Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Live Issues Publish 9: Secrets of the Force PT II
Vlherg
Wed Jul 07, 2004 10:57 am
#183
I don't think I could have put this any better than as above. None of us asked for these delays, almost none of us want them Don't mess around finding ways to keep them in game. Make your customers happy, take them out as soon as you can and add resistances toJedi robesso that Jedi won't have any desire to wear armour.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Ok....question.....
Why are you asking for this to be inserted into the combat queue, when MOST (not just many) of us hate this change and want it immediately removed?
Doesn't having the developers spend valuable time programming this into the combat queue just make it less likely that the change will ever be reversed?
Doesn't that just just put another nail in the coffin that we are trying to fight our way out of?
I think that considering player desires on this issue, asking for this to be placed in the combat queue is the LAST thing we should ever be asking for. If you are really and truely going to represent our interests, I encourage you to fight this as well as the delay itself.
(NOTE: "Cue" is a prompt to do something...."Queue" is a waiting line.)
12) Jedi Robes not providing enough protection
Lingering Jedi Issue – we are discussing the possibilities.
That is correct. This issue is HUGE because this is the ONLY reason the armor delay nerf was implemented in the first place.
Jedi robes erroneously provide no protection to the wearer, giving Jedi players an incentive to wear conventional armor and macro-switch.
You REALLY need to do the right thing here: Recommend that (1) Jedi Robes be upgraded to have armor resistances that are balanced with the developer views of how powerful Jedi should be; (2) prohibit jedi padawans and above from wearing conventional armor; and (3) Get rid of the armor delay for the 33 classes that have no unbalancing effect from instantaneous armor equipping.
The jedi forums are FILLED with Jedi saying "my robes are so worthless that I never wear them." If you add armor resistances liek the jedi are asking for, the jedi will have no incentive to wear conventional armor, and the developers will have no reason to nerf armor with a equip delay.
Renairdor
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:03 am
#184
Posting a bit of background on Jedi Knights in PvP. I made Dark Jedi Knight last Friday, and spent the last 4 days seeing how things look on 'live'. I had the pleasure of dueling a number of hardcore PvP and PvE folks to compare advantages, disadvantages, bugs, etc...
Any 'pure ranged' is fodder for a Master LS Jedi, regardless of other jedi skills. Pistol, Carbine, Rifle, BH, Commando. Flame DOT can be 'blocked'. To me, this is over-powering in PvP and needs a 'nerf'. 85% saber block is extremely powerful. Sure it matches what's 'in the movies', but we're in a game here- and since shots do not kill on one hit, and jedi have toughness mods, this should be reduced.
Issue 1: Master Jedi have 'overpowering' ranged blocking that means any jedi hunter (ie: BH) is overpowered.
Most'pure melee' is fairly tough for a jedi, but can be defeated- they cannot hit or do enough damage to a jedi (Knight anyways). Arendel moved his template to PvE as a Master Heavy Swordsman, and we were both baffled how rarely he could hit me as TKA or Swords. He was only 0440 fencer at the time, so I had no trouble hitting him. His mitigation and toughness, especially as TKA, and with intimidate spam and synthsteak, made it pretty hard for me to kill him though. It took a few minutes, even with a rather uber saber using 4 45 dmg+, -8 and -9 crystals to incap him. 1H head hits are pretty well nerfed now. With 2 vasarian alone, he could regen almost all the mind damage I could do to him. The jedi high level moves inflict blind, stun and dizzy which reduce a melee effectiveness considerably.
Issue 2: Melee Mitigation and toughness reduces damage considerably. This alone is not a 'big deal' but compounded with mind and stat buffs in the multi thousands resulting in extremely fast state regen, a 30-50 pt mind hit is going to require a good 100 hits to bring down a single melee artist. Since health/action healing is readily available to a melee artist taking this low damage, and the melee can spam intimidate on a jedi, a melee vs jedi battle is long, but a little dull, and it's generally going to drain a jedi force pool completely dry.
