Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 4-26-04)
my suggestion is to put npc pilots like han in cantinas that players can go to for instant no wait transport to connected starports and shuttles. it would cost more than the normal shuttle but it would be well worth the cost.
i never minded the shuttle times before... but running around to get a ticket to the corellian corvette has not been fun.
Thunderheart wrote:
The Smuggler revamp moved into its early discussion phases last week. Smuggler_Caylin, the dev working on the revamp and myself have all been in close contact. We've also been reading the In-Concept Smuggler thread and a lot of the big proposals. We're looking at a lot of enhancements to the existing tree to make spices more useful, to make slicing a bigger, more integrated challenging and making the smuggler combat skills more formidable. Its just a question of hoe much is technically possible. When a crafting profession is revamped, its a matter of making new craft items, maybe some new wearables and other things that are more localized.
Smugglers, on the other hand, have a different type of profession. The spice and the fighting are pretty easy to change, but the most anticipated items are difficult to address. Lets look at slicing for instance. Slicing gives bonuses which effect all related game objects inthe world. Thats more interface, more dynamics and a lot more low level coding. Its also very vulnerable to exploits and other tactics that make rapid development very difficult. What we want to do, is get a good system in place and grow it as the game continues to grow.
Another example is the act of "smuggling" itself. We would love to integrate smugglers into some sort of object delivery service to smuggler things, but its way open to grief and its also technically difficult. For instance, to have "smuggling", you need a choke point. At that check point is when some NPC would "scan" or investigate players. Any time you have a choke point, players gather in large groups and suffer wait and lag.Also at that choke point, you get some players who like to try and lag everyone out for some reason. So the obvious grief there is to find check points and lag out everyone in an area to try and beat the system some way, so instead of having something fun, it ends up being "not so fun".
We do want to add a kind of smuggling mini-game, but I dont have any details since its in progress. The developer, myself and Smuggler_Caylin are in close contact though. There will be many additional opportunities when SE comes, but I can't talk about any of that just yet.
Would something along the lines of during transport, intercepting people to put them on a Corvette (or some other ship) for inspection. If you take a group ... or an individual ... would that avoid the lag (like you do with the currect Corvette missions)...
I really don't know that much about the systems ... just an idea from a Smuggler that wants to Smuggler 
Why are stormtroopers on the list of mobs that we shouldn't be able to solo? This seems toseverly break continuity.
Anyone that's seen a star wars movie, read a sw comic book, or played any other sw game knows that anyone with a certain amount of skill can easily kill a storm trooper. With the exception of a few elite squads, the strength of stormtroopers did not lie in their skill, but their numbers. SW characters were never hesitant to engage a few stormtroopers, as they could be killed in a shot or two. The only time they were scared was when the st's traveled in large numbers.
In order to preserve continuity, galaxies should look to keep this in mind. Instead of perhaps making st'sharder to solo, allow them to travel in very large numbers when appropriate. I believe that their current level is extremely appropriate. A master of any combat tree can easily take out a squad of st's, just like in the movies. I hope that this is not going to change in the future. Perhaps lower the amount of faction points rewarded for killing an st, though.
I hope that this same system will be embraced with the space expansion. We should be able to easily take out a small group of regular tie fighters with some piloting skills. The reason TIEs don't have shields is that it makes them cheaper to manufacture so that the empire can pump that out in high numbers. Again, the Empire's strength lies in numbers- not skill.
can we have an Economy Forum like GCW it's cross server, cross profession.
I see there are plenty of technical/software people hear willing to lend advice - how about a few of us that have played with economics in RL.
NasEscobar wrote:
Luke says, "10,000? We can buy our own ship with that."
The economy has got to be better.Make krayt and genosian loot less rare. It will help the money. When weapons cost 3 mil, I mean, that is pretty sad. That is just one of the many things that would give it a star warsy feel.
- There needs to be a symbiotic relationship betweenCraftsman and Consumer beyond simple Credit Transaction, such as "farming" materials for Craftsmen that are too busy to do so themselves. This can be done by Scout Harvesting, but there needs to be more, such as NPCs dropping mined resources.
- There needs to be more emphasis on the Bazaar. Owning a shop is fun, to say the least, but the Bazaar offers a concentrated marketplace for both parties to congregate to. This makes shopping convenient for all involved - Merchants know where to sell there wares, and Consumers know where to buy them.
- There needs to be a way to cross-reference the price of the last ten transaction of a similar item a player wants to purchase. This lets the player see if he is being ripped off or getting a deal. A smart shopper will factor any bonuses the item has.
- There needs to be a limit to Inventory, and a limit to howmany itemsa player can sell. If a player can't hoard everything, and that player wants to clean his Inventory, then that player will most likely "undercut" the current sales trend to move his item faster - Income vs. Time.
- The new Inventory limits would be 30 Inventory,50 items per lot, and only10 items on the bazaar at a time. Merchants can sell 20 on the bazaar. Current player Vendor limits can stay the same, but must not rise if we are to save the economy. And there should be no "Backpacks" for storage, because item hoarding upsets economic balance.
Unfortunately, players will hate most of these facts, therefore most will not see the light of day. But this is what has to be done if we are to save the economy, for newbs and OG alike.
Wolfwood Cross, Imperial of Tempest
Chewebacca, Wookie of Corbantis
my suggestion is to put npc pilots like han in cantinas that players can go to for instant no wait transport to connected starports and shuttles. it would cost more than the normal shuttle but it would be well worth the cost.
i never minded the shuttle times before... but running around to get a ticket to the corellian corvette has not been fun.
