Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Post Fan Fest response concerning Jedi Conversion.
Kyle said exactly what I was thinking.
When you say one thing and do another thats when people lose all respect for you.
For me the biggest slap in the face is the pitiful sabre damage and the abysmal Jedi exp. I didn't get the option to pick up any skills like I was supposed to after the wipe, so I get to see what it's like to grind out lightsabre. 21 goddamn points per kill. 21, and I need to get to 80k just to get to novice. That is 3810 kills, which is ludichris. What other profession has this little payout in xp, even at novice? I picked up brawler to give myself some offensive power and get over 100 xp in that per kill as opposed to 80k, and the first tier skills in brawler cost only 1000 xp.
This needs addressed asap.
Keldarin wrote:One of the goals of the Jedi Revamp was to add some diversity to the Jedi population. Not all Jedi have the same abilities with the Force and we wanted to open up the possibility to create different kinds of Jedi with different strengths. Perhaps one Jedi is a master of lightsaber combat with no equal in that arena but doesn’t have as much ability when it comes to the more mystical Force powers, while another is only mediocre with their lightsaber but has incredible enhancement and healing powers.
The problem is that the trees are TOO split up. You say one can be master of the light saber, without equal,
but is not so good at healing? How about master of the light saber with NO healing. And NO powers. And NO
force run...
Every jedi needs the following powers, at a minimum:
- Meditate (at least a weak version, force regen is still way too slow. See below)
- Basic damage, wound, and battle fatigue healing (so we can be loners)
- Force run (to escape until we are strong enough to fight back)
- Defenses!
- Lightsaber ability
- Basic force powers
Force regen is too slow: Right now, we have to spend something like 75%-80% of our time in game waiting for
our force pool to regenerate. This is not fun. This is in fact boring. Meditate doesn't unbalance game
play, as it leaves the jedi vulnerable. All it does is allow us to regenerate faster, so we can spend more
time playin the game.
Basic healing: I'm not talking about being able to heal ourselves during combat effectivily. I'm talking
about being able to get rid of wounds, damage, and battle fatigue outside of battle. If it takes a few
minutes, that's ok. This is a basic ability that all jedi need.
As the new trees stand right now, a knight can not have all of these powers. That is why I, and others, are
upset by the trees. A better system would be to have an initiate tree that grants all of these powers,
similiar to the current system, and from there allow specialization into elite jedi trees. This would also
cut down on cross class dabbling with jedi. But I realize this is far, far too much to ask. So another
solution needs to be found.
Saber damage is also way, way too low. From what has leaked about the knight trials, no pre-knight jedi is
going to be able to complete them. Kill three super battle droids on the corvette? You have got to be
joking? We might be able to tank one for a little bit, if we have healing powers, but once we are out
of force, we will die. Even with buffs, and unless the robes are better than 90% composite armor, even with
robes.
I hope you meant what you said about listening to what we say. This is important to the jedi profession.
And please, realize, I'm not asking for jedi to be 'uber leet.' The things I'm saying that we need are only
enough for jedi to be viable PvE once all skill points are spent on jedi skills. I'm not sure that these
changes would make a jedi viable PvP (and knights fresh out of the trials will be permanatly overt!) but it
might help.
Without these changes, jedi will not be able to complete the knight trials, and even if they do, will die
do to ganking.
If the current system on TC2 goes live, Jedi will NOT be viable in PvE or PvP.
Please, don't make the 6 month holo grind I went throug be for nothing.
Iggep wrote:
Most Jedi will be two lines of saber and master def. That leave 4 rows out of all the other skills to pick up.
It's only 4 rows if they are all in the same skill tree. If you try to do say 2 healing, and 2 enhance,
there arn't enough skill points free. The best you can do is:
4004 saber (or whichever type of saber you prefer)
Master defense
4004 healing (or whatever tree)
4001 some other tree
And have 5 skill points left.
Just FYI.
