Game Guides Archive

---

captenjonny wrote:
The landspeeder is a reference to how selective the old timers are about what they gripe about. SWG was conceived and started as requiring people to group. Since it's lauch however SOE has found that many, many more people want to hunt solo then interact. When I hunt, grouping would be nice but more times than not I don't want to fuss or TAKE THE TIME trying to put a group together - JEEZUMS! I just want to play!

I can hear the response form the "veterans" ... "Then you should just get a copy of Duke Nukem cause you're not "really" into MMORGs."

Nope, not the case at all. I like the interaction in the cantinas, I like bartering my wears and resources. I like helping newbies out. The "veterans" (a small but vocal group) seem to be fixated on taking six months to a year to develop your character to the point where you can play the game beyond kreetel hunting! Again who is stopping you from grouping? If there are so very many of you why don't you all make a date to go hunting on Dant without your armor and buffs? No one is stopping this type of play but you seem intent on stopping MY style of play - simply because not very many people WANT to go back to the "good old days".

There is a reason SOE doesn't set up a buff, armor and weapon nerfed server. Because it would be empty!!!!

One star me all you want.

---

Here's your response from a vertern who's played since beta:

This game was not designed with buffs in mind. They weren't in beta, nor were they in the game until many months after launch. They have imbalanced this game in ways that effect nearly every system, all to give Docs something more to do. The "Dev" team we've had did not take into account just how this new ability would interact with how people play the game. Us Vets get nostalgic for how the game used to be because we are long since tired of the God Mode that exists in the game. 39K missions were not meant to be soloed. Rancors were not meant to be soloed. People constantly whine about making the game more immersive and more like Star Wars, but somehow our ability to Solo MANY Rancors at once never seems to be unimmersive or un-Star Warsy. Even Luke had trouble with one in ep6 and he was a Jedi.. LOL. And of course how much extra money has been put into our game economies because of this. No wonder prices are inflated to the point of obsurdity. With a good solo group, a single player can easily make close to 1million credits from a single buff. Talk about getting your money's worth, which is just plain ridiculous to the extreme. Our "wonderful" "Devs" have consistantly implemented changes such as buffs and nerfing profs like CH or just not fixing specials (Pistoleer has been broken for nearly a year now), let alone really think out how profs like SL really fit into the game. If SOE really felt that groups aren't needed and completely unwanted like you believe, then the SL would NOT be in the game at all. It may be completely useless at this stage, but if the game functioned the way it was intended, it might actually become useful.

Sure, not everyone has time to put groups together. But if the game actually NEEDED people to group to actually go to planets like Dathomir, Endor, Lok, or Dantooine, like they used to, then you'd find it a heck of alot easier to find a group or form one of your own.

Also, SWG is in desparate need of some sort of content for high end players. If buffs existed and didn't enable God Mode for players, maybe those 4 planets might have some content that would be worth visitng with our master level characters in groups.

You might also want to check out Thunderheart's "Art of Combat" posting from december 2003. If the widesweeping changes he stated then actually do become reality when the much fabled Combat Revamp becomes reality (I'm not holding my breath, but still hope it happens), then the buff, armor and weapon nerfed server you despise will indeed be a reality, but a reality on ALL servers. I certainly hope you still have fun then when the game plays as it should.

---

Staveeno wrote:

taking away buffs means that you will be one-shotted by quite a few weapons in the game, by the time you make your stats so you can wear armor, your only going to have 400 H A and M.

Buffs were added because there was no way to predict a head of time what kind of crafters would be playing the game or house efficient they were. Weapons became powerful and only way around it was to add doc buffs. Then the difficulty of animals, npcs, etc were also increased to compensate

Only way to remove buffs now is to lower creature skill levels back down (how would you like to ride across dathomir and be one shotted by a gaping spider hunter, rancor, etc.?). They would also need to lower the output of weapons across the board. Like a server wide 50% damage reduction in all current in game weapons.

I started playing in October, right before they had buffs I believe. I personally like them, because I remember being killed in like 2 seconds and having no ham to do any specials on my rifle. I remember many of XP runs to get up to master rifle, I think it took me like 2 months, I pretty much killed everything with autoattack. You couldn't really do much more than that.

