Entertainer Archive
Thread: Whar goes around
Panthu wrote:
Just do /mood drunk and you can play it off as RP.
That's how we handle Exotic 1 /hifive
Exactly. /nod n'Jess
/startd Exotic
/mood drunk
/say We'llsh join yash!
:has a hard time not falling while she dances!
Spunkster wrote:
Anyone elseget a little evil grin outtathe factthatthe people who were flaming us for complaining about the ent changes are the very same ones throwing toys out of the pram now cos they can't grind a jedi in a week?
The nerfy man cometh to all men.
Oh yes... a battle of who are the biggest complainers. It's gonna be like the CU all over again.
I don't know what was worse... When the CU hit, or having to listen to anyone that stopped me on the street to complain about it.
... no, I feel no sense of satsifaction at this whatsoever.
I'm not a spiteful person for the most part. And beyond that I actually loved the idea of this game. What it started with was so amazing and literally a new day for MMORPGs. A totally player-driven world, with no loot, no spawn camping, none of the traditional annoyances of a MMORPG. No level system, and a very fluid skill system where you could have a whole range of skills rather than a dual-class "template." An entertainer class that allowed socializers to truly participate in the game. A game where you could master relatively quickly so that you did not have to grind for months just to cap out -- which along with the fluid level system, allowed you to master and drop professions so you could basically make one character your own set of alts if you wanted.
ALL of that is gone now. All of it. It's now a standard MMORPG, having gone from a game of interactive capitalism to kill-loot-trade medievalism. With every publish they rip out one thing that made the old game unique and add in one thing that makes it more like EQ, DAOC, GW, and every other MMORPG out there. Publish 22 is no different... it's more of the same.
No, I'm not happy about it. For all its flaws, I liked the way the game was when they launched it. To be sure it was buggy, and needed some balancing, but the overall idea of it, I loved. They've gotten rid of the game I loved and replaced it with generic MMO crap with a SW overlay. We have gotten exactly to "EQ in space", which is what everyone asked them NOT to do when the game first started.
And I'm supposed to be happy about this because it spites a few eleven year old who had bad things to say about me over the years? No... I'm not happy about them slowly destroying what was once my favorite game, a game that would entertain me for hours on end so that I wasn't getting enough sleep and I was neglecting parts of my real life. I'd rather have my old, good, game back. Yeah, I know, it won't happen...
I understand where you are coming from but no, I am not happy that they keep making the game worse every publish, not even to "get back" at the combat-wombats who have repeatedly been disrespectful of me as an entertainer. I'd rather those guys were happy, and the game had remained good.
C
Actually, this whole business has been giving the armchair game designer in me some food for thought.
I was really almost apalled to find out that, Post -CU, the full XP of a mob was being given to all members of a group. That's like a recipe for power leveling (and it explains why I kept reading about low level people grouping with high level people on adventure planets). I've never played any game where making things easier (by grouping) resulted in MORE XP for everyone.
Dividing the XP between the group seems like the way it ought to have been all along, with maybe a group bonus (ala Everquest) to even out the differences between grouping and soloing.
Regardless, we're now in a position where combat guys are getting anywhere from 1/2 to 1/8 of the XP they used to get in a given time period.
What does this mean for us as entertainers?
In the short term, it might mean that inspiration buffs will become "valuable" in comparison to pre-22 days. 10% bonus doesn't seem like much when you're getting 8000 XP per kill, but when your XP is cut by 86% or so then that little extra bit suddenly takes on a new significance.
In the longer term, this may be the first step towards the introduction of the "advanced" inspirations that we've been hearing rumors about. It may be coincidental, or it may be planned, but introducing them step-by-step in this fashion is going to better for our profession(s). Supposing that the advanced inspirations appear over the next two months, we have the initial outcry against the "XP nerf" (and not everyone is opposed to it by any means). Then we have a period of people becoming accustomed to it. Then we have publish 23 (conjecture) where, say, two new inspirations appear. Then publish 24 with another couple. As the anger fades and the new buffs come into usage, overall XP levels rise again, to whatever point the devs have chosen as the "sweet spot". Lower than pre-22 but high enough that people are satisfied.
Under this scenario, the entertainers become the "heroes" who are enabling the rest of the players to regain some of the XP that they used to get. Let's suppose, instead, that they did all of the changes at once. Dropped XP, added all the inspirations, and said "Yeah, we nerfed you but you can just go to an entertainer to become un-nerfed." I don't think it takes much imagination to see that people would point and say "You entertainers, this is YOUR fault! The devs nerfed us so you'd have something to do again! Ma, where's my pitchfork?!!"
Now, I'm the last person to try and claim that the devs have a plan or try and guess what it is. I'm just suggesting that if one DID have a plan, that this might well be how it would play out. It will be interesting to see what the next couple of publishes hold.
