Force Sensitive Archive
Thread: New conversion just isn't logical
JakinIrali wrote:
If you like that, wait till the next publish. Instead of getting full xp for a kill, it will now be divided equally among everyone on the group. So we'll be getting roughly 1/8th per kill that we used to...
Yea so..in a game that now heavily pushes grouping you get punished for actually joining one.....this idea should win an award of some kind.
Mightion wrote:
I have to admit that it seemed odd that I could getFS exp (after conversion) much faster for hitting one bol with a grenadethan killing ten of them with my gun.
Changing it to the same conversion rate as weapon exp does seem harsh, but I guess SOE isn't fond of grenade grinding. I myself only threw maybe one grenade per seven mobs, and that was only in a decent group.
t still appears as if the entire FS community (and those to come) are being punished for the actions of a few. Grenade grinding was exploited to its potenial but rather than making grenades giving heavy weapons XP (which I think would be be fair) they increase the conversion ratio hurting those that use grenades . . and those that do not.
DaalinMoon wrote:
Ok I TOTALLY agree with the combat exp conversion change... but 30:1 is just ridiculous.
Lets take into account the specs of the game already. Combat exp is a TENTH of that of Weapons exp. Wouldn't it just be logical to make Combat Exp a 10:1 conversion ratio?Just a thought... and it makes sense!
And just before you start jumping my case I am COMPLETELY done with the grind, but I still think this new conversion set up is utterly ridiculous!
Message Edited by DaalinMoon on 07-28-2005 01:28 PM
You have to understand that anyone that is "done" with the FS XP grind and *agrees* with this little unannounced change is going to be immediately viewed as being a bit of a hypocrite right?
3:1 conversion for Combat XP is fine the way it is. If the Devs want to crack down on the grenade grinders, then they can change grenades to "Grenade XP". flag it as a weapon, and convert it at the 30:1 rate while still giving the 10% Combat XP as well.
Problem solved, and people can continue on the way they have been. The people that get nerfed are the power-grinders.
I know all the "old school" jedis will shake their canes and yell from their rocking chairs on the front porch, but as easy as they perceive "the grind" to be now... it's still not easy for the casual gamer. I get in maybe two, three hours per night, tops. I prefer to solo, and as a rifleman/bounty hunter I have to be careful to get singles --- two yellow-con Rebs nearly wasted me last night (bloody slow Stim-Ds).
I don't "grenade grind" whatever that entails... I use my gun and I shoot things. I haven't measured my exp per hour gain or anything, but I can't see any way to get the rapid exp gain I've seen alleged on these boards. I mean, I suppose if you were in a large high level group grenade grinding constantly...
But when you're solo, finding a target, shooting the targets one-by-one (the only way to survive with my template) and moving on to the next target, it takes time. And at only a few hours per night, that's a LOT of time...
Leyf06 wrote:
NerinCambrias wrote:
i used to think this, but actually the conversion ratios for general combat and weapon specific combat make perfect sense.
here's how it is:
Say you are grinding for your novice enhanced reflexes box. You need 50,000 force sensitive XP for that skill. Now, if we're talking just about weapon specific (ws) xp, you would need 1.5 million ws XP to get 50,000 fs xp. You may not even remember about your general combat xp because it trickles in compared to the other types of xp. But if you do have 1.5 million weapon XP, you will have atleast 150,000 combat xp (the ratio of WS to combat xp is 10:1). So really, you only needed 750k WS xp and 75kxp(equals 25k fs each). I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but....
The moral: Every bol that you kill, you get the same amount of FS XP from your weapon XP as you do from your combat XP. Since the ratio of weapon xp to combat xp is 10:1, it makes sense that the FS conversion ratios of the two types of XP relate to each other 10:1 (30:1 is ten times less than 3:1)
hmm i think your math is a little off...
Take Rifles... 1,200,000 Rifle XP comes with 120,000 Combat XP
Weapons Converts at 30:1 so I get 40,000 FS xp (1,200,000 / 30)
Combat Converts at 3:1 so I get 40,000 FS xp (120,000 / 3)
Changing combat to 10:1 would yield 12,000 combat XP for the same conversion.
So...10:1 hurts too...just not as bad as 30:1
They're are going to change it.. there is no question of that. So either way it's going to "hurt". 10:1 just makes more sense then making it the exact same as weapon's exp.
Sorpaijen wrote:I know all the "old school" jedis will shake their canes and yell from their rocking chairs on the front porch, but as easy as they perceive "the grind" to be now... it's still not easy for the casual gamer. I get in maybe two, three hours per night, tops.
The thing is, if you are playing 2-3 hours per night - you are not a casual gamer. You are probably typical of most gamers who play far too much for their own good (thats 17.5 hrs a week, or almost a partime job after all. I fall into this category myself), and you are not one of the extreme "No Life"(tm) types who play for 6-8+hrs a day or more that most people assume are more common than I think they really are. A true Casual Gamer - my friend Dxxx for instance - plays 2-3 hours PER WEEK, sometimes not even that much.
Casual Gamer types really don't stand a chance of getting anywhere in a game like this - which is utterly stupid since they pay the same fee as anyone else - because the entire game is GRIND oriented in every aspect of it with the exception of crafting (once you have ground your way up to Master that is) which can be done somewhat casually albeit not that effectively.
