Development Cycle Archive

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Dewdus wrote:

While animations are nice, you guys could achieve a LOT of good will by immediatley looking at specials from the perspective of Damage/DOTs/States/HAM costs. These are the fixes that most players are screaming for. If you make them work properly now, you can make them look better later.

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IgescaStorm wrote:

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Thunderheart wrote:

Currently, in the design, you will need to open the slot to become a Jedi. Players will be able to do whatever they wish with both slots whether it is to attain some minor force sensitivites or work to have two Jedi characters.

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Two Jedi pro player?
Dont you think, it will result in the same problem as we have now?

If the current jedi stay open and the new ones get two, the number of jedis will raise faster than now...

Just let the main char be a jedi and thats it. Of course the main char should keep the professions and skill points and get the jedi tree attached with the jedi skillpoints.

Existing jedi should get their jedi atributes copied to main char and get the slot deleted.

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That's not a smart idea at all. You forget that many people developed specific characters for their Jedi...simply transferring their skills to their mains is unacceptable..as is forcing those who haven't unlocked yet to now have to make their main the Jedi.

Just because you can have 2 Jedi charsdoesn't mean you'll want to. More than likely you would still need to use a non Jedi char to support the Jedi char the same as now. What that does is give players the flexibility to choose between their main & their new char which solves a ton of problems for both the devs & the players. I'm sure SOE is working on many other ways to keep the Jedi numbers down that will satisfy you.

• Each player will now be able to have two characters per server. Period. They can both be Jedi. They can both be Tailors. It's really all up to the player.


• Players will have to unlock the Force Sensitive Profession via a Quest. After that, Novice Force Sensitive and its subsequent Professions will work within the current system of Skill Points (meaning Novice FS costs 15 Skill Points). No more 250 point cost for Force Sensitive.


• Players who have been holo-grinding will receive an amount of "Jedi XP" in proportion to the amount of Professions mastered via the Holo-Grind. This can be spent on the new Profession at the players leisure.


• Since the revamp is not on a 1 to 1 basis, most current Jedi will most likely receive a number of "Jedi XP" in proportion to the amount they currently have. This can be spent on the new Profession at the players leisure.


• After Jedi Knight, the PVP Light vs. Dark Jedi will earn their "Jedi XP" via PVP combat only.

And as for Pistoleer -new abilitiesdon't need new animations. Just rehash the ones that exist with "new" abilities. There are only so many ways one can draw a Blaster Bolt, I'm sure.

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MrRiflemaker wrote:

Hey TH: I am a pistoleer that is sad and here are my reasons........

This is no joke the pistoleer tree needs a revamp on the abilities which dont work properly, for example body shot 3 does less damage than body shot 2.... you catching on yet .....and what about pistol melee hit 1 is said todo better than pistol melee hit 2 .... ugggghhh these need to be fixed, but yet the devs refuse to see to this, and they want to add dual pistols without a fix for these things.

I mean i am happy we get dual pistols , but for the dual pistols I will give you some insight because the devs might screw it up.

Ok here goes, A couple ideas for wielding dual pistols:

1. Dual pistols need to be as follows if I wield dual pistols i should be able to cause not double the damage but mabey 3/4 higher damage than the usualand in wielding 2 pistols I will have Horrible Accuracy mabey with a ratio of1:4 tohit something.

2. If i am using dual pistols my primary one meaning the one in the right hand will be the same as it always was and do the same damage and fire the same rate and accuracy you had using it ,but the one in my left hand will fire, but the accuracy is still horrible and if i use an ability such as double tap it will have to use up more action doing so, but will cause twice the damage but my likely hood of hiting somethings is a ratio of mabey 1:2, or 2:5(you decide on ratio, whatever feels balanced).

3.If i am using dual pistols and use an ability such as double tap it will cost a lot on the action bar, but deal quite a lot of damage, but indoing so your hands get to hot and the pistols health itself will immensley decrease and break or come to a complete uselessness very quickley and when using dual pistols your accuracy is bad but not soooo bad just reduced a little bit.

