Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: Anonymous Mission Testing and What I Told the Devs
Well, I suppose I will at least weigh in on this.
I have wanted to be a BH since I started 2 months after launch. I finally got it in November, just before the hologrind hit. I never wanted to be or see a jedi in this game. My friends who I started the game with, however all got themselved a jedi, along with supporting alts, etc. Between the 7 of us, we had over 20 accounts. About February (sp? it's late) of this year, all but one of us just got fed up with the unfulfilled promises from SOE about this revamp, and were tired of watching some loony with a bent piece of iron (fencer) crush someone with a heavy repeating blaster (rifleman). We also were tired of watching hammer-wielding swordsmen loot wh0re their way to riches, while guys with bladed brass knucks took down at-sts faster than a commando with a rocket launcher, assuming he found a WS to make one. Finally, we got tired of paying millions for DOT weapons to even compete in pvp. Thus, we jumped ship to the other World of......game. My friends ALL traded away (not sold...traded to RL friends) their jedi accounts, disgusted with what the game had become.
When the revamp hit, I fulfilled a promise to be the guinea pig and try it out. I fell in love. I blithered on and on about how there were still kinks to work out, but how it addressed virtually every complaint I had about the old system. I did use my respec to spend 12 hours trying template requests from my friends, to see how CH fared, and pitols, and whether carbines were still a race to see who could kill the wielder fastest. Once that was done, I went back to my beloved MBH, and tried all the additions for it I could use now, pistols, smuggler, carbs, rifles, commando, MCM, to see what I could use to hunt jedi. I love the jedi-bh dynamic. I love the CONTENT it provides for both sides. In a game where every server is care-bear (as in no pvp servers available), it was a way to test myself against toons created to be better. Sure, I lost a lot, especially against marks 200k or so and up. Thus, I found my comfort zone at around 110-165k or so. It fit my personal skill and equipment level. When I felt like going for a knight, I did, and even beat one after a long, long fight. However, I was very lucky to do so, and I know it. 8100+ recon and a pupped 1200+ 85 sac t-21 were my toys, and I love em.
I finally convinced 4 of my friends to come back specifically for the bh/jedi game. There is no GCW anymore, and you cant kid yourself otherwise. It is really roughly grouped pvp with no real objective, or way to measure a win. They restarted old toons, and respecced them to MBH/whatever they had to hand, (each having been reasonably successful ranged bh's pre-cu, when jedi missions only paid 15k, less than buffs on some servers), and were delighted at the idea of pairing off to hunt knights. However, the next day, I went through my friends list, as we were trying to coordinate our first day of hunting. I realized that of all the 200+ jedi in my friends list who I added when they were in my price range mentioned before, less than50 were still there, and I had only beenaccumulating these names for 29 days. Let me run that by you again. Less than 1 month to level from 100k to over 200k. Worse yet, I was adding new names every single time I went to the terms. We paired off, looking for 126k marks, which are supposed to be roughly equal (acording to Tanks) to a single, full template MBH, 1 on 1. Yes, we were pairing, but I was the only one with any experience with the CU, so it isnt like a well oiled team of gankers. Nonetheless, we were unable to arrange a single pairing of bh on a jedi with over 30 minutes of refreshes. The next day, the changes are announced, and since the group BH was the only reason they were coming back, SOE lost 6 accounts as soon as the reports of NEVER getting the jedi name came back from the test server.
I know my limits. There are jedi who laugh at 4 BHs simultaneously, just read their posts where they brag about it. I stand little chance of soloing them, and dont fell there is anything else in this game to keep me aside from BH. I dont feel I should pay my 15 a month (30 with an alt) to be forced to play CM bh to compete, and be forced to confront people I cannot beat 1 on 1. As for the whines about the time, I have nearly 2 years in my toon. More than 90% of jedi. If time=power, I shouldnt have any trouble with any of you. Additionally, I have wtached many many names from 100 to 220k within 1 month. Not getting any sympathy from me there.
