Politician Archive
Thread: focused discussion for 1/19 changes (I'm only reading this thread!)
Pappi
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:01 pm
#40
well, I guess the reason they brought this up would be... that I mentioned "skill point usage" as one of our top problems? 
although I didn't they were just gonna snap their fingers and make it happen O.o
please only post comments related to the new changes. no questions about other issues (hence focus thread )
although I didn't they were just gonna snap their fingers and make it happen O.oplease only post comments related to the new changes. no questions about other issues (hence focus thread
)
Moonkat
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:02 pm
#41
Khristen wrote:
Fidgiter stated it on the first page pretty much the way I see it. I can see both the good and the bad of this. I have never liked the idea of it being dropped to zero skill points, something I've been fairly vocal about today. I've always felt that restructured skill trees with a reduction of skill points was the way to go. If Politicians are ever going to have abilities worth having, I don't think it would happen if it was a "free" class. I still think that eliminating the skill points rather than taking the time to give Politicians skills they would want to spend skill points on is a cop out on the devs part. It's much easier to give up on it than put the time and effort into making it useful.
Pilot has zero skill points and took most of the devs' focus the last year.The logic that zero skill points will make politician less worthwhile or valuableis faulty.
If this goes through, I truly feel that Politicians will never become what they could easily become with a little development.
What politicians become is up to the individual to decide what kind of mayor he/she is & what they put into the game. Not something that you gain by having skill points.
If there is no skill point cost, there will be no need to ever put more attention into it.
Again, the devs spent most of the last year giving quite a Lot of attention to the pilot professions, and they take no skill points.
We will not get something for nothing out of this.
True, we actually have to do something to make sure we get experience points as sitting mayors. We had a free ride, so to speak, up til recently.
I have seen many, many good and constructive ideas on these forums that could revamp the Politician profession into something you would *want* to put skill points into. That takes time and effort on the devs part, though.
There are So many other things that need to be addressed in this game before Politician receives an overhaul. I love the concept of player cities, but I do Not want the developers to put time into giving Politician a faceliftbefore they do something about any number of things from the GCW and combat revamp to making master dances have more than 2 flourishes each.
By waving the skill point requirement, Politician needs become secondary to other classes who actually have to devote their limited skill points into their class.
Pilot requires no skill points.
It may give Politicians the freedom to pursue other professions, but it also removes any chance of Politicians becoming more than what they currently are.
Politicians will become more than they currently are when the game is brought to the point where all the people who have quit playing come back because smuggler, combat, and PVP are worth trying out again for them. We should, as True representatives and public servantsof our in-game constituents, poll our citizens for what is most important to them about the game and organize a lobby on their behalf to guide the developers to what is needed and wanted by the majority of players.
We don't become good mayors because we have good skills provided by boxes, we are good mayors because we have creativity, drive, tenacity and a vision.
Message Edited by Moonkat on 01-20-2005 10:07 PM
Pappi
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:07 pm
#42
Moonkat wrote:
...
valid, although you have to consider how many subscriptions and how much moolah pilot brought in as oppose to politicians. reducing skillpoints all the way down to 0 puts us around the category of PAs, and although this doesn't guarantee less attention I understand why folks are worried. I'm somewhat skeptical myself.
don't get me wrong, I'm all for less sp... but I'm also for more content/dev time/benefits
Ewach
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:25 pm
#43
Skill Points Issue
Absolutely in favor of zero skill point for Politician.
I've been Mayor of Travelers Respite since Player Cities launched well over a year ago. In that time I went up to Master Politician and then all the way back down to Novice, to free up the skill points.
baznitch
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:30 pm
#44
i cant wait to have all those free skill points. I have been a mayor since the first day cities were able to be placed. now i can finally develop some more fighting skills so my char can be something besides tkm.
sweatyclimber
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:49 pm
#45
edited for wrong info on this thread lol.... on topic however... the lack of SP is a major concern for me .... it will cause non dedicated people to get into the prof and to me (sorry devs) but this is a cop out on the devs... a prof w/o sp means they can more readily ignore it and not revamp it... yet this proff affects fun and gameplay for sooooooooooo many and needs the revamp so we can do an even better job!
Message Edited by sweatyclimber on 01-20-2005 10:49 PM
ARC_Casper
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:08 pm
#46
The 0 skill points change is great news for my city, our mayor quit about 2 months ago because he was a Doc/politician and the rest in swordsman. He refused to be paid for buffs he was a great guy and hung around town all day long since he didn't have a very great combat profession. I will be e-mailing him about this and I am pretty sure he will come back now because of this.
Scoooter
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:14 pm
#47
Pappi wrote:
update:
I was just on TC testing this, and currently politician sp stuff is bugged. I'll let you guys know when it gets fixed.
keep in mind that there will be a purge of "dead" houses after this new system is put in, so keep that in mind when you comment.
p.s.: I will not comment on anything that's posted outside of this thread (including the cities forum), and if you want your voices heard by the devs, POST HERE (once).
Message Edited by Pappi on 01-20-2005 02:37 PM
Pappi,
JustG himself said it is just "In Concept" and said "A few Months" I will have 20-30 dead citizens with nowhere to placenew onesby then.
This needs to not go in until the purge is done
The purge is "vaporware" that is not even done with in concept. We have been around long enough to know how the dev priorities change. It is a dynamic environment by nature. We cannot count on the purge happeniong any time soon. We need this blocked until the purge is complete
Message Edited by Scoooter on 01-20-2005 10:25 PM
Chavabegga
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:18 pm
#48
I support the no skill points. I am one of those guys who have wanted to play politician but have not wanted to spend all those skill pts on something of limited use.
