Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: FEEDBACK: Jedi Missions No Longer Showing Player Name, or Bounty Payout
Let's make a bounty hunter's role even more difficult.. I mean, the jedi have houses they can run and hide into, force cloak so we can't even see them, and a whole planet to hide on (kashyyk) now let's make it so that bounty hunters cant see player names, or how much credits we could draw from it.
Bad idea.
Hope there's no old-school bh's left that have 0040 ranger still. If so, better still have their token respec atleast. AreaTrack for players = useless as well.
What do ya know, even Rangers get hit by this. Can't get my Ranger buddy to help me on Kassh anymore.
Meuw wrote:
Once again the devs cannot think anything through(not sure they can even think) how will this change bounties? I have an answer, now Jedi will complain because Boutny Hunters will now hunt all Jedi in groups. Some silly little just turned Jedi is going to cry because a BH and his 5 friends smeared his robed, flashlight weilding boody all over some starport.
How's this going to happen?
If the BH's don't have a name, how are they going to coordinate who to attack?
To Auraboron and Tanks, respectively:
This post is addressed directly to the developers’ attention as it relates to the recent influx of opinions on the Bounty Hunter forum and what seems to be the fabled “Publish 20 patch notes”.
First and foremost, not enough credit has been given to the SOE developers for their tremendous efforts on character balancing and overall game enhancement. This effort is plainly evidenced throughout their creation of 19 publishes/patches in efforts to address the many concerns of the SWG community and to increase the overall enjoyment of this game. In addition, their efforts have promoted the 2-year existence of this game and a promisingcontinuity and game longevityfor current players and prospective players alike. After all and in retrospect, SOE could have very well left the game as it was upon its first release and not of bothered to address the many issues that have been interpreted as “plagues” to SWG players.
Understanding the logic of each patch, however, has been quite elusive as sometimes one has to muddle through the “complaints” (cough… whining) posted in these very forums and determine what the problems are. While some posts are indeed helpful, most are useless as many are written into the cesspool of complaints and whines that this game is either too hard or not enjoyable anymore. Heh, I have even seen Marxist forces at work in some of the forums where some have advocated revolution in the form of a “boycott/revolt” of SWG due to the tyranny of certain publishes. /shakehead; /chuckle; /now_have_seen_it_all_smile.
While I do not put much stock in the publish 20 notes as they only existed on the respective forum for a short time before being removed, the patch did have, IMO,some good ideas that I will offer the proverbial two cents on:
1.The Removal of Bounty Names/Payouts on the BH Terminals.In truth, there is no real rebuttal for this. The obvious and identifiable logic to this is to compel a 1-on-1 PvP at the confrontation phase of the any BH mission. The all too familiar 5 BH vs. 1 Jedi battle promotes a gross unfairness to the Jedi mark as any Jedi after publish 19 have a very small margin of surviving post engagement. Given the overall strength of a full template MBH (or hybrid BH), a 5 vs. 1 is quite unnecessary and was likely not the intention of the developers. I say this with the utmost certainty as some players on this board claim to have incapacitated their marks in a matter of seconds, with three shots, and at a distance, hence proving the real strength of the ranged class. In short, the removal of names from BH terminals ingeniously accomplishes the 1-on-1 PvP goal.
As for other obvious reasons such as griefing by hunting a single same mark multiple times and giving some padawns a break from being hunted, the nameless terminal ought to be promoted.
Plainly, there is not enough information to post a rebuttal to this type of fix given the short-lived Publish 20 notes in the forum. But with the information given thus far, I would like to post some concerns and address some rebuttals that may aid in the idea of the nameless terminal:
1. With the removal of payouts, did that mean the removal of all payouts? Including those of NPC marks? While there is not enough information to determine this,it would be quite disheartening if the terminals did not segregate between NPC and PC missions. NPC bounties, clearly, outnumber live Jedi bounties on any terminal. Jedi hunting would be almost non-existent and even impossible if BH’s were to choose a mission that had a 1 in 100 chance (or greater) of being a Jedi mission. Although there are not many facts to back this assumption, I would think that the developers in their wisdom would have alreadyidentified this and would apply the no name-no payout rule to only Jedi bounties.
2. Will the targeting system for marks change? Some of the more experienced BH’s on this board raise a most valid concern: the ability to target a mark being compromised because of not knowing who the mark is. The only targeting system BH’s would have to rely on is on seeker droid’s information which marks the targeted bounty with a orange triangle. While a droids targeting system can be effective in some situations where the mark is standing alone or AFK, there are some situations that pose a problem wherein the droid is quite useless. Without real-time up-to-the-second tracking, a droid will be ineffective in pinpointing a mark when that mark may be moving around a couple of meters from when the droid last tracked its target. Similarly the droid would be quite useless if the mark was standing close to other potential marks that are also moving around. And other times the droid is simply wrong as to the position of the mark. What this reduces the BH hunt to is--at the confrontation stage--a BHbeing forced to cycle through and engage multiple potential targets until the “Invalid Target” message stops coming up and his/her weapon fires. At that point, and only that point, the mark is identified. Hmm. This could pose a problem as the BH, while continuously “checking” (cycling/engaging through potential targets) for a nameless mark, could very well engage the target and fire his/her weapon, and inadvertently cycle to another target to “check” whether that target was mark or not. Should this happen the BH could very well lose the target as he/she is compelled to re-cycle through targets until the weapon fires again. /frown. Unavoidably, this targeting “methodology” that BH’s would have to endure with a nameless mark is frustrates the “First Strike” ability of the BH—especially when one over-cycles through targets when merely trying to identify the target. A BH’s position is compromised, the timers on foods/spices reduced, and more time is given for the mark to respond to an attack. Even worse, the BH could lose his target completely (since Jedi tend to flee upon hearing gunfire) and frustratingly has to start the whole mission over because he/she did not have enough time to write the name down.
