Development Cycle Archive

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DyrthVyder wrote:

There are a million rumors around that people have opened their FS slot, can you at least confirm or deny that this has happened. No need for servers or names just a yes or know to whether there are any FS open.

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I find it totally funny that the two most common topics on these boards are Creature Handlers and the Force Sensitive Slot.

Creature Handlers are a necessary evil in that you really have to have one (at least) on your team in order to play this game. Its mandatory, its a minimum. Which is stupid.

So.. that leaves the FS slot. The ultimate carrot and the only reason that some people still play this game. when they let that go.. and people ACTUALLY have one and the y find out just how buggy THAT is.. people will no longer have a carrot to play for or hope for.

Doesn't that scare you?

Im master CH and master Pistolier. First sorry about my english, its bad.

If u want to nerf CH's pets, first u should nerf AT-STs. They already nerfed our pets, now theres no pets with medium or heavy armor, only light's ones. i can solo 1 JUvenil Krayt, but not a normal Krayt. But a single player, a single novice "X" can solo normal Krayts with an AT-ST, without stop. Ewooks winned a battle with a lot of AT-STs but a big enourmous Cannon Kryat Dragon cant knock down an inestable AT-ST LOL.

Pistolier class Sux, special moves Sux, when are u going to fix it????

When are we going to have Vehicles????? Is it AS difficult??

Why cant we know how to get the FS??? We are paying for this game... Im master in two things... Now all days im bored, killing stupid mobs or getting facction points... for what? i want to grow up my character pls!!! Let me do it!!

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Holo wrote:

Nothing whatsoever about warping mobs and prone warping. There are continual complaints about these in the Forums, so why aren't they mentioned here? Also, what about all the broken missions? Mission rewards never showing up in your inventory? And what about Lt. Lance?

Those simply aren't among the top calls to CSRs. It doesn't mean they are not issues, nor do we use CS calls as the only prioritization tool.

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Alright, I'm pissed about the Lt. Lance thing now. I personally was having loads of fun doing the Rebel Theme park, and was suddenly halted. I waited a while, hearing rumors of Lt. Lance in the TC. However, I can wait no longer. Now, if just Lt. Lance was missing, but the base was there, I could have a little more patience, at least the programers would be partially good here. But no, the whole **edit** base is gone, and Ackbar is on friggin Dathomir pretending he's a Rancor!!!!! Now, I have only one option left....

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!!!!!!!

Err, I hope you people understand why CH is the top chosen profession, BECAUSE IT IS ONE OF THE FEW THAT AREN'T BROKEN. I realize it is easier to "nerf" 1 profession then to fix 16. I dont think for a second that CH would be the top profession if the other professions were what they are supposed to be, and therefore more usable in the overall game experience. I didn't buy the game to control pets, (although I admit it is really fun, and I dont presently do PvP at all.) but controlling pets beats cloning every 15-20 minutes because my special's didnt work they way they are described in the manual both online, and the one received with the game.

Not true, CH is horribly broken. When one man armed with a train of pets following behind him can "solo" things that should require groups, it's broken. The one person earlier admitted that they can "solo" Juvenile Krayts. Can anyonesolo a Krayt (and by solo I mean ALONE). I have to laugh when I see CHs claim to be able to solo something, yet they have an entire army in tow. I've been killed four times in PvP (and each one is on my personal Bounty Hunting short list). Once was when I first started and didn't know you got a TEF from shooting enemy NPCs. One was when a group of four enemy PCs found me and my wife out shopping after we had a TEF. The other two was by a SINGLE creature handler who never laid a glove on my except to DB me.

I think pets need to be either REMOVED from the game, or else all attack and guard options removed so that CHs can only capture, tame, and sell as a mount, the animals they have in their datapad. Animals attacking is non-canon Star Wars, and more importantly it is creating the single biggest play imbalance in this game.

AT-ST are only an example. It's not that they're too powerful, it's that pets are in the game at all. I agree the AT-ST is too tough for one "pet" to be, but the issue isn't how strong the AT-ST is, it's that the person who owns it (or any pet) is unstoppable compared to someone without it.