---

All Mob levels were reduced last year when they nerfed CH. I just read a post by JEST3R (our GCW correspondent in another post in the GCW forum) who confirmed that all mobs were reduced in level at that time. His post is the last post on the first page.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=GCW&message.id=271109

---

captenjonny wrote:
Reply to Ravenedge:

I really do understand your point of view. I am also anxiously awaiting what the combat rebalance will bring. Should the game revert back to what you have described then I will be among the first to cancel out and go elsewhere. For me this is a sci-fi based game, yes there are others out there but I found this one first. You'll never hear me whining about weather or not the game has "lost" its star wars feel. I can understand those true fans who bought in to the game sold on playing in a Star Wars universe but SOE has a bottom line to concern itself with. Combat rebalance is not a programming issue for SOE more than a question of how much can you nerf the game and not lose a large number of subscriptions.

I understand that you paid the same $15 a month as I did yet because I joined last April I had an easier time achieving my master level characters and getting to the high level content of the game. Let me give credit where it is due, I could not have done what you did. Without recursive macros, buffs and speederbikes I would have left the game in disgust after the first month. You and other veterans provided the feedback so the game could evolve into what it is today. Some things happened you didn't like because SOE needed to broaden its subscription base and they (SOE) counted on an audience that wanted faster access to high level play.

I have a solution for the veteran players who have issues with what THEY percieve to be the "god mode" issue. Get together. Use the galaxy forums to find one another and build a veteran's guild where you all vow not to buff and then schedule group missions as part of your guild. PRESTO! All the high level content just like it used to be! The disturbing part of your post was this:


"Sure, not everyone has time to put groups together. But if the game actually NEEDED people to group to actually go to planets like Dathomir, Endor, Lok, or Dantooine, like they used to, then you'd find it a heck of alot easier to find a group or form one of your own."

I'm not particularly fond of the Jedi characters in the game. I don't wish them gone but I ignore them - in my gameplay they don't exist. Does that mean I should be calling for thier deletion from the game because it is not a playstyle I embrace? Of course not.

It's a game- it should be challenging but not DWB impossable all the time.

---

Your last sentence is really the only thing that I can agree with. The DWB is a miserable failure in my opinion. It wouldn't be so bad if there was other content in the game, but really, there isn't much to do.

What people like yourself really do not understand is that the game has already been significantly nerfed time and time again. Which is what has led to the horrible state the game is in today. Veterans such as myself remember when you needed to actually use tactics to beat creatures on the harder planets. That was fun. It was thrilling to know you may not survive every encounter. I'm not saying it was uber hard, or required alot of tactics, but it was a heck of alot better than getting a 3 1/2 hour buff that really never allows an opportunity for excitement. When you run little to no risk of ever dying, where is the fun? How often can you go to the same locations, kill the same creatures with very little to no risk, without eventually growing bored with it all?

Dont get me wrong, the game was by no means perfect at launch, or in the months following it. But, veterans like myself get nostalgic for those days because it was more interesting then. More challenging then. We all hated running everywhere, we all had things we didn't like, but the bottom line was the game pieces fit together.

Since that time, we've seen a number of changes to our game play: Doc buff, food buffs, intended changes to professions, unintended changes to our professions which have never been fixed, a reduction in mob levels with the CH revamp a year ago. There's many more of course, but you get the idea.

All of these changes, intended or not, have led to how the game is today. All of these changes do not interact well with each other, nor do they really fit with how the rest of the game was designed. That's the primary problem here. That's why mobs are incredibly easy. Thats why places like the DWB are only for the elite players. That's why you'll find a Rebel Engineer is more powerful than a Rebel Surface Marshall.

We shouldn't have to search for other players and build a veterans guild just to make the game challenging again. I'm not an elite player. I'm a very casual player. I enjoy solo combat probably more than group combat. I have mastered 23 professions in my holo grind. And even though it was a grind, I actually spent time playing those professions. I knew those professions very well when I moved on. I'm not an elite player who has enjoyed the Corvette, or the DWB. I think both of those dungeons are a colossal waste of time for me. I have better things to do than go there and inevitably die. I like a challenge, but the reason those dungeons are so incredibly hard is because of the corner our "Devs" have painted themselves into. Those mobs there are uber hard because everything else is uber easy. If our weapons/armor/mob/profession systems all worked together properly, there would be alot more freedom on our "Devs" part to make places challenging aside from making mobs uber hard.