Since it is surmised that the developers are removing the names/payouts of bounties to promote 1 BH vs. 1 Jedi, I personally would encourage the developers to not hinder the bounty hunting process by adding the aforementioned “mark identification” stage preceding the actual confrontation.
I propose that the developers simply change the color of the mark for the BH as it shows up on the radar. This way, there is still no need for a name for the mark, but on the same token, the mark can still be easily identified/targeted after being tracked and without severely compromising the BH’s first strike advantage. If the mark’s color was changed—for the sole purpose of BH missions—cycling through targets after publish 20 would be no different than sorting out targets with names as we do now. In conclusion, the goal here is to keep the BH hunting aspects the same while simultaneously accomplishing the overall goals of SOE.
3. BH use of the terminals to warn Jedi friends of visibility. This nice little guildie exploit would also be minimized greatly and even eradictaed with the removal of names from the terminals.
4. Terminals showing online Jedi only. I would also propose that the developers also look into this as this has been mentioned many times without reprieve. This could be accomplished by the server refreshing the terminals during certain time periods to only show “huntable” or online Jedi and remove those marks who are offline.
5. Addressing the other rebuttals: Not really intended to flame others for posting concerns but to try and see it the developers’ way and why they would not probably change their collective minds about the nameless terminal proposal:
“I don’t want take missions that have the same faction as myself”
This is really a non-issue as the terminals are currently set up where a BH cannot see the faction of his/her mark anyway and could end up hunting Jedi that are of the same faction. It would be no difference after publish 20 if the BH picked up a mission from a nameless terminal and discovered that his mark was the same faction as he/she.
“I don’t want to hunt my guildmates or friends”
Simple answers to that: “Don’t” and “You don’t have to”. Those who posted this concern assume the fact that every mission they get will result in a mark that is either a guildmate or a friend. In truth, I think the chances of accepting a mission where a guildmate or friend ends up being a mark are slim given the number of Jedi on any given server. Should it happen however, simply drop the mission and get another.
“I absolutely need a name to complete my mission”
With the advent of Arakyd droids and seekers, a name is not really needed as a position of the target is all that is required to engage. Again, I would hope that the developers read this and consider “coloring” the mark differently so that BH’s can actually target their mark with the same level of difficulty as they have currently.
I wish all well and do look forward to this next publish to see what the developers create and design this time.
Ametzu
—Proud Master Bounty Hunter of the PHX—
p.s. i wanna thank tanks for taking time of his vacation to actually give a crap....
i hate to be one of those cry babies who claim to quit the game after every bad patch
but if this goes into effect i don't really see the fun in killing jedis anymore
the only real challenge and thrill was spending an hour picking up a mission with my buddy
and giving it all we had to take out a full template, even with both of us ganging on a guy
it would still take a long time to take him out and we would become dangerously close to getting slayed
anything under 200k dies in 5 hits or so... its pointless
and its pretty apparent that most builds cannot easily or even possibly solo full templates
Message Edited by DekkoFett on 07-07-2005 07:46 AM
Ok, first off, DOES ANYONE BESIDES FUGITRON AND I READ THE PATCH NOTES?
The notes in the In Testing-Dev Forum state that Jedi can only be on the terms if online. They can go offline *after* you take the mission, but if they are on the term, they are online. The terms will list the Jedi's faction: Imperial, Rebel, Neutral. Payouts will be random amount from 45k-52k with a bonus payout upon completion calculated based on the Jedi's level (not sure yet if this is CL or SP spent).
As of this post, I am unable to locate any feedback regarding when or if the BH ever gets the name of their mark, so I think that needs to be left alone until we know more.
I like these changes. It takes out the cash cow that was BH hunting. Combined with the mission move to MBH, makes MBH more valuable and dumps the people who called themselves BH when they only had 3/14 boxes in the profession. As long as the BH gets the name of the mark from either SpyNet or Probot, all will be well.
First off I am a Jedi and not a BH so dont just flame me for that
Now the payout changes are bogus IMO. The level of Jedi a BH can handle is directly related to the strength of the build the BHchose. It is important that the BH have a clue so not a lot of their game time is wasted tracking a mark they cannot handle.
However
The name changes are good.
The problem is there is true griefing going on by a small portion of the BH community. That needed resolved plus there might be future FRS implications of BH's knowing the names that only the devs could speak to
The following is being done to players.
A) Gank squads on Paddy's - now people have suggested that the number of missions generated could be limited based on Jedi strength but the dev's did not choose that solution
B) Some BH's will find a weak pvp'er and get their mission constantly
C) Some BH's find people they do not like and target them
D) In large pvp altercations it is VERY common that the other side will have their guilds bh's go covert to the battle after a specific Jedi and as 10 of their friends are shooting them they pounce. Their friends can help them but the Jedi cannot be helped at this point. Now this is unintended game play. It is intended that the BH can pounce on a mark in combat if they track them there. But in this case there is no tracking required. In this case it is basically an I win button with a big credit payout.
Now you can argue that the vast majority of BH's do not do this, which would be a valid argument. But something had to be done about it. Nerfs do happen in this game because of the abuse of a selected few in a profession. We have all seen it time and time again.
They do however also need to do something about online status if you do not know the name. The BH in game experience is reduced if they end up chasing after a mark that is not online or logs durring the chase.
Now I expect to be immediatly flamed and cursed at by the immature members of the BH community but so be it.