Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (7-5-04)
2) change the droid deeds, so when you ready one for the first time, an alpha-numeric name is generated just like it is for the helper droids for baisc profession quests.
3) Road for player cities.
4) there are loads of discution about batteries and decay for droids on the DE forum. We would like some feedback from you.
The main problem we have is that SWG is no real Star Wars.
Where do we find the Civil War in the Game? Where is the fight between imps and rebs. Where is the fear of both sides? There is nothing in the moment.
I only see players hunting, crafting, trading like there is no fear for them. That they can do everything without any fear of a penalty.
We need a better system to become players an active part of the GCW.
There must be better rewards and advantages for the faction players that they really make an effort to get their faction ahead. And disadvantage for the faction thats is behind.
Every faction player has to be sensible of the dangerousness
as a faction member in the GCW but also of the advantages.
Everyone who thinks that the risk is to high has to stay neutral.
How to make the GCW atractive and more interactive for players.
1. Every planet should be seperated in zone. Mainly the cities. Every faction can conquer these zone and hold them for their faction for advantages.
2. The advantages has to be great. For example the new great faction stuff can only be crafted in the zone held by his faction. For all other crafting it gives advantages for the experimentation or something like this.
3. In a zone hold by a faction will only be faction things for these faction (terminals) and not for the other. The other faction only can use faction things in it if the have reconquered this zone.
4. Faction Zones !!important!!
There should be over all planets zone. Some with research facilitys. These facilitys explore new things (armor/weapons ...) for the faction which holds the zone. More zones a faction holds faster they will get new items. Also the zones without at research facility supports the research with money. The ammount of the research facilitys should not be to high so there will be a hard fight for them.
So there will be a run between both faction to recieve new items and this will cause that both faction fight hard for the zones.
But there are also substantial faction zone for both factions. With typical faction buildings and one substantial research facility for each faction.
5. The explored faction items can only be wearn by faction members and will only be traded with them. This will support that more player choose one of the faction to join.
6. There must be a penalty for the larger faction. So it must be eassier and more interessting to join the smaller faction. (only people not strong) This must be that there are two equal groups to have a fair fight for the zones that none of the factions can get an large advantage so that the other will be inferior all the time. There perhaps work special tax and something like this
7. Every faction player should support his faction with his prof. So should a architect only can build the faction houses for his faction. A tailor can only make special cloths for his faction and the armor and weaponsmith also.
The whole faction items must be more based on the player.
8. rank system. There must be a better rank system with badges the really appears in the game and which are shown to the other faction members. Some really good faction items should only be craftable with the right rank. The more higher the rank is so much better are the advantages for him. Also a higher rank brings a large advantages for fighting groups in a fight. The stats and attributs would be higher but as fast as the leader (highest rank) dies the moral of the troop goes down and with it the attributes and stats. more than normal. A kill of a high ranked member of the opposing faction will bring more faction points than a kill of a lower ranked member.
9. Faction points.
Faction points should be used universal. Not only to buy items like now. Faction points should be can used for new things like carfting. A faction member can use his faction points to make his faction items (only them because there should be no disadvantage for neutral crafters) better than normal. So he can transform factions points to experiementation points. But only for a good amount (penalty possibility s.6) for the transformation and a maximum amount use of transformed experimentation points.Also faction points should be easiely traded by faction members so that the fighter can collect them and the crafter can use them.
The count of faction points used to get new things should be high so that faction members have to work hard for it and interact in the civil war.
The most faction points should give group missions with a important coodination of different proffessions.
10. Faction proffession
There should be new faction proffession like a spy who can get information of the other faction like change time of troops.Also there could be new proffession for using faction vehicle. This proffessions should only be skilled with faction points but dont need so much faction points like special faction attributs.
THere will still be faction terminals with mission but the large amount of faction points will be given by player based missions. There will be no fixed mission in any terminal. PLayer will have to get together by themselves. This mission are like the Conquer of zones where every faction member of the winning faction will get extra big amount of faction points.
