Development Cycle Archive
Thread: IC4: Path of the Jedi
I was just thinking the same thing! Since there is no more permadeath, and also since they are revamping force-sensitive process to be more quest based, then there is really no need for two accounts. I think that when you become force-sensitive it should be for the character you are currently using. Your character would be given the option of learning padawan novice, but the skill requirements would be so high that you would have to drop all your other skills by the time you had started to progress more than a few boxes up the jedi tree. Of course, novice padawan or whatever it is called would need to be kept as a weak skill, so that there would be little incentive for people to take it if they didn't want to actually go up the jedi tree.
I think this approach makes more sense with continuity and would be more fun.
There are so many pages that I really don't have time to read all of them, but here are my ideas. If I repeat something someone else said, then good we are thinking alike.
I think there should be some sort of "Hidden" pre-requisite for a character to get to before he/she may start the journey. This should not be a major set of "Things". Think about it, Jedi are trained from childhood, so they haven't done much, so a player shoul dnot be required to move heaven and earth to start the long road. I feel the road itself should be long a tedious so that only a dedicated player will finish, thus keeping the "population" somewhat in check. I feel a good pre-req would something like mastering one profession, have a x number of badges (not a huge amount but a couple) and I feel that they should be required to join a faction.
Once a player has met these requirements they may try to star the journey. I think the journey should be one that lets them open up their fscs. The joureny should be one that can be completed by any profession with many different ways of completing each task. The NPC's involved should NOT bea static location. What would be great is to setup "Areas" that are say 1500m x 1500m or larger on the tougher planets where the NPC's can spawn and when the character is on the journey and they get say within 500m they are "Drawn" to the NPC. This can then act like a waypoint. NPCs in towns can give hints to where these areas may lie, but nothing static.
The quests would start easy and get harder, making sure that each one can be completed by everyone regardless of profession. For example the first mission may be to help out some settlers. The settlers may need 1k meat, 1k hides and 5 stim packs. Well depending on a person's skills they could craft, buy or hunt the supplies and bring them back to complete the task. Then, the NPC disappears or shuttles away and the player is drawn to another location.These quests should have timers based on how hard they are. Failure means slipping backwards and additional quests must be done.
The quest should be built so that there are some phases that require the player to get help from friends/guildies or hire strangers to help. some that must be done solo.
When the fscs unlocks they start with a new player. The player should choose his/her own path. They will immediately be drawn to a location where they undergo a test. In the test the player might get to "Try out:" some of the force skills from each side and then must deciede which path to take. the player may switch sides at the cost of half of thier skills once... and only once... to attempt it a second time mean 99% chance of permadeath.
They must then follow a long series of quests to unlockskills along the way. again, some must be done solo and some must require help from others, although the dark side seems more like a primary solo type job so maybe not as many group missions here.
Many skills may be unlocked by xp, but some, say the begining of each tree and the top of each tree should have quests that must be done to get those skills. This allos the player to play and quest.
Thats All I can think of for now.
This post is (mostly 
) about becoming a Jedi, NOT content for characters that are already Jedi.
What about something like this?
Step 1: Force-Sensitive XP
Various quests and NPC interactions reward players with small amounts of Force-Sensitive XP (FSXP). I’m thinking of existing quests already in the game, but generally things that aren’t infinitely repeatable by a player (you don’t want people grinding through the same Cantina NPC delivery mission over and over 1 million times). All types of interactions could yield a little bit of FSXP, visiting certain places, completing large quests or even picking certain responses in conversation with NPCs. The amount of FSXP you have (and the amount you get from an interaction) should be secret to make it more challenging (the amount you get could also have a random element, like a given interaction could reward you with 1-5 FSXPs). You wouldn’t get any FSXP directly from crafting or combat, so no play-style should have an unfair advantage. But you will have to interact with NPCs and game content to get FSXP (as opposed to interacting with other players); I just don’t see any way around this. Allowing player interaction to grant FSXP seems implicitly exploitable.
Some variations on the FSXP idea:
a) Some actions/choices might make you lose FSXP. The gain or loss of FSXP should relate to continuity principles of Jedi and the force, of course. It shouldn’t just be random.
b) There could be Light-side and Dark-side points. This would be cool because you could reward both types of players (in any event, FSXP rewards should not be biased to good or to evil player characters). But maybe it is better to keep FSXP general and introduce the light and dark sides once the character has actually embarked on the path of the Jedi. I’m not sure.
