Pilot Archive
Thread: POLL: Will JTL Keep You Playing Until The Combat Upgrade?
I love JTL because it's so much fun working with a Squad of guildmates.
MariketheWookiee wrote:
/clap
excelent post... one slight other thing to add under vet ships... 75 items? You give us a huge guild hall sized ship, and expect us to make it the best ship in the galaxy? I could never decorate a guildhall fully with their 250 items... how am i supposed to do my ship with 75?
People who play the game the way it's intended to be played would decorate their yacht with 250 items. Everyone else would use it as a one-lot, 250 item phat lewt depository. If it wasn't for a lot of the other players, SWG would be perfect the way it is. Unfortunately there's always the new idiot on the block there to figure out a way to exploit a system that everyone was having good clean fun with yesterday, and get it nerfed. Such is life in MMOs, I suspect.
Some thoughts here, since I'm so fed up with JTL I'm about ready to quit.
On mass: Lets switch to a hardpoint model. "Mass" is fiction anyway. A TIE bomber loaded with an engine and reactor is not faster than a TIE bomber loaded with 190K of stuff, or more manouverable or anything. Equipment levels should represent more advanced equipment, not bigger. IMO everything except space bombs and level 10 equipment should have a mass of 1000. Space bombs, 10k. Every hardpoint something has gets an extra 1000 mass, unless it should be a space bomb at which point its 10k, or level 10, 50k. Level 10 equipment is for multipassenger ships only, and so they get 50k per hardpoint. SW's should experiment the modifiers on the ship, YPR, max speed and hit points. Take away some experiment points on equipment.
On the overall scale of JTL. You're right in looking at elite, but I think the more relevant and modern examples are EVE online, and X or X2 (the threat). More privateer less wing commander.
Not just bugged missions, but missions that require you group where the other people get nothing but a waste of time. I'd rather the long missions (anything over 30 minutes) be broken into smaller missions, even if you have to do them all to train. This way I don't have to make someone come with me for 2 hours when I only need them for the last 15 minutes of a mission.
SWG has never been EQ in space. It would have done a lot better if it was done by the EQ people in a star wars universe. Its UO light, in the star wars universe.
As for the tiers and content. Notice that within a week of live we're going to see a lot of masters, and by the end of new years holidays (or christmas holidays for christians), we'll see how little content there really is. One of the defining features of Sony games was no PvP zones. That's mythics thing. You never need to be in position of fighting another player on the ground in swg and you shouldn't need to in space. This is a paradigm shift in ideology for SWG, and its a shift towards a market done better, with an established base by someone else. Besides that you can't radically alter the design philosophy of a game like SWG after release (and in this case altering it for the worse).
Will JTL keep me playing till the combat upgrade? To the contrary JTL may make me quit before they get to the combat upgrade. JTL should not have gone live when it did. They need to fix it, fast. They need to undo the ideology shifts (back from forced overtness for content and xp and forced grouping), fix the mass issues and alter a lot of the missions. If they just leave it and chase after the combat upgrade JTL will continue to degrade in quality to the point of being completely unplayable (and that assumes you can call it playable now, which is dubious), and we'll have two bad games glued together. It is a lot easier to fix JTL now, before more damage is done. The ground game can't get any worse from a balance standpoint, it is this way and has been for a year. Another couple of weeks to fix jtl isn't going to make a difference. And JTL needs to be fixed, now.
admiraljz wrote:
MariketheWookiee wrote:
/clap
excelent post... one slight other thing to add under vet ships... 75 items? You give us a huge guild hall sized ship, and expect us to make it the best ship in the galaxy? I could never decorate a guildhall fully with their 250 items... how am i supposed to do my ship with 75?People who play the game the way it's intended to be played would decorate their yacht with 250 items. Everyone else would use it as a one-lot, 250 item phat lewt depository. If it wasn't for a lot of the other players, SWG would be perfect the way it is. Unfortunately there's always the new idiot on the block there to figure out a way to exploit a system that everyone was having good clean fun with yesterday, and get it nerfed. Such is life in MMOs, I suspect.
i know
thats what always bums me out ... /sigh... i just want an awesome ship to show off to my pals also currently both my houses are in a huge mess... i need to reorganize them (my fishing outpost house was being used for a party, so i looted off my main house, then i got a vet ship, and looted outa both houses to make it good... so both are missing chairs, painings, etc here and there...) personaly i wanna dump one of the houses and then move it into my ship....
