Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC4: Path of the Jedi
Ok now to suggestions:
1st of, please please do not have missions/quests that cannot be completed solo. Jedis have always been very indipented with the exception of padawans in the glory days of the order. So keep the missions solo, please
2nd
A couple of people have mentioned having a training section where one has to battle a FS char of the opposite alignment. Dark vs. light... This is a brilliant idea. I think it should be a pvp situation where you have to find a dark jedi and battle him (and get away alive at the very least) in order to procede with your training. only problem might be finding an opposing FS player. Good luck solving that devs...
3rd
The system now for getting FS is redonkulous...
people who don't care or rarely play end up getting FS slots. All the while there are devote players trying desperately to become FS. Now the hard part is finding the balace so that those who are willing to work can become a jedi, yet keeping the numbers very very low.
I forget who but someone suggested having open compitions where players go against one another on the trail to becoming FS. Thus the worthy become jedi and the numbers stay low.
Granted I agree that this game is for the casual player, I am one. I maybe play 3 times a week, but I dislike the idea of people like me, or worse, getting FS char when they didn't earn it. Jedi should be an atainable class, if one is determind they should be able to reach it. It should be an amazing difficult and long journey but it should have a finite visible end. The current system has no finish its aimless attempts.
thanks for listen to me ramble. (killed a whole class period... I hate high school)
lorildeh,
Nice post. I have some additions to make to a number of your points.
- Get all quests from your trainer
Obi Wan was of great help to Luke, even after he died. Jedi are being hunted to near extinction. Consider the use of the 'ancient dead jedi' like the cave on Dagobah (spelling?) were Luke met Yoda. Maybe each player has some random dead Jedi that appears and gives out some intructions.
Mysterious are the ways of the force. I don't want to be able to Google "SWG Jedi Quests" and find a walk thru with all the NPCs that start all the Jedi quests. I'd like to see something that is very random. I've seen more NPCs walking around these days. Could we have the NPC starter quests sort of randomly assigned to these NPCs? Then, once you have the right faction points and the townspeople trust you, maybe they could start to give you some hints about who talk to.
- Resuce a damsel in distress (could usewisdom, bribery or trickery, doesnt need to be combat)
- Free some slaves (could usewisdom, bribery or trickery, doesnt need to be combat)
- Free some hostages (could usewisdom, bribery or trickery, doesnt need to be combat)
Let's not forget that there are two sides to the force. Rather than a straight forward rescue mission, have the person in distress that is your next contact point. Then depending on how you complete the mission, give out some dark side or light side points. So, if you have to go talk to somebody that's a slave you have a couple options. If you chose to go in and kill the captors, dark side points. If you find another way, light side points.
- Find the components (crystal, rare metal, etc) for a lightsaber
- Make your first Lightsaber using the Force(see below about using the FS character)
Nobody but FS characters should be able to get crystals or other lightsaber components. Nobody but FS characters should even know what the components for a lightsaber are really. The components shouldn't be rare drops from the hardest critters in the game.
One of the most exciting times in game for me was trying to figure out how to open the FS Slot, and what came next. It was widly believed that there were several things already in place in the game that were only accessable to jedi...Places to visit, people to speak with, puzzles to solve.
I recall some excitement within the community when people began to discover the towers with the glowing smoke rising from them. there seems to be one on each of the advance / elite planets....some were under the impression that a random NPC would surface and give a person a mission to that area so that they may discover the tower....after discovering the tower, then something else might arise for them to continue this mini quest. Another example is the hermit in the desert on tatooine....many belived at that this was a series of missions, that were required once you opened your FS slot in order to actually obtain the "novice padawan" title, and profession. This definately gave the feeling of luke seeking out ben and finding his path.....The quests that he mentions and hands out would be a great way to setup something......
Many people love to solve puzzles. This is what makes several of the jedi knight games soooo much fun. lots of riddles, puzzles, mazes, ect... I realize this is easier said than done in a MMO atmosphere, but create puzzles in the game similar to the "warren", but make them fs / jedi related.
If the opening of the slot is going to be quest based, then give small hints from the NPC's along the way....not smack you in the face hints, but small ones that make you question weather its really a hint or not.
Setup a quest or mission that requres a jedi Knight to "find" a jedi padawan and train him..create an apprentice / student relationship...you can implement a system that allows a jedi to "feel" the presence of another jedi character, and would also fill the same request that is currently sought after. This other jedi should stand out to the player jedi....either "glow" a bit or worst case seriano receive a system msg that states "you feel the presense of the force" ect...
Give an option for a jedi terminal, that works similar to the BH terminals....you can get a mission that gives jedi xp after completion, for those that do not want to look at the other options....what about dark jedi that can pull missions to kill light jedi? Light jedi that can pull missions to......err...ecsorte people? the mission would have to be completed in one setting, and during the escorte from one planet to another, the jedi is attacked some NPC Jedi or the empire or something.....well work on that one.....
Yoda and ben should still be around at least in a blue glowie form...right? ......with the space expansion give access to degabah so we can seek them out......
give jedi the ability to go places / do things (non-combat wise) that other professions cannot. right now it seems like jedi are just another profession, and nothing to get all that excited about. we need some roleplaying aspects....
