Development Cycle Archive

Thunderheart,
I really can’t understand how real smuggling (or a beginning of it) can be so hard and griefable.

One Idea with existing reused Game Mechanics:
-Make repeatable Quests only Smugglers can get. Those can be attained from the 3? Hutts and Valerian and/or their associates. The Mission is to Deliver an Item (Tradeable and Dropable) to another associate.
-Get a timer on the Mission (there always was a Mission timer in Beta, although it was always set to one Year, but its there)(and there are now timers on lamps, so there are ways of keeping in game time, and the corvette has one too.)
-Make a challenging Timelimit
-Make the Target be off planet
-Make a decent payout on completion
-As long as the smuggler has the item, he has a TEF on all NPC Security personal Galaxywide. (not in game as such, or only for the main faction, but there might be a workaround with an instant faction hit for the suitable factions when accepting the Mission, and adding faction again on completion)(also it could be the existing TEF system that stays for as long as the Timelimit, thus not depending on the item)(or use the Jedi visibility function and revoke it on completion or fail of mission)
-If they incap him or scan and find the item, he loses the item. (I know you don’t like taking items away from players, but this wouldn’t be different from any other Questitem that has to be delivered)(Fasttalk skill might get the smuggler out)
-Mission fails if the smuggler doesn’t beat the time limit, gets busted, trades the item.
-One Mission only at a time
-Big Faction hit with Mission giver Faction if the smuggler fails Mission. (1 or 2k points)
-No missions with negative or even low positive Faction (better the higher the faction the better the payout)
-Mission failing resolves always in a Playerbounty – Given at BH Mission terminals (same as Jedi)
-Big Warning Sticker before accepting the Smuggler mission, so everyone knows that he might be vulnerable to PVP.
-If the smuggler kills or incaps the BH, he is scott free. No money, but he keeps the Item. He still has gotten the faction hit.
-If the BH kills the smuggler, the BH gets the money (or he gets the item to bring back to smugglers boss, then he gets the Bounty (though this function is not in game I think))
-Make less well paying Missions with only Faction penalties for non-Pvpers
-Imperial or Rebel Smuggler missions. Deliver to a Spy in enemy territory i.e. Anchorhead, Kor Vella, Rebelbase etc. Evidently only for Factionmembers. Reward Factionpoints.

ALL the systems are in the game in some form or other.
Its not griefable, cause even if a smuggler fails intentionally to help his BH friend, he has the faction hit to deal with, the BH missions are random anyway
It’s the players decision if he wants to do this.
Instant BH content.
Interesting Way to introduce rare items into the game, again even if a smuggler wants to make more profit (that’s what smuggling is about) by selling the item, he can do so only so often, due to the faction hit.

How is this griefable.
How impossible or exceptionally hard to do.
How harder to balance than other things
How is it not fun.

Why not do it?

WHY NOT ?
WHY NOT?
WHY NOT?

Magnum

Erm, WHY NOT?

Last Week's Discussion Thread:

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http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=38005

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Welcome to the weekly In-Concept Open Discussion thread.

For the In-Concept threads you see in this forum, please stay on topic in the specific threads so we can get focused feedback; consider them "Focus Threads". If you have general questions about the process, new concepts or other types of comments, pleasepost themin this thread.

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Tavian_McMaster wrote:

Do 25 page long petition threads deserve a comment from the dev team?

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=jedi&message.id=313455&page=25

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Currently, in the design, you will need to open the slot to become a Jedi. Players will be able to do whatever they wish with both slots whether it is to attain some minor force sensitivites or work to have two Jedi characters.

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3D4D wrote:

Also please stop using the... "This issue will be addressed in the combat rebalance"

Since the Combat rebalance has been delayed why not shed some light on how it will effect Pikeman, Bounty Hunters, Commandos, etc.

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Originally, the Combat Balance was delayed and I worked with the correspondents to get a list of "must haves" from the various profession communities. Since that time, I've have stressed the importance of the combat balance with the team and we are getting it back into the mix, though as you might guess, the schedule is pretty full. Because of logistics, its going to take a couple weeks of information gathering on the technical side before we have a plan to move forward on. We will see the CB soon though.

