Development Cycle Archive
Thread: AT-AT Test
Arkus87 wrote:
Will the at-at be available just like the at-st...like purchasing it with faction points
That would be a terrible idea, just like makeing AT-STs pets. They should have never been made pets in the first place, but implemented to vehicles. I hope to see AT-ATs and AT-STs become player driven vehicles in the future, and the AT-ST completely removed as a pet.
Just 1 thing.
Why are these PETS??????????????????
They are Vehicles. Why can't these be faction vehilces bought from the imperial recruiter?
I think it would make it more realistic if the owner can ride in it?
Dadds wrote:
232k HAM isnt enough. you gotta be kidding me right? Nightsister elders got more HAM and 100% resists.. how can a humanoid be tougher then a giant at-at???
because they made the humanoids far too tough
GabrielsSword wrote:
I don't think it should be even possible to knock it down without air support as in the movies or huge land or vehicle based weapons targeting a leg. I mean come on, do we really think it's realistic for a man to pistol whip or use a martial arts move on a bridge pylon and expect it to move. They should be impervious to small arms fire and any melee profession. Especially a single person kicking a leg and expecting it to fall over. Whoever tried a knockdown move should break his leg in the attempt.
I completely agree.
I laugh so hard when I see a TKA, Pistoleer, or other class with knockdown, bring an AT-ST to its knees.
No Nightsisters where so bad the empire didn't even mess with them.
Since a lot of folks are using the 'official' Star Wars site, I just wanted to bring up one quote from the 'official' AT-AT description:
"the AT-AT walker is the perfect embodiment of Imperial philosophy. It favors fear over function, as the immense craft is more a weapon of terror than a completely efficient combat vessel."
Along those lines, I would LOVE to see an in-game state change applied to ALL in the path of these behemoths...say a good chance of having an intimidate applied against you, JUST BY LOOKING AT THIS THING. Perhaps another new state 'Fear', that would make you lose control of your char for 3-5 seconds, while you run in a random direction, or soil your shorts. Make it a 300m radius AE that scales up in %'s the closer you get to it. (5%@ 300m, 25% @ 200m 50% @ 100m etc...)
Ideally, this would be a state change applied by ALL giant-size mobs (Kimos, Krayts, etc), and can be lessened by SL's or by high Faction rank... a Rebel Colonel shouldn't be leaving 'skid marks' when he sees one, (assuming he's battle hardened), but a green private sure as hell SHOULD!
I also wholeheartedly agree with the AE kinetic damage around the legs...enough so that if you are underneath it, and it's moving, you won't be much longer.
I didn't see it in game, just the screenshots in the Test Center Forum. But there are two things I can say which don't require me to have seen it live.
1.) The dimensions of the ATAT model seem to be wrong. The body is too small for the legs and the 'head'. Please check any movie screenshot and or go play some Rogue Leader. But then perhaps the latter is wrong and you did it right, most people don't seem to not have noticed it. This should definitely be checked though.
2.) IMHO the AT-AT should be one of the (if not THE) most powerful thing to fight in the game. It should have more HAM than anything, more damage and more resistances. Bringing one down should be similar to a major victory of the rebels and costs the lifes of dozens of rebels. I didn't see the 100s of rebels on hoth 'pwning' a single AT-AT with their troopers. The few destroyed walkers were either killed by speeder with toecables or by a soon to be Jedi Knight. Make us afraid of it as much as we were afraid of AT-ST before they got nerfed to doom. Oh, and please don't let those things spawn without AT-STs and Stormtroopers.
Thanks for the input everyone. I'll collect the ideas and present them ot the AT-AT's designers.
A couple comments:
No, AT-AT's are not pets.
No, they aren't suppossed to get knocked down as they were during the test.
No, we wouldn't spawn it just on its own, it should have a support troop with it.
Yes, we'd like to make some tweaks before the live team uses them in an event.
Yes, we're glad everyone had fun.
Thanks for your input.
Not to be a downer, but after thinking about this a while I have to ask... what exactly is this things place in SWG anyways?
Sure, it is a large hard to kill target, but why exactly are they even being deployed? This machine was desgned to carry troopers and take on large stationary targets and you have it going head to head with infantry. This thing should basically squash anything that gets anywhere near is feet and be attacking from range. The chance of it hitting an infantry size target should hover somewhere around nil, as should the chance of an infantry troop do anything more than scratching the paint.
I just have a lot of trouble with the games emersion factor when I see something like this happening. IMHO the only thing that should be going head to head with a AT-AT is stationary emplacements (ie: base turrets). It should be 100% immune to everything else. Heck, the only way they were disabled in the movies was by tying their legs up, vehicle mounted weapons didn't scratch them one bit, now I see hong kongphooey standing underneath one and doing 2k damage a hit to the thing when he should be nothing more than roadkill from being stepped on.
Anyhow, I truely think that the implementation and usage of these at-at's should be rethought completely before using them on live servers. No amount of small weapons fire or flamethrowers should do squat to these things, it should take turrets, large anti-vehicle mines and rocket launchers ONLY to take them down. If used in events, it should be as an attack on a rebel base or stronghold only and they should stick with attacking the bases and all but ignore the players. Make them a somewhat even match for the bases turrets and a contingent of players with mines / rocket launchers and them you will be enhancing the emersion factor instead of destroying it. Players standing near the targets being blastedcould / should also take AE damage from the resulting schrapnel.
A player does not need to be drop kicking an armoured behomouth(and actually having an effect)to feel he helped his cause win the battle. He can and should be out there taking on the troopers while those players that are skilled in dealing with these larger targets supportthe base defenses in dealing with them.
Not everything needs to be killable by anyplayer to add to the game.
Was it tough enough?
