IDEAS FOR RYZOM

.:Burst Fire: A New Ranged Stanza

.:What is it?

A Stanza for Rifles/Bowrifles, Pistol/Bowpistol, but not launchers. This stanza fires two bullets per trigger pull that do damage at a portion of the bullet's normal damage. This leads to an overall increase in DPS & DPM, which would be much appreciated from people who would like to enjoy the use of pistols and rifles more. I believe this could also incentivize taking these types of weapons out more often.

This stanza does have it's innate drawbacks, such as consuming ammo at twice the rate.

Let's look at a couple numbers. I was doing some number crunching and I think the value of each bullet doing 65%, or 0.65 times, it's base damage would suffice. For example...

.:Examples & Numbers

All numbers are taken from q250 values found on BMSite's DPS page, which displays values for base/maximum damage, base/max Hit Per Minute, Max Damage Per Minute, and Max Damage Per Second.

The formula to calculate the maximum hit per minute with maximum firerate stanza is:

(Max Bullet Damage) * (Max HPM [Maximum Possible Weapon speed +hitrate stanza])

So, using BM site, which does automatically calculate the maximum DPM, a pistol's maximum bullet damage is 345. A pistol's max firerate with the firerate stanza, is 60. A pistol's DPM is 20700.

With the proposed burst fire stanza of 2 bullets per trigger pull at 0.65 of the base damage, the forumla woud be changed to this:

{[(Max Bullet Damage)*0.65]*2 (<-for the burst fire)}*(Max HPM)

Using BMSite's values for pistols again, the formula turns into:

[(345*0.65)*2]*60

This increases the pistol's damage per minute at max firerate to 26910 and the pistol's DPS to 448.5. This is a 30% increase in DPM when compared to it's current max firerate DPM of 20700. (345*60) The burst fire stanza places pistols at only about 1700 less DPM than Solo 1H sword.

Let's look at a different gun... say, rifles. BMSite states that a rifle's maximum bullet damage is 459. A rifle's max HPM is 48. Normally, it's DPM is 22018, but with the burst fire stanza, the DPM would increase to 28641.6, barely putting it above Solo 1H sword. (Has 8.4 more damage per minute over Solo 1H Sword)

.:Why Not Launchers?

Well.... they do a ton of damage already, and they fulfill a sort of burst damage role. The Autolauncher does 1104 with maximum damage ammo, and the Launcher does a wopping 1656. That's a lot!

Now, I know Autolaunchers are about 2.1k below Solo 1H Sword in the DPM chart. But if Autolaunchers are able to burst fire... it knocks the DPM all the way up to 34444.8, right below 2H axe/mace. That is a massive leap, going over four listed weapon groupings, whereas the Pistol and Rifle only move up to or hover around Solo 1H Sword damage.

I think, if Autolaunchers are going to be able to burst fire, the value would need to be adjusted. Instead of 0.65, the value 0.6 or 0.55 would work better. Let's try 0.6 for Autolaunchers. At a value of 0.6, an Autolauncher's DPM with burst fire would be 31765. This places it between 2H Pike and 2H Sword, which could be more acceptable, but I'm still unsure about Autolaunchers.

Let's look at Launchers now.

Definitely not Launchers. Absolutely not Launchers. A Launcher using burst fire with the original proposed 0.65 multiplier value in the formula would make the Launcher's DPM 51667.2. This is starting to get near magic DPM. Let's try a 0.6 multiplier. The DPM is now 47692.8. Let's try a 0.55 multiplier. The DPM is now 43718.4. Anything at or below 0.5 does nothing to the DPM or nerfs it. It's just... this weapon is fine, in my honest opinion.

Not to mention, now you have to carry even MORE heavy ammunition.

.:Trade-Offs

Now, I don't like to propose things like these without some drawbacks. Let's see what we're getting.

We're getting an increased damage per minute and damage per second. Since the weapon stanza is called Burst Fire, and it fires two bullets everytime an action with this stanza is in is used, it innately causes ammo consumption to double. This also causes the user to carry more ammo to sustain this stanza, particularly twice the amount of ammo to get the same amount of shots.

There is also the issue of too many stanzas when making actions. Hit Rate, Accuracy, Aim (Body Part), and Burst Fire all in one would make for an unsustainable stanza. People will need to choose which is appropriate.

Personally, I think the trade-off here is adequate, however, if it's too much, perhaps the use of this stanza would lessen the effects of the user's Accuracy Stanzas?

.:tl;dr

>Increases Pistol & Rifle DPS/DPM by approximately 30% by shooting 2 bullets that do 0.65x their base damage.
>Fires 2 bullets per use of action with Burst Fire stanza, increasing ammo consumption by 2x. This leads to more ammo needed.
>Accuracy debuff maybe?
>Launchers cannot use. Autolaunchers, maybe. On the fence about Autolaunchers.

I think this is a clever way to help out some of the weaker ranged weapons. Now to go figure out a clever way to help daggers when it comes to damage...

WRT to Auto-launchers: They are already doing the equivalent of burst-fire. An automatic weapon cannot do burst fire because it is already firing at full rate.

Potential counterpart -- because nothing comes without cost: Wear rate triples when using burst fire because the weapon was designed to be used under normal conditions.

True... who knows, maybe the autolaunchers can secretly switch firing modes and we haven't known this all along~♪

I love the idea as currently right now, pistols and rifles are not viable at all and the only times I have ever used them have been just for the fun of it (eg. nekkid q1 tekkie pistol fights in FH).

Autolaunchers shouldn't definitely not be included in this as they are aoe and Ryzom doesn't deal well with propasals for big changes.

The way I see it, the options are:

1. A stanza which has no credit cost but operates like wearout weapon, with varying degrees of damage increase:weapon wear rate. Also increased ammo consumption.

2. No stanza, just buff the normal damage of these weapons to make them more viable.

3. A stanza with credit cost that naturally has the trade-off of requiring more credits as you mentioned. Also increased ammo consumption.

To be perfectly honest, I would really accept all of these but the preferred option for me is 2. There is no practical use for these weapons except in highly niche circumstances and even then there are usually better alternatives. Every other weapon in the game serves a specific purpose and has a scenario where it can be considered the best for that specific cicumstance. Just buff pistol & rifle damage (its also the most easy to implement).

It's not really a drawback, as bullets used per kill won't change so the amount you have to dig won't change. The most logical corrolary would be the double missile spell, whereby the credit costs is increased by 20%.