Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Rountdable Discussion (Week Ending 1-25-04)
Thanks for the reply there TH, maybe going forward, if there is going to be a delay in answers due to the internal whatnot of SOE, just let us know, at least we would then know that you do see the posts, but are just unable to give us answers at the time due to the answers not being available. I can definately respect your position though on making sure you don't put your foot in your mouth.
Now, moving forward, I will post these again until we get definate answers:
1> BH Probe/Seeker droids actually take longer to find a target as you move up the investigation tree, not get faster. This needs to be addressed. While it isn't game stopping, it is a bit annoying when you miss that shuttle because your droid decides to stop and chat it up with some pleasure model on the way to finishing it's job.
2> BH vs Jedi... I know you said tweaks are on the way, however, until definative answers come up...I will throw in my voice to say "fix it". This doesn't mean give in to the whinyness of those Jedi who think that they should run amok and such. Re-inforce the issue that Jedi are suppose to be RARE and HARD, but on the reverse side, give the Jedi some sort of chance to survive at lower levels as well. Give them the ability to at least to do pistols or something from the marksman tree. Sure, the Jedi will gain in power as they gain up the tree, but a major portion of the whinefest is that they feel there is no chance to survive. Even I, as a BH, feel that they should have some chance, such as being TEF'd to each other when the BH has a mission, so the Jedi doesn't just get knocked onto his back and end up dead before having the chance to react. Also, anyone that helps the Jedi (heals, etc) should be open to TEF so that the BH can take them out too.
3> Make BH missions more immersive as we move up Investigation. Perhaps have us talk to more informants until we finally pinpoint where the mark is. Make payout alot higher. Re-do factioned themparks (Jabba, Nym, etc) to include bounty missions to where you can hunt down someone with substantial (-5K) negative faction.
4> Nym and Hutt faction (not Jabba), need to have ways to raise these.
5> Player Bounties.... 
hasibert wrote:
Ackis wrote:
What makes this even more funny is TH was there as well.
TheWoody wrote:
It's fascinating that Last night all the droid engineers from across all the servers gathered together in-game on Ahazi for one big meeting. During that meeting this idea was universally rejected by an overwealming majority of them. Combine that with the fact that the DEs have been saying for weeks not to do this, the correspondent has been telling him for weeks not to do this, and we also nowhave a running poll that is saying that the community is against this. How much more clear do we have to be?
I don't know who is right, but TH's idea is just GREAT,
and it is also logic:
BE - CH
DE - DH
I don't know what you guys want, but to give the combat ability to the DE's wouldn't make much sense.
You may think TH's idea is great, but what he posted is a complete lie. DEs do not want the DH profession.
Unfortunantly you're coming in here with no base whatever. First, comparing droids with creatures is stupid. Apples and oranges. A droid can be programmed to have an easier interface. Generally speaking it will not think, or do anything its master does not want it to do. Creatures are opposite.
The concept that most DEs wanted was a certification system. As you progress up trees you get certifications to use for droids. That's what we wanted, not to be a clone of BE. It's disrespecutful and disgusting how TH has treated us DEs.
Few things I'd like to mention. I'm sure these have already been discussed, but just to give a little more emphasis:
Vehicles need namability and color customization. When taking missions with a group, they generally get parked close to each other. After blasting the tortur lair, we all run back, and try to mountfour "Speederbike Swoop" vehicles before we finally get to the one that belongs to us. Plus, being able to change their colors would add personability and flair.
TEF's should not be given when trading. As a master weaponsmith, I do a lot of trade transactions to support my business, which involves trading with overt members of my faction. Then, I'm punted from my house, and denied access for five minutes. If this is an intentionaly time sink, it's very irritating. Plus, it's not like a trade is always going to be something that's in plain view, especially if done in a house. If you're outside, you could do the whole "quick-slip" exchange so people couldn't see what's going on.
On harvesters, it would be nice if we had a total maintenance cost shown after we put more money in it. When filling them with power, it says "You deposit 1000 units of power. Total power reserves now at 3285," or something to that effect. When putting in maintenance, it just says "You paid 3000 credits in maintenance." I like seeing that total there so I don't have to select it again for "Status" to find out whether or not however much I put in is going to be enough.
Again with harvesters, it would be nice if when you went to select the resources, the default setting would be to look for the highest concentration resource on the spot you put it and highlight it.
Rhodium steel needs to start having a higher conductivity than 28. As does Plumbum iron.
Shuttles need to have an express service. Because of the 10-minute wait, it's almost like a punishment to leave the planet you're on, or to travel to another. As a crafter, I planet hop to find resources that aren't currently on my planet, so this means anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of my time within a three-hour play time is wasted because the dev's feel this is a necessary time sink. What you should do is offer an express service for ten times the normal rate (a trip to Dantooine from Corellia is 1338, so make it 13380). Spending money is far less irritating than wasting our time.
