Pilot Archive
Thread: Aye aye Cap'n an idea on an elite pilot prof
Baynemuim wrote:
Need I remind you all that this is *not* pilot, nowhere did the devs say that they wouldn't use skillpoints for space skills. However, I do not want this thread to devolve into a flame fest. There is no way to completly limit a skill, jedi has proved that, people will always find a way around. The skill point matter needs to fade into the ether for now, any other suggestions for limiting factors will be appreciated.
Actually they DID say that space skills would not use skill points before JTL launched and during Beta, if you want references and links go find them yourself since I doubt you searched for them to back up your current statements.
And therein lies the problem, everyone wants one, space is just not big enough for that. Dump capital ships completely....just scrap the whole idea.
Everyone wants everything for free. I mean come on, a couple missions? for a capital ship? you are kidding right?
These things should not even launch without crew of 8
Ibixat wrote:
Baynemuim wrote:
Need I remind you all that this is *not* pilot, nowhere did the devs say that they wouldn't use skillpoints for space skills. However, I do not want this thread to devolve into a flame fest. There is no way to completly limit a skill, jedi has proved that, people will always find a way around. The skill point matter needs to fade into the ether for now, any other suggestions for limiting factors will be appreciated.
Actually they DID say that space skills would not use skill points before JTL launched and during Beta, if you want references and links go find them yourself since I doubt you searched for them to back up your current statements.
Sorry, must have missed that. Anyway, since when have the devs stuck strictly to what they said they'd do?
I think that when you achieve Ace and you start getting prestige points, you should be able to use them toward gaining enterance to your faction's "Naval Academy" this would have your missions for training, as well as the beginnings of missions (once you get to vette level) to get a vette. Gunboats, which are the lowest capital ship, will not have the restrictions to aquire them like the vette and gunships/lancer.
Any thoughts?
Oh, and to the guy who mentioned grinding for 2 years, this is not how it goes, I didn't even mention something that should've lead you to believe this.
Alyxian wrote:And therein lies the problem, everyone wants one, space is just not big enough for that. Dump capital ships completely....just scrap the whole idea.
Everyone wants everything for free. I mean come on, a couple missions? for a capital ship? you are kidding right?
These things should not even launch without crew of 8
I suggested missions, similar to, not exactly the same as the missions for the quest reward ships. I would still be happy if it took 35 seperate legs for a set of missions to be able to obtain a Capital Ship.
I am not asking for one for free. I am just asking that it be reasonably available for those of us who get to play, perhaps 4 to 8 hours each week.
Baynemuim wrote:
Oh, and to the guy who mentioned grinding for 2 years, this is not how it goes, I didn't even mention something that should've lead you to believe this.
What do you mean that isn't how it goes?
Having to Master Squad leader will take me at least 6 months, if I focus entirely on that.
I had been playing for two years and I hadn't mastered an advanced combat profession, until the Double XP and the Combat Upgrade Respec appeared. First, because there are only so many hours in the day and second I had some other interests as well.
I have also had JTL since day one of its release and right now, I am just waiting for a weekend to get my PA together to help me with the 'Vette mission for my 1st Master Pilot Box.
There are a significant number of players out there, like myself. Several of which are in my PA, we are the kind of people that SOE makes its money off of and if they create some overly complicated and difficult method for obtaining a Capital Ship, they aren't likely going to be selling large numbers of that expansion pack to players like myself.
I can see it being a multi-component, heavy resource requirement crafting task. I can see it being a series of lengthy missions with many legs, that culminates in receiving a Capital Ship. I would have no fun having to abandon my current quest of VERY slowly gaining Force Sensitive skills to eventually obtaining that Jedi character.
Most people aren't going to be constantly flying their Capital ships, just like most people aren't flying their POBs everyday right now. People who fly, will continue to fly their fighters more often, POBs less often and Capital Ships even less often, based almost entirely on the fact that those ships needs crews, bigger then one, in order to be effective.
rols_cerentz wrote:
Baynemuim wrote:
Oh, and to the guy who mentioned grinding for 2 years, this is not how it goes, I didn't even mention something that should've lead you to believe this.
What do you mean that isn't how it goes?
Having to Master Squad leader will take me at least 6 months, if I focus entirely on that.
I had been playing for two years and I hadn't mastered an advanced combat profession, until the Double XP and the Combat Upgrade Respec appeared. First, because there are only so many hours in the day and second I had some other interests as well.
I have also had JTL since day one of its release and right now, I am just waiting for a weekend to get my PA together to help me with the 'Vette mission for my 1st Master Pilot Box.
