Development Cycle Archive

Here yah go...

The Jedi Correspondent has distilled a lot of the feedback and produced a Punchlist. The team thought it was a pretty good list and I liked the community mechanics, so between now and the publish; we will update you on this Punchlist.

Please post your Feedback!

I almost want to question why? Considering it feels that most or our points have already been shot down.

are the questions and the answers:

- XP loss: Mostly my concern is that you will be forgetting about Jedi below the Knight level.

The changes made to mitigate Force Ranked Jedi from losing XP for fighting each other will solve most of that problem. The rest of the problem should be solved by not throwing yourself into the meat-grinder.

Experience loss has been changed back and forth a bit. There has to be some death penalty associated with PvP deaths because of the inherent power level of Jedi and also to prevent Jedi from selling their deaths to Bounty Hunters. Without a penalty, it leaves the possibility of a "Death-credit" loop.

However, we are going to remove XP loss for Force Ranked Jedi when they fight each other because it is required to gain rank.

- XP loss should have a decay timer. Negative XP should decay some amount every week to help people get back on their feet.

An Idea I had posted earlier, is to have the system of Tracked Deaths and Decayed Deaths used to determine the level of Xp loss, with what would amount to a Skill Box loss in the old system be the peak of XP loss in the new, and at that point, resetting the tracker as happens now. The fist few hits could be less severe, and serve as a caution to the Jedi to shape up as they get higher.

Do you understand how much time and pain this amounts to for us? this is full 8 or so hours of grinding lost, peope will quit over this point, it is far too severe, it needs to be scaled and buffered.

We are making some tweaks to the combat system to increase accuracy across the board. It should no longer be possible to never hit or always hit an opponent.

heheh Finally.

WE NEED YOUR FEEDBACK ON HOW PvP and PvE feels after this change.

So far, A Lightsaber Master always wins. It will be impossible for anyone without this template to succeed.

- When toughness was modified to not work vs. sabers, it is actually not working now at all if you equip a saber yourself vs. anything. If you unequip your lightsaber then it works properly.

This item is fixed.

I really like to understand the reasons for making Jedi Toughness not work against Lightsabers, it needs to be clearly explained. A Jedi not being able to defend against a weapon universally wielded by their own kind makes no sense at all. And also, it is beginning to feel that you refuse to listen to the players and the fact that they hate this change. Not everyone wants to be a Master Saber wielder, and we recieve no bonuses to defence against this weapon except at Novice and Master of the Lightsaber Tree. In order to survive we will need to be a Master Lightsaber wielder.

- The changes to the defense tree have made it very undesirable. There is literally nothing in the entire tree until Master when you get avoid incapacitation which is overall pretty useless.

Melee mitigation is going away for PvP for everyone very soon. We are evaluating alternate ways to make the Defense Tree more desirable.

Once again, you focus on PVP only, ignoring the fact that we have to go through building milions upon millions of Xp in a PVE enviornment. Not all of us want to PVP, and yet we are forced to now, since otherwise, we are denied both Knight and Master Titles....

I do think that spreading the tree out over the entire remaining boxes is a good step considering the exorbant skill cost-to-power ratio or this system.

- Meditation is the core of being a Jedi. It is the first thing every Jedi does in canon. Meditation should be moved to the Enhancement Novice box, with +meditation mods up the Synergy Tree along with Power boost EXACTLY like the TKA meditation line.

This is extremely unbalancing and not a viable course of action. However, meditating is part of what it means to be a Jedi and we are looking into adding meditation emotes for Jedi after this publish goes out.

How is this extremely unbalancing? Thats a hard one to understand...Lets see, having every player in the game run around with TKA meditation isnt extremely unbalancing? Wow, 14 skill points of TKA gets you the ability to heal poisons, bleeds, diseases, break an incap, and buff yourself. And we are denied ANOTHER abilty that is common to the star wars universe.

- Instead of "block" as the Jedi's only ranged defense, Jedi should have a small chance to "counterattack" exactly like Carbineers. This will let Jedi deal a small amount of damage back to ranged attackers and would easily fix the request for "reflection."

I agree.

The animations and extra graphics for this are done, but the design and programming is going to push this feature out. We are looking into the balance implications of allowing the ability to actually reflect ranged weapon damage back on your opponents. This is something we are seriously considering, but it will not happen for this publish..

Please seriously consider this, sounds neat.

- The skill points granted for the Apprentice box needs to be tweaked, its not giving anywhere near the amount of points it deserves. Additionally the 0444 boxes in Padawan are only giving +3 skill points each for 800k of xp, while Padawan gives +24, that doesn't equate.

We will adjust this in the player's favor a bit.

Good.

- Robes of all levels should have *some* sort of armor resists. Padawan who are just starting out in the world could use a Robe with some resists. Higher level Jedi Robes should have +resists to certain things like poison/fire/etc.

