Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (6-21-04)
VemaGara
Wed Jun 16, 2004 7:58 am
#53
I've been playing Morrowind lately. Comparing the two games has given me pause for thought.
One thing that Morrowind has that I enjoy is things around every corner. You walk through this world, and landscape changes quickly. You easily find tombs, ruins, and camps. You never spend too long before something is there to look at. I wish that same experience was here with SWG, where there were places to explore all over the map. As it stands, I can run across the northern Naboo plains and rarely find anything to look at. I have no incentive to wander around, because I get no reward by finding anything interesting. These maps are filled with NOTHING. Should adventure be so hard to find? Should discovery be so hard to realize? Should the exact same terrain occur for thirty minutes of running?
I find SWG very hard to return to after Morrowind. It feels like playing in molasses, where everything is slowed down.
One thing that Morrowind has that I enjoy is things around every corner. You walk through this world, and landscape changes quickly. You easily find tombs, ruins, and camps. You never spend too long before something is there to look at. I wish that same experience was here with SWG, where there were places to explore all over the map. As it stands, I can run across the northern Naboo plains and rarely find anything to look at. I have no incentive to wander around, because I get no reward by finding anything interesting. These maps are filled with NOTHING. Should adventure be so hard to find? Should discovery be so hard to realize? Should the exact same terrain occur for thirty minutes of running?
I find SWG very hard to return to after Morrowind. It feels like playing in molasses, where everything is slowed down.
MisterWizard
Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:00 am
#54
OK, this is rough, but...
Allow smugglers to slice bounty hunter terminals to ADD or REMOVE players to terminals. There should be some restriction on what type of player can have a bounty put on him, such as overts, Jedi with TEFs, and smugglers who recently added or removed a bounty on a player (the act of puttinga bounty on a player makes the smuggler eligible for a bounty put on him). The Smuggler should have to front the money when adding a bounty, or pay a portion (depending on his slicing skill) of the bounty to take a player off.
REMOVING A BOUNTY: This is relatively straightforward -- choose Remove Bounty, receive a list of players who have bounties, and pay the fee to remove it. In turn, the smuggler becomes eligible for a bounty to be placed on him.
ADDING A BOUNTY: The smuggler gets a command, /targetForBounty, whch they can use to get a datapad biosignature of the targeted player that is good for 24 hours. The only players this command would work on are those eligible to have bounties placed on them -- Jedi with TEFs, overts, coverts with TEFs, and other smugglers who have active bounties. Before the biosignature item becomes invalid (24 hours) the smuggler has to slice it into the BH terminal to add the bounty. The smuggler can set the price with minimums and maximums depending on the difficulty of the mark. Optionally, getting a biosignature can make the smuggler temporarily targetable by the mark.
WHAT IT ACCOMPLISHES: Adding a bounty will add a lot of fun and interactivity -- and challenge -- to potential marks, smugglers, and bounty hunters. It is somewhat self-policing: players have to actively do something to make themselves eligible as a mark, the smuggler has to be near them to get the biosignature, bounty payout minimums/maximums will eliminate griefing and abuse to non-combat players (who wants to kill a Rebel chef for 1500cr?), and the smuggler makes himself a potential mark by adding or removing a bounty.
hanserda
Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:04 am
#55
Retaking the Tuskin Fort:
1) Tuskin Fort is retakeable (by team/group) once all current stationed tuskins are killed (non-respawnable)
2) Slight delay (5 - 10 mins) before tuskins try to "retake" the fort by force. This allows for the group to regroup... heal... etc.
3) Very large force of tuskins advance on the fort via the desert (not random spawns inside the fort but outside the fort) in large groups to "retake" the fort and kill the intruders. They seem to come from inside the desert hills themselves. (Should be random spots to keep players from memorizing these spawn locations and thus killing the newly spawned Tuskins before they can advance to the fort.
4) The group now tries to keep and"hold"the fort by fighting off the advancing Tuskins.
5) Maybe this group would receive a badge for holding the fort for a certain amount of time.