I have just a few words to say about the BE/CH and DE/DH idea.
First, I do not know of a single CH who thinks that a BE is supposed to be a weapons manufacturer. A BE should be like a doctor, creating temporary and perminent buffs for the creatures, but personnaly I believe there should be more. A Bio Engineer should be able to make bio-organic implants for creatures AND characters, perhapse a calcium injection for players and creatures to have a bone like armor, this would be a great help to the Wookiee race, as they can't wear armor, giving them an optional way to gain armor. It would decay like normal armor, not be repairable, and only be renewable after the armor is gone. They should also be able to create creature implants for poison/disease attacks, similar to what the CM can make, that have a limited number of uses and only be renewable or changeable after all the charges are gone. BE's should also be able to graft weapon grade metals onto the claws of the creatures to increase damage, these devices would be manufactured by weaponsmiths, and implanted only by a BE. This would take away the "BE=weaponsmith" idea that is causing many CHs to loose interest in the profession and the game.
Second, the entire idea of having a seperate class for controlling droids is about as "Star Warsy" as a ford model T. Yes, I understand that for large engagements of nearly brainless battledroids you would need someone sitting at a console watching the main computer brain on a spaceship somewhere nearby, but at what time did R2D2 ever need someone walking infront of him saying "Follow.... Follow..... Follow" or telling him anything more then "Plug into the computer and see if you can find _____"? Personal combat droids for politicians and "elite" classes should work as bodyguards. There's an idea, add droid certification to various skills in the novice and elite classes, sure it would mean that only Master Elite classes could have a full fledged combat droid with heavy armor, but it would be more like the Star Wars we know, the one that made most of us play this game anyway.
Third, the nerfs on pets and other creatures..... My main character is an architect, I was getting killed so much that I took up CH so that I could get something that would give me the time to escape from things that spawned while I was trying to put power and maintenance into my harvesters. When Rock Beetles had armor it was perfect, a low level creature I tamed that could distract these spawns while I used burst run to get away, now even a CL 20 pet doesn't stand a chance against desert deamons or other spawns, and I end up dead while my harvester decays. I have lost over 5 heavy harvesters due to decay, where something either is sitting on my harvester and kills me before I can get to it, so I can't pay maintenance, or something spawns on me while I am trying to make the payment. Do you have any idea of how many times I have been laughed at for asking someone to play bodyguard while I deposit maintenance into my structures? Do you have any clue of how many times I would walk out of my house on Tatooine and die before I could even begin to burst run, after logging out inside my own home? I finally moved because of all the trouble I had there, and it cost me soo much that I couldn't even place everything back up until I had grinded away at crafting delivery missions for 3 days. Now, if you make a DH class, I won't even have that method of protection, not that having a probebot does any good now... I feed power into it and set it to guard me, hop in my speeder and have to wait for my droid to catch up with me, then by the time I get to my harvesters the droid has forgotten that I told it to guard me and I get killed while it sits there doing nothing.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I enjoyed playing this game, the crafting exp and variety of classes I can become is much better the EQ, also the con levels of mobs are based on MY abilities, not what a group should be able to kill at my level. Now I think I may go back to EQ..... or maybe just quit paying SOE and cancel all my accounts. I have never seen "balancing" that would cause one class to become soo weak in PVE before, and at the same time make all the other combat classes that much stronger, because not only was the class nerfed, but many creatures were nerfed as well. When I took my Architect to fight rock beetles and try to get one for a pet it was a great challenge, with my second account I killed an entire rock beetle lair, after the nerf, with nothing but unarmed brawler III. Once my second character masters CH, I will drop it, because there is no challenge, no excitement to it any more. The ONLY way to level up is to tame and release. Fighting with the pets is soo useless, 1 point of exp for fighting an even con mob? 120 points of CH exp for fighting a red con? And that's only if I heal my pet and myself at least 10 times during the fight.
I am sorry to say that these planned "improvements" you are speaking of, with "making the BE class usefull" and creation of the DH class, will be just one more stone used to bury this game until you actually fix it and release it in the second version.
Of course, if YOU would care to be educated about what DEs want, it's EASY. Dedicate a long morning to reading our sticky threads and the links included in them, and you'll get a really good idea.
Here's one thing most DEs want: We want to make droids that anyone can use. Not just 'Droid Handlers', not just US, but ANYONE.
First, combat droids are a small piece of the picture, or they should be. R2 and 3PO were not combat droids, but they were actually USEFUL devices in some form or another.