AnzelVincir wrote:
Hyperspace to a WP. Why on Tatooine can I not jump to a waypoint? I know that, "Jumping through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops" but come on! We really need this. Especially for grouping. Last night a few of my guild mates were going to help me with a mission that was already in progress. I gave them a WP to where I was and it took forever for them to reach me. They should have just been able to jump right to me.
"Jump to Lightspeed" with no lightspeed???? This is the reason I didn't pick up JTL, unless the dev team starts listening to the community and really fixes stuff my account willstay permanetly canceled.
Message Edited by angel10 on 11-01-2004 05:48 PM
You can use hyperspace to jump between sectors, just not to an exact location, the exception being starport to starport jumps, which are precise.
---
Anyway, I think we can expect a "Space Upgrade" sometime in the future to correct all these core problems...
-Kardax
sirsri wrote:
On the whole I agree with what you're saying.
Some thoughts here, since I'm so fed up with JTL I'm about ready to quit.
On mass: Lets switch to a hardpoint model. "Mass" is fiction anyway. A TIE bomber loaded with an engine and reactor is not faster than a TIE bomber loaded with 190K of stuff, or more manouverable or anything. Equipment levels should represent more advanced equipment, not bigger. IMO everything except space bombs and level 10 equipment should have a mass of 1000. Space bombs, 10k. Every hardpoint something has gets an extra 1000 mass, unless it should be a space bomb at which point its 10k, or level 10, 50k. Level 10 equipment is for multipassenger ships only, and so they get 50k per hardpoint. SW's should experiment the modifiers on the ship, YPR, max speed and hit points. Take away some experiment points on equipment.
On the overall scale of JTL. You're right in looking at elite, but I think the more relevant and modern examples are EVE online, and X or X2 (the threat). More privateer less wing commander.
Not just bugged missions, but missions that require you group where the other people get nothing but a waste of time. I'd rather the long missions (anything over 30 minutes) be broken into smaller missions, even if you have to do them all to train. This way I don't have to make someone come with me for 2 hours when I only need them for the last 15 minutes of a mission.
SWG has never been EQ in space. It would have done a lot better if it was done by the EQ people in a star wars universe. Its UO light, in the star wars universe.
As for the tiers and content. Notice that within a week of live we're going to see a lot of masters, and by the end of new years holidays (or christmas holidays for christians), we'll see how little content there really is. One of the defining features of Sony games was no PvP zones. That's mythics thing. You never need to be in position of fighting another player on the ground in swg and you shouldn't need to in space. This is a paradigm shift in ideology for SWG, and its a shift towards a market done better, with an established base by someone else. Besides that you can't radically alter the design philosophy of a game like SWG after release (and in this case altering it for the worse).
Will JTL keep me playing till the combat upgrade? To the contrary JTL may make me quit before they get to the combat upgrade. JTL should not have gone live when it did. They need to fix it, fast. They need to undo the ideology shifts (back from forced overtness for content and xp and forced grouping), fix the mass issues and alter a lot of the missions. If they just leave it and chase after the combat upgrade JTL will continue to degrade in quality to the point of being completely unplayable (and that assumes you can call it playable now, which is dubious), and we'll have two bad games glued together. It is a lot easier to fix JTL now, before more damage is done. The ground game can't get any worse from a balance standpoint, it is this way and has been for a year. Another couple of weeks to fix jtl isn't going to make a difference. And JTL needs to be fixed, now.