11. Uniforms
Faction player have to wear the some kind of faction unit to get access to faction facilitys. When a crafter want a new shematic for a faction item. He has to go to a researche facility to learn it permarently. But he only gets access to it with his faction uniform and not in casual wear.
12. Faction votes
Faction player should be able to influence the zones hold by their faction. So the players can vote for the advantage which should be in a zone. Every advantage for a zone should also have a disadvantage. So the first time of the election there will no advantage and that will cause a disadvantage for the faction. So it can be good to conquer a zone of the other faction (where this one is stronge) although loosing the zone next moment.
13. Faction attributes
Every prof has some special faction attributes to its normal. (like a skillbox) THere are four for every proffession. (not faction proffessions) After mastering the profession the faction member can uses his faction points to activate one (only one) of these four special faction attributes box. Every box incluedes a small number of advantages but everyone has other advantages for the proffession. The ammount of faction points needed for the activation of these boxes must be high so that it is not possible to change the boxes through fast. Faction proffession dont have these special faction attributes.
14. Zone Conquering
A zone has to be conquered to change the faction. For that the attaquers have to get to a point and activate a sequence which is very long so that the defenders still have the chance to get the point back and activate it for them.
When the attaquers activate the point for them every faction member of the defending faction will get overt.
The activation of the the points can only be made by OVERT faction members.
15. OVERT/Covert
This is the state the faction member is. In action or private. Faction member can only become Overt in a faction uniform. Now they are also with their outward appearance identifiable as a faction member and attackable for the other faction. Covert means their are private and can not be identified at a faction member at all. But now they can use their faction abillities, items, proffessions or skills.
A covert faction crafter is unable to craft faction items or transform his faction points.
The new third faction: CRIME
The should be a new faction "The Crime Faction". The Imperuim as the Rebel has to involved with them.
For example some faction items need components which only can be provided by members of the Crime Faction. The Smuggler will become a faction proffession of the Crime faction. The faction members can get the same advantages faction attributs, items like the old factions.
But The Crime faction only have their strict faction zone which not be can conquered. But they also can not conquer any zones.
The Crime Faction more works in the underground.
So only the Crime Faction can sabotage the research facilitys and somethin so that it is a huge factor in the Civil War. They can also wear the faction armor of both of them but they can be occured of scan from npcs and faction members. The Faction items of each faction can only be used from overt crime faction. So they are easily to be occured by scan. That the life is not too easy there has to be a faction item a permanent scanner. Which scans the environment as long as the his battery works. (the battery is not rechargeable and the scanner high not cheap. morderate price) Important facilitys won't be easy to conquer as it seems. There have to be a lot of scanners or something like this and also there is a good team necessary. The crime also gets Faction points by killing other faction member of imp or reb and the also give them faction points for killing. The most faction points give group mission like sabotage missions.
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PLAYER based Mission
For some pleayer especially rollplayer it is important to create their own mission. So when we not allowed to place our own npc then we need items like disks we can use for it.
We dont want only to use an item with a name. A disk for example should have a special content which can make by a artisan. So we would be able to make our own mission story with these items. For example a disk hunt for important informations. And these informations are really in the disk.
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BUFFS
In my opinion the doctor buffs are to high. We need to force the group playing and so the buffs must be lower that it is important to build groups to fight hard enemys which can be soloed now. Also the entertainer buffs take to long. In compare with the doc buffs it is unfair for entaertainer that they take 10 min and they dont get much money for them.
We need something like the buffspacks for doctors also for entertainer.
- Once in the City Hall thier is a NPC with a Data pad that is next to a Terminal thats linked the Galactic Data Base (Server Data of names probably)
- You pay that NPC around 10,000 Credits to have your name changed.
- He then pops up a Box in your character window were you can then type in your New Name.
