Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 5-3-04)
OK last one for now:
Please (oh Goddess Please) get rid of the ability to run tumbling macros. These are exploited to death by medics to get a lot of xp quickly. Case in point: with an inventory full of stim Bs and novice medic, I was able to get all but master medic in a single afternoon sitting in a med center and healing a tumbler. Hell you can even set up a simple "auto-heal" macro and you can both go AFK. Tumbling is a useless combat ability, and because it is only exploited to give medics easy XP, should be nerfed or removed altogether.
As an alternative, please consider my idea about medical mission terminals. (scroll up a couple to see it)
Are you ever going to make Master Bounty Hunter a viable pvp profession? And if you say that we are already "powerful enough" then you obviously are playing a different game. Also why do you let the combat medic thing go on unabated? With no mention of a fix, no-fix, or that you even admit there is an issue, whether it be a problem or not? And , let's be honest, it's a problem.
A jedi revamp beforea combat revamp is a joke. You know it, I know it and Bob Dole knows it.
Combat Balance v.1.0 Part I; Armor Revamp and Balance
Armor Rebalance – With the current armor in game the developers have left no room for the addition of additional armors because composite has become the dominant armor in the game. Armor needs some definitive changes to make each type of armor useful and have more negative modifiers that would make someone in armor an even match in combat for someone not wearing any armor.
1. Main Armor Changes – Currently while wearing armor players get all the benefits of armor and their skills while the only negating factor is encumbrance. With doctor buffs having been stabilized and the addition of new and useful chef foods that can buff a person even more, encumbrance becomes an irrelevant factor.
o Adding more negative modifiers to armor – Armor regardless of the type adds substantial weight and movement restrictions. Such things should be taken into account for armor in game. Some possibilities for negative modifiers in addition to encumbrance are as follows.
· Decrease terrain negotiation – wearing armor makes it more difficult to cover changing terrain and results in slower movement speed.
· Decrease burst run speed and duration – wearing the armor slows the player and tires them out more quickly
· Lower player defenses – because a person become less mobile while wearing armor they become more susceptible to being hit by ranged and melee attacks, more vulnerable to state changes, and decreases in any ability to dodge, block or counterattack.
o Certifications for Armor – Players are certified to use certain weapons with certain skills why should armor be any different?
· Place armor certifications throughout combat professions where the most protective armors can be found at the most elite levels this creates a more varied armor market and forces people to make tactical choices.
o Changing the way different armors function – Each type of armor should be useful and protective in its own way no type of armor should be able to do the job of all other armor combined like composite can currently. Energy is the main damage type we see in the movies and in the game. We see energy weapons blow through armor like a hot knife through butter. That same energy cannot penetrate varying forms of deflector shields which Personal Shield Generators are a form of. Below is my idea of what armor should potentially look like in terms of resists. In order for balance Jedi Lightsabers would have to be changed to energy damage and Heavy AP.
· Composite Armor – armor made from a mix of materials giving it its strength. Composite should have the best all around resistances but should be weak to energy and stun attacks. Composite should excel in resistance vs. kinetic, acid damage, electricity types. Resists for composite should look like the following. These are just estimations.
Kinetic 0-80%
Energy 0-30%
Blast 0-70%
Cold 0-30%
Heat 0-50%
Acid 0-80%
Electrical 0-80%
Stun 0-30%
· Padded Armor- Lighter than composite but not having the hard protective encasement this armor should be more about absorbing attacks.
Kinetic 0-70%
Energy 0-20%
Blast 0-80%
Cold 0-70%
Heat 0-70%
Acid 0-30%
Electrical 0-60%
Stun 0-50%
· Ubese Armor- Currently one of the better kinetic resists armor but its other stats is pretty much useless currently. I view ubese has having the some of the most balanced resistances.
Kinetic 0-80%
Energy 0-15%
Blast 0-70%
Cold 0-65%
Heat 0-65%
Acid 0-75%
Electrical 0-55%
Stun 0-25%
· Chitin Armor- Made from the carapace’s of insects this should be very hard armor being able to resist hard and corrosive forces. Should be a good cheap armor.
Kinetic 0-80%
Energy 0-20%
Blast 0-70%
Cold 0-30%
Heat 0-30%
Acid 0-75%
Electrical 0-30%
Stun 0-15%
· Mabari Armor- sticking with the idea that Mabari should have the best resists vs. heat.
Kinetic 0-50%
Energy 0-25%
Blast 0-40%
Cold 0-80%
Heat 0-80%
Acid 0-30%
Electrical 0-25%
Stun 0-20%
o Tantel Armor-……. It’s tantel
Kinetic 0-75%
Energy 0-30%
Blast 0-45%
Cold 0-45%
Heat 0-45%
Acid 0-45%
Electrical 0-45%
Stun 0-20%
· Bone Armor- Both hard and dense bone armor should have some good energy and kinetic resists making it suitable for beginning players and beyond for pve.