Issue 3: Head hits from a 'uber 4th gen' saber do not do enough damage. The damage is regenned almost as fast as inflicted in PvP. However, 'regular' melee damage is heavily reduced by intimidate (2/3 reduction!) and synth steak (most PvP folks I know use this- 32 hits are reduced by half, those hits 'dodged' do not count). Even as master defender, for some reason I'm easy to intimidate. That alone reduces the jedi combat ability by 66%, and can be stacked. Cure the intimidate, there is a few second delay, and it's easily reapplied.
Mixed melee are likely to beat even a Jedi knight. Mixed being some medic, master fencer, some TKA. It will be a long battle, but the jedi will run out of force before they can incap the mixed melee. As the 1H head hits are really weak (picture 35 dmg to the mind/second against a 2k+ mind enemy. I've seen 3k+ fairly common in prepared PvP...), it comes down to the master LS moves- and they do about 55-75 dmg against a master fencer. When they hit. Only if you get lucky as a Jedi and get the KD/Dizzy combo will you defeat your enemy. Odds are same that the enemy can do the KD/DIzzy on the Jedi, and the Jedi is using 3x force cost/second on their high level specials to even 'scratch' a mixed melee. So, I have a pool of 7290, I'm using 13x3 (39) force on my really nice PvP saber/second. Regen is about 7 per second. Net loss 32/second, not counting force run, speed or other powers. Combat moves alone it's about 200 strikes, but in reality with the saber throws for KD and Slashes for bleed/posture down it's about 150 moves before completely out of force. 150 moves at 50 damage is 7500 total damage, spread out on all pools- thats just not enough to kill a melee with abilities to heal themselves. (note- no DOT was applied to me in two test cases. If a200+ (common NS drop)health or mind poison was applied, it would have meant easy victory for melee!)
Issue 4: A fencer/tka/medic takes little damage from a Jedi in PvP, but can heal themselves of all damage in one stim. The fencer/tka/medic can spam heals, specials and any combination and keep a full ham bar. The mind bar is the only viable target for a jedi, but the damage for even the best mind targeted special is quite low. The brawler in any fencer/tka can use at least intimidate 1, reducing the jedi damage considerably. This move can be spammed- it occassionally fails, but the net result of Jedi vs hybrid medic/melee is the Jedi needs to run away.
Combat medic/Doc combos: Pure CM/Docs will die really fast as they have no mitigation, dodge, toughness. They will get a poison and disease off, and a jedi without ability to cure this will still get incapped. With the cure ability, it takes about 30 seconds to clear the poison/disease and the main issue here is you 'need' to take down the CM/Doc or they will continue spamming it. In that time, the poisons and diseases will 'tick' and the jedi is really weakened. So you can win, but it's bittersweet.
Issue 5: Disease actually still incaps a player, even out of combat. Poisons can be stacked, never miss, are not mitigated. A jedi without poison cure/disase cure is defeated with a simple poison/disease attack.
Combat Medic/Melee templates : Pure jedi 'Ownage'. You can't kill them fast enough, they can poison and disease you, then they just need to survive. Rez called on me last night for a duel, I made a couple minor mistakes but he truly kicked my ass. I could barely touch him- saber throw, dodged, saber throw hits but no KD, slash for bleed, cured, dizzy, cured... hehe. Tried the 1H mind hits as well since I knew he obviously had medic skills to heal action/health, about 2/3 landed but he regenned the mind pretty fast, dmg 35-45 I think. Went to Flurry 2, which did a bitmore damage (65-70 a hit?) - this regular damage hedid heal with stims, when mind was getting a little low he healed it with food. I used Avoid Incap, but what was interesting was just how fast my force bar was drained due to poisons and diseases - so I had about 90 seconds of invulnerability, then force was drained out. I did forget to Equilibrium, too busy trying to watch numbers, but it would have just delayed things about fifteen more seconds.
Issue 6: This is a really great PvP template. Master fencer dodge means most attacks flat out miss. Mitigation and toughness means the damage from players is greatly reduced. Doctor can heal self of states, poisons. The partial CM allows single disease and poisons- used with Havla this is powerful for self cures, and applying poisons faster then normal. Poisons never miss, even a lvl B posion can easily have 100+ potency. A jedi against such a template has 'no chance'.
So, this fits the dev 'vision' at least - Jedi own ranged, Jedi are owned by melee. CM/Melee is a nasty PvP combo in any situation especially with some Doc which I assume Rez has for state/poison cures.
