Development Cycle Archive

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread.

I'll start this thread off by answering some questions from the last thread:

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I want to ask why they have hurt the faction pets so badly. What is the point to only having one pet out, and you can't trade it, nor can it attack anything but a faction enemy? What is the point in them?

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The point, specifically, is use faction pets against faction targets in the GCW. It is meant as a faction perk. We had to put the additional restrictions on them to prevent a considerable amount of exploit and grief. The one pet limit prevents dramatic unfair advantages. It is prevented from trade because you earned it and many times people want to pass pets to PA members and other sorts of group associations who didn't put in the effort. Except for CH's, all players are limited to Level 10 pets...except the AT-ST which is a considerably higher level.

With that being said, in the next publish, you'll see an increase in HAM and DoT resistances which will make them much more useful. Over the course of the next year, we'll be rebuilding the GCW from the ground up, giving you many more faction targets.

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And as far as I can tell, there is no rank badges as the game promised in the begining for your uniform. I understand that might be difficult, but couldn't we at least get a name tag when we are overt or something?

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In the publish after next, as long as there are no unforseen difficulties, Imperial and Rebel ranks will be viewable in your permatag.

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Thnx for finally posting TH I really appreciate it. I know its important for you to keep up with what's coming and timing and all, but what's as important as developing is truely communicating with the customers that respond to your product.

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I agree with you completely. It's also important to make sure that what I am communicating is what is going to happen. We are at the tail end of a lot of major changes internally and there have been a lot of high-level meetings about goals for the next year and I wanted to make sure that I didnt post a bunch of items in the forum and then find out that a major focus didnt change making everything I/you posted null and void.

Some of the highlights that shook out is the basic structure of each publish. Each publish will have a theme, new content added and a focus on CSR and Correspondent issues. With each publish, we've worked out a way so that I can include which correspondent items were addressed in the patch notes.

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I don't know if this has been brought up, but here goes.

The Carrion Spat missions on Bloodfin at least, on Corellia, are bugged.

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That should be fixed in this publish.

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My concerns right now:

- Not working BH Jedi missions.

- Very bad server lag on Chimaera during prime time.

- Various imbalances in PvP.

Apart from these things I just love the game. It's an amazing creation!

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THe BH/Jedi mission tweaks are in progress. Lag is lag. Sorry about that but when then servers are full, there will always be a drag no matter how much we tweak it though the programming team is always working on ways to improve that.

The PvP imbalances are being tweaked in the short term and redeveloped over the course of the next few months. Its going to take a bit, but the devs are re-working the system and its going to take some time.

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Ability to move objects up and down

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In progress

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Could we get a post or two on the In Concept board so we have some time to actually discuss the concept before it goes to Development.

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Absolutely. I just had to get a good idea of whats going to happen over the next year.

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Hi TH looks like your going to be busy reading all this, but if you do get a moment could you take a look at this thread we had some really good ideas going by the end of it, on a subject that effects a very large slice of the player base

P.S sorry about how i started it hehe

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=1012052

Any reply to this would be great. Even if it's just to say thought about it and NO

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The answer is YES.

It does effect a lot of people and its better for the game to remove the camp requirements to pull a vehicle.

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Will it help me search for SWG support questions too? Because I don't play EQ, I play SWG.

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Yes it will

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Fix the GCW.

This means fix turrets, make bases able to defend themselves better, fix the battlefields(make them amazing!).

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We are, but its going to take a while. The cycle is going to end with a battlefield revamp.

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Vehicle auto-store.

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Vehicles have to autostore. Without vehicles autostoring, the game environment gets horribly polluted with vehicles. If you were involved in the vehicle tests on TC, youwould have seenwhat happens. In an hour hundreds of vehicles accumulated around starports, cantinas and other places where players gather. The downside is any place there is a high player traffic, a crazy amount of vehicles gathered and then your frame rate chugs because there are so many vehicles on the screen.

Could you drop a hint when we will see the post about the DROID INVASION, please?

TH-

I understand the GCW will be addressed. My question is in the mean time could you please clarify whether firing at turrets from beyond 70m is considered a bug (or not meant to happen)? Will this be changing or can you at least comment on what you are considering this issue as. bug? or tactic that alot of ppl dont like?

Thank you,

Goodfella(HAD)

TH - I'm sure you guys are already aware of this, but just in case... you're posts aren't showing up on DevTracker (again).

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Thunderheart wrote:

Lag is lag. Sorry about that but when then servers are full, there will always be a drag no matter how much we tweak it though the programming team is always working on ways to improve that.

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I seriously dont need to see the objects in my inventory spinning around in 3D. That MUST put a little demand on our systems and/or the servers... Everytime I open my inventory, or a new window for that matter, I get a huge slow down, untill all the items are displayed.

Could we get an option tho shut off 3D rotation in object screens?

Thunderheart on the point that Faction pets are suppsoe to be used only in GCW. I still see imperials out hunting krayt dragons with thier At-St. Now they cannot kill a normal Krayt with it but htey still can kill a juvenille krayt with just 1 AT-St.

