Development Cycle Archive
Thread: 19 answers (6-10-04)
WarlordRhawn
Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:42 am
#53
I will give some credit on this one. Being an outspoken critic of the "combat Rebalance" answer you have typically given. There was some useful information here thanks for giving it. I would like however to highly encourage you to tell the devs"
"Politician
There has been a lot of discussion on the issue of “City Missions” and this would certainly fall along those lines. There are a lot of versions of city missions being discussed and we definitely want to see player cities involved in some sort of GCW content. City Missions were on the development list, but they were removed in the last schedule review, though some members on the team strongly want to see this soon. Currently, it is cut, but if it comes back on the radar screen, myself or the correspondents will let you know. "
That this is 100% necessary for the overall health of the game. You impliment new dungeons which can be done once Thunderheart. If you impliment this type of mission you will have implimented a form of UNLIMITED content. There will be some growing pains, this much is true. The first time a player city gets taken over by an opposing faction there will be some people who yell this sucks. However this is also realistic to the setting.
However I would encourage you to rebalance the combat first. Without first rebalancing these changes are going to be an unfair burden on the non combat medic/rifleman types which are ruling PvP because of your admitted "tweaks" that have "imbalanced" the system.
Thunderheart please also put some consideration into maximizing the code. You used to do this, it really needs to be done again. Especially if your going to continue to claim to be compatible with 56kers.
Special thanks to Jatto for the armorsmith question even if we did get another combat rebalance answer, at least now we know a time frame and that is more than we had.
Natanial Storm
WarlordRhawn
Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:45 am
#54
"However I would encourage you to rebalance the combat first. Without first rebalancing these changes are going to be an unfair burden on the non combat medic/rifleman types which are ruling PvP because of your admitted "tweaks" that have "imbalanced" the system."
Sorry slight typo and evidentally I can't edit in this forum I meant it would be unfair to the rest of the classes due to the unfair advantages that the combat medic/rifleman now have.
Natanial Storm
WarNerve5776
Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:00 pm
#55
Thunderheart wrote:
Test Center
The regular Test Center Denizens are wanting a post from yourself or Rogue_5 or even JustG about the state of TC1's chance for a similar wipe and rollback from when the patch originally hit it. Is there any plans to revert TC1 as well?
There are no plans to wipe/re-roll *all* characters on TC1. It is almost written in stone that we shouldn’t wipe the server because players would lose a lot of hard work and effort. If you are asking me about Jedi Characters though, we will be manually fixing any FUBAR Jedi templates for you.
Weaponsmith
Are stun weapons going to see a major rebalance within the future?
Yes. Stun weapons (particularly stun batons) were never intended to be “the weapon” that everyone wants because it is the most effective. SWG’s weapons were always supposed to have a variety of useful and efficient weapons available, but here again, with all the tweaks and changes over the last 8+ months have caused a series of imbalances. This is definitely something that will be looked at during the combat balance.
"particularly stun batons"? I would think that the Geo pistols and Ion rifles are more of a problem than stun batons.
Warryyr
Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:54 pm
#56
Thunderheart wrote:
Musician
What force skills will you be implementing for specific advantage to the musician profession? Will they be implemented with the Jedi system, or how soon after? If the answer is "NONE" may we provide a list of suggested skills that would be specific to this profession for developer consideration?
The answer is “none”. Please work with NewJedi to develop a reasonable list and I will work with the team to see what is possible and what is not.
/wave Devs
Hi, remember us? We're theMusician profession. We pay money to play your game. Yep, real life money. Just like other players, we fork over $15/month.
We really appreciate your efforts to improve our profession, just like any other profession - whether they wield a lightsaber, rifle, carbine, pistol, med pack, crafting tool, or Slitherhorn - we appreciate having the feeling that we have some folks giving us some kind of consideration and are trying to improve our profession.
TH, you're the messenger. This does not involve you, and I fully understand this. You have done your part, and I thank you for that.
If any Devs actually read these forums, the following is for them (TH, if you'd like to deliver something in the OTHER direction, here's your chance):
Dear Devs,
Well, hectic time, isn't it? So much to do with this game. You've really crafted a fine game, overall, and it has enormous potential to become something great, and truly revolutionary in the genre of MMOG's (beyond how revolutionary it already is). I'm compelled, based on Thunderheart's response to the Musician question posted for 6/10, to speak to you directly about this, assuming you even see this.
