Development Cycle Archive

I was one of the people that did not like running missions for a 2 days to PvP for 2 days to buy new armor. This is very upsetting, why can't the developers of SWG understand that takeing a double hit on armor is not a good thing. It decays when hit, it decays apon death can you please pick just one.

Another much needed fix not delivered SOE. But hey.....now my speeder can have racing stripes now. How about we do what needs to be done and what the COMMUNITY is asking for to make the game more enjoyable and exciting rather than these "Hey look at this over here. How cool is this?" fixes. "No... No... not the real problem look at the racing stripes on the speeder."

How about remove decay period if insured. That should be easy to do.

And when the devs have time to distinguish PvE vs PvP they they can add the 1% to pve when insured if they like.

Some of us would like to PVP and this is preventing us.

What a **edit**ing joke.

I have never been pissed about this game till now.

Mistake or not, SOE NEVER provides info on the way things currently work, and then they feed us "wishful thinking" BS that is incorrect.

You knew alot of people were looking forward to this, and the info should not have been provided if it was not confirmed!

Let the dam DEVELOPERS post the info about the patches instead of some uninformed guy that likes to tell us all about his "Wishful Thinking".

My recommended course of action --

First of all I have to admit only reading the first five pages of this thread. Instead of giving suggestions, most people (whom I assume have never looked at the code for SWG) istead seemed to be telling you how the developers were plain wrong about what they were saying can and cannot be done. Instead I would like to offer a suggested course of action to see if this might be liked and could be done instead.

"Military Service Item Reimbursement"

Why not see if the insurance system could check to see if a player is declared Overt and have it remove decay penalties on insured items if you are an overt member of one of the galactic factions. Though it cannot check to see what exactly it was that killed us (the reasoning behind which I understand), I have reason to believe that the overt/covert/neutral factional system works completely seperate and could be easily queried upon clone activation.

Since we are primarily trying to get this done for Player versus Player interation as far as the game is concerned, I believe that tying it to being declared or not would be a good idea. It would stand to reason that any player involved in player versus player combat would either be declared or have a temporary flag.

I'm not sure how the code works for being temporarily flagged so I'm not sure if they would be included or not. I would prefer that they weren't included, but if theyhave to be then I don't think that it would cause that much of a problem.

There may be short periods when doing missions when a player would be killed during Player versus Environment combat and have a temporary flag. The same could be said of an overt played being killed during PvE also. However, the idea of the Galactic Civil War itself would very much limit people attempting to take advantage of such a system just to avoid the mandatory 1% decay for insired items and the 5% for uninsured.

Having a temporary flag or being declared is a very frightening thing for those not used to it. I remember the very first time I was flagged. I had to sneak around looking over my shoulder everywhere I went until it turned off. Last thing I wanted was to encounter an overt member of the opposing faction. It doesn't matter whether you are banking, sitting in the cantina chatting, out on the battlefield, or trying to be sneaky doing missions in some remote part of Dathomir. Even a lone covert member of the opposing faction could just ruin the whole plan. Being covert or having a temporary flag creates it's own penalties as far as the system is concerned. Being overt is a risky proposition, especially for one just looking to avoid equipment decay.

As an overt (or being flagged) and walking into nearly any town, it's almost guaranteed that someone of the opposing faction will be there covert and declare and try to turn my world upside down or I will encounter the lone or roving patrol of declared members of the opposing faction (many times which does result in my world being turned upside down). With such a system in place, I have the feeling that wilderness patrols of popular hunting spots would begin to happen. More of the landscape will be seen by people trying to avoid contact with opposing faction members. Sneaking behind enemy lines so to speak. And more of the entire planet will be used for combat skirmishes, unlike now where most combat can be guaranteed to take place within the confines of a city, whether game owned or player owned.

I am sure that this isn't the "be all, end all" solution to the problem of item decay. However I believe that it would take it away from where it needs not to be and leave it where it should. PvPers are in the minority and this should have little to no affect upon the economy as far as tailors and armorsmiths are concerned. Not only that, but even the hardcore PvPers like to go covert a lot of the time and consequently find themselves engaged in PvE combat at times also. I have the feeling that with some upcoming content changes or additions that groups, whether neutral or covert, will be exploring new places and the possibility of perishing on such a mission is quite likely, adding the PvPers into the items decay mix now and again also. This isn't to mention that I only said that the penalties be removed for insured items owned by a covert faction member. Sometimes we simply forget.

I think that this solution would work for the community as well as being a bit easier to code in thatn to take apart the combat and death systems in order to figure out how to best implement what was originally desired, a removal of item decay for PvP combat kills completely. This should also be quite easy to fit into the storyline of the game for atmospheric reasons. It would make sense that the Imperials and Rebels would reimburse their overt troops for doing their duty for the Empire (or Republic)...

Any and all discussion is appreciated and if this has been mentioned in part or in whole before, then I would like to humbly apologize for repeating said idea, having resulted in a little bit of wasted time for the community just because I was too lazy to endure reading through thirty people making no progress by griping just to find that one kernel of goodness in the rare post.

Sincerely,

Ilnomer Sitria - Starsider server

Jester has summed up quit well what changes need to be made to pvp, and how easy it can be done. Just do a search for his posts.

Ideas:

1. Remove all decay from insured items. I dont care if it's PvP, PvE, or suicide! It's INSURED

2. Increase the insurance rates substantially to make death a bad bad thing.

3. Make items that are NOT insured take a more substantial hit at death.

This will allow people to avoid decay if they really want to, but make them pick and choose what they insure. Uninsured items will decay quickly and create demand from crafters for replacements.

/sigh; The best feature of the patch is gone.

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Thunderheart wrote:

Its a faction subtraction. You suffer the same faction loss regardless of what kills you (MOBs have faction as well.)

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You SOE employees wouldn't act so damned foolish if you spent a week playing the game you hacked together out of duct tape and paper mache.