Development Cycle Archive

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Thunderheart wrote:

Yes, Holobits.

It really is a great tradition for threads and I can't think of a better name, so Holobits it will remain.

For all of these items, the final answers are still being discussed and debated.In the meantime, I wanted to give you an update on some subjects everyone wants to hear about:

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GeneralKerensky wrote:

In regards on how to give credit for those who have been mindlessly grinding away such as myself, is to at least give credit for the actual professions that were needed for our individual selfs progression, for example:

First Holocron - Master Merchant ------------------------------------------------> Skip one of the Trials

Second Holocron - Master Droid Engineer ------------------------------------> Skip second part of Trials

Third Holocron - Master Architect -----------------------------------------------> Skip third part of Trials

Fourth Holocron - Master Carbineer --------------------------------------------> Skip Fourth part of Trials

Fifth Holocron - Silent started RANDOM mastering of Professions ------> Give no credit as we chose to proceed hap hazardly and took a gamble.

This could be something as simple as giving us an option when we visit a particular quest NPC to allow us to proceed with credit to the next NPC quest, or to actually do the quest, for those of us who would enjoy roleplaying the process thru, which is more realistic in the first place.

I think giving credit to those of us who have done 20+ random professions would not be fair, its like your paying us for doing something that was not worth anything. We were gambling, and we lost, its life, so why pay off a gambler. If we had opened the slot with the right profession before these Patch 9 and Patch 10 then we won our bet, we beat the odds.

Though I have grinded over 40 professions between 3 different accounts, all I can say is I took a gamble and lost. I knew the first few Jedi on our Flurry server and was very envious, but I think earning my Jedi through the Jedi trials will give more meaning and respect than simply me randomly grinding professions any longer.

I just hope like others have stated that the Trials are soloable, by those who are masters in their professions. I really would rather see thinking quests and puzzles similiar maybe in some respects to the Hero of Tatooine Quest, though not with the complete randomness of spawn locations. I don't thinking testing my tracking ability for random spawns is a true test of a Jedi.

In anycase my two cents.

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Earning your Jedi will have much more meaning after Publish 10 goes to live servers and as soon as is possible, I'll be posting about the translation of the efforts of all those people who have been completing professions on their way to becoming a Jedi. I can understand why it is such a burning issue and as soon as a couple of decisions are made internally, I'll be able to bring you the scoop.

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I know there are many concerns about various topics in the community, but we will get to them

I'm out for now, but we'll have more infotomorrow.

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TH I am trying to be positive here but you promised on May 26th that you would give us an answer about what credit we would get in a couple weeks.

Here is the link to your post http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=in_testing&message.id=12673&highlight=credit+week#M12673it is on page 5

Here is a copy of the post:

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Jvani wrote:

I really *want* to continue my progress this month but now Im sitting here asking... Do I continue doing 10 more professions this month in hopes that I'll really get "credit" for EVERY one? Ive read the jedi archives.. it isnt clear whether you mean just the 4 holo professions were actual progress on the profession-way or not.

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That answer won't be determined at the specificity that you want for a coupel of weeks. As soon as I have that info, I will post it.

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Community Relations Manager

Some of us are concerned and rightly so I believe. Why is it taking so long just to let us know what credit we will get?

Thank You,

Message Edited by CWEGuru on 08-09-2004 10:59 PM

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Rhalik wrote:

TH,

You said that no merchant changes are going live tomorrow.

My question is this: Why aren't the three things inthe(deleted) patch post that ARE on theCurrent Merchant Issues List not going live?

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Rhalik wrote:

TH,

You said that no merchant changes are going live tomorrow.

My question is this: Why aren't the three things inthe(deleted) patch post that ARE on theCurrent Merchant Issues List not going live?

The vehement outcry over the proposed changes relates directly to vendor item limits, and the very poorly constructed arguments for their imposition. The fact that you folks are dumping the entire list of changes including the ones asked for for many many months, make me suspect of how well versed in the current issue you or the dev team are at this time.

Your previous post rings hollow, and is an obvious gloss over. Dumping all changes is just another slap in the face to us Master Merchants who now still have to wait for all the empty vendors and "exploit" vendors to go on their way to oblivion and give all of us a better chance at fair competition in the "player-economy".

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Please address directly:

Why the reasons given for the proposed limits (DB/Monopoly) fly so face in the reality of the situation and recent dev team changes to the game? (Loot kits specifically/inability to create a true monopoly under the existing system)

Why they were added to the Merchant changes at the last minute w/o previous discussion with the community? (7 months ago without current dialogue doesn't count)

Why the requested Merchant changes that were in the patch will not go live? (Minus the item limit)

Why the original patch notes thread was deleted?

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These are the issues we want direct answers as soon as possible. These are the things that your paying customers want answered.

Please respond to these questions for everyone's benefit. Less spin, more facts please...

Argo Ditakana

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Thunderheart wrote:

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GeneralKerensky wrote:

In regards on how to give credit for those who have been mindlessly grinding away such as myself, is to at least give credit for the actual professions that were needed for our individual selfs progression, for example:

First Holocron - Master Merchant ------------------------------------------------> Skip one of the Trials

Second Holocron - Master Droid Engineer ------------------------------------> Skip second part of Trials

Third Holocron - Master Architect -----------------------------------------------> Skip third part of Trials

Fourth Holocron - Master Carbineer --------------------------------------------> Skip Fourth part of Trials

Fifth Holocron - Silent started RANDOM mastering of Professions ------> Give no credit as we chose to proceed hap hazardly and took a gamble.