Well I hope You read My ideas for dual wielding pistols..... and i hope it helps

One more thing please for the love of God can we have new animations, for example double tap should not look like every ability i use, such as stopping shot, mabey double tap can have a quick sound blast and a nice fast sparkly laser coming out.... not the usual laser , but nice and sparkley or more glamorised

Thunderheart you stay clean and good and I acknowledge everything you do ..... and I say keep on GOING!!!

INSIGHTS WRITTEN BY Mr.Riflemaker

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Mr. Riflemaker, as a pistoleer you should know how much we gunfighters need dual-wield to make us a viable profession. I think most pistoleers have given up any hope of ability revamping until the (far off) combat balance and as such we expect dual-wield to make us on-par with the other ranged professions ASAP. In my opinion, duel wielding is what will MAKE or BREAK pistoleer. We are currently the lowest damaging elite combat profession in the game. (someone commented earlier that all ranged professions shoot at the speed cap. Nope rifleman get more speed boosts than any other class and even they dont shoot at the speed cap without SEAs. The only exception to this rule might i add is the bounty carbine/pistol line) Some of your ideas would, quite frankly make duel-wield utterly useless.

For one, you suggested that duel wield impose "horrible accuracy" on the user. I don't think this is necessary. While I would expect accuracy to decrease, I would only expect it do do so slightly in the "off" hand. You also stated that it should do 1.75 damage (this i do agree with). Your last statement however would I think utterly destroy duel wield as a mechanic. Weapon decay is already a major problem in this game. Most of my pistols lose half of their durability in a two week span. In addition, one out of every 5 "repairs" that I attempt to make with 99.9999 repair tools either destroy the weapon, or lower its max damage significantly (this second one may have been a bug it only happened once). Decay is bad enough leave it as it is!

What duel-wield does need to do is fix the shortcomings of the pistoleer, mainly speed and damage. Most if not all of our weapons do under 200 max damage. The only exception being a geo pistol which quite frankly completely unbalances the entire pistoleer profession: When a 2 million dollar gun is THAT much better than a normal gun, a huge rift is created between a regular pistoleer and a Geo-toting pistoleer. This mistake should be rectified simply: Geo guns can not be duel-wielded. For all other guns however, let us at leastmultiply their max damage by 1.75 with duel wield. Perhaps this will finally make us a profession on equal footing with our marksman brethren.

Oh yeah another thing: I'm afraid that if duel-wield is given to bounty-hunters, a nerf will come almost immediately. Bounty pistol speed/accuracy bonuses absolutely BUTCHER those of the pistoleer class. A duel-wielding bounty hunter would ABSOLUTELY need to be nerfed, while a duel-wielding pistoleer would be on par with what a ranged class should be. In summary, don't assume that all pistoleers have the bounty-pistol line. Most of us don't have it and have no plan of learning it.

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GKeeper316 wrote:
best idea ever.... cybernetic implants for DEs to make and docs to surgically implant. smugglers can slice em and some could even be highly illegal. cybernetic eyes that give aiming/accuracy bonuses, etc.

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That was already diskussed somwhere on the forum and it is not a good idea. At least not starwarsy. Look for "implant" in the search bar.

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Thunderheart wrote:

Your Jedi will be a Jedi at some level.

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I'm sorry, but I can just hear the THUMP!! of every 4/4/4/4 Guardian player's head smashing into their keyboard after reading that.

Might as well just admit that they are going to wipeall that advancementout now andget the painful part over with. We kinda wondered what would happen when you guys realized there were so many high level Jedi already. After all, Permadeath was but just a couple months back anyway.

When are we going to see the option to turn off earth-shaking effects?