The Jedi Development team is against balancing these combat features with the robes. We will work to balance resists to poisons/fire/etc. in a different manner and report back to you.

Inever cared for the 'Armored Robes' concept, we now have no Armor type defences.

... and please, at least give us a colour palette that increases the number of choices as you advance? All Padawans being in white is really annoying.

- Master Healing should be able to cure a firedot.

Done.

Good.

- Move Forcerun1 to Novice Enhancer, it really only adds some terrain negotiation and its silly that Jedi have none to begin with.

No. Jedi have a 50% run increase which helps with this and Jedi can choose terrain negotiation skills along the way if they choose.

Where can we choose these 'Terrain negotiation skills' from TH?

LOL, do you realize that as we advance as Jedi, we no longer can run as fast uphill? For gods sake, why the cant this one simple request be given?

Is it so unbalancing to put some INNATE TERRAIN NEGOTIATION BONUSES IN? If you are so hard pressed to ignore this then have the common decency to explain why.

Jedi were not supposed to use the force for every menial task, they had a hard regimend of physical training also,so least put the bonuses into the FS survival tree. Are you seriously saying that a Jedi Knight could not compete in a footrace with a Scout without relying on the force?

- Move healbattlefatigueself1 to Novice Healing Box

No. This is considered a powerful, earned power and not a novice level skill.

How?, what does Battle Fatigue do other than make you use more stims-that you can no longer use since you are a Jedi Knight and seem to have forgotten how to stick a stim in your arm?

- Master Healing/Force Power need mods to +speed for their respective skills. Why would anyone use force lighting if the delay is 3 seconds when they can saberthrow at 1/second. Additionally Master Healing has no benefits other than Total Heal which is no longer even a total heal.

The +speed benefits exist within the Force Ranking System.

Once again, what about all the people who will not be anywhere near completing the millions of Xp needed for months, and the random Council ordered MOB kill list that lets you enjoy mindless content-free PVP. There is a great deal of time which will be spent in PVE, remember this.

- Force Sensitive skills are useless for Jedi.

Example: melee accuracy, melee speed, Healing skills, assembly, healing speed....none of these affect Jedi skills at all yet we are forced to learn them.

Yes, they are. Basically, this is 20/20 hindsight and a by-product of the conversion. As a character moves through the Jedi process on a normal progression, Force Sensitivity skills are basic enhancements for "regular" characters to simulate Force Sensitivity. At that point, they are great to have. Once a character becomes a Jedi, they have already moved past those skills and in effect developed their Force powers from sensitivities into full blown powers. In essence, you have all moved past this point but everyone will have to go through this phase in the future.

Either allow us to gain utility from our skill point expenditure, or let us drop them as we advance, otherwise, we are being forced to waste even more skill points, which as I remember a DEV once saying, was bad.

Also, does this mean that Jedi luck, and Persuasion are more useless than they currently are, I have not once been able to see benifit from puchasing them, do they even work?

I like the concepts, really I do, but for gods sake, dont lower our power levels further by make us waste even more points.

- The bonus damage against lower level mobs needs to work with the default auto-attack as well. Low level Jedi can hardly do specials, so this is a catch-22 if only specials get the bonus.

With the addition of Force Pool and Force Regen to the Padwan Robe along with increased Force in the skill tree we have already significantly boosted the lower end game. No longer is a lower end Jedi limited to 600 Force and 5 regen. Coupling this with the addition of higher end saber specials sooner, we have in fact greatly enhanced the leveling potential of the lower end Jedi.

I agree with the new changes, the Xp increase was noticeable, before I lost it and another 200k.

Now, if we did not loose 200,000 points of xp with every death, this would mean something.

- Jedi cannot block melee attacks....at all. This is unacceptable.

Jedi are not being designed to be the perfect solo character that can defend against all other classes. Jedi are not "scrappers" and by definition, Teras Kasi was developed specifically to fight Jedi at close range. This will be especially true when Jedi are given the ability to block ranged attacks back at their opponents. Melee attacks are something the Jedi should be wary of.

I dont think that Lightsaber block, i.e. 'Blaster Deflection' should work against melee, a parry of some type would do.

To say that the most feared melee class in the starwars universe was ineffective against MELEE is astounding, Jedi were meant to act solo, and to defend as well as their training could against threats they found on missions, which included 'Melee' threats, we need some way to deal with melee opponents and it is considered unacceptable by the playerbase, I have seen no praise for this decision.

- Polearm saber is superior to the other 2 sabers in everyway given the +100 speed rating at master. This means that every Jedi will be using one for the most part. Please bring the other 2 sabers up to par.

We have been testing this internally. All three sabers will have similar appeal and functionality and we will see even more balance to this issue in the Combat balance. Once the speed formula is altered in the Combat Balance, a Jedi will have the choice of a slower, heavier hitting saber or a quicker lower damage lightsaber. Another factor is special choice, while different Jedi may prefer a body hit while others may prefer the mind hits.

