Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: Mandalorian Alpha Class
Sony cant get players w/ normal classes, just jedi basically. Which is why they are so cared after.
Just because it's good for the marketing doesn't require me to like it.
Which is why we make it so freakishly hard it wont be a flood. And a cap, like there should have been.
How to make it "freakishly hard"? By hard to solve quests? Will be on the forums how to do them in a week. By requiring lots of XP? Will be solved, it's just a matter of time. There's always AFK-grinding to "solve" the issue. Thanks to the player-protection-system of SWG, there's not even a real threat about it. Let your machine grind, go out with friends in the meanwhile or do anything else.
We are never going to get attention, better to get attention to a alpha like our prof imo. but still, it wont happen, so who cares.
I understand your logic, but i can't agree. Straightening out your point of view, you could optimize the game by adding the mandalorian to the character creation screen, and depending on if you choose mandalorian or not, you either get mandalorian-warrior-skills or jedi-skills assigned. My statement is slightly overexagerated and somewhat sarcastic perhaps, but that's what it in the end would boil down to.
Mandalorians, at times, have accepted alien races into their ranks. And as for unlocking it, like I said, since this will never happen, I say it should be freakishly hard. Cap of like 5 per server. Need full suit of mandalorian armor. whatever. I dont want a lot of n00bs being called Mandalorian.
As you said, "at times". But i don't think that a Rhodian-Mando-Battle-Platoon really fits in... while you'd be likely to occasionally see that. (I've chosen Rhodians specifically due to them having a Rhodian-Only guild, but any other race might do the same...)
And on your idea of creating a cap of 5 mandalorians per server, i have quite some doubts, too. First of all, those 5 mandalorians would be exactly that kind of people i wouldn't like to be them... full-time-players with scripts and bots doing a lot of their "playing-work", not even having an idea of roleplay and what the mandalorian, except for the specials and modifiers, would stand for. As soon as they'd be done, they'd use their new-found powers to show off at best and, if they manage to find any way, grief other players.
Then, there'd be an outrage throughout the community that it's unfair that some can be mandalorians and others can't... and i'm ready to count the minutes till SOE would give in remove the limit so any player who invests enough time to place his character at the right spots and copies an appropriate script from the forum can have his mandalorian if he just lets his computer run for some time. Still, the only kind of people who would not be mandalorian would be the same which now deliberately choose not to play jedi... those who understand the concepts or roleplaying and don't just gravitate towards the massing up the biggest power in game. (Mind, i don't say that there are no good roleplayers among Jedi... there are, althoug their numbers are thin... but each and every powerplayer who has no idea about roleplay seems to just work towards Jedi or have one. )
To clarify, i come from an old-time MUD and it also has it's alpha-class. It's called "Necromancer" and has the potential, when used in full effect, to eliminate a team of 5 to 10 players without breaking a big sweat. In that game, unlike SWG, playerkilling is always allowed and death, also unlike SWG, has some meaning. The reason why it still works is that the number of necromancers is small and necromancers are not made by code but are hand-selected by the administration. There is no automatic way to determine a good roleplayer and a person who you can trust not to abuse the given powers. Unfortunately such a hand-selection will never work in SWG, and this is not only because the non-selected people would cry till SOE gives in, but already since the customer base is way too big and there's no chance to handle that with a limited staff.
So, in conclusion, there simply is no codewhise-only limitation which can be implemented to really control the mandalorians, SOE doesn't have the means at all to hand-select the mandalorians, so there will be a flood of those people... you perhaps can delay that for some weeks or months, but you can't prevent it.
Quite easily you can. Put them in master boxes. Master Mandalorians were the leaders.
Message Edited by Sylow on 08-05-2005 07:28 PM
Just because it's good for the marketing doesn't require me to like it.
Nor did I say you did.
How to make it "freakishly hard"? By hard to solve quests? Will be on the forums how to do them in a week. By requiring lots of XP? Will be solved, it's just a matter of time. There's always AFK-grinding to "solve" the issue. Thanks to the player-protection-system of SWG, there's not even a real threat about it. Let your machine grind, go out with friends in the meanwhile or do anything else.
You show me somewhere on the forums that can tell you how to get a full suit of Mandalorian in a week, and ill give ya a few million credits.