Finally found out what happens to a jedi on death (and what a weird warp... we were fighting in close one sec, I was on force run2, next I was incapped - I think by disase? and warped 90...) since a 'helpful' nightsister DB'd me after the duel. It was a duel to the death, so was expecting Rez to DB- but I think they system gave him credit due to the damage he did. I lost all 497 FRS exp gained from the day before (8 kills doh!), setting me back to 0, and 200k jedi xp lost on clone (no biggie, still have 600k banked up and I can't spend it anyways unless I change template). So it appears to me that making ranks in the new system is extremely difficult. Which is good, if anyone makes that insanely high Overlord box, we know they had to work for it. Even so, I am curious if they can survive a good poison storm.
Issue 7: Well, from above tests it seems even a Jedi knight with 'uber saber' can only really defeat a small % of the PvP population- ranged - for FRS. However, on death you lose at least 5x the FRS you gain from killing an Overt.
Issue 8: Covert Rebels attack via Group TEF, and this must be a bug- they give -1 FRS on a kill.
As to Jedi dominating PvP, this goes back to my original thoughts- they have a place in PvP, but certainly will not dominate it. Jedi are definitely handy in PvE though. Since it seems to take 10 kills to equal one death, I'll be fairly surprised to see many Knights in organized PvP unless with extremely strong squads to back them up. Definitely not a single jedi 'rampaging'.
Ren
Message Edited by Renairdor on 07-07-2004 01:36 PM
DragonFire7
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:26 am
#185
TH you urself were the one who told us PSG's would have this resistance! They do have this resistance I have tested it. Granted it shifts out when u log or cross server lines But i assume that is due to the old stat shifting bug that most have just been quick fixed and not actually fixed
8) Personal Shield Generators: There are reports on the forums about being resistant to lightsabers.This is incorrect.If you find information to the contrary, please post it.
Akel
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:27 am
#186
My two cents on the Jedi TEF removal - (Smartest thing the Devs ever did, do NOT bring it back and here's why)
1. I worked for 9 months to try to become a jedi. I wanted to be a Jedi from the day I bought the game. I understand that everyone has worked hard on their character and that does not make me special, but... I pay 15 bucks a month like everyone else does. Does that mean that I'm not allowed to go to a POI? Does that mean I shouldn't be able to travel with my wife and go on guild hunts and large hunting groups, just because my sword glows and yours doesn't? Does that mean that because I am a Jedi I should not be allowed to participate in the GCW because I'm powerful? NO IT DOES NOT! There are Jedi both light and dark, it's balanced. There are players that regardless of how strong I am, they can kill me because maybe they aresmarter... have better equipment... have a faster machine or better connection, have more friends to attack at once... So what that I can take out a BH one on one easily... It doesn't mean I can take out a group of them... They are jealous that I can now enjoy the game, like they do... They are jealous because their sword doesn't glow... Get over it 12 year olds. I pay to play this game too!
2. I agree that Jedi should not show off in cities and in public places. I personally would like to see some massive visibility hits for players that pull their weapons in public, but they should not be TEF'd by the entire city. If I have to come to the cantina to get healed or the med center and a BH attacks me... I should be able to defend myself w/o the entire city being able to immediately stomp me, however everyone that sees that happen should probably report me and get me on the BH terms... that would make perfect sense and I have no problem with that. I'm sure the BH's would appreciate this too... My main is a BH and there was nothing worse than having your bounty in sight and attacking him in town only for him to be deathblowed by some bystander because the jedi then had a tef for pulling his saber. If I'm attacking the jedi, I want to be able to do the job, not the street mob. I have killed numerous jedi with my BH, you have to use TACTICS, you have to use your brain... no one standing head to head is going to get the 150k and 3k xp, they are tough, but you can follow them, you can watch them, you can catch them off guard and they CAN be killed easily if you use your brain, they are not TOO powerful, unbalancing or content destroying... what is a Star Wars game without Jedi? Certainly not Star Wars!