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RozhlokLightningskull wrote:

TH,

The community is dying for some sort of discussion on the combat rebalance. Since it was delayed because you wanted community feedback when can we excpect to hear what you guys have planned?

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We're in the planning stages now. I want to help set expectations as best I can. At this early stage, I would make the following comments:

- The biggest change in the CB that will be a "sensation", and by that I mean something that players will consciously "feel" is the HAM rebalance. That will have the biggest effect on game play.

- The next biggest change in the CB will be the data tables. The data tables are all the combat stats; weapon variables, armor variables, speed ratings, etc. We'll balance these things so that the game is a challenge and fun, but these changes wont be obvious to anyone who isn't a number cruncher.

- 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.

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sirkuurus26 wrote:
I'll try to make this fit here.

The concept of the guild chat is failing for some people currently because we are findind ourselves unable to use it due to some reason.

Well, almost fits, but the tech support note was locked so we don't know where to address this issue.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Techsupport&message.id=149965

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The chat servers get cranky sometimes and require a re-start. We restart them every day when we restart the game servers. From your end, this should be cleared up. If you are still having problems, then please put in a /bug.

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ArkonPhoenix wrote:

We should be able to fire guns while mounted on a Creatures and Vehicle, just make the Aim/To Hit modifier harder.

Like a -40 while mounted on a creture.

And then a -60 while on a speeder.

This seems fair and realistic. That way you would have gangs of CH's fighting from on top there mounts, I can see it now and it looks awsome :-)

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At some point, we very much want to add combat for vehicles and mounts. Thats a very difficult in terms of balance and its a lot of work. We have a lot other things to take care of before that makes it onto the list.

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bigmacdaddy12 wrote:
Smuggler would still like some feedback about their profession and which of their suggestions are actually possible to implement. Please stop by at some point. I mean aren't we scheduled for a revamp about one month from now?

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Obi007 wrote:

Jedi need some feedback and promises about if our grind is going to be wasted with the Jedi revamp. Also hologrinders would like some feedback on if their work will be compesated.

I understand you can't tell us anything about the new system but just tell us if we should stop working on getting Jedi xp or not.

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Keep in mind that since the two systems are so very different, there isn't going to be an exact translation. We'll make a fair trade off from one system to the other.There ismuch concern, let me be clear:fficeffice" />

• If you are a Jedi with 2 slots, you will keep them and still be a Jedi in the new system.


• If you are not a Jedi, and have mastered X number of professions then some level of advancement through the system will be included based on how many professions you completed.

Hey TH, here's a cut and paste from an idea I had to provide a temporary "fix" for a lot of the problems in PVP right now. It would be really easy:

Just TWO new items added to the game could solve many of our problems and keep us going until the Revamps.

The first is a new type of PVP armor, that provides reasonalbe CM resists (for obvious reasons) at the cost of maximum damage resists (to balance out stun damage), that would make PVP alot more fair and fun for all the professions, without any profession balancing. Best of all, nobody would need to be nerfed.

The second, a newdestroyable harvester forharvesting a unique resource to make this armor,would give us something to fight for, and provide a variety of focal points for battles and strongholds. Since the Armor is mainly geared for PVP use (CM resists don't do anything for you in PVE), why not make getting this armor a PVP focal point?

Here it is in full:

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Obi007 wrote:

Jedi need some feedback and promises about if our grind is going to be wasted with the Jedi revamp. Also hologrinders would like some feedback on if their work will be compesated.

I understand you can't tell us anything about the new system but just tell us if we should stop working on getting Jedi xp or not.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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.

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Please provide one clear example of a case where there is potential for griefing above and beyond that which already exists in this game (for example in slicing, equipment repair, dr buffs, image design, mission stalking, gtef'ing, etc, etc).

By the way, just to clarify.....

