Development Cycle Archive

A fix for jedi bounty hunter missions would be very appreciated.

Thunderheart, I was wondering if as part of SOE's drive to communicate better with it's customers that they could look at how the banner is used in the chatroom available from the launchpad.

Last weekend FarStar was up and running fine however no one could log in for at least3 hours (basically the whole morning fro us Europeans) and may have been like that since it came back from maintenance (this would have been over 6 hours).

I have no problems with server issues, the problem though was when I asked the resident CSR's to change the banner to reflect the issues they were having I was told that they couldn't change it.

Now I know some CSR's can change the banner, I have been there when they have done it.

Wouldn't it make sense to give the CSR's on duty some means of showing people of a known issue that has been on going for say 30 mins to an hour?

Instead we had a new person come into the chat room every couple of minutes and their first question was, is there a problem with FarStar?

You have the tools in place, the banner in the chatroom, the launcpad status and even a web status on the site but to be honest the only things they all currently show is when the servers go down for their daily maintenance, there is no where that you show of problems.

I am guessing an indication of problems isn't something you want to advertise but surely it's us who should be kept happier?

I don't know about anyone else but I certainly would prefer it if I could just see at an instance a potential problem listed with an ETA of a fix rather then have to ask about it, this shows to me that it's known and somebody is on the case instead of gettgin vague answers from CSR's as we do now.

Removal of 1% decay when insured, it basically kills PvP, either you PvP nakes and get one shot killed (how fun) or you PvP with armor and take 2 shots to die and then getting decay that adds up (I lost 20% off my pants alone tonight from decay...care to tell me to NOT PvP anymore? I'd tell you it's the only remotely fun thing to do anymore) But, if you must make death sting in some sense please only make decay happen to coverts (no PvP, or shouldn't be PvPing, means they don't die as much, so they don't suffer this decay anyways) and give overt people no decay when insured, I mean we're already paying for insurance, there's your money sink, why do we have to buy new armor every week? That just means more money goes to crafters and STILL never leaves the system.

naked*

Turret maximum range bug. Players can sit out of the turret's range and snipe it to death with a launcher pistol. Considering the insane number of faction points which are invested in these turrets, this deserves a hotfix, and players who have lost their turrets due to this exploit should have the deeds for them restored to their inventories.

General base defense needs an AI upgrade, defenses need to be much more potent. I have an Imperial tactical center. A week ago, a rebel group consisting of 8 coverts and 5 grauls decided to practice their base storming techniques on me. They grouped up, got a TEF from the covert scanner, proceeded without the 2 front large tower turrets firing at them, ran helter skelter through the minefield, all 13 of them, without a single mine exploding (the minefield has a full compliment of 20 mines), and bam, they were in the door, mission accomplished. I should have had 3 squads of stormtroopers (with perhaps a couple AT-STs mixed in as well) guarding the base to ward them off. However, my 3 squads of defense NPCs had down to the last man deserted, just wandered off into the wilderness due to a bug in their patrol AI or something, within an hour of the server coming up, and were unknown kilometers away.

Remember how in Return of the Jedi Han Solo and Artoo had to slice open the door while under fire to get access to the Imperial bunker? Why not make it like that? Add some inner compound defenses like small turrets so people can't just zerg rush in, and add small turrets to the base's corridors so there'll still be one final chance to defend against them once they're in. The warren has a small turret for defense inside the structure, and the Death Star had turrets inside, Han Solo and Chewbacca and Luke had to fight them off.

Drag incapacitated players has been broke for a while now. Any time I try and use this ability on a incapped covert friend, I get the "unwise to help" message, though I can still heal them etc. (yes I am neutral, they are covert.. But they are not tef'd)

Doctor buffs appear to have some type of timer bug. Whenever I buff someone with my buffs, and they log out it seems that the buffs are removed (assuming they are out of the game for more than about 2-3 minutes..) but the timer is not. Sometimes this can be very annoying. Especially if I just buffed someone then they have something bad happen (a squirrel explodes in thier computer...).. Next time they log in, they will have to wait upwards of 2 hours before they can be buffed by anyone.

Getting launched from vehicles... Quite strange, and somewhat dangerous for me.... as the healer of the group most times... get launched into the middle of the lair, or whatnot...

Doctor cannot buff/heal mind.. Yes, I realize these two have been allocated to other classes. It just seems to me that in the healing classes, doctor should be able to do one or both... For healing, allow CMs to do it at range... limit docs like normal stims.. For buffing.... well, entertainers get to do it for the cost of time, Docs, obviously would do it with packs...


