Development Cycle Archive

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Naquiel wrote:

Well I have more of a wish than a discusion.

For the combat balance, I hope you test it right so it would reflect the live servers better than what your doing now. For the balance i would like to see(in the order of 1-10):

1. Is to have an exact copy of our characters from live transfered to the combat sand box. This would include the equipment we currently have on live so we can have a better look at acctual proper testing so the adjustments will be ok when publish moves to live.

2. If we cant have a complete copy of our characters(well i know you can copy a person over, but not the gear they use), i would like the testing to start with master crafters first with all the skills they need to have to remake the template from live and have all the equipment and supplies to make the armor and all the goods we currently use on live. If we dont have all the gear and supplies we normally use than the testing again will be useless and you will not have the adjustment that are needed in live.

3. When we get all the gear and the supplies needed, then all the combat classes should come in. Get them all geared up and have the best combat test that anyone can see.

4. Then start your nerfing of the armor first. Why? Well its because armor is one of the biggest resistants to the weapons we use, and will dramaticly change things in combat. Specials might acctuly work and will probably only need adjusting.

5. Next work on food, medic,spice buffs and skill tapes. Some buffs are way to strong and last way to long and adjusting them in the balance is good. Plus some skill tapes have some really good resist/buff power that have a little to much power,but need adjusting only after armor is adjusted.

6. Specials would be after buffs andskill tape resists. Why? Because most specials are affected by the resists and buffs we use. When resists and buffs are way overpowered then we really cant fight the enemy if nothing will effect them, but we dont want to be gimped ether.

7. Some timers that we have in combat might need rethinking and can be adjust tward the end.

8. Properly adjusting some of the faction base items during this time would be helpful for a jumpstart on the GCW problems.

9. You might have time to fix the line of sight during this time to.

10. And when its done, sit back and make sure it dont get buged on the way to the live servers.

I really have to stress that the testing your doing now on the test center is really not being tested like it is being played on live and i hope you change things enough to recreate what is on live in the sand box. I like that you copy live servers to test some things and i hope you do this more often to really see the difference. But i hope the combat balance dont take to long so we all can get back to playing where we have to use tactics in battle instead of the gungho rush in clan war kill till your killed mentality we all have been seeing on live.

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When you test crafters and their capabilities, make sure you supply them with ideal resources. Not 1000 in all stats, but the highest stats the system could theoretically give the resources. This would be a proper test of what the armor, weapons, foods, etc. would look like ona live server where the crafters stockpile the very best resources over the course of months.

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Thyriel wrote:

i would love to see new badges like:

- killed 1000 nunas

- killed 1000 storm troopers

- killed 20 ATSTs

- travelled 1000 times with a shuttle

and things like that.. that would be things really funny to do

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...has slid out of a chair 127384 times.

Updated from TH's response many weeks ago, update at the bottom.

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DVader539 wrote:

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LLJK_Griz wrote:

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Thunderheart wrote:

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DVader539 wrote:

Here's a real, real, real simple fix for you.

Spraystick is supposed to be Acid damage
Tusken Rifle is supposed to be Kinetic damage
T21 is supposed to be Blast damage

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The correspondents and I have looked at this many times. Sorry, but its not an easy change. Damage types have a relationship to damage and by changing the damage type, it also changes the damage modifiers (numbers) and throws them out of whack. This is something Im checking to see if we can address in the weapon balance part of the larger combat balance, but I don't know what the answer might be. And in any event, concentrating on these minor things before the weapon balance isn't productive. We'll want to look at things when the combat balance is on TC.

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If that is true, then why did the Tusken start off as kinetic and then mysteriously change to another useless energy rifle around publish 4? Why has it taken this many months of weaponsmith and rifleman correspondents complaining before we got ANY response on this?

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First off, thank you TH for a response to this issue. Before you read anything else in my response, please understand I am directing no anger at you, since I know you are only fielding the question, and are not responsible for the error nor ignoring the error.

