Image Designer Archive
Thread: Worried About The Timer....
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MarinhaTiga
Tue May 11, 2004 6:53 am
#1
I didnt have the time to get a master ID character on test center so I havent had to deal with the timer changes that have been put into place. That doesnt stop me from worrying about the timer though. 
I know that whatever changes we get with our mini-publish, we'll be stuck with for a long time.
I know that whatever changes we get with our mini-publish, we'll be stuck with for a long time.It seems like the timer is being put into place to keep people from master Image Design in 2 hours,but is it REALLY needed? With the XP changes ive been reading about, it just seem to me that ID will take long enough even without the timer. With the hologrinding coming to an end in publish 10, the timer seems to be even more overkill to fix something thats not that huge of a problem.
Im not saying that Image Design should be mastered in 2 hours by everyone. I do not however see how a hologrinder actually hurts the profession. They master it and they drop it, big deal. If they KEEP it, then we have one more Master Image Designer in the galaxy to take some of the load off.
I dont know how big of a time sink this timer is for a Master Image Designer, butI do know that my time is important to me and the thought of waiting even a minute to change someone'e hair color is annoying. People who spend the 92 skillpoints to master ID, people who love to make others pretty (but not as pertty as themselves ) shouldnt be penalized because some people can burn through the profession in a matter of hours.
) shouldnt be penalized because some people can burn through the profession in a matter of hours. Maybe some of you gals and guys have a thought on this that might turn me around. At this point though, the timer just seems like a waste of time.
Gyopi
Tue May 11, 2004 7:21 am
#2
I have to agree! If they drop the timer and force people to grind through the interface, that will slow down things enough! At first I thought that their real reason behind the long timer is that they don't want people to grind ID in an hour just to migrate their own stats, but it seems we can't do that anyway. Anyway, if they get rid of the timer and change the XP to half of what it is right now, I think it will work just fine.
TooVeeOrahno
Tue May 11, 2004 7:31 am
#4
I agree...get rid of the timer and just cut the XP in half.
AydenTrodak
Tue May 11, 2004 7:33 am
#5
I agree ID is way to easy to master, compared to other careers. But still it took me about week. What with waiting for trainers and such
AydenTrodak
Tue May 11, 2004 7:36 am
#6
Also, i think that when ID'ing ourselves, we should drop the timer, but just give use even less xp when changing ourselves. Very rarely do people ID themselves for xp.
I made a macro that changes my entire face from brunette beauty to icy weirdo, white mohawk and all. But now that change will take 2 minutes!
Syzygy-Gorath
Tue May 11, 2004 7:41 am
#7
Ugh…XP is already kind of borked under the new system. Simply removing the timer and cutting XP in half isn't the answer. For the sake of my fingers I'll simply quote what I wrote in a PM:
Just to make sure I wasn't imagining things I created a brand new toon on TestCenter and began working towards Entertainer Image Design I. It took me an hour and forty minutes to qualify. At that rate it would take sixty hours just for the Entertainer Image Design line.
There are two big problems, aside from the amount XP per minute itself. The first is that noone wants just cosmetics or chargen-available hairstyles. This forces many low-level entertainers to work on themselves. The second is that most professions "ramp up" in XP gained. That is to say, as a crafter you can make more complex, higher XP items. As a combattant you can fight harder creatures which give more XP. As an image designer you have no such luxury, so each box, rather than taking only slightly longer, is geometrically longer to achieve.
The first, and likely easiest, fix for this issue is to allow XP to stack. If I change only my eyeshadow I get 50XP (100XP on someone else.) If I change my lipstick I get 100XP (200XP on someone else.) And so on. In this manner, as more options become available to the designer, more XP can be generated per session in much the same way that other classes can generate more XP over the same period of time as they progress.
The second fix, and this deals more with "casual players" rather than "grinders" is to remove the self-ID penalty. Unfortunately, there is not much call for low-level entertainer ID skills, and for this reason many will be forced to ID themselves to advance. The penalty is, in this case, crippling to their advance.
The third, and final, fix that I can think of is to adjust the XP/minute ratio by either increasing the XP granted per change (less desirable) or decreasing the wait per change (more desirable.) This would not only help aspiring designers, but would also aleviate the frustration incurred by those wanting small, fast changes and being stuck for two minutes until they can get them. An example: I'd like to change my cosmetics to match my outfit. I can select the correct button and apropriate colors within 20 seconds, yet I'm forced to wait another minute and forty seconds until I can aply these simple changes.
I applaud your efforts at correcting the problem of ID skillgain. However, the new system is far too draconian, and could, in fact, be considered game breaking by anyone aspiring to ID or Master Entertainer.