First of all, which one of you is the Musician Dev? Raise your hand. Since I can't see you, and I (nor any Musician) has ever seen you post on the Musician forums, my guess is thatno one is raisingtheir hand right now. That's the most logical conclusion I can draw at this time. And if someone is raising their hand, where've you been, buddy? We really need some communication from you, right about now. In case you haven't seen it, here's the response we got from a question regardingwhether or not Musicians will getForce Sensitive skills coming with the Jedi revamp:
Musician
What force skills will you be implementing for specific advantage to the musician profession? Will they be implemented with the Jedi system, or how soon after? If the answer is "NONE" may we provide a list of suggested skills that would be specific to this profession for developer consideration?
The answer is “none”. Please work with NewJedi to develop a reasonable list and I will work with the team to see what is possible and what is not.
What force skills will you be implementing for specific advantage to the musician profession? Will they be implemented with the Jedi system, or how soon after? If the answer is "NONE" may we provide a list of suggested skills that would be specific to this profession for developer consideration?
The answer is “none”. Please work with NewJedi to develop a reasonable list and I will work with the team to see what is possible and what is not.
Now, to me, this is just a shame. I'm sorry, but it is. Absolutely no thought was given to our profession, thus far, for this new gameplay? That's simply just not right. This mentality of yours, where we're completely forgotten about, needs to be changed and swiftly. You might be saying, "yes, we think of you guys, we're just really busy." Well, busy or not, we need some communication. If the Musician forum disappeared tonight, would notice tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Considering not one Dev has posted in there for as long as I can remember, I doubt you would notice anytime this year.
I apologize if you misinterpret this post as negative, the true nature of this post is "desperation." So, we've come to this - begging. I'm paying you guys $15 per month to beg you for some kind of Development time. You obviously gave us no thought in the upcoming Jedi revamp. LIkely, no thought is being given to us for JTL. We have absolutely no interaction or attention from you. This is just not right. We have serious concerns about our profession. We have a lot of great ideas posted in our forums for how to fix up our profession. We have a lot of things we're concerned about. We have serious problems with lack of content.
If you find the time, come on over to our Musician forum. *gasp* maybe even post a message or two. Let us know where we're headed. Getting a message that we've been left out in the cold for the Jedi revamp has upset us all quite a bit. Although I don't think I should pay $15 per month to beg you for fixes/improvements to our profession, as well as do your job for you by providing Force Skill ideas for Musicians in the Jedi Revamp, I'm doing it anyways:
1) Force ability to increase Musician buff strength
2) Force ability to increase Musician buff duration
There, now was that so hard to come up with those ideas? If you like those, come see our forums. We're underneath the Merchant profession, as always.
Also, just to let you know, I'm filling in for you (Mr. or Mrs. Musician Dev) in answering some of the Musician community's questions and concerns. I'm just like them -on the outside of the development cycle. But, just having someone try to help them and answer some questions (seriously, or just to have a little fun) seems to go a long way - and I'm not even a real Dev! Should you be interested in reclaiming your Devhood in the Musician forums, make your presence known. Post something. Anything. Maybe even answer a question or two. If that doesn't happen anytime soon, I guess that goes to show where we stand - given this last question's answer, and the Dev team's total lack of communication with us. Any small token effort would vastly increase the Musician community's morale right now - it's pretty low.
Please, please, please - someone, anyone, any Dev, someone - post on the Musician forum. Until then, my reign as Musician Dev Pro Tempore continues indefinitely. I can't do anything to develop or improve the Musician profession, but hey, not much different than what we've got right now - and pretending to interact with a Dev on the forums is all we've got to work with.
Thanks for your time, it's as valuable to you as mine is to me.
Groovymarlin
Fri Jun 11, 2004 2:29 pm
#57
Musician
What force skills will you be implementing for specific advantage to the musician profession? Will they be implemented with the Jedi system, or how soon after? If the answer is "NONE" may we provide a list of suggested skills that would be specific to this profession for developer consideration?
The answer is “none”. Please work with NewJedi to develop a reasonable list and I will work with the team to see what is possible and what is not.