Just an idea I was playing around with. Thanx
Mick
YasuTal
Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:08 am
#56
Okay, here goes nothing. I've been in game since beta 3, and this is like my second post ever, so be patient. I wasn't sure where to put these thoughts so I hope this is an appropriate place 
I think for the most part the developers have done a good job of balancing classes and interdepency in a lot of ways. However, I signed up for this game, and continue to watch it evolve because I want to play a great Star Wars MMORPG. Right now I think this is a solid MMORPG, but I wanted to share my thoughts on what kills the Star Wars feel of the game for me since from what I can tell this is a focus of the evolution of the game. Also, I do not PvP much at all, so none of this is motivated from an 'I get my ass kicked' perspective (which I'm sure I would in PvP LOL)
Imagine if you will, a lone imperial swaggers into Anchorhead. Alliance heads turn and a group of 8-10 people all armed with carbines and pistols surrond him. The nerve! The all draw their weapons, aim directly at him from a mere 25m away and....all miss, while the imp swingsa stun buton at them one by one over a period of 10-15 minutes and kills them all. The whole time he gets hit maybe once, and doesn't take any damage. He's got 90% armor, buffs, etc. A combat medic does manage to poison him (10 soldiers firing at him and the only one who can hit him is someone tossing poison balls), but he dabbles in Doctor so he instantly heals with a handy macro.
Imagine if you will...a herd of enraged Rancors stalk the mountains of Dathomir. A stranger wanders too close to their home. Three of the fearsome beasts, including a formidable bull take offense and.......all get KICKED to death by a TKM. At the same time the TKM is not even hurt despite being hit with claws the length of a speederbike ona creaturethree stories tall.
Oh and by the way no firing your pistol from your speeder, even though that was one of the greatest chase scenes in cinematic history up to that point while they traded blaster fire...how cool would THAT be????
Now THAT's Star Wars.
1)Combat Medic. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't ever recall any reference to a combat medic that could toss around poison and disease.Allowing for such a class, it's ludicrous that any player in a self contained armor such as Storm Trooper or Composite armor would be affected by this. These armor types at the very least have atmosphere filters, and I have seen reference material that indicates that ST armor is actually capable of withstanding the the vacuum of space for short periods. The other delivery method would of course be contact, which again would be prevented by full suit armor (sorry Trandoshans). Additionally, the reason biological and chemical weapons are rarely if ever used is that the area of effect is near impossible to control. If you're going to allow for a class that can release deadly organisms into the atmosphere, the EVERYONE in the area of effect should be at risk (except as previously noted anyone with a set of armor). Finally, a disease that kicks in in under a minute? Poison I can buy but come on, even the deadliest diseases once delivered have an onset time that far exceeds that. I would rather see nanotechnology that directly attacks cells than to call it a 'disease'.
2) Any Brawler. This is the classic 'bring a knife to a gun fight argument'. As far as I'm concerned the idea of a melee attack with a range of more than length of the weapon is absurd. This is space. Yes there are lightsabers, but how many epic battles other than Jedi battles involved katanas, Giant Hammers (**edit**?)? Spears? Think the Tusken would have gotten very far waving their gaffi sticks at imperial troops (yes I know it worked for the ewoks, but we all know that was retarded)? I know that some people aesthetically prefer 'swords' but this is a futuristic sci-fi world. With the exception of close quarters indoors, etc. a brawler would get his ass handed to him by any idiot with a dl-44. If the karate champion of the world was charging me from down the street and I had a .44 magnum, guess what, he's dead. I have only minimal experience firing handguns and i can hit a target from10m away, which by the way is almost 30feet..I don't recall Bruce Lee every kicking someone from that far away. I don't care how well you can 'dodge' a sword if I have ahigh powered sniper laser cannon and shoot you from 60m away, you're freaking toast. period. You charge me from across a cantina and I shoot you with my DL-44, you're toast. You wave a sword at me as you close for combat and I hit you in the leg with my carbine, so much for your fancy moves.
