Development Cycle Archive
Thread: AT-ST changes on Test Center
UN-Nerf AT-STs
The following changes should be made:
1. AT-STs should no longer be used in PvE
2. Imperials should only be able to call one AT-ST
3. AT-STs should be brought back up to AR3, and all resists should be brought back up to the previous levels (90%+) except for Blast (75%+)
Simple fact is that AT-STs will never be used in PvP the way the current system is implemented. Although it is fun to kill the occasional AT-ST in combat, it's way too easy to do currently.
fatgit wrote:
Thunderheart, I have a challenge for you.
Come onto Chimaera server, start a new character without any tinkering, well, OK I can accept you getting a few marksman boxes.
Grind Imperial missions until you can afford an AT-ST. (about 13k inc promotions), and then take it into Anchorhead ot even Sunfall, a rebel player city, at about 8pm GMT.
See how long it lasts.
The AT-ST is totally & utterly neutered in PvP. The amount of CM's and Commando's is massive. If you meet 5 rebels, at least 3 of them will have Disease or Flame, the other 2 probably have TKA.
Yes, the ATST is getting a HAM boost, but its losing resists, so Commando's will take them out just as easy.
You may be reducing the cost, but I bet you dont refund those of us with AT-ST's the difference in faction points. For us, our AT-ST will still be a 9450 faction point decoration once we can't use em in PvE .
I actually agree that the AT-ST needed removing from PvE, but it needs :
A way to repair or heal it
A way to heal disease & flame
Vitality like CH pets.
You cannot understand how Imperials with AT-ST's feel until you yourself grind for one, and see some FOTM player toast it with 1 shot.
Fatgit i have a challenge for you, take 10k faction points and buy the best 20 rebel NPC's you can
take them up against a imp commando player or-----
take them up against an at-st and see how long they last,
all equals out
The problem with taking down the commandos is no one has to tell you what they are. Do you demand to know if a player has a AT-ST out before you come to a town to do PvP. Nope. Do we see that your player is a commando before he gets in range for his Flame DoT? Highly doubtful. What I see is a mass of rebels coming at me. None of them have their profession tag on. When was the last time any of you tried to pick out a player with a flamethrower in his had at 64m, or a launcher pistol for that matter, amongst a group of charging enemies. We can't pick you out. That is why we don't want to use the AT-ST in PvP.
Most imps don't have problems removing the AT-ST from PvE. Granted we are sad to see it go, but honestly it has been expected for some time. So yes, great, moral victory for the rebs. Aren't ya happy. However, there are still problems in PvP for this great lumbering beast. There are also some very simple solutions for it as well.
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One, increase HAM.
Two, remove all vulnerability to DoTs, the only vulnerability they will have witht this next patch is flame. Which to be honest doesn't have a whole lot of merit, with the possible exception of certain parts overheating. To think that the empire wouldn't build these without some measure of thermal protection is pretty sad. The pilots wear enviromental suits for the most part. Unless you watch the movie and see the two Imperial officers get yanked out of the AT-ST in their Officers uniforms.
Three, balance the armor. For one thing, I am not a big fan of a TKA being able to take one of these down and I have heard of it happening. They should have a higher resistance to kinetic. Weaker to blast. High vs energy. The rest are fairly well balanced. They should be difficult to take out but not impossible.
Four, decrease their attack damage. Ohhhhh, I said a dirty word. Yes decrease their attack damage. I have said before I feel it should be on par with a mastered elite combat profession. Perhaps that and given some kind of chance of supression fire. These things would have to be tweaked of course so that the AT-ST isn't too powerful.
Five, make them repairable and give them a vitality rating. It should be a fairly costly affair to get an AT-ST repaired, but not outrageous. Either credits or faction based payment system, they would have to look at the dynamics of this. Perhaps an imperial garage, where only AT-STs, and later other imperial vehicles, can be repaired. Also a vitality rating. I hadn't thought about that before but it makes sense. Just like in real life, a vehicle can only be repaired so many times. Finally it will fall apart and just simply can't be repaired any more without major investments. Better to scrap at that point.
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I won't take credit for these ideas, VendtDarkfell(who is a rebel, heh) presented some of these. I just expanded on it. But he had a pretty good summary. If these changes were made, the AT-ST shouldn't be impossible to kill, but would take some coordinated strikes to do so. Also they shouldn't be able to one shot kill the poor rebbies anymore. This would give them a chance to take them down in coordinated style, which is the way it should be. Granted it may take a bit longer than the 30 seconds it takes now. Additionally when they fell, they could be repaired. But after so many repairs they would have to be replaced. This would give us a support unit worthy of the faction we spent. Would stop them from taking down rebs in one shot. It would also make them repairable, which is what a lot of us want. The cost could remain the same for them faction point wise and I wouldn't feel so bad about it if the above were true.
I would say that would go a long way to balancing them out. More so than what the devs currently have in plans for them.
Becomming a CH is a lot more time consuming and doest give u anywhere near as many perks on the way (money faction standing etc ) and it also costs a lot more due to the fact that u have to not only heal and repair urself but also ur pets (these take a massive ammount of health packs to heal)
camps are required to call pets etc making the profession quite expensive and very time consuming , unlike the imp missions i do in which i make loads of maney thousands of faction points and hanous amounts of XP
Now read my post again and notice that the point was mainly about stopping loot thieves.
