Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: What is the purpose of the BH system?
The initial design flaw in both Jedi profession and the BH / visibility system is a failure to realize or accommodate for the fact that a majority of players will take up these professions to bully weaker players. Any power that can be gained and used to hurt weaker players will be used to do so if appropriate checks to that power don’t exist. Of course this isn’t true for every jedi or every BH but it’s more common then not. Even players that enter these profession with a higher ideals will be confronted with a system that encourages this behavior through impediments and penalties to balanced fights and rewards with no deterrents for picking on weaker players.
With all this in mind here are the problems I see with the current system.
So I have a question. What should the purpose of the BH system be? Is it just to go kill weak padawans for killing creatures in the middle of nowhere? This type of behavior may be frowned upon but I think picking off an overt knight in 8 jedi group ganking everything that comes into Theed should be the point of the this whole system. A check on the most problematic abuse of power. With out this check or if developers intentionally move away from any check for this behavior they are just saying the GCW is a jedi only activity. And the proposed changes make it look like that’s the way the developers are going. GCW is a Jedi only activity.There is next to no content for full jedi other then to lord over the GCW. The FRS system attempted to do something about this but it just turned into a tool to gain even more power to lord over the GCW. The complexity of the jedi profession makes hitting a proposed power ratio of 1.5 to 1 impossible. Finished templates can range anywhere from .5 to 6 to one regular professions. This leads to a lot of nerf calls from both sides. Jedi with weak templates screaming for more power or nerfs and BH’s hitting god templates screaming for more nerfs. The visibility system weights innocent and problematic behavior the same and awards the same visibility to weak and strong jedi alike. A padawan leveling with a friend in the middle of nowhere gets the on the terms just as fast as a full template making a mockery of regular profession in the GCW. The BH terminal system rewards BH’s based on number of boxes a jedi has. When combined with the above issues this is a poor risk reward system. 180k missions are almost always an easy fight and a 220k+ mission can be anything from easy to impossible for a single BH. The XP penalty system for jedi penalizes jedi based on their level and is completely irrelevant to full templates which are in greatest need on a check on their power. The BH terminal system makes trying to target full template jedis that are making a mockery of regular professions in the GCW impossible. There are too many ways to exploit or work around the current system.
Message Edited by ObiQuixote on 06-04-2005 10:58 AM
I wholeheartedly agree.
As I mentioned in another post, FanFest has destroyed my confidence in the devs to create a better game. Instead of getting me excited for future publishes I find myself worried about them. I don't think you'll see me around for much longer sadly. 
BH was the only non-jedi thing to do in this unbalanced game.
The purpose was, to make it harder to grind Jedi. Unfortunately a full temp MBH used to be too weak to kill a Jedi. That went on for far too long, and now you see the huge influx of Jedi.
Then, they made MBH a stronger template. Good!
Now if you play right you have a slight chance of taking a Knight!
Unfortunately, BH was weak for far too long and now full Temp Jedi are numerous!
And, as we all know, Killing a full temp Jedi amounts to Zip.... Just the pride of knowing you did good in a strong PvP fight.
So what is the purpose of the BH system??
To have fun. If it is not fun for you any more, take another profession. You might find you like it. I hate to see people leave the game, but to each his/her own...
The BH/Jedi system will forever be borked, because it does nothing to stop the influx of new Jedi (it only slows it.) Nothing is there to stop the influx of new Jedi. It's gotten to be dead easy -- go get these exact badges here, go to the Village, unlock a branch, cap XP on Dantooine and go back and cash it in until you have Jedi Padawan. Then level up your Jedi until you've got a full template (and/or alts and guild mates to hold your mission) and go to Theed and heal people who randomly walk through. Or you can go to a Cantina where a Master Doc is healing wounds, and then heal all his patients in about 10 seconds flat, just showing how nerfed being a Doctor is nowadays.
If only there was permadeath...
this is the only answer....the Jedi must die
Eleutherios wrote:
The BH/Jedi system will forever be borked, because it does nothing to stop the influx of new Jedi (it only slows it.) Nothing is there to stop the influx of new Jedi. It's gotten to be dead easy -- go get these exact badges here, go to the Village, unlock a branch, cap XP on Dantooine and go back and cash it in until you have Jedi Padawan. Then level up your Jedi until you've got a full template (and/or alts and guild mates to hold your mission) and go to Theed and heal people who randomly walk through. Or you can go to a Cantina where a Master Doc is healing wounds, and then heal all his patients in about 10 seconds flat, just showing how nerfed being a Doctor is nowadays.
If only there was permadeath...
I disagree that the BH system was meant to make jedi grind harder or slow it down. That's just what it is now, a penalty for unlocking. The only way it can slow down jedi growth is by making them quit the game before gaining knight, which isn't a good solution.