- Once youve typed it and enterd it, it will then take around 24 hrs for your charcter name to change in game or if it takes any hrs at all. (might even have to log out of game to make the name change dont know how they can do it quite)
Thier are alot of people in the community that want this option, and i pesronaly thiers also another reason to have this implemented, and that the fact is that people shouldnt have to delete thier character that they have worked on for 1 year or half a year, jstu because they want a diffrant name, because, in thier eyes and my eyes thats jsut redicules, you can change your name in Real Life so why not allow it in the game. I seriusly recommend you take this into consideration please.
Ive tried to explain this subject as clearly as posible, and I cna only hope it might get a good response from you Devs.
Oh also another request is could you please look into making a few of the deungouns esear such as the Corvette and Geonosian and the BH Deungon, thier far to hard atm, and its puting people off, I am never going to go into those duengons bnecause im one of the people that dosnt want to have to get Composit armor at around a half a million credit cost jsut to go into them, it shoudl be a duengon were every one can go into more or less, also some of the loot should be made more widely available i.e. make the AV-21 Landspeeder Schematic and Power Cell craftable by Master Artisans, so make them widely available vehicals, thier just far to expensive to buy, they go into the millions and geting them is mearly imposible, or for me any way, be nice for the Master Artisan also to have a new vehicalthat he can build etc, its jstu such a shame for the casual player as well.
Message Edited by Fuegantus on 06-29-2004 06:55 AM
.... rEdRuM... ReDrUm... rEdRuM...
Thunderheart wrote:
Last Week's Discussion Thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=53765
This thread is so community members can share their ideas about what they would like to see in the game .Game development issues that are being planned will have their own Concept “focus threads” listed in the In-Concept forum.
Dev Cycle Archive.
READ THE BH BOARDS!!!!!
What I see as the problem:
Much focus lies on the current and obvious problems of SWG and the coming JTL expansion. The number one issue being the combat balance and the revamp of the Jedi and GCW systems.
The combat balance and GCW updates are when you look at them merely fixes on a broke system and the Jedi changes only basically a revision.
The JTL expansion could also turn out to be nothing more then another combat engine unless serious effort is placed on a good space based quest/adventure system.
And this is what SWG is truly missing. Large amounts of readily accessible quests/adventures for player teams to undertake.
But I only partly agree with this. Yes, pvp is an integral part of SWG and should remain so, but if it is eventually the only activity vailable in its current form (level up, get the uber equipment and kill other players ad infinitum), then the game is in serious trouble.
In my opinion that is sadly hardly enough and the quest/mission/POI system we now have is a poor shade of what could have been a good and involving adventure system.
The Corvette and DWB are in my opinion travesties of adventure sites ( will use 'site' instead of 'dungeon' for the rest of this post), withe the Geo Lab and Warren coming closest to being decent cites.
Even with a good adventure system in JTL, the core part of the game and the worlds that eventually follow later in JTL space will be void of proper adventure.
Mission terminals with random missions hold exactly the same problems as the POI system. It's just rinse and repeat for xp and cash.
That is not my intent. I still think this is a game with great potential and all the past and coming changes are great pieces of work going in the right direction.
Congratulations to the devs on their work so far.
Basically having a good set of game mechanics and systems to play around with but little or nothing to do with them : (
This is what I think should be done:
When the combat balance is in place and Jedi and GCW revisions are done, the main game should be treated to an extensive range of publishes/updates along the theme “Worlds Rebuilt” .
This development should aim for reworking the entire POI/mission/quest/site system and seek to create a huge, immersive, rewarding and accessible adventure system as possibly can be done.
Rework the entire badge system. Badges should only be granted for completed quests. Finding and experiencing special locations should be a part of the quest experience and immersion.
These badges should also serve as player markers for the quest/adventure system. I.e. the badge is needed to unlock a new quest or if game development updates or changes a quest or an entire quest thread/branch, players with the old badge get a automated mail stating that the quest has changed and new options are available (offshoot quests) and/or the quest can be redone in its newest version for an up to date badge.
Encourages exploring new content and helping other players!