I have a pet Kahmurra a friend gave to me. I had him sitting in my house as furniture for the longest time. I do a lot of solo work and decided for some companionship to have him trained. I did, and he followed me around. For weeks I never used him to attack, just to feed and group with and do tricks. He was a pet in the truest sense.

Then yesterday, the friend who gave him to me asked if we should take our pets hunting. We decided to try it. He has a rock beetle. So we took on a mission we normally take on, of our normal difficulty level, and barely got a scratch. Normally we would have to heal up after a typical mission, but not yesterday. So we went back and got another mission or two, one much tougher than normal. We took it down with only very minimal damage to ourselves. I asked him if we should try one without the pets. I think we both knew had we tried it without pets we'd be killed. There was no question in our minds.

And that was because of ONE non-creature hander level 15 pet each. Those pets made us stronger than the best gun and the best armor in the game. And that's a non-CH! Imagine for a CH.

Devs, wake up. You need to remove pets, or at least to tone them so far down that a master CH with his three strongest pets in tow is an EVEN MATCH to one Bounty Hunter, or one Commando, or one Pistoleer/Combat Medic or whatever. The CH should NEED his pets to stay competitive. As it is now, the pets are WAY stronger than any player in the game, and that's not right.

Please, wake from your beautiful slumber. It must be nice dreaming of perfect play balance. But those of us awake and playing the game are suffering a far greater imbalance than I think you realize.

MOUNTS MOUNTS MOUNTS

I havent saw anything about the MOUNTS?

Rdy for testing?

"Most commonly mastered advanced professions:

1. Creature Handler
   
2. Architect
   
3. Doctor
   
4. Dancer
   
5. Weaponsmith"

I'd actually love to see the bottom of the list! The least mastered and least chosen advanced professions. I guess Pikeman will berightabove Jedi. Which is a good thing by the way. I like the fact that Pikemen are rare. It makes it something special. You can even see Pikemen act like a small community. If I run along a Pikeman we will start to talk even if we never met before, train each other and stuff. And I always support those who choose to become a Pikeman. Like giving them better weapons for free, and of course free training (I never charge for training anyway, the AXP reward is cool enough).

Would like to see that more in the game.

I read alot of the posts, skipped several that were just repeating other posts, and skipped over several because it is an insane amount to read at once, so what follows may have been said and I skipped over it.

I am fairly new to SWG. I havent played it from creation and I havent played every skill yet, so I wont comment on what is inept or exciting.I have played long enough to ask about 2 issues:

1) more of a nuisance than anything else, but can you look into locking replies to theplayer they are intended for? Many times, I am chatting with several people at once in /tell and I will hit ctrl+r to reply to the last one, only to have it sent to a stranger asking for training, healing or info because they sent me a tell while I was in mid typing. The way it works right now, it is all but useless to use the /reply feature in long range/private chat because you are never assured that the message will go to its intended target. With people trying to come up with more and more complex names, some with multiple apostrophes or twisted ways to spell existing SW characters, typing them out every single tell is just a pain in the wrist. Add to this, that you may be in private tells talking about sensitive or personal matters that just arent for any random persons ears/eyes. Finally, traveling over mountain/rocky terrain requires a lot of mouse use. Simultaneously trying to run and chat requires a higher level of dexterity than I would like to devote to them for something that should be done without thinking about it. As a 4 year vet of EQ, I now this simple ability is both timeefficient and makes private chat a lot easier.

2) why dont creatures burn their HAM bars similar to PCs? I know they can special attack, and I have unequipped my weapon to see if their HAM bar would move at all during 10 seconds of battle. It is hard to judge since sometimes counterattack will affect the action bar. I may be wrong and they have a more conservative action bar usage. If so, then just refer to question 1.

