Development Cycle Archive

I think there are already too many money sinks in this game and that the rich people just dont know how to spend their money

Im a master weaponsmith and I dont have more than 150k at any given time ... right now I have something around 40

and we all see what rare loot sells for on the chilastra forums ...... weapon experiment +1 skill tape: 6 million credits

I like the idea of unique schematics. I'd like to see them as something that could not be experimented on. That way, master crafters aren't the only ones that can reap the benefits of the schematic. Even a lower level crafter could do it as long as the complexity of the item allows it.

Another idea could be uber skills mods, or better yet, a piece of jewelry with a really cool skill mod on it (the idea here being that it would never decay as I'm sure clothing will eventually do, it is a special quest item after all).

Something else that I would like to see from the in-between missions on the quests are a little more money. It doesn't have to be a whole heck of alot, just something to make the other missions in a sequence worth more than just another step in the mission chain.

That's all I can think of atm.

Ral'nor Lightray

Kettemoor

you know, I got a piece of cake once for doing a quest that took me almost 3 hours because of game issues. It might have been pudding, but food it was.

The person who put food in as a reward ( normal nothing of value food ) should sent to a class on human motivation. I was bent out of shape for the rest of the night.

I realise the Devs have to say most things work. If it works as designed but the players can not figure it out then ultimately, its broken.

I think there needs to be more uniformity in quests and better AI. If you run into a quest at mid point the NPCs should be able to help guide you back to the spot you need to start at. I think there are some quests working as disigned but the design needs revisited.

Travel is to complex and time consuming for casual meetings and spontanious play. It is a big negative for the over all experience.

In many cases, in most cases perhaps content only counts if you can get to it. If you have to take 3 shuttles and run 6K meters into the wilderness then that quest only exsists for a very few people. Maybe a better map?

I think it would be awesome if there was a map system that could include structures and so on in the wild. Perhaps add an ability to Rangers to add locations to the global map? Content players can not find, don't know about, or can not reach do not exsist for those players.

Please fix the Arch Witch and Rancor Trainer so their missions work.

For the people with elite skills like pistoleer a drop to increase dmg better than krayt tissue. Plus there is so many ninja looters out there it is hard to get the loot in the first place. If there was a way to get a loot thet increased the stats of a gun i would do it for a week. Ohh and if you could go ahead and change the drop rate of the feeder mechanism loot on lok.

How about unique decals for my droid/armor/weapon/etc?

Or perhaps a way to get custom art into the game?

People like uberloot. That is the nature of man, when I kill something I want to open that sucker up and it be full of goodies. Just like unlocked containers. Opening an unlocked container is like opening a present from my grandma. I know its not going to be something I want, that I will put in the corner and never see again. Give us a smideon of uberloot. We crave it, we desire it.

Skill tapes, badges, weapon/armor crafting components(i.e feeders, tissue...).

Paintings, rugs, etc.. things that are cool and unique but can't be crafted. Alot of people fail missions on purpose to get rare items (AT-ST helmet). I agree that loot should not be something that will put vendors out of business, but I would like to see maybe some high powered componets. I have several pistol barrels and such that are worthless because a crafter can make one better. Make these componets high powered and we will still have to take them to a crafter to have a weapon made with it. Stuff like the Maurader Armor is very cool, not as good as some crafted armors, a little tough to get, and unique. Increase skill tape drops, these things are great, but they are so darn hard to come by, and are the whole reason Tailors make socketed clothing. Good stuff should be rare, but not as rare as the mythic Mandalorian Armor which is rumored to be limited to a few sets per server, just make these stuff really, really hard to get.

I'd like to see planet specific imperial quests in order to "unlock" the ability to wear said planets' armors.

Check this, for example:

I go on a 3 day quest on Endor for the Empire, right? Now I've got the ability to buy scout trooper armor from any imperial recruiter. When Hoth makes it's appearence (As I'm sure it will), I go on a 3 day long quest in order to have the ability to buy that armor too.. And so on, and so on. Until I could buy every set the Empire has.. Ending with the Uber-hard Royal guard's armor and smock.

Of course, it'd also be nice to unlock new titles (How cool would it be to have "Scout Trooper" as your title, while wearing the full set of armor?) and badges (Anvanced to Cold weather status) along these quests..

But that's just me..

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Q-3PO wrote:

I'm stealing a thread from Daker-Narituson the Discussion Forum (thanks Daker).

We've got a LOT of advanced npc quests out there. The common complaints are A) They are bugged (most of them aren't and we are fixing the others as we find them, though they often have to wait for the big publish) and B) the rewards aren't good enough (which we also have been addressing).

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.

That said, it is a common request for us to make better loot and we do aim to please. Every publish has seen an improvement on loot table and rewards, but we know there is more we can do without upsetting the crafters.