Also speaking of Krayts has the drop rate been greatly decreased now??? There are 4 jedi in my PA so we hold a weekly Krayt hunt and go out and hunt krayts for about 4 to 6 hours once a week. THe loot we have been getting ahs been very subpar.For example last week we went out and killed 3 juvenille krayts 7 canyon krayts and like 2 or 3 giant canyon krayts I believe..anyway we looted total 1 pearl and nothing else. THe week before that we looted 1 pearl and like 6 matching tissue samples. So I was wondering if the drop rate has been greatly decreased for krayts.

When is the no decay for PvP going into effect???

Finally about a month ago there was mention of new weapons and different lvl's of weapons for each class is this still an idea that is goign to happen off somewhere inthe distant future??

I'm just curious, is it that hard to add comma's into the credit systems.

It just seems like such a simple thing, butI hate seeing all the time you get tipped XXXX credits, or have that many credits in the trade windowand having to count 0's to makesure it is right or not.

Is this to hard a thing to program in?

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Could you drop a hint when we will see the post about the DROID INVASION, please?

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Ill be doing it this week. I had to push it off until some of internal discussions were finished. The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions.

Their argument makes a lot of sense too. A good balance is akin to Bio-Engineers and Creature Handlers; BE's make em and CH's use them. Its really two different playstyles. One is crafting and one is combat/exploration. Adding a class of combat droids to the game has to be similar. Combat droids themselves have to stay level 10 or under for the general population otherwise everyone would rush out and get the better pets. That leaves a wide range of powerful combat droids that needs to be in the game, but to get those droids, players have to spend the time and energy to earn them.

So what we'll have is a Droid Engineer profession and a Droid Handling profession. All players will have access to combat droids up to level 10 and DH's will get a wide range of heavy combat droids to handle.

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I understand the GCW will be addressed. My question is in the mean time could you please clarify whether firing at turrets from beyond 70m is considered a bug (or not meant to happen)? Will this be changing or can you at least comment on what you are considering this issue as. bug? or tactic that alot of ppl dont like?

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Mysterious bug. In this publish, Turrets will be beefed up to 82 meters.

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TH - I'm sure you guys are already aware of this, but just in case... you're posts aren't showing up on DevTracker (again).

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Yep. Don't know why that keeps happening. The lithium folks have been notified and we're working to get that fixed ASAP.

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TH- In the upcomeing combat revamp, are we also going to see more viable ways of Mind damage healing? What is the purpose of only haveing high lvl class to heal it? Or are we going to be seeing a whole new combat targeting system/ HAM system that would make this all fixed?

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The HAM revamp will address all of that. It will repair everyone's specials, it will solve the slow downs in combat and many other things. The challenge is that its a core game system and its going to take a bit because people from many different teams have to be involved.

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When is the no decay for PvP going into effect???

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The January Publish.

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Finally about a month ago there was mention of new weapons and different lvl's of weapons for each class is this still an idea that is goign to happen off somewhere inthe distant future??

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In progress. Still going to happen and sooner than the distant future.

Here is a laughable 'bug' that I can't believe I forgot to place in the last discussion...

As an Imperial, I have done some Rebel NPCs in my time. Most of these NPCs are either Twi'lek, Bothan, or Rodian. How interesting... maybe you guys should actually know something about Star Wars. These are all excerpts from the SW Databanks at Starwars.com

Twi'leks-

During the Galactic Civil War, the Twi'leks remained neutral, not wanting to become involved in the struggle. They viewed the Rebel Alliance and the Empire as two heat storms that would eventually dissipate. Only after the storm had cleared, could the opportunist Twi'leks emerge and prosper.

Bothans-

Bothans hail from Bothawui, a cosmopolitan planet spared from the Galactic Civil War due to its neutrality. Bothans also have numerous colony worlds scattered throughout their small patch of indigenous space, like the planet Kothlis.

The Bothan spynet remained independent during the Galactic Civil War. At least, it did so on the surface. Much of the intelligence gathered was siphoned to the Alliance, but the Empire and criminal organizations also took advantage of Bothan services.

Rodians-

As a result, many Rodians have taken to bounty hunting. Many take on contracts as part of grand games and contests, caring nothing for the concept of law enforcement. Rodian society awards bounty hunting in a wide variety of categories -- Longest Trail, Most Notorious Capture, Best Shot and more.

So... the Rebellion has been defeated yet again, because it is made up of mostly species that hold no loyalty to the Rebellion and rather seek to profit off the conflict. You should really place species related restrictions as to joining sides... since that is how it was... in addition to changing the NPC demographics. It is also worth note that many of the species lacked much as to space travel to their homeworlds, making an appearence of a member in society a rare occurance. Also, the Wookiees were enslaved during this time... seeing Wookiees walk around freely without the police even caring is not very plausible. This is Star Wars: Galaxies... right?

I know this isn't all feasible... but it seems like there are some things that can be done to make the game fit the universe it is supposed to represent.

-Dolan Ledgar, Chilastra

TH

LAG is LAG right?

Are Crashes, Crashes?

Like everyone I play with crashes NOW. When will this be fixed?

These should be top priority not the added fluff to the game.