Commando Archive
Thread: Thoughts on TC 20% item decay when incap/death
I have some questions regarding this:
1) Is insurance global or do you have to insure items at each planet similar to cloning?
2) How will this affect friendly dueling and of course PvP in general?
3) I can see people incapping people 3 times just to be griefing.
4) Are decay percentages static (based on max durability) or dynamic (based on current durability)?
I personally can live with a global insurance if it is reasonable. If it is not global, I don't see BHs doing missions that much as we'd have to re-insure at every planet we hit.
The incap decay will do away with PvP IMHO.
Even without harsh penalties, death is still a major setback. If you forget to clone close-by you have to spend a good deal of time (and possibly credits) to heal up. Also, far off POI's like the Rebel theme park, don't have cloning points, leaving you a huge run back if you get killed, which is fairly easy to accomplish, at least for me, so far. Heh heh.
If we are going to be penalized for dying more so than we already are (very acceptable death penalties right now) then have more cloning points and lower the cost overall for insurance and cloning.
Here is why I have trouble with a harsh death penalty: Any other game you play, besides an online rp game, has ways to save your progress. In the online environment, you don't want to severely punish someone for dying simply because it already negates your forward progress, which, of itself, can be very severe, depending on the circumstances of the death. Also, we spend a large amount of credits for our weapons and armor and clothing and on and on and so forth. Why use death as a money sink. I die alot, not a whole lot, but a lot. It is not because I am careless because of a lack of a severe death penalty. I die because mobs warp on me and because I underestimate a new critter or something. We should not be discouraged from playing the game because of a death.
Corpse recoveries are a huge pain. Degrading my items when I die only forces me to spend even more credits on already expensive equipment which seems to degrade pretty fast as it is. Let's not even factor in the pathetic repair system in place, which has already destroyed one flamethrower for me, with a 98.9 repair kit. I am scared to death to try to get my armor repaired.
Adding more penalties to an already serious setback will only encourage folks to be restrained, until finally only the most brave will venture out into the deeper wilds. This game should be all about adventure and taking risks, not about worrying about dying. Why does everyone think that a severe death penalty is needed? I like it just the way it is.
At some point I hope that SOE realizes that these games are intended for entertainment. When a game become more frustrating and more of a hassle than it is fun it is time to pull the plug. The 2.5X damage modifier was a huge slap in the face for our profession. I somewhat got over that change by looking at the Test Center and seeing the updates to the Master block and the general updates for melee classes. This item decay mess has gone to far. I for one won't hesitate to find entertainment elsewhere if this goes in effect. SWG has an enormous amount of potential. It is too bad that SOE primary focus is on the "All Mighty Dollar" and not on delivering a quality product.
As I have had stated on the posts in regards to this subject, if this goes live I "WILL" (not threat, a promise) cancel my accounts. Let me explain.
1. our missions were "STEALTH NERFED" making so group hunting is out of the question. Also, I'm a Master Commando/Novice CH 1.1.1.0. On starting planets I can't pull a mission over lvl 25 which is about 2200 cr. and about 2000 meters away. Waste of time. On the advanced planets such as Talus, I can't pull anything over lvl25 and Faction missions are capped at lvl 25 which pays approx. 5500. Dev's I refuse to have to run missions all day just to make a living and replace what you are attempting to take away.
2. After all the help we tried to give Lord_Paul to fix the melee bug and his words that except for the DOT and melee bug we were working as intended to P**S backwards on us and make a decision based on popular opinion instead of what was best for the profession he slaps the commando's in the face with the very problem we were helping him to fix. While the fixes I saw posted on TC are just ok, they go a long way from addressing the problem and as far as I'm concerned Lord_Paul just through out a bone hoping to calm the the commando class down. This "STEALTH NERF" by Lord_Paul was the most spineless move I have seen yet in this game. Why spineless you say? Did anybody notice how he conveniently dissapeared after the Hadies patch? And when he returned has avoided these forums as if they had the plague and used THunderheart as his scape goat (which all the dev's have done to this point).
3. I agree with MasterSynn on this. It will affect every player in the game in a negative way but mostly the combat professions such as commando and Bounty Hunter. First, it affectively eliminates the use of any of our specials because now with the dacay system we will refuse to get within melee range and even at long range the mobs "STILL" warp on top of us. Happened last nite on Corellia so that still hasn't been fixed. So the logical consequences of this decay system is that combatants will hang their clothes and armor in the house instead of buying new one. We will be the least effective class in the game, AGAIN, because I refuse to pay large amounts of money for the HW's such RL, so they will be left in the house. I'm not going to pay huge amounts for the FT or the HAR so that gets left in the house. In affect, I get to run around in my underwear using my LP. You will have to buy LP you say, NOPE, got 15 in my bank from guys that have given this character up because of the melee penalty. I put my armor up because I am not paying 550k cr. every four days or quicker because I can only die five time at most and lose it because some idiot thinks the economy is borked and the game needs more money sinks. Yes, 550k for comp. armor because I had to special order it thanks to Lord_Pauls knife in our back, spineless "STEALTH NERF" to our professoin.