3. Reinstating the TEFs will just make the class, in a two words... NO FUN. It's not fun to play a massively multiplayer game online by yourself. It's not fun to never be able to hunt with your friends. Its not fun to never be able to go to a dungeon and fight. The bottom line is that there will always be idiots that AFK camp places and exploit things, but it's not a Jedi issue!!! I have seen countless accounts of Rifleman prone in the geo cave AFK camping the spawn in the upper cave to get XP, should their class be NERFed because of a couple of idiots? NO. Should Jedi be punished for a couple of people that AFK camp or duel in town? NO There will always be AFK campers... I personally agro a bunch of monsters and drag them over to the AFK'ers and get their sorry butts killed. But playing in this manner does not mean you should nerf the entire community for it.
Sythlie
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:29 am
#187
My Jedi is still unplayable after the conversion went awry the day of the publish. Details here. I'd appreciate any word on how/when fixes will be implemented. The last word from customer service is my problem was referred t development.
kronus909
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:30 am
#188
Renairdor : One hand saber isnt a good saber to pvp with , you should use all those good pearls/crystals into a polearm and then u can defeat those ppl you couldnt defeat with one hand
Message Edited by kronus909 on 07-07-2004 11:31 AM
wookgunner
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:40 am
#189
Great read Renaidor! 
Now where in the galaxy do the ranged professions fit?
Now where in the galaxy do the ranged professions fit?When I first loaded this gameon day 2 I thought how silly it is to see swordsman, pikemen, fencers, and unarmed professions. This wasStar Wars after all... blasters and light sabers. Only those dumb pigs Jabba kept had melee weapons. I spent the first 7 months of the game resisting melee professions until I realizedthere was no way I could take on the content in this game without it. So my combat ALT picked up swordsman to go with carbine. Swordsman just rocked inits damage potential and ability to absorb hits.Good bye carbine.
Now jedi make the ranged professions even more worthless. 
I hope the DEVs get the ranged professions right in the combat balance. I am not going to say one profession should be better than another, but all combat professions of equal skill points should be equivalent.
Matsubaa
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:45 am
#190
Armor/Weapon switching going onto the combat timer was okay but we're also being forced to wait outside of combat.
Can we quickly equip *before* combat begins please?
Jefferys
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:50 am
#191
lucifermnm wrote:
6) 0/0 Items: For the most part, this is not an issue. If an item is appearing as 0/0, its condition is correct, except in the case of Ubese shirts. If you have any specific examples, please post them in this thread. There was some discussion of brand new items being 0/0, but we have no in house examples and could not reproduce it in QA. If you have any information, please post it.
Issue:
Each time I log in and check my inventory or bank different items show as red. This includes numerous brand new Nightsister and Rancor enhanced composite armor pieces in my bank. Sometimes some 0/0 clothing is shown as red (correctly) while at the same time ubese bandolier and random brand new armor also shows as red. The only things that seem to remain showing as red are my mineral and chemical survey tools and ubese bandolier.
Server: Bloodfin
Planet:Tatooine
Location (x,y): 5982 3660
Your profession:Master Armorsmith, Master Artisan, novice tailor, novice merchant
Instructions on how to recreate the bug: Login and check inventory and bank inventory.
I have the same bank problem. I have Items that are showing red and they are not 0/0. I had three Items showing red and I picked up one into my inventory and it was ok, It didn't show red in my inventory. I'll put it back in and see if it still stays red.
There are Items that do not have any type of condition numbers on them. Example is crafting tools and I think suryvey tools.
It would be real nice to have some numbers so I know ahead of time that they are going to be useless.
Thanks,
Alen Vondor
Radiant
Daker-Naritus
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:55 am
#192
ThorsAnvil wrote:
gaundi wrote:
1. Make it so jedi cannot wear armor..They have robes now that are supposed to do the same thing.
Not a flame, but something you need to consider.
When is a jedi not a jedi?
in patch 10, anyone unlocking will start off with there mains and mini jedi, and as you climb the branches you remove your old prof skills and work up jedi.
So if you want to go hunting with your guild in TKA mode, should you be allowed to wear armor? and what about those force sensitive attributes.
All I am saying is being a jedi is not a switch you can turn on or off. its an evolution of ones toon.
When is a jedi a jedi? That is an easy question.....
Any FS person can take on the passive "force-sensitive" skills...these are not limited by armor in any way, so your TKA can continue to wear armor.