This could be something as simple as giving us an option when we visit a particular quest NPC to allow us to proceed with credit to the next NPC quest, or to actually do the quest, for those of us who would enjoy roleplaying the process thru, which is more realistic in the first place.

I think giving credit to those of us who have done 20+ random professions would not be fair, its like your paying us for doing something that was not worth anything. We were gambling, and we lost, its life, so why pay off a gambler. If we had opened the slot with the right profession before these Patch 9 and Patch 10 then we won our bet, we beat the odds.

Though I have grinded over 40 professions between 3 different accounts, all I can say is I took a gamble and lost. I knew the first few Jedi on our Flurry server and was very envious, but I think earning my Jedi through the Jedi trials will give more meaning and respect than simply me randomly grinding professions any longer.

I just hope like others have stated that the Trials are soloable, by those who are masters in their professions. I really would rather see thinking quests and puzzles similiar maybe in some respects to the Hero of Tatooine Quest, though not with the complete randomness of spawn locations. I don't thinking testing my tracking ability for random spawns is a true test of a Jedi.

In anycase my two cents.

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Earning your Jedi will have much more meaning after Publish 10 goes to live servers and as soon as is possible, I'll be posting about the translation of the efforts of all those people who have been completing professions on their way to becoming a Jedi. I can understand why it is such a burning issue and as soon as a couple of decisions are made internally, I'll be able to bring you the scoop.

How about some info regarding 9-10 unlockers and what it is we have "unlocked".

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Thunderheart wrote:

Until then, please get key issues in the dev cycle forum and to your correspondents.

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GeneralKerensky wrote:
I think giving credit to those of us who have done 20+ random professions would not be fair, its like your paying us for doing something that was not worth anything. We were gambling, and we lost, its life, so why pay off a gambler. If we had opened the slot with the right profession before these Patch 9 and Patch 10 then we won our bet, we beat the odds.

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Um... Let's see... How to put this politely... GeneralKerensky? ARE YOU FRICKING NUTS?!?!?!!

Okay, sorry to shout, but that's as polite as I could be at this particular suggestions and, quite frankly, it's a bit disheartening that TH chose this particular note to respond to.

Right now there are probably hundreds of people who have done 25 or more professions without unlocking. That's a LOT of work and we (I'm at 28 professions myself) would certainly want to be credited fairly for having done five times as much work as someone who just ground out five professions. Yes, we tried as failed to unlock, but we all tried damn hard. I myself have been grinding out professions non-stop since December. Yes, I want to be a lot farther along on the path to playing a Jedi than someone who whimped out after their holocrons went silent.

I hope you address this issue specifically (without mentioning specific numbers of course) in your missive later this week TH.

-Buxley

Message Edited by Buxley on 08-09-2004 09:34 PM

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Shakespearette wrote:

This being said, I don't have a problem with the current HAM system, and in fact rather like the fact that players have to economize on special moves, that you have to decide between wearing armor to cut down on your damage and dealing damage to mobs. However, I understand that some people want this game to become more like a first person shooter on the Medium difficulty setting (and hey, it is satisfying to be able to kick the **** out of things without ever having to take a break.)

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Great post Shakespearette.

To your first point, the whole idea of economizing on moves is a key element that should really come through with the changes to combat. The challenge is to make it more dynamic and excited and not just make it a game of diminishing returns. It should be more like a recharging mana pool orsimilar type of mechanic where the player is challenged, but not hamstrung. With the new HAM, what will happen is rather than use specials until your bar is empty, you would use a special and wait for it to recharge ( just a couple of seconds) and then be able to use it again.

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I am not sure where Shakespearette is coming from, because this was the way the game **used to be** back in the olden days of Pre-Buffages.

1. With the currentbuff systems, there is no need to worry about economizing anything. Specials are completely unlimited, you can migrate your HAM stats to certain "off-balanced" settings to improve the TKA's PowerBoosting self-buff, as well as max out the Mind stats on every character to minimize the harm from the endless Mind attacks in PVP.


2. For PvE, a decently buffed player can go toe to toe in full armor, solo, against just about any NPC other tham DJM, DJK and only a few mixes can solo NSElders now, but they can be solo.


3. The problem is the Buff system, where we **can** lower our base HAM to minimums, max the secondaries and Mind stats, wear the heaviest armor we can find, and endlesslyspam special attack without worry of killing ourselves. The higher Secondaries plus Buffs allow us to do that easily, some can lower their Secondaries to the minimums as well and still not suffer much in PvP or PvE combat.


4. Food has exacerbated this problem, by being able to fill in any holes, if not boost the "god-liness" of a character even more. Two people can solo Krayts, two people can solo Elders, and DJMs still lay waste to Mining Outpost.
   

So if the new HAM system is being developed off the old ideal, that Shakespearette outlined, rather than how it actually exists today... we are going to have problems and be no better off. We need Combat Revamp to be based on howthe system is right at this very moment, and adding more buffs anytime between now and then is going to just make it worse. (except for the Poison/Disease buffages, we've needed those as well as Fire buffs since Day 1.)