Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Friday Feature Errata... Part 2...
EnzymE wrote:
Wonderful, the thread got locked during my reply and I lost EVERYTHING I wrote. Maybe you need to do som dev work on these forums too.
Same here, but it might be just as well since others captured most key points of my scathing reply and critique of what was exposed about your development process.
It looks like an acceptable compromise, if the faction cost is not to high. What is the definition of a PvP death exactly? What about a DOT third incap after the battle is over? How about a NPC deathblow, which isn't unlikely if incaped by a player helping to defend a spawn point? Somehow, I expect these are not covered.
One point that wasn't mentioned is that, since the Droid Invasion was aborted, you now have something to use for a theme for publish 7. You might call it "The Rebels Strike Back" since you are re-enabling PvP then.
Meenah wrote:
You're slightly wrong:
ANYONE can repair armor, armorsmiths get NO extra bonus.. No matter who uses the repair tool and at what condition the armor is in, it still has a 50/50 chance of being COMPLETELy destroyed.. hardly an "option"..
Really? I guess you've done experiments with a non armorsmith and an armosmith and different rated tools and repaired several pieces of armor to get your 50% statistic?
I know there is an Armor Repair skillmod because I have an old tape that has it. I'm not saying that armorsmiths get any (because I'm not 100% sure), but if they don't, they should.
JustG wrote:
The 1% decay removal was communicated to TH. We then revoked that change without telling him.
Now as to your harsh words and attitude towards Thunderheart... I understand your frustration. But you have to know that every morning, the first person I talk to is TH, to find out about the current hot issues. - Gary
Explain this:
- You talk to him EVERY morning. Yet, he was the last to know? It never popped in to your mind that maybe, just MAYBE that would be an important thing to tell him. I'm sorry, but all you've done is taken our anger off of what we thought was one person's huge mistake, and turned it, at least for me, into anger at every member of your team.
If I'm going to pay for this, I think it makes just a bit of sense to please the customer. And you sure aren't doing that.
But wait, you'll get it in the NEXT publish...July or something. Or maybe you'll get in the publish after that, or after that?
/ignore
It is hard not to be angry about decay on death. Many of the reasons give for the decay really are quite illogical and come across as poorly thought out.
The idea that decay on death will increase business for Tailors and Artisans doesn't hold much water. Creating business for armorsmiths yes. But why don't weapons decay on death as well, to increase business for weaponsmiths? For most Tailors and Artisans, their products are used outside of combat and most of the time will either be stored in a house or on a driod when the player enters combat anyways. If you want to be logical about increasing business for crafters, make their items a consumable that either decays over time or with use! Though I would also argue that not all items need to decay!
As a penalty for dieing in combat... The decay of your armor is about the only really noticable penalty. Even the, for people like me who don't wear armor, let alone carry anything on me that can decay... There is still no penalty for death. In PvP wars, I can die hundred of time and it doesn't matter as I provide support for my team! Short of the enemy camping the cloning center that I am stored at, they have no viable way to remvoe me from the war for any reasonable about of time! Quite a few players consider clone camping a for a grief, yet without some other possible tactic to remove someone from a battle, there is no real choice but to camp! If the wound penalties for dieing were increased to something along the lines of 50% for un stored and 25% for stored, this would greatly increase the ability of 'taking out of action' an enemy in battle! If you also increase the usefulness of healers of both mind and body in wars and battles as well! If a person is limited to merely 4 deaths before being completely black barred, there will be a really strong incentive to avoiding death, be it PvE or PvP! Otherwise you will be spending most of your gaming time searching for healers!
JustG -
Thank you for admitting that there was a lack of communication between the developers and the players.
But I have some questions.
Why was this decision made at the last minute?
The removal of 1% decay from faction pvp with the use of some sort of faction point insurance was mentioned weeks ago. I don't recall any timeline being stated then.
But the patch notes I saw on Test Center last week and as recently as yesterday mentioned the removal of the 1% decay in pvp.
When you and the rest of the devs log into the game, do you get the same launcher screen we do?
I know devs have played in Test Center in the last week.
Did none of them notice the patch notes inthe launcher?
I know that Q-3PO has put in some good work in changing what we see in the launcher, with the addition of things like the new "Did you know...?" portion.
Did he not see the patch notes in there?
Did any dev notice this thread that was on the old Star Wars Discussion forum?
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=831710
Thousands of posts and 110 pages long.
The first post was on 11/13/03 and the last one was on 1/09/04, which was the last day the forum was open. I bet the thread would STILL continue to this day if the forum hadn't closed.
Yet not a single post from the developers.
Your customers do not want 1% decay from death.
We could not possibly be any more clear about this issue.
Your paying customers which you serve for a living do not consider this an important game mechanic.
We have said many times that we think there should be some sort of sting from dying.
But hardly any of us at all thought your idea was the best choice.
We have provided you with many alternatives to 1% decay upon death that would have the same exact results.
Clothing decaying upon use was a pretty popular option.
Many tailors have said they would prefer something else.
The thing most players have the biggest problem with is that armor already decayed from use.
Why was yet another type of decay added on top of this?
We have been asking this question since November and now it is February, and we still have not had any answer from the developers about why this is.
As soon as1% was first mentioned by the devs as being an upcomming "feature," players said this was a bad idea.