There are a significant number of players out there, like myself. Several of which are in my PA, we are the kind of people that SOE makes its money off of and if they create some overly complicated and difficult method for obtaining a Capital Ship, they aren't likely going to be selling large numbers of that expansion pack to players like myself.
I can see it being a multi-component, heavy resource requirement crafting task. I can see it being a series of lengthy missions with many legs, that culminates in receiving a Capital Ship. I would have no fun having to abandon my current quest of VERY slowly gaining Force Sensitive skills to eventually obtaining that Jedi character.
Most people aren't going to be constantly flying their Capital ships, just like most people aren't flying their POBs everyday right now. People who fly, will continue to fly their fighters more often, POBs less often and Capital Ships even less often, based almost entirely on the fact that those ships needs crews, bigger then one, in order to be effective.
You know, there have to be trade offs here. All of the ROTW ships are available to a casual player, but cap ships are, and should be, endgame content.
According to your theory, everything in the game should be watered down and easy enough for a casual player to attain. Ok, so if that is the case, there will be no game. Those who play more, will be so bored that they will move on to a new game and the game goes under.
There is already TONS of casual player content in this game, I mean 90% of Kashyyyk is literally just that. The theory of being able to do and get everything as a casual player does not make for a successful game.
POB ships are not used currently for a good reason, the fact they are near useless being the chief among them. Many of us, as part of the community, are trying to prevent the same thing from happening to Capital ships. Yes, you are right, we coupld use the POB model to keep Capital ships rare, and by that I mean make Cap ships so gimped no one wants to use them anyways...sure, ok...lets do that. NO! We are trying to prevent that, and we are also trying to make it so that those of us that play more than one to two evenings a week have something to do and a goal to work towards as well.
As for people being in them a lot...I would set mine up as my base of operations, pull up everthing but harvesters on the ground, and live in it. No, not everyone will, but a lot of us would.
I am not sure why you are even making this arguement, seems to me (and I am just guessing, your PA may be much better orginized) that the few hours a week you play, you would be hard pressed to feild a crew big enough for a Cap ship. I mean even a Vette has 7 guns, 2 shields, reactor and engines to keep firing, repaired, etc. You are going to need at least 10 people to do this effectivly.
Again, I submit that this *should* be endgame content, there is plenty of pre-master JTL content already, and preciously little after.
As I said previously, I have no problem if it requires obtaining massive amounts of resources that need to be built into sections of a capital ship. I have no problem if it requires some 35 leg series of missions.
I object to it being limited only to Guild Leaders, I object to it being limited only to Master Squad Leaders or to characters with one branch of the Squad Leader profession.
Watered down? No. That would be silly, I wouldn't have any fun with that either.
Impossible or next to impossible to obtain for a casual player (Similar to how obtaining a Jedi is?)? No.
Possible, yet difficult and time consuming and based upon work put into missions or serious work put into crafting or even a combination of both? Yes.
What you are saying is that casual players don't matter and casual players shouldn't have access to the "End Game" material.
Nowhere did I suggest that Capital Ships be "Gimped" or made otherwise useless as POB ships were originally. (Have you used a POB ship lately? How about one with a crew that has actually practiced a bit?)
Besides, it has already been suggested, in many places, of methods to make Cap Ships VERY durable and very capable and I am all with that. However, it will still be a twitch game, so there is a limit to what can be provided in terms of bonuses. At best, we are looking at significantly buffed Cap Ship components along with some hefty Damage Mitigation, along with slightly longer range Cap Ship weapon turrets.
At worst, we are looking at a Gimpy thing along the lines of the first days of POB flight, which is still changing. As the Devs have said, it is always easier to bump something up, then it is to Nerf it.
Which leads me to believe that we will be looking at fairly gimpy Cap Ships to start with, which will be upped over time, until they become the hardcore combat vessels we expect them to be.
rols_cerentz wrote:
First, I didn't say that everything needed to be watered down. If you read my post again, you will see that I object to having the process of obtaining a Capital ship be some extremely time consuming grind.
Grind, no...time consuming, yes
As I said previously, I have no problem if it requires obtaining massive amounts of resources that need to be built into sections of a capital ship. I have no problem if it requires some 35 leg series of missions.
I object to it being limited only to Guild Leaders, I object to it being limited only to Master Squad Leaders or to characters with one branch of the Squad Leader profession.
I have objected to this as well, never said it should be
Watered down? No. That would be silly, I wouldn't have any fun with that either.
But that is exactly what you are asking for, you want it to be able to be done fast enough for an 8 hour a week player to obtain relativly quickly. That *is* watering it down
Impossible or next to impossible to obtain for a casual player (Similar to how obtaining a Jedi is?)? No.
