Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 3-1-04)
Vicious attacks by Chef Boy-ar-Dee with an e11 carbine = what the heck?!
I feal the Commando skill tree of acid rifle and Flamethrower should be combined, in to a skill called assault weapons or heavy assault weapons.
Commandos should also have some kind of Unarmed tree, considering they had to take brawler/unarmed 4, why don't they have some skill that continues that training.
Is therea rifle version of the heavy particle beam launcher in the works and will the commando get a certificate in it?
Agreed, it would add another dimension to the resource economy. But it wouldn't necessarily increase profits. If the cost of obtaining 1 million units of an average resource is fixed, regardless of the quality of that resource, and that resource can sell for 2 credits per unit, then 50k units of that resource when refined would still sell for 2 million credits (assuming an even higher 19:1 refining cost). The net profit remains the same. The only difference is that fewer items could be crafted with 50k units of a refined resource than with the original 1 million. Obviously those few items might be priced higher, but who can say they might be purchased at that high price? Ultimately the laws of supply and demand create a stable price point.
As it stands today, 80% kinetic advanced composite is already available at a price of anywhere from 300k to 800k per suit (depending on the galaxy, HAM, and resource availability - on some galaxies a good spawn of colat or polysteel might have only happened once in the last 6 months). It would be very interesting to see if someone would pay millions of credits for that same suit of armor if it had been crafted with a batch of resources that had been refined at a 19:1 ratio, if the only benefit was a 20% HAM reduction. Maybe it would only be crafted and purchased as a special order, much like a high-end Italian super car, because some ego's need special handling.
[[[[ I bet any crafter would be in favor of this as it helps turn inferior resources into viable parts of the economy. I would surmise that almost half of the resources available are never mined, either because they do not have a high enough stat, or they are not the right type for the moment. ]]]]
There's a finite practical limit to the amount of harvesting that the player-base engages in. Certainly there is a small segment of hard-core resource merchants who trade lots across multiple servers, while on the other hand there are those who have absolutely no desire to place harvesters at all. We're probably at a stable balance point in terms of the number of units harvested right now. I don't believe that the number of units harvested would increase.
[[[[ It would definetly lead to an increase in the quality of goods but it would also lead to a large spike in resource prices. ]]]]
I do not agree that this idea would lead to a large spike in resource prices. I think that prices would remain stable as they are now. The only difference being that a wider variety of resources *might* end up being harvested, with some of those being refined.
As it is now, many miners and merchants are quite litterally over-stocked with resources that are usually priced at 2 or 3 credits per unit... I've come across many merchant tents with over 100 resources listed, and in many cases a lot of those just don't sell (of course there are certain resources that *always* sell, practically regardless of quality).
[[[[ The trade-offs would need to be managed properly for balancing but I think it would be fun. ]]]]
If the 9:1 refining ratio appears to be too low, then maybe the dev's would consider something like this at 19:1. Obviously some resources spawn with stats that are high enough such that there would never be any desire to refine them. The casual resource merchant would have no problem maintaining a customer base supplying resources that naturally spawn as 4 or 5-star resources.
Also, as far as any question regarding "increased profits" or "higher costs" are concerned, that's ultimately an entirely different issue: the dev's have failed to introduce any sort of reasonable method of re-distributing wealth among the player-base. All credits ultimately flow up into the pockets of a few specialized classes (AS/WS/Doc) more than any other. There's no practical solution to this. The concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few is an interesting socio-economic issue on its own.
TH,
The recent publish set Droid Storage Compartments experiementation of quality to OQ/Conductivity 50%/50% vice the previous 100% OQ.
This change was due to a Droid Engineer request.
(Please put posts like this In Live)
BAD form, TH. You've smeared us, I'm hoping it was unintentional...
We NEVER asked for this, we simply asked that DSCs use droid experimentation, since they used to use Artisan experimentation, although the schematic was in the DE tree. I don't think that this was an unreasonable request, and I don't think *anyone* was aware of the plan to change the schematic requirements. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the schematic change, implied or not by the experimentation change, was entirely unanticipated by the Droid Engineers, the Architects, and anyone else involved.