Most popular advanced professions:

1. Creature Handler
   
2. Pistoleer
   
3. Bounty Hunter
   
4. Rifleman
   
5. Merchant

Most commonly mastered advanced professions:

1. Creature Handler
   
2. Architect
   
3. Doctor
   
4. Dancer
   
5. Weaponsmith

Professions, Quests, and other thingsthat aren't Currently Bugged or in need of major revision

1. um...

I doubt that there are yet 1,000,000 theorys about the FSCS as well.

Well for one im glad to see that people are working on things. I have only a few problems with the current state of the game.

1. Why in all things holy would you guys have an xpack coming out in 2004 when there seems to be issues in the game that need attention now. I for one will not buy the xpack until the professions are fixed to the point of actually using them. Keep in mind i can only talk about the character paths i have followed, but BE add ons to clothing should be fixed so we can enjoy scent protection and add camo etc. They need to be able to make their stims in the factories just to name a couple of things. I started out as a droid builder but lets face it not going to live long in a fight with those sad little probots. So i have done what i have seen most ppl do. Yes the CH skill which leads me to my next point.

2. As i solo 60% of my time waiting for friends or groups i enjoy to show up i find my pets a great asset. However feel for those ppl who do to lack of working skills or armor options that have to take any skill they don't need ie CH. Yes you can take pets that arent CH required but common lets face it how many non CH are going to last lvl 30 or above missions solo. So something needs to be done for these guys. I don't know maybe Mercs or something that can be used without the fear of some imp or rebel PvP killing you as you are out hunting. The reason i say that is because i can hear ppl saying will you can have mercs just go overt.

3. There needs to be some annex for all the changes that have been done since the start of this game. Yes i understand showing this is going to be like showing everyone that this game had/has alot of problems. Well i hate to break it to you guys, but we already know that and i for one understand that deadlines suck. What i don't like is spending 2 days trying to get a factory to work and comming to find out that you need use the same ingreds that you used in the scheme. Doh common sense i know, but still. I had toactually wait for a couple of days to find out a player needs a personal chemical machine to make Pet Vial packs. Again another thing that would have been nice to know.

Well in closing i would rather see a good game get fixed before you guys even think about bring in an xpack and further adding to the chaos. I think you guys are doing a good job and i apperiacte all the time you Devs put into this. So keep it and make it right.

I've been reading through some of the problems and thought that maybe there is a simple solution that might bypass a few of the current issues in the Combat of SWG that is making it not very Starwarsie... More specifically a way of bringing Creature Handlers down to par without completely Nerfing them into a worthless class. Bring up the Dodge / Ranged Defense / Melee Defense Values of players!

I noticed that a lot of classes get little bonuses to Defense here and there, but after having Master Dance, Master Marksmen and Field Tactic IV I still don't feel like I"m any more defended when a monster decides to take a chunk out of me. If this value was increased significantly then the person defending could be more able to take a few seconds of combat with a monster before being knocked down.

To the Scale that I think this should be taken, I would like to see a Master Elite Melee profession be able to Solo a Rancor without too much difficulty. To me this is Very starwarsy, considering Luke did it and he wasn't even a Master Jedi, heck he wasn't even a Jedi yet... Ok he cheated! BUT STILL, its very strong in the idea that Mind over Matter, a Master Tera - Kasi should be able to pull its Matrix style moves on the Rancor without the rancor beating em up too badly. Now Don't fear because although taking one Rancor might be easy, Rancor's are pack hunters so I doubt Masters would fight too many of them.

There are other solutions to this though, umphing droids so they're equal to creatures or better, simply nerfing Creatures completely under the idea that a Wild Creature is more ferocious then a tamed creature, they'd have significantly less HAM, or simply deleting the creature handlers completely saying it was a big mistake and giving back the skills points with a Thanks for Playing we love you

The problem with umphing the droids is it may be MORE starwarsy but I don't remember Honsolo having too many probelms with the probe droid... I also remember the gungans main problem not being that the droids were so powerful but that there were so darn Many of them! As well as in Attack of the Clones, Clones proved exceedingly more efficent then the droid army - meaning that Humans would again be better fighters. And that leads to another problem if Droids are as powerful or less then creatures then the reward / Difficulty of Creature handling is destroyed, because Droids can be manufactured and a creature handler has to doa LOT of work to get those three Rancors.

