Development Cycle Archive

Four hours later, told to log in yet again.

/sigh

3.5 hours later, and again I have to log in. Why is this forum in capable of processing the so-called "saved password" properly?

Well we now have mods deleting all references to harassment in game where we are the subject of it on Tempest forums.

So who do we report that too?

Anyone up there is SOE land care to point me to Customer service for this?

Nine hours later, log in again.

It's pretty clear your forum logins aren't working properly, TH.

I ask again, why have you disabled the style tag on the forums?

MOB warping makes baby Jesus cry. Well, makes my shout anyway. I hate when an NS Elder decides she's had enough, walks off towards a tree and suddenly is 150m away from me and up a hill. Especially as the only terrain negotiation I had was the lance I looted off her predecessor


Also: Would it be possible to get some slight appearance redesigns for Composite Armour, so that there is an increased number of "looks"? I.E. not just one. The Armoursmith would be able to choose what "style" to craft, similar to floorplans for same size houses. It kinda sucks standing at a starport and the other 12 people round me look exactly the same as me except for armour colour, height, weight and the occasional snout.

Can we just have the posts from the last 3 weeks of the Roundtable Discussion copied to the one for next week automatically? Essentially nothing has been discussed, nothing has been solved, and nothing appears to be happening. Would save us alot of time reposting the same issues from week to week. Or are you trying to wear us down?

This is a post I put in the Game Guides section. It may not be the best place for it, but I didn't know where else to get some feedback from it. Here's the link to the thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=158026

Before I get to the meat of my opinion, I want to state that I think the Dev's for the most part are going in the right direction with their changes, and the way they are involving the community more in their decision making processes. That's pretty much the spirit of this post. I'd like to get some Dev attention, and really like to see some input on the community to see if my opinions are just mine or shared by others. I'm not looking for flamer or any non-constructive comments, so please if you comment, please keep it constructive and on topic.

First of all, let me introduce myself a bit. I have been playing SWG since beta. I've seen alot of changes since that time. Most of them I will dare say for the good of the game. I'm a hologrinder. I'm currently on profession 18. I'm currently a TKM, Master Architect, and i'm half way through Droid Engineer. I've mastered all the brawler profs except pikeman, mastered the hybrids like smuggler, and creature handler, mastered pistoleer, and doc, and mastered all the base profs with the exception of politician, and I'm now working on the crafting profs. I will say that I have enjoyed most of my profs. I have spent the time to learn them despite my hologrinding. I feel that I have a good feel for every one that I have done.

Some recent changes I really need to voice an opinion on, because if the road continues down this path, I feel this game will only get to the point where it's hypocrisy will reduce the fun factor to the point where in my opinion it just wont be worth playing. The devs have mentioned for quite some time how important they feel interdependencies are within the game. Whenever a new profession revamp comes up we are always asked to keep in mind any suggestions that we have to improve the profession, but it's always stressed how the prof fits with the others, and how it fits within the GCW. I believe these interedpendencies with the other profs and the GCW are important as long as they make sense and dont bog the profession down to the point where it's unmanagable. So far I think everything here is on the right track. These aren't my issues obviously, but this approach is the core of what I believe to be hurting this game.

My problem is basically the Corvette. Now before you all start the knee-jerk reactions, and start bashing me, I ask that you continue to read and hear me out. As a TKM and former master of numerous combat profs, I will say that in these days of the doctor buff, there are very few "high end" mobs that I haven't been able to solo. Rancors, Nightsisters, all except the Elders are managable solo. Have I ever been able to solo a Krayt or a Gorax or survive a handfull of Nightsisters? Nope. And I'm glad that I cannot. I like a challenge, and appreciate how different tactics need to be employed to defeat different mobs. But, when the Corvette was introduced we have now seen Rebels, Imperials, and Neutral npc's that can beat the living snot out of pretty much everyone. What I would like to know is why? We had the "Imperial Crackdown" here a bit ago. I see Stormtroopers walking around Bestine, but I also see piles of dead Stormtroopers in Mos Espa. The crackdown has turned into a major faction point grinding zone in alot of these areas. My complaint is, why on earth do we have all these nasty NPC's up on the Corvette, when they are found nowhere else in the game? Why is that Stormtrooper patrolling Mos Espa so easily dispatched when the Imperials found on the Corvette are rather nasty mobs? Why are the Surface Marshalls I kill on my faction missions dead within 2 seconds, when a Rebel Engineer can defeat me without much effort? How does this make sense? To me it does not. I'm not complaining about the difficulty of the Corvette. I'm actually glad to see we have some high end content in the game. What I'm complaining about is how does this dungeon inter-relate to the other content in the game. A Rebel Engineer as he is on the Corvette could probably have a good shot at soloing alot of the "high end" mobs in the game, and without a doubt handle a Rebel Surface Marshal who is clearly his superior. Why are these new mobs so much more difficult than the ones we have encountered so far? Are they difficult simply because the Dev's want them to be? Which is a very bad excuse to make something difficult. Or are the Mobs in space simply bred better than the ones on the surface?