These trees could in addition to having npc only pve challenges also have opposing goals at the same adventure site and serve as great directed/goal oriented GCW content. For example a quest in the IMP tree could require that a NPC receive escort and protection between certain points at set times. The opposing reb quest could be killing this same NPC in transit. Success in such a mission would mean significant bonuses in faction points and penalties in the same and redoing the quest if you fail.
If no opposing player has the opposing quest within the same time frame you are left with the NPC opposition to handle and can still complete the quest.
Another similar opposed quest for an adventure site could be seize and hold a site for a set duration. If you capture the site and hold it for the time the quest specifies you complete the quest and if you fail to seize or hold the site within the set time you fail the quest and it is reset.
Hundreds of opposed quests could be created with new and varied objectives.
Spreading out opposed quests at all levels of the tree would also allow Imp and Reb players to start their pvp experience at an early level and bring tougher challenges as they get further up the tree, acquire more skills and encounter tougher NPC and player opposition. This would make directed pvp more available and not just an elder sport that all young or mid level players fear or shun.
This would also allow a team to all activate the same quest, and change leader after quest completion in order to rapidly access and play the same site over and over for instant action or have a cooperating team that follows each other through a branch/thread of quests.
Make as many as the sites, parts of sites, enemy spawns and/or loot containers instanced as possible.
This eliminates camping problems and gives instant action enjoyment.
Instancing should be reflexive. This means that if a player has the quest active as team leader, the team has as a whole has access to the instanced content and will enter their own personal game world at the site or parts of it, or the only ones able to trigger special spawns or pick up special loot. If the team leader does not have the appropriate quest, then any adventure site encountered remains uninstanced and the entire site will be shared by other non quest groups/players and only with the random spawns and loot available. If the team leader is killed, disbands the group or leaves an instanced site, a site specific time limit for team leader return/member return to group should be activated. Teams without the initiating quest site leader or members outside the group should be barred from progressing past specific key points and be kicked out of the instanced version if this time limit is broken.
Completion of certain tasks and recovering certain loot should give the active quest holder invisible electronic markers (temporary incomplete badges) so that the game knows what has been completed/gained by the player. This allows working on quests over time and returning to the point where you stopped last and prevents exploiting by forcing multiple spawns to gain the same loot over and over. This also allows returning to a favourite site as an uninstanced version if you feel like hunting certain random loot or replaying favourite battles/encounters.
Quest holder loot system.
All quest specific items or rewards that are not directly granted to the active quest holder should be marked by a yellow box or similar marker in inventory when they are picked up/looted by team members. Marked quest specific objects of this type can only be carried by other team members but not possible to equip or use. They can only be traded to the quest holder or other members in the same team. If they are traded to the quest holder the marker and limitations disappears and he is free to distribute them as he sees fit. If the carrier of such an item leaves the group/LD’s or the group disbands the item should be auto transferred to the initial quest holder. This prevents loot griefing and the quest becoming bugged/unpassable due to lost items.
Solo players at the site without the quest active should not have access to quest specific rewards, loot and objects. Only the random or set uninstanced content.
This would further increase player enjoyment of quests if rewards from adventuring pay better then the rather boring and unimmersive grind of terminal runs.
As it stands now, sites such as the POIs hold little interest
Make radar severely restricted and linked to LOS when indoors and when encountering terrain obstacles and buildings. If you have no line of sight, then it does not show up on your radar and can’t be targeted.
Random spawning all creatures types based on player level outside sites and cities should also be dropped. Set certain creature types to specific terrain and regions. The farther away you get from civilized areas the tougher they should become. This makes life easier for new players near cities and encourages exploration and not just having terrain act as a set piece.
Players will be frustrated at loosing a favourite location but the new content benefits everybody in the long run. In my opinion 50% of a planet should be available for player housing and the remaining 50% set aside for current or future adventure sites. If more space is needed the planetary map should be expanded. Harvesters of any kind should have expanded placing rights beyond player housing and factories, but should also be removable in the same fashion by the development team.
Adventure sites should also have a surrounding 1500m blockout zone for player housing and cities. We now have entire cities camping certain sites and this renders them near unusable for opposing faction players wishing to enjoy the site.