Having contested elections allows for the chance for new life to be breathed into cities. People may start caring about their cities if there is a chance someone could replace their mayor. Thats always been a possibility but now people might actually try. Much more fun that way.
Having contested elections allows for the chance for new life to be breathed into cities. People may start caring about their cities if there is a chance someone could replace their mayor. Thats always been a possibility but now people might actually try. Much more fun that way.
Trean
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:34 pm
#49
Condemned houses needed to be some how removable from the game. The combination of needing people to vote and having houses basically exist forever leaves a volitile situation after a city exists for a long while and has citizens slowly leave the game completely or just disappear from the game.
Pappi
Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:32 pm
#50
Scoooter wrote:
Pappi wrote:
update:
I was just on TC testing this, and currently politician sp stuff is bugged. I'll let you guys know when it gets fixed.
keep in mind that there will be a purge of "dead" houses after this new system is put in, so keep that in mind when you comment.
p.s.: I will not comment on anything that's posted outside of this thread (including the cities forum), and if you want your voices heard by the devs, POST HERE (once).Message Edited by Pappi on 01-20-2005 02:37 PM
Pappi,
JustG himself said it is just "In Concept" and said "A few Months" I will have 20-30 dead citizens with nowhere to place new ones by then.
This needs to not go in until the purge is done
The purge is "vaporware" that is not even done with in concept. We have been around long enough to know how the dev priorities change. It is a dynamic environment by nature. We cannot count on the purge happeniong any time soon. We need this blocked until the purge is complete
Message Edited by Scoooter on 01-20-2005 10:25 PM
well, if I had it my way, we would've had the purge ages ago... but it's not our call. I can't do much if they decide one way or another, although I've already told a few devs about the reactions in this forum. I've also stressed the importance of a purge. now we just wait and see
Cafa
Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:48 pm
#51
I am friends with 14mayors. They are community creators, and leaders within this game. Yet their ability to explore the game as other players has been seriously hampered due to skill point limitations from politician, IMO.
I applaud this change, and their ability to participate in adventures with the same full templates as others in their cities and guilds. Their sacrifice to build in-game communities is commendable.
Admittedly, many people are going to have issue with this. I ask you which is more important for the improvement of our cities? Community development or skill point requirements. My corner places the mayor in a role like guild leaders, I know. Guild leaders do have extended powers without spending skillpoints. Mayors have more powers but are (finally with the recent voting changes) responsible to their citizens.
Fivo Asia
Khristen
Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:37 am
#52
I know Pilot is 0 skill points and has received plenty of attention in the past few months. The difference between Pilot and Politician is so great, thatI don't see that they can be compared very accurately. JTL and the ground game are two completely separate entities.
Pilot was added to the game as part of an expansion that had to be purchased. It had to be added into a game that had many, many established characters--and most of those would not want to sacrifice the templates that they had worked so hard to get to. Rather than just add extra skill points per character (that could have been used to throw the ground game much more out of whack), the quest system provided a way for players to basically explore the entire expansion without diminishing their main characters. Pilot had to be a marketable profession as well as something that wouldn't alienate players that didn't buy the expansion.
Politician was added fairly early on as part ofa free update. It didn't have to be marketable to encourage people to go after the profession. Those organizations that wanted to form player cities had to have someone step forward to take it up. The problem is that the class wasn't real well thought out. Unless I'm completely off, Player Cities were originally going to introduce two classes: Politician and City Planner. Instead they were merged into the Politician profession alone. Things that belong more in the scope of a City Planner were added to Politician--and unfortunately provide little to no benefit after they've been used. The "staying power" of Politician just wasn't there and it became more of a burden on the player who became the mayor. The "have to Master" mentality continues to prevail in many cases, although one of the good things about the Profession is that it is possible for a lower level Politician to compete with a Master (something that the other professions don't have).
I know that we as a Profession asked for an evaluation of the skill point cost in our Top 5 issues. We didn't ask for a complete elimination, though. Maybe it was meant as a good faith gesture: give us more than what we asked for. Politician is not, and should not be at this time, at the top of the list for needed revamps. Far from it. Eliminating the cost completely is easier to do than restructuring the skill trees for the profession. It certainly addresses our top issue, but I'm not certain that it addresses it in a way that will be good for the profession in the long-run. Once that cost is taken away, I doubt it could ever be put back in. We've discussed this lots of times here (as have Merchants, to be honest) and in general the consensus has always been in favor a reduction of points and against a complete elimination of points.
I honestly have mixed feelings on the whole issue. As a social profession, Politician is based more on player skill than character skill. But will the profession *get* useful skills without devoting part of their template to it? I don't know. I just feel that this change would be the last attention Politician would get for many, many, many, many, many months (maybe years?) because the player's wouldn't be out anything if it wasn't fixed. It costs players nothing (essentially), so there isn't as much strength in requests for fixes from a zero cost, ground game class as for a class that has points invested that prevent them from getting as much from the game as other players who invest points elsewhere. (Does that make any sense? LOL)
Skill points are a precious commodity because it means there are only so many things you can be at one time. I'm glad for this because it means you have to make choices about what you want to be. It means you choose the things you really want to do. I can't honestly say I'd choose to be a pilot if it cost me something else that I wanted to do. It doesn't mean as much to me as those things I've spent my precious skill points on. Doesn't mean everyone would feel that way about Politician if this goes through, but the potential for it is certainly there.