Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Desired Rewards
1. Fairly large drops of unique resources, like 1000 OQ 1000 Cond steel and such
2. Unique draft schematics for uber-items like Droideka, most likely w/ very specific resource requirements
Travolta
Somthing must be done indeed, In the beginning I had much drive and ambition, but a couple months after i began playing I realized my many hopes and desires were shot down by sheer lack of options. In most cases, when a game begins to get boring, players can then revert to the pvp aspect of the game and milk that spark for all its worth, but in this case, in my opinion of course, the pvp aspect is off balance by far.
The NPC quests are indeed a good way to gain interest, and a good reward will give the drive and ambition. However, since you dont wanna cheat crafters out of thier existance (which also in my opinion is a sorry existance indeed) It would be difficult to bring ambition and hope for a unique experience and character individuality. There just isnt enough key gear (equipment with stats). You see the same armor and weapons and even clothing, everywhere you go, from one planet to another. Even the clothing is rather basic unless of course your a female.
For weapons, I realy dont think there is enough. Sure you have all kinds of pistols and knives and rifles, but even most of them are the same. Just seems like an illusion to make us think there are many different guns but realy all you need is one gun. Ya sure you find that realy good Weaponsmith's shop and you go there after the gun you bought from him last month needs repairs, or breaks. So you buy the same gun from him again as you bought last month.
Lets talk about rewards now. In a world in which i just described, doesnt leave us with much since you dont wish to change it at all.
Schematics, great idea! Crafters still get to feel important. We spend weeks, maybe months working on this quest and finaly got the great reward we sought. The schematic of the Krayt slayer sword. Oh **edit**, wait now we need the materials so this crafter can make our reward for us...but fear not. during the quest we collecting all we need to make the item. Now lets hope the crafter succeeds in building it, and is a nice enough guy to hand it over when its complete, wait a minute, why is his Krayt sword better than mine? I should have had his weaponsmith put mine together instead. Oh well there goes 2 months of questing, and will i be able to do the quest again? I doubt it. We dont want too many Krayt swords in our galaxy.
Lets talk about titles and badges. Sweet idea, everyone loves showing off thier effort. Its human nature to boast and brag and to just to feel good about thier accomplishments. However, one could get the same feeling by having thier initialsas "Grand Champion" on the Pinball machine at thier local pizza joint. Feels great but was it worth it, and what now?
So you dont want "Uber" (Hate that word) Loot, crafters will feel less important. Understandable.
How about a "Special" trainer that will teach the player a new skill or ability? Quest obtained skills. Lets pretend for a minute that there are no ambidexterous people in the entire galaxy, or nobody has thought to pick up two pistols and two knives instead of just one. Dual wield has always been fun. Ok so lets say we dont want people having the ability to wield two pistols. For those of you that dont use 2 handed weapons or rifles, you wont be needing your left hand.
How bout some Minor FORCE powers? I said the F word. This is star wars right? ok i dont wanna see the galaxies infested with jedi. we will lose the feel of star wars setting, but as it is now, I dont see any proof that the force even exists in this game, thus losing the star wars "feel". It might be ok to earn some minor force powers. They obviously wont be as great as jedi powers without proper teaching or training, but this will make the game a bit more star warsy and colorful (like star wars is).
I love this game, but im finding there is no drive anymore and we are just beginning...
P.S TKA has quite the assortment of hand to hand weapons, is this a joke or isthe Vibro Knuckler the extent of our technology. Ya know. Maybe some brass knuckles, bone knuckles... the kuckles is already out there! All you need to do is add the Material type its made out of and apply stats. And thats if you only want Knuckles...dont wanna set my sights too high.
I realy wanna see this game hit the top, I'm sure there is somthing you guys can do to make this game more enjoyable, without stepping on anyones toes. Perhaps Crafting is too important. Maybe everyone should be able to craft. How about making Crafting skills burn from a different skill point pool. This way nobody needs to do the dirty work. If your someone who hates killing monsters and enjoys spending your in game time making clothes, what do you even need money for?? What is the point of a crafters life? "I make fine clothes to sell and make money to buy errr stuff to help me make more clothes!"
Point is simple, if you add uber loot, the crafters will be questing for it too. Everyone wins. I think crafting is way too important anyhow. Relying on other players for gear onlygenerates annoying situations for thebuyer AND the Crafter.Player auctions should be an option, never mandatory.
I would love to see things that would make extra ordinary crafted items, That would give the uber loot feel with out nerfing crafters.
I would like to see things like extra ordinary resources.
Pets that would other wise be untameable.