Thank you for listening.
P.S. Those timers would be much less irritating to players were they made post-change timers rather than pre-change timers, in much the same way that medic healing timers work.
And there you have it—my thoughts on the timer and XP gain.
MarinhaTiga
Tue May 11, 2004 7:57 am
#8
Syzgy,
Good thoughts on the matter of XP gain while trying to grind ID. But why have a timer (any kind of timer) for Master Image Designers at all?
Gyopi
Tue May 11, 2004 8:02 am
#9
Syzygy-Gorath wrote:
Ugh…XP is already kind of borked under the new system. Simply removing the timer and cutting XP in half isn't the answer. For the sake of my fingers I'll simply quote what I wrote in a PM:
Stacking XP is perfectly reasonable. I would just like some balance in getting XP and it should be very simmilar to grinding any combat or crafting profession. It is hard to consider people who are not going to grind and are going to try to master just by doing the profession. Even though this is what people *should* do, grinding is a well established tradition in SWGand they have actively encouraged it. *Most* people are going to grind to master and then do the profession. The other problem is that now days people are using "illegal" second party programs to do all of the clicking for them (I think it is cheating!). Those programs can click through an interface extremely quickly, so there has to be some sort of delay to prevent that.
I agree that the current XP system is messed up, though. There should be some sort of progression for XP like the old system.
Syzygy-Gorath
Tue May 11, 2004 8:02 am
#10
The only ability I'd require a timer on for a Master is stat migration. Although again, for stat migration 10 minutes is too short! It leaves it open to exploitation; stats should not migrate in under 2 hours, else we run the risk of entertainer buffing with a "lopsided" stat set, then "reloading" for combat. The reason I didn't bother with Master timers in that PM is because it's a hassle, but it's not game breaking. The XP gain issue is very much game breaking. Pick your battles, right? 
MarinhaTiga
Tue May 11, 2004 8:22 am
#11
Syzygy-Gorath wrote:
Pick your battles, right?
Hehe true! Im just really really worried that if we dont fight this battle now, we'll be stuck with this hassle for a very long (annoying) time.
Syzygy-Gorath
Tue May 11, 2004 8:27 am
#12
A more complicated, but perhaps more logical, way to handle ID timers:
First, assume that a new skillmod is added: Image Design Speed. This skillmod would effect timers in the same way that Pistol Speed et al effect weapon refire rates. Next, assume that each change has an associated speed modifier based on a 60 second base change time. The formula would look like this:
(60 * Image_Design_Change_Modifier) * ((100 - Image_Design_Speed) / 100) = Timer_Wait
Now, at each Image Design skillbox you would be granted plusses to Image Design Speed like such:
Master Image Designer
+8
Hairstyling IV Face IV Bodyform IV Markings IV
+5 +5 +5 +5
Hairstyling III Face III Bodyform III Markings III
+4 +4 +4 +4
Hairstyling II Face II Bodyform II Markings II
+3 +3 +3 +3
Hairstyling I Face I Bodyform I Markings I
+2 +2+2 +2
Novice Image Designer
+2
Image Design IV
+2
Image Design III
+1
Image Design II
+1
Image Design I
+1
Novice Entertainer
+1
So…how does this work in practice? As you gain skillboxes you slowly get faster and faster in the waits between changes. An example: assume lipstick color has a 1.0 speed midifier. As a Novice Entertainer your speed would be 1, so it would take: (60 * 1) * ((100 - 1) / 100) = 59.4 seconds between changes. Now assume the same change at Novice Image Designer: (60 * 1) * ((100 - 8) / 100) = 55.2 seconds between changes. And again at Master Image Designer: (60 * 1) * ((100 - 100) / 100) = 0 seconds between changes. This would not wholly solve the problem of skillgain due to most of the speed modifiers being clustered at the top of the skilltrees, but it would help to alleviate waits as you progressed through the trees, and by dint of the mod being spread evenly throughout the profession would avoid making one track any more desirable than any other.
Coupled with allowing XP to stack within sessions, this might make the XP system bearable, but I'd have to do a lot more math to confirm that—at present this is just a rough concept.
FuschiaD
Tue May 11, 2004 8:38 am
#13
The timer needs to go. If they're getting rid of the /imagedesignSetValue command, then people will have to work through the interface, and that's ENOUGH of a time sink to slow down ID grind considerably. Please, devs... if you do nothing else, please do this for us. It's not fair that master ID's who are ID'ing for a living have to suffer the consequences and have that enormous timer. I agree with the 10 minute stat migration timer, but let it be client-end only, so that we can go directly to the nextclient. It is NOT fair to punish us for a problem that was, however inadvertently, created by you.
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