Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (7-5-04)
Munter
Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:23 pm
#339
Hi
Before presenting some positive (i hope) ideas a little whining 
Started a threat the other day (in a different forum) it was promply deleted ..Not a good practice to get players expressing their true opinions in the forums. Ok, enough of that 
With Devs having been abused in about every forum because of the patch 9 me thinks it is time for a few constructive thoughts.
There are many, and there will even be more Jedi in the game. Concerning their visibility and bragging in starports, me thinks there ought to be a voluteeringly introduced (if that does not work forced) code of conduct for the Jedi Order (profession). I have no Jedi Char and hence am not in a position to suggest the finer points of such a code of conduct but I still think if indroduced such a code of conduct would curb those players who ruin the game for all others. I am thinking of kill stealing and hordes of Jedi hunting overt player chars.
Hehe I am quite right with groups of players hunting Jedi ..after all that is supposed to be so..isn't it 
I am quite right with groups of players hunting Jedi ..after all that is supposed to be so..isn't it (ok..this is a joke)
As for Jedi camping dungeons..well..other player chars camp dungeons alsoand what are Jedi to do to get the exp they need?
What is the solution. Simple!! Do as they did in EQ, just instance the dungeons. EQ in the "Lost Dungeons of Norrath" introduced not only a compelling Story but also more then 40 instanced dungeonsof verying difficult levels. But even better! They also introduced a ranking system visible to everyone else. This means that the 100 most successful players are rewarded by being known to all other players. Me thinks that is great! 
I think that SWG ought to do the same as they did in EQ.
I think that SWG ought to do the same as they did in EQ. Indeed, right now I am convinced that instanced dungeons of varying difficulty isthe way to make SWG an interesting game. Each sequence (make it 10 dungeons or so) could have a different story to tell with a final battle which in some way contributes to the Galactic Civil War. The Corvette is a good attempt of an instant dungeron, yet it ought to have been the last of a series of dungeons connected by a compelling tale.
Being at the topic..making dungeons more difficult is ok as long as the difficulty can be overcome by being smart rather then by stupidly running against almost impossible odds. In other words, me thinks the game needs to indoduce more content that demands tactical skills rather then stronger armor, uber buffs and weapons.
Can't wait to read all the whining when patch number 10 comes It will make interesting reading
It will make interesting reading Remember, out of 10 posts 5 will be deleted...so keep at it 
KenjiTokugawa
Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:30 am
#340
My first post in this forum
Removal of "Intangible" Defenses
The Phases of an Attack (simplified)
With the Combat Balance coming, has anyone given thought to a slight reworking of theattack "equation"? As it stands right now, the attacker and defender "roll" a random number. Then the primary attack and defense bonuses (accuracy, ranged/melee defense, and character posture mods) are added to each "roll". If the attacker's roll is higher, the attacker hits. If the defender's roll is higher, the attacker misses. When the attacker successfully lands a hit, the secondary defenses kick in. These are the block/dodge/counterattackanddef vs. statemods. After that, attack damage and any damage mitigation are thrown in. The resulting damage/states are applied to the defender, and the whole process starts over again.
Reworking the Equation
How about just removing the primary defense bonuses from the attack "equation"? Instead of having the attacker roll against the defender, have the attacker roll against a database number (the number should still be modified by character posture and running mods). The rest of the equation could still remain the same, but the attacker's accuracy is no longer dependant on some intangible abillity the defender has to make them miss.
So....what does everyone think of this? I am unsure if this is even possible, but one never knows until one asks
By the way, if you have actually read all of the post in this thread up to this one.....wow . I had to take two breaks before finallyreading them all.
. I had to take two breaks before finallyreading them all.
Buckinham
Fri Jul 09, 2004 3:08 am
#341
I agree with Sesar about being able to see your character's total defenses on everything. It could be looked up from the character window.
Juggerson
Fri Jul 09, 2004 4:00 am
#342
First: I would like to have the Nalargon actually sound like a Master Musician instrument. Playing Virtuoso on it sounds almost nice, only the pauses between the samples are pretty annoying, it should be more fluently and if you play Virtuoso on your own it should remind you of some piano player in a bar. The rest of the songs just sound horrible with the steel drum sound.
