Jedi Archive
Thread: Pearl/Crystal Solution Smuggler Slicing Style
Page 1 of 1
Acheron5
Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:43 pm
#1
As many of you have experienced, the pearl/crystal situation in the game is not working as expected or desired (understatement).
It seems that a possible way around the current issues involving pearl drops and pearl/crystal tuning is to borrow a page from the smuggler slicing book. Pearls and crystals should be tuned in a way that is similar to the way that smugglers slice weapons. I won't go into the details of how such system would work since it is so easily imaginedbut will instead provide a quick example of how this might work in the game and list the benefits of this solution afterwards.
When a Jedi goes to tune a crystal/pearl the Jedi is provided with a series of screens that enables the player to fine tune the attributes of the crystal/pearl. Much like smugglers can slice a weapon for damage or critical hit or speed, so too a Jedi should be able to tune a crystal/pearl according to the speed, fc, and damage bonuses that item confers. The range of these attributes is determined by the quality of the crystal/pearl and if it is still necessary to have a random element of chance play into the tuning of the item then it could occur there. Like smuggler slicing, the degree to which the crystal/pearl can be tuned could be determined by the Jedi's skill.For the sake of simplicity, we'll leave out any consideration of using additional items analogous to illegal booster cores and the like that might assist or be necessary for such tuning though such content could be added to adjust the difficulty of high level tunes.
There are numerous reasons that this will improve the tuning experience and diminish the problems associated with the current system.
- It would guarantee that all crystals/pearls would tune to at least a minimum value.
- It would enable a Jedi to fine tune and balance their weapons according to gamestyle without resorting purely to chance tunes from a large collection of crystals/pearls. A Jedi can specifically tune crystals for fc, damage, or speed for instance.
- Since it would give Jedi a guaranteed minimum on each attribute tuned, it would diminish the amount of Krayt/NS farming since there would be fewer crystals/pearls that would tune badly or in an unexpected way. In fact, these creatures might become even rarer or more challenging since a Jedi wouldn't have to slaughter dozens if not hundreds in order to loot a reservoir of pearls in the hope that a small percentage of those are actually useable.
- It would be more equitable and diminish the occassions where a player invests a huge amount of effort or credits to buy a premium crystal/pearl that would end up being a terrible tune.
This also addresses the pearl drop situation- If tuning success is related to Jedi skill rather then random chance as is the case with smugglers slicing weapons then the need forpremiumpearls/crystalswill be greatly diminished.
The main disadvantage is that it would take away that feeling of having won the lottery if you get a decent tune, something that doesn't seem appropriate anyway for this particular aspect of the game. Since the model for this system already exists in the game with smuggler slicing it might be easy to adapt over to crystal/pearl tuning.
Page 1 of 1