Development Cycle Archive

I'm guessing it's by design but i thought i'd bring this up just incase it's a bug with today's patch. Exceptionally bad day for armor repairs. 99.7% repair tool and most of the armor was around 50% condition. I normally have really bad luckon repairs, but today was excessive.

by design?

or

broken?

or

you're not telling?

I know that this is one of the game's main money sinks, but is that what was planned from the beginning?

I'm going to start by noting that this is only my second post to the official forums, and that this is the first online RPG I've ever played -- it took a SW based RPG to do it. I have been playing the game almost since it released, as a casual evening player so I'm not a total Noob. However, with this said,if I bring up ideas that have already been covered ad nauseum, I apologize.

My wish list is based on a quite simple fact: I hadn't realized that there was so much to this game that I was going to have to find out about outside the game.

I finally mastered Smuggler (my first elite profession) this last week. I'm going to master CH in the very near future. After doing a lot of reading in the forums and invarious portions of a couple of fan sites, I found myself thinking, "There's a slicing bonus when you hit master on smuggler? Huh -- news to me -- now I understand why people were turning up their noses at my full Slicer 'cause they wanted a Master Smuggler. How do you know that the special attack of a Mountain Squill is a blinding attack? Where does it say? Do I just have to experiment and then remember? How can I have the ability to command a pet to do something like that and not know what the attack is?"

Inside the game, as I was going up through the ranks, I'd purchase an inexpensiveweapon someone had placed on the bazaar hoping to slice it. Try to slice, and, apparently, it had already been sliced. Would have been nice to know before I spent the money. I would love for a simple addendum to the examine feature of any sliceable item: A statement that it has been sliced, and if appropriate, what that slice did to the items features. A container would list that it has been sliced -- that would solve the problemof peopleselling locked, but fubared containers to poor noob smugglers on the bazaar. A weapon that has been sliced would say something like, "This weapon has been sliced for a 25% increase in damage range." No more taking the smuggler's word for it.

How does the Underworld branch and faction points work? I'm covert Reb with positive Reb FPs and neg Imp FPs. I talk to a Reb recruiter and use the new dialogue options I have, and which I assume to have received because of smuggling (still not clear to me), and I'm either told I've already done enough for the cause, or that I'm the third punk inthe last day to try to peddle information to him and to get lost. Try the Imp and he won't even talk to me. Don't even have a clue how I might go about trying to buy/sell FPs like it says I can do in the skill tree boxes.

This applies to all craftable items -- and to deeds. Anything that is important enough to note during the crafting stages should be important enough to note on the item itself. If it's important to know that you've crafted a 95% swoop versus a 99% swoop, shouldn't you be able to look at the swoop and/or it's deed and know that information? Otherwise, I have to rely on the crafter/vendor's description which may or may not be accurate. (Buyer beware should not be a slogan in SWG IMO.)

I'd love to be able to ID a pet's planetary origin and species from an examine -- even if that pet is mine. Sometimes I tame something fun and can't remember where I tamed it or exactly what kind of animal it is. If I gain the ability to command a pet to do something, I'd like to be able to see what that ability is. What is a Giant Crystal Snake's Special Attack 1 and /or 2?

A lot of this comes down to there being no real manual for this game. I understand that a printed manual is relatively worthless as the game continues to expand and evolve. However, I would love it if the in-game systems provided more, and more accurate, information than they now do and that that information would be kept up to date. I love all the new content and tweaks -- as well as the old content. I just want to know whatit is and how I do thingswithout having to leave the game and search the web to find it out.

Oh -- unrelated in general, but still an informational tweak. How about the equivalent of an in-game notice board. Have a shop you want to advertise? Place it on the notice board. Looking for a weapon with certain specs? Notice board. Planning an event? Notice board. I'm hoping it might stop some of the spam outside the starports, but maybe not. *shrug*

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FejjPatella wrote:

I'm going to start by noting that this is only my second post to the official forums, and that this is the first online RPG I've ever played -- it took a SW based RPG to do it. I have been playing the game almost since it released, as a casual evening player so I'm not a total Noob. However, with this said,if I bring up ideas that have already been covered ad nauseum, I apologize.

My wish list is based on a quite simple fact: I hadn't realized that there was so much to this game that I was going to have to find out about outside the game.

I finally mastered Smuggler (my first elite profession) this last week. I'm going to master CH in the very near future. After doing a lot of reading in the forums and invarious portions of a couple of fan sites, I found myself thinking, "There's a slicing bonus when you hit master on smuggler? Huh -- news to me -- now I understand why people were turning up their noses at my full Slicer 'cause they wanted a Master Smuggler. How do you know that the special attack of a Mountain Squill is a blinding attack? Where does it say? Do I just have to experiment and then remember? How can I have the ability to command a pet to do something like that and not know what the attack is?"