Please, please, PLEASE give full and unbiased information when communicating with people, these kinds of mistakes are painful for all of us.
Iggep wrote:
Thunderheart, you've probably already heard about this a hundred times this morning, but I think the biggest question of the day is regarding whether the FSS system is turned off or not. Is it still active or not? Tons o talk about it in the Jedi forum.
Thunderheart, this wouldn't be the first time you've relayed information to us in good faith... that turned out to be false and/or misleading.
So... an Angry Soon To Be Jumping Through Hoops No More kind of Concept: That you or a Dev reconcile the statement that "FSCS unlock method has not changed in publish 6" with the observation that nobody has bragged about unlocking since publish 6.
Unless you seriously expect us to believe that every player, in every galaxy, playing in every continent, each decided independently, not to post to the boards of their accomplishment, that all of these players made the same decision simultaneously, and that this miraculous cross-server, planet-wide, simultaneous, paradigm shift in player psychology happened at the stroke of 0400 PST on the night that Publish 6 went live, may I constructively point out that your comments on FSCS unlock are in complete contradiction to the observed behavior of the playerbase.
The only rational conclusions are that you're lying to us, or that someone lied to you.
Players of SWG: Have you ever known or seen a battered wife/partner? Do you understand the psychology of the batterer and the victim? How many times did you hear victims of domestic violence saying things like "But I need him in my life. It was a mistake, he didn't mean to hit me that hard. It's all my fault for not trusting him enough. He said he was sorry. He swore that it wouldn't happen again."
Until a few weeks later, when you get the next phone call, put some sheets down on the passenger seat to catch any stray blood, and drive to the hospital to pick up your friend with the really dark sunglasses again.
There's a pretty sickening parallel here, but for those of you who haven't figured it out, I'm not just talking about one specific game or any specific game supplier. Every MMORPG company fosters this sort of destructive relationship between MMORPG and customer. Treating your customers like dirt is an inherent in the MMORPG business model, because pulling the rug out from under them every few months keeps the subscription money rolling in.
Stop the cycle of abuse. Take the red pill. Wake up!
Hello Thunderheart. I posted this on the GCW forums, but sinceit's bumped off so fast because of all the new posts, I'm bringing it here. Is there any way you can comment on the following?
- When a Faction Base is vulnerable to being destroyed by the enemy, minefields, turrets, and the soldiers outside do very little to defend. The invading army only has to burst run into a base, set up defenses inside the enemy base, and start hacking into the terminals to start the base destruction countdown. The minefields only do minimal damage to buffed players, and the turrets only get 2 or 3 shots off before the people run into the base, forever hidden from the turrets and the troops outside. What this means is that the only good defense is a player defense. Well this just can't happen during the early hours of the morning, for most PA's. A well trained and wellbuffed strike team can consist of as little as 3 people. All they have to do is burst run into the base, start the destruction sequence, then watch it be destroyed, with no help on defense from the troops, mines, and turrets outside. Also, turrets need to be harder to take down, than what they currently are. A turret can be taken down by a fully buffed commando, one doctor, and one medic. The doctor and the medic chain heal the buffed commando, and in about 3 minutes, you have a destroyed turret.
- Faction Base vulnerability times are very easy to get. All that has to happen in order to get the vulnerability time, is for a spy, who is a Warrant Officer 2, to come into the base and check the vulnerability time. He then relays this message to the people he was working for, and then the above paragraph happens.
Fixes
- In order to fix the Faction Bases, and to make sure they are not taken down easily, minefields need to be more potent, turrets need to do 1k more damage, the number of troops outside needs to double, and a base should not open its doors to the opposing side, without first being hacked. What this means is that a terminal needs to be placed on the outside of the base, but far enough away so the turrets are able to cover it. If this were to happen, the turrets, that do much more damage than before, would first have to be destroyed in order to proceed with the slicing of the door terminal. But, before we go any further, the turrets covering the 'door terminal' must be given higher resists and hitpoints in order to give a real defense. The 'door terminal'should also have to be sliced by all the required classes that slice the inside terminals. This would insure that that the invading army would have to come prepared for a fight. This door terminal would always remain outside, and always be vulnerable.