However, restricting ourselves to the combat side of things: Due to the 'game balance' issue, most of us are realistic enough to know that high-end combat droids can't be three thousand credit items that any n00b can purchase off the bazaar for a trip to Endor. This is why a fair amount of discussion has gone on about a 'Certification' system, which would gradually raise the level of the droids you can use as you gain professional skills. Most folks seem comfortable with a few tiers, gained at, say, starting profession master, elite novice, and elite master.
i apparently don't really understand where TH got the idea that we DEs want a seperate profession for combat droids. I'm begining to wonder if TH ever really reads the de forum and looked at the polls. if you are going to make it a BE and CH setup then why did you have either profession in the first place? you are getting 4 professions that do the same god **edit** thing. you call this good game design? it makes no sense.
Ackis wrote
You may think TH's idea is great, but what he posted is a complete lie. DEs do not want the DH profession.
Unfortunantly you're coming in here with no base whatever. First, comparing droids with creatures is stupid. Apples and oranges. A droid can be programmed to have an easier interface. Generally speaking it will not think, or do anything its master does not want it to do. Creatures are opposite.
The concept that most DEs wanted was a certification system. As you progress up trees you get certifications to use for droids. That's what we wanted, not to be a clone of BE. It's disrespecutful and disgusting how TH has treated us DEs.
I have not absolutely no base, I follow the discussion everywhere and read all dev posts, but you're right, I didn't read through the DE discussions
It would be interesting what your correspondent has to say to this!
I think you can compare droids with creatures, droids should be that what creatures are at the moment, this is Star Wars, not Pet Wars, so I think it's a very good idea to have a droid handler profession
I have a question for you, where do you want to put the certifications? In which trees? In which professions?
Droid_Engineer_Rho wrote:
Here's one thing most DEs want: We want to make droids that anyone can use. Not just 'Droid Handlers', not just US, but ANYONE.
Bingo.
I can just imagine Luke running around Anchorhead looking for a Droid Handler trainer just so he can tell the new combat-capable C-3PO to....
You get the point.
/bow
Respectfully,
Okay TH here is the deal on the autostoring problem, it is far too quick.
I just got incapped after being knocked off of my vehicle and it autostored before my incap timer expired.
Do you realise how annoying that is?
MerryPrankster wrote:
mmaughme wrote:
The point is that Rangers aren't really doing the job now. First, there aren't enough of them. I know know of one on my entire server. Second, they aren't hunting a large enough quantity. I need stacks of meat in the thousands. Third,they're charging outrageous fees. 35 cpu, for a resource which comprises 22% of a pet stim, consumes nearly 85% of the overall cost of the stim. I'd rather spend a few hours hunting on my own than pay a Ranger the prices they're asking. My opinion, you've priced yourselves out of business. When I was a ranger, I used to fill massive orders for Tatooinian wooly hide for a Master Tailor I knew. I charged 4 cpu. Period. Made a fortune doing so, without the need to force her to pass on exceedingly high costs to her customers.
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
MerryPrankster wrote:
This most likely belongs in the doctor thread, but this is as good a place to get ignored as any
A few suggestions...
Make a FARM as a type of harvester so doc's can get avian and herb meat without having to beg thier entire PA to go out hunting for them.
Then what will us rangers do???
My point exactly!
IF I charge for resources, I only charge 2 cpu...that said, I do very little business since no one asks me to. As far as the farm idea, I was kidding. The ranger forums throw this idea around on a monthly basis.
I unterstand it like this:
level 10 combat droids and all other kinds of droids (crafting stations, surgical, storage, ....) for ALL characters
heavy combat droids for the droid handler profession
I understand why they're not adding certifications to let's say crafting professions. As a crafter, you craft and you're not a fighter. If you gain a certification for a strong droid, you get something what a ch (or dh) has,
you should not be able to fight strong creatures as a crafter, unless you take some combat skills. To add heavy combat droid certifications to crafters would be the same as to give them weapon skills. And because of that, this will never happen.
So you DE's can make non-combat droidsand combat droids with level 10 or less for everyone and heavy combat droids for the droid handlers, that's way better than what you have now!
I understand the reasoning behind the DH profession, even though I think it's silly. Consider...
DEs can make uber droidekas that anybody can use. Okay, then why keep CH? If I can run around with a droideka rolling behind me, that can do as much damage as a grauler, I may as well dump CH and put those skill points elsewhere.
Which would reflect in serious damage to the BEs, as they'd no longer have customers. Their market would have dried up.
Of course there's the possibility this might happen anyway, should the existing CH decide to pursue DH instead. It'd be something new. I can see a lot of CH dropping those skills in favor of droids. At least having a separate profession for them to move into will keep every entertainer from being able to stand safely back and dance exotically while their droideka slaughters a frenzied kahmurra lair...