With that said, LLJK_Griz makes a very valid point. If it's not an easy change, then how did the Tusken Rifle change it's damage type? If it was unintentional, then I'd like to meet the unlucky guy who by-mistake did the complex job of reprogramming it. If it was intentional, then I'd like to meet the doofus who went to all that complex work to screw up a weapon. Or is this a case of "if you had a dozen programmers sitting at a dozen terminals typing randomly, in twelve days they would reprogram a complex variable of this game"? of course that last one was a joke. I hope...

Finally, what bass-ackwards logic made the Dev team make a weapon's stats not variable-entry based? That being, a weapon's code is a string of numbers, each number representing a stat. Like 1=energy damage, 2=heat damage, 3=kinetic damage, etc. Then a seperate function takes certain numbers during a fight and puts them through an equation set to figure out damage and such. If the Dev team made it any more complex than that, then please hire my service of logical thinking. I'll sell you my services at a good price since I'd enjoy making this game better. (p.s. I'm serious.)

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After discussing this with my fellow Riflepeople, the idea of the T21 being blast damage is debatable. But a very good point was made.

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T21 ws only blast for a few days and IMHO it should stay energy cause a blast rifle would be overpowered for the stuff that is sposed to be what commandos are made for taking out.

However the fact that within a week the T21 was changed from Energy to Blast and back to Energy does show just how full of [balogna] old TH is with his responces to us idiots that play this game

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Oh, then we got this little doozie last Friday...

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Keldarin wrote:
I just went through the revision history of those weapons [spraystick, tusken rifle] and they have never had those damage [acid, kinetic] types.

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Now, please... this is complete BS. If the Dev team has screwed up, please admit it. Don't treat us like morons and try half-arsed lies. My reply to this was...

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First off, an article from bloodfin.org

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ranged attacks generally do blast damage (unless the weapon is an acid rifle or lightning rifle - i expect some common sense here) ... however there are 2 guns which do kinetic damage - the tusken rifle and the striker pistol

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And then a weaponsmith's guide from swgcraft.com

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Q. What are the damage types for each weapon?
A.
Heat: EE3 Carbine, E11 Carbine, FWG5 Pistol
Cold: SG82 Rifle
Acid: DXR6 Carbine, DX2 Pistol
Stun: Tangle Pistol, Jawa Ion Rifle
Kinetic: Striker Pistol, Tusken Rifle
Energy: All others

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And finally, the piece of evidence worth a thousand words from swgcener.com
A screenshot of a King Tusken Rifle with kinetic damage!


Proof that the Devs lie and the Tusken was kinetic!

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Thunderheart wrote:

The answer is that it never was kinetic. If it ever was seen that way, it was some sort of odd bug. In the data tables themselves, they've never been listed that way.

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Your "answer" is false. I cited three different sources in my original post that say the Tusken Rifle was Kinetic. Would you please care to prove those sources wrong before denying the claim in total? If you are indeed drawing your info from your data tables, then those data tables (that no one other than SOE employees have access to) are in conflict with several sources of info, including the players, which anyone can see and compare. I put out a small survey, and got minimal results, but the end result was that 9 out of 10 players who were around before the Tusken Rifle was changed from Kinetic remember the Tusken Rifle as Kinetic.
I'll be the first to admit, the sample of players I got was not enough to draw a good conclusion, but frankly it only adds to the mound of evidence I've gathered from verifiable sources. You only offer hearsay evidence.
And even if your data tables were correct, they are inconsistant with the system of the game. The parts that assemble the Tusken Rifle are ones that express that the rifle would be a slugthrower, a kinetic weapon. Not to mention according to Star Wars lore, which this game is loosely based upon, the Tusken Rifle is a slugthrower. Kinetic damage.

This is getting real old. I'd expect this behavior from a forum Troll or a immature pre-teen poster. Not a Dev. Please look at the facts and give a truthful answer.

"The Tusken Rifle not dealing kinetic damage is like the Devs deciding that TKM doesn't have enough damage types and therefore make the Vibroknuckler deal acid damage. It's wrong for oh so many reasons, despite the good intentions."