Development Cycle Archive
Thread: 19 Answers (6-3-04)
Hi,
I'm not sure I understood correctly, but TH wrote :
"Lightsabers have been balanced against the system after the combat balance."
So there MUST be a plan of that CB already. What I dont get in that context is, why isnt there any info on other professions out there. Not even a hint.
"Wait until the CB, but we cannot tell you yet where we're going, cause we have to find out for ourselves first."
At least that's the impression I get.
It seems to me the CB is only there to adjust the other professions to the Jedi.
With other words, the Jedi are done and fixed, now we have to find a way somehow torelate the other professions to them.
That's a way to do it, of course.
:/
I just recently looted Lord Nyax. All by myself, I was proud consider the professions I am, well long story short. I got a +14 1 hand melee damage / +9 Taking Cover Clothing attachment.
Now this was last night it happend ( june 4th 2004 ) and from what I am gathering from people on the forums is that 1 hand melee damage isn't EVEN A SKILL!
That it was taken out before the game went public, like way before. If this is so how come these types of loot were not deleted from the database prior to going live?
Would there be a compensation? Its not like he is easy ( based on my professions ).
So are there any plans to run through the loot database and add/delete items that are no longer valid? Instead of us wasting our time trying to find good loot only to have what happend to me happen.
Thunderheart, please read this....
The Musician question from 5-26-04, about a buff interface MUSTbe addressed by the Devs - I refuse to accept the "answer" given to our honest question about a very serious concern we have. The issue is not the recipient knowing that they have a Musician buff, it's that the Musician (a Master profession!)relies blindly on the honesty of their customers as to whether the buff worked or not. Neither buffee nor buffer know if the process is working, until anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes of time has been devoted to trying the buff. Then, if it doesn't work, we try it again. Then, if it works,maybe it's only a 20 minute buff for who knows what reason - so we have to wait 20 minutes, then try again for another 10 minutes, then maybe it'll work correctly. And when the Musician buff does work, the Master Musician has no freakin' clue if it did or not - we need something similar to /diagnose for Doctors - we NEED to know our buff actually worked - we NEED to see mind secondaries somehow!
To further illustrate:
How would a Doctor like it if he/she tried to buff a patient, but didn't know if the buff stuck, or if it even worked in the first place (no testing on yourself). What if Doctor buff packs would be used, and someone would get "buffed" only to find out after 3 minutes of work, oops, do it again Doc, it didn't stick. 3 minutes later - do it again, it didn't work. 3 minutes later - do it again, it didn't work, i'll take off my armor this time. 3 minutes later - "ah, forget it - just gimme my money back" and the Doctor has no idea whether the person really got their buffs or not.
How would a Merchant like to havea customerbuy something off of a vendor, then claim the purchase didn't work, and they didn't get the item, and demand their money back - with no recourse for the merchant to prove the person actually in fact received the item in exchange for the money.
How would a Dancer like it if they buffed someone's mind and didn't see that Mind pool bar hovering over everyone's heads extend to indicate they're buffed? Wasn't too long ago (I believe) where this didn't happen actually. It was fixed by the Devs.
How would a Medic like it if they healed someone with 90%wounds, then the person said "You didn't heal me, I'm not paying" and the Medic had no way of proving any healing was actually done? What if they had no idea in the first place (the entire time they were "healing") that the healing was actually working, without total blind faith in their customer's word?
How would an Image Designer like it if their "interface" was non-existant. No indication of what you're doing. You just started the ID, and waited (with a stopwatch) for ohhh, maybe 3 minutes, maybe 5 minutes, maybe 8, maybe 10 minutes, and then told the person to "/stopID" and then, only then, the customer and only the customer would know if the changes worked, and what effect the changes had on their avatar. Maybe the stat migration would work, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe all the avatar changes would work, maybe it wouldn't.
Customer: "Oh, my hair and eyes changed, but notmy muscle mass."
ID: "You'll have to wait42 minutes now before we can try this all over again. Maybe it'll work then."
-OR-
Customer (lying): "Nothing changed, stats didn't migrate, give me my money back."
(ID has no proof the changes did or didn't work)
ID (grumbles): "OK, sorry."
The Devs completely misunderstoodthis particular problem for us Musicians. We can't see a secondary stat! How do we even know if our "Master" ability to mind secondary buff even works? Blind faith in the customer, are you kidding me? Here I was, all hoping to see this problem finally dealt with or at least addressed, and it finally got to the 19 questions post by Thunderheart. And what do we get?
"You can see if you're buffed by checking your stat sheet or looking in the buff window for the buff icon."
Yeah - the recipient of the buff can, but WE can't - the Musician that's doing thebuffing! We have no proof that we've done anythinguseful with our time that we're supposedly "buffing." How was this question so ignorantly misinterpreted? Seems pretty straightforward to me. Heck even NewJedi, the Musician Correspondent, tried desperately to get the Devs to get a real answer, not whatever we ended up with - to no avail(which personally, I felt our "answer" was insulting. Of course I know how our customers can tell if they're Musician buffed. We have to tell em how to check the buff almost everytime we buff, because people think it didn't work all the time. Also, since we can't self-buff, we have to get Musician buffed by other Master Musicians - so yeah, we know how our customers can tell if they're buffed).