This has been promised for months. This "feature" makes some players physically ill. My partner is one of them. We have to be judicious in our choice of targets, and even them we have to deal with earth-shaking pets, certain weapons being fired in our vicinity and even getting buzzed by people on decaying vehicles. Many players, myself among them, don't suffer from simsickness but nevertheless find this "feature" extremely annoying. I would be quite happy to never see it again.

I can not imagine anything that requires fixing before something that makes paying customers sick. If someone told me a piece of code I wrote made even one person literally vomit I would drop what I was doing and correct it. No game mechanic, no matter how unbalancing or exploitable, not even the most egregious duping trick, could possibly be more important than a misfeature that caused physical distress. It can't even be that difficult to correct. There is code that deliberately shakes the display at certain times. Turn it off. If you can't easily write an option to allow users to turn it on or off, turn it off for everyone until you can make it selective. No one should have to decide between being sick and not playing over a mere graphics display element that is not all that popular to begin with.

This post is likely going to run long anyway, so I’ll keep the intro to a minimum. Seeing that the Dev team is still discussing the implementation of the Combat Rebalance I thought I’d throw my two cents in from here in the peanut gallery.

Issue #1 – HAM system

I didn’t get a chance to explore the system fully when it was on Test, but in concept I think the system where special use deducts from the max value of the primary pool is a good solution.

If I recall correctly the question at the time was whether secondary stats had any effect on the new system. IMO, the best implementation would be to have the regen stats (i.e. Willpower) affect only the regeneration of damage to the Primary Stat, while the cost stats (i.e. Focus) continues to affect the Primary stat deduction (deducting from the max value of the primary pool rather than the current value). The regeneration of the max value (in other words – recovering the cost of specials) would then best be a flat rate, which would allow easier balancing.

This change allows mind stims to be introduced, as currently a mind stim as powerful as the existing H and A stims would remove the cost of the stim itself, resulting in a never-ending cycle broken only by running out of medicines.

Issue #2 – Armour

The current situation with armour is that pretty everyone wears one of two types (ubese and composite) for anything other than looking good. In addition, you’ve got people like TKA’s and Jedi armoured head-to-toe in composite because it’s simply the best all-round armour there is. I think a critical part of a rebalance would be to make the rest of the armour types needed again.

I’d propose a tiered certification system something like this:

Existing personal armour would be sub-divided into three classes (light, medium and heavy – nothing to do with their Armour Rating).

Light – Bone, Mabari, Wookiee Ceremonial,

Medium – Chitin, Ubese, Tantel, Wookiee Hunting, etc

Heavy – Padded, Composite, RIS, Stormtrooper, Rebel Marine, Wookiee Battle (guessing here on the last one).

As the divisions have changed, so would the resists have to change. Bone, Chitin and Composite would be strong against Energy and Mabari, Ubese and Padded would be strong against Kinetic. As other armours get introduced, more esoteric damage types could be added. Each armour could still be layered as they are now to provide more protection. For balance, light armour effectiveness percentages would be hard-capped at 50%, Medium at 70% and Heavy at 90%.

Each class would then be certified to wear an appropriate weight of armour for their class focus. Anyone could still wear any type of armour, however the penalty for wearing non-certified armour is a reduction in skills depending on the type of armour and how much is worn.

Light Medium Heavy

Chest (50%)12.5% 25% 50%

Legs (25%)6.25%12.5% 25%

Helmet (25%) 6.25%12.5% 25%

Boots (25%) 6.25% 12.5% 25%

Shoulders (2.5% each) 0.625% 1.25% 2.5%

Bracers (2.5% each) 0.625% 1.25% 2.5%

Gloves (5%)1.25% 2.5% 5%

25% 50% 100%

So therefore, a Novice Marksman (no armour certs at all) wearing a composite chest and ubese legs would see all his combat skills (speed, accuracy, defence vs. – everything except damage pretty much) penalized by 62.5% (50% + 12.5%).