- Vulnerability times should be set by the defending team. With server resets, vulnerability times are constantly changing, and they eventually end up in the middle of the night when only a very few people play. Vulnerability times should be able to be changed by the owner at any time he or she chooses, and vulnerability times need to only be shown to the owner of the faction base and to a very high ranking member of the faction, such as Major. With vulnerability times harder to get, the longer faction bases will last.
Thank you for reading my flaws and fixes to the Faction Base system. On my server, Corbantis, people are not placing Faction Bases any more due to the ease of base destruction. If this system changes, the Galactic Civil War will improve one hundred fold.
Thunderheart wrote:
3. I'll look into the Aqualish thing - - are you sure it gets a badge? Not all POIs get badges... (Ill try to head out there tonight)
1) Fix Doctor Buffs. They have been awful for long enough now. I almost cried when 3 straight shots off a 912 pack landed for under 1000.
2) Give us the ability to overwrite buffs with a better bugg AND/OR the ability to remove buffs from ourselves to allow rebuffing and to get around the log out/server boot buff timer bug.
3) Extend Dancer/Musician buff durations and shorten the lenght of time it takes to apply them--or give them a product to package buffs like we docs make so they can buff at a pace closer to us. Too dang time consuming as it is, for a buff that lasts an hour and 42 minutes less than my Doc buffs do.
4) Drop the Avian Meat & Reactive Gas requirement on enhance packs, allowing for other organic and inorganic components to be used.
5) Revamp the bazaar and include such options as specific item search, and allow for items of the same serial number to show as one entry instead if 1000 of the exact same factory run FWG5's--allowing for the buyer to choose the quantity they want when they opt to buy the item. This would drastically reduce the time it takes to view a vendor's wares and avoid missing items from having to page forward so much.
6) Fix the HAM on vehicles. 1500 HAM is pitiful! And Add garages to the adventure planets. It is bad enough that I have to fix a swoop bike daily, but to have to buy a ticket from my home on Dant to goback and forth to Kor Vella (closest garage to a starport from Dant) is just a useless time sink. Also, when is the change going live to remove the camp requirement?
7) Respond to the many well thought out suggestions your player base has suggested here. These folks are devoted gamers who have some very valuable input.
May be a few more, but too tired to think of them now.
Vinaddar
simply put..
Buffs + Composite armor = Risk free gaming...
buffs need to be capped @2k health Action Mind... and @ 1k for secondary ham stats
doc buffs shouldnt stack with spices.. neither should stack with power boost..
Armor encumberance should stick regardless of buff type..
People are soloing krayts.. this is im sure unintended..
Also my real pet peeve:
Tka needs to be more than kd/dizzy spam UAH3 till someone dies... Lower damage.. raise defences.. include more state effect attacks..
Id like to see UALeghit 1 be a snare type attack.. The animation is there you jump up you come down on the knee.. snap right?
Defence stacking should still be enabled but capped at 99 (sorry fencer/pistoleer templates)
Im a TKM/masterbrawler/fencer novice (will be master possibly by this weekend)...
I would love to see strategy involved with my professions instead of repeaded spam attacks
Composite and Ubese armor is the norm now and if someone is buffed and eats chef food you cannot hurt them at all..
armor effectiveness is too high..
you guys gonna look into the wookiee situation? I understand that we cant wear any armor but **edit**? how does +100 to all the ham even compensate for 80% resist composite and doc buffs? Wookiee roar is the same as intimidate I. Bio-engineered clothing only two pieces of clothing can be used for anything other than wound healing/treatment tissues. I just wanted to know if this is being looked into .. something like giving wookiee some natural resists, more bio-engineered capable clothing. The wookiee population is worse than pikeman and jedi.