Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Roundtable Discussion (Week Ending 4-12-04)
- Faction troops do not attack TEF'd enemy players
- Turrets are still peaced
- AT ST's still cannot be healed
- HQ guards wander away from HQ's almost "abandoning" it
- Please consult GCW forums for more info!
Oh! Oh! Since the GCW revamp is again delayed, will there be any changes/fixes soon? As you may know it's all about who's mind pool goes down first. Please don't be vague....
One suggestion I may strongly recommend is a simple one, once a week or second week you should look for something Star Wars that is not in the game... even as little as a sound or even as great as seeing freighter ships taking off/landing. May not notice these changes/additions in the short term but over the long it would be!
OnlyMaestro wrote:
wickedHangover wrote:
Comandos have81 skill pts to spend after master putting them in an amazing position to master pistol, tka, fencer or better yet, rifleman. If you're going comando, your template should be all about fighting, therefore use your master in marksman to keep going or use your col in brawler to master hand to hand combat.
BH has one goal, to take down one target at a time. I was BH 3/4/4/4 and no, it was not as powerful as I expected. BUT, with a buff and the right situation, I could take anything down I wanted. This is what I expected out of it. If the LLC hit a little more often I would have been happier. But by spending the rest of my points in Carbine I found that I was one heck of a one on one killer in PvP no matter who I was shooting at.
My point is people spend SP on Commando to BE a Commando. Not to dabble.
And Eclipse BH have found the best template...Master Rifleman, and Investigation IV. They kill Jedi's much easier than any MBH ever can. In the days of Eclipse Armor getting up to 70% base, and 80-85% specialty...anything not mind damaging stun based will not work in PvP. (except poisons/disease)
If nobody dabbled in this game, then a comando would be pretty decent, a BH would be pretty decent. I do agree that rifle is more powerful though and as far as people creating "Jedi Killer" templates that are better than BH on its own is pretty dumb. I think the balance comes into, if it ever actually happened, for light sabers to do something other than kinetic damage and for master BH to qualify for armor that can deflect that particular damage. Then you bring it back to BH killing jedi and not really anyone else.
But to go back to dabbling, its one of the coolest things in this game, it has a tendancy to create players that are far more powerful than they should be, stacked with attacks that work too well. I mean, for what its worth, going master rifle/master CM is the current god template. How do you make that balanced?
I think the comando nerf to fire DOT was, in some ways, needed. But I'm not in favor or nerfing anything that is against PvE.
My problem with PvP in this game is the 2 shots your dead functionality. You cannot go into PvP unbuffed, well fed and cranked out on spice. To me there are two ways to handle this:
1. Make it so that buffs do not count in PvP. Limit the amount of damage done to 10% of the hit you get in PvE. My point here is to lengthen battles. Without buffs, what's the longest PvP battle you've been in 3 maybe 5 seconds cause someone healed themselves once? A battle between 2 players should last 5 minutes or more. It should be just as hard to take down another player as it is to take down a 56k HAM nightsister. Therefore the battle should take some time.
2. Make buffs counter defence/accuracy/etc. all your mods. I mean if you run into a guy in an alley pointing a gun at you and he's wired on cocain, speed and maybe some morphine, he may shoot at you, but will probably have a tough time actually hitting you. You shooting back at him will definitely have less of an effect on him, in that its going to take a lot more shots to take him down cause he's wired.
PvP is dead in the water for me. I'm no longer interested in it and if you look at the trend of the newest massive multiplayer games, PvP is either an afterthought (EQ2) or non existent (CoH). Multiplayer should be fought against evil in the form of groups. Itsa solid foundation. Throw PvP out of the game and people will stop crying nerf and instead we will team up with each other to take things down.
Take away all PvP in this game, and it will be better. For the diehards that want PvP, make 1 planet in the game all PvP. Get rid of the useles battlegrounds on each planet and put more instance dungeons for group play. Stop the nerfs for combat balance and reinstate some of the older combat systems from last fall.
I think this games needs to go backwards before it goes forward, start with the basics and if the fact of the matter is that only 2% of the population participate in PvP, maybe 5% on some servers. So if you take out worrying about all that and gear the game towards PvE and group play, you will find that rifleman and CM are fine and that the rest are underpowered. But to balance a game for PvP and PvE where PvP are people fighting each other with HAM bars the same size as Bloated Gubbers, it can't happen unless you drastically change the way we hit one another.
If we all walked around with 10K of HAM then maybe PvP and the current combat system would be fine. It would reduce the usefulness of Buffs unless their powers were increased proportionally, but it would balance the game to an extent.
I don't think the Dev's had the right circumstances for beta testing PvP. I don't think they have the right circumstances now and must look outside SWG to solve combat rebalancing issues.
