Development Cycle Archive

Highest Faction ranking member can offer to make any fellow faction members overt - Pop up box :

' X offers to make you overt, do u wish to be ? Y/N'

He can only make overts when he himself is overt which can be done only by a recruiter - 50m away. He cannot make Coverts though.

"We're considering adding a command that lets you /declareOvert if you are within 50m of a recruiter or within an HQ.

Reason: spawn camping in the HQ battles is rather annoying.

Alternate solutions? Loopholes with the proposed solution?

-Raph Koster,"


Raph,

I've been watching these forums for 6 months. Every time something goes wrong, you make the same post.

- "thing" doesn't work. We thought it would do A but in reality it did B.

then you ask for your subscribers to solve your problem for you.

If I went to a brake shop to get my brakes worked on, or to a barber to cut my hair, and they asked me how they should proceed, I'd leave and never come back.

Raph. You get paid to do a job. We pay for you to do that job. We DONT PAY TO DO YOUR JOB.

If you can't figure it out, quit so they can hire someone who can.

^^^^^^^^^^^

let me add that customer feedback is one thing, but omg... Ford or Chevy don't come ask me how to make better cars every day! wt-f do I know about making cars?

And I apologize for ranting... but I've been deep into the forums today and it seems every Raph post consists of him asking for the playerbase to solve the problems of the game, and I, personally, don't agree with it.

If it's your job to make sure something works, don't make a broken product then ask the guy who bought it how he'd make it work.

Please stop dragging the AT-ST's in to this. A lot of the Rebelsare using the "Every Imp has 3 AT-ST's, so let us ambush them". How many of us Imps really do have 3 AT-ST's? I myself knowonly a few Imps with AT-ST's at all. And how many of the Imps with AT-ST's go around with them? They are allready so easy to break that most go around with them in their pockets hoping for an unerf. Commandos and Swordsman solo AT-ST's like nothing, and most other combat classes can take them in small groups.

I can't see how this rule won't basically be a good thing for the ones with big numbers. No AT-ST's will change that.

And to all the ones that say "Imps got the big guns, so Rebels get the numbers". I really think there were more Imps then Rebels, why would the Rebels be hiding and not the Imps? And can 1 pet really quallify as big gun(s)?

I would prefer the "50 meter rule" or"thepeople with the highest rank possible could make people overt", the latterchoice wouldmake itmore of a team effort to make themselves overt, and not peoplegoing over on newbies or at people waiting on a shuttle. Maybe only giving it to a Squad Leader?

*It's Good to be Bad*

Just wrote a whole long message and hit back .Here it goes again........this is my little idea.

A person may declare overt at anytime.

When declaring, overt status does not take effect for 30 seconds or some reasonable time.

Any overt members of opposing faction, if within a certain distance, say 200 meters, are alerted to these players about to go overt. This avoids big ambushes on a player and also, if an overt player doesn't want to get ambushed, he shouldn't be overt, alone, in an opposing faction heavy city. If they are, they have 30 seconds to get out, since they'll know if 10 people are about to go overt.

On death, you can always go back to covert, and then just redeclare overt if youd like.

Going covert should work similarly, but should be a longer time limit than 30 seconds.

This makes the game more realistic, since players can automatically declare they allegiance, but still makes the game fun because player can't be griefed. I also like this, because I am getting sick of one master commando sitting in Theed, a city that is supposed to be a trademark of the Empires dominance, and destroying every single overt player, will little threat.(Sorry about the imperial bias, but thats only because im imperial. It goes both ways however.)

If you have anything to add, or if theres anything i missed, please let me know. Caidac<<Spartan Vanguard>> Intrepid server

Why are the developers opposed to a large group moving in safely and ambushing their opponents by declaring themselves overt anywhere anytime. I agree that I shouldn't have to talk to some stupid recruiter to flash my Military ID or put on my uniform. And so what if a big army moves in and ambushes the enemy, that's what happens in real wars (In Return of the Jedi the rebels "ambush" an imperial outpost controlling th shield generator, well in the game it's hard to ambush your enemy when they can see a bunch of red dots approaching from really far away) . I personally would like to try that sometime. I would also like to be able to attack anything that's attacking a Declared member of my faction when I'm covert. Right now if I'm covert and Isee a declared member of my faction being hammered byopposoing faction memebers all I can do is try to heal him before he gets deathblowed and wait for them to attack me. I want to be able to attack them while they're attacking my buddy and maybe draw some of the fire from him and give both of us a better chance of fighting back.

Suggestion 1 - /Declare overt 50m away from recruiter

Holo said ;

We're considering adding a command that lets
you /declareOvert if you are within 50m of a recruiter or within an HQ.

a. How will you know if your 50m away from a recruiter ? Can you use /find recruiter to provide you with a waypoint ?

b. 50m is still within range to be attacked, granted thats 50m away from the recruiter thats maybe got some opposing team members in the in the surrounding area, some of which maybe closer to you than the recruiter ?