4. Dev's you are either incapable of fixing the bugs in this game or unwilling to and shoving them under the rug hasn't covered them up. The same bugs go on day after day along with the new ones you implement each time you patch. Is the corpse run even fixed yet so that we don't lose our geer when we die? I still have things go poof. No I don't tell CSR cause they NEVER respond anyway so why waste my time.
So in closing, I wil repeat not for the players that post here but as a promise to the dev's. If this goes live I promise (signs in blood) I will cancel all my accounts and use the CD's has coasters.
Forgot to mention #5: There will also be a neg. affect to the crafters in this game. Mostly the tailors and the armorsmiths. While players put there stuff in storage because we're not going let it get decay destroyed these two crafter professons will suffer the worse. Nobody is going to buy clothes and armor every two days or once a day or once a week for that matter. So you will affectively break them because the business they will have will be the new players who don't know better. The "ONLY" crafter class that is going boon our of this is the WeaponSmith because you "HAVE" to have weapons to play this game. Hmmm, economy stimulation at its worst. This, in my opinion, will break this game.
Yet again, because of whining from some professions, we have the possibility that all professions will suffer.
As is, weapons get degraded from use. Even having a master weaponsmith (that made the weapon) repair the weapon is not guaranteed to produce results other than "poof, your weapon has been destroyed" (happened to me with a nice damage sliced f/t, and lost about 1/3 of durability on my launcher pistol at the same time).
So, the broken profession is, as pointed out above, pretty obvious. Clothing isn't decayed or damaged because fighters aren't getting hit when wearing clothing, they get hit when wearing armor. The armor takes the hits, so it needs repairs, so armorsmiths continue to do business.
Again, leaving primarily Tailors looking like the folks that would be crying for this "fix".
Admittedly, there should be a penalty for dieing and/or getting incapped, but a fix that would affect everything is just plain stupid. At least at such a high percentage.
A one-half percent penalty for incapping might be about right, a one percent penalty for death might also be about right, but any more than that is just insane.
Insurance is far too expensive for anyone to afford, so again, you've got people running around going broke to pay for new items just so they go back out and do it again.
As stated above, it makes the game less fun, and too much like work, and will kill the game as people leave in droves all fed up with a bunch of devs that have no f-in clue what they are doing or how it affects the big picture.
If they want to have clothing decay, then do it. Do it automatically. Have the clothing decay some percentage every day. Have the decay be affected by the decay resistance of the original resources used to make the clothing. Have the clothing wear out over the course of say 2 or 3 months, so the tailors would continue to see new business over time.
That can be done without creating any new incap penalty, or death penalty.
If you want an incap penalty, then add a penalty that takes away credits from your cash (not your bank, unless you only have credits in the bank). On death, penalize even more credits from cash, and take credits from the bank.
If you lost 5% of your credits for getting incapped, it would start to hurt. If you lost 15% for death (haha, a death tax!!!) you'd really not want to take the "kill me so I can go back to town very quickly" approach to the game.
But again, decaying materials on incap/death is just stupid. Again, see wound needing bandaid, cut off whole limb. Nice devs working for SOE.
Yup, run around naked doing unarmed stuns on everything you see just so you don't get hit with the melee damage penalty.
I will tell you why the economy is going nowhere. 99% of armourcrafters, weaponsmiths and tailors make junk that nobody wants, that is partly because nobody has access to the resources required to make better stuff.
Secondly, when we were at normal damage levels i wore out my armour in a week, my weapons didnt last that long. They do degrade. Now that we are one hit wonders in melee I dont tank, i will use warning shot, FD and use pets to tank because its suicidal to tank anymore. The more limitations they place, the more people will look for an alternative.
CH are already an overplayed profession, it will increase tenfold if this change goes through. I would prefer if i didnt need to be part CH to get by, but I play the game based on what the mechanics allow and what is the easiest and most effective path to take. I dabble, i dont care. I would like to be master commando but i dont have the points, most of our weapon lines are semi-useless and if i carry the dozen odd guns around with me they will all 'magically' self destruct even if a shot has never been fired.
If they want to fix things then increase the durability of armour, make getting hit damage the armour mostly but also damage the clothing to a lesser extent. Make crafting professions use a fair amount of resources to repair stuff but make it effective and not buggy. That way their services will be in continued demand even when people have purchased the products.
News flash, nobody wants composite armour with 30% resists. Most people will just hold out and buy some decent armour at a higher price if they have to go through the misery of having to wear it at all. Nobody wants a Flamethrower that does 201 max damage, and dont laugh, i have seen these for sale.