I understand your logic, but i can't agree. Straightening out your point of view, you could optimize the game by adding the mandalorian to the character creation screen, and depending on if you choose mandalorian or not, you either get mandalorian-warrior-skills or jedi-skills assigned. My statement is slightly overexagerated and somewhat sarcastic perhaps, but that's what it in the end would boil down to.
Nah, but you can have more fun.
As you said, "at times". But i don't think that a Rhodian-Mando-Battle-Platoon really fits in... while you'd be likely to occasionally see that. (I've chosen Rhodians specifically due to them having a Rhodian-Only guild, but any other race might do the same...)
And on your idea of creating a cap of 5 mandalorians per server, i have quite some doubts, too. First of all, those 5 mandalorians would be exactly that kind of people i wouldn't like to be them... full-time-players with scripts and bots doing a lot of their "playing-work", not even having an idea of roleplay and what the mandalorian, except for the specials and modifiers, would stand for. As soon as they'd be done, they'd use their new-found powers to show off at best and, if they manage to find any way, grief other players.
Then, there'd be an outrage throughout the community that it's unfair that some can be mandalorians and others can't... and i'm ready to count the minutes till SOE would give in remove the limit so any player who invests enough time to place his character at the right spots and copies an appropriate script from the forum can have his mandalorian if he just lets his computer run for some time. Still, the only kind of people who would not be mandalorian would be the same which now deliberately choose not to play jedi... those who understand the concepts or roleplaying and don't just gravitate towards the massing up the biggest power in game. (Mind, i don't say that there are no good roleplayers among Jedi... there are, althoug their numbers are thin... but each and every powerplayer who has no idea about roleplay seems to just work towards Jedi or have one. )
To clarify, i come from an old-time MUD and it also has it's alpha-class. It's called "Necromancer" and has the potential, when used in full effect, to eliminate a team of 5 to 10 players without breaking a big sweat. In that game, unlike SWG, playerkilling is always allowed and death, also unlike SWG, has some meaning. The reason why it still works is that the number of necromancers is small and necromancers are not made by code but are hand-selected by the administration. There is no automatic way to determine a good roleplayer and a person who you can trust not to abuse the given powers. Unfortunately such a hand-selection will never work in SWG, and this is not only because the non-selected people would cry till SOE gives in, but already since the customer base is way too big and there's no chance to handle that with a limited staff.
So, in conclusion, there simply is no codewhise-only limitation which can be implemented to really control the mandalorians, SOE doesn't have the means at all to hand-select the mandalorians, so there will be a flood of those people... you perhaps can delay that for some weeks or months, but you can't prevent it.
No time to read all that, so all I will say is "This never will be implimented, and I know it wont."
A well-intended idea, but I do have to agree it does seem just a bit misplaced here. From my impressions of playing the profession, squad leader is, for lack of a better term, a group support profession. We can't use our abilities without a group. This template, well-thought out as it is, doesn't really require a group to operate from what I read.
I think another bone of contention is the fact that in your intro, you suggested this class as a balance to jedi, along with allowing them to take BH missions, including fully-templated jedi. That still leaves out the squad leaders, namely because last I knew, they were intending jedi/bh missions to be one-on-one battles between the players. Again, squad leader seems kind of left out.
I know you have since asked for ideas on where sl moves would work in that template. But to be honest, I really don't see the need to include sl into it. Besides which, there are quite a few template combinations available that would allow a resourceful player to go toe-to-toe with a jedi WITHOUT needing a new alpha class that would further unbalance a game that is finally starting to get into balance (slowly, but surely lol). Personally, I think a commando/bh with select smuggler or pistoleer skills could cause some serious problems for a jedi if played right.
I look at myself as a support player, and I enjoy playing as such. Master Pistoleer (crowd control), Master Squad Leader (group support) and (currently) novice Combat Medic (group healing). I can do stuff solo and survive in most combat situations on my own when I need to. I'm at my best when in a group, though, because I can heal, call down volleyfire on a target (which is awesome to watch when a melee/jedi uses their armor or saber break move) and keep a target stuck in place long enough for the group to pound the critter/npc into the dirt. Your idea is a decent one, and while your knowledge of the Mandalorians does suggest the inclusion of squad leader in some way, I don't see it fitting in the game mechanics of squad leader too well.
Just my opinion. Good work though on the creation of that class.