Now for a few ideas rattling around inside my head...

Droids need a lot of work.. One thing that could help with droids, and just about everything else in this game, would be "after market upgrades"... Being able upgrade my droids, vehicles, weapons, armor, etc with addons, would be a ton of fun! I realize in a way stuff like this is already in the game.. but it's all done before I buy the weapon.. I can add a powerup... neat... but not quite all that much fun, since powerups at this point almost feel required...

Considering that these types of aftermarket upgrades could add a world of new possiblities for players to craft, and possible loot drops. I'm kinda thinking a system along the lines of the krayt tissues stuff... where when you kill monsters, they drop tissues... or other possible things when you loot them.. These items have various resource settings, and are taken to different crafters for different add ons.. Like, how about a +10 to strength for a mamien muscle fiber, that we first take to a master artisan, and then we pop it into our armor into one of the sockets.... It's a perm peice of the armor,until the armor is decayed... Things like that... Different ways than just the skill tapes... Vary the bonuses for the difficulty of different creatures, etc..

Put the ability to have sockets in just about anything in the game... so that a weapon smith can built a vehicle weapon taking 1-4 sockets that I could mount onto my swoop, or a booster thruster that I could add to my vehicle from a master artisan that would eat extra health while I had it turned on, or required tatooine sunburns to run off of, or an automated repair system from a Droid Eng, that would slow down my vehicle's decay rate... maybe a survey/extractor device from an architect that would allow me to survey a little... there are millions of possiblities here.. even some rare interesting ones that drop from high level mobs.

Jury rigging, and "Special modifications" seemed to be a huge part of star wars, noone used stock equipment really, (well cept for stormtroopers..heh) Boba Fett pretty much had all custom equipment, and except for his genetic problems with jet packs, it all gave him some kind of edge.. Han and the Falcon, prime examples of this... I don't think any part of the Falcon was stock..heh



My last little tid bit would be to say, where are the capes?? I realize I'm just some schmoe in the universe, and not near as cool as Han, Chewy, or any of the major players... During Obiwan's altercation on Tat, I was probably in the bathroom.. But I mean C'Mon, even Lando got to wear a cape!


To many random ideas... not enough time...
May the force ...something something...
Raalishi

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.

It was no mistake, offensive output is not worth mentioning, since it holds little weight for the Master Bounty Hunter when comparing. I'll explain later.

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

Offensively, Pistoleer skills are useless to a Bounty Hunter. If pursuing defenses, yes this would be an acceptable possibility. Still, when you look at these totals, other templates are capable of gaining as much as 160 more ranged defense, than a Bounty Hunter could possibly gain investigating these skills.

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.

First I will discuss Pistols.

The only useful special to a Bounty Hunter, anywhere in the skill trees at this time, is Torso Shot. Even though it is equal to the highest offensive output of any BH special at the 4th tier, 3x power bonus, it still must hit the target. The fact that we are faced with these defenses in combat, which you say force us to pursue defensive templates of low quality ourselves, causes a situation where the only state change we can apply in PvP combat is the Fire DoT from the Torso shot. This is not even to mention that the best attack in the lower trees of Smuggler is a 6x power bonus. It's seems off to me that the best Bounty Hunter attack outside mastery is half the firepower of the best Smuggler attack.

However, hitting the target, again, is the problem. If we ignore the offensive templates in favor of weak defensive ones as you suggest, we can never possibly hit the final template mentioned. So, offensively we have to pursue these from either Carbineer, or Pistoleer to compensate for our lack of output.

Pistoleer is useless to us. By taking those skills, you end up missing the target, just at a faster rate.

Carbineer, however, offers possibilities in which the Bounty Hunter can gain as much as +180 accuracy in carbines, and a working knockdown.

The only problem with this possibility?

At +180, facing the +184 ranged defense template, the Bounty Hunter hits on an average of 1 in 10 times, proven in tests. In fact, the tester in question stated he'd be happy if he could get it out so that he could hit even half the time.

Let's discuss other offensive issues.

While every other profession in the game has working specials, all those associated with Bounty Hunter, except the dizzy effect on Fire Knockdown, and the Fire DoT on the Torso shot, and all effects on the sprayshot, have been deliberately disabled, based upon the presumption that the Bounty hunter is overpowered.