Before the feature went live, many players forsaw that it would cause a dramatic downturn in PVP.
Yet the developers went through with it anyway.
And the players' prediction came to pass.
Here is my Murphy's Law of Star Wars Galaxies:
The developers do or don't do something that makes me completely lose interest in playing.
The second I get excited about playing again, which can be weeks or even more than a month later, the devs do something that makes me want to play even less.
The second I start having faith in the developers again, they mess something up really bad.
If this happens a couple more times, I will cancel both of my accounts.
A friend of mine who has wanted to join me in playing this game ever since it came out is just about ready to.
He has not been able to join be due to financial reasons.
He would have to get a new computer just to play, and he just earned enough money to do so.
I'm now wondering if I should tell him not to even bother, in order to save himself from inevitable dissapointment.
There are many better things he could spend his limited funds on.
I have been playing since early June in Beta 3.
This is only the second time I have ever said I might quit.
But you are making my decision easier every day.
Yeah right tell that to the AC2/Turbine peeps, don't work that way hero....
Garrgrizzakakk wrote:
Guys its as simple as this...
Things change so live with it.
You are all acting like 2-year olds and cryin over stuff that just cant be fixed right now.
You know when we did not have decay we had the tailors screaming too put it in so they could get business from return customers. We now have it and you scream.
Before that we had corpses. those of us from that time know how bugged that was, wanna go back too that? Heck no I know I dont. Things have changed in a positive way, there was a miss communication they have appologiezed for it yet you keep screamin they lied.
Was the misscommunication a lie? No not when they came out and said it was a mistake. They came forward and admitted the problems.
For those of you runnin and cancelling over this, it will be one less person hear cryin like my friends 2-year old when he gets told no.
then again there will always be another person too take your place.
I see far too many posts in here saying things like, "If the DEVs just did what we wanted everyone would be happy."
Personally, I think if the DEVs did everything the players wanted the game would be worse off than it already is. It kind of makes me think of the line from The Matrix, where agent Smith said that the first Matrix was designed to be a Utopia, but that it was a horrible failure because humans need pain to define their existence.
It's not a whole lot different when you're designing a game... you want people to stay in it. Remove the challenge and you remove the fun. It's really that simple. If there's no risk involved in combat, there's also no reward. The 1% decay may not be fun, but to me that means I have to strategize to avoid it, and that is fun.
There are a lot of things wrong with this game, I know that. The DEVs know that. But asking for changes to the game just because it happens to be an inconvenience to you is pretty silly. The day that I log in to the game and breeze through everything is the day I cancel my account. What would be the point?
Krayvex wrote:
I never stated I support item decay, did I? Nope.
And have you ever tried repairing armor yourself with your ZERO armor repair skill? Yes, even with your 99% armor repair tool it will fall apart in your hands. You need a Master.
I'll go over this slowly for you. Anyone can repair armor. Anyone has the same chance of repair/damage/destroy when repairing armor. Armorsmith or not it doesn't make a difference that anyone has been able to tell. The quality of the tool is the only factor that has been found to make a difference, and yes the higher rating the better chance of success.
A master armorer went 1/5 on mine the other night.
Could you go over that a bit more slowly for me? I've used a 99% repair tool and destroyed plenty of items. How does the quality of the tool effect the chances of repairing again? I believe it does, only if you have armor repair skill.
JustG wrote:
We understand that as players, you don't want the 1% decay. We think it is an important game mechanic in the right situations
Thunderheart wrote:
Imperio59 wrote:
Sorry to Hear TH had to take the blame again for a design decision. I personally KNOW TH Cares, but some people see him as an information dispenser where they can push his buttons 24/7 and get back info about upcoming stuff.
And like with dispensers, when it doesn't work to their liking, they kick it and beat it around until it DOES work and give them the right info. TH is a real lvie person with feeling, let's make sure we don't break him, cuse he's a VERY valuable asset, hmm'kay?
Thanks
I understand you guys get frustrated and I can handle that, just try to help me think through challenges so we can get really good answers to challenge the devs with. FWIW, I do care very much and the reason this came up today is I went BACK into the pit to get this decay thing worked out.(and let me tell you, people hereare starting to groan when they see me coming....
).
Here is the important thing. There is a huge community for this game. Roughly 20-25% of the game community come by the boards and roughly 10-15% post regularly.
*inserts sap and corn*
If we make this a nicer place to be, more and more people come to the forums and get involved, conversations become more interesting and stimulating. We really can work through this to make this the most fun game possible and the best forums, but it takes time and cooperation.
*rolls up sleeves*
Im not going anywhere, how about you?
I gave it a 6 month subscription, I gave it annother month after that... but since the game still hasn't reached what was promised for release... i am going somewhere else... It's a tossup between WOW and UXO, and both could turn out badly as well, but I certainly know I'm not going to be throwing away annother $15 to beta test this 'game', who's concept still hasn't been figured out, 8 months after release.
You might enjoy it TH, but you're getting paid to 'work through this'.... we're the ones paying to 'work through this'... give me a paycheck to deal with this crap and I'll deal with it, but you can forget about me continueing to pay to 'work through game/continuity breaking issues' that should have been resolved before launch...
"but it takes time and cooperation"... at $15 a month... and 8 months has only begun to dent it...