As for the "BH in 2 days" arguments. I call bull$hit. Not if you actually ground investigation, unless you devoted better than 12 hours a day to it. But then, 24 hours of game time, is an average gamers 2 weeks. Half the time it took many to get full templated jedi.
I will not pay to be a waypoint dueller. I will not pay to be forced to drive by a group of jedi, stand there like a noob tabbing through to find the right one, skipping the bols/pickets/quenkers/whatevers, then waiting a day or 2, hoping the jedi has forgotten about me, AND is online when I next log in, AND is not on Kash, where it will take another 2 hours to find him. Just takes all the fun out of a game when you have to work so hard at it.
Sure, the exceptional, 2% of the best-equipped and best pvp-ing BH's can take knights solo. As for the other 98% who can't, I fail to see a good reason they cannot scale the mission to the BHs investigation level, as is done with npc's. Additionally, a 1-2 day timer on a jedi not being accessible to a BH upon a successful mission (along with proper clearing of vis), combined with the fix to group vis rules, would address ALL the valid issues I have seen put forth that are supposedly being addressed by this change.
SOE is rumored to be looking at only the bottom line, well, I work with hefty sums of money myself as an investor, so I will lay it out clearly. If pub 20 goes live, and drives all my friends away AGAIN, I will be forced to drop my $$$ to blizzard, instead. I know 20 accounts is a drop in a large bucket, however, I also know I am not the only one.
Please dont make such ill-advised changes. I have loved Star Wars since I was 6 years old ans saw ROTJ on my first ever trip to a theater. Yes I have long been a Fett fanboy, and even have all the kenner action figures on my desk. No other mmorpg has ever created a class that held me like BH. It will pain me leave behind something I have enjoyed so much, however, I will not pay money for a system that makes a game too much work to be fun. Remember as you compose your posts to flame me for whining that this comes from one who hunted during the 15k days. You just dont get any more hardcore BH than that.
Message Edited by AcimEriga on 07-10-2005 11:20 PM
Farenheit wrote:
And if you think for one minute that bh's will not shoot up a droid to get a mark, and then have others do the same thing until they get the same mark, your way out of touch with how some mental cases in this game work. They will do it, and for the sole purpose of greifing a jedi over and over and over simply because some bh's think they have a "higher cause" to eliminate jedi from the game. Which is crap. It's just an excuse to greif somebody.
They will , oh yes they will.
You realize that it's technically possible for five BH's to, during the low activity hours, get a mission for a jedi, get close enough to see him and then run off while everyone else does the same. In fact, in most instances where you have five bounty-hunters, you just need to compare your mission waypoints, because even in a jedi only group, chances are you'll find the same mark. Though of course, it would be theoretically possible to bring *ten* bounty-hunters, make sure everyone has WP's ending on the same place, and then see who can gank and who can't gank once you get there. Come to think of it, we could actually get an entire guild of BH togheter, make sure everyone gets missions to the same planet (after all, getting the planet is just launching the arakyd, and as you said, that can be abused!) and then gank anything they come across!
OH NOES, GR13f!
Could I please ask for a display of some friggin realism here? During primetime (sorry, but what-if-there-are-only-three-jedi-online arguments don't float, 'cause saying it could be abused "every tuesday, at noon, if the weather in Zanzibar is good" does not qualify as a reasonable excuse for gimping bounty-hunters), let's assume we'll have 25 jedi on the terminals. This is, intentionally, an extremely low number as my last visit to the Ryyyat trails had 10 jedi online, in one instance. Actually, let's make it 50, just to get it closer to realistic.
Of these50 jedi, 20 are rebels. I want you to note that the statistical chance of every single bounty-hunter getting the same mission on one run is 1/20^5. That's...
Wow, that's on scale of 10^(-7). Now, they toddle off and launch an arakyd each. Say this takes 5 minutes. For simplicities sake, we'll assume they chose one of these missions. So, Alpha holds on to his mission while his four buddies try again. They will still have 20 jedi to chose from, and (Are non-bonus payouts the same for the *same* jedi?) no way of telling which one they've already tried. So, randomly grabbing one, they have a 1/20 chance of getting the right one. The chances of all 4 getting the right on in this run is... on a scale of 10^(-6).But, let's assume that *one* of them gets the right mission (which, for simplicities sake is about 5% chance per run, right?). So next round is 3 BH's. Let's assume he does get one aswell. 5 minutes passes. Next run. 5 minutes. Next run.