So here is your chance to give us some focused feedback.

What reward would motivate you to do a long, hard quest or dungeon?

Please try not to remove the crafter market or unbalance the game or reinvent the game. Also please stay on topic.

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Here's an Idea, STOP messing with the Crafters! If you say that you want to make crafters such an integral part of the economy then WHY are you doing things like capping us, creating more failures, putting out such crappy resources on ALL PLANETS now etc etc?

Seems to me that you're talking outboth sides of your mouth there Mr Q-3PO, how can you do these things to crafters and then put Uber loot in the game to? It's not like a PURE crafter will be be able to go through and do a dungeon(not strong enough because we don't have the points to spend on defense or attack skills)or will have the time to do a LONG Quest you know (no time because it's all spent crafting items for our shops, make one fail ten when we experiment you know) anything less than a GREAT or Amazing Success sucks.

Sure not all crafters have these problems Weapon and ArmorSmiths once they hit Master make credits hand over fist. As long as they don't cut corners and use good resources they are almost instant Millionaires, but for most of the Crafters it isn't so easy (can you say there is still a BIG problem in having the crafting skills all be equal?) DO NOT nerf Weapon or Armorsmithing!!! Bring the other Crafting Skills up to par with those Skills! DE & BE are horribly Broken, What good really is being a Master Artisan other than going on to another skill?

See what I mean? So now you're a veteran and own a shop and a couple of factories and a few harvesters, you waste a bunch of resources and finally make a really good schematic and put that and the resources it needs into the factory and you wait and wait and wait and wait. Hmm don't you think factory production speed can be sped up some what? Afterall you people already nerfed the Xp we get from them to basically nothing, raised the failure rate to an incredible amount, make it so a lot of us crafters feel like slaves to our shops at least you could make it so that a run of 100 doesn't take 3 hours or more, dontcha think?

BTW, it's even worse when we try to create med packs, pet stim packs or vet vitality packs!

Think about it!

Mrbledsoe Saidso

Good morning Q-3PO,

I completely understand that crafting is an intregral part of the SWQ experience. That being said I would recommend3 things to "motivate" people to do the quests.

1) As with the recent development of Krayt tissues as a crafting component, make loot drops that could be components to armor, weapons, and foodstuffs for meds. An example would be a special type of material to create a more potent stim, or a component to make a better blaster or armor.

2) For the crafter, allow adventurers to learn orfindnew schematics for new types of weapons, armor, devices (like maybe a ranged blast damage weapon) from NPCs atthe end of missions or in "treasure" chests at the end of difficult dungeons.

3) Make the pay (credits)worth while. Nothing stimulates the economy like money. If it takes a crafter 1000 credits a day to pay for each harvester, and another 50-100K to get enough materials to make advanced components and weapons, and we are getting 1000 credit missons, there is no way the economy becomes successful. Without an influx of money into the player run economy from missions, the economy grinds to a hault as players can't afford anyhing other than a CDEF pistol.

Well those are my initial thoughts. Please let me know what your outlook is.

-Wai'Kohn

Naritus Server

I just realized that not only I thought all the rewards I got for the many hours of play running missions through to Luke were junk, the Devs did to.

Many Many hours for it has always been worthless, Still is worthless.

This is long but I think the Devs might like the ideas if they will bear to read it. I'd love some feed back myself. Its about rewards in the truest since. How the player feels about the game experience when they log out.

I think there has got to be a balance between crafters and rewards. Players like trinkets and if the Dev view is that they can be destroyed with ease, or that letting us spend hours on missions to get items that are all completely broken and useless in houses because the housing system lacks a true decorating system. Crafters will be much happier if their crafts are fixed than they will be if loot stays at the level of the items most of them ( Read Droid Engineers ) can create.

Uber Loot is fun, its exciting and if the devs don't want to put prizes at the end of events that take massive amounts of time then don't be surprised that players don't do them and leave over time to games that do. Reward and punishment are the core elements of human nature.

You do realize why the crafting community isn't questing? They are being forced by the game design to spend far to much time with time sinks and bugs. Leave the money Sinks but its not fair to those players that their content is a Harvester, Generator, or a factory. Spend the time and money to make an interface that lets them manage the harvesters on their accounts from one place and they will buy more accounts so they can plant more resources and they will quest and explore to. Its not hard to understand. These guys are the back bone of the game and they are generally very unhappy. Check your Architect numbers and you know I am dead on.

