86 replies to this topic

[ecolitan]

I will confess to not understanding all the nuances of all the skills for all classes. This thread is in no way meant to slight other classes and I strongly encourage those in other classes to post well thoughtout changes to skill trees. I am also not looking to create an uber-powered class of soldiers, merely to remove the distinct disadvantage they are currently at. My suggestions are the following:

1) Remove the round of combat for reloading the weapon. This is burdensome and unnecessary. This is not specific to soldiers but impacts them more heavily than any other class.

2) Change the effects of Marksman, Controlled Burst, Sniper, Called Shot, Scope, Silencer, and Weapon Specialist to work for all ranged ammo weapons (pistol, rifle and heavy seem to be the categories).

3) Change Mag Coupler to Long Range Attack granting a .2-.4% chance per point to get 2 attacks before the opponent can attack once.

4) Change Focused to an Attack and/or Damage increasing buff at the expense of Defense and/or Armor.

Reasoning:

1) This is pretty clear. It is an impediment to being a soldier (or using ammo in general) to have to lose a round or stop to look in the data sheet every few kills. This is not feasible in the play style of the game. There is a strong energy disadvantage to using ammo atm and this part of it should be removed imo.

2) Some of these skills are already of this type. Others only work for specific types. For example Scope is a rifle skill that is required to use Silencer which is a pistol skill. By having alternating weapon types we are forced to only be able to use a portion of the skills. Combined the skills are roughly equivalent to those other classes get, only soldiers can't use them together because they require different weapon types.

3) Mag Coupler is a ridiculous skill. I have a weapon with 30 ammo slots. I have ammo clips of 30. How do I benefit from loading more than 30 since they will disappear. Also, by removing problem 1) this is no longer beneficial. The Long Range Attack skill will provide the first true benefit to ammo based weapons and properly balance this from being overpowering. It is certainly less powerful than MS which gets 2 free hits per combat without ever going away. A (currently) 22%-44% chance to get 2 shots from a ranged weapon isn't overpowering in the setting of this game. I personally believe .2% is probably the fair number but it depends on the final skill levels achieved in the game (structures etc). Having this only work for rifles might be reasonable but it depends if the weapon distribution will remain the same going forward in the game.

4) Focused is a worthless skill. Giving up a round of damage to get 11% more damage in round 2? I'd rather do 200% damage in two rounds than 111%.... The type of skill I recommend is for soldiers to be able to focus their efforts into attack or damage (concentration on placement of shot) while using a battlesuit (ammo?) weapon at the expense of exposing themselves a bit more if they fail to kill in 1 shot. This is not overpowering and creates a situation where a tradeoff is present yet in many cases will be beneficial. Combining this skill with MS would be unfair - but soldiers don't have that skill.

Please try to keep other class comments in another thread. I know it's useless to say that but the more on topic this thread is the better a chance someone will come in and address it. As I said, I do encourage other classes to try for a similar rethinking in a fair manner.

[ecolitan]

I'm almost positive if you manually reload the desiccator from empty it fits two clips perfectly. I'd have to go back and check but am pretty sure.

[ecolitan]

Both of the skills you mentioned only affect the weapon - and could be made more clear. Mutants had a thread somewhere about all "rad" items not being included in the damage calculation for their damage skills. For me, this is not a big problem, as at low levels you don't need the boost and at high levels weapons will likely carry a lot of damage. I'd love more boost but the other skills are horrible.

[RJEM]

I've just chosen Soldier, despite reading this thread. I would love to see the descriptions cleaned up, made to apply to all weapons, and generally be more useful.

If Soldiers are meant to be better with guns, make them better!

[ecolitan]

The slashing ammo addition has reminded me to bump this thread. The OP still holds the most important problems with the soldier class/ammo weapons/skill tree. Please can we get a cowment in here?

[acidic]

just face it ecolition... soldiers suck...



Join me on the dark side.... take a walk into the desert and start experiemening

[ecolitan]

I refuse to play the game with that most unbalanced skill in the game. Other than that skill I have no desire to be a purist. Mutants are just plain ugly and scary. Only thing I'd consider is that shiny thing. Plus soldier sets are the coolest looking ones in game. When I'm not naked I do want to look cool.

[acidic]

Well, that is where we differ.... I care mor about how a person look when naked.... purist have tattoos... soldier have scars... ech!

[baardi]

everything is good expect soldiers...........

[BigGrim]

1) Remove the round of combat for reloading the weapon. This is burdensome and unnecessary. This is not specific to soldiers but impacts them more heavily than any other class.

Nope. It takes time to reload a weapon. It really is that simple.

2) Change the effects of Marksman, Controlled Burst, Sniper, Called Shot, Scope, Silencer, and Weapon Specialist to work for all ranged ammo weapons (pistol, rifle and heavy seem to be the categories).

Which completely neuters the point of having specialised Soldiers. Some of this should be altered if Hoofmaster can get Class Skills being cast on members of the same class.

3) Change Mag Coupler to Long Range Attack granting a .2-.4% chance per point to get 2 attacks before the opponent can attack once.