PvP is dying, almost dead, I don't think anything will revive it. The biggest stab to the chest was Decay. PvP wasn't that bad prior to Decay, but now that its gone, I've been apart from PvP for so long that I'm not going to bother going back, for a few reasons starting with group TEF. I hate thinking I can fight one on one and then all of the sudden I dies in two shots from 15 bystanders that grouped up. Double/Triple sliced weapons, armor and double/triple stacked buffs. I thought my 1800 pt buff was good, but when you are going against a TKM with ham bars hitting 6k+ its stupid. Finally, weapons in general ruin it, fencers with stun batons doing over 600 damage to my 2200 ham bar and inflicting it with a spin attack that executes 3 times for every one swing of my hammer, which does nothing to them anyway, is just dumb.
My point to all this is simple, i think the Dev team needs to address issues other than combat. It's a waste of time to bother with it as a player and is a waste of time for them to bother with it as programmers.
I'm afraid WickedHangover I disagree with the summerisation of your post. PvP is a vital element in SWG, we haven't yet been given a reasonable system to particiapate in a fun and tactical manner it's true, but this game is reliant in PvP in my opinion. Asking the Devs to cease valuable time on the issue is the wrong way to resolve the problem. Removing PvP or segregating it to a lone planet is also a bad move - it makesSWG's GCWa farce.
However, you're reasoning against elements of PvP are entirely reasonable. Balances between classes are out of sync and surprise groups are a dissapointing element. We need to push for interface ammendments that allow us to see the overall strength of a PvP enemy either single players or groups. Nothing detailed to spoil surprise tactical manouvers, buta general guide to allow us to make an informed decision as to whether we dive head long into battle or not.
Saying that though, PvP would seem to be aimed for groupskirmishes rather than one-on-one/many conflicts. This is probably a good thing. Yes, continue the development cycle of Battlefields - they promise a whole lot of fun - but also devote some time to evaluating the issues addressed in small scale combat and find reasonable solutions. Give priority to systems to enable players to organise out of battlefield wars is also a majorissue I feel needs addressing.
Overall, don't shy away from the difficulties PvP faces the Devs, tackle them head-on. Make sweeping changes to the game if necessary, a major reason many of us picked this game off the shop shelves is PvP!
OHMSS225 wrote:
TH, I understand that it's intended for stomachs not to empty on death. We would all like to understand the reasoning behind this, as we're having a little trouble understanding the logic.
Please don't ignore this. We would all love an explanation for this and we'll ask as many times as we have to.
I posted the reason in last week's thread. The reason for not clearing the stomach on clone is that not all foods are buffs. Several of them are instant effects (heals, etc.) If you allow the stomach to clear on clone then players can duel and use the no-PvP death penalty to clear their stomach and get a free set of instant food uses.
Im trying to see if we can reverse this decision.
aazatgrabya wrote:
I'm afraid WickedHangover I disagree with the summerisation of your post. PvP is a vital element in SWG, we haven't yet been given a reasonable system to particiapate in a fun and tactical manner it's true, but this game is reliant in PvP in my opinion. Asking the Devs to cease valuable time on the issue is the wrong way to resolve the problem. Removing PvP or segregating it to a lone planet is also a bad move - it makesSWG's GCWa farce.
However, you're reasoning against elements of PvP are entirely reasonable. Balances between classes are out of sync and surprise groups are a dissapointing element. We need to push for interface ammendments that allow us to see the overall strength of a PvP enemy either single players or groups. Nothing detailed to spoil surprise tactical manouvers, buta general guide to allow us to make an informed decision as to whether we dive head long into battle or not.
Saying that though, PvP would seem to be aimed for groupskirmishes rather than one-on-one/many conflicts. This is probably a good thing. Yes, continue the development cycle of Battlefields - they promise a whole lot of fun - but also devote some time to evaluating the issues addressed in small scale combat and find reasonable solutions. Give priority to systems to enable players to organise out of battlefield wars is also a majorissue I feel needs addressing.
Overall, don't shy away from the difficulties PvP faces the Devs, tackle them head-on. Make sweeping changes to the game if necessary, a major reason many of us picked this game off the shop shelves is PvP!
Just so you know, we are on the same page together. I had a lot of fun defending anchorhead back in october. Waves of imperial players coming up the hill and waves of rebels defending the city. Doctors and combat meds helping us from the back and a cantina full of entertainers healing our minds.
I also had a lot of fun on the PvE battlefields with friends.
But I think we are overlooking some major things here. The restructuring of balances and game metricsthat would need to occur to make PvE and PvP work within the current confines of this game are so enormous that it makes better sense to have a whole new version SWG2 than to make the current program work the way it should.
I think we will see a combat rebalance in the fall. At which time this game may finally be out of beta testing. I'm not looking to leave because of PvP problems. If I left its because of kill stealers and ninja looters. But I like my toon and I spend my time playing solo fighting creatures and NPC's. I look forward to the day that I can go back to Anchorhead and help in a fight to defend it. But before I do, the Dev's must stop the stupidity in stacked buffs and stacked weapon/armor slices. It would seem like such a simple temporary fix to tell the program that at no point in time can any single stat on a player exceed 3000. This allows for full doc buffs and entertainer buffs. If you take a pixie, you wasted it cause it will only increase your HAM bar to the 3000 limit.