To prevent everyone dabbling in certain skills just to wear the heaviest armour, the certification would be broken up into 4 and placed in the four 1st tier boxes of the appropriate elite professions (see below). Achieving each box would reduce the certified armour’s penalties by 1/4, being completely negated once all four are achieved. Furthermore, I don’t see a reason that Medium armour certification shouldn’t also apply to Light as well, but balance testing might say otherwise.

This would increase the variety of armour made and sold, the variety of combinations possible, and the tactical choice involved in wearing armour at all (shield generators are fine as is I think).

Of course, restricting armour must be accompanied by re-evaluation of each profession’s defensive abilities.

Fencer – should be the defensive tanks, the ones that are lightly armoured but really hard to hit. Therefore they should be certified for Light armour and rely mostly on their Dodge ability (which would probably need to be increased a tad).

Pikeman – should specialize in AoE state effects. They should be cert’d for Medium armour (as they will get hit), but rely on Block to take most of the damage away (i.e. Block should either half or quarter damage – I’m not sure it does that properly).

Swordsman – they should be the offensive tanks. Certified to wear heavy armour and rely on high damage output to save them, their counter-attack skill works just fine in this role.

TKA – a special case. Like Jedi, martial artists wearing armour doesn’t really sit well with me. I’d rather see TKA receive a natural 25% set of resists at the master level and no armour cert at all. These natural resists would have to be over-written if the TKA did put armour on. Beyond that they should be able to rely on their unarmed toughness and defensive bonuses – Defensive Acuity should be replaced with Dodge to keep in line with the idea of a lightly armed fighter.

Jedi – like TKAs they shouldn’t want to wear armour. I think it would be reasonable to give increasing protection as they advance though. Say 25% resists at Padawan, AR1 and 50% resists at Knight, and perhaps AR2 and some % resists at Master? I’m no Jedi, so my knowledge here is limited. They could just rely on Sabre Block if it’s effective enough.

Pistoleer – similar to Fencers, they are short-range, lightly armed fighters. They should have Light armour certification and keep their dodge skill. They should probably also have some melee toughness to recognise the fact that they are often in the thick of the fight.

Carbineers and Riflemen – I’m thinking that Light armour is all that should be required for all these fellows, but some alteration in the way ranged professions play is warranted (see Issue #3).

Commandos – like Swordsmen these guys are offensive tanks, but instead focus on taking out defences and ultra-heavily armoured targets. They should have Heavy armour certs and I’m okay with only commandos and BH being specially certified to wear Mandoralan Armour.

BH – though a hybrid combat profession (half of the tree is based on scout after all), BH should be an all-out offensive profession. They should be cert’d for Heavy armour as their only truly defensive tactic.

Smugglers – I’d wait on the revamp details first, but probably Light armour only.

Issue #3 – General Ranged combat

Currently ranged combat (especially in PvP) consists of running around at top speed hoping your shots land. Setting up in a prone prepared position is pretty much suicide, as a melee class will close from max range to melee distance before they can be taken down. This is pretty much the reverse of what should happen – if someone charges me in a prepared position with my rifle ready they are not going to make it to me.

By logic, the first instinct of someone being shot at should be to dive for cover. Currently it’s to run at full speed at the person firing to get closer than ideal range.

I see two necessary changes. The first is cover. Currently cover provides some defensive bonus, but is very seldom used. Cover should also provide a noticeable increase in damage as well to give the possibility of dropping an attacker before they reach your position.

Second is reaction to fire. Players that come under fire should want to hit the dirt to return fire, and melees should have to work against that compulsion. Carbineers and Riflemen should get a new attack that forces a target to prone and everyone else should get a defence vs suppression or something similar.

Issue #4 – Ranges, Speed and Damage

Melee range is okay as is. Pistol range needs to be hard capped at around 20m, carbines should be hard capped at 40m and Rifles should get to shoot out to 64m. Point blank mods are ok now, as are penalties while moving (Rifles could even stand a tad more IMO).

