Jedi Archive

Since the CU, I have become concerned with how the Jedi profession set feels very little like playing a Jedi from any other game, such as the Jedi Knight series or KOTOR series, and very little like the experience suggested by anything written by George Lucas, Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole or Matt Stover, who, in my opinion, offer the best looks at Jedidom in general.

The practical combat essence of being a Jedi (and I limit the discussion to this, as Jedi's main role in SW:G is combative for now), as near as I can tell, is that enhanced senses and abilities allow Jedi to be rare masters of melee combat in a world of ranged energy weapons. There are other elite melee professionals, such as martial artists, especially the practitioners of Teras Kasi, Nikto Morgukai pikemen, the elite droid guard of General Grievous (N-K 3 droids), and the Noghri, in their capacity as assassins. As well, there are a wide variety of self-defense close combat styles, focusing mostly on unarmed and vibroblade (knife) techniques, mostly taught to police and military personnel.

Thus it seems that already we have hit an impasse: A player's profession is identical to his skill set, EXCEPT FOR JEDI AND FORCE-SENSITIVES, in Star Wars: Galaxies.

PROPOSAL NUMBER 1:

Reorganize professions, and shift current "professions" into skills that can be taken by a standard profession. This is a mostly cosmetic change that accomplishes three things: It makes Jedi less of a paradigm shift from the main game thereby reducing the feel of isolation between Jedi and non-Jedi, it gives a greater emphasis on faction, which encourages PVP and reduces "deadweight" faction bloat because of a lack of change in gameplay before and after factioning, and it paves the way for an Official Criminal Faction and starter-to-full template quests during leveling which reward people with faction points.

Professions: Civilian, Rebel Soldier, Imperial Stormtrooper, Force Sensitive

Teras Kasi Artist is renamed to Unarmed Defensive Specialist, but otherwise left unchanged.

Fencer is renamed into Unarmed Offensive Specialist and reoutfitted with knucklers.

Swordsman is renamed to Heavy Bladesman and equipped with 2h swords and heavy polearms.

Pikeman is renamed to Light Bladesman and equipped with light staves and 1h swords.

Commando, Pistoleer, Carbineer, Rifleman, Doctor, Combat Medic, Ranger and Squad Leader remain the same. Bounty Hunter is renamed Special Operations Trooper (SpecOps) for Rebels and Imperials and remains largely unchanged, though I would recommend different skill tree names. Smuggler is renamed to Covert Operative, but otherwise remains unchanged.

SpecOps Troopers can take Jedi bounties against Imperials or Rebels (i.e., for RP purposes, Rebels are reported for murderous and/or Anti-Rebellion activity, if you insist on a justification for Rebels hunting Rebels), and can take Assassination missions against Imperial NPCs and, some day, against Imperial Assassins and high-ranked PVP players, same as for neutral Bounty Hunters.

Crafting, Entertaining and Politican professions are open to anyone, as are Force Sensitive skills, which are a seperate base profession.

Defecting will not affect skills, but will require quests of various length based on character level for your new faction to "trust" you, and will place you on the Bounty terminals for a week, until you are killed, or until you are Trusted and a Covert Operative slices you off of the terminals, whichever comes first, with a limit of 1v1 on the execution of the mission. Factional items will be kept until these quests are complete, then "confiscated for study by Intelligence."


So now Jedi feel like a part of the galaxy, and this is an excellent step toward improving the feel of Jedi and, as well, the entire game.

So what is it to be a Jedi in combat? Lucas tells us to "Feel, don't think. Trust your instincts." Stover, Zahn and Stackpole expand on this: it is surrender to the Force. In training to be able to do this, Jedi learn to focus the Force through a standard set of abilities. Stackpole's I, Jedi had the most technical descriptions of Force techniques, and Zahn's Hand of Thrawn series (as well as Survivor's Quest) had very precise descriptions of combat abilities. KOTOR 2 and the later parts of the New Jedi Order series (from Star by Star onward) deal with various

Basic Jedi abilities as seen in Corran Horn's training:
- Tap into the Force to refresh one's stamina
- Focus the Force to enhance one's muscle strength
- Focus senses to predict intent
- Alter perceptions
- Facilitate minor healing and control pain
- Basic telekinesis
- Cooperative focus
- Lightsaber techniques, ESPECIALLY defensive dueling and blaster bolt deflection

The latter, the lightsaber techniques, are also basic skills learned by ye olde Jedi younglings... A Jedi is inseperable from the lightsaber!