Inside the game, as I was going up through the ranks, I'd purchase an inexpensiveweapon someone had placed on the bazaar hoping to slice it. Try to slice, and, apparently, it had already been sliced. Would have been nice to know before I spent the money. I would love for a simple addendum to the examine feature of any sliceable item: A statement that it has been sliced, and if appropriate, what that slice did to the items features. A container would list that it has been sliced -- that would solve the problemof peopleselling locked, but fubared containers to poor noob smugglers on the bazaar. A weapon that has been sliced would say something like, "This weapon has been sliced for a 25% increase in damage range." No more taking the smuggler's word for it.

How does the Underworld branch and faction points work? I'm covert Reb with positive Reb FPs and neg Imp FPs. I talk to a Reb recruiter and use the new dialogue options I have, and which I assume to have received because of smuggling (still not clear to me), and I'm either told I've already done enough for the cause, or that I'm the third punk inthe last day to try to peddle information to him and to get lost. Try the Imp and he won't even talk to me. Don't even have a clue how I might go about trying to buy/sell FPs like it says I can do in the skill tree boxes.

This applies to all craftable items -- and to deeds. Anything that is important enough to note during the crafting stages should be important enough to note on the item itself. If it's important to know that you've crafted a 95% swoop versus a 99% swoop, shouldn't you be able to look at the swoop and/or it's deed and know that information? Otherwise, I have to rely on the crafter/vendor's description which may or may not be accurate. (Buyer beware should not be a slogan in SWG IMO.)

I'd love to be able to ID a pet's planetary origin and species from an examine -- even if that pet is mine. Sometimes I tame something fun and can't remember where I tamed it or exactly what kind of animal it is. If I gain the ability to command a pet to do something, I'd like to be able to see what that ability is. What is a Giant Crystal Snake's Special Attack 1 and /or 2?

A lot of this comes down to there being no real manual for this game. I understand that a printed manual is relatively worthless as the game continues to expand and evolve. However, I would love it if the in-game systems provided more, and more accurate, information than they now do and that that information would be kept up to date. I love all the new content and tweaks -- as well as the old content. I just want to know whatit is and how I do thingswithout having to leave the game and search the web to find it out.

Oh -- unrelated in general, but still an informational tweak. How about the equivalent of an in-game notice board. Have a shop you want to advertise? Place it on the notice board. Looking for a weapon with certain specs? Notice board. Planning an event? Notice board. I'm hoping it might stop some of the spam outside the starports, but maybe not. *shrug*

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This may just save the game in the long haul if we are limited to 40-50 players in an area for combat. I realize that many more people in an area can happen, but as soon as people start doing other things than miss universe pagents, the Lag Monsters rule SWG. Some of this is avoidable if the data transfers back and forth to the servers is happening at a rate above 3-5 KBps. Please, Please, Please use my 1.5 down/1.0 MBps internet connection to give me the game I paid for. I do not want to play KOTOR and Battle Front to have the star wars fps/rpg/mmo feeling. Based on comments by SOE on these very forums, asking for a high speed only server could clear up much of the lag. Have you watched the Jedi battle movie on this website? When was the last time that ANY combat in the game looked like that?

A typical battle on my blazing-fast(in almost all other games/programs) but not ridiculous Radeon/AMD system (2.2 GHz/1.0GB/128Mb 9700/ADSL)

1 I press the hot-key for my special attack.
2 Combat damage starts scrolling in my text screen.
3 The first shot is fired.
4 The creature notices I've shot them
5 More scrolling of combat damage
6 Death music rolls
7 My death blow shot is animated
8 The corpse of the dead creature strikes me according to the combat text
9 if I'm fighting something big on a planet with other people on it, and the creature managed to damage me during the combat I may in fact die at this point even though the creature is a corpse on screen and I've already heard the death music.
10 I get XP

