Force Sensitive Archive
Thread: If we really wanted to keep jedi rare...
a year ago it was possible, and they were still rare. like somebody said before me something has to take away the jedi "shine". everything in this game is about jedi right now, hunting or becoming one.if you get people to do more fun and important things alot of people won't even go for jedi. If it gets ignored it goes away. although they're gonna need to add ALOT of content for it to be forgotten. especially when lightsabers are waving around everywhere.
dudeskis wrote:
its star wars. ppl want to play jedi. as long as its possible to play a jedi, they wont be rare. get over it.
sharpenedstick wrote:
Darkknight109 wrote:
From a recently-unlocked Jedi Initiate, I will tell you that in the early years, Jedi is no walk in the park. In fact it is by far the hardest profession I have ever been through (and I've been through most of them). You are slow as a sleepy hutt, have absolutely no accuracy, and should you die for any reason (God forbid) at initiate alone you lose about an hour worth of grinding XP. Now some of the Jedi have been consoling me that it gets better, but I am actually rather worried.
I am very familiar with how difficult it is to become a Jedi. I ground out a number of professions without access to holos, then ended up not getting any lines for free, so I had to grind out boxes. I'm down to the last two of the last tree, and I did most of this without grenades. Despite all of that, I still say any system that is based on an entry filter is inherently flawed.
Everyone knows Jedi are the most popular element of Star Wars. Everyone likes lightsabers. The vast majority of the player base would probably be Jedi if you could just click a button and become one. A sizeable portion of the population is currently involved in a much more difficult process to become one. In the end, no matter how difficult you make Jedi entry, people are going to achieve it. So clearly, at entry barrier is insufficient to maintaining "realistic" Jedi numbers. What are the alternatives then?
1) Hard caps. The only people who like this option are those who don't want Jedi at all, or those who are already Jedi and assume that they'll get to remain so.
2)Increase FS grinddifficulty. Essentially raising the entry bar another notch, the same way they did when they swtiched from hologrinding. The CU might do this by making grinding harder. This is the single most likely option that SOE would undertake, either by decreasing the efficiency of combat xp-transfers, raising the xp required for FS boxes, or some other similar option. This will not solve the problem, really, but it will slow the rate of Jedi entry.
3) Cycle Jedi out of the system: Permadeath. Well, they "tried" it and the Jedi used ForceWhine and now it's gone. It isn't coming back. The only thing MMORPG dev teams do less often then admit they're wrong is correct mistakes.
4) Make Jedi play more difficult, and give everyone a chance to try it. Look, let's face it. If the game is hostile to you, if you have to play more carefully or clone every ten minutes, most people just in it for the flashy saber will give up. So what you do is makethe environment of the game hostile to Jedi. Thisis the only option that allows everyone a chance to play a Jedi, especially casual players, but that creates a disincentive to do so and (theoretically) keep theJedi population low.
Ah, a fellow hologrinder... heh... I've been trying since December '03, and I just unlocked last Sunday. 16 profs mastered on my silent and NOT ONE of them was one of my silent profs.
Realistically speaking I think that options 2 and 4 are likely to be what's coming in. Hell, with uber buffs and food I have issues taking down more than two Quenkers at the moment with Jedi Initiate. God help us when the CURB hits and no more buffs/food to help us out. FS is going to be hit pretty hard, too. I ground out 4 trees in6 weeks and I would not have been able to keep up anywhere near that pace if I didn't have a solid set of armour, good buffs, powerful skills and a decent set of support "stuff." (Food, spice, stims, etc.) 3/4 of those are getting nerfed pretty bad and the 4th, depending on your profession, will also take a dive. This may or may not solve the problem of force sensitivity.
Personally, I think they're going the wrong route. It's not smart from anyone's perspective, aside from the fact that it requires very little work to implement. Basically you stick an absolutely HUGE grind (that in all likelyhood is about to get even bigger) in front of someone and say "Get through that and the glowstick is yours." They're hoping that some people will see it and give up, others will try it and give up and a few will actually sit it out and do it. The problem with that solution is that the people who quit or give up will do so out of sheer frustration at the amount of work ahead of them. More than likely they won't go back to their old prof, they'll be too burned out. Instead, they'll just quit the game.
Asmarter move would be (for example) you must complete every single quest at the village. That eliminates the grind, puts a minimum of 48 weeks (almost a year) before Jedi unlock and anyone who gives up won't be as likely to get burned out. Obviously, this method has flaws too (after 48 weeks you'd get a huge influx of Jedi), but a similar method would not be that hard to implement. Something like you must complete 100 specific quests, where only one can be completed per week. These quests would have to vary in difficulty, from soloable to requiring a group, would need to test a diverse range of skills and would need to be fun. That way, people would not mind waiting for Jedi as much and it would feel more like an epic quest instead of "Kill, Kill, Kill/rez, rez, rez." You still have gating, you still have the difficulty element, you have an additional teamwork element (which is sadly lacking from 90% of FS right now) and you also let people experience various parts of SWG. One of the things that I actually supported about the hologrind is that people got out there and were trying different profs. There was always somebody asking for training in Coronet and always someone willing to give it. Now, 90% of the population has a template that they are sticking with and they're not picking up any new profs any time soon. That's one of my goals while I'm working through Jedi: Master every profession. Hell, I've been alternating grinding out Jedi XP and Heavy Weapons XP for Commando at the moment. I'm having fun with the game again now that I feel I can drop my old grinding template and get back to some of my original goals in the game.
lol its so funny how many people say this and dont realize that if you lost a jedi and your account was reset to noob thats called losing accounts buddy who wants to start all over stop being stupid and shut it
MaliceMarcus wrote:
The first few posters mentioned the hologrind. That ruined the game...bad idea. Want to limit the amount of jedi in game and how much you see them? Bring back permadeath. Die 3 times in a week and you're done....start all over.
