Development Cycle Archive
Thread: AT-ST changes on Test Center
Zharkhon wrote:
You need to go into the availability schemes, and avoid CAMPING. Camping is the most ugly part of any MMORPG, you the developers CAN avoid this, by assuring that highly demanded loot, is gained in different ways. One idea is to let players have it, by performing personal missions.
They pretty much totally avoided it in the original release, then trickled it in with holocrons being the most obvious camps.
Really, asides from Krayts and holocrons, there's nothing to camp in SWG.
But the fact they put holos in the way they did suggests they feel camping is needed to prolong the game content and keep people subscribing. You give loot to people in a personalmission they'll go, do it, then be howling at the developers for 'new content' within a week. You make players squabble over a rare creature, and they'll howl at each other for 6 months instead.
This is why SWG is percieved as lacking in content - not because there's fewer creatures / places than in, say, Everquest, but because people can consume the content far quicker than in EverQuest -where a dungeon needs to be cleared 100 times by a 60 person guild for everyone to get the best items from it.
They pretty much totally avoided it in the original release, then trickled it in with holocrons being the most obvious camps.
Really, asides from Krayts and holocrons, there's nothing to camp in SWG.
But the fact they put holos in the way they did suggests they feel camping is needed to prolong the game content and keep people subscribing. You give loot to people in a personalmission they'll go, do it, then be howling at the developers for 'new content' within a week. You make players squabble over a rare creature, and they'll howl at each other for 6 months instead.
This is why SWG is percieved as lacking in content - not because there's fewer creatures / places than in, say, Everquest, but because people can consume the content far quicker than in EverQuest -where a dungeon needs to be cleared 100 times by a 60 person guild for everyone to get the best items from it.
Yes I noticed this formula is religiously believed to solve problems. The first victim is the AT-ST then. Not bad for a "rare" occurance. The very instant this wonderful gameplay feature appears, something bad happens.
Camping is far from healthy competition, it is a system rewarding the most active players, and punishing the casual ones... But I am aware the casual player have little place in the major MMORPG's these days. I must be a romantic day dreamer or something. *snickers* Truly camping will be a big important part of SWG some day, it's far easier to follow the dark path...
I just hoped this could be avoided, it only generates more problems, all while the system starts to revolve around the availability of rare loot. I had hoped for some original approaches, not EQ in space... Well, there is no space either.
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But hey, this is not THAT important... Make rank decide the number of faction pets, do not make the CH some kind of false approach to aquire multiple faction pets (!), and start rolling out some war machines to cut down overt Rebel activity. Don't nerf the AT-ST too badly, and do SOMETHING to make the Empire more attractive. Not less attractive. :-)
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I was thinking, why not allow us to take our wounded AT-ST back to a Recruiter and for like...1500 -2000FP we can have our treasured war machine fully repaired bytechnicians? I had thought about allowing Master DE's to create them. But the requirements and resources needed to do this would have to be insane to prevent a Guilded MDE from cranking outAT-STs for every Guild Member upon sign up.
Of course I don't oppose the idea of giving an Imperial Guild Member their own standard issue AT-ST, but the current method now *sorta* prevents them fromunbalanced mass production. I'd flip if I walked uptothe bazaar on Bestine and saw a Deed for an Imperial AT-ST going for the all too wonderful bargin bin price of 3000 creds. 
-Ta'Karn Eventyde
Imperial Master Commando
Sunrunner
You are an ignorant rebel.There are no atst's involved in pvp you knucklehead. Are you not reading all these posts. They are to vulnerable and cost to much. You must have attacked the only person in swg dumb enough to pull one out for pvp.
Your voice is heard because of Capitalism. Capitalism equals profit. This game makes profit. The develpoers need to please the majority. The majority are Rebels. Do you not know how economics work.
I am so tired of losing the GCW to the whining skill tree. (by the way the majority are rebels) They should create a skill tree for you guys, lol. (Whining one) (whine shot 2) ect. It is not by your intellectual forte that has convinced the developers to nerf this stuff. It is simply the majority of people that pay for their vettes and mercedes through monthly dues. Please don't give yourself so much credit.
And for the rest of us trying to save the atst and the ever shrinking Imperial population, The only way to get the attention of the developers is to affect their paychecks. That means resign from the game. It is sad but true.
They put these forums here to help us relieve our frustration. They think if they give you a voice to be heard you will keep playing and they will listen to you. Trust me, they are going to please the majority, which are rebels. This is how our country is structured. Capitalism.