Something i missed off in the last one.. most countries under an empire want to be their own country and usually its the large troop forces that keep the people in check but a revolution is just that the 'people' of a world rising up against opression etc now there is no way that any empire can possibly have more troops on a planet than inhabitants this is y most revolutions work because the ruling body is completely outnumbered by the indiginous life on the country/planet that is why they have big guns etc but dont rule out that there are supposed to be more rebels, because most of the planets didnt like the empire.
PS couldn't u have made at least 1 vehicle that can carry 2 people? for couples on honeymoon etc
and y can't i store anything on my mount? its got the packs for it, so y cant i store things like tents and creature harvested stuff in them? just an idea
I know you can't say anymore on the specifics of this boost or even give us a date plus or minus a few weeks, but when you say...
The Empire is getting a big boost very soon.
... do you mean "very soon" that you'll talk about it or that we'll actually get it?
I'm just wondering what relative time scale are we talking here... people years, dog years, developer years? There's nothing new on Test, so I'm assuming we're talking at least the next publish after that and thus a month+.
Its like telling a kid who has no concept of time that you got them the coolest thing for Christmas... you're killing me here. 
TH,
This is the big problem that people have with all this balancing. You are admitting to us that it is silly to limit us to 1 faction pet, YET they are still going to push this through.
We all know how much work is required to fix things, but it is not acceptable that you break a gameplay dynamic for an unspecified period of time (months, and that is fact considering your publish schedules).
It is extremely fustrating. Please consider pushing these changes as a whole and not piecemeal. As broken as some things are now, I do not relish the thought of logging into even more intentionally broken things while I wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.
Faction pets should not be limited untl you can also implement a new system around them in 1 pulish. Anything less just comes across as a "we don't care" attitude.
Well... Lets punish people that have spent alot of time getting AT-Sts to use in missions!
And lets all get Master CH - I mean - you do wanna play the game right??!
And lets NOT change that AT-STs cant have their wounds healed - I mean why would Droid Engineers be able to fix them - DEs are just supposed to be a useless class - that makes sense.
Jesus Christ!!!
Who gives this advice to the developers - a bunch of test-monkeys????!!!
/Feyd-Fautha (Eclipse server)
in reply to the 'commandos are the only ones that can take down ATST's' post, i've seen two pistoleers take down a player's ATST after incapping him, letting him watch it's downfall, then after they destroy it, walk over, say something rude, and DB him.
if you think that 'only commandos' can take one down, you're sadly mistaken. i see players spawn camping the Emperors retreat killing darktroopers and ATSTs that spawn.
I do agree on the atst issue. It is a remarkable machine, it is so in the starwars universe and I would feel a sense of lacking to not have it so in the online universe.
On ranks. I very much support having a higher rank being able to command more npcs. I think this would add a sense of accomplishment to achieving higher ranks as well to create small squadrans. Also on a note to be able to distinquish player imperial ranks. On imperial uniforms; the rank insignias should appear. This I think would be an appreciated addition to the game that would hopefully have no added negativity.
Ie Privates no npcs
Corporals 2 npcs
Lts 8 npcs
Generals 19 npcs
19 being the max plus yourself to a squad if I remember correctly.
Just a thought, hope it helps
FORGET THE AT-ST PERIOD.
I'm imperial, I been imerial wookie now imerial human. I think aliens should have to pay more casue the Empire doesn't like them? Says who? The Empior himself had an alien apprentice with Maul and he liked Xero Kun in shadows of the empior. So that i think is a little off. Plus, I think you should make things cheaper for the Imerial players (faction items) and up the price on reble stuff. It also be nice if Imperials had accses to more stuff like armor and weopons than rebles. THEY ARE REBELS!!! THEY ARE POOR. HELLO! I picked imperial cause i thought it be cool to be apart of the grand army. I was gonna make a reble too so i could work real hard and be out numbered and roleplay like the moves. Then I found out the Rebles rule the galaxiy and the Imperials are poor, small and weak. I say neft the AT-ST, its the least of the problems. 1 man controlling 3 at-st? be real Imperial brothers, its not right. 1 man controling 3 storm troopers, that makes sense. Because of the AT-ST, we are losing Troopers, we are losing facton points we wasted on AT-ST, they should have be saved as vechlies for a later expansion anyway. I saw forget about the AT-ST. Make imerials the thing to be and rebles the harder job for those who have the horor to stand for that belife, let the people who want it easy and cheap and massive power with out the work join imperials, and the pround noble and strong that want to work hard be rebles. STAY TRUE TO THE REALITY THAT IS STAR WARS. don't change to make the game balenced? Its not balenced in the books or movies, why should rebles be just as strong as imerials in game if they lose in the movies. Imperials destroy plants for christ sakes. Rebles live in trees with ewoks. and if your a reble who wants it anyway diffrent than the movies, if you want it easy, your no better than an Imperial. I am Imperial and I say give me back my power, and when the timeline gets to episode 7 and the emipor is broken, take that power and give it to the rebles, so i can fight to get it back against all odds.
Lystic- Kauri Sevrver
Thunderheart wrote:
Fair enough. My issue now is Im trying to develop 3 mains and because of that, my character development is a bit slower. I'm basically working up to Master Artisan atm.
Heh.
So after you spent half an hour doing that, what came next?