Suggestion: Pistol buff

Hello everyone!
I've been playing more as an officer lately (both in pubs and lbs), and there's one thing that made me thinking when I do, and that's the pistol. At the moment, the pistol is more of an awkward slot machine (pure luck instead of skill) than an actual weapon, and I'd like to see something changed to that. Let me first point out what I think makes the pistol this stupidly weak.

The problems
  1. The accuracy
The biggest problem to the pistol imo, is the accuracy. The files give the following values:
Musket Accuracy: 75
Rifle Accuracy: 87
Pistol Accuracy: 25
This rediculously low value makes it so, that 50% of the time, you can't hit someone from 10 meters while he's standing still.
  2. The damage
If you manage to score a hit with the pistol, it doesn't matter anyway. Your enemy can happily proceed with scewering you on his bayonet, dispite the pistol round in his chest.
These are the values given about damage:
Musket Damage: 100p
Rifle Damage: 100p
Pistol Damage: 70p
This difference may not look significant, but it is. About 80% of the musket shots are one hit kills, while pistol rounds are too weak to one hit, unless it's a headshot, which means about 10% of the pistol shots is a one hit kill.
  3. The officer's stats
The stats of an officer make the pistol even more rediculous. An ordinary soldier has a weapon proficiency for firearms of 150. An officer, on the other hand, has 50. Anyone who has played Singleplayer, knows that 50 weap prof is laughably low.

The suggestion
My suggestion is rather simple, and should be easily implementable. All I suggest, is to raise both the accuracy and the damage of a pistol, to more or less equal the power of pistols in WFaS. Do not, however make it as strong and accurate as a musket, as the pistol should still be the weakest firearm in game. In values, I would suggest something like this:
Officer's weap prof: 140 (instead of 50)
Pistol Accuracy: 55 (instead of 25)
Pistol Damage: 80p (instead of 70p)
Due to some things I've tried, I think it's enough to only buff the officer's weap prof, as it leads to higher damage and better accuracy.
I think this will lead to a weapon which should be taken in consideration by enemies, instead of thrown away at the start of a round.
Let me know what you guys think about this!
Cheers,
Maroon

AGREEEEED. All of my pistol kills are headshots or 5 metres away from the target (but I think the target was already damaged). This needs attention!!! 

The pistols are mainly for ceremonial purposes imho and shouldnt really be even half effective.

Gragnok said:

The pistols are mainly for ceremonial purposes imho and shouldnt really be even half effective.

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Ceremonial? Are you taking the piss? Pistols were used so that officers had a sufficient weapon of self defense without having to lumber around a massive brown bess. A bullet from a pistol could kill you just as easily as a bullet from a musket at close range.

James Grant said:

Gragnok said:

The pistols are mainly for ceremonial purposes imho and shouldnt really be even half effective.

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Ceremonial? Are you taking the piss? Pistols were used so that officers had a sufficient weapon of self defense without having to lumber around a massive brown bess. A bullet from a pistol could kill you just as easily as a bullet from a musket at close range.

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Yeah...... you've made the mistake of comparing real life with a game. I was talking about the game you're talking about historical accuracy. I'm not disputing the use of pistols in the actual
Napoleonic wars but im just saying in NW i think they should remain somewhat more ceremonial for firing in the air to signal charges that sort of thing.

As much as it annoys me that when you manage to hit someone with the pistol only for them to shrug it off I can only imagine that increasing the accuracy and damage would make it a formidable weapon.

With the low reload time and the fact you can move while reloading it, it would make officers very dangerous. Especially those who hang back and let the team mates fight the enemy while they constantly reload and take pot shots.

Wouldn't mind seeing a brace of pistols added to the cuirassiers.

This would really annoying. A lot you guys hate point blanking, this would only increase it. Along with a lot more. End of round, chasing down an officer who is way a head of you. He turns around and shots the guy next to you, walks and reloads, then shoots you. All this will lead to more rage threads, more complaints. Officers will be way overpowered. Swords are better then beyoents, and now a pistol is almost like a weaker musket. No.