Thus:

PROPOSAL 2: JEDI INITIATE SKILL TREE

Jedi Initiates get low-power, low FC abilities, as well as the 4FC Training Lightsaber. The XP cap is low, as is the gain rate, to make it not only desirable but intended to level the tree relatively quickly on Grey-con MOBs. Perhaps the Jedi's trainer can give a quest for the level 4 box in each branch, but that may be beyond the scope of easy coding.

XP Cap: 5 Jedi XP per kill, 2x box size stored

The tree is arranged as follows:

Jedi Initiate
Force Power +100, FP Regen +5, Saber Hit (costs 1/2 FC, or 2 FC), Training Saber craft/cert

Lightsaber Techniques 1 - 10 Jedi XP
Lightsaber Block +5**, Training Lightsaber Speed +5, Training Lightsaber Accuracy +10

Lightsaber Techniques 2 - 15 Jedi XP
Lightsaber Block +5**, Training Lightsaber Speed +5, Training Lightsaber Accuracy +10
Basic Lightsaber Strike (better damage, higher action cost, costs 6 FC)

Lightsaber Techniques 3 - 25 Jedi XP
Lightsaber Block +5**, Training Lightsaber Speed +5, Training Lightsaber Accuracy +10

Lightsaber Techniques 4 - 35 Jedi XP
Lightsaber Block +5**, Training Lightsaber Speed +5, Training Lightsaber Accuracy +10
Basic Lightsaber Sweep (KD, training saber only, costs 10 FC)

** Advanced (Lightsaber) Techniques 1 in the Lightsaber discipline gives +5 block. The +20 remaining through Tech and the Master box provide a % chance for a Blocked attack to reflect


Body Control 1 - 15 Jedi XP
Basic Force Heal (200-point heal)

Body Control 2 - 30 Jedi XP
Basic Force Purification (20/tick reduction of DOTs per use, timer takes at least one DOT tick to run again)

Body Control 3 - 40 Jedi XP
Force Mind Infusion (conversion of Force Power to Mind Pool, 200 FP 20% mind pool recharge)**

Body Control 4 - 50 Jedi XP
Force Action Infusion (conversion of Force Power to Action Pool, 200 FP = 20% action pool recharge)**

** These abilities need numbers and timing balancing


Focus 1 - 20 Jedi XP
Force Power Max +100

Focus 2 - 30 Jedi XP
Force Power Max +100

Focus 3 - 40 Jedi XP
Force Power Max +100

Focus 4 - 50 Jedi XP
Force Power Max +100
Basic Force Meditate (Double FP regen. To make Enhancer Meditate disirable, increase its regen rate to 4x instead of 3x)


Force Manipulation 1 - 20 Jedi XP
Basic Force Run (50% speed increase, +Terrain Negotiation)

Force Manipulation 2 - 30 Jedi XP
Basic Force Push (2 second root, 20 second recharge timer)

Force Manipulation 3 - 40 Jedi XP
Jedi Mind Trick (passes Crackdown inspection flawlessly 90% of the time, regardless of merit)**

Force Manipulation 4 - 50 Jedi XP
Improved Force Push (2 second root, 5 second snare, 20 second recharge timer)

** Stronghold cities, such as Bestine and Moenia, should have Checkpoints which have troopers inspect people travelling into the city via starport, shuttleport and major entrances


Jedi Padawan - Padawan Trials
Jedi discipline trees unlocked


And so there is a learning curve and a basic set of abilities that are common to all Jedi Padawans and above, regardless of skills and level.