Each of the effects associated with the previous 6 months of nerfs in Bounty Hunter, have counter specials in other professions listed above. Smuggler and Carbineer have ranged knockdowns, and Pistoleer has melee range knockdowns. Each works, some without timers. Ours have been disabled.

The TKAs have a tremendous knockdown dizzy effect. Yet the Bounty Hunter's Fire Knockdown applies dizzy 1 in 3 hits, and knockdown 1 in 20, versus a completely defenseless opponent.

Even the smuggler has an attack which causes the target to stop returning fire until timed out, not considered overpowered.

Of all the other possibilities where the Master Bounty Hunter can attain any improvement in any aspect of their weaponry, is in the 0-0-0-2 carbineer, where their first working knockdown appears. This is the only true choice. In addition, the firepower output of the Full Auto Single 2 is worth the expenditure.

Let's talk LLC then, our overpowered weapon. This weapon never hits in PVP. The maximum possible accuracy gained through advancing in BH skills, is +70 at Master. There is no way, in any other profession, to enhance this weapon so that it hits targets. It is only useful in PvE or versus NPC bounties. People generally bank the weapon before proceding into PvP combat. This was done deliberately, so that Bounty Hunters wouldn't, again, be overpowered in PvP combat. Even though Commandos seem to have their full range of heavy weapons and specials available to them.

So, carbines are our best attack possiblity in PvP. At hitting the best opposing template at a rate of 1 in 10, you can divide any possible offensive output by that amount to begin with. Sprayshot at 5x power bonus, divided by 10 at mastery. Looking at this attack alone, we find that our best possible output is actually halved in comparison to any other possibility of any other combat profession combinations. Therefore, the basic premise remains true, regardless, even though in this example I chose not to apply the further defenses of any given Rifleman/Fencer template which would effect the attack.

But again, versus these defenses, hitting the target under any circumstances from a Master Bounty Hunter based template is nearly impossible, regardless what choice is made with those 33 skill points. This is why I chose not to discuss offensive output, because it simply does not apply. The reason is the stacking defensive templates in existence. This is the real problem.

Fix Wookiees.

Can we get jedi resists and defences looked at and brought inline with other combat proffessions? how bout certifications for their sabers so they can get misisons that are worht a **edit** without having to group with someone and have them equip a nasty weapon..

can we get other methods for jedi to get pearls other than having a multi billion credit millionaire main buy them for him?

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=jedi&message.id=213215&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

for more details..

1.) Inventory and backpack sort orders need to save. The inventory sort order is only saving until each load whether it be from traveling, cloning or whatever. Backpack sort order does not save at all. Once you close the backpack, the sort order is reset. This is a real pain for crafters who sort by name and then type.

2.) The column widthsthe user specifies in the vendors and bazaar terminals need to save. It seems to me like this could be saved on the client machine, much like the window sizes and positions are saved (AFAIK).

3.) For Medics: The Diagnose window size needs to save or at least be scaled so that all the stats are displayed by default. Each time you diagnose a new patient you have to resize the window to see all their stats. It should not be like this.

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Wepps wrote:

The only useful special to a Bounty Hunter, anywhere in the skill trees at this time, is Torso Shot. Even though it is equal to the highest offensive output of any BH special at the 4th tier, 3x power bonus, it still must hit the target. The fact that we are faced with these defenses in combat, which you say force us to pursue defensive templates of low quality ourselves, causes a situation where the only state change we can apply in PvP combat is the Fire DoT from the Torso shot. This is not even to mention that the best attack in the lower trees of Smuggler is a 6x power bonus. It's seems off to me that the best Bounty Hunter attack outside mastery is half the firepower of the best Smuggler attack.

And once again,focusing too tightly gets you nowhere, and it's a mistake to say "Shot X is 3x damage and Shot Z is 6x damage, so Shot Z is superior."

First of all, Last Ditch is also a 4th tier skill.

Second of all, it's random HAM as opposed to Torso shot's targeted Health HAM, which also has a HealthDOT.

Third of all, Smugglers get no post-Marksman accuracy or speed bonuses unless they become Pistoleers or Bounty Hunters, meaning they can't shoot a Last Ditch very fast (it's the slowestpistol shotin the game) and when they use it, they'll probably miss anyway. Regardless, a BH has better pistol speed and accuracy than a Master Pistoleer.

However, hitting the target, again, is the problem. If we ignore the offensive templates in favor of weak defensive ones as you suggest, we can never possibly hit the final template mentioned. So, offensively we have to pursue these from either Carbineer, or Pistoleer to compensate for our lack of output.