3) Which leads to weapons.A t-21 in the hands of a master rifleman should be one shot, one kill to any unprotected person, period. We have kinetic weapons now that will penetrate body armor to do this. A t-21 should only be effective with the shooter prone. The tech exists to vaporize a planet but a laser rifle can't be built to go through a half an inch of composite material? Can't remember how many times in Star Wars I saw everyone waving giant laser rifles around. The Jawa Ion rifle, please. This is a stun weapon. Stun weapons shouldn't do crap to anyone in composite armor. I can wear a FOOTBALL helmet and withstand a blow from a baton, much less a hi tech combat helmet. Oh hi boba fett, sorry you don't have 'stun' protection on your armor so I'm gonna wave a stun baton at you and KILL you? What? Any STUN weapon should not be capable of incapping. Dizzy, yes, knockdown, maybe, but incapacitate on the battlefield? No way. Now if I'm walking down the street with no armor on and someone blasts me with an ion rifle, or whacks me with a stun baton, that's another story.
4) Armor. I don't even know where to begin. Obviously it sounds from my previous points that I am big armor proponent, but I am NOT. How many people other than ST's and bounty hunters even WORE ARMOR???? Zero! Nada! Zip! That's what made them FEARSOME. Even then, a good blaster on a direct hit went through it like butter (exception, Boba Fett). In my opinion, only faction armor, BH, and Commando's should even be able to wear armor, and ST armor should be a good mid range armor, light and somewhat effective. MAX armor protection should be 50%.And who the hell ever heard of creating armor that COULDN'T BE WORN UNLESS IT HAD ILLEGAL MODIFICATIONS?How many private sector kevlar suits would be sold if the wearer had to take PCP to use it or have itmodified on the black market. I know this creates a market for buffs, but seriously...
5) Templates. Just my two cents, if you want to dabble, dabble, but there's no way a dabbling fencer/pistoleer/smuggler/tka should be able to out draw/gun a Master Pistoleer, out fence a master Fencer, out fight a master TKA, etc.
6) Buffs, yes I know that before every firefight Han, Luke, and Chewie stopped by their local starport, stood in line for ten minutes, got buffed, then went to the cantina to stare at dancers for 10 minutes which somehow prevented lasers from hurting their heads. Then they waited for another 10 minutes to catch a ship to the battle site..oh wait that NEVER happened. IMHO, buffs should NOT increase the capacity to withstand damage. If your head is gone, it's gone. They may increase melee damage (str) ranged accuracy (focus) and the ability to move quickly and resist states. When player cities have to set up buff bots to be competitive in PvP that strikes me as pretty un star warsy. Yes this would reduce the demand, sorry Docs you can't make 500k a night with your buff bot on while as a smuggler I get paid ...oh right I don't even have smuggler missions..well as a BH I get paid 6k to MURDER someone....as far as what I've read most sophisticated hit men make 7 figures per job...of course there are consequences..
7) But I want to solo.....Ok, so now you're saying 'but then I can't solo missions at all'....well you know what? Tough stuff. With the CURRENT mission selection you SHOULDN'T be able to solo. Heya Han where you going? Oh I'm going to wander into the wilds of Lok and solo Kimoglias...yeah right....Even today, hunters going into the jungles to hunt tigers go with GROUPS. It's DEADLY. The answer in my opinion is tohave MISSIONS THAT MAKE SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GAME. I know, Han, Luke, and Chewie spent a LOT oftime hunting gubburs...oh wait, they NEVER hunted. How about the MAJORITY of the MOBS in game being sentient/humanoid types? How about investigation missions in the city? Infiltrate a crime boss to steal information? Smuggle x from point A to point B with the law/opposing faction on your tail? Rescue X from a gang? Get plans to a general only to find out the general's been kidnapped and you have to find him? Take out strategic people/locations (not randomly spawned generic camps..yawn), scout a location for a new base that fits certain criteria and send it to faction leaders? How about all Players with -5000 in any faction getting bounties on their head? How about BH getting bounties for taking out the 'wrong guy' ???How about smugglers who can get me through Mos Entha without a scan? Master Riflemen who can snipe undetected in PvP? Vehicle PvP? Slicing for free rides/two for one tickets/etc. Custom logos on vehicles.
8) Don't even get me started on Jedi
There's a lot more, but my laptop battery is dying...LOL...anyway, the devs have made a solid MMORPG, but as far as a Star Wars game? Other than the races, type of equipment, and vehicles, I don't think so...