Kinetic 0-80%
Energy 0-40%
Blast 0-30%
Cold 0-20%
Heat 0-20%
Acid 0-25%
Electrical 0-25%
Stun 0-10%
· Personal Shield Generators- These right now are only partially useful and they do not really operate as effectively as they should. I suggest a REVAMP ON PSG’S. The following would make PSG’s useful especially in addition to the armor changes I suggested.
- Give PSG’s greater durability
- Make PSG’s act as a 4th HAM bar that absorbs damage (energy shield bar)
- Have a new item called shield recharge kits that can only be used while not in combat which can be used to heal the shield bar
- Make it so that a person cannot change psg’s while in combat or for 30-60 seconds after combat to prevent shield swapping.
- PSG stats should be as follows
Light armor rating (Imperial PSG could have medium armor rating)
Kinetic Bypasses shield (no block, no absorption)
Energy 0-90%
Blast 0-75%
Cold bypasses shield (no block, no absorption)
Heat bypasses shield (no block, no absorption)
Acid 0-75%
Electrical vulnerable (no block, absorbed)
Stun 0-90%
How this works is that kinetic, heat and cold attacks completely ignore the shield and move right on. The other resists instead of decreasing damage than letting it go to the armor would work like this.
Ex. (not using mitigation or pvp reduction) one person is wearing a PSG with 1000 hit points; another person shoots this person with a light armor piercing weapon that does energy damage for 1000 points of damage. The shield deflects 90% (900dmg) of the energy and absorbs 10% (100dmg) so the shields hit points are reduced to 900. The person attacking decides to use an electric weapon to get the rid of the shield. They shoot the person for 1000 damage again. The shield is reduced to 0 and 100 damage gets through to the person for whatever armor they have to take care of.
Ex. Round Two. The person decides that they are going to forego the ranged attacks and melee the person. They run up and attack for 1000 points doing kinetic damage. The shield does not absorb or block any of this so the shield still has 1000 hit points left. The person’s armor has to pick up the slack in this case.
· RIS Armor- with the armor changes I have proposed this armor could actually be made into something worth while.
· Bounty Hunter armor- not sure what this is other than that it’s used in Mandolorian armor
· Mandalorian Armor- Still yet to come this armor should have significant resists to energy. Mandalorian armor was known to be highly blaster/lightsaber resistant due to the cortosis used in the armor. I would expect mandalorian armor to look something like the following.
Kinetic 80-90%
Energy 50-90%
Blast 70-80%
Cold 0-80%
Heat 0-80%
Acid 80-90%
Electrical 0-80%
Stun 0-50%
o Skills relating to Armor
o Bounty Hunters and Commandos should not suffer any armor penalties other than encumbrance.
o Armor upgrades/ modifications- This could be a skill granted to Master Bounty Hunter’s allowing them to alter their armor with various modifications either acquired as loot or crafted. When a bounty hunter uses this skill on their armor the armor should become no drop/no trade and becomes truly their own personalized armor. It should also restrict them to only being able to wearing the armor as a Master.
I generally get about 45min a day. Most days I just don't bother to log in.
This game ain't meant for casual players.
"If you must add bounties make sure only Overt declared players show up on the bounty list. These folks have agreed to engage in PVP, the rest of us haven't."
Nope. SOEs position has always been that if you are factioned you are consenting to PvP.
The fact that you are covert does not mean that you are not consenting to PvP (hence the TEF that you get that allows overts to attack you).
A "proper" solution would be to have the TEF actually turn you overt for the time - which would mean that you could attack the people that can attack you (no more ganking coverts who have a TEF :-).
Thunderheart wrote:
Last Week's Discussion Thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=38320
Welcome to the weekly In-Concept Open Discussion thread.
For the In-Concept threads you see in this forum, please stay on topic in the specific threads so we can get focused feedback; consider them "Focus Threads". If you have general questions about the process, new concepts or other types of comments, pleasepost themin this thread.
DorTaul wrote:
Why not make Rebels who kill Imperial Crackdown Stormtroopers appear on the Bounty Hunter Terminals? The Empire, instead of doing nothing about the 15 Stormtroopers killed in Kaadara, posts a bounty on the head of the murderer. Or, instead of doing this, make the murdering Rebel kill on sight to all other Imperial Crackdown Stormtoopers until he/she is killed by them.
I believe my idea is a good one. Anybody else?
This is a great idea. I'll share it with the team. Everyone reads the weekly dev cycle threads, but I'll send this around for a second look.
Please put some Star Wars back into the game and make stromtrooper & the rebel armor at least somewhat comparable to composite... while your at it please lower the resists of composite. Just way too strong... so have them all meet somewhere in the middle.
Also when will faction pets be worth having again? They have been nerfed to useless and then taken to just one pet per player. It really helped give a good feel when you had 3 stormtroopers following you around, CH "nerf" aside they are quite restricted to factional targets, and from that they will not even open fire on TEF'd enemy players! Please at least restore their armor ratings?