Schematics for unique items.
trophy items.
how about clues to FSCS? you finish a very large dungeon all on your lonesome because you're VERY bored. and one day you come across a random loot, a tiny HINT on one of the many things you have to do for FSCS?
i KNOW you're not going to tell us, i just hate this game of "guess a number between 1 and 500 billion, if you're right i'll tell you". is the number between 10,000,000 and 450,000,000,000?
special equipment (completely made) would possibly hurt armorsmithing/weaponsmithing.
skill enhacements to put into the armor/weapons during crafting stages would be great.
credits would be really nice (some of us aren't uber rich yet)
but i mainly want A HINT on how to be FS.
sorry for the rant, but that's the loot some of us are wanting.
I'll state this very clearly: It is a design objective to keep crafter integral to the game economy. We do not want to put crafters out of business by making dropped loot better than the best crafted items. Overall SWG is not an Uber-Loot game (like EQ or DAoC) and we don't intend to make it so.
A game without realistic rewards based upon the level of the creature/npc slain is going to be uber BORING. Earning big XP is a dead end since there's no where to go after earning Master. Earning credits is a dead end since most player's who know how to do missions have credits running out their ears.
Uber lootis what made other MMORPH's fun -- trying to find the rare items and the feeling ofaccomplishment for killing a super hard mob.
Is this gonna be Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire of Crafters and no realloot? Items that are dropped can easily be intergrated into the crafters so the items they make are even better.
Enhancers don't drop anymore and the stuff that does drop is 100% trash. Enhances with something like +25 or +50 to some attribute.
I think the main problem is there's just a gigantic wall of NO WHERE TO GO after you obtain master. The game just dead ends. Burn up all your skill points and XP doesn't mean anything anymore. There's no room for uber items because the focus of the game was eye-candy graphics rather than content. After doing the skill climb grind, learning that pvp is broken and unbalanced, it's a game that needs an overhaul in many areas.
Ah, a challenge. I love a challenge.
First you state that the reward should not unbalance the economy or leave the crafters out in the cold. Then you say it should be a reward that motivates the player. Hmm. Seems to me that what is called for is a reward that can not be crafted and also should not be a part of the crafting economy. If the reward is a rare weapon, weaponsmiths will howl; if a rare droid, droid engineers will whimper; if a rare piece of armor, armorsmiths will complain.
I can think of a few things that fall into the non-craftable reward categories: privileges, abilities, and recognition. Also artwork, because we don't have an Artist profession.
Faction badges. I don't mean Rebels and Imperials, I mean the various NPCfaction points one can acquire, such as Jabba, Hutt, thug, townsperson, Blood Razor, etc. Presently they are meaningless. Even with +5000 Alkhara faction, and while the Alkhara areshowing up as yellow dots on the radar, they still attack me on sight. I would like to have a mission reward somewhere that makes those faction points speak for something: Friend of the Alkharas, for instance. When I earnthat badge, the Alkharas will no longer attack me. I might even get a mission from them now, since I am an ally. (Imagine that: befriending a faction to earn the right for further story depth! First you befriend the Alkharas, and then you can do missions for them and befriend others and get to more content...)
I can use my Friend of Alkahara badge to talk to the Alkhara lieutenant. "I'm passing through," I'd say. "Can I take these people with me?" "Yes," the lieutenant says. "All butGoobocka the Wookiee. He is a friend of the Tuskens. Goobocka must leave." I could use my influence with the Alkharas to bring a group safely through. When I have the Friend of the Alkhara badge, I can stand by their camp and heal wounds, just as in a Scout camp -- sort of like becoming a hearthfriend of the Ashlanders in Morrowind. This badge has its downside, of course: I can not now complete any mission for any competing faction. The Alkhara's enemies will now attack me on sight. If I lose my Alkhara badge, I will have to work very hard to get it back.
This would be extremely cool, especially against some of the red-aggro NPC groups, like Tuskens, droidekas, mercenaries, followers of Lord Nyax, and so on. Smugglers could befriend spice fiends, for instance. Some people would take pride in befriending the marooned pirates on Lok (even if it means that Nym hates you now). Some people would really enjoy befriending the Jawas. Becoming part of the in-crowd of a faction will enable you to do missions exclusive to that mini-faction, etc. It will also get you blood enemies. So next is...
Marked Man. It would be very cool (to some players) to have death sentences on various worlds. They'd have to work hard for it. Completing certain thug missions would earn the player Kill On Sight status with city guards and so on. People would fight to be on the Ten Most Wanted list, I'm sure. Infamy is as good as fame. With a death sentence on a system, you'll get increased spawns of assassins and bounty hunters out for your hide, spawned by the faction that hates you, and they can appear anywhere and attack you any time. There would have to be a buyoff clause, of course, but it would add excitement to your life.