Then again you could simply Nerf Creature handler pets... But this wouldn't solve the problem at all...

At the moment Creatures are important because its so darn easy to attack a creature with a creature and with such strong creatures you only need 1 creature / creature really and no need for much healing. If suddenly the creatures where much weaker then there would need to be a doctor on every creature in most instances or simply enough creatures around to switch off on hard monsters, meaning that if you think that there are a lot of Creature handlers wait till you can't get in a group without a sufficent number of strong creatures to do trade offs in agro with the other creatures. Also I hate nerfs, don't you? Creature handlers are going to be More Necessary when Mounts and Vehicles come into play ( my thought is that is the sole reason they where brought into the game at all anyway - for that scene in Special Edition New Hope when the speeder flys next to the Jawas in Mos Eisly and their beast throwing them off it in an embarrasingly funny situation )

Of course they could wait for Vehicles to come out and make Vehicles the fix... give players a Tank to deal with, that would be more powerful then a rancor, this might spice things up a bit, but then you lose out on the social ability of being in a group if one person is riding a tank (or well AT-ST, Land Speeder, Sandcrawler ect...)

However making PC tanks has additional Bonuses... Not only is it very starwarsy, but Humans ( I mean PCs not Human Characters ) have a much faster reaction time - on average - then pets do, its a lot easier to get a pikemen to change targets to taunt a mob off of the doctor or commando then it will be to get the rancor to stop attacking, peace to death, new target, taunt off... Especially considering how much time the doctor has before he's eaten alive!

Also Humans are going to care when they're stunned / intimidated / blinded / slowed ect...and will call out for a Squad Leader to undo most of this, Rancors could care less... This makes Squad Leaders useful! Adding in another way of bringing out a starwars class that has been Ignored this entire time!

It would also drive more people to take skills like Musician, Dancer ect because of the add +7 ranged / melee defense they provide! This would satisfy those who love to dance but see no benifit for it in the end game era...

So in summary, the developers could make every noble creature handler a worthless thing of the past, or they could make PCs a more valuable asset to the game! This wouldn't end Soloing with Rancors or AT-STs this MAY over power the Melee classes a bit... but then again you could always nerf their damage to compensate for damage mitigation- I know a few old EQ warriors who never minded not being able to do squat for damage, trust me they're used to it.

But this is just my opinion, I could be wrong...

Howdy all,

Out of all these comments i would just like to address a few that have me concerned.

One person was quoted as saying, "One BH can take out an entire group, and i can't help because their mind is gone, it's not fair, Mind is broke, fix it!"

To this person, you do understand that the BH is just that, a Bounty Hunter, do you happen to forget that their has been Bounty Hunters whom have stood up to Jedi?

Of course your "group" whom most likely consists of rag tag warriors, I.E. Combat Medics, the choice Entertainer, and maybe the 2 or 3 Pistoleers is going to get beat up by this warrior. It's his job, he does it for a living. Mind isn't a big deal, you wait on the ground for a minute, and it's back, the end. Revenge is there for a reason, you hit your target, you make yourself sparce, don't stick around just to be finished off by everyday Revenge.

Just the other day i had 2 Bounty Hunters, and myself (Commando) take, on at least 20 different imps, Incapping them at least 3 times each. You know how we were able to live? We hit, and we ran, we concentrated fire. The BH's would attack the mind allowing me to get close enough to hit with Flame 2 or Flame Cone. By the time we were done we managed to badly injure, expecially with the ones i lit up, or completely finish up the whole group, catch the shuttle, and move out.

If your mind isa problem so much, be smart about it, bring down health, make them WORK to take out that mind, wear a Composite helm, do what you need to do. There isn't to Master BH's, and you can usually out gun a Rifle by being smart. Do what ya need to do, survive!

Sho'Nuff

Rebel Pyro.