Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Roundtable Discussion (Week Ending 3-15-04)
That when the new FS unlock method changes were will get FULL credit for the hundreds (or thousands) of hours of grinding we have done under the currentpoorly designed system. I'm on #24 and I sure as hell won't contiune playing if I don't get credit for every second I spent on this grind.
i just wanted to report a few bugs i encounter frequently, whether someone else has pointed them out or not i dont know...
1. vehicle warping: when you exit a vehicle (after being stopped) it warps you quite far from the bike, usually like 100m forward, 80m backward, or sometimes forward and not backward (so you end up in some whacky spawn), seems to happen less when riding a mount, but still happens.
2. ticket collector: sometimes the shuttle will be there, and youll have a ticket, double click the ticket collector, and the ship takes off....my friends have had this problem too, its like the ticket collector is too lagged to accept the ticket in time. as of late ive just been double clicking the ticket in my inventory.
3. shuttle times: 10 minutes for a shuttle on the same planet?, cmon...how about 5 mins for innerplanetary, and 10 mins for interstellar shuttle? also, i find the shuttles arent synced up; ill land on a planet with no shuttle there, and a 7 minute wait, how did i get there?!
4. mag seal containers; one of the people in this thread said they dont get loot out of the containers?, i do get loot, the unlocked ones. but the locked ones my friend trys to slice and it says the locking mechanism has been broken. now it continually says that even after a respawn. is this us or a bug? no idea.
5. fencer stun baton not damaging bases, is this intended or a bug?
6. dantooine vendors: i live on dantooine and the vendor lag is horrendus, it can take 2+ minutes just to buy and retrieve one item.
7. retrieving items: is it possible to implement an auto-retrieve when the vendor is right in front of you? im not the only one whose forgotten to retrieve an item before
8. mission warping: is this intended or not?, its very..extremely annoying to be 100m from a mission and have it warp 400m away. or actualy get there, get off your bike, and see the mission teleport. often ive even gotten to a mission and there is no lair, or no mission at all.
Thunderheart wrote:
Last Week'sThread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=in_live&message.id=6918
Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread. This thread is for commenting on general live issues, asking questions and reporting known issues.
The thread has been deleted, anyhow the biggest concerns werent responded to TH so let me give you a recap of Last Weeks top discussions:
1: CUSTOMER SERVICE: how about some help? How do you guys expect to create dialogues and let us know that our issues are being taken care of if there is no response. TH, how about a simple response to some of themajor issues (look at my other issues). A simple, we are looking into that or even a yes or no. Is better than nothing. TH all we're asking is for a couple of days of responses.
2: FIX KNOWN BUGS: I think most of us agree that we would rather have known bugs fixed in a publish than new content. There are MANY known bugs and exploits that have yet to be fixed such as CMs throwing poisons through 3 floors, the genosian cave exploits, etc. It seems like no one ever looks into these exploits. Whats REALLY stopping people from exploiting? Its not you guys. EVERYTIME I've been to the caves or pvp'ed at a base I have seen these exploits.
3: WOOKIEE ARMOR: HELLO there was a protest on Bria, plus every other post on this thread is about the armor. What else do you guys need to realize that this is a major issue? WHats being done about it?
(is the marauder loot all we're getting or is there wookiee armor in the works, if so what kind of armor are we talking about)
4: HERMIT QUEST: Im not familiar with this at all but this is the only thing thats being talked about on this thread as much as the wookiee armor. How about an update on whats going on with the hermit quests?
(still no response)
5: NEW JEDI SYSTEM: Has the new jedi system changed? A simple yes or no is enough. People are not asking what the new system is (even though we dont mind you telling us), everyone just wants to know if it has been implemented yet.
(Gave us another vague answer, How about this should we stop hologrinding?)
Thunderheart, I wish you wouldn't say things like this without more explanation. The highlighted phrase is causing a firestorm among both jedi and FSCS seekers alike. They're dying to know what you mean by that, and frankly so am I. I understand you're working up a detailed article on it,so my asking for further details is probably futile: you're already working on those further details. I would hope that, considering that you posted this, the details will be coming very soon. If not, I urge you not to post such tantilizing yet vague things... it really leaves the community hanging.
Thunderheart wrote:
ossireese wrote:
Hello TH, since you didn't have time to reply in last week thread i'll repost here.
Hope you answer this time
1) Is there an ETA on the new FSCS unlock?
There wont be an unlock - - the whole system is being revamped. Its going to work differently than it does now. I am working on a Jedi revamp article, but it will be a bit of time. I have to finish drafting it and get some peer review on it.
kayxfour wrote:
WE NEED CONFIRMATION
That when the new FS unlock method changes were will get FULL credit for the hundreds (or thousands) of hours of grinding we have done under the currentpoorly designed system. I'm on #24 and I sure as hell won't contiune playing if I don't get credit for every second I spent on this grind.
That was stated when it was first announced (whatever the original post was) that credit for grinding and such would be given.
Astu (Valcyn)
Cafa wrote:
RohmEnari wrote:
Just wondering where the Ranger profession stands in the eyes of the Devs. It seems to be forgotten. The Outdoorsman idea is still much loved by the current ranger population and we would love to see it implemented. We are all very patient in regards to getting a revamp, which rangers sorely need right now, but we would like a little information as to where we stand though. A little info is better than none at all.