I realize some of these ideas are outside the continuity of things, but lets be lets be honest...we have already crossed the line for contunity so that this game can continue to be fun. (which is a good thing)
....oh and a robe with a hood would be nice
That said, hologrinding has ruined the game, which is why i'm assuming we're revamping the system. The path to unlock the FS character slot should NOT require ANY proffesion switching AT ALL. It's bad for the economy and bad for the game PERIOD. When you have tons of armorsmiths or whatever griding out crap armor just for the sake of making master only to drop it you drastically effect other portions of the game. Besides making players play something that have absolutely no desire to is plain silly. I'm sure the original inent was something along the lines of getting players to see more areas of the game they wouldn't normally coupled with giving them something to do due to lack of content, while it mighta looked good on paper, it didn't work. NO PROFESSION SWITCHING!
That said i think the best way would be to have a set of quests tailored to your profession and the only way to finish these quests is if you MASTER your profession. If you're a dabbler it picks one of your professions at random and that's the one your quests are based off, it doesn't TELL you which one but gives you missions along that professions specialties. If your a doctor you go on missions to cure diseases on npc's, cure a plague outbreak etc. If your a bounty hunter you go on missions against special npc's. But make the missions unique and heroic so they are interesting. Not the typical SWG mission, go 1500m and kill a lair type crap. There should be quite a few of these missions leading up to some major missions. I think ideally the quest to be FS should be similar in the vein of thought to getting your epic in everquest. It should be a tailored epic quest, requiring player interdependancy and items that are hard to find. There has to be a sense of accomplishment of doing this. The journey to becoming FS needs to be half the fun. The quests should give subtle hints of a special NPC that's either behind the whole thing or that is in reality your trainer. This makes people pay attention to their mission set and actually read the story and get involved. The hints should be vague enough that you have to really look but not stupidly vague. You then have to find the last guy and either kill him, do a special quest for him or something along those lines.
There's alot of other ways to add to this or make it more interesting, but this journey to becoming FS should be the most intricate and involving part of this game as it's the one that most people want to do, not some silly system like we have now. THIS is the epic part of SWG and getting there should reflect that.
The one thing that troubles me about this whole post though is that your even asking this at this stage of the game. I thought this was all supposed to go live next patch? That means it's either not, or the next patch is ages from now. You guys really need to light a fire here, the changes to this game are coming WAY WAY too slow. There's too much time between badly needed fix patches.
the lost role of the padawan.
at a ceertain point say , jedi knight. at this point that jedi should be able to choose another fspc of lower lvl to be his padawan. in this they learn from each other and should recieve xp bonuses when in combat toghether.
there should be ways as simple as them sparing for the padawan to gain xp. sure they have to train in private but thats the game.
it would be nice if say the master jedi in the situation could say choose from a menu with a list of jedi trail missions of verying lvls. the master would send padawan when he felt he was ready and capable of compleating the task.
of course there should be ways of training and advancing solo, but that path is hard and slow. any padawan would benifit from the guidence of a master.
knights or masters should be able to take a padawan. the only drawback to knight is that can only take the student so far. even though soloing it him self the knight should gain some xp bonuses from the company of another jedi.
what due you all think???
My thoughts on this are simply this.
Keep in mind there would be slight variations on this depending on if one wanted to go sith or light jedi.
The first step would be obviously seeking out a npc to start you on your path to force-dom. Now for this I recommend keeping him static ( yes I realize posts about the location will be everywhere, but bear with me ) put him somewhere in a deep dark remote desolate place that is very hazardous to reach. Now, when you go see him, he will give you a list of items to procure ( not purchasable and not tradeable ie. you actually have to go there AND complete the objective to get flagged that you did the objective ) each time you acquire the item, you have to return to him to get the next item and so on and so forth 10-12 times each item is harder to get then the last. Once you've completed his tasks ( and they would vary depending on if you had a combat profession or a non-combat profession ) the trainer will then and only then begin your training.
Examples of these Quests:
1) Light Jedi ( go and convince an npc merchant to give you something w/o attacking )
Dark Jedi ( go and kill said NPC merchant to get what you want )
2) Light ( go rescue a child )
Dark ( go kill a rebel spy that has been transmitting plans to some imperial project )
3) Light ( go and get x number of units of hide from a specific creature type on a specific planet )
Dark ( Level a small village and return with the camp banner )
.....etc...etc....etc..
As far as camping by BH's goes fine well... it's lame and we all know that... BUT if they want to fine
simply create a sphere of protection around the trainer X meters in radius and as long as you are there to converse or begin to start your quests a small squad of padawan jedi or even the trainer themselves will attack the camper if anyone in that sphere is under attack.
Now that you've begun your training you'll complete an additional set of quests.
The first quest: gather the components to begin building your lightsaber each component from the component quests would be given to the trainer, then... after you've completed that series of quests you will return and the trainer will give you a set of components you've gathered to build your first lightsaber.