Step 2: Jedi Quest(s) Once you have accrued the magic number of FSXP, the Jedi static quest would be unlocked for you. Maybe some event would occur to start you on the quest (like an NPC would find you or your character would experience some type of manifestation of the force, like a dream). Or perhaps the player would still have to find the quest-start point (like an NPC who tells you to go away unless you have the right amount of FSXP). This quest should be long and challenging and start the player down the path of being a Jedi.
Some variation on this idea:
a) The first quest should be generic for all play styles and should just unlock the Padawan skill box. Depending on how the player finishes the quest, either a light or dark-side quest will be unlocked, which they also need to finish to advance. This would allow them to become either a dark Jedi or a light Jedi. I guess there would also need to be an option to re-do the initial quest, in case the player wanted to be a light jedi, but behaved more like a dark Jedi the first time around.
General things that should change in my opinion:
- No more second account for Jedi. Jedi should just be another skill tree, but one where the novice and low-level boxes cost so many points that you would have to give up all your other skills before you could advance very far. Or you could give every other non-jedi skill negative modifiers to force powers and light saber use, so that if a player has non-jedi skills they wouldn’t be able to do very much with their Jedi skills.
- No more reliance on expensive, super rare items. If Jedi need crystals there should be some means for them to get them without relying on a mule character that has 1 million credits from grinding pikett missions.
What does everyone think of these ideas? Are these some glaring holes or problems that I am not seeing with them? I am sure other people have already thought of ideas along these lines, so if anybody wants to post links to previous posts that are similar, that would be great.
HELLO ATTENTION HERE TO THIS THREAD
Now that i have your attention, I just wanted to say you guys are doing a pretty good job with the jedi system. Where the Profession mastery wasnt that great of an idea...IT DID keep the jedi number low.
Jedi Are special, and I believe that in the new system that it should be clearer and a little better thought out, but still should weed out the casual gamers.
No offense to the people who casual gamer but there are people who wanted to be jedi so terribly that they mastered litterally 3/4's of all the professions in the game and still no slot. So please please please make it difficult
biwan:
Some of the great ideas include:
Profession/quest based.
Heal the sick for the rebel/imperials
Tame so many creatures
Bounties and so forth.
Match quests to professions. The profession idea was good,
Hang on to it, but make better sense with it via a small story line. "We need you to go to naboo as a chef to feed soldiers..blah blah"
Also you should have to have a certain rank in a faction:
as well as all of the explorer badges.
Just some of my thoughts keep up the good work
Devs and Tand99,
To imply that casual gamers are somehow less deserving of a jedi character implies that my time and money (the key issue) is less valuable thanapowergamer's time and money. That is an idea that I just can not agree with no matter how it is packaged. Whatever the solution the Developers come up with, it has to be achievable by all in a reasonable amount of time. When I say reasonable, consider if the casual gamer takes six months to open a slot and is a brand new jedi inititiate out of the box, he or she has spent close to $150 of real money (the cost ofthree top of the line games) to start a long road up the jedi tree that would take probably over a year for the casual gamer.How many people want to invest 18 months in a game to finally achieveJedi Mastery?
Granted not everyone wants to be a Jedi, but I bet that a significant percentage of the player base does. When I watch the Star Wars movies,I don't think "boy, being a merchant on a backwater planet, that would be awesome!" That is too much likereal life. I play computer games to do things that I can't do in real life, like use theforcein the Galactic CivilWar for good or evil.
I would also ask the developers to make the path to Jedi-hood (at least the immediate quest goal, not every single quest) to be visible to the players so that a player can make constant progress towards the goal instead of the nebulous system we have now where some people unlock after 5 or 6 mastered professions and others have mastered 12 and still no end in sight. The unknown is what will drive players away.
Having said all that, the developers are doing a great job on a game of this size and scope. There is so much untapped potential though, I would much rather play a game for a long period of time as a jedi than a merchant or a crafter.
Just my two credits,
Terrin Sunweaver
Master Architect on Eclipse