Why? The Mag Coupler is a good skill. 25% chance (at 100) to get 25% extra ammo on a reload. I'll have a chat with Hoofmaster as to if it can be tweaked. We have an idea for that.

4) Change Focused to an Attack and/or Damage increasing buff at the expense of Defense and/or Armor.

But it increases your damage. You can couple that with Weapon Specialist and Marksman. Not to mention Kinetic Reserves in the Core which you could get from any of your Faction Mates.

People seem to forget that we are not designing this to be a One Hit Kill game.

[ecolitan]

[quote name="BigGrim"][quote name="ecolitan"]1) Remove the round of combat for reloading the weapon. This is burdensome and unnecessary. This is not specific to soldiers but impacts them more heavily than any other class.[/quote]

Nope. It takes time to reload a weapon. It really is that simple.[/quote]

Well I seem to remember someone saying "anything is possible in sci-fi".... More seriously, it doesn't take a round if you go to the datasheet and load the weapon so in game terms it's not true it takes time. But, this is tedious. A hot-key on the world screen that loaded the weapon from your inventory would make sense to overcome this. I think way back when I argued for one of these two. The lost round of combat wouldn't be an issue if there were a hot-key to reload the ammo.

[quote name="ecolitan"]2) Change the effects of Marksman, Controlled Burst, Sniper, Called Shot, Scope, Silencer, and Weapon Specialist to work for all ranged ammo weapons (pistol, rifle and heavy seem to be the categories).[/quote]

Which completely neuters the point of having specialised Soldiers. Some of this should be altered if Hoofmaster can get Class Skills being cast on members of the same class.[/quote]

We can go back to realism. Why do I need to learn scope (a rifle skill) to learn silencer (a pistol skill)? If they are specialized (some for pistol some for rifle) then the skill trees shouldn't be alternating but specialized. At the moment they are a hodgepodge of skills in a tree that doesn't make sense. If we are to specialize, then don't make me learn rifle skills to be good at a pistol and vice-versa. It's the alternating skills that really make no sense.

[quote name="ecolitan"]3) Change Mag Coupler to Long Range Attack granting a .2-.4% chance per point to get 2 attacks before the opponent can attack once.[/quote]

Why? The Mag Coupler is a good skill. 25% chance (at 100) to get 25% extra ammo on a reload. I'll have a chat with Hoofmaster as to if it can be tweaked. We have an idea for that.[/quote]

Mag coupler does NO GOOD at all when ammo packs are the exact size of the weapon limit on ammo. My rifle holds 30 rounds. Loading 37.5 rounds won't help if it only gives me 30 in my rifle. Plus, ammo is cheap and this is only a small benefit to the credits and not to playability.

[quote name="ecolitan"]4) Change Focused to an Attack and/or Damage increasing buff at the expense of Defense and/or Armor.[/quote]

But it increases your damage. You can couple that with Weapon Specialist and Marksman. Not to mention Kinetic Reserves in the Core which you could get from any of your Faction Mates.

People seem to forget that we are not designing this to be a One Hit Kill game.[/quote]

Ok - here game mechanics clearly prove this wrong. Focused gives up an attack to get 10% more damage in the second round. This is DOMINATED by not using it. I can have 100% of damage twice or 110% of damage in the second round. Combining it with other skills is meaningless as I can have those skills on anyway. Now, possibly you don't automatically miss the first time so this kicks in and gives me 10% more damage in the 4% of times I don't hit in the first round (and while it may not be setup to 1-hit, clearly the game relies on us having enough attack to "guarantee a hit"). This is still pretty weak.

And of course, we still have the damage issue. Here is the post that says Battlesuit ammo weapons would get the boost:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2954&hilit=ammo+damage&start=33

The highest damage I see in a Battlesuit weapon through level 140 is just under 200. I see two other classes with weapons that do over 230. So, 2 damage points over what? Again, you can put 5,000 worthless weapons in the game. But, unless one of them has stats that are equivalent to what other classes can get (or better by the thread quoted above) it is meaningless to soldiers. I am still using a weapon close to 20 levels below me because damage has not increased in weapons since then for my class.

[021962]

People seem to forget that we are not designing this to be a One Hit Kill game.

I hate to go off topic here but!

I keep track of most of the equipment available in the releases with the exception of the elite sets. And I can tell you this! It is getting almost impossible to put together a decent armor or defense combination with the last release of contents from level 110 on. All the equipment stats are geared from high attack or damage with very little defense or armor. To keep defense or armor stats high enough to survive a hit, I find I am using a lot of equipment below level 100. And I have Hp at over 125 with skills added. The pieces with average attack/armor/damage or average attack/defense/damage are usually common. Armor/defense does a disappearing act if any blue print is needed. This means the equipment needed to level is mostly attack/damage with a trip to the cloning center if you get hit. In fact the armor/defense has dropped below what we were getting in the first 100 levels with the blue prints. So it would appear from the equipment that one hitting is the most efficient as you are not going to survive a hit anyway. This is just my two cents worth. Take it how you will.