The next step to improving the feel of Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies is realizing that the above changes give Jedi more power than they currently have, and giving Jedi a challenge without having them trample the main game. All of the major methods discussed today involve removing Jedi from sight via Bounty Hunter encounters and GCW removal, but these all involve 1) having a higher-power class required to be balanced against lower-powered competitors, 2) one class singled out for nonconsentual PVP and death penalty and 3) frustration at the lack of content for the higher-powered class. In general, people want Jedi visibilty lowered, so here is the solution:

PROPOSAL 4: NEW STRONGER CLASSES SEPERATE FROM BASIC SKILLS

Create a series of elite-elite PVP professions that take as long to grind as Jedi, are meant to compete with Jedi on power (though not necessarily on skill diversity), and collectively form a secret war seperate from the GCW, yet are faster and easier to unlock, making them more popular by the principle of laziness and leaving only the dedicated for the harder-to-acheive Jedi.

These could be introduced, for example, with the next expansion. A few ideas:

Morgukai Warrior - for Nikto characters (conveniently introduced with said expansion) who have mastered Heavy Bladesman and Defensive Unarmed skills and then complete a series of quests. Hunts Jedi and other Elite-Elite classes as mercenaries.

Teras Kasi Artist - For any character who has mastered Offensive and Defensive Unarmed skills. TKA Elite-Elites wander the galaxy questing to learn new martial arts to enhance and round out their skills.

Imperial Royal Guard - For any Imperial Soldier who has mastered Heavy Bladesman and one of Rifleman, Carbineer or Pistoleer

Lt. Page's Commandos teammember - For any Rebel Soldier who masters Commando and any other combat profession (gives skills for all weapon types)

Lt. Page's Commandos and the Royal Guards all perform special ops against enemy troops and infrastructure, usually in groups. Combat Vehicle Control should be an essential part of these professions' core and optional abilities.

Mercenary Elite - Rough neutral/Criminal equivalent to the above professions

CorSec Investigator - Neutral/Civilian profession for any Investigation 4 template. Does much sneaking and criminal and special investigation


The possibilities are endless, limited only by the programming and content creation time. With so many possibilities for professions whose purpose is to hunt each other, all that would remain is the Jedi equivalent - working with their faction on some occasions, being hunted by it others. Light Jedi can investigate threats to the Order and rampant criminal activity in the name of peace and justice. Dark Jedi can track down and destroy their hunters and kill those who threaten their own power.

With such a system, all the classes would keep each other in check, and all would be harassed by Bounty Hunters, Assassins and SpecOps Troopers. In short, in SWG, you would have a JOB which you could bring from shortly after character conception to completion, helping roleplay and the feel of the game in general, especially for the too-often singled-out Jedi.

And that's my dream for SW:G and my plan to make the game more fun for everyone, with a special emphasis on Jedi

Message Edited by Haerb on 06-24-2005 09:49 PM

Interesting ideas....I do like where you are heading though.

Look, I've spent 12 hours thinking about this stuff and writing it down so far... would it be too much to ask for some feedback before I post the fourth part, which deals with maintaining balance while not only preserving the power of Jedi but enhancing the main game?

Last section added. It's not an original idea (additional strong classes), but to me, it's the most fun.

your ideas are well thought and sound very interesting. I would buy the game you are advertising!

No time to read it all but what I did read is AWSOME!!!

You've thought this out well and I'd be happy if the SOE design team gotta peek at this.

I think it's a great idea... however.... wouldn't it be cool, and say more in line with SW that some of the older powers found in the new jedi order series were hidden powers and such. A lot of time has past, a lot of the jedi teachings have been lost. It may be an idea of "content" to add older powers in as either a reward in the force ranking system, or as a quest based reward etc. Otherwise I like it all.

I just glanced at alot of things, but I like where you are going. This overall deserves some merit.

Yet, with the way things are and how the community feedback is to the devs..........Let's just say this has a low chance of taking effect.

that's all well and good, but do you believe the devs will release ANOTHER CU?

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chewie49 wrote:

that's all well and good, but do you believe the devs will release ANOTHER CU?

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Yes. I think the devs would release an updated Jedi combat system. This would not need to affect the current combat system for normal professions.