Thanks for your time.
Tstorm
Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:46 am
#58
Aside from bug fixing and what's already on the roadmap, I'd like to see:
- Merchant profession revamp: Make it so people that surrender Merchant skills keep their vendors (if they want to keep shoveling maintenance into it more power to them), but make it so they can no longer list new items. After 30 days, they can either remove the vendor or keep paying maintenance on an empty vendor.
- Structure maintenance: Allow checking of structure status via datapad (or similar). With house maintenance so relatively cheap, it is common to put lots of money into it for an extended amount of time and it's easy to "forget" about checking again.
- Structure maintenance: Allow user definable thresholds for structure maintenance expiration email. Ditto with power on harvesters, and input/output hoppers on factories/harvesters.
- Storage: Revisit player storage. Start a focus thread about it to get a sense of whether players have enough or truly have a need for more.
- Item placement: Make it so objects can be rotated vertically (the painting from the Bestine election looks upside down to me and I want to flip it!)
- Shuttles: At a shuttleport (not a starport), if the shuttle is right there, why don't we have an option to just travel *immediately*? I know there's a bit of roleplay/immersion lost, but with all the travel that is done, having to buy a ticket, click "Ok" to the "you have purchased a ticket" window, then use the ticket (while you're standing perfectly still or you have to redo it) seems silly.
- Shuttles: I'm fine with there being multi-leg shuttle journies inbetween various planets, but could we at least have the ability to purchase a ticket for it all at once? For example, if I'm going to Dantooine from Naboo, I have to go to Corellia first. At Corellia, I have to run from the shuttle in the starport to the ticket machine, then run back to the shuttle with hopefully enough time to get on board.
- Shuttles: Related to the above, why can't we purchase "frequent flier" tickets (heck, make it something the spacecraft profession in JTL makes)? Make a few different types for starting planets, advanced planets, and in planet travel along with the ability to buy them with quantity of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 use (or whatever). Then have the ticket collector ask where you're going and be done with it that way.
- Bad names: I recently learned that CSRs only deal with bad names if the player with the bad name is online. Either give CSRs the ability to change bad names while the player is offline (give the player a window when he/she logs in explaining the policy along with the ability to choose a new name on the first offense) or make it so CSRs can better track bad name complaints. I still see players I complained about months ago running around with the same bad names and I get the impression the CSRs have long since forgotten about it after sending me the form letter reply to my ticket(s).
- Spammers: Add an option to filter any player that /shouts or /yells the same message within 5 minutes time. Heck, to prevent people just tacking on random characters to their macro spam to get around this make it so we can filter any player that /shouts or /yells more than once (with any message) within 5 minutes time.
- Chat window: Make more subcategories of "system message" that can be filtered to different windows. Entertainers, for example, want to see tips, but don't want to see their entertaining xp in the same place necessarily (unless wearing a neck brace for the whiplash you get watching the text fly by)
- Doctor/entertainer buffs/healing: Depending on time of day, server, planet, etc. buffs and/or healing may not be available. Cutting into doctor/entertainer profits isn't desirable (I'm not trying to make them mad here!), but maybe NPC buff/heal bots could be available for a fee higher than "normal"? Or maybe make it so DE can make a buff/heal droid that doctors/entertainers can place in NPC cities to buff/heal? There has to be a way to get this to players more easily!
- Bazaar/Vendor interface: I get the impression changes are planned, but they haven't been discussed much. We desparately need a better interface that allows us to search and better drill down to what we're trying to find. I have gone at times without things like powerups because I just can't find a stocked vendor with them anywhere. We need the ability to search galaxy wide (or at least planet wide?) for goods without having to wade through every empty vendor on the planetary map. Maybe a better interface will result in fewer afk macro spammers at starports (one can only hope)
- Ad droids: Change so that you only hear the spam *once*, not several times or when another player triggers it. That, or make it so you can filter ad droids out, although that option would devalue them greatly and I'd hate to see that since they are at least better than the afk macro spammers
- Merchant profession revamp: Make it so people that surrender Merchant skills keep their vendors (if they want to keep shoveling maintenance into it more power to them), but make it so they can no longer list new items. After 30 days, they can either remove the vendor or keep paying maintenance on an empty vendor.
