Development Cycle Archive

2 things... I know you'll never get this far, reading what people have to say.. and that's why you made the poll... but here's my take..

1. People who are jedi's, want it to be mysterious, because what the heck.. they're jedi's already and this will thin out the population a touch.... I, as someone who wants to be a jedi, want to know what's going on.

2. The jedi system has to be known... because if you even try to pull ANYTHING similiar to that holo-grind garbage, it's your head on a pike..... I want full disclosure, even if it means more jedi's, because it's OBVIOUS to the player base, that the developers left to their own devices, cannot be trusted....

Short answer: Yes! Mysterious and unknown.

My reason:

1.I play this game because I am a star wars fan, and I want to feel immersed in a dynamic star wars world. So every non-transparent game mechanic takes away from my overall enjoyment. I know this might not be a priority for other folks playing the game, but it is mine so I thought I would mention it. More specifically, since no one talks about the path to becoming force sensitive in the star wars movies, I would like this to be unknown and mysterious in the game. And no, I am not already a Jedi nor am I a power gamer.

2.Sure, eventually some players are going to figure it out and write a how-to guide. Fine. That’s unavoidable, but who cares? Why waste SOE resources writing the guide when you can get some player to do it ?

Some other points:

In a way, my answer to this question is “It depends”. It depends on what you mean by mysterious. Some people on this forum think it just means you don’t tell anyone how to do it. I am for that, but don’t think it matters all that much (see #2 above). Other people think it means different for each player. I am also for that, and I think it is very important. At the same time, the system needs to be workable and not so complex that it could never be implemented. So I think the developers should be less interested in this mysterious question, and more interested in the following points/questions:

1. Hologrinding was bad. What is bad about it that we don’t want in the new system?
a.It encouraged/required players to perform the same actions so much that they became boring and frustrating.

b.There was no way to really gauge your progress or even tell if the boring, frustrating things you were doing were helping at all.

2. Jedi should be elite.

a.I am a casual gamer. I play a few hours a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. If I can become force sensitive in 3 months of this, then it is WAY TOO EASY. I’m thinking a year (min) or two (max) of casual game should lead to unlocking the force sensitive slot. The problem with hologrinding that I think frustrated other casual gamers was that it was basically IMPOSSIBLE for us to ever hope to unlock the slot, because it would require us to do things we wouldn’t normally do that often (switch professions arbitrarily), and it on average required so many hours of grinding that it was just out of reach.

My solutions/suggestions:

The force-sensitive slot should be something players unlock once they have been playing for long enough to have experienced most or at least a lot of the non-force sensitive/non-jedi content in the game. By content I mean PIOs, theme parks, profession specific things (but not requiring some combat fiend to become a chef of course ) . I think that making force sensitive unlocking XP-based seems an easy solution. You can even tell people how much Force Sensitive XP they need to become force Sensitive, and show them how much they have in the skills window. Make every, or at least many activities in SWG give players some small amount of force-sensitive XP. This amount should have some random element to it (like each activities gives 1-6 XP). Is this grindable? Sure. A player could just do one activity over and over again (it would be cool if you only got force sensitive XP the first few times you did something, but it seems like that might be much harder to implement). But I think most players, given a reasonable option that doesn’t require grinding, will choose not to grind. I know this isn’t a new proposal (MANY, MANY people have already posted suggestions like this), but I really think it’s the way to go, so I’m mentioning it again.

Reading back the above paragraph, I can’t figure out if I’m actually for mysterious or non-mysterious. Oh well.

Wow, you've got a lot to read.

I'd like it to be known.

So many people want to open FS to begin their path to Jedi. I'm just interested in being a FS crafter. When I learned that was a possibility, I was really excited for the new direction the "force" was taking. I've heard a few Jedi complaining on the boards that the FS powers aren't even useful to them, so it would appear having FS skills only benefits us "regular" folks. As a crafter who never listened to disembodied voices with career advice, and who has been the same 3 1/2 professions since she achieved them, I'd be very disappointed to learn there was no reasonable means for me, a die-hard crafter to achieve FS Mastery of the Craft. Needing to use any skill other than ones that branch off the Artisan tree would be unreasonable for me. I have no combat skills, no medic skills, not even any scout skills, and yet FS offers something to me too. Please don't let that be lost.

Different paths for different play styles would be nice.

One of the real drawbacks to making it known how to become FS is that when we DO become FS we open another character slot, right? That would mean a lot more Alts in the world. I'll not rehash arguments you no doubt remember all too well, but I'd be glad of another character slot to expand my interaction with the SWG game world. As much as scores of Jedi running around, opening up Alt slots for the player base will change the game.

Feisen

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JustG wrote:

Should the method of becoming Force Sensitive (not the path from Force Sensitivity to Jedi) be a mysterious, unknown mechanic orone that is visible and known to everyone?

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Known.

As the second jedi patch you've devoted the last several months to this. You have a responsibility to show us what that time has been spent on. Continuity arguments are moot when jedi are dueling in starports. You are suggesting putting content live that has delayed the combat balance, smuggler revamp, GCW revamp and then not telling us how to get it. That is ludicrous.

Known. No question.

• Before Christmas, no one knew exactly how to open their FSCS. Speculation was rife throughout the community. Everything from the broken Hero of Tatooine quests to profession grinding was considered as a theory. Folks focused on developing characters, participating in the GCW, and so on.


• After Christmas, the game was severely harmed through an obviously ill-considered decision to circulate Holocrons. Whether it was to "improve" game morale or to keep customer numbers up, the effects were obvious - hologrinding. You had to grind anywhere from 5-10 professions to open it. This at least gave folks some hope, but ensured that those who signed up for roleplaying hadn't a chance in heck. You had to be a power gamer to open the slot. This destroyed the GCW (everyone's too busy grinding to fight a war), commerce (everyone's too busy grinding to make stuff), and roleplaying (this week, I'm a tailor/BE, but next week, I'm a bounty hunter.)


• Sometime after February, after (I guess) too many power gamers had opened their slots, the number of professions required went through the roof - some folks had to grind all 32 professions to open theirs. Still, quite a few folks went through with it because that was the only way to get an FSCS.Left a lot of users out in the cold, though. By this time, battlefields are a distant memory, single combat is determined by who has the best armor and food, and group combat by who has the best riflemen, combat medics, and pets. Jedi are in hiding, using whatever means possible to grind experience and get up through Jedi ranks as quickly as humanly possible. Roleplaying has all but disappeared, despite the best efforts of some.


• Before Publish 9, you announced that Publish 10 would provide a quest-based system for opening a FSCS slot. Many folks stopped hologrinding, as it was no longer necessary to destroy your character weekly or daily in order to get a FSCS slot. Anyone still hologrinding can open their slot, but can't roll up a Jedi before Publish 10. The hope is that folks will once again return to real roleplaying and more social activities, like single & group combat. Instead, Jedi are now running around ganking anyone who even dares to go overt. Neutral Jedi exist. Ethics for those who attained Jedi are optional.

Message Edited by Sasco on 07-11-2004 06:04 PM