage dealers, but you have ~1.5k ammo and should never get hit when fighting a mob.
no use for that shield other than increasing hp/stam use or looking cool (but we already have med armor for that .

imho auto-/launcher (250*) is fine as they are. pistol(151)/rifle(210) could use a damage buff so mobs will die on wounds and not heart-attack from being overweight as it is now.
*my levels

[norvic]

Launcher/auto are not overpowered in PvP weighed up against the effort involved.

True you may have high burst damage under the right circumstances that a spell chucker could only dream of but that is limited (I carry 12 shots only in meduim) then you have to stop and re-craft or reload from packer etc, plus as been mentioned you have to level 3 tree's not just spam 1 at no cost so is not unbalanced.

I would also argue that rifle is also very effective in PvP, chasing down opposing rangers/AoDs looking for position, picking off low health healers, running people down and generally being a bloody nuisance

Cant comment on pistol because only made 211 so far and not tried it much maybe Roland/Marelli/Kyerna could comment.

[ricimal]

i think pistol is fun at op battles and still kill homins in PvP with it but its only good against a caster

[sidusar]

Oooh boy... well, here we go.

launcher and autolauncher are now extremely OVERpowered compared to other skills, especially in pvp battles.

To dispel a possible misconception first, ranged has not been changed in all these years. It's still just as powerfull as it was 5 years ago. The only changes to ranged in those 5 years have been:

• The ammo is now stackable up to 999, rather than 40 for pistol, 3 for launcher, etc, that required you to manually reload all the time.
• The changes to stamina (that effected all weapons) have made pistol and rifle cost much less stamina than they did before, making them a little more viable.

That's it. No real rebalancing of ranged has ever occurred. The reason it's used so much more today than it was 3 years ago is simply because people *discovered* it's use in outpost battles.

It was just as powerful when outposts were introduced, just nobody realised it yet because we were all stuck in the "ranged is underpowered and useless" mindset.

targets need to wear light armor.

Launchers are actually pretty good against medium or heavy armored players because their damage far overrides the max vs on armor. At level 250, a launcher does 1656 damage per shot, HA decreases that by 661 at the most; still 995 damage per shot. Far more than what a 2h axe will do to a HAed player.

True you may have high burst damage under the right circumstances that a spell chucker could only dream of but that is limited (I carry 12 shots only in meduim)

Indeed, technically the high power of the big guns is balanced by the fact that you carry limited ammo. However, as we see at OP battles, currently this downside can be almost completely compensated for by bringing along your 3 packers all full of ammo and constantly following you. Ammo can be transferred from packers to bag instantaneously. The packers are pretty much untouchable and even make it harder for the enemy to target any healers that might also be behind you. Hence why people argue packers of OP-tagged people should also be attackable.

Launcher/auto are not overpowered in PvP weighed up against the effort involved.

The reason it's considered overpowered is because, if you had an army of people who are 250 in everything, and ammo mats aren't an issue, the way to make your army the most powerful possible is to have everybody use launcher in HA with 3 packers of ammo. No mix of skills, just everybody the same skill.

It doesn't matter how the enemy army has their roles distributed either, putting everybody on launcher would always be your best option. If that's not the definition of an overpowered skill, I don't know what is.

Cant comment on pistol because only made 211 so far and not tried it much maybe Roland/Marelli/Kyerna could comment.

I feel pistol is the same as rifle here. Bit less range and less damage over time, but faster hpm so more interrupts. Principle is the same.

It’s not a useful skill for most other things because it’s high maintenance.

So, ofcourse, all the above is discussing PvP. In PvE, which I assume the original poster is most interested in, ranged is still the same as it was 5 years ago; quite underpowered.

The reasons for the difference, I believe, are.

• Most PvE fights are stationary so the mobility that's an advantage of ranged is useless there.
• Mobs generally don't do any spellcasting that can be interrupted.
• Mobs generally have far higher physical protections than magic protections, and no damage limit on those physical protections.
• The AoE of the big guns is a liability in PvE, just attracting more aggro on you.

[norvic]

[QUOTE=sidusar]

It was just as powerful when outposts were introduced, just nobody realised it yet because we were all stuck in the "ranged is underpowered and useless" mindset.


Nobody

[QUOTE=sidusar]
Indeed, technically the high power of the big guns is balanced by the fact that you carry limited ammo. However, as we see at OP battles, currently this downside can be almost completely compensated for by bringing along your 3 packers all full of ammo and constantly following you. Ammo can be transferred from packers to bag instantaneously. The packers are pretty much untouchable and even make it harder for the enemy to target any healers that might also be behind you. Hence why people argue packers of OP-tagged people should also be attackable.


The reason it's considered overpowered is because, if you had an army of people who are 250 in everything, and ammo mats aren't an issue, the way to make your army the most powerful possible is to have everybody use launcher in HA with 3 packers of ammo. No mix of skills, just everybody the same skill.

It doesn't matter how the enemy army has their roles distributed either, putting everybody on launcher would always be your best option. If that's not the definition of an overpowered skill, I don't know what is.

I agree with these points but I cant ever see a stage everyone will level 3 skill to 250 just for OP battles.

If launcher damage was reduced to AoD level the effort wouldnt be worth it.

Agree entirely about the packer thing, if you are aggro flagged at a battle your packers should be too that would solve alot of problems.

[acridiel]

Agree entirely about the packer thing, if you are aggro flagged at a battle your packers should be too that would solve alot of problems.

Hmhm, really?
I´m guessing that it would just solve the "problems" on the receiving site of the big stick.
All Mektoubs that are brought along would be killed on sight and the weapon would be almost useless again, after a few shots.
But don´t forget that you´d "only" made the shooter less mobile, for he could still get his ammo from the dead beasts.
They´d only stop following him/her around. So he/she had to return to them to reload, but otherwise would not be greatly hindered in his/her movements. *

But to completely deny reloading would not solve any "problems".
Why bring it along then anyway?
Why even implement it then? Seen from the Devs point of view.

No, there must be a better way of "solving" such problems.
Even I as a non PvPer can see that a re-balancing is seriously needed here.

And btw. don´t forget that there were "special Ammos" announced a while back. Ammunition that would have similar effects to Elementals Spells and such.

I personally don´t much like such "nerfs", for the strife they normally cause in communities, but well... sometimes they are needed.

CU
Acridiel

* And "cheap mektoubs" are not that hard to buy for an accomplished player.

[norvic]

Vulnerable Meks might seem overkill but if they are being used to help in an offensive manner the opposing side should be able to counter. Anything used offensively should be able to be countered and meks being used for advantage in op areas are such.

They could be left outside OP area with precrafted ammo or ammo mats, would not stop the use of launchers but would stop the unnending barrage of heavy damage that peeps seem to be complaining about.

I have been at master launcher for a coupla years so i am not whining about a skill somone has and i do not or do not understand. Just a way to calm things down abit before people start wanting to wave the nerfbat at a skill that involves a significant investment in time and effort.