After you spend a bunch of points on force sensitive skills (NOTE: already giving up non-jedi skills), you have the choice to take it a step further and become a "JEDI Padawan." JEDI. To become a JEDI Padawan, you join the JEDI order. You make the conscious choice to become a JEDI.
That is when the person becomes a jedi, and when the player should no longer be able to wear armor.
Now, lots of people have "but that's not fair" arguments in response to removing conventional armor at padawan....none of them hold water.
First, players advocating no jedi armor (to eliminate the armor-equip delay) are NOT arguing that Jedi should not have ANY resists. They are simply saying "Jedi should not be able to wear normal armor, and instead Jedi robes should have armor resists." Jedi themselves are also asking for armor resists on robes.
No one is asking for Jedi to have no armor, they are just asking Devs for a different form of Jedi armor so that the 33 non-jedi classes do not have to suffer though an armor delay. In your example, that TKA/Jedi would use robe armor instead of composite.
Second, the whole Jedi process is ALL ABOUTreplacing comventional skills (like TKA) with Jedi skills. To progress, all force sensitive characters have to forgo/drop skills like TKA to take up jedi skills. That is the nature of the beast.
Being a jedi is like joining a cult with a bunch of strict rules. When you become one you (1) embrace the lightsaber and stop using blasters, (2) stop wearing regular clothes and armor---your lightsaber is your armor, and (3) "use the force"---you trust the force above all, and rely on it to protect you.
It makes sense that somewhere in on the road between padawan and master you stop wearing conventional armor. As you said, it IS an evolution. HOWEVER, how do you evolve the use of armor? Do you say that the person cannot wear a right bracer after 20 jedi skill points, and can't wear a left bracer after 40? Armor is an all or nothing thing. The transition must take place somewhere, and where that transition takes place is irrelevant. The devs shouldplace wherever the devs decide itis best.
Being that the devs have ALREADY made that decision however, by prohibiting force powers at padawan while wearing conventional armor, it makes sense that they would continue that trend and cut conventional armor off at the padawan level. At that point, the force (i.e. your robe) begins to protect you, and you have no need for armor.
Message Edited by Daker-Naritus on 07-07-2004 02:00 PM
Betatoxin
Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:57 am
#193
Excellent post Renairdor.
I think it illustrates extremely well the fatal flaw in balance in SWG.
According to your analysis the progression of power in PvP is
Ranged < Jedi < Melee < CM/DOC + Melee
Jedi is close in power to a pure melee template unless they are fencer and ranged is very much below jedi.
The real flaw I see from this post and my experience in game is that there is no rock paper scissors in SWG, there are only grades of uberness. The only way for someone to deal with an uber template is to copy that template. This is, from a game perspective, fundamentally broken and results in very little diversity.
This is where the developers have screwed up completely in SWG. A properly balanced game would have classes that are strong against some opponents and weak against others.
To see how flawed the combat model in SWG is you only need to contrast the SWG combat model with Planetside, an SOE title which is an 100% PvP MMOG yet plays more fairly than SWG ever has.
In Planetside I have on one of my characters the "uber" infantry template. Rexo armor, Heavy Assault, Personal Shield. I can mow through 3 or 4 medium assault and agile armored opponents without too much trouble inside at close range. However if instead I am outside running to get into a base and get caught by a tank or an aircraft am I pretty much dead before I even know what hit me. That same aircraft or tank that is so devastating against an HA infantry person is itself vulnerable if it comes up against 2 or 3 infantry with AV weapons.
In Planetside no matter how skilled a player is if they have the wrong loadout for the situation they are at a huge disadvantage. This results in an inherent fairness, that no one player can have all of the skills/equipment at once that makes them invicible on the battle field.
SWG on the other hand allows one player who chooses the correct template to have nearly all of the advantages with very few weaknesses. This is evidenced by your analysis.
I think your post is a pretty fair treatment of how the SWG developers have failed the players in providing a workable balanced system despite having 4 years of development 1 year of release.
I think it illustrates extremely well the fatal flaw in balance in SWG.
According to your analysis the progression of power in PvP is
Ranged < Jedi < Melee < CM/DOC + Melee
Jedi is close in power to a pure melee template unless they are fencer and ranged is very much below jedi.
