Wasteland Diaries: Rifleman's lament

Every MMO seems to have a build or class triad. The rock, paper and scissors system. Or tank, healer and DPS (damage per second). Armor, infantry and artillery. However you look at it, it seems like most MMOs are balanced using this rule of three. In Fallen Earth the triad consists of three weapon skills that define the basic builds. Though it is a classless system, characters are usually designed around their weapon proficiencies. Fallen Earth currently has a rock, scissors and rock-eating scissor-smasher. Prior to version 1.4, the flavor-of-the-month build was melee. Pistol builds have now taken the top spot. This, of course, is debatable, but not many can argue against the ineffectuality of the rifleman in Fallen Earth.

Pistoleers have never been the weakest of the three; in fact (at least since open beta) they have been very viable and well-rounded builds. They are arguably, now, at the top of the heap and the balance has been shuffled leaving riflemen still at the bottom. The unbalancing has also caused an unbalancing of the factions as the pistol-using factions are clustered on one side of the faction wheel. For the most part, dual-wielding has always been much better than two-handed weapons, and that still holds true with melee weapons as well as firearms. But the rift between pistols and rifles has grown while the rift between melee and rifles has shrunk. One thing gets fixed while something else gets thrown out of whack. The next step is to balance the game. Continue reading after the break for a more in-depth analysis.

Attempting to balance a game is a series of changes that can have far reaching effects. Sometimes these effects are unforeseen, for example, if the game is balanced for PvP it might upset the balance for PvE, or if something is over-compensated it could make matters worse. In many cases a series of tweaks are necessary after major changes. Fallen Earth has undergone some sweeping changes with patch 1.4, and it is now being tweaked. Fortunately the developers have their fingers on the pulse of the community and they are listening to what we have to say. They do read the forums. They don't respond in the forums (wise decision)... but they do read them. Many of the major changes in Fallen Earth have made it into the game after being so thoroughly discussed that dead horses to flog were for a time, in short supply.

Two-handed weapons

In Fallen Earth, two-handed weapons have always been inferior to a pair of dual-wielded weapons. With the new damage shield mutations available, two-handed melee weapons have gained a small amount of usefulness. The damage shields work on a per-hit basis, so a dual-wielding melee user would get chewed up twice as fast. Melee has been de-fanged a bit, but can still trounce rifles handily. There is a 15% penalty if an off-hand weapon is used too soon after the main-hand weapon and vice versa. But this penalty is applied to the weapon skill, which only determines the chance for a glance or critical, not actual damage. There is so much variance and randomness in the new system that you may never see a marked difference. I don't. Essentially, nobody (in serious, competitive PvP) uses two-handed weapons apart from rifles. This includes big melee weapons and submachineguns. I can't think of a good enough reason to use them, myself.

Rifles

Rifles, as they are two-handed weapons, have a lower DPS than dual-wielded pistols. No pistol-wielders use submachineguns in a serious fight because there is no dual-wield option. Tactically, a rifleman's advantage should be accuracy at long range. Rifles would also be far more deadly damage-wise than a pistol, but we have to suspend reality a bit in the interests of game balance. The developers have made rifles do less damage than pistols but have a slightly longer range. Yes, I said slightly. 80 meters is the maximum range of the longest ranged sniper rifles in the game. Herein lies the problem.

Take a sniper rifle for example. You now have a weapon with a low DPS and your target is, at the most, 80 meters away. A fully speed-buffed pistoleer will close that distance in a few seconds. The problem is the maximum range. When the sniper opens fire on someone he or she immediately become visible on the radar map. The sniper's position has been completely compromised. Under the current system, the target's first impulse is to charge the sniper. Why not? The sniper can't bring them down before they are in melee range. The target's first impulse should be to find cover, but it's not. The only way the sniper would win this engagement is with a high degree of luck and by landing every debuff and DoT in his or her arsenal, after which all those abilities would be on cooldown for a few minutes.

If the engagement started at twice that range, it would be a different story. First of all the engagement would start outside the radar map's view, making the rifleman harder to pinpoint. Second, there would be many more opportunities to lay down fire or give the rifleman time to switch to a shotgun or assault rifle to finish the job. Many of the people who think rifles are underpowered are calling for more damage. Rifle damage is fine. An assault rifle or shotgun user should not dominate a point blank fight. That is the realm of pistols and melee. What rifles need, rather than DPS, is a longer range. But I remember reading somewhere that the 80 meter limit is because of engine limitations.

Engine limitations

I don't remember hearing why the game engine can't handle weapon ranges outside 80 meters, but I'm willing to bet it's a graphics engine and client-side limitation. The Fallen Earth graphics engine is no Unreal 3 engine and if the draw distances were doubled, the minimum system requirements would go up a bit. Fallen Earth is already demanding and drawing actors and objects out even farther would bring many systems that are struggling to their knees. Sure you could lower the draw distances in the options, but then it would be a game balance issue. People don't like to be killed by things they can't even see. Increasing the view distance and range would make rifles even more ridiculously overpowered in PvE, but that is another matter altogether. Improve the ballistic resistance for the mobs and we might have something.

Headshots

Another solution to the imbalance would be to apply the headshot damage bonus from PvE to PvP. It's a 100% bonus and makes a huge difference in damage calculations. Sure, double damage headshots would make all weapons more dangerous, but rifles would be able to capitalize on it more because of their accuracy at range. This, I think, would be the simplest solution; however, the PvP tactics would need to be completely rethought. Weapon accuracy would be paramount and player skill would play an even larger part in separating the winner and loser.

Speed buffs

You would think that the melee users would need to be fast on their feet and have many of the speed enhancements available to them. A user of melee weapons who has to be standing right next to you to hurt you, so he or she needs to be able to close the gap rather quickly. And they do have options for beefing up their movement speed, but not as many as pistol-users. Pistoleers are the fastest in the game. Melee is still deadly when in range with armor debuffs, stuns and raw DPS (when dual-wielding). But, meleers lack the movement speed to capitalize on this. Pistoleers aren't slouches up close either. Pistol Whip does crushing damage (can't be resisted) and a two second stun. It costs a little bit of stamina to use and has a cooldown of fifteen seconds, whereas most other stuns have longer cooldowns. And unlike Smash (another 15- second cooldown stun), for example, it is an auto-aimed skill and hits the target automatically if it is within range.

Rocket wolves

Riflemen fighting from mounts are making are comeback. The Blight Wolf mount (or "Rocketwolf") is a fine combat mount for riflemen. It is the preferred mount for mobile guerrilla hit-and-run rocket attacks. Rifle accuracy, however, is pretty bad on a moving mount. The crosshair spread is larger than your entire target even at medium range, so firing on the move is "spray and pray" at best. Although it is a good way to keep the distance advantage against melee opponents, without any hint of accuracy you won't do enough damage to bring anyone down. Player skill means practically nothing when the crosshair spread is that immense.

Conclusion

It seems like, as is, the rifleman has been relegated to a support build. The rifle needs to be brought in line with the other two weapon types. Two riflemen are a force to contend with, but only when the numerical odds are in their favor. A character build based on a weapon choice shouldn't determine whether it can stand on its own. In my personal experience in PvP (we are talking about hundreds of one-on-one fights) I tend to always beat riflemen with my pistoleer, and hardly ever beat pistoleers with my rifleman. It may be just a coincidence. Or you could say I'm just not very good with a rifle, but the impression I get is that rifles are underpowered. Your mileage may vary.