Blair wrote:
Smuggler
We are going to look at and probably revise the Underworld skill set.
We'll fix bugs with slicing 4.
Spices will get experimentation values (for withdrawals, etc).
Feign death causing the player to take too much damage and to be unusable when moving will be fixed.
We'll add more stuff to the master box. (Probably additional slicing features)
The bug with not being able to eat spice will be fixed.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=417746&highlight=smuggler#M417746
9 September 2003 - Devs promise action aftera 1,010-post filibuster by Smugglers on the old SWG Discussion Forum
Holocron wrote:
On his way out the door, he tossed this over his shoulder:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=19942&highlight=smuggler#M19942
1. Underworld Branch
- I think we are going to try and replace most of these skill boxes with something more usable, since these just aren't very fun. The main issue is finding the time on the schedule to implement some new smuggler skills.
2. Slicing
- We'd like to add slicing code to more types of terminals.
- The problem with weapon slicing giving better results than advanced weapon slicing has been fixed. Slicing 2 had a bonus that Slicing 4 was supposed to have.
3. Dirty Fighting
- Some unarmed moves would be good to add and probably fairly easy. We will look into it.
- We will look into adding combat bonuses to this tree.
- We'll fix last ditch to be balanced with similar moves and we'll look into the other smuggler moves to improve their usability.
4. Spices
- Experimentation never had any impact on spices, so the UI stubs for these were removed. Adding experimentation systems to crafted items takes time, but we'd like to add one to spicing at some point.
- The effects of spices still need to be balanced to other buff consumables. Also, effects like burst run, etc, can be added, but require more development time.
5. Master
- 25% off faction perks is very very useful to any smuggler in PvP, but we will look into possibly adding nonPvP bonuses to this box.
Q-3PO wrote:
We're dedicating a designer (Green Marine) next week to looking into fixing some of the bigger issues of the smuggler. (Yes, we are also looking at issues with the other professions, the smuggler just seems to be the one needing the most love at this moment).
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=552985&highlight=smuggler#M552985
JustG wrote:
There is a lot on our plate, and we are regularly going to provide you with as much information as we can about what is going on. Our priorities and tasks feed in from a variety of sources, and there are very many items on the design priority list. We will not be able to get to all of them with the next few pushes, but we want to take on a number of things that will make the game better, immediately. These include:
- Professions Augmentations
Droid Engineer
Smuggler
Merchant
Chef
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/team_comments.jsp?id=59306&page=Team%20Comments[look for Gary Gattis's Letter to the Community" at the bottom of the list]
Thunderheart wrote:
Smugglers are getting some attention soon. Everything is getting more attention now that Player Cities, Mounts and Vehicles have been added.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=15023&highlight=smuggler#M15023
Thunderheartwrote:
Both San and I agree that you guys need more of an answer and here it is. The smuggler isn't going to be just "fixed". Its in re-development. Smuggler is an important profession and needs more than a little attention.
Here is what I need from you folks. Since Smuggler is "In Development", I hope you folks can work together to put together some reasonable ideas togetherfor the types of directions you would like to see the Smuggler profession change/develop. . . .
. . .I will take that information to the producers so that your desires and ideas can be accounted for when the development process moves to the next stage.
The best recommendation I can make is to keep your ideas realistic. Come up with ideas using the system as you know it as opposed to inventing things from a "blue sky" approach.
I very much look forward to seeing your input.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=42882&highlight=smuggler#M42882
Thunderheartwrote:
The thing is that smugglers essentially are a "space based" profession (at least the way we think of it)and giventhe inherent client/server limitations, its atough proposition any way you look at. For instance, lets say Imperials do a search for contraband at starports. Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport? And then there are the guys that run back and forth across that threshold just to lag things out. This is one tiny piece of a larger puzzle. It has to be a cool game mechanic and work in the game system and in a big MMO environment.
The key here is that while I was in beta and I knew everyone (I actually have almost all of it saved on my hard drive, but doing a search on "smuggler" with 12 gig of materials would be insane). Further still, that was a while ago. I want to hear YOUR ideas and Ive worked with the devs and correspondents to focus communication so that correspondents can get me information and also in a way that I can both share it with the devs AND catalgoue it.
Its all a process and we're working on it and its going to take time. The devs want to make a good game, you and I want to play a fun game and as a community, I believe we can make this whole experience very cool.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=43562&highlight=smuggler#M43562
Thunderheart wrote:
"Smuggling" really is a spacey kind of profession and doing something on the ground really needs to be thought out.
With that being said, Im working on the Smuggler and Squad Leader profession revamp posts this week. Im just taking the time to put together some really nice posts so that the answers that players put forth can be easily handled and used by the dev team.