Tattoo. This treads into the ID profession, but if you were awarded certain faction friendship, perhaps this could open up the ability for an IDer to give you a special tattoo or something. As good, or better, than a badge! (By the way, IDs want tattoos.)
Access Code. A non-tradeable, fast decay item that grants access to a deeper part of an existing dungeon, or opens a previously locked door to a brand new location. Of course, whatever is in that dungeon has to be worth getting too.
Schematic for an uber... crafting kit. You thought I was going to say weapon. Forget it. 
The crafters should get a reward, too, and that reward might be a crafting kit of special magnificence, maybe one that does not crit fail, or that has +5% experimentation points, or something. I do not believe this will trample heavily into Artisan domain, because almost everyone is given a basic crafting kit to start, and though I may be wrong, I do not believe any artisan is surviving on his crafting kit sales.
Enemy begs for his life with the promise of mission or loot somewhere else. I would love to see the AI give up and beg for mercy, and allow the players to choose what to do. As it stands, every AI bad guy shouts threats, and when his health is down to 10%, he slowly walks away (even if he's bleeding and poisoned by a dalyrake and there's a malkloc standing on his neck). It would make NPC interaction more interesting, and lead to choices by the players.No canned responses for this, please: it shouldn't be predictable whether you should let him go or kill him. This, again, is a place where the actual reward has to be worth getting; there are other ideas on this thread for that.
Shrine from grateful public. Seriously! How cool would it be to see the Gungans have a shrine to you, because of some great deed you did for them? Maybe for the ultra-uber-difficult decathlon of badges you could get a statue in Theed with your name on it.
NPCs that ask for your help by name. They whisper as you go by: "He's taller in person!" "There goes the man who saved my farm!" "Good to see you again, sir! Your table is waiting." Similarly, when your fame grows, you might get an email from a prominent NPC asking specifically for your skills. ("Lord Vader requests your presence on Naboo in sixty minutes. Do not be late.")
Unique badges. This would be sooo-oooo cool. Unique badges that only one person per server can have at any one time. These would be badges like "Commander Ackbar's Personal Tailor." "Lieutenant Needa's Personal Physician." These badges would carry light duties that the player would have to upkeep: in this instance, provide a uniform to Ackbar every so often upon demand, visit Needa and give him a checkup, or whatever. If the player fails to perform these duties on demand (in a reasonable time limit) then he loses the title and the mission opens up for someone else. The player gains little but bragging rights, perhaps, but it'd be a cool thing to brag about.
Decorate a building in a starter city. Bestine wants to redecorate its city hall, and you just happen to have found a contract looking for a decorator to do just that! You now have the ability to drop furniture items inside City Hall (up to X number of items). You may place them anywhere (but they must have default item names). In exchange, you get a plaque in City Hall that says, 'Decoration provided by X, Master Interior Decorator.' Perhaps this should be a contract that only an Architect can fulfill.
Train the trainer. If you become especially famous in your profession, you are asked to train a trainer in a particular city. Now the trainer will mention your name during his spiel: "Welcome to (your name) Medical Center. What can I do for you?" (This of course requires the devs and mods to oversee name selection so we don't get names like Fatty McDroopyand Ham Salad and the obscene ones and so on.)
Racial faction. This should mean something! If a Wookiee takes a lot of missions to kill Trandoshan slavers, he should get Trandoshan enemies. As with the faction friendship badges above, it would be extremely cool if you could get racial faction points that help you with missions given by certain races/species. A Zabrak taking a mission from a Zabrak noble might get farther, for instance, or get a different reward; when you do the missions for the Bothan diplomats, you should Bothan Faction ++. Getting Wookiee faction ++ means you get Trandoshan faction --. This would encourage diverse groups, so if you know a Rodian, get him to take the Rodian gladiator mission because you'll get X muchbetter goodies than if a Mon Cal took it. And so on.
Construction contracts for Death Star II. This would be soooo-ooooo cool. This could even be a badge! A crafter could be called upon to make stuff for either faction and be rewarded with a special badge saying he has completed certain components and is now a foreman, or a gang supervisor, or something, for Rebel/Imp construction project Blah Blah.
Okay, not all of these ideas are loot, exactly, but they reward the player with different playability, with access to different kinds of content, based on how the player treats each faction. I never shoot any Jawa I meet and for some reason, this doesn't pay off. It should -- I should be rewarded with something for my dedication to Jawa preservation! 