Second: More instruments and variety in the sounds and animation. Example: Playing the mandoviol while it sounds like violins and striking it like a heavy metal guitar player is just annoying. Let the mandoviol sound like a guitar (accoustic, base and electric) in all songs, introduce a kind of violin like instrument that has the proper animation and sound
Third: New songs. After being a Master Musician for several months now it starts to become boring to hear the same songs over and over again. Here a new instrument would help, make it kind of an Choirfill or whatever you want to call it, this way it would be possible to include choir effects like in the Lok Planetary Music
Fourth: New dances for the Master Dancers, new flourish moves as well!
Fifth: Take out the routine that prevents Dancers from stumbling while holding a weapon. (They should still be able to hold one if they want to do the Lokian Blade Dance of course, but should still be able to stumble)
The instruments and dances and songs could either be included for everyone of a certain skill level or be a reward on quests (although the quest should be managable by entertainers without combat skill as well)
Spook333
Fri Jul 09, 2004 4:37 am
#343
Juggerson wrote:
Fourth: New dances for the Master Dancers, new flourish moves as well!
Fifth: Take out the routine that prevents Dancers from stumbling while holding a weapon. (They should still be able to hold one if they want to do the Lokian Blade Dance of course, but should still be able to stumble)
The instruments and dances and songs could either be included for everyone of a certain skill level or be a reward on quests (although the quest should be managable by entertainers without combat skill as well)
4) Nice idea.
5) Master dancers should never ever stumble, and right now you stumble around like a novice no matter what your skill is. The stumbling we have now is OK if you are a entertainer novice, but should be reduced as you get more skills and when you are master dancer you should never stumble again (you are after all amaster).
New songs and dances should never ever demand combat skills. That would be an insult to those few that have become pure entertainers without combat skills.
Vandaemus
Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:14 am
#344
I'd like to propose that stat migration be given back to thegeneral playerbase
This one change (IDers doing stat migration only) has lead to increased harrassment, resentment and bad feeling between id'ers and non-id'ers if the old system could be reintroduced alongside the new then the problems (and a lot of /report ing to CSR's for harrassment) would be be mostly gone.
The revamp which was to improve the ID profession has killed it as a viable profession. As there are currently no plans to rectify this i feel its valid to bring this to the concept forum.
Blazer
Fri Jul 09, 2004 9:03 am
#345
I suppose that this would be the place to post this since the thread for Entertainer/Dancer/Musician is only for new
Juggerson
Fri Jul 09, 2004 9:07 am
#346
Spook333 wrote:
5) Master dancers should never ever stumble, and right now you stumble around like a novice no matter what your skill is. The stumbling we have now is OK if you are a entertainer novice, but should be reduced as you get more skills and when you are master dancer you should never stumble again (you are after all amaster).
New songs and dances should never ever demand combat skills. That would be an insult to those few that have become pure entertainers without combat skills.
Stumbling should not happen very often, but even a Master makes a mistake sometimes. Of course Musicians should have the same as well, like hitting the wrong notes from time to time (more often in the beginning, very seldom as Master)
But I would not cry if stumbling for Master Dancers would be taken out completely
But seeing how many Thread titles in the "In Developement" board contain the word "Jedi", I guess the entertainers all only can hope for something new if they become Jedi Dancers, Jedi Musicians, Jedi Entertainer
groovysplat101
Fri Jul 09, 2004 10:23 am
#347
Just a few short ones...
1. Don't know if you can already, but a way of changing your last name, to show you were part of a family, would be cool.
2. Families. Yes, you can get married. But what about brothers, sisters, cousins, and all manner of relatives removed several times? It'd be cool if you could create a family, that would share a surname, perhaps share a home, and things like that.
3. Message notifications. You get a "you have mail" message on your spatial menu if someone emails you. You see your group chat stuff. But for your guild, people can message away, and you're none the wiser.
4. Clans. Like a Guild (PA), but extra. There is no limit to the number of Clans you can be in. They can be for things like families, or for a group of people who regularly talk and fight together. Right now, the Chilastra server is creating a smuggling ring. They could have a clan for that. The factions could have a clan, to send out messages on. It would require a "ClanChat" tab, in which all of your clan chat messages would appear. Clans are given a long name (its formal title), and a shortened one (like GRU, BC, SI, etc). The shortened one would be used to chat on that particular channel (/GRU, /BC, /SI, etc). You'd also be able to use the shortened name of the clan in the e-mail system to send a clan mail. The player would be able to "manage" their Clans, selecting the font colours that their messages would appear in. They'd also be able to disable various clan channels (ie. stop getting message notifications) individually, so they could "ignore" their family, if they wished to. Just access the clan menu, click a button, and voila. Peace.