Currently, people don't say, "hey we're going out hunting, lets make sure we have a smuggler". That shortfall is something that needs to be included in the revamp thread.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=19680&highlight=smuggler#M19680
Thunderheart wrote:
... I pushed very hard (I spent a couple of days pushing this issue) and the devs added bonuses to the Smugler Underworld Tree
A small victory, but you asked and its in. Here's how it works:
1. The system counts up your contraband and does the "scanning roll".
2. If the system "sees" the contraband (having made a successful scan roll), it checks to see if you are a smuggler. Depending on what level of Underworld a smuggler has, they get a progressive chance to "escape the scan". If the smuggler roll succeeds, then the player will get a message that reads, "You have successfully avoided the scan."
So if you want to get spice or sliced armor and weapons from one place to another and not get harassed by the Empire, then smuggle it
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=51541&highlight=smuggler#M51541
Thunderheart wrote:
Based on community input, we have made the following changes to the Imperial Crackdown penalty schema. Thanks go to San Tsu and the Smuggler community and Jester and the Galactic Civil War community.
[Thunderheart then proceeds to describe the system --hugely controversial and now known to Smugglers as "Imperial Immunity" --whereby anyone who invests some Imperial Faction points is able to bypass contraband scans better than a Master Smuggler. I would post it all, but Thunderheart used a strange script and it takes forever to clean it up for posting purposes.]
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=801&highlight=smuggler#M801
Updated on 11 February 2004:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=22484&highlight=smuggler#M22484
Thunderheart wrote:
One neat new addition to Publish 7 is with the Junk Dealers. Smugglers who have underworld can now take their Junk to the Jawa Traders camp and they can sell their junks to the Jawas up there.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=137614&highlight=smuggler#M137614
Thunderheart wrote:
... the change to smuggler's [adding the Fred Sanford Trashman minigame] was a small one. Its just me working with the team to fit smuggler stuff in where we can until the revamp - - thats when the beefy changes will occur.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=138096&highlight=smuggler#M138096
Thunderheart wrote:
You can expect pretty high visibility from the Smuggler thread. Ill do a takeaway and work with the correspondent and the community when we move to In development with it...
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=30240&highlight=smuggler#M30240
enough already
yimaz wrote:
opps 19 questions, was thinking of the wrong thread, my bad sorry Warryyr
No problem 
Boy, I was confused there, for a second. haha.
Smuggler_Caylin said:
am quitting, I have not *quit*
I'm going to do my best for all the smugglers, get everything to the developers I can, so that when the revamp comes, hopefully the present correspondent will have an easier time, the developers wont be able to feign ignorance, and I'll pray smugglers get the best revamp ever.
I wont however, pay 15 a month till christmas or so (Whenever the revamp is) and talk about whether or not tool quality matters or not on slicing tools for the duration.
I wont leave the smugglers in the lurch, they deserve better than that. I'm not leaving till I've done everything I think I can. Could be a couple months before I finally hang it up, but I want to make sure everything is as good as possible before I do.
Consider it my 2 month warning... subject to change. As the jedi revamp wont keep me around, no sir.
SAY IT AINT SO! I can honestly say you are one of the all-time best correspondents SWG has seen and I'm very comfortable having you represent my interests.
Thanks DEVs, another casualty of your lack of sincerity. You've crossed the line...Smugglers deserve better treatment.
VooDoo27 wrote:
Smuggler_Caylin said:
am quitting, I have not *quit*
I'm going to do my best for all the smugglers, get everything to the developers I can, so that when the revamp comes, hopefully the present correspondent will have an easier time, the developers wont be able to feign ignorance, and I'll pray smugglers get the best revamp ever.
I wont however, pay 15 a month till christmas or so (Whenever the revamp is) and talk about whether or not tool quality matters or not on slicing tools for the duration.
I wont leave the smugglers in the lurch, they deserve better than that. I'm not leaving till I've done everything I think I can. Could be a couple months before I finally hang it up, but I want to make sure everything is as good as possible before I do.
Consider it my 2 month warning... subject to change. As the jedi revamp wont keep me around, no sir.
SAY IT AINT SO! I can honestly say you are one of the all-time best correspondents SWG has seen and I'm very comfortable having you represent my interests.
Thanks DEVs, another casualty of your lack of sincerity. You've crossed the line...Smugglers deserve better treatment.
Yeah, but - Jump to Lightspeed will be super neat-o keen! Oh, what Space fun we'll have, once everyone quits the game and tells all their friends what a waste of money it is, and how they were ignored for 6+ months over requests to get problems fixed! Nothing turns away potential customers more than a game that constantly malfunctions. Or, paying a monthly fee for nothing but content that's buggy and never fixed after it's implemented. Hmm, still waiting for some kind of intelligent action over the Image Design xp nerf - but noo, now ID rivals Bounty Hunter in how long it takes to Master. That makes perfect sense.
Oh, and dedicating 2 publishes to a profession whose members are *very* much in the minority on every server also makes sense. Yeah, right.