Our game is a Frankenstein Monster. Its been patched together with all these new ideas and changes that dont fit together. That's what veteran players like myself complain about. We dont see the upcoming Combat Rebalance as a nerf to all existing systems. What we see is these systems that do not fit well together to be reformed, reshaped to fit together. This Frankenstein Monster just might be salvagable and we'll be left with systems that work together and make sense. We see the hope that the game you think you have and what we want will actually become one and the same.

---

Ravenedge wrote:


This game was not designed with buffs in mind. They weren't in beta, nor were they in the game until many months after launch.

---

Im not sure what game you were playing but buffs have been here since the beginning, I have been a master doctor for over a year, its just that back then buffs were random, you never knew what you were going to buff for untill they changed the buff system to where it is now. Back in the beginning you didnt see buffs as they are now because it took a while for all the resources to spawn to make good buffs but they were here. Hopefully the combat revamp will make things better we can only wait and see.

Whole heartidly agree.. 3rd phase beta here too.
Buffs need to be toned down quite a bit. Perhaps a reason is only counter the encumbrance of armors. So max, as above, 800 or so. Maybe even lower to where people will have to find other ways to get higher stats. Maybe change some foods/drinks around in Chef extending their time limits a bit. Let people 'want' to use them.
My goal before launch and since beta was to be a smuggler. Took me 10 months.. =) And I was flabbergasted when I was able to slice a terminal and get over 40k credits for that mission. That is another huge issue in this game. HUGE amounts of credit in-flux. So, I tried my luck and in one hour 10 minutes and I really wasnt pushing it, I made 225k credits. Yep, you guessed it. Food/Drink/Armor/Buffs/Sliced and in a group of 20 people? 20 people! Ive never seen a group this huge in a mmorpg. Another thing, Entertainers need this armount of people for band flourishes? 6, 8 or 10 would be better. I havent seen a 20 group of Dancer's except for a movie someone posted. Would lower mission payouts too thus lowering credit in-flux. I beleive the inflated and out of whack economy is due to the amount of credits that come into game.
Well just opinions, but what do you all think?

I have read post like this one for awhile now and always one things comes to mind...

Yes, buffs and armor have taken alot of fun outta the game, BUT I have never seen anyone simply go out and form a group where buffs and armor where not allowed. Anyone can spam they are forming such a group the option of how you play the game has not really been taken away by high end armor or buffs.

If there is really is a desire to go back to the old way of hunting then you do have the option to do so and if enough peps really feel the same way it shouldn't be that hard to do. IF it is hard to do...well them mabey there just isn't that much of a desire to go back to the old ways.....



If SOE had any imagination they would have created armor with DIFFERENT resites percentages and MOBS with different damage types. This would have ,in IMHO, done a lot to get peps to group EVEN with buffs and high end armor.

But if you create one type of damage for your mobs then it only follows that everyone and his dog will wear whatever type of armor provides the best resites againest that damage type. Nerf those "one type of damage" mobs ( as was done last year) and you have what we have today...solo groups.

Its the same thing in PVP instead of making armor with different vulns, SOE made all armor vuln to one type of damage (stun) it only goes to follow then that everyone and his dog would go out and get weapons/skills that inflict that type of damage. SOE made mind damage unhealable, so what do you get, mind damage DOT weapons and peps rushing out to get mind damage dealing professions.


It is SOE's lack of imagination when rolling out what types of Vulns and damage are done in SWG that is the root of all evil

Message Edited by DefenderGrey on 10-21-2004 06:12 AM

---

GrimBear wrote:

---

captenjonny wrote:
Another place for the "old timers" to rant about how good the game USED to be. Funny I don't hear you whining about landspeeders. Surely this MUST have been a better game when you had to RUN everywhere!!!

Either you need to use that cancel account button or stop whining - the game evolved - deal with it!

---

why whine about landspeeders? what they are saying is that buffs have lead to people being able to wear heavier armour and kill most things alone which has had a negative impact on the community as more people hunt alone rather than hunt with other people.

There are people whining that they can't Solo a particular beastie or npc and so its just plainly to hard ... when in fact some things are meant to be played as a team with tactics.

Buffs have promoted the solo-grouping mindset and people by their own detriment say the game gets boring because they can solo anything ... so long as they have their 80%+ comp armour and top buffs.

I'm not whining ... just stating what has inevitably evolved.

I can buff and armour up and slaughter 39k missions without breaking sweat ... solo ... That same missions would probably need 4 people or more with lighter armour and no buffs. I'd much rather be in that unbuffed team.

---