Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Should Force Sensitivity be a known path or a mysterious one? (II)
dWhisper
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:30 am
#300
Mysterious, hands down. There was no mystery in the old system, it was just a test to see how long you could stand the tedium of grinding. It was just randomness.
I would like to see something that's a blend of experimenting with different professions and activites, which in turn tie into a series of quests and arcs. It should make characters travel, to learn, to explore.
And in no way should it ever involve: /flo 6; or /nextCraftingStage.
Yeah. We've had enough of that in our path to Jedi.
Kal_Silas
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:31 am
#301
I think that the method of becoming Force Sensitive should indeed be known. First, your previous attempts to keep the Path mysterious were, quite honestly, a failure. I do not mean this in a derogatory manner, however, as your motivations were seemingly in the right place. Certainly, Jedi should not be numerous, yet as has been stated any number of times before, if there is a method, it will be discovered.
The Hologrinding craze has wreaked havoc upon SWG, and I'm certain that I'm not alone when I say that I'dlike to avoid a repeat of that horrendous incident. If the new Path is made to be mysterious then the liklihood of a repeated history seems to be quite high. Perhaps this new system will not require us to endlessly grind new professions, but substituting that with an endless grind of new quests, in the vain hopes of stumbling on the right series, is not much better for the game than the previous system.
Moreover, keeping the Path a mystery in the end rewards those who have virtually unlimited time to play the game, while inadvertantly punishing those of us who do not. It is an unfortunate consequence of real life that some of us have to work and can not spend our every waking moment playing this game. Time which would be otherwise spent in endeavoring to follow an ever-elusive Path must instead be spent on making money to pay the bills, so to speak.
Indeed, there are those of us who are playing this game, and have played since Day 1, who want nothing more than to play a Jedi. Yet, some of us feel that the previous method was too odious by far, and that it went against everything that we believed in. Some of us have shown faith and patience in the Development Team, hoping that the day will come when our perserverence would reward us and we would be able to take hold of our own lightsabers for the first time as new Jedi.
In the end, I hold no anomosity towards the previous system, and those who dilligently worked to earn their Jedi have my respect. Hard work certainly is one aspect of being a Jedi, and isvery deserving of bothbeingpraised and rewarded. Now, it is time for those who have shown patience to take their place in the ranks of the Jedi. After all, isn't patience worthy of reward as well?
Keep the Path known. Make it fair to everyone so that the Path can be persued if a person so desires. However, make it a difficult and ardous Path so that only the most deserving will ever complete their journey. Make it so that the quality of one's morality is important, and that difficult decisions must be made. Do what you must to make the life of a Jedi challenging, but do not hide the Path from those of us who have yearned for this chance to play something greater than before.
If these things can come to pass, then I feel that SWG will finally have taken its first step into a larger world.
R07Krayt
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:34 am
#302
The process of becoming force sensitive should be known. There have been multiple statements by the Developers that you are going to reward people for progress in the current hologrind system, it sems very difficult to have an mysterious system that you are going to have people starting in at completely differnet points. Take for instance a person that finishes 31 professions but doesn't unlock before publish 10. That person should start at a different spot than the person that has only done the holocrons and one other. It would not be fair to the people that have been in game for a year now and not unlocked to be stuck back at square 1 with no direction to go. For it to be a goal that people feel they can reach, you need to know about where you are at in the process, and what the next task is.
The second aspect which has been mentioned before is that the quests to become force sensitive need to be accomplished just by playing the game. There should be no sitting waiting for a spawn, or endless hours of searching for some elusive monster. It should also not be a combat only system. A doctor should have just as much chance to unlock as a BH. You also need to discourage a powergame mindset when working towards force sesnsitive and Jedi Initiate. Make a waiting period between 3 and 10 days between each mission, with occassional missions where something immediately comes up.
I'm really looking forward to the system being something fun and interactive, without a bunch of time sinks.
Hope this helps,
Alrick Durgan,
Intrepid
Rubicon49BC
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:34 am
#303
Maybe you can do the following:
Make a separate bar of 'FS points' and make it clear you need say 1000 of them to get your FS slot.
Also announce there are say20 different categories to earn FS points. But for each person, the cap on each of these categories is different.