- Structure maintenance: Allow checking of structure status via datapad (or similar). With house maintenance so relatively cheap, it is common to put lots of money into it for an extended amount of time and it's easy to "forget" about checking again.
- Structure maintenance: Allow user definable thresholds for structure maintenance expiration email. Ditto with power on harvesters, and input/output hoppers on factories/harvesters.
- Storage: Revisit player storage. Start a focus thread about it to get a sense of whether players have enough or truly have a need for more.
- Item placement: Make it so objects can be rotated vertically (the painting from the Bestine election looks upside down to me and I want to flip it!)
- Shuttles: At a shuttleport (not a starport), if the shuttle is right there, why don't we have an option to just travel *immediately*? I know there's a bit of roleplay/immersion lost, but with all the travel that is done, having to buy a ticket, click "Ok" to the "you have purchased a ticket" window, then use the ticket (while you're standing perfectly still or you have to redo it) seems silly.
- Shuttles: I'm fine with there being multi-leg shuttle journies inbetween various planets, but could we at least have the ability to purchase a ticket for it all at once? For example, if I'm going to Dantooine from Naboo, I have to go to Corellia first. At Corellia, I have to run from the shuttle in the starport to the ticket machine, then run back to the shuttle with hopefully enough time to get on board.
- Shuttles: Related to the above, why can't we purchase "frequent flier" tickets (heck, make it something the spacecraft profession in JTL makes)? Make a few different types for starting planets, advanced planets, and in planet travel along with the ability to buy them with quantity of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 use (or whatever). Then have the ticket collector ask where you're going and be done with it that way.
- Bad names: I recently learned that CSRs only deal with bad names if the player with the bad name is online. Either give CSRs the ability to change bad names while the player is offline (give the player a window when he/she logs in explaining the policy along with the ability to choose a new name on the first offense) or make it so CSRs can better track bad name complaints. I still see players I complained about months ago running around with the same bad names and I get the impression the CSRs have long since forgotten about it after sending me the form letter reply to my ticket(s).
- Spammers: Add an option to filter any player that /shouts or /yells the same message within 5 minutes time. Heck, to prevent people just tacking on random characters to their macro spam to get around this make it so we can filter any player that /shouts or /yells more than once (with any message) within 5 minutes time.
- Chat window: Make more subcategories of "system message" that can be filtered to different windows. Entertainers, for example, want to see tips, but don't want to see their entertaining xp in the same place necessarily (unless wearing a neck brace for the whiplash you get watching the text fly by)
- Doctor/entertainer buffs/healing: Depending on time of day, server, planet, etc. buffs and/or healing may not be available. Cutting into doctor/entertainer profits isn't desirable (I'm not trying to make them mad here!), but maybe NPC buff/heal bots could be available for a fee higher than "normal"? Or maybe make it so DE can make a buff/heal droid that doctors/entertainers can place in NPC cities to buff/heal? There has to be a way to get this to players more easily!
- Bazaar/Vendor interface: I get the impression changes are planned, but they haven't been discussed much. We desparately need a better interface that allows us to search and better drill down to what we're trying to find. I have gone at times without things like powerups because I just can't find a stocked vendor with them anywhere. We need the ability to search galaxy wide (or at least planet wide?) for goods without having to wade through every empty vendor on the planetary map. Maybe a better interface will result in fewer afk macro spammers at starports (one can only hope)
- Ad droids: Change so that you only hear the spam *once*, not several times or when another player triggers it. That, or make it so you can filter ad droids out, although that option would devalue them greatly and I'd hate to see that since they are at least better than the afk macro spammers
Oniraux
Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:14 am
#59
Please host a new galaxy that resets in given time intervals and/or better yet when given points have been reached in that galaxy. I'm not sure what that interval should be but I think it would make for a very aggressive and dynamic game.
As far as the given points it would be crazy to know that if the rebels or imperials build up and hold25 factional HQsfor more than a week they win and the server resets.