5. /advertise. Corellia. Lag. Grr. Come up with a new type of "/shout", that is only visible when you want it to be. If people are wanting to get buffed, or want to see what the people are selling, they type /advertiseon. If they just want to wander past Coronet and Theed spaceports in peace, they type /advertiseoff. Advertisements could appear in a different colour on spatial.
6. Player-made badges...so you can create things like "is a member of the Tzin'kor family", or "is a member of the Galactic Response Unit", etc. Or, you could add an "affiliations" section in the examine menu, so you can see all of the clans, the PA, family, and faction of the player. Also, can we have the bio cleaned up into sections? Perhaps just having a badge counter, and then a section for points of interest, another for when you master something, another for "events" (quests, weddings, etc), and so on. And also, some indication of their current professions would be nice - then you can work out if someone is a Doctor, without pestering them by asking, or scouring the badges list.
7. Probably have been more at home up the top, but how about a way of accessing a "log" of everything said on your guild channel, and with the clans and families I suggested. It would add new lines on as someone messaged. That way, you can skim down the list to see what happened while you were gone. If someone somehow used a different prefix to post on the group (adding "important" to the end, or something), the message could appear in the list as red, or something, so readers would know what was important. There could be a new page per day or something, so they could choose the date for when they wanted to read messages, so they didn't have to trawl through the lot. That way, you can find out what people say about you on Guild Chat while you're not there.
1. Don't know if you can already, but a way of changing your last name, to show you were part of a family, would be cool.
2. Families. Yes, you can get married. But what about brothers, sisters, cousins, and all manner of relatives removed several times? It'd be cool if you could create a family, that would share a surname, perhaps share a home, and things like that.
3. Message notifications. You get a "you have mail" message on your spatial menu if someone emails you. You see your group chat stuff. But for your guild, people can message away, and you're none the wiser.
4. Clans. Like a Guild (PA), but extra. There is no limit to the number of Clans you can be in. They can be for things like families, or for a group of people who regularly talk and fight together. Right now, the Chilastra server is creating a smuggling ring. They could have a clan for that. The factions could have a clan, to send out messages on. It would require a "ClanChat" tab, in which all of your clan chat messages would appear. Clans are given a long name (its formal title), and a shortened one (like GRU, BC, SI, etc). The shortened one would be used to chat on that particular channel (/GRU, /BC, /SI, etc). You'd also be able to use the shortened name of the clan in the e-mail system to send a clan mail. The player would be able to "manage" their Clans, selecting the font colours that their messages would appear in. They'd also be able to disable various clan channels (ie. stop getting message notifications) individually, so they could "ignore" their family, if they wished to. Just access the clan menu, click a button, and voila. Peace.
5. /advertise. Corellia. Lag. Grr. Come up with a new type of "/shout", that is only visible when you want it to be. If people are wanting to get buffed, or want to see what the people are selling, they type /advertiseon. If they just want to wander past Coronet and Theed spaceports in peace, they type /advertiseoff. Advertisements could appear in a different colour on spatial.
6. Player-made badges...so you can create things like "is a member of the Tzin'kor family", or "is a member of the Galactic Response Unit", etc. Or, you could add an "affiliations" section in the examine menu, so you can see all of the clans, the PA, family, and faction of the player. Also, can we have the bio cleaned up into sections? Perhaps just having a badge counter, and then a section for points of interest, another for when you master something, another for "events" (quests, weddings, etc), and so on. And also, some indication of their current professions would be nice - then you can work out if someone is a Doctor, without pestering them by asking, or scouring the badges list.