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Barfalomue wrote:
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TH, your a godsent to us players, but the answer you just gave these guys, to me, totally misses the point. Im a casual player. Ive been working on getting Master Pistoleer since last Sept/Oct. I dont really care about new specialsor animations, I just want, as do i think alot of other people want, stuff to be fixed. Its great what the game has become since that all so failure day 1. Im sure everything broke will be fixed sooner or later, but I would rather them be fixed way before new stuff is added.
Thunderheart wrote:
MrRiflemaker wrote:
Hey TH: I am a pistoleer that is sad and here are my reasons........
This is no joke the pistoleer tree needs a revamp on the abilities which dont work properly, for example body shot 3 does less damage than body shot 2.... you catching on yet .....and what about pistol melee hit 1 is said todo better than pistol melee hit 2 .... ugggghhh these need to be fixed, but yet the devs refuse to see to this, and they want to add dual pistols without a fix for these things.
I mean i am happy we get dual pistols , but for the dual pistols I will give you some insight because the devs might screw it up.
Ok here goes, A couple ideas for wielding dual pistols:
1. Dual pistols need to be as follows if I wield dual pistols i should be able to cause not double the damage but mabey 3/4 higher damage than the usualand in wielding 2 pistols I will have Horrible Accuracy mabey with a ratio of1:4 tohit something.
2. If i am using dual pistols my primary one meaning the one in the right hand will be the same as it always was and do the same damage and fire the same rate and accuracy you had using it ,but the one in my left hand will fire, but the accuracy is still horrible and if i use an ability such as double tap it will have to use up more action doing so, but will cause twice the damage but my likely hood of hiting somethings is a ratio of mabey 1:2, or 2:5(you decide on ratio, whatever feels balanced).
3.If i am using dual pistols and use an ability such as double tap it will cost a lot on the action bar, but deal quite a lot of damage, but indoing so your hands get to hot and the pistols health itself will immensley decrease and break or come to a complete uselessness very quickley and when using dual pistols your accuracy is bad but not soooo bad just reduced a little bit.
Well I hope You read My ideas for dual wielding pistols..... and i hope it helps
One more thing please for the love of God can we have new animations, for example double tap should not look like every ability i use, such as stopping shot, mabey double tap can have a quick sound blast and a nice fast sparkly laser coming out.... not the usual laser , but nice and sparkley or more glamorised
Thunderheart you stay clean and good and I acknowledge everything you do ..... and I say keep on GOING!!!
INSIGHTS WRITTEN BY Mr.Riflemaker
Thanks Mr.Riflemaker! Thats a great idea.
Duel wield does have new animations, but there isn't much beyond that and most everyone is working on the stuff everyone knows about.
Shazeen wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
- Specials. For the most part, most specials will still be the same, but with better numbers in terms of the overall system. In the cases where certain specials dont seem right in some way (dont work as intended, balance breaking, unfun), the devs want to change them. Though this is a big task. Making new animations and adding them in can be time consuming and if they prove to be a big time drain, we'll probably add/change them after the CB gets published.
I dont understand how this is as big of a task as you claim. Whats so hard about fixing a special if its broken or ineffective? Take pistoleers for instance. 10 of our 12 specials either dont work, are redundant, or quite simply ineffective. The fixes for these however dont appear to be a time-consuming task. A few publishes ago, similar fixes were provided for the carbineer specials, so its been done before. Randonb wrote up an excellent document which provides a number of reasonable suggestions to fix each of our specials. I would hope that we would see some sort of action in regards to these issues soon.
The actual mechanics is fairly easy for the developers, but adding new specials need new animations. New animations is where things get time consuming.
The one thing that has been irritating me about SWG is player/NPC cities. NPC or established cities are obviously needed as some things are needed to fulfill the established SW universe. However, as MMORPGs generally strive for some form of realism, they really aren't realistic at all. I'll explain.
1. Whereas these cities represent important locations in the SWG universe, they also have the lowest player-home count: 0. Players cannot exist within the city, only 500-800m outside of it.
2. There really isn't much of a point to many central buildings. For instance, the theaters? Rarely get used. As well, guild houses serve only for trainers. Instead, people congregate outside the Starport and shout, and shout, and shout.
So, I suggest the following modifications for integration of player realism into the existing, static cities:
1. Create apartment complexes. These can be low 'rent' (maintenence) rooms within city structures wherein players can place furniture and blah, blah blah. I'd also suggest Player-controlled shops inside the city, shops that look like real shops, but that doesn't seem viable at this time. Perhaps 'mini-mall' buildings where they can rent storefronts to place a vendor and decorations.
2. Add in bonuses for remaining within certain structures. Such as, being within your guildhall, or at least outside it offers bonuses to crafting, or possibly a 5% decrease in required skill points to be trained by PCs (training from NPCs doesn't grant this bonus). Or, simply not allow crafting profession to sell except within such possible areas of commerce.
3. The Bazaar is a good idea, but it takes away the real feel of commerce. Remove it for favor of specific terminals at key locations (at corresponding buildings) that cater to specific types of items.
4. Theaters, that is a tough one. The entertainment profs are such a great idea, they need development to be more beneficial and rewarding. Sitting in a cantina 8 hours a day can get boring. As such, organise talent-searches, possibly through NPC quests to perform in theatrical acts. Credit rewards and or item rewards (if there is a competition-style event in place. Can you say, Nabooian Idol?). Player attendence can be promoted simply for RPers, as well as an extended mind-buff for attending the entire concert/event.
These are just rough ideas, tossed out by some random, unemployed 22 year old with far too much time on his hands.
MoP