Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: The Jedi Problem examined a call to reason
balock_the_zabrak wrote:
You know I too am getting sick of the hatred between out two groups. I see it every day. Yeah there are so many jedi, but we have to remember that the idea of becoming a jedi is very appealing. Sometimes I do get sick of seeing so many, but what I am I to do, I also get sick of seeing so many bhs and I am a bh. What is my only option? Well I am going to play my part. I am going to stive to be the best damn bounty hunter I can be, and if I fail at killing full templates, well hopefully I can at least be a thorn in their sides. Is it a hateful thing for me to do, no. I have no grudges, I just want to hunt. If they are jedi, so be it. Very inciteful piece and I wish everyone on the bh and jedi forums should read it. I am sick of being type cast as a jedi hater. Anyhow thanks a lot for the intellectual post.
And this is what a bounty hunter is supposed to be. If ever I get on a bounty hunter terminal, I hope it is someone like this that picks my name (rumor has it us smugglers are next in line). Thanks for the intellectual response.
Daeges wrote:
"This was a marketing ploy and nothing else. It's idiotic of the devs/marketing to do this, but the decision was clearly a marketing one."
Why was it idiotic? You infer motive in SOEresponding to the market, but don't elaborate how their response to the market (if indeed that is even fact) was bad. The question at hand is not "how and why did we get here?", rather "now that we are here, what is wrong and why?" Your sarcastic dialogue between Luke and Ben seem to imply that you're in the "all things should equal the movie" camp, and I've explained why that can not work in a MMORPG. This is no one Luke in an online community like this, nor is there one central plot. There are thousands of protagonists each following their own adventure.
Cyborg-Shoryuken wrote:
Very well written an logical post. Unfortunately, I've discovered over the last 2 years of my playing this game that such rational post which calls for people to step back and logically look at a situation usually fall upon deaf ears.
It has been my experience that rigid statements with no leeway for viewpoints from another end of the spectrum which tend to incite flames are the most popular type of post.
Any time I've read a post written in a logical, realistic manner which takes all points of view into account and attempts to find a logical common ground for everyone to reason on it quickly drops off the page, so obviously, it seems that many do not want to see 'reason'.
It's sad, but you have my respect for a well written post.
Thanks, and you're are probably right, that there is a healthy fraction of those out there which won't gleen much if anything from these discussion. However, in keeping with "tis better to strike a match than curse the darkness", if my little ray of light changes only a small fraction of those, then I have done my part.
Message Edited by Ely0n on 07-22-2005 03:19 PM
TheMadCoder wrote:
You see, this is clearly why threads like this are pointless. You have your opinion, and others have theirs. Seeing the commercial only once, it's VERY clear that Jedi is the marketing ploy for this game - notice they don't say "sit in the cantina and dance while people don't give you tips." If you don't want to hear other people's opinions, merely use the ignore button on there forums. Or better yet, don't start threads if you don't want to hear views contrary to your own. These areopen forums. There ARE 10,000 (arbitrary number)Lukes - or better - out there right now.
I play this game because it's Star Wars from the original trilogy (I would not play it if it were based on the PT or OR days,) as do many more. Jedi want to remain Jedi, as they are clearly the alpha class in this game and are also reveiving the most "toys" in the game. Most others (meaning, non-Jedi) don't like 6 - 10 lightsabre battles outside of the starports, or being 2nd best when Jedi should barely exist right now.
I read your post, I offered a contrary view, and you bitched about it. Listen to all sides of the argument, or don't bother opening threads (especially in a non-Jedi forum!)
I specifically posted to here to hear other opinions. I am not "bitching" at you, but asking you to elabortate explaining your position. If it helps, let's operate from the premise that you are entirely correct in saying that including jedi is a marketing decision, a fact I can neither confirm nor deny, but an element we can certainly interject into the discussion. If so, what is wrong with that? It is just as logical to say that they put Firesprays into the game as a marketing ploy as well to all the Fett fans, but nobody seems to be declaring doom based upon the fact that there are many more Firesprays in the game than should be based upon canon (it is a prototype that never went into production). That said, let's take the next step, let's operate from the following premises:
Sony responds to its market
There are more jedi in the game than are canon
Given that: why is this community experiencing a "jedi problem?" What is the problem, and how are people impacted from playing the game?
Saarkai wrote:
You seem to forget that regardless of the timeline, faith to the movies, canon, whatever. It's just BAD game design to have an alpha class like jedi that isn't "very very very rare"
SOE will realize this when everyone playing the game is a Jedi, and they start leaving out of sheer boredom because everyone is exactly the same, ever hear of a MMOG with over 30 professions and everyone is the same thing, the reason behind having balance is to prevent this from happening, if you have a designed class to be more powerful than every other class people are going to flock to it, which leads to a one class game, so why even bother having the other professions at all?