A mixed team that damages all the stat pools would thereby cause problems for a med char as all the pools are dropping but he/she can only heal one of them at regular intervals.
Stim B’s should also require more med skill then just novice med. This would seriously reduce healing potential without having made a larger commitment in skill points.
Docs would still have the stronger state cures, single stims and buffs, and CMs would have a heal at range/area, heal several pools and their poison/disease ability.
Most players now always go buffed and you are totally dependent on being buffed. Roughly one third or less are your original stats and two thirds or more come from buffs.
The strength of buffs should at master levels not be more then one third of the stats of an average master character. This would make players more independent and keep buffs as a very important factor. This would also help GCW issues as hordes of unprepared defenders no longer get wiped as easily by small numbers of prepared attackers. Buffed new chars will also no longer be able to potentially annihilate unbuffed masters. Buffs will become a healthy bonus and advantage and not an absolute prerequisite for higher level chars on their adventures.
Armour with set values on the other hand require that weapon armour piercing ability can counter this so that some damage is always done. AP should be changed to be a % of the weapons damage potential. An AP 30% 100-300 weapon would do at least 30-90 dmg without a special. A compo chest plate with set reduction of energy 500 points would against the same weapon with a x3 dmg special result in the following damage:
- 250 base damage result x3 special skill is 750 adjusted initial dmg.
- AP 30% means that 225 dmg penetrates unadjusted.
- This leaves 525 (750 – 225) dmg that the armour drops by 500 to 25 dmg.
- Total damage inflicted ends at 225 AP + 25 adjusted for 250 dmg total.
- Shields could affect the total 750 initial damage and food could affect the total 250 end damage resulting in further damage drop and weapon AP only affects the damage that actually hits the armour.
This would force players to make more tactical decisions on what equipment they use and a permanent HAM gain for skill points would stop the practice of equipping new chars with uber equipment. Rifles could for example be made heavy in equip cost and pistols low in cost, removing the need for a special damage bonus against riflemen in melee. Their heavy weapons restrict them from using the stronger armour. This would also ensure a varied equipment market since making one uber type product will not cater to new chars and masters with special needs.
In example:
- Full set of armour at total 300 secondary stat cost and 30 special cost
- Rifle at 75 secondary stat cost and 5 special cost
- Shield gen at 75 stat cost and 5 special cost
- Char with secondary stat of 400 + 800 in buffs for a total of 1200
- Total equip cost is 450.
- Stats without buffs is 400. One item cannot be equipped. Here we drop the shield.
- Rifle plus armour is a total stat cost of 375, which results a new total of 25 (400 – 375).
- Buffs are added last and the new total is 825 and the unadjusted cost for each special used is 35 HAM.
The system for combat animations should also be changed. These animations could still be quite lengthy but the player should be able to stop it playing by moving or executing another special. The player should only be ‘locked in action’ for the duration of the special and be able to break from any animation going beyond the time the special uses.
Since the combat balance is already being done, relative time should also be slowed down in combat. This would make it easier to balance speed caps for master professions and powerful enemies. Combat between low level chars and enemies would play much slower and high level combat could be made more tactical since moves would not be spammed at speed cap but could be in response to what your opponents actually do.
Slowing down relative combat time would also leave room for and allow further advancement and adding of special content later.
This combined with substantially increasing the xp needed for all skills would mean that players will spend more time on char development and not just fast grind a profession in a weak.
2-3 tiers with new abilities would mean that the players don’t get cheated and a more even distribution of profession bonuses makes balancing easier between professions.
The new tiers would be the room needed for the new abilities players have been asking for. (In example fencer double wielding)
Players now have their total xp in their skills. With a change like this they would after implementation get skills as allowed by their current xp and loose a number of their skills. But they now will have the ability to take their chars to a higher level by regaining their previous skills at higher cost and finally getting the new tiers!
Character development would become more rewarding, time consuming and a goal in it self. Not just fiddling with templates and getting your masters in a month.