I don't understand the resistance to loot drops in this game. Player crafted gear is always better, but that doesn't mean that loot drops have to suck. They can be average.
That said, I really like the idea of crafters earning a new schematic, dancers earning a new dance, etc, as varied loot rewards. And an average E-11 would not hurt either.
What reward would motivate you to do a long, hard quest or dungeon?
Well... I have thought about this alot!.
Personally this is what I come up with, being a Starwars fan, I would like it if the Rewards had more should I say intereaction with the Storyline of Starwars, People are great fans of Darth Vader and many are against him, Like wise with Luke Skywalker. If we got more intereaction with the rewards from the Main story line Charactors. Key example, at the end of doing the Vader missions we get to meet Mara Jade, now I know many!! would just love! the chance to work for her or be with her when she does things.
I would like the medals to be given to players who do hard missions Imperials get the Red and blue squares.
I would like emails from the main charactors saying well done, or you have pleased me! you have served and proved your loyality. Now that would boost me into, " Yeah I did do well I want to do another one" instead of, "oh goto to do another mission now." Everyone needs that pat on the back.
People need that involvement, so when they done so many missions they get to do a mission along side the main charactors. e.g Q-3PO You just done 5-10 normal missions well I mean 100% top dog u didn't restart or do anything wrong, then you can get Faction orders to meet with C-3PO and R2-D2to do a mission with them of Great importance to the Empire, where it could be to help infiltrate a base to free some Pow's. You can get an increase amount of money 10K and increase faction points like 5K fps.
The rewards that get given are pointless and useless, So keeping with the crafters the rewards should be part of something big!, that you need all parts to make and better yet you need a master Artisan to craft it, then you can either, use it to help you hunt or give back to say like Vader for a giant Faction point reward, sort of like do you want to take it and leave or gamble and go for the money.
Ok I hope I've kept within what was asked thank you,
31 pages and counting, wow, I've already posted earlier today, and now managed to read through all of the rest, and I've had another thought... I like Flatfingers idea of trying something a little different.
I would like to suggest something that I really liked from Fallout, books. Put training manuals (data disks)in the game that when read would either give a certain type of exp or allow you to train yourself in a certain skill if you have enough exp to learn it.
So you might find a cook book, a pistol repair manual, a journal of a long dead sharpshooter, an encylopedia of flora and fona, a martial arts magazine, a medical journal... each would give a certain type of exp. The amout of exp could be based on how tough the quest is and the item itself could be easily related to the quest. (maybe 500exp for an easy quest, maybe 25000 for one of the hardest)
Some 'disks' would be something like advanced carbine tactics that would teach Carbine IV if you had the exp for it, basically allowing you to train on the spot in the field without having to pay, go to town or find someone who can teach you.
This kind of loot wouldn't effect crafters in a negative way, and would benifit all classes. Its something you could sell or trade if you didn't want it, or carry arround until you felt you needed it or wanted to change professions. (A player might think, I'm a little tired of shootings things all day, maybe I should read that martial arts magazine I've been carying around and change to brawler) You could place minimum requirements on the items to avoid new characters from jumping to master in a day. You can't read the 25000exp disk until you have a level or two of an elite profession as an example.
These kinds of rewards could be given out for non-combat quests as well, and lower level versions could become rare drops from NPC mobs. Lots of possibilities with this one.
- Single Use Schematics.
- More, more, more enhancement components! Krayt Tissue is good, but the poor things are getting mauled.
- Unique, uncraftable weapons, that aren't better than PC crafted, but do different things. UO example is silver weapons that hurt undead more. So maybe Dragon weapons that do double damage to dragons, aka the Krayt, but 1/2 damage to other animals.
- More home trinkets that only spawn for specific amounts of time. I loved daily rares!
- Single use skill tapes or foods/spices that increase a stat that isn't effected by PC crafted food or spices. An example would be something that increased carbine accuracy +10.
- Along with more enhancements, how about more special components. For example most people don't make scopes or stocks unlessed asked to. How about dropped ones that add damage or procs along with the number stats they add.
Well that's all I can really think of right now, but they should give you an idea.
I'd like to see some kind of painting (maybe even have it based loosly on the quest format, nature scene for the natural quests, war-type paintings for war-oriented quests), etc. Paintings of certain Rebel and Imperial-orientedthemes would be really neat.
The badges system works pretty well. I'd like to be able to see my badges on my character sheet instead of having to /examine myself.
I'm sure others have much better ideas as well. Thank you for staying strong to your commitment to keeping crafters the priority.