The Second Quest: Go to a specific planet and complete x number of missions or serve a specific guild for a period of time ( a player guild, picked randomly from all of the active guilds ) This could be anything from joining the guild to being grouped with that guilds members for x number of hours and then at the end of your period of servitude you'll be awarded with a badge the badge will mark your completion )
The Third Quest: go to a specific npc on a specific planet and complete their quests ( for example sith may have to go complete the imperial themepark to get to a specific npc and the light one's to the rebel themepark )
Now, it's at this point where I have a debate... if we go with the themepark idea using the imperial one for example.. once you complete the emperor's themepark you would return to your trainer tell him you've completed it, and he may say go see the emperor, so you do and when you get there he may say there is one final task for you he will give you a proving task to prove if you are ready to take on the lightsaber and training and upon completion you are awarded your FS slot.
OR once you complete the final quest... all your non-FS skills are frozen, and the current character is now a jedi/sith and you find yourself stripped of all equipment ( ie armor and weapons) and clothed in a jedi/sith robe and your lightsaber and then begin your training
Granted this would mean an end to the whole FS slot and maybe open up a second slot for a second character instead.
Here is what I would like to see:
The quest for unlocking:
These quest have to be difficult enough that not everyone will be able to complete them but in the same turn really fun. IMO a good story line for the quest that would actually allow you to get the feeling that you are understanding the power of the force would make it all very fun. I dont think it would be wise to have the quest randomly spawn every day so the chances of you actually finding your trainer would be slim. Not only would it make the path tedious it would also be unfair to those of us who waited to do their holos for a month or so not thinking there would be a dramatic change. In short I feel the quest should be made so that it takes and average player ( average meaning playing about 2-3 hours a day) at least 3-4 months of playing to unlock. Now I'm not saying make it equal 120+24hours I mean the person could still go do pvp and other things in the game but mainly do his quest and unlock in that time.
The quest for your Jedi:
Now while not everyone agrees with me on the path for unlocking I have had several people tell me that after they unlock there slot they would like to see this system in place. After you unlock your slot you are given one final waypoint to you master's new location. I would say make this on a planet far out of the reaches of normal game travel (such as dath.) When you get there you can run errands for him. Keep in mind you will HAVE to use your jedi character not your main to do these missions. That way there is some risk and in order to get good rewards you must take a risk. For example the first set of missions you do might only get you a cool robe or belt or something like that. But as you increase in the difficulty of the missions your rewards get better and better. Ideas for the higher end rewards would be Krayt Pearls(these would be better than crystals but not as good as the looted ones off the Krayts themselves still leaving a little bit of a market for the uber ones), rare colored crystals such as silver or a wierd blue or something.
Saber Repairing:
While I'm not a jedi yet I have many jedi friends and have read many post on this matter. To me a jedi should not have to keep building sabers over and over again. It is a tool that should last for years if taking care of properly. I think jedi should be able to perform periodic maintence to keep the saber in check and by doing so lower the amount of decay a saber will gain. Now granted over a time of about 6 months you should have toeither repair and if itfails crafta new one. But a way to maintian it would allow jedi the chance to have fun with their char instead of always looking out for crystals.
Just a few ideas 
-Sectick
Ummm actually Ben already had his encounter with Vader.. if you do the Rebel Themepark they mention that the Death Star has blown up... and Yavin is under Seige...You also have a part in the rebellion moving from Yavin to Hoth, obviously the Empire didn't know where the Rebels were until they tried to blow up Yavin... we're after ANH and before TESB in terms of movies...
777erc wrote:
D3st0r wrote:
777erc wrote:
hmmm... the personal jedi thing sounds cool, but there were no jedi hanging around helping out the new guy. And the bh camp jedi trainer would cause a problem. Maybe have a blue glowy should up and direct a person to a random npc's whichnormaly gives quest, butinstead of the normal questthe jedi potential wouldget a jedi quest.
It would also be nice if the player was not able to choose the dark or light side, but the choices the player would make with npcs would decide.
See evidence of vader's hunt for the jedi would also be nice to see. Maybe in the later missions vader might even show up. Making the jedi mission a "run for your life" kinda thing.
This is why the Jedi-specific quests have to be given by the trainer only. There is no way to tell who a Jedi's trainer is.
but don't u think that having jedi trainers is inconsistent with the time period, considering the only jedi's i know of at this time would be obi-won and yoda. and bens about to have a close encounter with vader's saber
Hmm My First Post And Im Unsure Of The Topic of The Thread: Ok Here It Goes
If this is about how to get Jedi, Unlock your FSCS, i think that it should try and stick to the jedi code.
There is no emotion; there is peace.
A Non-combat mission where you would perhaps have to try and convince your enemy not to be aggressive and be more passive blah blah blah
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
A quest of knowledge, visit points of planets, like a pilgramidge or however it is spelt
There is no passion; there is serenity.
Hmm now this is a tough one, perhaps remaining impartial, for isntance, a dispute between two people and you have to solve it. (yes Kotor i know but they did it so well)
There is no death; there is the Force.
Your teacher should die, then you have to seek his "Glowie" a bit like the random profession but more exploration orientated.
If this isnt about the above, then bugger me