A thought on Assault rifle

So I've been having a blast with my dual pistols blaster lately and it got me thinking about the other weapon based blasting set that I've never been able to get into: Assault Rifle.

I've tried many times to start up an AR toon and just have never been able to follow through on it and I'm starting to notice why, in my opinion the animations are just plain boring. Pretty much every power goes, point gun forward, pull trigger. Sometimes bullets come out, sometimes a grenade comes out, sometimes flames come out but it still feels the same every time for me. Now if we could have fancy alternate animations that'd be great and I'd be happy but there's another thing that could do it for me: being able to edit the projectiles and such.

Shooting bullets over and over again can be boring. Shooting bullets on most powers and having one power that shoots lasers could be awesome. I'm not asking for a change to the damage. Much like /shields can get a fire shield or ice shield that still does the same thing. That's all I really want.

I also want to be able to change my flamethrower color.

From what I remember about when the devs were getting ready to give us power color customization this may be too much of a commitment for just one powerset but I'd certainly love to be able to make some of these changes. Maybe I'd finally get into an Assault Rifle character.

Thanks for listening,
-Ice_Storm

Lol I have a level 50 AR, and after seeing DP animations and swap ammo....I so wanted some love shown to probably the oldest unchanged set of all at least visually.

So give AR some much needed kick in the seat.

If they do, then optional, please, optional.

Not everyone wants a guy dancing around with a rifle.

Keep the Gungrave Cheerleader with the DP.

What's the secondary effect of AR anyway? Apart from having many AoE attacks, it's just a mixed bag of attacks, which is hardly unique in any blast set.

Firing off the a tracer round every now and then would look pretty cool.

I'd prefer animations that looked like...y'know..an assault rifle?
Seriously, NO ONE fires a rifle like that. EVER. Flamethrower, yes, maybe. Because it really doesnt matter.

Rifle itself and the grenade launcher you need to aim. I love the animation for Sniper Rifle, due to it actually looking like an assault rifle when it's fired.
More animations where the rifle is brought up to the shoulder and fired would be fantastic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

there is a secondary effect, dead mobs

It's not a great set, but I like it. Some of the key features are that burst has snipe range with a single range enh. AoE and Cones. Buckshot, Flamethrower, M30, Full Auto, they're handy. Burst, which I can't stand the sound of anymore, is a good no-kb that's up often. You end up spamming it a little as a filler.

Updating graphics would be nice, but not to backflip type stuff. Gun to the eye would be a nice touch. Not sure if we have an overhand throw that could replace M30.

No one will get excited one way or another, so I figure the devs won't update it.

When it comes to Assault Rifle I'd like to be able to move and fire the gun. Incredibly unrealistic so it is.

The secondary effect of machine gun fire is supposed to be -Def. This is the effect most commonly applied to critter fire. I'm guessing the idea is that rapid fire bullets "chew up" armor, allowing successive shots through.

As many of AR's attacks are NOT machine gun fire, however, the effect is not consistent. Only Burst has -Def, although technically I believe Full Auto should have it as well. Slug, Buckshot, M30 Grenade and Sniper Rifle all have knockback, presumably because it is a single larger caliber impact. This is consistent with Dual Pistols, which has a combination of -Def and knockback with Lethal Ammo.

Note that Archery has NO secondary effect, except for Blazing Arrow's DoT, and Explosive Arrow's knockback, the +ToHit is all it has. AR has a combination of +ToHit, -Def, knockback, and DoT from its fire attacks. So it makes sense that the +ToHit of Archery would be higher than AR. (And in fact Dual Pistols is comfortably between them) It's likely, though, that AR's +ToHit is not a secondary effect, but the innate +ToHit of all weapons that is meant to compensate for the penalty of redraw.

As for the OP, while new alternate animations for the set would be nice, along the lines of Super Strength and Martial Arts, it should be expected that older Power Sets do not look as good as newer ones. The old Power Sets were cobbled together from animations that were meant to be used for an open Power system (something like that of a certain other superhero MMO that shall remain nameless) and in many cases the same animation is reused several time. More money is, IMHO, going into the development of animations today than has ever gone into the game in the past, given the amount of time that was spent on those animations, and then amount of time being spent today. There were simply too many other things being developed at the time to devote such a huge amount of time to complex and showy animations. The devs were trying to get the job done and get the game released.

In the past, the devs have been loathe to change animations, as the people who are opposed to changes to the sets they have enjoyed and grown used to greatly outnumber the number of people who would be drawn to draw a set by the new animations. They have only made such changes where there was clearly no alternative, such as with the Sonic animations which were making many players of the game, even those not playing the sets directly, violently ill, to the point where they were driven from the game entirely. I expect this will change now, with Power Customization, and some of the alternatives that people have suggested for different Powers will be made available as customization options, so the alternates can be selected and used, or not used, as the player sees fit.

I wouldn't look to it happening overnight, though.

I'll also add that right now you can EITHER customize the color and/or animation of your Power OR you can customize the weapon. Archery, Dual Pistols, Broadsword, Battle Axe and so on allow you to choose what the weapon looks like, but the effects and the animations you use to make the attacks cannot be changed. Fire Blast, Energy Blast, and even psuedo weapon effects like Fire Sword in Fire Melee or Stone Mallet in Stone Melee can be customized and you can change the color of them, but you do not have a "weapon" that is constant across all Powers and customized independently of them. It is possible that later changes may allow modification of the machine gun effects as well as the machine gun itself, but it is equally possible that only one of these two values can be edited and saved, and not both of them.

I'm pretty happy with the AR animations, overall. I would like to see some options available for weapon customization. I'd love to see my AR blaster using a massive instrument of death like the one below.

I would greatly like if they added new animations to every power so that there's a higher probability of there being something I like. Granted, I do not wish for every alternative animation to be of the same calibur as DP, as eventually the break dancing would wear thin on my nerves after a time, but something simple like they did with Martial Arts and Super Strength would not be out of place.

As for AR itself, I think the powerset is fine. I love me some flamethrower.