Fewer people want armour now because you have to be a rocket scientist to be able to wear a full suit of anything decent and wearing it totally trashes your stats.
About 1% of the crafters go through with their profession seriously enough to be able to make the better items, too many rely on too many other people for resources and at the end of the day have nothing good enough to use to craft with so they use junk and make junk.. I know one good armour crafter and two good weapon crafters on my server, that is it. They get all my business and they get lots of it. I dont blame people for not making a characte based totally around crafting, you have to sacrifice alot to be self-sufficient.
The really good crafters do not need any more business, the weaponcrafter I know can place 100 good weapons on his vendor and they are all gone before he has the resources to replace them. He wont put junk up for sale. He slices his own weapons so you can get something you want without having to play russian roulette with a smuggler. You can mail him for specific orders. He wont make our charged heavy weapons unless you order them.
There are not enough good crafters to be able to deal with any kind of demand that would be generated by a sever degradation of items due to incapacity or death. The game would be hideous.
If the game gets to be more of a pain than it is entertaining then that will be the day I stop playing. I dont care if there are mounts or space battles in the futre, if the game sucks now I am gone and wont be back. I do not pay to play in a beta version of a game, it should be working , playable and semi-balanced now. Not in 2 years.
If this was any other business other than software SOE would be sued for the quality of this product. It is far below par, most professions are severely bugged and not working properly, it is far more than balancing issues. This game should still be in beta, for at least another three to six months.
I saw a good point posted on one of the responses here, and I wanted to elaborate on it.
The griefing potential for this system is HUGE. Consider this. You're out doing faction missions, and opposing faction member who either is more powerful than you or gets the jump on your manages to incap you. 3% gone.
Instead of DBing you, he waits. You stand up with at least one of your HAM bars nearly completely gone. He incaps you again. Another 3% gone. Repeat as long as the griefer is willing to go without DBing you.
Also, it's good to note that you can't be DB'd without first being incapped, so the cost of dying (assuming you do so on your first incap) is actually 23%.
And this isn't necessarily just a PVP problem either. If an aggro mob that you can handle attacks and incaps you, but doesn't kill you...that's 3% on the first incap, 3 more when you stand up and get incapped again, 3 more when you stand up a second time and get incapped again, and then 20 more for your automatic DB for being incapped 3 times in a row. 29% on all items GONE.
Death does not have any serious consequences, no, but consider how often you die in this game compared to other games of a similar type. I barely ever died while playing Diablo 2, and I also barely ever died while playing Ragnarok Online. They both had steeper death penalties, but also didn't often put the average player in situations where they would likely die.
I don't treat death in SWG lightly, especially while hunting as MasterSynn touched on. But it does happen and often anyway, and it's not for a lack of caution. Aggros and hostile players can come out of nowhere, and aggro lairs can literally spawn right on top of you, to say nothing of the killer potential of the "teleporting" bug that so often allows melee mobs to land right on top of you the instant you attack from a distance.
You know what they say. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I think that has even more meaning when so many other things ARE broke. Idiotic.
Guys,
A game with out a challege is boring.
I have been playing a commando for the last few weeks, and just recently got to Master. It is by far the easiest class to level, with a CH and Commando I can solo missions lvl 35 with next to no risk, and nail 5-6 NPCs without breaking a sweat. Should it really be this easy?
With my sliced Flamethrower I can hit for 800-1500 damage every 2 secs using no HAM, (or upto 11k of damage at close range on a critical hit) so I charge in with full armour and Graul leading the way. Once the smoke clears only I and the Graul remain.
Before this I was a Master Weapons Smith and Carbineer. Using a Carbine, I could do about the same damage but I did almost as much damage to myself with specials (HAM Costs).
I believe there needs to be risks, I even believe the x2.5 modify makes some sense. I can hit at a range of 64m and still do 800-1500 damage in full armour, if I can choose, I can close (to 15m) and inflict up to 11k in a cone but that means Im at risk. Does this risk seem unfair?
Most of the other professions look on us in awe!
Commandos are deadly, I personally think too deadly, we should have an achicles heel. If we go toe to toe with a Melee professional we should go down screaming.
The developers are looking for ways to balance this profession, without obviously 'Nerfing' our skill set. In a party there should be room for different skillsets each complementing each other.
Do you really want a party of 'Uber' Commandos and one healer?
A Commando needs a weakness, to balance the strength or what will happen is all the other professions will be dropped and there will be commandos as far as the eye can see.
We need to fight some battles, but we have a great class that has a few issues, namely the HAR but appart from that I think Commando is brillant.
Too all those threating to quit, please just accept that things get fix, balanced, nerfed its has to happen to make the game balanced and 'fair'.
Flint
Ex-Master Commando
Dabbler of Creature Handler
Soon to be Master Dancer - Got to love the Holocron's choice