If I wanted this kind of lag there are MUD's that do much cooler things in their combat text. All this will happen while I'm pinging at 65-75ms with a data transfer of .1 KB or LESS! An equivalent ping time in an FPS, while on an entirely different scale yields . I realize the stats window may be lying to me and some lag is unavoidable otherwise the system just wouldn't be fair (modem vs. broadband players need balancing) but I would be willing to bet my access to the forums that this game would function two or three times better with a broadband only server. The lag beasts have eaten all the spawns on Dantooine on Bloodfin. I don't see lairs spawning where there used to be grauls coming out my ears until 2 in the morning when load has gone back down. This may all be on the server end in which case I'd like a formal response from the devs as to what the known limitations are, what we can expect as an improvement over time as new server hardware becomes available (with the 15$ a month HIGHEST in the INDUSTRY monthly fee I get to demand things like this), and most importantly why a dial up customer and broadband users should be mixing on the same servers other than to give your hardware a break. If you have any complaints about my expectations go steal code from Everquest and Planetside until you can make this work or TELL ME I WILL NEVER SEE LARGE SCALE PVP in SWG AS IT WASN'T DESIGNED FOR IT. Then I can move on to a game that is interested in offering me a pleasurable gaming experience on an otherwise pleasurable gaming machine. I'm trying not to rant, to be constructive, but I'm just too tired with the exodus of so many of my SWG friends. They left because they felt that the cheating, the lag, and the content weren't being fixed or updated. The same faction base walling folk that strafe shot for 10000 points will be here for the space expansion so I guess not retaining the honest players seems to work out for the finance department and ultimately the Devs.

Since there's currently no Artisan Correspondant, I'm posting this here...

The vehicle customization kit requires two steps to operate: first you color the frame or trim, then to color the trim or frame. You can't see both color options at once.

Please update the vehicle customization kit to operate in the same manner as coloring clothing, i.e. giving us both panels at once, allowing us to experiment with both frame and trim color, before committing the change. It's a bit silly that this went live working the way it does.

[Quote]

A) Is what we are seeing now the crackdown in it's final form? Only a few extra stormtroopers around in cantinas and cities and isolated incidents of a significant imperial presence?

or

B) Is this the beginning of the crackdown which over the coming days (weeks?) will evolve into a TRUE crackdown...imperial troops prevelant in ALL cities, ALL starports and regular scans? I remember reading once during the holocron craze that the devs could "tweak" the holocron drop rate at any time. Will the imperial presence be gradually "tweaked" up in the coming days?

Frankly if the answer is not B I think many of us are going to be very, very disappointed [/Quote]

/agree

i talked to some ingame Friends, and nobody i know/asked was Scanned! i just thougt there had been More Stormtroopers in Theed yesterday!

if this is the whole Crackdown, i think Darth Vader have to find a different job. because nobody listens at him

Neehivi

Wanted to comment on the bleed nerf.

Bleeds have become almost worthless with the massive damage reduction. I have no problems with the resists reducing them, but it appears they are being reduced even further than that.

A 300 or so point bleed tick every 20 seconds against a 12k HAM MOB is basically worthless. I use almost that much HAM just to apply the bleed.

I used a bleed on a Bol. Combat spam said 1021 damage. That use to be the amount that was done per tick. When the damage actually went off it was for 323. This was with a T21 against a Bol. Last time I checked they didn't have 68% energy resists.

Wanted to comment on the bleed nerf.

Bleeds have become almost worthless with the massive damage reduction. I have no problems with the resists reducing them, but it appears they are being reduced even further than that.

A 300 or so point bleed tick every 20 seconds against a 12k HAM MOB is basically worthless. I use almost that much HAM just to apply the bleed.

I used a bleed on a Bol. Combat spam said 1021 damage. That use to be the amount that was done per tick. When the damage actually went off it was for 323. This was with a T21 against a Bol. Last time I checked they didn't have 68% energy resists.

Any news on the Imperial hat, and the rank ignisia idea ?

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Taliskar wrote:

Hey Thunderheart,

With the recent crackdown there have been a number of posts dealing with PvP, "Forced PvP", and other such things. What I want to know is:

Is it the developers vision that players who join a faction arethen declared as PvP, or is there a PvE path (within either faction) for those of us who wish to follow it?

-Hyssthi

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The change in PvP philosophy is a big issue and the devs are keeping a close eye on it. Im also watching the boards very closely. As it stands, it is a major shift and if it works, it stays. If it doesnt work, then it goes, but that decision will be made slowly and thoughtfully.

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silversaber wrote:

PvE players donot like PvP because of the mindset ofthe playersthat likePvP. Period.

The thing that makes it different is the INTENT and MALICE that PvPrs bring to the game.

PvPrs enjoy destroying the gameplay of others.

They will find all thebugs that will give them an advantageand exploitthem to the max.

Camping a cloning center and killing people as they respawn over and over again is an amusing tactic to them.

The same with multiple incapping.

PvPrs say that theylike PvP for the challenge. This is utter BS.

PvPrsprefer to find the weakest players and hunt them to the exclusion of anything else.

Ifthey encounter someong equal or stronger, they run away and find another easyNewb to kill.

Usually they will gang up and try to find lone players to kill without risk.

Not with the majority of the PvPers honorless gankers.

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