This still means that to PvP you need to be buffed, so then you need fortified "safe" zones.A place that an overt rebel can go and be guarded by extremely high HAM NPC's so they can relax, get a buff and then take a shuttle off to battle or something.
Maybe this is what's coming. I think the Dev's need to throw us a bone though and let us have some idea of what the GCW has in store other than saying "IT WILL BE GREEEEEEEAAAAAAT!!!!". I guess right now it is greeaaaat because I need a box of frosted flakes and a dozen cups of coffee to stay awake through the boredom of PvP because you can only clone so many times before it gets old, tiresome and stagnant.
I personally think the Dev team has done an exceptional job on this game. The 2 things that really ruined the game was the boring path to jedi (to be fixed, thank you devs)and a grind system of professions in a game that we were told would not have any "BORING AND REPETATIVE GRINDING". PvP ruined itself, not the game for me. If it gets fixed, I look forward to having a reason to be a rebel. What's even stupider is all the time I put into getting my rebel rank and nobody can see it, not even me when I open my character sheet. I have no idea what rank I am in the rebellion army. HOW STUPID IS THAT? Let me display my rank instead of my job title.
And, for what it's worth, my cookies don't last worth a dang either after I"m logged in.
TH: Just an observation or suggestion.
A couple weeks ago there was a question of why the Tusken Rifle and the new Lithimum Rifle was changed from Kinetic to Energy. I am not sure which dev responded (cant find the post atm), but the reason given was that melee classes needed a nitch. It was stated that melee classes should be the only class to deal kinetic dmg unless they were given more dmg types.
I recently started my 28th profession (smuggler) and noticed something about a certain pistol, the Striker Pistol. I ran across one of these last night on a vendor and flipped. It deals Kinetic Dmg. My question is this: If the Tusken and Lithimum rifles were changed due to melee classes needing a 'nitch', why is this pistol still in the game? Not a rant, just an observation and question.
Ok, so lets see where we are....
- NPC's are all using TKM skills now.... NightSisters must have studied with Jackie Chan before Publish 7.
- Bounty Hunters - Specials HAM cost too high, 217 skill points to get beat up, Investigation still broken, mass bugs.... Check their forums you'll see what I mean.
- Jedi's - Equal to Bounty Hunters in problems from what I hear. Visibility an issue, AFK Rooftop Leveling (Not the AFK/Macroing as an issue it's the fact that noone can get to them up there except CM's... leading into the next point...)
- Combat Medics - Thanks for taking the heat off us TKM's. This class is so being lined up for a stealth NERF. God I hope you Dev's have learned that NERF's never solve anything. For God's Sake please balance out the other Prof's. CM's don't need a NERF, Rifleman don't need a NERF, TK's.... you get my point... FIX the broken classes to bring them into balance don't break anything else please.
- Borvo's Quests and Hermit Quests. You promised a Publish 8 fix for Hermit and 45th POI badge don't let us down. Also can we get a Borvo fix as well.. 6 months and counting for me...
- We need some major GCW fixes, you know what these are too, just look on those boards.... unless you're afraid too?
My point is this, If the Dev's spend some time reading these boards (which I know they do) they should know by now what's wrong with this game. If they actually played the game (which I hope they do) they would see it as well.
I challenge... No... I Triple-Dog Dare ThunderHeart or any other Dev to go through the Bounty Hunter Grind and go hunt a Jedi. No help from Dev Tools, just do it the way we have to. I Dare them to take on a Combat Medic in PvP. Go through the Holo-Grind to get their FSCS open. Build some Droids guys... come on... You want to know what our complaints are? Walk in our shoes for real for once.
I know it won't happen cause they don't have the time or conviction to accept such a challenge. Could you guys picture ThunderHeart hanging out in Kaadera grinding through Investigation missions? Spending 8 hours online trying to master Tailor for his third holo only to go silent? Well, I'm not flaming here. I think the Dev's try hard, unfortunately until they have played this game for real and had to go through the same frustrations as us nothing will ever change.
I still throw down the Guantlet. Watch all three Star Wars films (4-6), Start a new character, and build yourself from nothing up to Jedi the way we do. I doubt any Dev would actually make it......
Vegitaa wrote:
Ok, so lets see where we are....
.... Build some Droids guys... come on... You want to know what our complaints are? Walk in our shoes for real for once.
I still throw down the Guantlet. Watch all three Star Wars films (4-6), .... I doubt any Dev would actually make it......
Do you have ANYTHING to say to the BE's yet? No devs ever come around, our correspondent is MIA, the promised docs are WAY past the original promise date, and the Class check feature is still screwing up perfectly good pets. Tap.Tap. Is this thing on?
Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?