Development Cycle Archive

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Thunderheartwrote:

Musicians will not get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower. As the system currently exists, if players could buff themselves, they would get experience points every time they buffed themselves and that is bad design.

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I'm a dancer, not a musician, but the experience points work the exact same way, as in we get xp for flourishing, not buffing. I understand the point you're trying to make here, we'd still get xp while buffing ourselves because we have to flourish to buff... but this is honestly silly. You guys allow people to AFK their way through the entire profession and you're worried about the 8 minutes worth of xp to be had during buffing?? It just doesn't make any sense. Most people don't want a buff from anyone but a master anyway, and masters don't need xp anymore. Additionally, if someone picked up the Technique tree from Musician or Dancer just for the self buffs... they'd only get 75% of the buff anyway, so there's really no point in doing that (which most people would probably figure also -- waste of skill points really).I digress a little , MYpoint is, there's no reason for this answer. People want buffs from masters, even the Dancers/Musicians themselves. And masters don't need experience.

In response to the musician answer:

While I do dabble in musician, I'm mostly interested in this from a Dancer point of view, since I'm assuming that this answer would be the same if the dancers had asked.

But, the reasoning, if I may say so, is very questionable and doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're basically saying here that we are not allowed to buff ourselves because we would get experience for doing so? If I am not mistaken, I don't get any more experience buffing somebody than I do just dancing. And, in the 4 to 12 minutes it would take me to buff myself every once in awhile, I'm surely not going to be making an insane amount of experience that it really matters, am I? Also, considering most of us don't even buff until we reach Master Dancer in the first place, we don't even need any more experience. So, any experience we may be earning by buffing ourselves is completely and utterly useless to us. So, I say this with as much love as possible for all the hard work that the devs do, but this is the lamest answer I think I have ever seen posted on these forums. I am thankful that Keldarin may possibly make this possible in the future. However, I suspect, as with everything else we're talking about 6-12 months from now if, not longer, until after JTL hits the shelves.

It makes absolutely no sense to me that every other non-entertainer profession can use their own products and services, but entertainers aren't allowed to. Not only that, but they gain experience by doing so. Yet, for some reason, entertainers are being kept from buffing ourselves because we would gain experience that we wouldn't even need since 99% of us would be masters already anyway? What kind of logic is that?

Furthermore, the reason we are asking about changing the interface to show progress and whether or not it is working is not really answered here. Obviously, we're not morons. We obviously will be able to tell, and know how to tell, after the fact, whether or not a buff has worked. Our problem, if you are not yet aware of it, is that ever since the patch that got rid of the buffing exploit, our buffs have been borked to the point where they are completely unreliable. No measure of caution has been able to adequately gaurantee that our buff will take. We're not asking how the player will know if it worked or not after the fact. What we're asking for is a way for the musician (or dancer) to know if the buff is on it's *way* to working while we are applying the buff.I can't tell you how many times many of us, since this last patch, have tried to buff someone and it hasn't worked even though both the buffer and the buffee are doing everything properly. It's annoying to try to buff someone and waste 4-12 minutes of our time only to have it not work and have to start all over. We waste time, and lose what little money we are capable of earning when our buffs run the risk of not taking. It would do a world of difference for us to know, after only 30 seconds into the buff, if it's working properly or not. That way, we can start over after 30 seconds, as opposed to after 10 minutes.

While I understand, that wemust wait until after JTL to change our UI interface, is it possible that the devs can look into why our buffs are not taking? Have they even attempted to do so? Do we know whether or not the fact that we can't do a musician and dancer buff at the same time is meant to be that way or if it's a bug?

All in all, I find this particular answer, especially in regards to buffing ourselves, to be both condescending and completely illogical.

I'm a dancer, not a musician, but the experience points work the exact same way, as in we get xp for flourishing, not buffing. I understand the point you're trying to make here, we'd still get xp while buffing ourselves because we have to flourish to buff... but this is honestly silly. You guys allow people to AFK their way through the entire profession and you're worried about the 8 minutes worth of xp to be had during buffing?? It just doesn't make any sense. Most people don't want a buff from anyone but a master anyway, and masters don't need xp anymore. Additionally, if someone picked up the Technique tree from Musician or Dancer just for the self buffs... they'd only get 75% of the buff anyway, so there's really no point in doing that (which most people would probably figure also -- waste of skill points really).I digress a little , MYpoint is, there's no reason for this answer. People want buffs from masters, even the Dancers/Musicians themselves. And masters don't need experience.