Suggestion 2 - /Declare anywhere

Larathorn Said ;

My opinion, make it so you can declare Overt anywhere, anytime. To become Covert you have to go back to the recruiter and wait an hour. There is no reason that I should have to be within 50m to put on my uniform or flash my military ID and fight for my ideals.

Holo replied ;

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...

a. thats correct and an ambush it would be, thankfully theres coverts that can decide if they would like to defend against this ambush and help out there fellow team mates , instead of just watching them get ran down by 10 or so people on the opposite side. Lets just hope they brought enough people on their crusade.

Suggestion 3 - Higher Ranking Member eligable for A recruiter position

Kona_Combine replied ;

How about allowing a higher ranking faction member too make some one Overt. Kind of like training. What I mean is, Colonel can make a Private - LT. Colonel Overt. Then you could do away with the group TEF.

a. Good idea here. It add more purpose to rank. However it does seem a bit limited.

Suggestion 4 - Instantly attack and become overt

Sydhartha said ;

the idea that if a faction member is taking fire from an opposing faction member, you should be able to assist them and fight back. As soon as you turn and fire that gun, you've blown your cover and are now overt until you die or spend the hour waiting. This adds a bit of skill level into the game where if you go into an opposing faction city and there's a bunch of blue dots, you gotta think twice before you use that flame cone on the one overt person because the rest may automatically turn on you. The way it is now, you can take out the one TEMP tef person without much concern that his buddies will turn on you. Also, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to help members of your own faction. Yes, you can toss a heal for the other person, but that gets you a temp TEF in which you can't even attack the opposing faction until they've already tossed a mind poison on you. Pretty much sucks. By changing that, you don't need the revenge tef which is a cause of much griefing atm, especially from Combat Medics and their overpowered mind poison and disease attacks.

a. Great idea here but filled with loopholes. I like the idea of instantly being able to aid a member of your faction, with your status being changed to overt. Very hassel free and true to life.

So of the four suggestions, I feel the best Idea would be to add a way for players to change to overt on the fly. Though I do think it should be one sided, overt on the fly but not covert on the fly. Being Overt should be risky, and the fact that you are wide open for attack is risk enough.

I would also like to add ;

1. Do away with tefs. This would allow the players that do not wish to participate in pvp unharmed when doing PvE missions. I think that tefs add more greif than good.

2. Do away with decay on items after death, and return the having to return to corpse to retrieve your items. With vehicles and mounts the return will not be as much of a hassel and and your items will not suffer as much( if insured ). Maybe also hit the hams a bit harder after death to discourage it from being used as a mode of transport.

I have already seen several instances where people will group covert, go to 1k from their target, and drop a HQ to go overt. Whats the big difference between this and letting people just go /overt at will?

While you're at it make covert players with TEF work the same as if they are Overt. It seems very silly that if I have been shooting Imperial NPCs and I have TEF that an Overt Imperial PC can blow me away before I can even shoot back, even if I see it coming.

I think these are all good ideas. Here is mine...

Give us the opportunity to go OVERT anytime. Many people are right, why should we need a recruiter to defend our side, when actually, we have already declared our commitment to either the IMP or REB side. Secondly, if you implement the idea of being able to go overt within 50m of a higher ranking person, then you must know who they are. I would suggest adding this title to their character for them to choose. Instead of selecting Master Marksman, select Rebel Sergeant, Imperial Captain, etc...

Samot Seven

I've posted this in the Image Design forum and the Galactic Civil War forum. I guess I'll post it here, though I don't think it will be read any more than it was there.

I'd like to see a way for Image Designers to change people from Overt to Covert, and to eliminate that ability from recruiters ("You give so-and-so a new identity"). It would take certain resources (possibly fromSmugglers and/or Bio-Engineers)and the success rate would depend on the level of the image designer. A failure would mean more of the resources would have to be acquired before another attempt could be made. Rebels could not give new identities to Imperials, and vice versa. Non-factioned neutrals could do it for anyone. Dying and then cloning would not eliminate an overt designation (you'd still have been identified by the Imperials, or the Rebels, why would dying change that?).

I'm also in favor of everyone (not just the Jedi) having a visibility meter once you join a faction. You run too many rebel missions in too short a time, your visibility goes up, you become a target on Imperial mission terminals - unless you find an Image Designer to successfully give you a new identity. I don't mean on just the bounty hunter terminals, I mean on the regular faction mission terminals, available to any loyal member.

I'm also in favor of allowing squad leaders to declare their groups overt, and high ranking overt officers declaring others of their faction overt.

wow holocron.. you dont want us to be able to move large armies covertly and then ambush our enimies by going overt anywhere? Thats called tactics... there are faction scanners maybe if you dont want your town ambushed you should use them.

By the way this has already been done The Tet offensive for example.

Seriously let us the players fight the war and stop worring about weather something will be used in this way or that. It should be up to the players to adapt to battlefield conditions not for the Devs to baby sit us so that everything is fair.