7. Probably have been more at home up the top, but how about a way of accessing a "log" of everything said on your guild channel, and with the clans and families I suggested. It would add new lines on as someone messaged. That way, you can skim down the list to see what happened while you were gone. If someone somehow used a different prefix to post on the group (adding "important" to the end, or something), the message could appear in the list as red, or something, so readers would know what was important. There could be a new page per day or something, so they could choose the date for when they wanted to read messages, so they didn't have to trawl through the lot. That way, you can find out what people say about you on Guild Chat while you're not there.
groovysplat101
Fri Jul 09, 2004 11:07 am
#348
Just had this idea. It ties in with my previous post, regarding clans and families and such. Seems like a good idea to me...what do y'all think?
There is only so much space in your datapad. Once you've got your droids, your speeders (and animal mounts), your pets, and eventually your ships, plus a few waypoints, your datapad starts to get full. When a better droid comes along, or you have a Dark Trooper (faction pet), and are eledgable for another, you're gonna have to scrap one of them. However, what about having it so that multi-player organisations (Guilds/PAs, plus the Clans and Families I suggested) can own "datapad items" too?
Lets keep it simple, and go step by step:
What do we need?
- A Terminal, that can only be created by a Guild, Clan or Family, to store datapad data.
How does it work?
- Within it, items are classified into "Pets", "Vehicles", "Waypoints", "Schematics" and "Unit". Items of a datapad nature are stored in it.
What gets stored under Pets?
- Any Droid or Pet, if indicated as a "pet" when stored. These hang around in the building that is home to the terminal they were in. They are activated by selecting the "Come with Me" option from the radial menu. A "control" device is added to your Datapad. They will follow you until you "Return" them.
What gets stored under Vehicles?
- Any Speeder or Ship. These are activated by accessing the terminal, and selecting "Borrow". A Control Device is placed in your Datapad, until you "Return" the ship or Speeder.
What gets stored under Waypoints?
- Duh. Co-ordinates to important locations (Guild HQ, any other guild strongholds). By selecting "Add to Datapad", the Waypoints are copied quickly and easily. Draging and dropping them will also add them to your Datapad.
What gets stored under Schematics?
- Again, Duh. If you have a particularly good weapon Schematic, you can store it on the terminal for other Weaponsmiths to copy and craft from...its like giving someone a copy of the blueprints, essentially.
What gets stored under Units?
- The more complicated one. With Dark Troopers (all manner of NPCs could be bought and used for this though, like the Stormie squads that can end up in cities with Imp bases), which count as "Pets" ("Pets" refers to an individual entity), multiple Dark Troopers are grouped together, and respond to a single control device. A number in the upper right-hand corner shows how many units are present. They will act as a whole, following the commands of the one with the datapad - attack, ranged attack, guard, follow me, follow target, etc. "Units" can be created by dragging and dropping one Dark Trooper (or other NPC pet) into the Units menu, and then dropping another on top of it, changing the unit compliment from one to two, then three, etc. They can be broken up by selecting "disband" from the radial menu. This returns all pets to the "Pets" section. By grouping vehicles into the group, you can command the Unit to "Mount", at which point they all board their mounts. Otherwise, you'd need to store the squad to make a retreat, and then wait to get them back out again. If you had 12 TIE Fighters, and 12 TIE Pilots, you could group them to create an NPC Fighter Squadron, that would follow the basic sorts of pet commands, but translated to ships - Attack, Defend, Intercept, Missiles, Ion Cannons, Form Up, etc.
Why bother?
- First off, we need to spice up PvP...by making it PvPvE. If you were an Imperial, raiding a Rebel base, would you go in as just a few people? Of course not. You'd want a Stormie squad to back you up, at least. By having Units, you can field far more realistic troop deployments.
- Second, you can buy a squadron of fighters, or several vehicles, paint them up in PA colours, and take those into combat, rather than using a player's own craft.
- Third, it will help pave the way for a come-back in the GCW concept, as players can actually fight the Galactic Civil WAR against each other, rather than the occasional duel.
Just my few cents.
There is only so much space in your datapad. Once you've got your droids, your speeders (and animal mounts), your pets, and eventually your ships, plus a few waypoints, your datapad starts to get full. When a better droid comes along, or you have a Dark Trooper (faction pet), and are eledgable for another, you're gonna have to scrap one of them. However, what about having it so that multi-player organisations (Guilds/PAs, plus the Clans and Families I suggested) can own "datapad items" too?
Lets keep it simple, and go step by step:
What do we need?