Droid Engineers need serious attention. They need Droids that do something worth while. I have purchased many droids only to find them completely worthless. How about quest items that Droid Engineers can then install into Probots to make them worth having? At least on par with a Cupa? Rock Beetles are better than any probot. Perhaps mirror the CH system where they can have better or more Droids over time. Care should be taken so there are not super Creature Handling Droid Engineers. To this end I think mods should be added to pets that drop the pets ability in combat in relationship to the number of machines and level of same that his / her owner controls. This is a more creative resolution to Droids than the one that nerfed Droids from a game where Droids should be common. Its reducing one of the hall marks of Star Wars.

You can add all kinds of cool items that are important to crafters and generate trade between players. Can we say generating excitement?

Making Harvesting ( Factories, Generators and Harvesters ) manageable from a single place across accounts is a critical step. Then a large section of the player base can actually move away from this equipment stress free and enjoy their play time.

Droid Engineers need some Freedom and help, serious help. I would suggest a Droid Eng only combat Droid(s) that are tough enough to make the Droid Engineer a viable field player as well. There is no reason they should not be valid combat capable characters.

Dancers, give them combat bonuses for Melee combat. These graceful people need to get some reasons to do more than dance AFK in Cantinas where moochers complain to support their reasons why not to pay for services rendered. Modest combat mods make sense and will make the class more playable.

Image Designers, hey give them the ability to mask their factions or shift / later them. Wouldn't it be cool if Image designers were the only class that could do both Rebel and Imperial missions? Add it to a tree so they can effect their faction more and in different ways as they level. It could be complicated to work out in the code but it would add an element to this class that would make them really fun to play. It would get them out of Cantinas.

Architects should have bonuses to attack structures in PvP.

I can not think of a darn thing for Musicians or Chefs =( I am a failure. *cry* They need help to.
Its time for all the classes to be fun and for all of them to have the freedom to explore, quest and enjoy the game.

Smugglers would be great if everything worked, most of the other classes to my understanding are not that badly off.

If I missed a class I am sorry, I am just a player Game Master Veteran trying to offer some creative and positive suggestions.

On the topic of questing, the rewards suck and generally are degrading to think all the work invested for the item. I am a Ranger, I regularly find new content and amazing places. The facts are that I turned off all my harvesters, shut down all my characters and went out to explore the world. I made enough money to be able to do it for awhile. The majority of players don't have the time to just run for hours and hours to see what they can find. Maybe its time for a Quest Board that lists new quests, hidden cities and so on as we find them. Maybe you could give Rangers an ability to activate locations of specific things on the map. Maybe do it for anyone and place the player who found its name on the more info screen. It would surely give players motivation to explore.

The entire quest system in this game is pretty much Teh Suc. The rewards are declared as junk, almost all of it admits in the description its broken. The travel to and from the quest areas are extremely long in time and distance, few people even know the quests are there. Travel is both two expensive and time consuming. There is no content for most players because they can not see it.

Do I have so ideas for solutions?
The rewards.. that is a no brainer, the Devs have to put loot in the game that are exciting and merit the effort. If they don't then none of the rest of this matters. meaningful, semiuber and uber loot has a place. Luke should have given us something really cool. Not absolutely world shattering but its a one shot quest, its a core root of the world character. Make the effort memorable.

Travel times, mounts will help, drop the 10 minute wait for travel to five minutes, this doesn't change the feel the Devs want but it makes it less OMG I missed the shuttle, logging for the night events. On top of this make the Travel agents sell long term passes. Discounted tickets you can use for a week or even a month. This would be cool and it would get people out to planets just as something to do. 6K to explore sucks, but I got the ticket, I think I will go see what I can find is cool. Is the money / Time sink more important than players going out into the Universe and actively being part of it? Consider a special you can go anywhere you want for a week passes. All travel is a hassle and the main deterrent to group events spontaneously happening. If you have weekly or monthly passes from the Travel Association then you can travel across several Ports if you time it right and be where you want to be in 12 minutes tops instead of going from waiting 1 - 10 minutes to go from Dathamir to Corellia, running to get a ticket to Naboo, wait 10 minutes for a Shuttle, running to get a ticket to Rori, waiting 10 minutes for the next shuttle. The Real example is a 30 minute Time Sink. A Global ticket with a duration of function would make it a 1 to 12 minute trip. This is easily a Major improvement, charge a little more than Star Port Prices and its a win for everyone. If you don't like that option then how about a global ticket that charges you when you use it? Like a Travel Credit card. The improved speed and freedom of travel is the objective, the mechanism is not important really.

Put in some special trinkets in the game for solving quests first. This is a Huge Ego thing for players and will get people out there on patch days with some serious excitement. Face it, all loot sucks with few exceptions right now, making it say The first person to solve the X quest is the owner of this item. Who cares what it says, it is a meaningful memory in the making.

If this game doesn't learn how to make the feel of the world exciting and the rewards meaningful, the classes playable and rewarding then its a world of bland pixels.