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For some reason I can't edit on this forum...so, I have to post again.

This is also something I meant to bring up in my other post but forgot to. I find it entirely ironic, that you're worried about bad gameplay coming in the form of us gaining experience by buffing ourselves, especially when as a master we don't even need the experience. You allow everyone to afk macro this entire profession completely away from the keyboard, never even playing the profession once. You allow people to afk heal for experience. You allow buffbots to do so completely unattended, presumably gaining experience through buffing others. But, your reasoning for not allowing us to buff ourselves is that we would get 10 minutes worth of *regular* experience by doing so? That's utterly and completely ridiculous reasoning. And, as I and others have said, people that want to buff themselves will more than likely seek out a master first. I know I would if I wasn't master. And,masters don'tgive a hoot about experience in the first place! And, if you're a non-master buffing yourself,is it *really* that big a deal to gain 10 minutes worth of experience doing so? Is it really that badgameplay, does it throw the game completely out of whack? Apparently so...yet afk entertaining, healing, and buffing others seems to not phase the devs at all. Give us all a break here. This makes absolutely no sense!

Thunderheart wrote:

Musician

Will Musicians get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower? Also, can we get our buffs to last as long as Doctor buffs -- say, three hours? And would it be possible to improve the buff interface so that we can when we're buffing properly, how much time remains til the buff is done, and (most important) whether the buff actually worked?

Musicians will not get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower. As the system currently exists, if players could buff themselves, they would get experience points every time they buffed themselves and that is bad design. In the future, Keldarin wants to change the system and then it would be possible. As for extending buff durations? It is hard to say since much of this will be changing with the combat balance.

Whether or not a player is buffing properly or if it worked will be displayed in the buff icon window and the character sheet. If the icon appears and your stats change, then the buff worked. As for the displaying the buff duration information in the buff window, the answer is “not at this time”. All the UI programmers are working on JTL.

Is it me or did TH completely miss the point here. You cannot see if the buff holds, or how effective it was until you stop listening. And once you stop listening, you have to re-start the buff process from scratch.

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Pawlin wrote:

Thanks for answering the questions. An answer of "no" is better than "no answer".

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Thunderheart wrote:

Architect

Can you, and WILL you change Resource Stack size (currently set at 100k) to allow for up to a million units to be combined into a single stack, and Crated Components stack size be increased across the board to allow for a minimum of 100 per crate? If so, can we be given a "target" publish/mini-publish date for this? Upon doing this will this then help open the doors to reworking the storage capacities of certain structures?

No, we will not change the resource stack size....

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Why not? You gave a flat "no" there so I expect SOE has a specific reason that you wouldn't want to do it. Could you please explain the rationale? If you don't tell us why then all we know is that you didn't listen to what many of us seem to want and what seems to be a good idea all around.

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/agree

To be honest, I don't think they understood our question. Otherwise the 1k schematic would not have been used as an example against.

Well folks, here is the bottom line. We as the consumer know what we want and SOE knows that they can't deliver on 98% of it. But they can't just come out and tell us that because they know that we wouldn't stick around. They can't just ignore us either because they know that the outcome would be the same. So what do they do? They give TH the difficult job of pacifying the community.

We all know what a baby pacifier is - right? You stick it in a screaming child's mouth to make them think thatyou are giving them what they want. Why do they pacify us? To let us know that they are liiiiiiiiistening and that they caaaaare. Because they know that we are the customer and that they need us. The problem is that the pacification can only go on for so long before they forget that we really are the customer and thatthey really do need us.

This forum and the supposed dialogue that occurs between the community and the dev team is nothing more than a big diversion.All that ever happens is that people withopposing viewpoints quarrel amongstthemselves andfocus on the real issues is lost. I can't blame SOE for it; I would do the same thing if I were in their position. This game has gone through so many transformations in the name of balance that itjust isn't possible for SOE to ever fix it.