For character one, he can get 100 points in category A, 20 in B etc etc.
Character two can only get 20 points in category A, but 60 in B etc.
Now make sure that the total number of points under the caps is say 2000 or 3000, so people can ignore certain categories.
Categories could include:Badges, Faction Rank, Amazing successes at crafting etc etc.
So you have a system that is different for everybody, yet clear in setup and with clear marking of progress so that people won't get disheartened
Dubolom
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:34 am
#304
Anakin and Luke were born force-sensitive. However, it was only through being at the right place at the right time (luck or fate) that they were able to discover it and start on their paths.
I think the right way to do this is run weekly unannounced events where as a reward for completing them participants would "find out" that they in fact do have force sensitivity. The rest of us... we'll just have to wait our turn and have fun with regular avatars.
P.S. These events should be HARD and time-limited so that there would be no assurance that even if one participates in such an even that they will discover their force sensitivity.
Message Edited by Dubolom on 07-10-2004 03:38 PM
JediNewb
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:35 am
#305
I don't think the initial path from "nothing" to "Force Sensitivity" should be ENORMOUSLY difficult. That would be, as someone else mentioned, unfair to those people who weren't able to complete the "hologrind" before the patch.
Random paths would be good, but they should be GUIDED random paths. Instead of guessing what they should do next, the player should be guided by "a mysterious voice" or what have you, urging them towards the goal of force sensitivity by way of quest, journey and exploration. Perhaps some sort of in-game objective checklist could be implemented...but one in which "the next objective" is not revealed until the present objective is finished. This system should also, as has been mentioned, bear in mind that not ALL players are combat oriented, and the quests for these player types should reflect that.
As far as the "Force Sensitivity" to "Jedi" path goes, I don't think that should be ENORMOUSLY difficult either. At least no more difficult than simply hologrinding was for those Jedi we have currently (although I'm SURE they would disagree because many of them want to remain among the elite few).
-Ben
OHMSS225
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:36 am
#306
Having pre-force sensitive missions is just as important as having post-force sensitive missions.
Burr
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:38 am
#307
You may as well make it known now. All ideas of mystery were thrown out the window when you started handing out holocrons. Making it mysterious and unknown now will just make it unfair to the people that didn't want to do the hologrind. Even if you guys did try and make it secretive the unlocking method would be posted all over the internet within a few days of the first person finding out. I kind of doubt the quests are going to be custom for every player.
memnoch37
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:43 am
#308
Consider what happens if you make the path 'mysterious' in the sense that there are a set of actions that must be taken in order to unlock your FS slot., but no one knows what they areinitially.
- This is bad from a testing standpoint, you can't QA something very well if you don't know what to look for. If you make the system simple enough so it does not require a an extensive QA pass, you are more likely run into the issue of my second bullet point:
- These goals will become apparant over time.
With that stated, lets say that in attempt to add a level of 'mystery', you design a system that introduces an amount of randomness to the goals you must achieve. Granted, this does sound like a very good idea; it allows for a very large pool of possible goals that may or may not be nesseccarry to accomplish, hence it could not be easily documented and completed by simply following a guide;this isone of the main reasons why you would want to design a mysteriouspath to unlock.You may refer to the time period between November and May for reasons why this will be very difficult to accomplish. (the Hologrind)
Instead of spending resources making and hiding a system that is complicated enough to be both fun, difficult, and yetnot mind numbingly boring, invest that itme into an epic, robust, lengthy, and involved quest based system.
Known/mysterious does not neccessarily have to be black and white. If you feel there is a very good design that includes something mysterious, by all means implement it. Just don't make everything a mystery.
Suba
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:46 am
#309
I think alot of people have the right idea. This shouldnt be another Death Watch Bunker or anything like that. The Quests should require some skill and some mental thinking. It shouldnt be about Needing to find a Graul Marauder which never spawns and kill it 20 times.