The real flaw I see from this post and my experience in game is that there is no rock paper scissors in SWG, there are only grades of uberness. The only way for someone to deal with an uber template is to copy that template. This is, from a game perspective, fundamentally broken and results in very little diversity.
This is where the developers have screwed up completely in SWG. A properly balanced game would have classes that are strong against some opponents and weak against others.
To see how flawed the combat model in SWG is you only need to contrast the SWG combat model with Planetside, an SOE title which is an 100% PvP MMOG yet plays more fairly than SWG ever has.
In Planetside I have on one of my characters the "uber" infantry template. Rexo armor, Heavy Assault, Personal Shield. I can mow through 3 or 4 medium assault and agile armored opponents without too much trouble inside at close range. However if instead I am outside running to get into a base and get caught by a tank or an aircraft am I pretty much dead before I even know what hit me. That same aircraft or tank that is so devastating against an HA infantry person is itself vulnerable if it comes up against 2 or 3 infantry with AV weapons.
In Planetside no matter how skilled a player is if they have the wrong loadout for the situation they are at a huge disadvantage. This results in an inherent fairness, that no one player can have all of the skills/equipment at once that makes them invicible on the battle field.
SWG on the other hand allows one player who chooses the correct template to have nearly all of the advantages with very few weaknesses. This is evidenced by your analysis.
I think your post is a pretty fair treatment of how the SWG developers have failed the players in providing a workable balanced system despite having 4 years of development 1 year of release.
SimDroid
Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:07 pm
#194
jalia wrote:
3 Words:
QUICKSAND MAINTAINANCE BUG
How DARE you let this remain in the game?
How DARE you play ignorant of the occurance of this issue?
How DARE you DELETE 37 PAGES OF ISSUES YOUR SUBSCRIBERS POSTED IN EARNEST?
(Part I illustrates the issues with support and developer response, maybe thats why)
Regarding the maintenece-eating bug....
From what I understand this is an OLD AND UN-DEALT-WITH ISSUE. (I see posts mentioning this as more than 6 months old, if not a beta issue)
It HIT ME YESTERDAY for the first time so I will stay quiet no longer on the topic.
2 Factories with WEEKS of maint went into disrepair within 72 hours of placing them at their new locations on corellia (used to be on talus)
I have not lost anything. OTHER PEOPLE HAVE LOST THEIR IN-GAME LIVELIHOODS.
see this post as a good example:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=architect&message.id=59956&highlight=fivo#M59956
DEVS : You owe the community as many sleepless nights as it takes you to fix this.
AS IN : START TONIGHT AND DONT STOP TILL YOU FIGURE IT OUT.
-JALIA (VERY reluctant to keep putting up with all this....)
LOL! Are you serious? Sleepless nights my backside! The only time that the developers will be working extra hours is when they are struggling to meet a deadline. They owe the players nothing. They may owe it to themselves or to the cutter of their paychecks to be sure that what they start is finished to completion, but they owe the players nothing. Anyone who has lost their "livelihood" because of a coding malfunction in a computer game needs to hit the power button and seriously re-think their life.
*shakes head*
Gaenjin
Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:14 pm
#195
17) Jedi TEF’s: We are reassessing this change now.
No!!
The FRS system is for PVP.
You people promised "PVE-only" (except for BH missions) as well as our choice of faction, instead of sticking us Imperials with Rebel Jedi !!! Hordes of Imperial NPCs should descend upon Rebels and Neutralsusing Force in City zones. If you force us Imperials into the Rebel faction again, just because you can't come up with any other creative way to control Rebel and Neutral Padawans from displaying their powers... we're NOT going to be happy.
I'm sorry that some players are annoying others with their "Jedi-ishness" in Cities, but that's life in an online game. People areat their worst becauseof the anonymity of the Internet,and there's little anyone can do about it.
As far as all the "complaints" go, I can guarantee thatif I were tostand outside of Theed Starport all day, in my Padawan robe, doing nothing andsaying nothing, and someone would get upset by my presence and "report" me or post a complaint. That's just ridiculous.
Seriously, the line has to be drawn somewhere on whining and game achievement jealousy. If all this is going to turn into, is a game where the players of the community are set against each other, OOCly, by the Development and Designteam, then let us know now so I can feed another company my money.