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sciguyCO wrote:

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DarthINSANUS wrote:

Now I may have missed something, but can someone shows me a food that stacks over death ?
ANY food I have ever taken is cleard from your stats, and or skills the moment you die..How exactly is stacking involved ? are you saying that I can eat a food, die and keep its modifiers ? if the answer to that is NO...than the entire reason for saying no to this needs to be rethought, seeing as how its based on flawed thinking..

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It's not so much stacking, as being able to get multiple buffs in series beyond what normal stomach digestion allows. An extreme example would be Flameout: 90%+ damage reduction, 4-5 attacks, 60ish filling. If the stomach cleared, a player could retake this every time they cloned, making the first 4-5 attacks against them effectively pointless. This could (probably would) lead to clone center zerg tactics that are not intended.

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Ok, so you are saying...that a flameout WOULD maintain its use upon death and NOT clear itself , thus allowing a stacking of flameouts ..


Hmm, my answer is this...if its Flameouts and "Blue Milks" that we are worried about here, the one clear sloution is to REMOVE the modifier apon death.....just like every other food/beverage..It should be like all other foods/drinks and clear its effectiveness on death,but ESPECIALLY cloning!
(then clear the stomach fill as well)

The scenarios I will describe here is what I feel is being seen by most of the player base.

And let me preface by saying that neither scenario do I see very often, but I think I understand the players.

Scenario 1:


Players, when out on hunts with there friends, become slain in PVE. the group Doctor resses them, they suffer a 60 second down time from groginess, and try to enter the battle yet again...the buffs are gone, and the Doc starts to re apply them , but low and behold , that pesky stomach stops them from doing the ONLY 3 things they would eat/drink

1) Brandy, to bring the mind stats in line with other buffed attributes

2)Vercupti of Agazzi, allowing the player to maintian a decent ham pool if a Dr is not available

3) Veghash, for preventing the player from killing themselves through specials with mind cost


The reason most are complaining, is because they fell like this makes them even MORE of a burden to the group , because getting killed once makes it ALOT easier for you to fall 10more times due to no food prep.

MOST people take a food/drink JUST before they die to try to PREVENT it, keep that in mind when it takes 15 mins or so to clear itself out.

Scenario 2 :

Player A is overt, he is traveling around overt looking for anyone in the world to interact with to pvp.He stumbles apon Player B and his crew in Theed.
Player B is an overt member of the opossing faction, but his friends are waiting for someone to show tef to them. Player A is able to dispatch 3 out of there 4 players before he is slain.
He then tries to return to battle to extract his revenge...
He is at a distinct disadvantge YET AGAIN !

1) he is allowed to Re buff through a Doctor

2) he is NOT allowed to eat any food

Player B is still fully buffed and in proper stomach standing. this negates any chance for player A to fight on Solid ground yet again.

In the game of PVP, dying once can set you up for some nice downtime.This coming from the stomach alone. If they are that determined to have a buff penalty on death, why not shift that towards the DR buffs as well then ?

(My point is, the logic here is not consistant)

Personally, I believe in the Devs and they do what they feel is right for the game.

But if they choose to open discussion, let it be that- Open

Listen to what the players have to say on a matter then draw your conclusions, not before.

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Metroid wrote:

How about... telling us if the freaking combat revamp thats been promised for what, two months(?) will actually make it out before we die of old age?

Sorry, I love SW:G, and Iv'e probably been the most patient person here (I never even post in these threads), but this is plain silly. Almost every answer now is "wait for the revamp", fine, how about telling us when this revamp will be ? "When it's done"?

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Fobik wrote:

1. I am bitching..how pathetic of a reply...Wait till later...you deal witht he suxor for about 5 more months.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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TrandoshanDroidTech wrote:

ok, nice TH. A tip for ya TH, when we CHs give the Q for next week, please don't give the 'wait for the combat revamp' explaination, we are all tired of hearing that.

I'm also glad that you posted the answers, those on the CH boards were beginning to think you weren't gonna start it back up/

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Hey, I don't make up the questions - - you guys do. I only answer them with the best information I have at the time. The answers I give are the best answers I have. If they are repetative, then ask different questions =P (j/k :wink )

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Why cant we one star his post?

It needs a one star baddly as we all know that that bull **edit** wait till the CB is just the devs currant favored way of saying we dont want to take the time to answer your question right now and will be given to any and all questions that they dont feel like dealing with at thte time.

He even works thiscopoutinto the artisan responce