- A Terminal, that can only be created by a Guild, Clan or Family, to store datapad data.
How does it work?
- Within it, items are classified into "Pets", "Vehicles", "Waypoints", "Schematics" and "Unit". Items of a datapad nature are stored in it.
What gets stored under Pets?
- Any Droid or Pet, if indicated as a "pet" when stored. These hang around in the building that is home to the terminal they were in. They are activated by selecting the "Come with Me" option from the radial menu. A "control" device is added to your Datapad. They will follow you until you "Return" them.
What gets stored under Vehicles?
- Any Speeder or Ship. These are activated by accessing the terminal, and selecting "Borrow". A Control Device is placed in your Datapad, until you "Return" the ship or Speeder.
What gets stored under Waypoints?
- Duh. Co-ordinates to important locations (Guild HQ, any other guild strongholds). By selecting "Add to Datapad", the Waypoints are copied quickly and easily. Draging and dropping them will also add them to your Datapad.
What gets stored under Schematics?
- Again, Duh. If you have a particularly good weapon Schematic, you can store it on the terminal for other Weaponsmiths to copy and craft from...its like giving someone a copy of the blueprints, essentially.
What gets stored under Units?
- The more complicated one. With Dark Troopers (all manner of NPCs could be bought and used for this though, like the Stormie squads that can end up in cities with Imp bases), which count as "Pets" ("Pets" refers to an individual entity), multiple Dark Troopers are grouped together, and respond to a single control device. A number in the upper right-hand corner shows how many units are present. They will act as a whole, following the commands of the one with the datapad - attack, ranged attack, guard, follow me, follow target, etc. "Units" can be created by dragging and dropping one Dark Trooper (or other NPC pet) into the Units menu, and then dropping another on top of it, changing the unit compliment from one to two, then three, etc. They can be broken up by selecting "disband" from the radial menu. This returns all pets to the "Pets" section. By grouping vehicles into the group, you can command the Unit to "Mount", at which point they all board their mounts. Otherwise, you'd need to store the squad to make a retreat, and then wait to get them back out again. If you had 12 TIE Fighters, and 12 TIE Pilots, you could group them to create an NPC Fighter Squadron, that would follow the basic sorts of pet commands, but translated to ships - Attack, Defend, Intercept, Missiles, Ion Cannons, Form Up, etc.
Why bother?
- First off, we need to spice up PvP...by making it PvPvE. If you were an Imperial, raiding a Rebel base, would you go in as just a few people? Of course not. You'd want a Stormie squad to back you up, at least. By having Units, you can field far more realistic troop deployments.
- Second, you can buy a squadron of fighters, or several vehicles, paint them up in PA colours, and take those into combat, rather than using a player's own craft.
- Third, it will help pave the way for a come-back in the GCW concept, as players can actually fight the Galactic Civil WAR against each other, rather than the occasional duel.
Just my few cents.
halo_paratrooper
Fri Jul 09, 2004 11:13 am
#349
i have a very interesting question
now, i have been playin since february. now it seams like that every publish comes out about once a month, I can understand if it takes 2 months for the big ones like the Jedi Revamp 2. and some have taken a month and a half. But the GCW, we will have to wait from like late august or whenever the Jedi Trials Publish comes out until March of 05' for the next publish. This will be very boring. I think you guys need to seriously revamp how Creature Handlers get xp, so the more dmg a pet does to a creature, the more XP it gets. And introduce some more clothing for tailors to make, the clothing now is getting boring, and I want to be able to make more. Maybe also introduce more mountable creatures, and make things like Arenas, for big citys, and make it a player city building for only the Metropolis lvl cities, a arena that player citys and guilds can do events like Duels in. Or have big events in, Not a like huge colusseum like building, but something that looks smaller, more like the small kind of arena/stage thats in the screenshot for the Secrets of The Force Revamp 1 Wallpaper. Something like that.
Mavhawk
Fri Jul 09, 2004 11:29 am
#350
Advertising!
Put billboards/ad terminalsin the spaceports/shuttleports/medcenters/cantina and in the town squares.
Charge players a fee per charachter of the message, like 1 credit per charachter per day, something that won't cost too much, but
Have scrolling billboards in the starport/shuttleportwaiting area with up to 50 different ads.Have them scroll through within 5 minutes, say one every 5 seconds. Maybe a wandering droid announcing the advertisements. (this way if you don't want to see them you can just ignore the droid) And plenty of Imperial messages thrown in there as well.