I would have to say yes and no. As everyone else has said, the spinning really hurt the look of the fight. I think that perhaps a 25 to 35% reisist to blast would help to balance against the Commandos. However, I also think that the movement speed of the AT-AT itself was grossly exagerated. Watching the Battle of Hoth, the At-St's are far more manuverable and speedy. If that was reflected in a long turn around time, then I would see a highter HAM as well. But as is, the fact that it can basically twirl around means that tactics do not currently play a large part.
Should it attack differently?
Absolutely. I believe that the AT-AT's have at least two sets of weapons. Large forward cannons to attack bases and the like, as well as smaller cannons to provide protection against troops. I'm not sure how you would code this (but I have faith that if anyone can do it, you guys can), but my idea is that the AT-AT would have two attack rounds. The first would be for the large cannons, which would provide a large AoE damage to all around that area. However the "recharge" time for these cannons would be large so directly after a large attack would be the optimal time to shoot from the front. The rear cannons would fire only towards the rear 2/3rds of the AT-ST and would do significantly less damage, but could provide some small bleeds and such. The idea here is to implement as much strategy as possible. if the AT-ST were slowed down enough, this would allow for some good group techniques.
How did it look?
fan-freakin-tastic.
Would it be a strong opponent for a typical group?
Depends on the group. If you get 15 commando's that thing is going to be TOAST. I'd say decrease speed, increase it's damage output and perhaps redo some of the resists (perhaps 80% to all but blast, then a 25-25%blast resist. Just an idea to make non commandos feel like they're actally doing damage.
Should the Events Team wait for fixes before using it for live events, or does it still need a lot of work?
I'd say wait to fix the small bugs it has, test it some more on TC and see how it goes. Better if you finda problem with 50 people doing it than with a few thousand, right?
Last thing, I couldn't loot. I tried several times from all different sides, always got the message "you are to far away to loot this"(I got the last one at 0m). however, one time I did get a message "you recieve 30 credits as your share". don't know what got looted. I'm not even sure you're supposed to be able to loot them. Just thought you should know about this.
TouYuan wrote:
Not to be a downer, but after thinking about this a while I have to ask... what exactly is this things place in SWG anyways?
Sure, it is a large hard to kill target, but why exactly are they even being deployed? This machine was desgned to carry troopers and take on large stationary targets and you have it going head to head with infantry. This thing should basically squash anything that gets anywhere near is feet and be attacking from range. The chance of it hitting an infantry size target should hover somewhere around nil, as should the chance of an infantry troop do anything more than scratching the paint.
I just have a lot of trouble with the games emersion factor when I see something like this happening. IMHO the only thing that should be going head to head with a AT-AT is stationary emplacements (ie: base turrets). It should be 100% immune to everything else. Heck, the only way they were disabled in the movies was by tying their legs up, vehicle mounted weapons didn't scratch them one bit, now I see hong kongphooey standing underneath one and doing 2k damage a hit to the thing when he should be nothing more than roadkill from being stepped on.
Anyhow, I truely think that the implementation and usage of these at-at's should be rethought completely before using them on live servers. No amount of small weapons fire or flamethrowers should do squat to these things, it should take turrets, large anti-vehicle mines and rocket launchers ONLY to take them down. If used in events, it should be as an attack on a rebel base or stronghold only and they should stick with attacking the bases and all but ignore the players. Make them a somewhat even match for the bases turrets and a contingent of players with mines / rocket launchers and them you will be enhancing the emersion factor instead of destroying it. Players standing near the targets being blastedcould / should also take AE damage from the resulting schrapnel.
A player does not need to be drop kicking an armoured behomouth(and actually having an effect)to feel he helped his cause win the battle. He can and should be out there taking on the troopers while those players that are skilled in dealing with these larger targets supportthe base defenses in dealing with them.
Not everything needs to be killable by anyplayer to add to the game.
Well the empire purchased 1000's of them. SSD's have several on board. Your gonna see them on planets where the empire wants to project it's power.
We can't base the game on just the 5 movies. We see Vader order the main guns to take out an atmospheric shield. That's not all they where used for.
I think to answer you question as a whole, the reason to deploy them in SWG is for entertainment purposes. They are very popular. Lot of customers have asked for them and they will add some fun.
SWG is trying to bring to life many elements of the Star Wars and EU. And the At-at is an essential part of that world.
SWG as we know it today will change a lot. More vehicles will be added. Rebel tanks and technicals. AT-PT's. In addition to the big capital ships and other things in the future expansions.
I for one and very happy to see at-at come into swg and it's added fun content.
Thanks PEX and other staff for an excellent addition to swg.
Proposed AT-AT encounter:
Hour 1: A very large rebel base spawns. Holovision alerts (emails) are dispached to all rebel players on that planet warning of an impending attack to the base at <loc> which has been detected.
Hour 1.5: At-At's and AT-ST's appear at the Imperial "drop point" some 2k or so away from the base and begin their 30 minute slow march to the base. Any inteference to this march should be met with immediate and overwhelming reprisals.. ie: instadeath to anyone dumb enought to attempt to attack this force in the open.
Hour 2: The imp force stops about 200m from the base, the AT-AT's kneel and deploy their troopers for the impending battle and Imperial players join the force at this point.
Hour 2.25: The advance begins! The AT-ATs move in and focus on the base emplacements while the At-ST's,troopers and imperial players take on the rebel forces (both base and player).
Hour 3: The battle should be over. Thats right, it should be balanced to take around 45 minutes or more for this encounter to be completed after the attack begins. It should be an epic battle with many deaths, lots of mayhem and fun to be had by all.
In the end, either the baseor the imperial forces are destroyed, thus providing a "winner" to the encounter/event.