Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Notes for Feb 25th, Test Center Update
Rogue_5 wrote:
Slighty decreased the power of ... loot drops.
Rogue, I made my first Disruptor Rifle. It had 500/500 durability, that's hella powerful! And its not like my resources were all under 100 Decay Resistance, either.
Are all these new weapons gonna fall apart so fast?
Oar
180° - From Galaxies to Grind
By Matt "Mattt" Kirschnick
Star Wars Galaxies once promised to overcome the grind hated by casual gamers, while still managing to entertain the powergamers. Unfortunately, the infinite struggle to please the latter sent the game in the total opposite direction, upsetting the former for too much grind, and the latter for too little to grind through.
A long time ago, in a development forum before release day, we were introduced to a dream come true, a chance to live in that far away Galaxy we all grew up with. We were promised more than just a Star Wars game, however. We were told of many great wonders, from no down-time or camping to vast worlds, with dynamically generated content, to a casual gamer’s paradise; there would even be an extremely difficult and very rare Jedi class to play. To make things more exciting, the dream would be truly complete with the already-conceived Space Expansion. Unfortunately, from the Beta test until this very day, for better or for worse, Star Wars Galaxies has taken a 180° turn in the opposite direction.
I had the opportunity to test Star Wars Galaxies during the second and third phases of Beta. It was an exciting experience: it, at first, appeared the many promises would come true. Random, dynamically generated, events would happen out in the wild, giving players choice on how to proceed. Crafters with little time to play could log in to find they had gained enough experience to get their next skill box through the automated construction of their items in a factory. Marksmen could log in, take a quick mission from the mission terminal, and grab some needed experience points. Jedi were nowhere to be found yet but that was exactly how things were supposed to be. In fact, we were later told at E3 2003 that Jedi in Galaxies would lead lives much like the Jedi of the time. Like Obi Wan, Jedi would be forced into hiding, as they would be actively hunted down by the empire.
As time went on, however, it became clear the direction had changed. Powergamers got their hands on the Beta and quickly showed the developers how fast they could plow through the game. Using factories, crafters propelled through the trade skills in no time. The dynamic quests could not be camped, nor did they have exciting items to loot. In a subscription-based game, this was unacceptable. There had to be reason for players to renew their subscription month after month. Experience from factories was gradually reduced to zero, leaving casual gamers with little choice but to spend hours building the same item over and over to gain but one skill box. Dynamically generated content all but disappeared in favour of static, camped dungeons. Of course, trying to fill ten, vast worlds with static content proved to be an impossible task, one the developers are frantically trying to complete even today.
Missions, too, became an outlet for powergamers. With a favourable cash reward, missions were a way for grinders to print money to fuel the player-run economy. Consequently, inflated prices became the norm. When asked why their armour, vital to the survival of many melee-types, was so expensive, armoursmiths simply repeated, “hey, why don’t you just do some missions?”
Powergamers and grinding has become the way of life in SWG. With the first appearance of a player Jedi, it became crystal clear that the developers not only approved of this way of life but they actually encouraged it. Having once been promised that the path to becoming a Jedi would be unique and exciting for each player, players were dismayed to discover the simplicity of the temporary system put in place to reach this goal. Rather than complete some long series of quests or conduct themselves an appropriate way, players simply were required to grind their way through five random professions, four of which were revealed to them through rare items, dropped by various, heavily camped spawns. Knowing that there was now no barrier keeping them from becoming Jedi, many players began the long, boring process of advancing through professions they had no desire to play. Cantinas became filled with “Holo-Dancers”, players who needed to master the Dancer profession to find out which profession they next had to master. Worst of all, not knowing the last profession often left players to systematically grind through every profession in the game until they happened upon the correct one. Worse still, the first Jedi freely paraded up and down the streets, laughing in the faces of those who actually believed Jedi would be a hunted people. With player Jedi names like “Ima Forcesensitive”, it became clear that the original vision was no where to be seen.
Through all of this, Bartle Achievers were leaving left and right for the next “big thing” or a previous favourite, dissatisfied with the amount of content in the game. Neglected by the Developers, PvPers, Bartle Killers, also began to drop out of the game. In the quest to satisfy the content-seeking players, the Galactic Civil War quickly became stagnant, made boring by a stale and unbalanced PvP system. Bartle Explorers, too, looked to other games to discover. The vast worlds of Star Wars Galaxies are still largely barren, many with unexciting cookie-cutter cities and dungeons. Recently, in an effort to make players aware of all the hard work the they had done to populate the world, the Developers added Points of Interest waypoints to the Datapads of all players, effectively neutralizing any sense of discovery and exploration. With the Achievers, Killers, and Explorers all closing their accounts, Social gamers began to take notice. Guilds emptied and collapsed. Like boom towns after a gold rush, player cities emptied out, leaving behind abandoned ghost towns. Entire static cities were deserted, leaving only one or two major cities per planet with essential services, like physicians and entertainers. With nobody to talk to, social gamers followed their friends to whatever games they had decided to move on to. Once proclaimed the second-largest game in North America - second, of course, to Everquest – Galaxies at least feels like it has lost that title, ironically, in its attempt to be like Everquest.