Quests from the suggested neutral tree could be required in order to gain many skills. This would give both combat and non-combat professions additional incentive to experience adventure through profession specific quest branches. Imp or reb branch quests could give faction dependent profession bonuses.
Combat professions should also be skill tier balanced. A unarmed 4 and 2-2-2-2 TKA should be balanced with a polearm 4 and 2-2-2-2 Pikeman. Now the professions are mostly balanced at master level. Expanding the professions, evenly distributing abilities and increasing skill xp cost would make this easier.
Here are my suggestions for the GCW:
A large number of adventure sites designed for these quests with varied themes and goals would make great battlefields for the players.
Continually expanding quest trees would also direct the most powerful of the opposing faction players against each other with new goals and purposes.
These sites should be designed in such a manner that they make use of the special abilities of the different professions and thereby giving purpose to all players in the GCW beyond just being a good set of abilities to have in a balanced combat team.
The TEF system should also be removed and PvP restricted to overt players. Being killed and cloned should inflict loss of overt status and a time restriction on when you can chose or be forced into overt status again. This would take players out of the battle for a set duration (15 mins or so) and make battles actually winnable and not a constant clone war. Engaging in combat or committing hostile action against opposed faction NPC’s should also require declaring overt status. Scanners and NPC searches should still be able to overt players and Jedi and smugglers should have abilities that enable them to conceal team members’ overt status from NPCs, and thereby making it possible for overt players to travel around unmolested. Overt players should always be able to see other players as overt, but such a Jedi/Smuggler ability should hide overt players from covert players.
The number of defences should also be increased for the bases and the turrets made tougher to kill. A base could for instance have a set number of automated turrets and armoured wall cannons manned by NPCs. These wall cannons would be mountable by players if they choose to and the armour of the cannon giving additional protection to the player/NPC gunner. The automated turrets would be the strongest defences and possible to destroy and replace as before. Wall canons should be near indestructible and the gunner being the damageable weak point. As long as there are NPCs and players to man them, then they keep firing. A base should also hold a large range of medical NPCs that heal defenders effectively. This would allow a small number of defenders to fight a large attacking force. This combined with an expanded vulnerability period would make the bases a tougher challenge for attackers but also more rewarding to attack since if they beat the defenders they will be able to destroy the base.
Well that was my two bits on the game that I love and have high hopes for.
Thx to those that read the entire post and give comments.
This was a very welcome first step, but I would like to see a better implementation. The client (or server depending on how it is implemented) knows a macro is being executed. Why can't that knowledge be used to just plain block /shout and /yell on the server? I'd argue that anyone using /shout or /yell (from a macro no less) is a menace and should be using an advertising droid anyway.
Personally, I'd even include /say, /emote, and others but I think /shout and /yell would be a giant leap forward. /say and the closer range communication methods aren't as invasive as well. Perhaps an option on the client to allow filtering of this would be good while just plan disallowing /shout and /yell from macros altogether.
Ok, I'm sort of kidding (it would be neat though, huh?) but I'd like to see more attention paid to some old issues. After reporting them 50 times, players get the hint and stop reporting the same bug over and over but the frustration continues to simmer. The developers tend to work in triage mode and scramble on greasing the squeaky wheel, but lots of these old bugs end up slipping through the cracks as a result.
I think it would be useful to get a focus thread asking for everyone's top 5 long time pet peeves (if you want, tell them one sentence or less per bullet or even a maximum number of words) and use that list to select 1-2 from for each publish to address.
As an example, I'm thinking about things like:
- Can't save "No title" as a profession title (always reverts to the last title set upon relogin)
- Can't put furniture on balconies/roofs
- Can't rename a backpack not in your inventory but is in a structure you have admin in (you have to pick it up, rename it, then redrop it)
I'm sure I could think of more, but that's the idea. It would be great if we could whittle away at these things *and* publicize it so people see that their voice is heard over time. Many people "give up" giving feedback because they feel their input isn't important. Prove them wrong!