Let me guess... you were fiddling with the Imperial Space Station and thought "yes I want to be overt" meant "no, I don't want anyone to attack me," and a Rebel in an A-Wing blew up your starter Tie Fighter, causing you 100 wounds and costing you 200 credits.
Seriously, most of the people I've talked to and heard from are thrilled about the grouping in space, squadron-scale combat, passengers as gunners, etc. Your point about mass also doesn't seem correct to me. My X-Wing has about 98k mass whereas an A-Wing has about 150k mass... however, the X-Wing has three projectile weapon slots and one missile slot. With half that armament installed, there is no possible way I'd ever fit the fastest engine and booster I own into the craft. I can't even fit one of those two items if I take out all of my weapons. However, one or both would easily fit into an A-Wing, giving it tremendous speed and maneuverability at the cost of firepower. By contrast, my X-Wing is slower and easier to hit, but hits back much harder. By contrast, a Longprobe is a virtual slug, but hits like a ton of bricks with two projectiles and two missiles. That seems, to me, like ships fullfilling class requirements, and mass plays a big role in that.
I further suspect there are no Krayts or Nightsisters for you to farm in space for billion dollar loot, and no mind fire blaster you can put on your ship. To me it just sounds like you're intent on being dissatisfied, and no matter how JTL was put together, you'd still react the same way.
With the versatility of each ship and the limited "skill" granted by advancement through the professions, I don't think it will really matter in the end how fast everyone masters or how many there are... and PvP is bound to be far more balanced and enjoyable for a far greater percentage of the paying public because of that... and also because you're killing a ship and not a humanoid character. Add further to that the virtual lack of penalty for dying in space and there really isn't much complaint from my end if I have to be overt at the end of my training to complete it. I don't know about you, but I have a seperate button for targeting players and NPCs on my controller, and switching targets in space isn't as frustrating as switching targets on the ground. Add to the fact that everyone is going to have essentially equal quality equipment in different configurations and it's six of one, half-dozen of the other. There's no leetdood chatter ("In space, no one can hear you scream PWNED JOO NOOB!"), players are all on more or less equal footing, and there's no significant penalty for dying. Therefore I really don't think the necessity of going overt to finish your training is such a huge deal, and I don't think it will be for many players once they're comfortable with the controls of their ship, target acquisition, loadout, etc.
I'm having a blast, and I've yet to hear anyone in-game have anything contrary to say about JTL. It's only on the forums that people are bitching, and those aren't the people playing the game, because they're too busy trolling for controversy.
The original poster may have a few priorites out of whack in his complaints (we don't all have to have the same opinion), but even he makes very compelling arguments for what is right, and that it outweighs the negative by far. Plus, he's a self-proclaimed forum troll 
If the necessity of grouping in JTL is a major contributing factor in your decision to quit the game, you'd better quit before the Combat Upgrade. Word on the street is you're actually going to have to interact and play with real live people to get major things accomplished on the ground once it hits. No more spamming intimidate and hit3 on NS elders for two straight hours while running a "PWNED JOO NOOB!" looping spatial macro.
I might also add that, no, JTL will not keep me around until the Combat Upgrade. I was staying anyway
Message Edited by admiraljz on 11-01-2004 08:56 PM
I disagree with this completely. Yes, veterans should be awarded the choice to change their character to either an Ithorian or a Sullustan because of the new availability. Not to whatever race you want.
JavaHulk wrote:
If you give vets a change, make it AFTER the combat revamp, or let us use it when we choose, Id change my main to a wookie now for the extra ham as a jedi, but if that gets borkes with combat patch Id be furious...
Well thought post, 5 stars.
Message Edited by Aileili on 11-01-2004 06:00 PM
Additionally, there should be other space stations, space craft, etc. that our ground characters can board and explore in space.
I talk more about this subject in my SW vs. SWG post...