What force skills will you be implementing for specific advantage to the musician profession? Will they be implemented with the Jedi system, or how soon after? If the answer is "NONE" may we provide a list of suggested skills that would be specific to this profession for developer consideration?
The answer is “none”. Please work with NewJedi to develop a reasonable list and I will work with the team to see what is possible and what is not.
Hmm...isn't it kind of ironic that the new "force sensitive" skill trees include NO bonuses for any of the entertainer professions, when up until publish 9 people probably had to master one or more entertainer professions in order to unlock their force sensitivity?
Kinda makesme feel....shafted. Combat bonuses, healing bonsues,and crafting bonuses are great. But...why would you leave out a whole segment of your player population?
I hope your jedi system developer (Hi Keldarin) will consider adding some type of force sensitive bonuses for entertainer professions -- ALL of them (that's entertainer, musician, dancer, and image designer, in case you've forgotten 
)
)
Betatoxin
Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:34 pm
#58
Everyday I get more concerned with the combat rebalance.
I read today on the jedi forums how they cannot do any damage. They are getting into situations where they literally can regenerate faster than they can hurt each other. Maybe this is as a result of the use of the old buff system with the new combat system but I am concerned that come "combat balance" the only things I am going to be able to go after are durni's unless I am in a group of 10+. Sounds like EQ, I never played EQ, never liked anything about it.
I am concerned that players are being blamed for playing the game wrong, at least from the developers perspective. That is players are being blamed for unbalancing the game as a result of their ability to count from 1-1000 and put tab A into slot B. In effect ignoring the fact that the real difficulty in SWG is how much time you can take out of your real life to devote to resource collection, how many accounts of cross server lots you have and waiting on factories to complete. Note I am only talking about making top level items. Making piles of cash (ie being an elite crafter on a server) is primarily dependent on good advertising, careful handling of your reputation and a bit of luck.
I actually played the most swg I have for a long time this week. Got a smuggler up to master using some good buffs, top level weapons and high end armor. Amazing how well you can be equipped for less than 500K. I had a fair amount of fun doing it too, much more than when I last played. My point is maybe SWG only has 2 publishes left in it. Perhaps after the combat "rebalance" the game is simply going to cease being fun, at least for some players.
So I am concerned, not for SOE, EQ is everything I despise in an MMOG but it is very successful. No I am concerned because after the re-balance there is probably no reason for me to come back next time.
I read today on the jedi forums how they cannot do any damage. They are getting into situations where they literally can regenerate faster than they can hurt each other. Maybe this is as a result of the use of the old buff system with the new combat system but I am concerned that come "combat balance" the only things I am going to be able to go after are durni's unless I am in a group of 10+. Sounds like EQ, I never played EQ, never liked anything about it.
I am concerned that players are being blamed for playing the game wrong, at least from the developers perspective. That is players are being blamed for unbalancing the game as a result of their ability to count from 1-1000 and put tab A into slot B. In effect ignoring the fact that the real difficulty in SWG is how much time you can take out of your real life to devote to resource collection, how many accounts of cross server lots you have and waiting on factories to complete. Note I am only talking about making top level items. Making piles of cash (ie being an elite crafter on a server) is primarily dependent on good advertising, careful handling of your reputation and a bit of luck.
I actually played the most swg I have for a long time this week. Got a smuggler up to master using some good buffs, top level weapons and high end armor. Amazing how well you can be equipped for less than 500K. I had a fair amount of fun doing it too, much more than when I last played. My point is maybe SWG only has 2 publishes left in it. Perhaps after the combat "rebalance" the game is simply going to cease being fun, at least for some players.
So I am concerned, not for SOE, EQ is everything I despise in an MMOG but it is very successful. No I am concerned because after the re-balance there is probably no reason for me to come back next time.
OckVofad
Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:51 pm
#60
Hello TH!
I just wanted to say that i am always willing to give credit where credit is due. Last week I challenged you to answer all the questions in a straight-forward manner and with no "Wait for JTL" or "Wait for combat balance" non-answers. (The only exception is where the question was about these subjects).
You did that this week. Good work!!
P.S.: I'm not conceited enough to think that MY post made the difference here but... It's nice to think so.