The only reward... braggin rights, pride, and fun.
Does this sound cool? Because it sure doesn't sound too hard to implement. No changes in the game only to have someone on your end review some set stratics, hit reset button, and post reason why it was reset.
MrRiflemaker
Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:20 am
#60
On the Subject of Smugglers, I had written a little way for smuggler missions to work out and it would also include bounty Hunters. I had written it in the Revamp Discussion topic: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=95411&page=2
Then later I stated a way in which if you were had a mission and had a bounty on you, because you were discovered and you kill that Player Bounty Hunter, than the bounty on you becomes even higher and as you kill these player bounties and complete the mission, you get smuggler points in which you can go to an underground section for smugglers which is an a unkown spot that only people who have the smuggler profession have that POI.
Once you have smuggler points you can talk to an NPC to buy a weak henchmen for a small amount of points or an item corresponding to the number of points you have:
1. If you have a large amount of smuggler points than you can either get 2 medium type henchmen or one
strong henchman , or a medium type weapon.
2. If you have a good amount of points you can buy 2 Strong hennchman or a strong weapon.
3. If you have a TON of points you can buy either 10 henchman or an UBER STRONG WEAPON that is a blaster.
Now once you have a high number STRONG henchman such as 10 of them you are able to recieve one of those big floating fortresses like Jabba has or just a fortress on land on any planet except Tattooine because of Jabbas presence. These fortress are only allowed ONE per planet, because it should be in a remotely unkown secret spot that only smugglers know and becauseit would just make things unbalanced. These fortresses can be destroyed by Player Bounty Hunters, but mind you a smuggler can leave a number of henchmen behind to defend if he decides to take a couple with him alonga mission or something.
The actuall point of gaining a fortress is, the actuall bonuses you get. The bonus gained is an 80% chance of getting a better slice on armor and weapons. Also to create more powerful spices. These significantly enhanced weapons would than have to be smuggled in as cargo and may not be sold on vendors or player vendors, must be sold outside of the city because retrieval of any weapon in city filled with the Empires goons will cause big trouble and if you want to stay away from bounties. The way this can happen is, any player can put up an option on there head that would say "Need Weapon/Armor" (it would work just like the profession tag).
Once that "Need Weapon/Armor" option you choose that is attached to you it would show you up on a Smuggler Terminal which is in the Smugglers fortress. That Smuggler can than be able to see that person is on his terminal and needs an extra enhanced weapon or Spice. You would send a tell( /t )and tell him to be 300 meters outside a city so you cant be seen within the cities. The danger of a person doing this is they got no underworld skills and can be hunted by a Bounty Hunter so before doing this you need a smuggler to give you a little skill for 30 min which would allow you to have that "NEED WEAPON / ARMOR" option with little danger. While having that attachment on you and a smuggler than sends you a tell you are also responsible for having a bounty on your head even though your chances were reduced with the skill enhancement that the smuggler gave you. The skill enhancement reduces the chance a lot, you would end up with a 10% chance of getting a bounty on you.
With a Fortress, the owner of it whos a smuggler can higher other smugglers with him creating his own Faction/PA in a way. They can defend the fortress with the NPC henchman or help smuggle the enhanced items. The only person who can make the enhanced item is still the owner of the fortress. No other person canenhance the items. Your smugglers members under you if they join you can take on the missions and if they dont complete the mission and try to take the item or sliced weapon it just returns to the person who sliced it.
This is the Idea I had in mind to enhance the smuggler profession.
Saratoga
Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:47 am
#61
The game is now approaching a year on the live servers. The player base is well established now and then demand for architect, tailor, and droids is very low. Weapons, armor, and brandy (SWG is now a player base of alcoholics) are the only constant sales.
With the droid publish there was a quick spike in sales, but most have found the new droid modules relatively useless. I havent pulled my combat droid, survey, or medical drodout since the day I made it.
With the addition of decay as a death penalty the DEVs anticipated there being an increased demand for tailor goods. Well unfortunately we can still wear 1/100 condition clothing. The decay has instead hurt the players and lined the wallets of armorsmiths due to double decay on armor (death and combat decay).
