Development Cycle Archive

It said that this thread will be a discussion thread, so the DEVs could get access to the latest problems, feelings etc, it meant a discussion with the DEVs. So far there as been not one reply from a name in red, I ain't even thatbothered about a solution any more, just want acknowlegement.

Fix npc/playerjedi bountys and droid speed. PLEASE!!!!!!! or at least give us a comment on them.

regarding bounty hunters

harder marks and more interesting content for master.

higher pay for master.

options for quest type missions would be really fun.

bring em back alive missions. not just killing!

npc traps at least, if not full on pc traps! make them different than animal traps.

make bounty hunter guilds more present in the game. we should haveour own faction with sub-factions within that.add variety to each available mission by rewarding guild faction points that could be used to buy special bh items and training to craft and use traps, certified armor and weapons, etc. each hunters guild is a little different. some are imp, some are independent, others specialize in certain types of missions like retrieval, or military spec. ops.

allow bh to place npc informants or spies, that can watch for a certain player (1 at a time) and report to the bh if seen. higher skill level would allow for more npc's to be placed.

please give bh some respectable defense mods

please consider including a minor healing skill to bh investigation line.

thanks, i love this game

I like the idea of BH player controlled spys, that sounds luvly, i like that idea, I like that a lot.

I would like to have open discussions with the Devs concerning the FAILED Jedi system. It needs changing! There is a precident for this, the FAILED combat system is getting a complete overhaul and kudos to the Devs for recognizing it was sorely needed!!

Now lets have genuine dialog pertaining to the FAILED Jedi system and get it re-worked!

Before I even dive into what I would like to see, I would like confirmation from the Devs that yes they in fact agree the system needs a serious overhaul!! So TH is an overhaulof the Failed Jedi system an option or not? Is that too much to ask for our $15 a month?

VolatileMan

Ok, here's what I get on combat, Jedi and BH.

Laugh all you will

Combat needs rebalancing. Bounty Hunters SHOULD be able to hunt any player. Combination templates should not be far, far more powerful then BH, who's primary job is to hunt 'folks' down. Dodge, toughness, blind/dizzy/knockdown defence, ranged and melee could all be part of the VERY high BH levels.

Combat 'breakers':

* Knockdown/Dizzy spam. Solutions: Delay use, make extremely costly to use, increase the delay after using such a move, make it so /stand after already standing does not knock you down again

*Warcry 1/2. Solutions: Prevent players from being affected. Reduce the duration to 5 secs/10 and increase delay of reuse to 1 minute. Prevent this move being spammed.

*Bleeds that do not take into account armor (even seen a Pikeman Bleed 1 and 2 stacked? Whoa.). Solution: Check armor resists to take into account the bleed, cap any bleeds at 100 max against players.

* Flame DOT and 3 incap/death to any player - Flame dmg and DOT should be modified by flame resists, as well as flame should go out when incapped. Good for the game. Cap the Flame DOT damage at 100 max against players.

* Status effects 'stick' even when blocked. Solution: Better check on when a status effect should stick or not. Allow basic Medics to have abilities to cure common battle states, even on themselves when knocked down.

Bounty Hunters:

* Are bored. It's a lot of work to level up investigation, and the rewards for the work are lacking. They do not have much to do at the higher levels. Player Jedi look to be their 'only thing to do'.

Options: Allow NPC Jedi missions, high paying, high difficulty. Track PC Players as mentioned above, where droid tracking works, but partially. Jedi are PLAYERS in the game, with real life. Nature calls, phone calls, door rings. YES- a non-permadeath chasing a permadeath player should be the underdog.