I think most casual gamers go to games that are CG friendly like WOW (where everything is handed to you and nothing is challenging) or City of Heroes (where you can jump in and do a mission in 20mins then leave easily) or similar games. Games like SWG and EQ, DAOC etc are not make to dabble in, you will never get the impression you are going anywhere. The sad part is there is pretty much no way to reconsile the 2-3hrs per week and the 60hrs per week people in the same game.
DaalinMoon wrote:
Ok I TOTALLY agree with the combat exp conversion change... but 30:1 is just ridiculous.
Lets take into account the specs of the game already. Combat exp is a TENTH of that of Weapons exp. Wouldn't it just be logical to make Combat Exp a 10:1 conversion ratio?Just a thought... and it makes sense!
And just before you start jumping my case I am COMPLETELY done with the grind, but I still think this new conversion set up is utterly ridiculous!
Message Edited by DaalinMoon on 07-28-2005 01:28 PM
its only because whiners whine about too many jedi, blame them, i hate them personally ( yes there may be but keep it out of the ears of modded forums )
True, Sneev, I'm not a TRUE casual gamer with my 2 - 3 hours per night (and, to be honest it's more like FIVE --- getting five hours sleep every night HURTS!)... but ~in comparison~ to many I am casual. And I prefer to solo, another strike against me. And I usually don't know about (nor would I use if I did know about) the various "exploits" like grenade grinding.
I wondered, for a time, how that worked... then I realized that grenade xp is actually COMBAT xp, and then I understood their rationale for changing the conversion ratio to match other weapon types. Which would make sense... except that EVERYONE gets Combat xp at 10% of their weapon exp. It boggles the mind why they would make grenades give combat exp in the first place --- WHY have one type of weapon that gives xp that OTHER weapons only get at 10% of the same rate?!?
Another strike against me is I cannot "grind" as long as some people can. Last Saturday I played for maybe six hours straight, fighting CL 81 - 82 Bols on Dantooine. Got all of 270k rifle exp. Weeeee. Only 74 million to go! 
Sigh. As someone else in this thread noted, it's hard to reconcile the sane, logical, sensible person who plays to have fun... and the person who spends 18 hours a day using every exploit available to constantly "grind"... it just can't be done. And yet they CONTINUE to punish the "normal" people... doing things that will only ~inconvenience~ the powergamers. It might slow them down a little, sure, but it slams the brakes on someone like me.
As has been noted elsewhere, most people don't enjoy the grind, they just suffer through it until they get to "the end" and can enjoy themselves. I enjoy my Master Bio-Engineer / Master Creature Handler (although I might wish for a higher CL than is possible with that build)... she's "done" for the most part... need to get a little merchant skills here or there, but nothing critical. I can log on and PLAY with her. My "main" though? Master Bounty Hunter, Master Rifleman, Force Sensitive... I -dread- logging on because I know I will be getting a mission, shooting a lot, getting another mission, shooting a lot... then driving 12k back and forth to the Village... /yawn
If the 'prize' were not something I was -really- interested in, I would have quit this a long time ago. But as their new tutorial, and all their advertisements show, they recognize that people like Jedi. There are so many now, it seems pointless to throw up roadblocks NOW to limit the number... especially since at best it will just slow down the powergamers a bit and more severely limit the more-casual gamers.
Of course, a LOT of people "just" want to become jedi so as to open up a second character slot --- another bone headed move of the Devs, to only allow one character per server. Sure, start a character on another server... make new friends, learn the new economy there, learn where the new player cities are... yeesh.
PS: I left SWG two years ago or so, and have hopped from one MMORPG to another, and just took a hiatus from City of Heroes to come back to SWG. True, City of Heroes is very casual-friendly in that you can log on and play for a little bit, but I found myself missing the long-term continuity that having ITEMS and a house, and so on brought...
I think few people really enjoy the grind. I think SOE has slowly whittled down the population to that subset of gamers who can endure it and who will continue to pay for it, but I don't hear that many people say they love it. Those who do are obviously the best candidates for becoming Jedi.
I think the best thing they could do first off would be to stop fiddling with Jedi. Everyone can get Jedi now if they can endure the boredom and it takes multiple subscription renewals, that should be enough to satisfy the beancounters. They should turn their attention to fixing the years-old bugs in various professions and revamping and improving those that are suffering crippling bugs. If their demographic studies have convinced them everyone wants to play a Jedi that may in part be due to the fact that many other professions are critically crippled at the moment, or have been since release. Fix those and the population might just diversify more.
Next they need to reduce or eliminate the grind and replace it with more interesting, quest driven content in many cases. THey need to make the CGW something that everyone wants to participate in and something that non-jedi can participate in without feeling like 2nd class citizens. They need to build up the Criminal faction to be a factor so there is a third side. They need to let Smugglers smuggle stuff.
Make the rest of the game work correctly first, before they introduce new changes and improvements. THen add new content and new things to do that are not grinding related. Add new Elite professions even - like the Imperials in the cool Red Armor, like Planetary Governors (Imperial only, faction vote only - the logical next step above Mayor, with planet wide elections), Rebel Administrators (Rebel Equivalent, faction vote only), and Crime Lords who work behind the scenes. Let Bothans be serious spies by adding an Espionage profession or something I dunno. I am sure they can evolve new content like this that uses the existing system rather than tacking things on. There is a universe of improvements that might make people want to do something other than grind for Jedi. Thats where the real solution probably lies.