Architects got a couple spikes with player cities and candles. Player cities are now well established and candles don't stop emitting light at the end of their life cycle unless you pick them up.
I am going to concentrate on what to do with Architects. The solution for Droid Engineer is far more complex but among solutionts would be to add more droid types, make droids combat worthy, and make the modules useful i.e. survey droid should give stats, stim As are useless, merchant barker should be at novice merchant, etc.. I rarely see these droids. Tailor is simple... add a decay timer like vehicles to clothes and when the clothes reach 0 or 1 they disappear. add more types of loot and regular schematics without limited uses. The RL clothing market is driven by new styles. We dont have that in this game. There should be a new schem every week.
Architects...
1. Player hospitals, cantinas, and theaters are useless cty decorations. I can do the same function in a house. There needs to be somethingabout thesestructures thatachef, musician, or dancer wouldwantto own one. I would say add politician (theater only), smuggler (cantina only),and merchant(cantina only)to the abilitity to own these structures. The easy solution is drop them down to a 2 lot requirement. Why would I have a 5 lot cantina that can do the same thing as a 2 lot medium or small house??? Also allow players to place these structures outside a player city.
2. Harvesters and factories: They need to decay. mining equipment, refining facilities, and industrial gear all require replacement in real life. The solution to adding decay to these structures is having decay for specific subcomponents. The turbo fluid drilling unit goes out. So we have to go to an architect for a replacement. Same for a mining unit, turbine generator, power core, etc. even add more. There needs to be a menu on each structure that allows you to remove and add these subcomponents. A similar menu has been developed for spaceships and jedi light sabers so it can be done. The basic structure does not decay only the subcomponents. This will simulate RL wear and tear over a short period of time.
3. Houses: No decay. Houses represent a sense of accomplishment to many players in game. Decay would only mean grief.
4. Furniture. Fix the candles and lights. When the timer goes out the light should go out. Torches should have a timer too. Other furniture should not decay. The length of time the game represents we should not see significant decay. Solution is to start giving architects the remaining furniture seen in game that we cannot craft and some newfurniture. And no more lmited use schematics. Those piss me off more than anything in the game. The only thing that should be limited are the ones that give stat bonuses.
5. Drop the cost of player city decorations. We need to see more decorations to make player cities unique and something people want to see. 20000 per week for a park is ridiculous. Maybe 1000 per week sounds more reasonable. I understand player cities are one of your money sinks, but you need to stop the 36-38k solo enraged rancor missions first. In general player cities are ugly disorganized ventures. Lamps should be 500 per week, fountains 500 per week, statues should be 100 if not 0, small parks 500, medium 1000, large 2000. Player city banks (5000), garages (5000), and cloning centers (10000)can be considered for a decrease in cost, decorations are more important.
In the unlilkely event you read this DEVs thanks for taking your time to read this and I hope you consider this as a viable solution.
MrRiflemaker
Wed Jun 16, 2004 11:11 am
#62
On the subject of Duel wielding swords or blasters. From what is known so far pistoleers will be able to duel wield and so will fencers.
I think to gain this skill you must go through a instanced player dungeon quest in which you learn the secrets of duel wielding through a quest. This quest will only be allowed 1 person and would be different for both fencer and pistoleer. The difficulty will also be balanced. There should be a dungeon followed by a boss monster at the end. This quest is focused on finding the secrets of duel wielding. Once the quest is completed you may not do it again. There is no time limit even if it is instanced. You may only try to do this quest up to 5 times depending on how difficult the devs can set number times you are allowed to do this quest if you failed. Once you kill creatures they dont spawn back, this is to make it so you cant go up the tree easily by just killing things over and over. The dungeon should be of fairly size and have a quest feeling to it.
wrangle
Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:01 pm
#63
I would like to see a profession added that has the ability to refine resources and make the stats on the refined resources better. The profession could refine a stack of 100k of resources and lose 25% for the refining process and be able to refine a material as many times as they want. They could also add in most any material to the refining process to cut down on the loss. This would give the players something to work with and make the crafting professions less like a job.
The decay rate of armor is in need of adjusting as well. As it is the decay rate is insamely high and needs alot of reduction.