I also think Time limits and such arent good either. Some have suggested it should take 6 months to get your 24 little fs skill boxes. Sorry to say but im opposed to that. As you can See by my Title and Join date i have been with Galaxies for a long time. I was a Beta Tester and all of that. I have over 15 months of direct play time in SWG. Did I unlock? No i didnt. Not cause i didnt try but after 20 Professions i had enough and settled back into my pre holo-grind template. Sure i could probably grind out the last 12 very quickly but im having fun as my template i got. I dont want to grind again. I also dont want to be told well since you got lazy and didnt do the last 12 were gonna make you wait 6 more months.
The Quests should be done as quickly as the player doing them does them. The Developers did Say everyone cna unlock but the Powergamers will of course unlock quicker. So yes a Powergamer may speed through all the quests in a fw days while the causal gamer may take a month or two but guess what? Thats what the devs said would happen. Powergamers get it fast while others get it slower.
The System needs to start off very simply like this.
Alec Suba recieves 1 Force Sensitive Skill Point come patch 10.
He looks at the Force Sensitive Skill Trees and Picks a Novice skill. That novice Skill represents his initial Force Sensitivity and entrance into a larger world. From there He does whatever Quests or Missions are setup that everyone knows they will need to do. As he does them he gets more skill points til he has his 24 Skills and can proceed to the Jedi Trials.
Everyone in Star Wars is Force Sensitive. Thier knowledge of the force etc determines what happens. Thats why these missions should have a nice filled out story where the force is explained to your character as you progress and then you finally get a chance to prove yourself and work on being a true Jedi.
I also think Time limits and such arent good either. Some have suggested it should take 6 months to get your 24 little fs skill boxes. Sorry to say but im opposed to that. As you can See by my Title and Join date i have been with Galaxies for a long time. I was a Beta Tester and all of that. I have over 15 months of direct play time in SWG. Did I unlock? No i didnt. Not cause i didnt try but after 20 Professions i had enough and settled back into my pre holo-grind template. Sure i could probably grind out the last 12 very quickly but im having fun as my template i got. I dont want to grind again. I also dont want to be told well since you got lazy and didnt do the last 12 were gonna make you wait 6 more months.
The Quests should be done as quickly as the player doing them does them. The Developers did Say everyone cna unlock but the Powergamers will of course unlock quicker. So yes a Powergamer may speed through all the quests in a fw days while the causal gamer may take a month or two but guess what? Thats what the devs said would happen. Powergamers get it fast while others get it slower.
The System needs to start off very simply like this.
Alec Suba recieves 1 Force Sensitive Skill Point come patch 10.
He looks at the Force Sensitive Skill Trees and Picks a Novice skill. That novice Skill represents his initial Force Sensitivity and entrance into a larger world. From there He does whatever Quests or Missions are setup that everyone knows they will need to do. As he does them he gets more skill points til he has his 24 Skills and can proceed to the Jedi Trials.
Everyone in Star Wars is Force Sensitive. Thier knowledge of the force etc determines what happens. Thats why these missions should have a nice filled out story where the force is explained to your character as you progress and then you finally get a chance to prove yourself and work on being a true Jedi.
Aries1
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:46 am
#310
Would also be nice if you could find a way to involve the current jedi in the new system.
TygerBlueEyes
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:46 am
#311
Good more info.
Now my next set of questions is the ones that have already done the hologrind, but have not open their FS-- how far along are they going to be on the quest? Will they already be started on the quest or will they still have to find out how to start it then get their advancement from their grind?
GTOfire
Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:50 am
#312
From what I understand, Force Sensitivity isn't extremely uncommon in the EU (might be wrong there). With that in mind (and with knowing what the FS skills are going to be). I don't think it's necessary to keep the path there a mysterious one. Everyone can determine for themselves whether or not that want to take skillpoints away from something else and put them into enhancing their existing abilities.
Personally, I'm a Master Ranger, so I need every damn point I can get my hands on for my combat skills to be useful at all. I can just about manage being a Master Ranger and Master Pikeman for example, with 18 whopping points to spare for CH. I could decide to spend those 18 points on enhanced melee defense or enhanced foraging or whatnot, and I don't think it'll make me an extremely powerful guy. There will likely be templates to be made that do make a strong difference, but that's not very different than what we have now.
I'd like it to be my choice to go through a certain path to get something that isn't uncommon. Im sure plenty of people will decide they need their points way too much to be bothered with FS skills.