What I thought it was meant as is a deterrent for gaining visibility. Right now it’s only a deterrent for gaining visibility if you’re a weak jedi. This just means the system will most likely produce encounters that will not be fun for one or the other parties. If it was an effective deterrent to visibility for all Jedi then half the population could be Jedi’s and they might be less noticeable. Out of sight out of mind.
But if they can be effectively discouraged from taking part in the GCW they will need their own content. Hopefully this is what the FRS system will become, there own little shadow war and as long as the penalties for participating in the GCW are pretty strong and the benefits for participating in the FRS system are pretty good then coexistence could be possible with out all the strife it causes now.
ObiQuixote wrote:
Hate to necro but this issue is now at the fore front
I agree, your post is a yawner.
I just highlighted some of the things Obi said that I think were the most critical statements:
I think Obi hit the key points. Jedi Knights are, and should be stronger than any profession. Why are we only allowed now to only go 1 on 1 with them if we pick their mission? Hypothetically speaking, if you were a BH in the Star Wars Galaxy, didn't know the skills of the Jedi, wouldn't you want to tag up with someone or some others? I know it sounds cowardly, but that's how it's probably like in Star Wars and I think that's how it should be.Not only does it instill fear in them (as should), but also makes themmore vulnerable. And also, there must be a more costly penalty for jedi knights that get hunted. There must be some sort of checks and balances. I have no quarrel with Jedi being able to group and hunt with no visibility penalty(although I thought it was a "solitary road"), but there should be more ways for Jedi to gain visibility. This all sounds very anti-Jedi or harsh, but I don't have any grudges or hate towards them (in fact, I'm working on mine), Ijust want to see the game be run like the developers said way back......that the path of the Jedi, althoughwith immense rewards,would be extremely difficult.
ObiQuixote wrote:
I ask because with the proposed changes coming out of fan fest it appears that the developer’s vision of its purpose is different then what I thought it was. What I thought, or would hope this was intended to be, is a lose check on Jedi power, something that provides jedi with adequate incentive not to run around in such a visible way. Of course the current system missed this mark completely but I don’t see how the proposed changes make anything better.
The initial design flaw in both Jedi profession and the BH / visibility system is a failure to realize or accommodate for the fact that a majority of players will take up these professions to bully weaker players. Any power that can be gained and used to hurt weaker players will be used to do so if appropriate checks to that power don’t exist. Of course this isn’t true for every jedi or every BH but it’s more common then not. Even players that enter these profession with a higher ideals will be confronted with a system that encourages this behavior through impediments and penalties to balanced fights and rewards with no deterrents for picking on weaker players.
With all this in mind here are the problems I see with the current system.
So I have a question. What should the purpose of the BH system be? Is it just to go kill weak padawans for killing creatures in the middle of nowhere? This type of behavior may be frowned upon but I think picking off an overt knight in 8 jedi group ganking everything that comes into Theed should be the point of the this whole system. A check on the most problematic abuse of power. With out this check or if developers intentionally move away from any check for this behavior they are just saying the GCW is a jedi only activity. And the proposed changes make it look like that’s the way the developers are going. GCW is a Jedi only activity.
There is next to no content for full jedi other then to lord over the GCW. The FRS system attempted to do something about this but it just turned into a tool to gain even more power to lord over the GCW.
The complexity of the jedi profession makes hitting a proposed power ratio of 1.5 to 1 impossible. Finished templates can range anywhere from .5 to 6 to one regular professions. This leads to a lot of nerf calls from both sides. Jedi with weak templates screaming for more power or nerfs and BH’s hitting god templates screaming for more nerfs.
The visibility system weights innocent and problematic behavior the same and awards the same visibility to weak and strong jedi alike. A padawan leveling with a friend in the middle of nowhere gets the on the terms just as fast as a full template making a mockery of regular profession in the GCW.
The BH terminal system rewards BH’s based on number of boxes a jedi has. When combined with the above issues this is a poor risk reward system. 180k missions are almost always an easy fight and a 220k+ mission can be anything from easy to impossible for a single BH.
The XP penalty system for jedi penalizes jedi based on their level and is completely irrelevant to full templates which are in greatest need on a check on their power.
The BH terminal system makes trying to target full template jedis that are making a mockery of regular professions in the GCW impossible.
There are too many ways to exploit or work around the current system.
Message Edited by ObiQuixote on 06-04-2005 10:58 AM
Message Edited by Blair_SoulEdge on 07-06-2005 01:34 PM
Dookseid wrote:
To have fun. If it is not fun for you any more, take another profession. You might find you like it. I hate to see people leave the game, but to each his/her own...