I agree with the logic of the majority of these posts. Anyone who reads them can logically see where the problem is. The develpoers are simply pleasing the majority. They address the issues that apply to the majority of the players. (example) droid engineers. How many times you see 3 or 4 of these guys standing around in a group. Look how broken the skill tree is. (point)
For everyone that posts on these forums, please keep leaving your posts, maybesomeone from SOE will growcontiousness to the spirit of the game instead of the almighty buck. Until then, I am afraid the truth hurts. Money talks and bull .... walks
Our ATST's are gonna be nerfed until we become the majority or hurt their pocketbooks. The GCW is going to continue to be imbalanced. And there will be at least a dozen more appeasements to CH, since they are in the majority. Watch how they pay attention to some skills and not others.
As far as SOE goes, you have a real good game here. Don't be afraid to make changes to balance, that affect the majority. You might see that the minority might balnce itself out by becoming the majority.
You owe it to everyone here who has entered a contract by paying monthly dues to create SWG as close to its intent as possible. IT IS NOT. PLEASE FIX IT.
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Original quote 1:
With the Creature Handler Profession changes, Creature Handlers will be able to have more than one pet (up to 3 pets) and everyone else will be able to have a single pet. In the wake of this change, any factioned Imperial who is not a Creature Handler will only be able to have one pet.
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1. Imperials do not have pets. They have support troops.
2. Creature handlers should not get more troops on the count that they are Creature Handlers. It is not relevant. This means they get more imperial support based on their skills dealing with creatures. While "pets" have become a general term, it does not mean that support troops are real "pets". It's all mixed up. The end result is that you MUST be a CH to have more Imperial support. This is ( 1 ) forcing people to build up skills they otherwise would not touch, and (2) CH skills cannot in any way be deemed a vital part of the Imperial military command structure, and certainly not in a way that gives them three times the military support everybody else receives.
In short, you want to fill up the Imperial ranks with Creature Handlers, in the name of balance. This is not apparent in the movies and other material available.
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Original quote 2:
I know some of you are used to having three pets out, but the reason Creature Handlers are being re-balanced is because players can get the combat benefits of the Creature Handler Tree for the skill point cost of 2 trees (essentially all the benefit for half the skill point price) and having three pets out is a major perk for Creature Handlers.
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1. The creature handlers gain those pets during their "normal activity". When you join a faction, you enter a service out of the ordinary. There are perils and duties above and beyond ordinary conduct, that demands support. You do not automatically get a perk for nothing, since you can and will be KILLED by other players. The support is there for a very real reason, as support in a WAR.
2. If you are left with one pet, the whole idea about "commanding troops" is thrown out of the window. You do not "command" a SINGLE trooper, no matter how good you are with "make believe" games. You might as well scratch the whole faction system, and build a new one.
3. The Creature Handlers should not be the template upon which every officer is built. It is not connected, or at least should not be. If they join a faction, they should not have more or less advantage than the rest, in order to maintain a proper equilibrium, let them have their original pets in ADDITION to the faction support... If you guys are afraid of LAG and PERFORMANCE degradation, do not make CH's so popular. The Galactic War matters more than the CH's, this IS Star Wars.
4. You should have perks and rewards to join a faction, above and beyond the nice treat of actually be allowed to be killed or kill other players.
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Original quote 3:
The reasoning is that if you really want to have and control three pets, a player should make a commitment to the profession.
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1. The player make a commitment to their FACTION. They pour faction points from MISSIONS or KILLS, into the system, in a manner much like the gaining of skills. They have indeed made a commitment.
2. To further make this commitment visible, let faction rank decide the number of pets. I should think the MAJORITY here thinks this is acceptable.
3. Besides, the CH profession is not related to the Imperial faction system, more or less than anything else. :-)
Original quote 4:
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Another aspect of AT-ST’s that has been changed has to do with PvE combat. In my original AT-ST thread, the majority of players wanted to remove AT-ST’s from PvE, except in cases of Faction Missions and we agree with you.
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1. This AT-ST change also affect the other support troops I imagine? We know for a fact a lot of people like to take on solo missions in this game, but they will of course need to be a CH now, yes? Can you see how you "force" a lot of people to take this path?
2. The "problem" with the AT-ST came when you guys implemented rare and limited loot. As this machine was used in a way that truly displayed the weaknesses by this approach. Your answer is to take away player options, not change the game mechanics, because it is easier to destroy than to create new solutions.