Which means that, unless I'm really slipping on my probability math (which I might, since it's early and I havn't used it since someone said 85% saberblock was reasonable), the chance during a 25 minute period of all five bounty-hunters generating a mission on the same name is approximetely... Well, the chance of one BH getting the right mission in a group of four is, what, 5% multiplied by (19/20)^3? That comes out between 4-5%. Likewise with a run of three, two, and finally oneBH.
Over the course of a 25 minute period, where there's a 5% chance each run of one of them scoring a mission, we have four runs. So the chances of 25 minutes being sufficient... Would be... small? Perhaps... on a scale of 10^-6? Unless I messed the math up somewhere.
And for the record, I'd like to point out that this system, names or no names, does absolutetely nothing to prevent non-planned group assaults. You will still be hit by 2v1 teams once in a while. It happens. It will continue to happen.
GeneralStatus wrote:
since when was the game like the movie? hasent been never will be
crowmedic wrote:
All of these extra steps makes being a BH a tad less fun each time. Game mechanics, lag and other issues make targetting hard some times in the game. We should not be penalized because we dont know our targets name. This proposed change is totally stupid and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to check their head.
Nyracasso wrote:
Solution!
Don't let the Jedi know you're after him.I know it's tough
, butthat is your responsibility and your advantage.
If they're close enough to /duel you, then you shouldalready have him or her targetted, and shouldknow what to do.
It's not a marks responsibility to make him or herself ready for you to attack them.
These extra steps will make me feel like I'm actually tracking and hunting someone down, instead of just being handed a name and location. I think it's a great change...
well it has been fun and games since you had a holiday,
all i can say is most of this is not to help a bh it is to stop us hunting jedi full stop,
ive been a mbh even when no one else on the server was mbh i was the only one i had the best weapons
the cu got rid of them i paid millions for them as well, this also happen to everyone as well so im not the only one here who lost out ok i still had my weapon but they was rubbish to the new weapons so i lost out big time.
second was why did they make jedi more powerful attacking wise when most jedi knights had uber saber from before the cu ,and us mbh didnt have any weapons from before the cu 1 rule for 1 rule for the jedi ???
now this im wondering if all the old time mbh like myself should just quit,you do a good job but the devs dont.
every other profession in this game does not work cos all the devs do is love jedi,they pay the same as the rest of the community they should be treated the same as well.
jedi is so easy to get now they should be 1=1 to a normal profession, if not that tone down there saber or something else.
most jedi now on the terminals are full template the only way to beat them is if there afk ld or totaly dumb,i dont want to destroy my template mbh mc pistols 0404 to the 4000 cm type that defeats the point imo
my weapons now are my armour 7100 energy res with 75% chance to armour break ,which does nothing to stop jedi hiting me they still hit for 500 dam when armour break apploird 1200 hits
1200 max dam 997 maxdam heavylighting cannon 1064 maxdam 82 sac 320 dps with 137 tissues
with 10% speed sliced
critalical hit
critical hit and dam slice
360 dps
320 dps sac 84
73sac
proton carbine
e11 carbine
welcome back to hell of swg
oh yes the lag issues are bad as well
Nyracasso wrote:
crowmedic wrote:
All of these extra steps makes being a BH a tad less fun each time. Game mechanics, lag and other issues make targetting hard some times in the game. We should not be penalized because we dont know our targets name. This proposed change is totally stupid and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to check their head.
Nyracasso wrote:
Solution!
Don't let the Jedi know you're after him.I know it's tough
If they're close enough to /duel you, then you shouldalready have him or her targetted, and shouldknow what to do.
It's not a marks responsibility to make him or herself ready for you to attack them.