Jedi:

*Fact: More people are unlocking. The concept of 'reducing population' is will not materialize unless SOE makes a decision to prevent the unlocking of force slots. There WILL be a ton of folks with the ability to wield a lightsaber. This is going to be an issues for SOE and the game. However, unlocking was difficult, and supporting a Jedi even without other player interaction is VERY costly. Population control is best achieved by keeping Jedi offline. Not a very fun alternative.Jedi players, who worked their way up to Jedi and playing it, are quitting due to lack of fun. It's a game. Yes, Jedi players are still REAL people with real lives, and play a game. It should be fun. It should be exciting. It should be rewarding.

Solution: SOE has announced numerous times that Jedi is difficult, but rewarding. That a Knight should be able to handle a small group of players, and a master requiring considerable effort to bring down. This will be up to their combat balance team to determine how many players SHOULD a jedi beat right now. I know personally, I have no problems beating a JediApprentice +with a mixed elite brawler template, especially with warcry 2 spam.

*Jedi have permadeath. A lot of Jedi die daily to bugs, exploits, TEF and just bad luck. As BH admit- other classes can beat them in PvP. Other classes can also beat Jedi, even at the higher levels, quite easily.

Solution: I like permadeath for the challenge and the extra encouragement to stay hidden, as long as Jedi have some fairness associated so it's not easy to kill them. However, I also read in the reviews that supposedly development intends to have player Jedi in factionedPvP, against other Jedi, and for players to hunt. These are all great, fun things and good goals to achieve. However- with 3 lives, no sane Jedi player will risk sacrifiing 8 million+ cred saber, 500k+ armor and their 3 lives 'for fun'.

Permadeath can be tweaked in the following ways to greatly reduce the jedi stress factor about such things, but keep them very rare:

a) Regenerating lives, after a period of time: Most people should agree it's quite easy to die as a Jedi. There are bugs, and balancing issues to address, and likely will ALWAYS need addressing. After a Jedi loses their last life, they are not skill wiped, but cannot play Jedi for a week. When they return, they have 3 lives again.

This actually is a 'better' form of population control, since currently if you kill a Jedi three times, they just reroll and voila- the Jedi population has not really gone down. (They might be in for a little revenge too- I already have some ideas on how to ambush a BH with friends using covert detectors etc... tacky eh?)

b) Other games have put in a system to sacrifice XP for lives, or if you die, you are delayed increasing XP until you overcome the loss. 1 million Jedi Xp for a life trade in program, for example. Or if you die, you lose 1 million Jedi XP, which would need to be overcome to continue to level. This rewards Jedi Masters, who have 'nothing to lose' but sure as heck makes it hard to get there. A jedi player can choose to 'risk' 1 million Xp to go out and put on a show for friends, or participate in a duel. BH know they are doing their jobs keeping the Jedi population in check.

*BHshould have many player jedi to hunt. Should they win every engagement, wiping 100's of hours of works? I disagree.

Jedihave basic block defences, but the +15 saber block at Padawan, which is some 5 million combat XP, (50 million pistol XP equivalent) does not make logical sense as their main defence. The development team quoted that Jedi powers were the key to Jedi survival, butthere should be a LOT more passive skills and defences to reflect the Jedi attunement to the force. The above combat 'issues' are very serious against Jedi. BH mention often how they are beaten by an elite class with less time investment. I agree with them- BH should not be that weak. Neither should Jedi be that weak either though.

I'll stop here for now, I really do want the system to have a enjoyable BH/Jedi combat system. For everyone. Jedi really needs to be looked at as a fun and rewarding profession, who pays the price if they get sloppy and a Bounty Hunter hunts them. Players already form bounty hunter guilds and Jedi hunt groups on my server. Those will be the folks to take care of the more skilled Jedi. Bounty Hunters should be respected and feared for their combat abilities.

Yes, I know not all the ideas are awesome, but hopefully you see what I'm trying to say here.

Ren

They are changing the jedi system, it said it that christmas letter to the players, its the at the bottom. Still deos'nt say how they are gunna change it tho, could be the Jedi itself or even the way to unlock the slot, who knows.

Please fix warping. It is often the thing that causes the mob I am sniping to agro and kill me.