With all this doom and gloom, it sounds like nobody plays SWG. Well that is not entirely true. Many of us log in every so often to do whatever tasks we are obligated to do, like power our ore harvesters, pay the maintenance for our houses, or clean out all the “member left guild” notices from our in-game mailbox. Some stick around, desperately hoping for the distant Space Expansion. While a 2004 release date has been promised, release dates, today, must be taken with a grain of salt. Galaxies has certainly come a long way since its inception; however, one thing is seemingly for sure. The Space Expansion had better make a big splash at this year’s Electronics Entertainment Expo. For players, many of whom feel betrayed or simply bored, SE is SWG’s last hope.
by stratics The Best POST EVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keito_Temreh wrote:
Well the guy who says he's giving you a SONIC DRILL is bugged i beleive as ive tried it several times and its never in my inventory, i'm assuming he's supposed to give you a geonosian sonic blaster schematic like the femal scientist gives you a tenlos rifle schematic but you actually get nothing from him, you see some text but have nothing in the inventory. Ive been through the whole dungeon, spent the entire last two days there and NO Geonosian Sonic Blaster schematic, just a crap load of crappy loot dropped ones that suck majorly.
This is my deciding factor to stay as i am a master pistoleer and have been for months since august. I cant compete in pvp without this weapon. These new guns should have been added to weaponsmiths automatically imo and the loot just to make them better. Limited use schematics are crap imo. I want one of these pistols! Rifleman can have a stun weapon amde anytime of day and krayt it no less and any weaponsmith can do it for him. Pistoleers? We have to search high and low for a schematic that apparently doesnt exist.
Great dungeon, i had fun but this is crap imo.
It's called a Tangle pistol.
AnXdiety wrote:
Are we ever going to be able to use Heavey Weapons like a rocket launcher in the Genosian Cave?
Now I haven't seen these new caves, so they may be huge cavernous expanses, but you want to use a rocket launcher in an enclosed area? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
Keito_Temreh wrote:Ok you go get one them them there tangle pistols with a max dmg of 105-150 even made with loot components and YOU try to kill someone with crazy regen from buffs in pvp with it mmm k? THEY SUCK!
Rifleman can use krayted jawa ion rifles that do around 500 dmg and are STUN! meaning nobody can compete with them!
You're a really bad pistoleer then. Coming from someone who's been there done that, it's not that bad as a pistoleer. And, the tangle is useful whether you think it is or not. Also, have you noticed all the weapons that you have at your disposal?
Pistoleers can do:
Acid
Energy
Stun
Heat
Kinetic
Riflemen can do:
Energy
Stun
Acid (only with the DXR6 schem which will take a while to get into our hands in any volume)
To krayt our best weapons we need 6 and 11 tissues respectively. You need 1,3, or 5 at worst for the DX2. If you know anything about Krayt you know getting 11 tissues is pretty damn rare, and that when a WS does get them he is probably gonna make 5-10 pistols, not one T21. Also it's extremely rare to get exceptional/legendary tissues on the volume needed for a jawa or T21, whereas it's not nearly as bad for pistols. One tissue can make a scout or a scatter for BH whereas if we don't get at least 5 for a laser there is nothing we can do with them.
payingcustomer wrote:
JCooper wrote:
stop bitching
JCooper, he's got every reason to. This game is about nerf this, nerf that... What are you doin here if not looking for what to avoid in the future nerfisms.
I sorta think its dumb of Rogue to just post, he's nerfing w/o a reason, or explaination, myself. But I've come to see alot of SWG folks as dumb. So I'm not surprised at all. I'll just ride the winds of change, like they force me to do.
Oar
Some of you people amaze me. YOU PLAY ON THE DAMN TEST SERVER get used to your "nerfs" because testing and changing **edit** is what happens on that server your whyning bastards!
Ok you go get one them them there tangle pistols with a max dmg of 105-150 even made with loot components and YOU try to kill someone with crazy regen from buffs in pvp with it mmm k? THEY SUCK!
Rifleman can use krayted jawa ion rifles that do around 500 dmg and are STUN! meaning nobody can compete with them!
Oh and the new rifle schematic is GIVEN to you by an npc it isnt a drop! Pistoleers have to get it from a random drop of any geonosian? Who's wise idea was this?