Speeds and Damages are really the things that need the most work. Currently pretty much every master elite hits the 1 sec speed cap regardless of damage. This renders pistoleers and fencers at a large disadvantage and overpowers Swordsmen and Riflemen.

This is where mathematical balance needs to happen. Assuming perfectly made weapons (i.e. max stats for speed and damage) wielded by elite masters of their professions, all weapons should have the same Damage per Second. That DPS should be calibrated such that a Blue-con mob can be taken down quickly using only auto-attack.

From this common baseline you could then re-build the specials by damage multiplier, recovery time and HAM cost.

Pistols should come in at one shot per second under baseline conditions, carbines at two seconds, and rifles at three (just to pull numbers – play-testing would be needed of course). Fencers, pikes and swords should match those numbers respectively.

TKA are unique again, in that currently their VK damage apparently adds on top of their unarmed damage. This bug should be fixed such that VK provide a smaller bonus to damage and AR 1. TK speed should be increased if possible to lower than 1 second per hit, in order to keep up with the baseline DPS. If that’s not possible, they should receive a bonus to applying state effects – essentially filling the role of a "debuff" class. A novel attack at master that temporarily reduces armour values (an "armour break" if anyone’s played Final Fantasy games) would be a good way to promote that notion.

Damage types would need redistribution too. Essentially pistols and fencers should get a wide array of damage types to offset the lack of AP weapons (max of one AP 1 weapon), Pikes and carbines should have 4-5 damage types available that range from AP0 to AP2, while rifles and swords should be restricted to 2-3 damage types (Kinetic, Energy and one unique one each) to offset the higher AP abilities (AP 1-3).

AP vs AR could be reworked too. Originally the idea was that AP>AR lead to a reduction in resists, not an increase in damage. That makes more sense and is easier to balance, as players will never do more than the max damage afforded by the weapon + the special (no need to balance for additional damage due to AP). This also eliminates the problem some classes have with being completely useless in encounters with 100% resist mobs. This would still promote grouping, as that would be the more efficient way to take down a mob like this, but would still let players contribute to encounters with high-end mobs.

Several things remain to be addressed. Combat medics in PvP (probably solved by making craftable air filters providing bonuses to resists), the relative power of doc buffs and how they make encumbrance and HAM costs irrelevant (still an issue even with the system sketched out above), and all the issues with the GCW (group TEFs, etc). I’ll sum up here though. For your consideration.

The art of making a starship (A SE idea)

First of all, if this is the wrong place for new ideas then pls direct me to the right place.

As with many of you, i eagerly await the arrival of the SE. Starships will give all of us a whole new perspective of the SWG universe. However.....i believe that from a crafting point of view, all crafters should have a hand in the creation of starships. Here's a few ideas that would make this possible........

Droid Engineers

DEs would make the navigation componet for the starship. Precise calculations are neccessary when jumping into hyperspace. These calculations would need to come from a navigation system specifically designed by the DE.

Weaponsmiths

WEs would naturally make the armorments (i.e. weapons) for the starship. Only the most experienced weaponcrafters of course

Armorsmiths

An AS's job would be to provide adiquate shielding for the starship. With plenty of experience making PSGs it's only natural that they'd be selected for this task.

Tailorers

Let's face it. Sometimes the ride through hyperspce can be a long and boring one. A good tailorer could make this experience more bearable with a nice plush cockpit seat

Architects

The architect would design the starship shell in which all these other fine gadgets would go into.

Vehicle Engineer

Let's face it. Someone needs to put all the parts together. A new peofession is definately in order. The VE would be the final stop in the starship building process. A VE would take all the available parts and mesh them into a fine tuned machine.

This would be a viable solution in a game that thives on a player-driven economy. In theory VEs would need to purchase parts from the other crafters to be able to make starships to sell.

Image Designers

This is more of an after-creation thing, but why not have IDs be the only profession to change vehicle colors? Wouldn't this be a form of image designing?

2credits from a bored MBH