Thanks

There is an old issue, most postings in Aug/Sept, with characters becomming invisible.

I have been having a lot of trouble with that in my little group. One member goes invisible to another (or all) and is hard to coordinate with and impossible to heal. Only cure is logoff/return, a real pain. Since it usually occurs in the field, it feels hazardous as well, though no real problems have occured that way.

From some forum research, most of the issue discussion centered on people exploiting this for PVP. That aspect is not my concern, though it should be a developer concern. For me it is a time wast and irritation issue that seriously damages the fun of group combat. It causes conflict ( Why didn't you heal me!) and confusion as well as delays.

From the forums, it seems to be associated with mounting and dismounting which makes sense. It is supposedly predictable enough to be exploited, but I have not found how to avoid it.

Is there any information on how to avoid this bug (other than perhaps not using mounts/vehicles which would be unacceptable)? I hope this is being actively worked for a fix, it is horribly irritating and has been occuring 2-3 times a night when grouping for combat.

Baby mobs ranged attacks are doing as much damage as the full grown mobs.

IE: savage quenkers.

There have been other reports of this. Is this normal??

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Wepps wrote:

Discussion on the disparity of stacking defenses between professions

The following is a report on a several of the standard Bounty Hunter, and other popular templates, and their defensive totals:

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Master Bounty Hunter / 0-4-0-3 Carbineer

Skill Cost: 249

+24 Ranged Defense

+2 Melee Defense

Ranged Mitigation 3

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Master Bounty Hunter / 0-4-0-3 Pistoleer

Skill Cost: 249

+24 Ranged Defense

+32 Melee Defense

+10 Dodge

Ranged Mitigation 3

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Master Bounty Hunter / 0-4-0-3 Rifleman

Skill Cost: 249

+64 Ranged Defense

+32 Melee Defense

+10 Block

Ranged Mitigation 3

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First of all, you made the same mistake others have made in the comparison sweepstakes - you omitted offensive power and abilities. You can't measure combat balance unless you measure everything that goes into combat, ie, offense, not just defense.

Second of all, you omitted a number of other templates available to Bounty Hunters. I'll list only one because I know this one has accurate numbers (though I'm not entirely confident with the Dodge figure):

Master Bounty Hunter / 3,0,4,0 Pistoleer (cost: 249)

• +24 Ranged defense


• +2 Melee Defense


• +60 Dodge


• +40 D v Stun


• +40 D v Blind


• +50 D v KD


• +20 v Posture Change (Down)


• Ranged Mitigation 3

Granted, that template just shows defenses - there are actually offensive bonuses in that template as well, which are important to know in considering whether or not it's worth investing points in those skills.

Anyway, regardingthat BH/Pistoleerdefense-oriented template, you could do similar things with Carabineer andRifleman, taking the defensive skills you prefer. Block, Dodge, Counterattack, Ranged Defense, Melee Defense, etc - they're all available with those extra 33 skillpoints if you really want them.

But the bottom line is that you can't show actual combat balance if you just pick out one particular piece of the equation. Only a fool uses the tip of the iceberg as a basis for concluding its actual size.

Im going to join the rest of the voices crying for a fix to the droid speed bug.

Give Master Bounty Hunters +1 to missions. Give a MBH some reason for existing other than PvP jedi missions. As pointed out earlier, not everyone want to PvP.

Fix HAM costs for carbines. It is absurd when my weapon hurts me more than the MOB Im fighting

Add a simple tag to items so we can tell if they have been sliced. Make the wording a different color, anything to show them as sliced

Fix HAM costs for armor. It is absurd that as a zabrak I have to dope up and fill up just to suit up in decent armor, and before you wookies say it, yes I know. At least I can wear armor.

Fix the loot system...some of the drops are absurd. I killed a Mauler Chief last night and he 'dropped' a pair of womens shoes? Cross-Dressing Maulers? How Chic

This is a good game, but it does have the potential to be so much better.