HOWEVER, the reason people used the grouping system was because the devs made the regular levelling grind unbearably long, and particularly the FS/Jedi grind. The only way to get through it was to group... soloing meant thousands (literally) of hours of grinding. Grouping meant only hundreds. People will do hundreds of hours of grinding. They balk at thousands.
So what group XP nerfing did was, it made it so *everyone* has to look forward to (many) thousands of grind-hours now, not just soloing people.
The problem isn't that XP was nerfed... it was that the grind just was massively buffed into being unbearable to most gamers.
C
You're right, but there is a problem: SWG is 2 years old, and 90+% of the dev time has gone into class balance and combat upgrades and the like, not content. As a result, for most people, "play the game to have fun" is not happening because they have already done most of the content in the game. Since that's so, the only thing left for them to do is grind. And worse yet, even most of the content is a grind. Look at Kash for example... what are most of the quests? "Kill 20 kash banthas", or "kill 25 feral rodians." It's the same grind with a different facade... "Kill 200 things to level" and "kill 25 things to get a quest reward" are basically the same thing.
You're right, people should enjoy the journey. But the problem is that the non-grind elements of the game (except for Kashyyyk) are all 2 years old now, and everyone's been there/done that a dozen times already. How many times can one do the warren, the Geo caves, or the DWB before it gets old?
See the problem? They have spent 2 years focusing on gameplay rather than content, and this is where we are.... a "revamped" combat system that, once you get used to it, leaves you doing the same old things you've been doing the last 2 years, with little to no new content to actually experience along the way. The only new "content" that most people haven't experienced yet because you have to grind your way to unlocking it, is the Jedi stuff, so that is what people do.
C
Norbert wrote:
I have to agree. I thought it was odd, as someone that did do some hunting, that I would get just as much xp for each kill as I would if I soloed them. There was no way that could be right, but that is what was happening. The new way they are doing it is how it should have been since day 1 of the CU. It's easier to give the customer something than to take something away.
You do actually get more xp over time in a group than you do soloing, assuming your group is killing things faster than you can solo them. But the problem is that people were used to getting the huge xp, so now it is seen as a major nerf. It's all in the timing.
One thing about "grinding", I never understood why people would go through this in a game. To me, it implies that you are not having fun, but merely going through some motion to get to the point where you can have fun. If you are grinding just to get to the higest level without taking the time to enjoy the game on that journey, then this is your choice and your own fault. For the Jedi, most of them that I have talked to will say they NEED to grind so they can get high enough to stand up to all the BHs that are hunting them. Right now, I believe it is a 350k xp hit for being killed. I think if they dropped the xp penalty on death, especially for higher BHs killing lower Jedi, then it would not be as painful and minimize some of the need to grind. If you don't enjoy the journey, then you're not going to have fun when you get there.
Just play and let the levelling handle itself.
*BUZZ* WRONG! One thing I've found is that it was the inception of jedi being unlockable (or more like the holocron grind started quite a while back) that actually ruined content in the game. Ever since then, those who have unlocked have felt that they are not yet sufficiently superiour to the non-glowy population, and the DEV's have been playing catch-up ever since. Every patch has been an attempt at dealing with Jedi whining, while tweaking the other combat professions in an attempt to have those others not notice the imbalance.
I feel I should come with a disclaimer everytime I talk about Jedi, cuz I'm bound to get torched for being anti-Jedi, which I guess IS true. I am against what the inception of Jedi has done to this game. They invented the combat grind, they took away content, because content gets in the way of grinding: "Why on earth would I want to explore this maze? Do I get LS XP for this? Totally n00bz0r, I'm going back to kash to hunt wookies in the Jedi moshpit..."
I too wish for a return to a semblance of the old game, hell, I'll even take the old bugs!
I have to agree. I thought it was odd, as someone that did do some hunting, that I would get just as much xp for each kill as I would if I soloed them. There was no way that could be right, but that is what was happening. The new way they are doing it is how it should have been since day 1 of the CU. It's easier to give the customer something than to take something away.
You do actually get more xp over time in a group than you do soloing, assuming your group is killing things faster than you can solo them. But the problem is that people were used to getting the huge xp, so now it is seen as a major nerf. It's all in the timing.
One thing about "grinding", I never understood why people would go through this in a game. To me, it implies that you are not having fun, but merely going through some motion to get to the point where you can have fun. If you are grinding just to get to the higest level without taking the time to enjoy the game on that journey, then this is your choice and your own fault. For the Jedi, most of them that I have talked to will say they NEED to grind so they can get high enough to stand up to all the BHs that are hunting them. Right now, I believe it is a 350k xp hit for being killed. I think if they dropped the xp penalty on death, especially for higher BHs killing lower Jedi, then it would not be as painful and minimize some of the need to grind. If you don't enjoy the journey, then you're not going to have fun when you get there.
Just play and let the levelling handle itself.