Pistoleer is useless to us. By taking those skills, you end up missing the target, just at a faster rate.

Carbineer, however, offers possibilities in which the Bounty Hunter can gain as much as +180 accuracy in carbines, and a working knockdown.

The only problem with this possibility?

At +180, facing the +184 ranged defense template, the Bounty Hunter hits on an average of 1 in 10 times, proven in tests. In fact, the tester in question stated he'd be happy if he could get it out so that he could hit even half the time.

Weaponsmiths can use experimention to increase accuracy rather than just damage or speed. The problem is that most people just look to damage and speed when buying a weapon.

Whether these tests were performed recently in a post-Dodge stackability world, whether an accurate weapon was used, whether anybody bothered to /aim, and whether a dozen other circumstances existed could influence tests to go dramatically one way or another.

While every other profession in the game has working specials, all those associated with Bounty Hunter, except the dizzy effect on Fire Knockdown, and the Fire DoT on the Torso shot, and all effects on the sprayshot, have been deliberately disabled, based upon the presumption that the Bounty hunter is overpowered.

You're out of your mind if you think BHs are uniquely unfortunate to have specials that don't work properly.

Also, do you have a link to a Dev informing us that BH specials were deliberately disabled? There are a LOT of bugged specials in the game. It's probablya mistake to assume that the Devs decided to disable specials rather than consider that it might be a bug.

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Wow! The entire SWG Discussion forum in one thread! LOL

Impressive, most impresssive. :vader:

And once again,focusing too tightly gets you nowhere, and it's a mistake to say "Shot X is 3x damage and Shot Z is 6x damage, so Shot Z is superior."

Irrelevent, since the point was firepower output.

First of all, Last Ditch is also a 4th tier skill.

I never said it wasn't. I just said it's outside master, a lower tier skill. Point is irrelevent.

Second of all, it's random HAM as opposed to Torso shot's targeted Health HAM, which also has a HealthDOT.

At 6x damage output, it typically 1-hits any targeted opponent. Thereofre, which HAM pool it strikes is also ireelevent.

Third of all, Smugglers get no post-Marksman accuracy or speed bonuses unless they become Pistoleers or Bounty Hunters, meaning they can't shoot a Last Ditch very fast (it's the slowestpistol shotin the game) and when they use it, they'll probably miss anyway. Regardless, a BH has better pistol speed and accuracy than a Master Pistoleer.

This is rumor. If you count the skill mods, the Bounty Hunter gains +1 speed over the Master Pistoleer. Accuracy is well within favor of Master Pistoleer, not even close. In fact, Master Pistoleer has +30 comparative accuracy while moving.

Weaponsmiths can use experimention to increase accuracy rather than just damage or speed. The problem is that most people just look to damage and speed when buying a weapon.

Irrelevent discussing what enhancements I can make to a Master Bounty Hunter template to compensate, if any other profession has the same ability to gain those same enhancements.

Whether these tests were performed recently in a post-Dodge stackability world, whether an accurate weapon was used, whether anybody bothered to /aim, and whether a dozen other circumstances existed could influence tests to go dramatically one way or another.

Again. While we take the time to aim, even if we could hit, none of our state/posture changes effect the target. If we cannot control the target in any way, by the time that 1 shot gets off we are already dead. Other professions listed are firing weapons at fast rates, without being forced to aim in the first place. These professions, because of the lack of defenses in Master Bounty Hunter, hit nearly every time.

The assumption you are making here is that I can..hit the target before being killed. Even if I do hit, which is unlikely even aiming, by the taime that 1 shot touches off, the opponent has fired 3 times, with full effect, and full specials.

Again, the point is irrelevent.

You're out of your mind if you think BHs are uniquely unfortunate to have specials that don't work properly.

Irrelevent, since I never made this statement. Perhaps in the future you should read the post, before commenting on others' mental states.

Also, do you have a link to a Dev informing us that BH specials were deliberately disabled? There are a LOT of bugged specials in the game. It's probablya mistake to assume that the Devs decided to disable specials rather than consider that it might be a bug.

Again, the point is irrelevent, since theyin fact don't work. The point is the large disparity between stacking defensive templates between combat professions, and any other profession that wishes to involve themselves in PvP activity. I use Master Bounty Hunter, because I am well versed there. You are not, as your statements have proven.