Onari wrote:
the problem is that it doesnt matter how hard to make it as a jedi eventually there will be lots of them, even if the holo grind (which was before my time) was still in play there will come a time when they start popping up all over the place. It's like when a new MMORPG comes along, after say 3 months the first level 50s will appear, then as time goes by more and more come along until you see them everywhere.
I would like Jedi to appear more rare but since I started the game with Jedi in it and haven't had any PvP experiene I don't care when I see them, and I still think they are pretty cool
And of course the whole jedi/FS path should be revamped because so many people hate it and it has so much possiblity, but there should also be an alternative to it then there would be less jedi since many people just go that way because becoming a knight is like the "end game" type thing. The real way to lower their number would have say 5 profs, which are as long as the jedi grind but gives things which are as cool as being a jedi (like becoming a Mandolorian) which would mean there are alternitives which people could choose.
Anyway thats just my thoughts on the matter, sorry for going a little of topic lol.
i like ur thinking man mmm a master mandalorian or trade federation master funky i wanna be an ewok that way its not a zabarak slaughtering innocent "teddy bears" to quote but its just plain ewok on ewok fun and i like theire refire rate lol
GuntherRall wrote:
When i first started playing this game, jedi was rare. It was marginally more difficult and time consuming to obtain. And it definately was a grind that would earn u some respect.
Now lets pretend for a second that not everyone wants to be a jedi. Lets pretend that jedi is still a profession that is rare and to be respected for obtaining. Lets pretend that we would like to keep this game somewhat true to the SW timeline and that u should never see groups of PVPer's running around where the most abundant profession is jedi.
I believe the most practical way of doing this would be to not change the way jedi is grinded but to enhance it. Imagine if hologrinding was still effective. But instead of unlocking jedi after completing your 8 holos, u only unlocked force sensitive and gained entry to the village. At this point u would still have to fulfill your 6 phases of the village and once completed u could carry on to the padawan trials.
Just wondering how the rest of the community would feel if something like this was implemented. I will posting this in the jedi forums as well to see the difference in response by both fs and jedi players.
baz-nitch wrote:
Personally I feelthe timeline is a complete contradiction to the game type. If, as many people say, Jedi are supposed to be rare then I feel a poor timeline choice was made for a masively multiplayeronline role-playing game. I mean its star wars, a lot of people are going to want to become Jedi.If so, does the timeline move? or are we stuck in this time period permanently? (if so its not really a timeline).
I think it would be nice to do the holocrons, then the 6 phase quests, but not the fs experience grind - perhaps replace this with quests in which you shape up your Jedi and learn about the Jedi order. The actions you take in quests could define your Jedi's affiliation with the dark/light side upon initiation. Possibilites with force sensitive questing is endless. (as are the ways to ensure nobody can breeze through it).
One simple truth I've learned about posting online; if you wait long enough, someone will post your point for you - often in a much more concise and smarter way. Of course, that still doesn't stop me from posting, since I'm stubborn and self-absorbed.
Great point, in other words.
BUT... I totally and completely disagree with the holocron thing. What in the name of all that's holy does shaking my hairy wookie booty in a cantina have to do with becoming a Jedi? Can anyone answer that question without sounding like a complete moron? No. Jedi are basically swordsmen - they are not carbineers, they're not dancers, they're not architects. They swing a lightsaber and they kill things, and while there's definitely a pseudo-philosophical / George Lucas-style martial arts side to them they are a melee profession and (more to the point) a sword-swinging melee profession. More like cops (on the light side, at least), to be sure, but the main emphasis on the Jedi is the big stick, not the soft speech.
after you have mastered your chosen template, done the master pilot thing, jedi is all that's left. i've been here since launch, done the quests, been everywhere, collected more crap than i care about and there is nothing else to do.
so i mindlessly slay everything in my path in the quest for enlightenment. the problem is not jedi at all. the problem is there is nothing to do end game for normals. jedi is the only challenge left. remove it, make it suck and the game will have nothing to offer past the 6 month mark at best.
That's the whole point retard. There is NO way to limit jedi both population and visibility unless you had a permadeath system. All other attempts have been proven broken.
jRaylianholy wrote:
lol its so funny how many people say this and dont realize that if you lost a jedi and your account was reset to noob thats called losing accounts buddy who wants to start all over stop being stupid and shut it
MaliceMarcus wrote:
The first few posters mentioned the hologrind. That ruined the game...bad idea. Want to limit the amount of jedi in game and how much you see them? Bring back permadeath. Die 3 times in a week and you're done....start all over.