Whenever new mobs are introduced into the game I wish the following questions would be asked and addressed:

1) How does this Mob relate to the others in the game? Does it make sense?

2) Is the Mob's difficulty rating appropriate for what it is? (A rebel Ensign or Engineer should not be more powerful than a Surface Marshal)

3) Brand New Mobs (such as the battle droids), are they appropriately difficult, not for the setting they are placed in, but in SWG as a whole?

By asking certain questions such as these, I'd like to see Mobs that make sense within the context of the other mobs in the game. I'd like to see Mobs that actually have a difficulty that makes sense, and are not there simply because we need a difficult high end mob in the game.

As I stated before, I'm not complaining about the difficulty of the Corvette, nor in how my chosen profession relates to it. I enjoy the challenge and appreciate new and exciting things to do with the game. Growth is most definitely encouraged. I would just like to see the same type of interdependencies between new and old mobs, just like we see with our professions and the GCW. Everything should make sense within the context of each other.

When they do, the harvest spam starts flooding the chat box with what they harvest making reading what people are saying quit difficult.

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Try moving the system messages to another tab than spatial and groupchat if it makes reading the conversations too difficult

Why do we have a jedi correspondant? Some CRITICAL questions were asked by him a few days ago and he was basically told to piss off by the devs.

This will be posted as soon as next week's thread opens, hopefully as the first post so it has some chance of being read by the dev's. If you happen to see the thread being made please post this or something to this effect as the first post if I should happen to miss it (the threads get cluttered very quickly). I'm throwing it here right now just to test and post it anyway.

ATTENTION DEVELOPERS (TH ESPECIALLY)

We realize that you don't have much time, but you have to understand that virtually all of your playerbase is angry about the lack of information. We need a real form of communication here. Would it really take too much to stop in the forums once a day for even five minutes and answer our questions? Even just letting us know about your position on certian issues would help. Here are some scenarios that might help show you what we need:

Current Scenario:
Player: Is anyone looking into changing legshot3 for carbineer? It is no different than legshot2.
Developer: Please relay this concern to your correspondant
Correct developer response:We are aware of the problem but are not working on it at this time.

Another current scenario:
Player: Will current jedi loose their skills with the upcoming publish?
Developer: We are not answering questions about this subject
Correct developer response:We don't know at this point, we haven't got that far into development

Yet another current scenario:
Player: Why have skill tapes that provide no function (eg. tapes for things like def. vs. posture change up) not been removed?
Developer:(ignored)
Correct developer response:We have no plans to remove them at this point.

Yes, another scenario:
Player: Why has exploiting at the SMC cave never stopped? It has been several months and it would be rather easy to fix, yet CSR's continually show up and ban players in the cave. Wouldn't it be easier just to move the spawns over about 1m and solve the problem?
Developer:SOE maintains a strict policy about explo... (and so on)
Correct developer response:We are keeping it open to weed out exploiters / We don't have time to fix it / etc...

A final scenario:
Player:What happened to the random spawns on dantooine? We've been asking about this for months now and have had no answers!
Developer:We are looking into this issue
Correct developer response:We don't really know what the exact problem is, but we think it is due to server load. We have no immediate course of action but we do want to get this dealt with within a reasonable timeframe.

The problem is that we need actual answers, even if we aren't happy with them. What is the real problem here? Why are you incapable of communicating with us? It's time to step up to the plate: stop acting like a politican and start acting like a developer. Make a weekly "ROUNDTABLE ANSWERS" thread at the end of each week, or even DURING each week, where only developers can respond and answers to current questions are dealt with. This will help keep dev posts clear of the clutter of the roundtable threads, and it will show the customers that you really do care about their concerns.