Have Advertisement Terminals in the same areas so if you're looking for a particular resource or item you can look it up in the advertisement terminals instead of running around between vendors that you only know the name of. Kinda like the classified sections of the newspapers.
It will curtail the number of people sitting in Coronet, or wherever, yelling out what they're selling, but it will still allow them to advertise. And limit the amount of ads they can place. Like 1 or 2 ads on the billboards or the droids, but not on the ad terminals..
Just my 2 credits..
Elitesolider
Fri Jul 09, 2004 1:53 pm
#351
Concepts:
- For PVP, why is it that you don't see players' swords and lightsabers wacking off eachother? All you see is two players constantlyslashing each other until one drops.When is the SoE Developers of this game going to make thePVP Animation and Combat where players aren't hitting each other until one dies.In a duel, weshouldsee two actual Jedi playersblocking lightsaber blows with one another, trying to stay alive. Lightsaber blades bouncing off one another, special effects and animation to display it. The same effects and animation could go for Swordsman, Fencers, TKA and Pikeman. Construct the additional graphics needed to animate when two players fight in PVP, almost in a Real-life simulation.I still believe that the PVP graphics and system is just a chip of the old Everquest block. Where the concept of Scrappers and Tankers revolve around the Concept of PVP. That's a concept that's obselete and needs to be changed. Star Wars Galaxy could bring about a revolutionized PVP combat and animation. Using the very same PVP system from Everquestis old news, old school, and an old tool.
- Star Wars Galaxy needs to focus on more PVP features in the game. The game should also look into the direction of having massive wars with other PA of different factions. Provide additional PA Bases for factions that could be destroyed, captured, hacked into, and more. An Imperial or Rebellion Faction PA could build their very own strong-holds where they conduct meetings, missions, and defend their own bases. These bases could have features like Turret defenses, Walls, Mine-fields,Faction Guards. The Faction PAwould be a commandcenter, Medical center, baracks, special crafting station all in one.These bases could possibly be blown up, captured and turned into the capture's base by other factions.
- Remove the PVP Damage Reduction. It's believe to be causing a great unbalance amongst the professions. It makes the Ranged weapons highly under-rated. To make a balance to this, you need to some how prolong combat by giving limits to players when spamming special abilities. This could either be done by reducing the amount of attacks a player has in combat per second, or increasing the chances for players to defend themselves so they can avoid a one-shot death.
- The Jedi Profession Tree needs a seperate Tree from the Dark and Light side. Give Dark Jedis different powers, 4 totally different trees from the current Jedi Tree, different abilities, Profession statistics, styles and schematics of lightsabers. On a side note, the Dark Jedis should be looked at as a profession that levels up fast. They should be strong against a jedi in the short run because of howfast and powerful they become in a short period oftime. This will slow regular Jedi players from becoming to strong to fast. But in addition to that, in the long run, Jedis will be stronger than the Dark Jedis side of the profession. A Jedi Veteran or Master would bealittle stronger than a Dark Jedi in comparison, but it would be twice as tough to level up a Jedi Master compared to a Dark Jedi Master.
- Bounty Hunters should be given Player-Made, Bounty Hunter Missions. Allow players to come up with the rewards and the name of the person he wants to put on the Bounty Hunter Terminal. The mission will act as a Wanted Poster on Bounty Hunter Terminal. Bounty Hunters will get to decide if they want to take the mission or not. In order for players to have the ability to make up this mission, they require Bounty Hunter Faction points. These points will cost a lot to set up one Player-Made Bounty Mission. The Bounty Hunter Faction points will not come easy because players would need to work hard on getting it. When you make a BH Player-made Mission, you will probably have to spend about 3000 Bounty Hunter Faction points for it. Players could access this through a Bounty Hunter Terminal. When a Bounty Hunter accepts a mission to PVP somebody, that person will receive an Email stating that he is being hunted. This mission last until the BH erases it from his datapad, or kills his mark. Only one BH can take the BH Player-made mission. He/she can't give it to others, but could have other players accompany him. Dark Jedis and Jedis are excluded from this because they are being hunted by the Empire.