The new armor would be totally optional....I'm not recommending that any 90% composite would be deleted. But a lot of people might trade it in to get the CM resists. Those people are making an active choice between having resistance to CM attacks and better stun resists on the one hand, and being neraly totally impervious to all damage types besides stun and poison/disease.

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Rikilii wrote:

Hey TH, here's a cut and paste from an idea I had to provide a temporary "fix" for a lot of the problems in PVP right now. It would be really easy:

Just TWO new items added to the game could solve many of our problems and keep us going until the Revamps.

The first is a new type of PVP armor, that provides reasonalbe CM resists (for obvious reasons) at the cost of maximum damage resists (to balance out stun damage), that would make PVP alot more fair and fun for all the professions, without any profession balancing. Best of all, nobody would need to be nerfed.

The second, a newdestroyable harvester forharvesting a unique resource to make this armor,would give us something to fight for, and provide a variety of focal points for battles and strongholds. Since the Armor is mainly geared for PVP use (CM resists don't do anything for you in PVE), why not make getting this armor a PVP focal point?

Here it is in full:

Earlier I posted an idea about a single item that could solve a lot of problems in the GCW:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=GCW&message.id=162397

In short, the idea was to create a NEW kind of armor with:

1. About 70% max resists to everything, including stun (maybe with one minor vulnerability), mainly to help balance out all the weapon types and classesandeliminate Stun as the only viable damage type in PVP;

2. +65 ormore total poison and disease resistance mods, to entice people to trade in their 90% base composite and help bring CMs in line a little bit;

3. A more Star Warsy look, maybe one appearance for each faction. with imperial armor looking like a bad-ass version of ST armor, and the rebel stuff looking like a cool, camoflauge elite-commando kinda thing.

4. Slightly higher HAMS than current composite, to make special costs a little more balanced and significant in the land of the ubiquitous secondary buff.

Now, I have another idea to expand on that. Since this armor is totally PVP-inspired, why not make GETTING this armora reasonfor engaging in PVP.

How?

Simple.

1. Make it require one or more new types of resources that can only be harvested by a special type of harvester, crafted by Architects, that can be destroyed by overt members of the opposite faction at any time. Sampling the resource would give you a TEF and/or require you to be overt. People would fight over this stuff like there was no tomorrow, and there would finally be a reason to engage in the GCW. Ok, I know it's circular (we PVP to get a resource that will make us better at PVP so we can get more of the resource.....), but it would still be very cool!

2. OPTIONAL: Make it require a limited use schematic, that only pops out of magseal containers in factional bases, maybe once per day (right after the vulnerability time). To get it, you have to place a faction base. To keep your enemy from getting it, you have to destroy his bases.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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As disheartening as it is to hear that there wont be player smuggling, I'm glad you all told us now and didnt wait until the actual publish to drop this on us. If we cant have true smuggling, then I hope at the very least you make the profession fun to play. I can live with that, in fact I look forward to it.

Because armor is all the rage in PVP, and a person who does not have 80% composite might as well be considered dead, here is my idea to give advantages to not wearing armor:

Simple, when wearing armor, defenses gained from a profession should be greatly reduced or removed. It doesn't make sense for a TKA or Fencer to be able to dodge and evade attacks while wearing bulky composite, therefore their Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, Dodge, Center of Being, etc, should all be turned off to compensate for the extra protection. The same goes for Pistoleers and any other profession that gains extra bonus to defense.

On the other hand, professions like Bounty Hunter or Commando (which have next to no defenses to begin with) wouldn't take as severe as a hit by choosing to wear armor, and therefore it would be more common place within those professions.

My question right now is this: I have two characters right now, Shados, and my jedi Reborn. When the revamp hits what will happen? You still haven't explained anthing particuarly well.

Thanks TH thats what I expected to here but the Jedi forum is going nuts a bit over if they should carry on leveling their character or not. I think your answer is what people were hoping to hear.

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Thunderheart wrote:

If you are not a Jedi, and have mastered X number of professions then some level of advancement through the system will be included based on how many professions you completed.

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