Development Cycle Archive

To address the concerns I missed in the post above...

As far as ambushes go, thats life. If you dont want to get jumped by the enemy, dont run around overt. That or always travel in groups. And also, while this enables them to ambush you, it allows you to call in backup from anywhere on the server without them having to take the time to find a recruiter and go overt.

And as for moving an army into an enemy base, then declaring and attacking, thats what covert faction scanners, and being TEF'ed when entering an enemy structure is for. Crossing a covert scanner gives you an automatic TEF, same as actually entering a faction base, thus makingyou vulnerable to attack by the defenders. Therefore, the best you should be able to do, if the enemy is at all defence-minded, is get close to the base before going overt. Scanners and minefields are the counter to this tactic, and are, by design or not, perfectly suited to this role. Therefore, in my opinion, the tactic of moving a large covert army into a base before going overt wont work if the group who owns the base has any skill or common sence, and negates any problem that this would cause.

Gan'r

Ahazi

The whole covert and declared thing is way out of line. If I am covert, I should be able to drop that status and be able to fire upon a person of the oppisite faction that is standing around declared. If I am declared, I should be ready for anyone who is covert to be able to fire upon me. The moment that person fires on me, I should be able to shoot back, even in an attempt to shoot at me, I should be able to fire.

The whole "run to a recruiter to declare" thing is a joke. I can fire upon the opposite faction camps with out being declared but I can't fire at a declared person. Why is this? I know that they are the enemy, but yet I can't fire.

Kinda reminds me of Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith show, and how he had to go and dig out his single bullet, fumble with putting it in the gun and the bad guy going away. I gotta go and either take a shuttle to the nearest recruiter, load, rundeclare, /burst back to the shuttle, load again, and then hope that the guy is still standing where ever I saw him last.

Make it so we can declare, or drop covert status at anytime, without having to see the recruiter. Make us show up as declared for an hour or until we die, which ever is first. This would change the way people do PvP.

With TEF cloning wars still a problem, I don't know if the /declare command is a good idea at all. If Faction A goes to a city with a Faction B recruiter then pretty much Faction A can never, ever succeed. Because Faction B can continue to clone, declare and attack until Faction A finally has it's numbers dropped to 0. Maybe it's nice to know your city can never fall to the enemy, but to me it seems like adding to the cloning continuous war with absolutely no point and no end to it. It rarely has any kind of meaning, other than who can get bored of it the fastest. Besides, I don't see any group staying online watching their monitors for 24 hours every day (minus server update time) just to keep your hometown from ever reverting to your faction's clutches.

If there was a way to let coverts /declare but not let recently defeated enemies clone and then /declare right away, then that might work. But as is, large PvP battles are so pointless with everyone cloning and returning to fight over and over until one side gets bored that I don't see /declare making things better.

As for /declare anywhere, anytime... I don't even want to get into all the terrible, terrible exploits and general problems that could cause.

How about a fix for my bug? Once I declare Overt, I can no longer get the 'I would like to hide my faction affiliation from others' option for the 1 hour wait for Covert. I'm perma-Overt until I get DB'd.

Please help. I've been this way for 2 months.

Good idea just don't go any further with it. It sounds like you understand what I mean from one of your replies. I agree that the go overt at anytime idea would just be an open gateway for abuse. The current system is pretty solid but this would be a good addition along with it put a tef indicator in game. It could be just like how the dot system works.(I.E. bleeding,poison, desease.....etc).

Great Idea

I agree with this ppl that want Go OVert and stand until u will go covert at recruter.

I find all ppl in a Faction should be Overt until they go to a recruter and say they want be covert. This should be happen after 1 hour.

This is the best way .

We need more War. And i dont agree with going covert after DB. Make Clone Center secure area!!

But i hate if iam aweak in CLone on Theed and need to fly back to a Reb city where i can go Overt again.

Nemarus

I don't know what balancing issues this would bring to the game, but possibly allow people to declare overt anywhere. It would still take an hour to go covert, because it very hard to convince peolple that you actually did not say you were of so and so faction once said. Realisticly a person can say "I'm a Rebel, come and get me" or "I'm an Imperial Officer, you are under arrest" and kill each other.

This would take spawn camping out of the game completely and allow for different tactics, but reversely could be complications with PvP and people popping overt within 10m and killing before the oppenent knows what happened. A solution could be a 30 sec timer with a system message to oppenent faction players in range announcing overt status.

Also, don't know if bounty hunter's have this, but they should be able to track down information about oppenent faction members in teh area. Not sure if this is an option because I'm a chef!

-Just some ideas.

Bad news Holocron that's real life. If the Other side does not notice a bunch of unknown (not purple) people moving into town and an army goes overt that's a lack of situational awareness as we say in the bussiness. Allow people to go overt at will that is true to life and fair to both side if everyone can do it, atleast then i'd know when i was a target, which leads me to my next point how come everyone else can tell if i havea TEF but me work that at while you are at it.

awsome idea I ahte having to close the stupid window whenever a imp is guarding the recruiter

Holo:

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That would let you move in armies of safe people to the location of a fight, and have them all go overt at once and ambush...

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What's wrong with that? Isn't that what a group of covert operatives should do? But, I understand your point, so why not let us /overt where ever, but make us wait sometime before we can actually initiate an attack. 20-30 seconds, maybe. Then, players have a chance to react. Hell, make it a minute. The point is we should be free to "flash a badge" where ever, whenever. Having to meet with a recruiter is kind of silly. Allowing higher ranked players to "overt" other players, as was suggested previously, is a good idea too.

cisco

How about give the ability to declare at faction mission terminals (but you have to go to a recruiter for anything more).

I like allowing high-ranking PCs to overt their subordinates.

I'd like to see the Imperials and Rebels made different in their tactics, more like Star Wars. Rebels should be able to ambush and get the jump on Imperials, as that is the tactic of a resistance. On the other hand, Imperials should be able to overwhelm with organized force if the Rebels' ambush doesn't go well.

Imagine that Rebels can go overt anywhere at will, but that Imperials can place a call for reinforcements (NPC troops)also. The Rebels have X amount of time before said reinforcements will arrive, so they must do their job quickly. The speed of reinforcements arrival could improve with the higher rank of the Imperial (if a General calls for support he certainly gets heard faster than a Cadet).

Later you could add more layers to this, such as letting a Rebeldroid try to jam the Imperial's communications, whilst allowing Imperial droids that are mobile scanners for Rebels (like photo-recognition systems used now by FBI). Smugglers should have a unique ability to provide save passage for theRebels, even past scanners (so that they are actually SMUGGLING something!), and this would be a source of income to them and make them more valuable.This way there is always a chance the Rebels will be discovered en route and have their plans upset, while they also have a chance of stopping reinforcements.

HOLOCRON, IMHO the above is key to satisfying player demands for more depth of play and content. Ideas like this will add value and differentiaton to professions, make PvP more dynamic and central to the game, and make it so its not just about icing the enemy, but half the fun is just getting there!