I agree that using War machines for "mundane" purposes can look bad. But using the CH as a template for military support strategies is worse. :-)
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I just love how swg accomadates all the whiners, and not the people who keep their mouth's shut and suck it up. This is a joke, atst's are useless in pvp at the moment, and now will be practically useless all together. Stupid example: While doing faction missions with my atst on dantooine, a huurton stalker aggros on me. I cant even use the atst to defend my self? Dumb.
Fine, do it.
However, if you are goin to fix dot damage, fix the real problem, FIRE. Atst's dont stand a chance with a rebel and a flamethrower around. And the fact that you cant even heal wounds on the atst if it does survive the fire is just rediculious. Let atst's have their blast weakness, fine, isnt that enough?
The Dev's must be rebels.
Rez Runningwave<ISSP>
guess ill sum this up with little sarcasm. I dont play test center (but i do play beta4, j.k.), and am just going on the state of the at-st and the CH professionin the other servers.
1) taking it out of PVE is a good idea, but will severly limit the use of the at-st as it now stands.
2) revamping the CH rules is a good idea (strike down the dabblers).
3) the imperials are out numbered in all the servers (as far as i know, if this is not true hook me up w/ the info!) and the cost of an at-st (human: 9k ish / rodian 28k ish) does not equal it's current value in any combat except PVE, which is being removed.
4) One commando (there are sooo many of them) can take out a at-st, does this seem right for a group that is supposed to be the ruling militarypower /majority at this time in the SW saga ? given this critical weakness, it cannot be repaired, how does this reflect on the other factional pets and cost of the at-st.
im sure all of this has been taken into consideration, and many other players probably said it better with little gramatical error. i have faith that the right thing will be done in this matter.
~=Vayger Ordo=~
I think the empire would not be so happy if everyone use their resources (AT-ST, Stormtroopers aso) for everyone own purposes.
So if you go on a kryat hunt with your AT-ST your faction standing will fall.
I think the empire will give all the power to the people who wanna do their commands but destroy everyone who do not follow this commands (and I do not see why the empire should support people who kill rancors with their stuff which was made for terminate rebels)
The same could be applied to all faction pets... they all meant to destroy the other faction(s).
I still wonder why the devs don't listen or reply to us. Over 99% of this post is complaining about the changes and yet the devs don't care. Its like posting in an endless pit. Isn't the purpose of the forms to express our ideas? Why don't these ideas matter to the devs? Better yet why don't we get a say in the game we pay for? I like SWG a lot right now, please don't change that.
Cafa,
Can you explain to me what exactlywhat are you complainingaboutin my reply??? I assume its the
"AT-ST for PvP and factions missions only"
Since my opinion regardingthe other two announced changes...well the: "only CH can use 3 pets blablabla..." I think this is....well I think I already stated what this change is, and the: "more hitpoints less armor and only fire DOT can affect it" I stated that its a small improvement (less DOT's to dmgit)buthardly what current and futureAT-ST owners want (its a start).
And yes you are right I dont own one YET (will soon enough). But even If I did own one I can assure you thatI wouldn't be crying about the fact that now I can't use it to kill vermins...its a faction perk and it should be used for faction mission and PvP only. And by reading most of the posts on this thread I belive that many also agree (many Imps).
And regarding your "for the good of the GCW crap"comment...read my previous post again. I dont thinkyou got it right, I was saying that in its current state using a AT-ST in PvP is a exagerated risk for Imps and they must balance this situation.
Boofa treat anyone ?
I think this problem should be solved over the faction enemie attribut. Is a person or a group or an other faction against the empire they should be faction enemies. So every empire member has all the previlegs to destroy them.
Is a empire member attacked by the members of a neutral or aggro faction the get a TEF and all is settled.
The only problem I see is with aggro animals because they attack you but they are not against the empire (maybe they are.. but who knows :-) so you should be able to defend yourself. The empire want their own members in good health ... sometimes.
But this is a problem too: I stand with my AT-ST's in a group of kryats and "defend myself".
But I think this is not a real problem, because most of the hard animals/monsters are known and so you can prevent meeting them. So the prohibition of selfdefending with faction pets is not the worst solution.
Maybe a spliting would be useful like: The stupid stromtroopers are spendable and so you can use them for all you want... even to feed a kryat, but the expensiv and strong stuff like a AT-ST is only for empire purposes (killing ewoks and rebels)
Important in my opinion:
I think the solution should go in the direction of you can do everything with the faction pets but you do not want to. Like you can hunt rancors with your AT-ST put the lost of faction points are realy high... so someone who kills a whole rebel base alone each week could use his hard faction stuff for other things once in a month or so....