OckVofad
Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:56 pm
#61
To those posting here complaining abt this weeks answers go and read last weeks answers. They were much worse and compelled me to post.
NinjaPizzaBoy
Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:58 pm
#62
Thunderheart wrote:
Musician
What force skills will you be implementing for specific advantage to the musician profession? Will they be implemented with the Jedi system, or how soon after? If the answer is "NONE" may we provide a list of suggested skills that would be specific to this profession for developer consideration?
The answer is “none”. Please work with NewJedi to develop a reasonable list and I will work with the team to see what is possible and what is not.
This is sad, Thunderheart. Like entertainers didn't want to be included in the force sensitive skills? This should have been done from the forefront. /Forage gets a boost in Force Sensitive Skills, and we all know it is worthless. You even said there were no plans to upgrade it in the future. Yet, the entertainers we know, love, and use daily to heal wounds and battle fatigue are left out for no reason?
Notice that Thunderheart does not say that new Force Sensitive Skills for entertainer professions will be added. He simply says, "we'll see what is possible and what is not."
That's Thunderheart's way of saying, "It will happen six months from now." They are just going to continue with Publish 10 and ignore the entertainers. Good job. Thanks for helping /forage out. 
Cigaran
Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:03 pm
#63
Not 'til after JTL... Not 'til after the Combat Balance... Man, why the hell are we even asking these questions?!
I'm not really understanding this at all. The only real answer you answered was the one for Tailor's and you answer didn't even seem like you read the damn question, more of like it got a skim over.
On the Architect side you basically said, "Yeah, we made bull**edit** items to make that have ZERO purpose other than to take up space and have no desire to change that." That my friend is a load.
For DE's you basically told them, "Tough. We might look into it later...". You've made them totally dependent on another class or forced them to take 77 points and sink them into Artisan. No other class is so heavily dependent on another tojust fill there BASIC role.
The answer for music makes me sick. There's a reason why I lower all the music from the game and pull up the movie soundtracks on mp3...
All in all, these 19 questions have become a real joke. The last time I saw a person dodge this many questions and come off with the impression that they have no clue was during the Bush/Gore debates. The fact that some classe have no Dev's anymore (ohh, the great JTL needs work...) is udderly insaine. In most jobs, you replaice the person that get's promoted, get a new person to do the new job or ask the perspective employee if they feel they are able to do both tasks. The fact that there will be NO further work on Politician's 'til Green Marine come off JTL is very disheartening. What happens when the stuff with JTL goes wrong? Will he be pulled again to leave all the Politicians hanging again??
On a side note, the descision to make the Hermit Quest a combat only quest with the raised difficulty is are really dumb move. There's a ton of crafters with little or no combat that where really looking forward to this quest being fixed. Once again, the Uber are catered to while the Crafter get's crap... I was really hoping you'd done the right thing with this one TH. Looks like you proved me wrong.
If the looks are any indication of what will come to pass, you've shown us one glimps of the future of SWG. Anything that is broken or not working right will only be dealt with in a timely manner if it falls under one of two categories.
1) Does this lead to a way to cheat/grief?
2) Does this have any impact on a "pet" class that a Dev cares about?
If it doesn't fall under either of these, then it will get a lower priority than any new "content" or expansion.
Sorry about this being a rant but the lack of a real, clear answer for the last two weeks has really left me feeling dishearted about this game. If you come close to a real answer, you always end with the fact that the Combat Rebalance may change what you just stated. Sorry but it's getting old.
The game we all are currently paying to play has been abandoned...
sweatyclimber
Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:19 pm
#64
TH- could you do us a favor and take musician out of the 19 questions since its just more depressing then good. Or conversly just answer the next years worth of questions with your standard: "IDK or NO and get off my back your an entertainer and we really don't care"
sweatyclimber
Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:43 pm
#65
SioBabble wrote:
Cailid010 wrote:
Maybe they should fire the 'smart' devs and hire some 'exceptionally smart' ones.
They'd just move them all to JTL and leave the current crop of devs on the live game.
lol aint that the truth tho your assuming that there still are dev's vs dev on live... i would guess all but 1 are on jtl cause after all why would they want to take care of the customer or fix the current problems when they can push out an expansion and make more money.