Well, maybe you can disable walking while reloading to balance the fact that the pistol is stronger?

NO! Please no !! I am already tired of it in North and South, not here too please! I BEG YOU NOOOO!

Those stats would be hilarious, if they weren't still like that.

They even off. If you could have a pistol that shoots just as powerfully as a rifle, which you can walk and reload with and has better accuracy is practically a short musket. Besides, its mean to have **** aim, that way when ever you get a hit its lively and feels amazing. And you shouldn't get 'skewered' with his bayonet. If you have a pistol you should have a sword too. Use it.

There's already to common for officers to fire out of formation with pistols, doing stuff that would get privates kicked. The one thing keeping me from going bananas is that pistols are more or less worthless.

Remove the Pistols for officers and add a Compass instead. This would make it alot easier to cordinate between regiments.

Increase the pistol accuracy would be nice. The damage is fine as it is, and the stats are good too.

Xeroth said:

They even off. If you could have a pistol that shoots just as powerfully as a rifle, which you can walk and reload with and has better accuracy is practically a short musket. Besides, its mean to have **** aim, that way when ever you get a hit its lively and feels amazing. And you shouldn't get 'skewered' with his bayonet. If you have a pistol you should have a sword too. Use it.

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I was pointing out the laughability of the fact that people happily proceed with what they do after being hit by a pistol round.

Talii said:

There's already to common for officers to fire out of formation with pistols, doing stuff that would get privates kicked. The one thing keeping me from going bananas is that pistols are more or less worthless.

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Well, can't we add it to the rules of engagement that, should pistols become stronger, it is no longer allowed to fire out of formation with it?

Today I tried to play as skirmisher who picked up officer pistol. It was quite devastating, I could land around 8/10 shots at 10-20 meters where officer get around 2/10, they were always lethal to non-line inf troops (because for some reason they have more HP than any other class). Increasing accuracy and damage would turn skirmisher who pick up pistols into devils spawn which would terrorize everything.
Although, I wouldn't mind some damage buff to pistols, but increasing accuracy could lead to some quite ridiculous situations (along with making officer spam unstoppable force).

jbebes said:

Swords are better then beyoents

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Tell me how a sword is better? It takes a few hits from a sword to kill someone but when you are moving a bayonet and kill in one strike

Talii said:

Remove the Pistols for officers and add a Compass instead. This would make it alot easier to cordinate between regiments.

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I know it would be hard with the random maps but what about a map that shows were friendly officers are to show were a regiment is?

(Ignores entire thread)

I've been killed by pistols more then muskets and rifles.

I dont think it should be as accurate and powerful as you've suggested, but yes it does need to be improved, it's far too weak currently. If it was simply as powerful as a musket but everything else the same it would be fine in my opinion.

By the way, how do you access the files to show the game statistics?

Edit: I just took more damage having a vodka bottle thrown at me than from being shot with a pistol. Now if that's more effective, imagine officers duels where they throw broken bottles at each other instead of shooting.

Vince did say the pistol is better than the one in MM but i dont see a damn difference

Oposum said:

Today I tried to play as skirmisher who picked up officer pistol. It was quite devastating, I could land around 8/10 shots at 10-20 meters where officer get around 2/10, they were always lethal to non-line inf troops (because for some reason they have more HP than any other class). Increasing accuracy and damage would turn skirmisher who pick up pistols into devils spawn which would terrorize everything.
Although, I wouldn't mind some damage buff to pistols, but increasing accuracy could lead to some quite ridiculous situations (along with making officer spam unstoppable force).

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Well, if that's the case, then maybe the officer should only gain the weap prof buff, and the pistol should be left alone. If that alone causes such results as you've mentioned, I'd reckon that's buffing without overpowering it.

Willhelm said:

By the way, how do you access the files to show the game statistics?

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I use the program found here to access the files. Very usefull tool, that