Feedback Friday - 14th March 2008

There’s been a lot of feedback given on the recent changes with the Torqueshell rifle.  Designer Lee Ridout addresses some of your concerns in this week’s Feedback Friday.

What’s up with the Torqueshell Rifle?

We made some changes to the TSR on 1.6, and now are making additional changes due to player feedback and internal playtesting. The damage number on the gun is lower, but don’t let that deceive you. Your ability to setup a shot, land a shot, and control your rate of fire has been greatly enhanced.  This added control absolutely puts the responsibility on the player to get the big number. We replaced the windup with the need to ‘rebead’ a target.  We have lowered the casting time of many buffs and debuffs in recent patches so that, with less maintenance, the player can stay at maximum damage potential, and we made it so that the player will reach max damage at 60m and beyond. In short, we made the sniper with a TSR feel more responsive, more connected to the kill, more rewarded for making tactical decisions. 

Show me some math on the new changes!

Incoming numbers…

• We’ve made it so the gun is at max damage potential at 60m+.
• Damage is now about 75% of the original and an effective 2x rate of fire.  Still an increase in DPS.
• Rebeading Stats:


• Currently beading is all but free on the first shot since you will use the beading time to debuff your target)
• In the first iteration it took 3.2 seconds to max ‘re-bead’ while standing. This has been changed to 5 seconds
• In the first iteration it took 1.6 seconds to max ‘re-bead’ while crouching. This has been changed to 2.5 seconds (understand that the numbers might not align perfectly with a stop watch but the same timer system regulated the old 4 second wind-up)
• You used to be confined to 16 seconds to land all your rounds where you can now affectively empty your clip in about 8 seconds. 

Oops!  In our effort to get the build out to you sooner for testing and feedback we missed it.  The TSR will require a lower ammo grade.  This is fixed internally and you will see it in the next iteration of 1.6.

What about “1 shot” kills?

The philosophy is that a one hit kill should not just be handed out to anyone that knows how to click the trigger.  We wanted to reward those players who wisely spend points on skills and then use those skills to setup “that perfect shot”.  Make sure you have wisely appropriated your Attribute points… no, ‘body’ is not always the best .  Make sure you have invested in some buffs and debuffs… I use Rage3 as the sweet spot for point to benefit and Target Painting 5 with TSR5 is devastating. Called shot and shredder ammo both add, but with the recent changes it is really going to be up to you to figure out the best combinations. I realize you might not have had to ever rely on it in the past, but carry some adrenaline boosters and use your signature ability every now and then. Not all of these are necessary.  I was one hitting orange-con targets reliably just using Target Painting 5 and Rage.  I am always kneeling to shoot as well. The big difference here is that with the new changes, it is now up to the player to decide.

Is this the last change?

I ask that players keep in mind that balance is a delicate task.  We might need to further tweak the TSR but the direction to add more decision points for the player and remove the range and wind-up issues is the right one.  Also…we are working on many other changes to this class branch that we considered when altering the TSR. 

All of these adjustments amount to one thing: we are looking to balance the scale between flexibility and spike damage. The problem with a heavy tendency to spike damage:  Our game doesn’t play nice with this mechanic.  Placing restrictions like range and windup only result in missing out on the fun.  Our combat is fast… no place for a windup or even an overly long cool down there… Our tech only allows for 75m cull distance.  I would love to see a rifle and scope that allowed players to kills from 100m but that just won’t happen in our game any time soon.  Even the 80m was something we struggled with.

We would like the Sniper/TSR to be a long range weapon that can one hit minions of equal level and supply great damage and utility (see Target Painting’s armor regeneration shut-down) to more resilient targets. We also would like to see players better incentivized and rewarded for participating in, setting up and accomplishing what their character is themed to do.  We are balancing our skills to reflect this.  The sniper is about to reap the benefits of the upcoming ranger improvements as well.

As always feel free to send your comments to the Feedback Form.

Thanks for listening!

Lee Ridout
Tabula Rasa Designer
Classes & Combat Team
Clans, PvP, & Control Point Team

Click on the following links if you want to have a look at the previous Feedback Friday newsposts:

Feedback Friday – 7th March 2008

Feedback Friday – 29th February 2008

Feedback Friday – 22nd February 2008

Feedback Friday – 15th February 2008

Feedback Friday – 8th February 2008

Feedback Friday – 1st February 2008

Feedback Friday – 25th January 2008

Feedback Friday – 18th January 2008

Feedback Friday – 11th January 2008

Feedback Friday – 4th January 2008

Feedback Friday – 21st December 2007

Feedback Friday – 14th December 2007

Feedback Friday – 7th December 2007

Feedback Friday – 30th November 2007

Feedback Friday – 23rd November 2007

Feedback Friday – 16th November 2007

Feedback Friday – 9th November 2007

Feedback Friday - 2nd November 2007

Feedback Friday - 26th October 2007

Feedback Friday - 19th October 2007

Feedback Friday - 12th October 2007

Feedback Friday - 5th October 2007