Interesting, cant wait to see how this part pans out.

- Jedi should be able to wear a backpack. Losing the 50 item carrying capacity because the art might not mesh perfectly simply isn't fair.

This may be, but it's a reality of the engine. We are currently investigating giving the robes themselves backpack functionality because Jedi are always pulling neat stuff out of their robes, but it will not happen with this publish.

I like the utility belt idea lol 'Jedi Bat-Robes' LOL

- The force power tree overall is weak, especially Force Choke. Right now there is no reason to use these skills other than possibly Force Cone 2 which still has worse DPS then a ForceSaberThrow3 attack. The delay coupled with mediocre damage and high force cost makes this tree undesirable.

Balance tweaks are still constantly being made to all the Force Disciplines. Force Powers are intended to be a viable alternative to sabers. This doesn't mean equal, but still viable. They should both have their uses and places.

I would, for one like to see some more kinetic alternatives to Force Lightning placed in the Psychokinesis tree, varying levels of 'Force Blast' that does kinetic damage (and maybe a dizzy/stun), ala Cartoon networks 'Clone Wars' cartoon. I dont want to run around shooting lightning from my arse all the time to be honest, and I do think that the animations need to be a little more subtle, use the same style of opacity seen in the geo pistols. And please, speed the animations up, it takes for ever to do anything, and the fact we activate our saber EVERY TIME is annoying.

- Hooded Cloaks. Yes its not going to kill anyone if we can't have a hooded cloak, but they are intrinsic to the look and feel of Jedi, and we've been teased with pictures of Jedi in them since pre-release. Can you just give tailors the ability to craft these darn things? 1 per species model if needed... There's no reason only a Jedi should be able to wear a simple cloak with a hood, and more people running around in them will help us hide ourselves.

The desire for hooded cloaks will never go away.

Hooded cloaks (as with all wearables in the game) are far more work intensive and very time consuming to produce than they appear to be. Huge actually. It's not 1 cloak or 2 cloaks, but somewhere around 120 cloaks would have to be produced internally for all Jedi robes to have hoods in the game. Here's how it breaks down: There are currently 31 unique Jedi Robe Models. For each of those to be hooded, there needs to be a special version for Wookiees, Twilek and Mon Cal's because of their heads and a version for the rest of the species, except for Trandos which get a special version because of their feet. The time and manpower to create 120 cloaks isn't available at this time. We want and will do this in the future, but it is just not possible right now.

Then quit teasing us and get cracking LOL

- Overall skill point requirements need to either be reduced or one tree collapsed.

Having to spend 24 skill points in force sensitive skills that do NOTHING for Jedi and having all skill boxes RAISED in skill cost is a very bad combo.

8,6,4,2 is simply too restrictive. We have jedi coming from a system where you can have all powers, to a system where you can not possibly have even the most basic powers and be viable.

That's just not "fun." This revamp is about what is fun, as much as what is good for the game as a whole.

We aren't looking for overpowered here, but we would like to be able to have viable templates and still have enough points to learn some of the necessities such as Meditate and Force run.

Please lower the skill requirements to 7,5,3,1 which will let Jedi master 2 trees and achieve 4444 in another. This is hardly overpowered, will still allow for great diversification between Jedi, and will discourage dabblers. Please do us this one favor, it is not asking too much.

I totally agree.

Absolutely the revamp is about fun.- It is not feeling that way, believe us when we say this.

We worked too hard to unlock to what is being reduced to a regular character Profession. We NEED the pre-Jedi Knight level Jedi to be worth what it took to even get it, to havethe Profesionreduced to regular levels is a slap in the face to us.

This is causing a great deal of resentment and has disillusioned many. Please do reconsider the skill point cost issue and/or the Defence Bonus distribution. The Xp costs alone, and the fact that we can be killed for just gaining the xp, is bad enough. To top that off, our dying will cause us to loose that xp and more. This is far too many penalties for what is power-wise, a regular Profession. Either give us the power, or get rid of the penalties. There needs to be a reason to give the negatives, and removing the positives negates the reason for them to be there.

The FS slot at ALL levels, especially the PVE portion needs to be the reward it was promised to be. No one had to grind 30+ Professions to get a TKM.

- It's also about adding depth and choice to the experience of being a Jedi. Adding additional skill points or reducing the skill costs just further homogenizes Jedi making them all have the same basic abilities. That is completely counter to one of the major goals of this rebalance.

Either way, placing the ability to compete against one another, or even survive, in to a few trees forces everyone to not choose anything other than a specific template( and players will discover one, so far Master Lightsaber seems to be the first requirement). Distributing Defences across the trees at least assures that Jedi will not be left in the cold when it comes to Defence and allows us to feel a little better about what we paid for in Xp and skill points.

The other option would be to lower skill point costs and spruce up the defence tree.

Joah Saett

Corbantis