JimmyPopNL
Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:50 pm
#64
DEVS:
There is little reason to go to cities other other than Coronet... especially with Dantooine and Dathomir as moons of Corellia. If you were to provide an alternative to Dathomir for those who seek higher difficulty, maybe there'd be a reason to not be there.
For example, crank the difficulty on Rori up to Dathomir levels and you will balance out the galaxy significantly. It's not like anyone would really notice anyways... since the majority of the population hasnt even been to Rori, let alone know that it exists. In fact, I'd love to see the statistics on starport ticket purchases, as it would probably be a good way to determine where people aren't going and maybe suggest ways of steering us around a little more.
Making matters worse, all this new content keeps getting jammed into moons of Corellia. Granted, Endor isnt a moon of Corellia (DeathWatch), but still. Flesh out the rest of the galaxy please, and give people a reason to vacate Coronet!
/soapbox
PS: Yes I know you can't steer people to where you want them to go in a MMORPG. Put out a couple strategically placed carrots though, and watch what happens.
tiberian_death
Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:51 pm
#65
Over the next couple of months and the combat balance putting all combat professions with in balance of creatures and the new Jedi system. Jedi will be very powerful and sought after which worries a good amount of the community because of the time frame we don't want the galaxies filled of Jedi running around killing everyone in PvP.
Problem: Keeping the Jedi population in check, more so the Jedi Knight and above since at that level MBH and all other combat professions will have a hard time being able to take them down without large groups, which is the way it should be. Currently the grind to get force sensitive and then reach Jedi Knight is just where it needs to be, however once you reach the high levels, other combat professions become a joke to any Jedi and so are no match. So soon there will be a need for new methods to discourage people from either going up the path of Jedi or justkeeping the high level Jedi numbers down or from running around populated areas.
Solution:
1st: Possible solution is to get rid of the second slot character. Allowing people to have two characters encourages anyone to become Jedi because they still have a regular toon to do regular stuff and make money to support their Jedi. All this does is create galaxies where everyone will eventually have a Jedi and only use their other character to make money and get stuff for their Jedi. I feel if someone really wants to be a Jedi then they should give up everything just like Jedi are forced to in the movies. If someone really wants to become a Jedi then they will give up everything they have put into their orginal character to pursue the isolated and difficult life a Jedi. However if this is done, then Jedi would have to become more independent and rarely rely on anyone other then themselves, since Jedi should pursue isolated lives and in addition be able to make it on their own. This would also mean that easier forms of securing Pearls and Crystals without having to pay over 1 million credits or camp out certain NPCs to get them.
This would limit Jedi in general because only a limited amount of people would be willing to do this, however this would have to be something polled over the community because a lot of people who already have Jedi will feel shafted that they would have to give up one of their characters and possibly lose their Jedi forever if they don't want to give up their non Jedi more.
2nd: Possible solution is any of the Jedi that pass the Jedi Knight Trails automatically are always being hunted by the Empire. However major attacks by high level Imps would only occur on the main planets since the Advance planets would be in theory searched and occupied not as often by the Imperialas Tatooine, Corellia and Naboo. The higher the Jedi is the harder the NPCs are and the more of them that will be spawned. The spawning of the High level NPCs would only occur if an Imperal NPC or Imperial PC sees a Jedi using the force infront of them. Now to make things even more interested the LAST TWO RANKS wouldn't just be attacked by Imperial NPCs but by Vader himself. I know this is something that probably would never happen but it would make the most sense that Vader himself would handle the high level Jedi and I know this would add a lot to being a Jedi Master. Now of course Vader would be impossible to defeat and when a Jedi is attacked by Vader, no one else would be able to interfer because Vader would be using some kind of force to push back any other PC as well as a swarm of Imp NPCs swarming the battle just as they did when Vador fought Obi. In theory no one would be able to ever defeat Vader and in more would just be an interesting battle and then a fight to see if you can out run the Dark Lord and all the Imps chasing you. The ablility to just be able to fight against Vader would be tempting for any Jedi even if they know they can't win and it would be more of a challange of seeing how long you can last against the Dark Lord over other Jedi.