Quite frankly everytime I hear this I am amazed. Ranger could easily be the most satisfying and richest profession in the game. I wish they got a bigger harvest bonus though.
SSquirrel76 wrote:
kayxfour wrote:
WE NEED CONFIRMATION
That when the new FS unlock method changes were will get FULL credit for the hundreds (or thousands) of hours of grinding we have done under the currentpoorly designed system. I'm on #24 and I sure as hell won't contiune playing if I don't get credit for every second I spent on this grind.
That was stated when it was first announced (whatever the original post was) that credit for grinding and such would be given.
Astu (Valcyn)
It was stated that "credit" would be given for progress under the current system. That doesn't even come close to saying enough. Do my 24 professions represent the same work as someone who has done 4 holo professions?
Well here ya go, hope this will ease some pain
Neyland wrote:
Can we get a reponse on the fix for:
TIME SHIFTING BASES?
JEST3R
GCW Correspondent Wrote:
In the past 2 weeks, the development team has been able to make some additional changes to GCW combat:
Enemies cannot enter HQs until all turrets are destroyed.
Turrets should no longer get locked onto pets / Turrets stop attacking and get new target if current target moves out of range.
Vulnerability times on HQs should no longer erratically fluctuate
Fixed maintenance on HQs
D_Wisdom wrote:Right now, the two biggest issues (there are many other issues, but these are the ones I think are most important) are: Communication and Customer Service.
Communication
Needs improvement, to say the least. I'm not trying to say that you (and by you I mean the dev team as a whole) aren't busy people, and that reading through the forums every day would be quick ... but communication needs to be improved. There are a number of profession forums filled with dissatisfied customers ... customers who, for the most part, only want to know that they are being listened to. Unfortunately, you (and now I mean both SOE and you specifically, TH) are giving the perception that you aren't listening to your customers and, by extension, that you don't care about their concerns. I'm not suggesting that this is true ... but perception is nine-tenths of reality.
The easiest way to dispell this perception is, quite simply, to post! Last month, JustG posted in the Commando forum that, while they may not be posting frequently, the devs are lurking the forums and reading. One problem - we don't see you lurk. Many, many customers have giving numerous suggestions to fix various problems over the past months ... but most of them never see any response. How can they tell if they're being heard? The perception grows that we're preaching to the choir (and the deleted and locked threads that only offered constructive criticism don't help,oh mods).
Yes, you instituted the Profession Correspondents and that was a good start ... but by themselves they aren't enough. Thats 30-odd customers getting direct feedback out of how many thousands? And how many correspondents have quit in frustration since the program started?
Post. Post often. Post in as many forums and as many threads as humanly possible. Hire more people to assist you, if you have to.
And when you post, post something worthwhile. I hate to be blunt (well, not really), but many dev responses are as unhelpful as no response at all. Snide-seeming non-sequiteurs on the lines of "wait for the combat revamp" and "there's tons of content, you just aren't looking hard enough" don't cut it. I really hate the entitlement mentality that many people on these boards have ...but we're paying customers. We deserve some specifics - actual details, timetables, that sort of thing.
Your own policy of only posting in "positive threads" isn't helping, TH. Sure, if all someone's doing is screaming about how he hates the game and he's quitting tomorrow, go ahead and ignore him. But there are many, many customers who are only offering advice or asking some confirmation that they're being heard. Only dealing with the happy players is not good customer service.Which segues nicely into ...Customer ServiceYou need more CSRs, and they need better training. There are way too many customers who have complained about rude and unhelpful CSRs for it to be a handful of isolated incidents. You need people who are willing and able tofix problemsthat have been proven to be fixable. For an easy example - there are bugs that cause items (and sometimes structures) to vanish. These vanished items have been replaced in some instances ... but in many more instances, CSRs have refused to do so since the players can't "prove" they had the vanished items. Bad. Customer. Service.Now, I won't make the claim that all CSRs are worthless, maladjusted individuals - when my PA's city was updating daily, one of your CSRs was very helpful and polite to our mayor (if I knew his/her name, I'd use it specifically). Keep the good ones, fire the bad ones and hire more good ones!Speaking of the socially maladjusted - griefers. Your CSRs are good when it comes to banning exploiters ... not so hot when it comes to banning griefers. I'm speaking of those individuals who purposefully inhibit your customers' enjoyment of your product, for that exact reason ... players who play to harass others. Getting rid of them is at least as important as eliminating exploiters, if not more so (exploitation is more of a problem on your end ... griefing is a problem on ours). The only way to deal with griefers is to punish them for their actions (since they harass others only because they know there will be no effective repercussions), and the only effective punishment is to remove them from the game. And I mean for longer than three freaking days, guys.And speaking of customer service, TH ... yours could use some polish:http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=commando&message.id=48144&page=1So, to recap: Communication and Customer Service. Improve those two areas, and you'll go a long way toward keeping your customers satisfied.Oh, and one more thing for future revamps (relating to that Communication thing) ... If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It.