Daeges wrote:
I specifically posted to here to hear other opinions. I am not "bitching" at you, but asking you to elabortate explaining your position. If it helps, let's operate from the premise that you are entirely correct in saying that including jedi is a marketing decision, a fact I can neither confirm nor deny, but an element we can certainly interject into the discussion. If so, what is wrong with that? It is just as logical to say that they put Firesprays into the game as a marketing ploy as well to all the Fett fans, but nobody seems to be declaring doom based upon the fact that there are many more Firesprays in the game than should be based upon canon (it is a prototype that never went into production). That said, let's take the next step, let's operate from the following premises:
Sony responds to its market
There are more jedi in the game than are canon
Given that: why is this community experiencing a "jedi problem?" What is the problem, and how are people impacted from playing the game?
I have never said that responding to a market is bad. Jedi and Firesprays are here because people watching the PT are more familiar with them than some of us over 30. I've already listed the problems:
*Jedi in this game are not canon. Many play this game for canon.
*Jedi (trees, branches, professions, or however you want to argue it) are much more powerful than any non-Jedi profession. Yes, there are broken parts with Jedi, but less-so than just about any other profession in the game.
*I'm a firm believer that arguing on the Internet is like running in the Special Olympics - even if you win, you're still retarded (I thank the crude Internet for that one.) If you want my side of the story, please look here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=bounty_hunter&message.id=481594#M481594
I've answered every question you've posed to me, but you keep saying "what's wrong with it?" I've told you. You don't have to repeat yourself. We know your opinion. We've heard it. Some ofus don't like it - that's our opinion. You either have to deal with that, ignore us, or don't post. I don't care what you do, but stop talking in circles - it gets us nowhere but a higher post count.
Nuke67 wrote:
Saarkai wrote:
You seem to forget that regardless of the timeline, faith to the movies, canon, whatever. It's just BAD game design to have an alpha class like jedi that isn't "very very very rare"
SOE will realize this when everyone playing the game is a Jedi, and they start leaving out of sheer boredom because everyone is exactly the same, ever hear of a MMOG with over 30 professions and everyone is the same thing, the reason behind having balance is to prevent this from happening, if you have a designed class to be more powerful than every other class people are going to flock to it, which leads to a one class game, so why even bother having the other professions at all?
I whole-heartedly agree.
You have a nice line of argument, but you fail to see the value of variety, something that used to be one of the great features of the game. Because there is no realregression in skills or level once a player is alpha they remain alpha. The result is a net increase in the amount of alpha players. The reason this is termed 'the jedi problem' is there is only ONE avenue of 'alphaness' - jedi. I have no problem with people being rewarded for work - I have a problem with a mechanic that creates thousands of clones out of what used to be a rich and diverse game. As the jedi continue to grow in population (there is no check on their population now) not only will they effect the combat classes who enjoy PvP, but the rest of the server as well. Armorsmiths will go out of business (jedi don't use armor, noobs don't have money for good armor), for example. Weaponsmiths soon follow.
An unbalance will wreck the entire balance of the game given enough time. Through no fault of the players behind them jedi are becoming a cancer upon the game due solely to their high numbers. And these high numbers exist only because (a) they are the sole alpha class and (b) they cannot be destroyed. Thus why the elimination of perma-death was such a mistake, it provided a method to balance the population entering jedi with a way to make characters leave it. Instead we now have only a population increase, and the only decrease is due to boredom. A nasty side result of that is that the players most likely to keep their jedi active are those who only want them for their uberness - in other words the LAST people who should be trusted with that power. But I digress.
Jedi effectnot only high end PvP, but also the economy as well.A perfect example is krayts - currently the ancients are camped by mainly jedilooking for pearls. Because of this groups without many jedi cannot hope to get the kill credit (not enough damage over the long term). So now the high end items that krayts provide like tissues are only in the hands of jedi. This provides further impetous for others to become jedi, as more and more content is locked out for the non-jedi.
Either other alpha classes need to be introduced to balance the jedi (BH are NOT alpha), or the jedi need to have their population limited. Otherwise there will be nothing but jedi.
Thank you, Thassk.
Finally, someone who cuts through the nonsense and looks at Jedi for what they equate to in this game: Cash Cows. Sacred Cows. Is it any coincidence that virtually EVERY publish has a jedi fix in it? Has that fact struck anyone other than me odd?
I'll be perfectly honest here. The intial post was well thought out, no doubt about it. I just can't say how applicable it is to the actual gameplay. Logic has it's necessity as does any other mental discipline. Most of my logic gets cast aside, however, when I am made to deal with a group of players that, from my gameplay time, have more potential to be arrogant and rude than alot of other classes.