These extra steps will make me feel like I'm actually tracking and hunting someone down, instead of just being handed a name and location. I think it's a great change...
oooo...ok I'm glad it will make you "feel" like a hunter. I wonder if it will make you feel like a hunter when you realize you just got the same misson on the same AFK Jedi.The same AFK jedi who was just sitting in his house last time you got his misson. All of which could have been avoided if you knew his name. When visibility changes there wil be less Jedi on the terms and the chances of the example I just gave are going to skyrocket.
But I really think there are bigger problems brewing for the viability of player missions. I would love to see the stats on successful player bounties now and two weeks after the publish. If first strike makes it an even battle with a full template then it should be roughly 50/50.
Message Edited by ObiQuixote on 07-10-2005 12:15 PM
crowmedic wrote:
Nyracasso wrote:
crowmedic wrote:
All of these extra steps makes being a BH a tad less fun each time. Game mechanics, lag and other issues make targetting hard some times in the game. We should not be penalized because we dont know our targets name. This proposed change is totally stupid and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to check their head.
Nyracasso wrote:
Solution!
Don't let the Jedi know you're after him.I know it's tough
If they're close enough to /duel you, then you shouldalready have him or her targetted, and shouldknow what to do.
It's not a marks responsibility to make him or herself ready for you to attack them.
These extra steps will make me feel like I'm actually tracking and hunting someone down, instead of just being handed a name and location. I think it's a great change...
oooo...ok I'm glad it will make you "feel" like a hunter. I wonder if it will make you feel like a hunter when you realize you just got the same misson on the same AFK Jedi.The same AFK jedi who was just sitting in his house last time you got his misson. All of which could have been avoided if you knew his name. When visibility changes there wil be less Jedi on the terms and the chances of the example I just gave are going to skyrocket.
crowmedic wrote:
Nyracasso wrote:
crowmedic wrote:
All of these extra steps makes being a BH a tad less fun each time. Game mechanics, lag and other issues make targetting hard some times in the game. We should not be penalized because we dont know our targets name. This proposed change is totally stupid and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to check their head.
Nyracasso wrote:
Solution!
Don't let the Jedi know you're after him.I know it's tough
If they're close enough to /duel you, then you shouldalready have him or her targetted, and shouldknow what to do.
It's not a marks responsibility to make him or herself ready for you to attack them.
These extra steps will make me feel like I'm actually tracking and hunting someone down, instead of just being handed a name and location. I think it's a great change...
oooo...ok I'm glad it will make you "feel" like a hunter. I wonder if it will make you feel like a hunter when you realize you just got the same misson on the same AFK Jedi.The same AFK jedi who was just sitting in his house last time you got his misson. All of which could have been avoided if you knew his name. When visibility changes there wil be less Jedi on the terms and the chances of the example I just gave are going to skyrocket.
You can't stop people from going afk in a house. You have 2 options, guy.
Either:
Suck it up, and wait it out.
OR
Suck it up, and go hunt someone else.
That isn't even a problem with the no-name missions. That's you having a problem rolling up on AFK marks.
Jesus...
crowmedic wrote:
oooo...ok I'm glad it will make you "feel" like a hunter. I wonder if it will make you feel like a hunter when you realize you just got the same misson on the same AFK Jedi.The same AFK jedi who was just sitting in his house last time you got his misson. All of which could have been avoided if you knew his name. When visibility changes there wil be less Jedi on the terms and the chances of the example I just gave are going to skyrocket.
if some one is constantly afk in a structure...wait...they will come out...eventually....then get em
if your saying sitting in a house is wrong, then by allowing you to bypass them punishes those who don't do wrong.
truth is, nothing wrong with sitting in a house, and when you decided to play BH you knew kills against real players wouldn't be handed to you...there is the GCW and duels if you just want pvp...if you want to hurt people...you gotta put in the time
I swear to god...
Some of you will claim that it's the marks fault for getting visibility, and then you'll complain about Jedi actually avoiding visibility like they were supposed to do.
Message Edited by Nyracasso on 07-10-2005 02:15 PM