I would question why you intend to make Jedi advancement to be so much slower than most regular professions? I would understand better if the intention was to make a character whose skill points are all spent on Jedi skill boxes much more powerful than one who spent all his or her skill points on non-Jedi professions. But from what I've read, the comments made by the developers is that the power of a Jedi vs. a similarly experienced non-Jedi are to be comparable, with the big differences coming when a Jedi opts into the FRS at Jedi Knight and beyond. I might also understand if the idea was to limit the Jedi population, but again I read that a decision was made in the interests of game fun vs. continuity to make Jedi skills more accessible, presumably until the player decides to progress beyond Knight.
If this is the case, why make it harder to be a Jedi with similar strength to a non-Jediusing the same number of skill points spent in his or her non-FS professions? From what I've read, the developers have accepted the fact that players will do what is necessary to play the type of character they want, however un-fun it may be. Hologrinding is evidence of that. So if someone spends all their skill points on Jedi skills, and at that point is comparable to one who spends all his or her skill points on non-Jedi skills, why is it that they have to spend significantly more time and effort to reach that point?
Now, as someone who has a fully skilled up Jedi on TC2, I would contend that I am more powerful with that character than I am with my rifleman/doctor on the live servers. If nothing changes, I wouldn't argue against having a Jedi at that level be somewhat more difficult to achieve than a non-Jedi. But currently it's FAR more difficult, and I'm not sure that is warranted based on developer statements in the past few weeks.
The minute you hit TKA Novice however, the experience just flies. That's not true of the initiate tree.
ArjunThakur wrote:
I don't think that's a fair argument. The beginning of any profession is the hardest, ever do TKA and try to get the 4th brawler box or TKA Novice....ugh.
- Have Force experimentation act the same as the bonus from Bespin Port and the Research Center player city specialization. A FS crafter has better odds for better success types, but is still limited to 10/12 points (depending on skill tapes). Non-FS crafters (assuming they have skill tapes if competing against a 12 point FS crafter) can still get the same results, but it may take more attempts to get an "all amazing" schematic.
- Have Force experimentation add experimentation points, but not be stackable with skill tapes. This may have technical difficulties in tracking how much of a player's +experimentation is from skill boxes (or racial bonuses) vs. tapes.
- Have Force experimentation only add points for lower-level schematics (maybe row 3 schematics and lower). This would make these skill more beneficial to non-Masters (who tend to focus on Master-level items). Again, that would probably add some technical complications that may make it difficult to implement.
So, what are my options for leveling and gaining Jedi experience if I choose to go the 'benevolent jedi healer' template, who has a primary belief that killing hundreds of thousands of creatures is an express train to the dark side.
If I don't want to use a lightsaber or kill things on my path to mastery of the light side of the force, what are my options and is it even possible?
Keldarin:
I must take issue with the following comments you made regarding conversion:
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The conversion process is intended to translate the effort of gaining Jedi skills from the old system to the new system. A Jedi that has just begun under the old system will convert over to a Jedi which has just begun in the new system, while a Jedi who reached the pinnacle of their skill advancement would be able to take the maximum amount of skills under the new system. The way the skills translate between those two extremes is based on the amount of effort that was required to get there. I’m sure everyone knows that certain Jedi skill boxes are much, much easier to gain than others. We wanted to make sure that this was correctly accounted for during the conversion.
The conversion process assigns an effort value to every single old Jedi skill and uses the sum of that effort to determine the number of new Jedi skills that can be taken. This seemed the most fair and was easily scalable as we continued to tweak and balance the exact skill costs and the exact number of skills that will be able to be earned under the new system.
Keldarin:
Once last thing. If the intention, as per reports, is to have non pvp jedi (the PvE jedi) be not too much stronger than non-jedi, then dont make PvE advancement, essentially, 10x as tough. Its quite clear that the difficulty in leveling jedi comes at the PvP stage, where you need to seek out other players to killor garner votes.
While the intention may be "to keep the jedi populous low" by keeping leveling slow, its truly not fair to the profession itself when the real rewards are only at the PvP levels (that godly power jedi want). Just my 2 cents.
Oh, and please reduce skill tree costs by 1 point, and try to effectively balance weaken and choke (so theyre not too powerful vs unbuffed, and not useless vs buffed...making them take a % of health and not stack would probably help)...thanks.