Why not? Why should the game revolve around 8 hour aweek players in *every* respect? I*t already does in many respects, why not give those that play more something to do and work for?
Possible, yet difficult and time consuming and based upon work put into missions or serious work put into crafting or even a combination of both? Yes.
But that would take time, and you only have 8 hours, you are contradicting yourself as I highlighted in purple, so which is it?
What you are saying is that casual players don't matter and casual players shouldn't have access to the "End Game" material.
They can, but it is going to take an extrodinary amount of time to do it. Life priorities, in my life, I have more game time...why should I be bored to tears because you want to be able to do everything as fast, or nearly as fast as I, and play 1/4th the time?
Nowhere did I suggest that Capital Ships be "Gimped" or made otherwise useless as POB ships were originally. (Have you used a POB ship lately? How about one with a crew that has actually practiced a bit?)
It will have to be with your model, or everyone will be in them, and yes I have, they are ok for PvE, but I PvP mostly as there is no "endgame" content for masters in the PvE arena. And I have yet to come across a PvP POB ship that even hit me
Besides, it has already been suggested, in many places, of methods to make Cap Ships VERY durable and very capable and I am all with that. However, it will still be a twitch game, so there is a limit to what can be provided in terms of bonuses. At best, we are looking at significantly buffed Cap Ship components along with some hefty Damage Mitigation, along with slightly longer range Cap Ship weapon turrets.
At worst, we are looking at a Gimpy thing along the lines of the first days of POB flight, which is still changing. As the Devs have said, it is always easier to bump something up, then it is to Nerf it.
Which leads me to believe that we will be looking at fairly gimpy Cap Ships to start with, which will be upped over time, until they become the hardcore combat vessels we expect them to be.
End game stuff takes time to get to. Sorry but that is how MMO's work. Cap ships should be about as rare as mando pieces, maybe a little more available, but not much. I played a bunch of MMO's the same way you play SWG, casually, I never expected then to be able to get everything and do everything. I accepted the endgame was for players who had more time, and I was ok with that.
Without endgame stuff that *is* tough, and *is* rare, anyone who spends more time than the casual player (and at the 2 year stage of an MMO, that is a big chunk of the subscriberpopulation) will just not find the game worth it. If they do not find it worth it, well you will play on what seems like very empty servers. With only people that play 8ish hours a week, the chances of you hooking up with a good group on those hours is smaller. And the cnaces of anyone else but your PA being online is nil since you would probably band together with people playing the same times as you.
I am NOT saying casual players don't matter. I AM saying that if they want access to endgame stuff it will take them a long time, and that they should not be expecting to be able to do everything in the game unless they are part of a PA that has people that play more and is willing to help the casual player get tothe endgame stuff faster.
I HAVE been a casual player, and to expect what you are expecting is unrealistic, plain and simple.
Message Edited by Alyxian on 07-07-2005 02:22 PM
I agree with everything in red i am a master sw i wouldlike to be able to craft at least parts of it it as colecting firespray disks lol takes awhile but be hard time cunsuming i do not want any high level no space person who flies ocasionally should be master pilot maybe a quest of missions that may take a month of playing to get to next size ships like take a twice as powerful ship then maybe one with fighters to est gunners a mission that involves every aspect of that ship once you masteer that you do a vette like mission
kazzabev master sw and freelance ace
And, yes, Cap ships should be hard to attain,less so than jedi, but still hard. Oh, and 6 months for SL? get in with a good xp group and it'll go faster. (Just a tip there)
I love the idea for using prestige pints in any way. Especialy the Naval Acadamy of sorts.
I don't want any thing on the ground from affecting who can and can't be a captian. There were Jedi Captians and there are plenty or others that would be Level 80 ground pounders and still be Captians. I'm laying this to rest now.
How to keep it rare... unless there is a hard cap per server, per faction I don't think there is a way to keep them rare. I certainly want to see these ships be worthwhile to use and I want to see the PoB ships become better.
I think they should need about 20 MILLION Prestige points Min to enter in to the profession.
I think the quests that lead to it should take about 80 hours for an average GROUP of pilots to complete once.
With these requirements, will I be getting one in the first few monthes? Prob not. I'm better then average and I can make 20 million prestige in a about 20 hours (clear Deep Space then Kessel then back to Deep Space... rinse and repeat). But 80 hours is going to keep me from being able to get it fast. The time can be chewed up through escorts deliveries... there are all sort s of things that ships do besides hunt down the bad guys. One thing that takes a lot of time in RL for ships is patrol... how many people here could really stomach a patrol that last for a few monthes. Not hours, MONTHES.
As for 6 monthes for Squad leader... get a good group and it is about 20 hours to master if that. that is only three weks for those that play only 8 hours each week.