Yep you heard it guys, rifleman walks in and gets his schematic handed to him by the npc but pistoleers gotta get lucky. I know one guy who got a pistol schematic in there and it was a drop! A random drop from a geonosian!
rommelrommel wrote:
Keito_Temreh wrote:
Ok you go get one them them there tangle pistols with a max dmg of 105-150 even made with loot components and YOU try to kill someone with crazy regen from buffs in pvp with it mmm k? THEY SUCK!
Rifleman can use krayted jawa ion rifles that do around 500 dmg and are STUN! meaning nobody can compete with them!
You're a really bad pistoleer then. Coming from someone who's been there done that, it's not that bad as a pistoleer. And, the tangle is useful whether you think it is or not. Also, have you noticed all the weapons that you have at your disposal?
Pistoleers can do:
Acid
Energy
Stun
Heat
Kinetic
Yep and if you use anything but stun in pvp you can forget getting any dmg done as people wear armor with 80-90% resists to all those dmg types but stun, now people have armor with 80-90% resists to all the above and 40% to stun making that crappy 69-105 dmg 3.3 speed tangle suck majorly. now if you are a lucky pistoleer like me you will have a 150 dmg 3.3 speed tangle made from a high velocity feeder mechanism. You will be doing 60% of what is already crappy dmg. Yes Mr Rifleman i DO KNOW MORE than you about the pistoleer profession and ive played it a hell of alot longer than you ever did if you even did. Your comment about not being that bad told me one thing, you dont know iddly, all but 2 specials in the pistoleer profession are either broken or are not even worth using. Thats a fact jack, have a look see at our forums. Pistoleer is a getting a total overhaulk because it is THAT BROKEN!
Riflemen can do:
Energy
Stun
Acid (only with the DXR6 schem which will take a while to get into our hands in any volume)
You also have ar1 to ar3 weaponry that has alot more damage and you fire them alot faster than we can fire our best pistols, Under ideal circumstances if we ARE lucky enough to afford to krayt a weapon and it happens to get under 1.5 speed we can then fire all our specials at 1.0 speed and even then all the rifleman needs is to get a rifle at 3.5 speed and he will speed cap and fire all his specials at 1.0 speed and to top it off using a weapon that does a whole LOT more damage. Oh and rifleman are more accurate at point blank range than a pistoleer i kind of find that pretty borked. So ya i can fire at a target up to 64m like you well i get some NASTY negatives to my already inferior accuracy with pretty much every one of these pistols at 64 (dx2 -90 at 64m)
To krayt our best weapons we need 6 and 11 tissues respectively. You need 1,3, or 5 at worst for the DX2. If you know anything about Krayt you know getting 11 tissues is pretty damn rare, and that when a WS does get them he is probably gonna make 5-10 pistols, not one T21. Also it's extremely rare to get exceptional/legendary tissues on the volume needed for a jawa or T21, whereas it's not nearly as bad for pistols. One tissue can make a scout or a scatter for BH whereas if we don't get at least 5 for a laser there is nothing we can do with them.
Man i dont even know where to start with this retarded statement. Ok well the dx2 is a low damage pistol to start but has a high min dmg, big woop. To krayt it we need 5 identical tissues. That will cost ya anywhere from 1.5 mill to 5 mill depending on the quality of the tissues used. Acid sucks for pvp so most pistoleer dont bother because A the increase in dmg for such limited use really isnt worth the cost. The only people who do this are holo grinder who want to get a good pistol for pve to get through pistoleer ASAP. So we are stuck with the crappy tangle pistol and it is CRAP. It isnt kraytable, has horrible range mods, low min dmg, low max dmg. a 48m Max range( it cant fire past 48m!) can only ve made better with loot components, and cant havea scope! Nor can it have a power coupler! SO bottom line it SUCKS!!!!!! It doesnt compete at ALL in any sense of the word with the MARKSMAN jawa ion rifle that rifleman tote around which is low HAM cost, easy to get, kraytable and nice range mods on it and can be scoped! Every guy on my server can get a krayted jawa ion rifle if he wants one, they dont need 11 tissues! Am i complaining about the t21? NO! I am not really even complaining about the ion rifle, i am stating i want the new stun pistol that will ALLOW pistoleers to compete not being readily available! Get a clue!
The tangle is FINE, nothing wrong with it. It can be enhanced with a high velocity feed mech, or a gorax bone shard. In case you weren't listening I was a pistoleer until just recently and competed just fine, even again riflemen, and even against the defence stackers. Because of the super high HAM costs of most rifles we basically can't wear armor, and definitely not a helm. You really need to take a look at your tactics if you honestly believe pistoleers need a stun pistol that has the stats of the new Geonesion sonic blaster just to compete. If rifleman gets nerfed and that pistol stays in circulation I am pretty sure you'll see a ton of BH Pistols 4/Rogue/pistoleers running around again.
Also you're mistaken about there being 500 max jawa's out there, they would need about +150 tissues and a decent damage slice to get into that range.
Also, who knows what pub 7 will bring...