Politician Archive

I've started to notice a trend on the Big 3 - Corellia, Tatooine & Naboo - on my server: fall-out. Not neccessarily just inactives or people leaving the game - but people actually *moving* away from the city to go to another planet. Most specifically: Dantooine. I find that a majority of my citizens (who mostly happen to be in my guild, so I can chatter with them over guildchat) end up spending most of their time on this planet, rather than our city, which is located in the north-east corner of the Tatooine map, well away from NPC cities.

This is not just my city: I've noticed a desertion trend in many of the Tatooine cities on my server, along with cities on Corellia and Naboo. People "live" there, technically, but you wouldn't know it from the faces (or lack thereof) on the streets. Subsequently, the population is booming on Dantooine - I believe the city cap has been reached on my server, the player cities and NPC outposts are *always* full of people in prime time, and I've seen a general migration of my friends, customers, even some of my citizens, moving their homes there.

Why such an interest in Dantooine? At first you could say, "Oh, force-NPC hunters" and indeed, that probably was the start of the boom. But with the holiday Holocrons, and the news of the unlocking revamp, the hustle and bustle does not dim for a moment. And I know it's not just the force NPC's that draw people to Dantooine - there many times during the day when you can go up to the Force Caves to find adungeon full of forceNPCs, and not a player in sight.

So what is it?

Missions.

I did a little experiment. I took my alternate character, and went to Endor, Dathomir, Dantooine and Tatooine, and equipped my weapon and took out my highest level pet, and refreshed at the mission terminals to see what kind of missions I would get.

On Tatooine, in my city, the highest mission payout I could get was 10k for mountain squills. The squills spawned about 2 mountain squills, 1 normal squill a lair. Overall, I could get about 24k of experience per mission.

On Dathomir, I could get about 12k missions for an assortment of creatures. Overall experience per mission was normally 28k of experience.

On Endor, I could get about 9k missions or an assortment of creatures/NPCs. Since creatures come in waves and NPCs do not, creature lairs generally give triple the experience that NPCs do. On Endor, the experience normally averaged out to 25k, although depending on the creature, it could be less, despite difficulty level.

On Dantooine, I could get 18k missions for pikets or quenkers (or NPCs, but see above), and I normally got 30k of experience per lair.

Now, to me, something is wrong. On the scale of planets, Dathomir and Endor are supposed to be *advanced* planets, Dantooine is supposed to be a middle-man and Tatooine a beginner.

This brings about a two-fold problem. People living on Dantooine can basically walk out their door and get the best paying solo missions and the best experience-giving solo missions than even the *advanced* planets. Therefore, everyone's moving away from the starter planets (because why live someplace and hardly ever be there), and nobody's going to the advanced planets, except to hunt something specific...like Nightsisters on Dathomir or Jantas (or whatever) on Endor.

This gives the player cities the benefit over the NPC outposts, also, because they can offer trainers and supplies for hunts. There is a player city on Dantooine, for example, in which I could completely master the two professions I'm working on, and never leave the area around the city, because everything I need is right there. Which is kind of how it should be, ina way.

I find that the only way to get anyone in your city on a starter planet anymore, is to either be a pure-crafter city, be a large guild city (which doesn't guaruntee anyone will hang around the city, but they'll have declared residences), or be a factional city and have a large base complex. I find the latter will be populate only at certain times when there's something going on - all the PvPers are located in one spot to kill each other off.

I don't neccessarily think that Dantooine missions should be nerfed. I DO think that there should be some balancing going on between the medium planets and the advanced planets. By going to Dathomir or Endor, I should be able to get a higher paying mission with more experience than by going to Dantooine. Dantooine should outpay, outexp Tatooine, but in respect, Endor should outpay and outexp Dantooine.

That would solve one of the problems. This is the one I'm most concerned about, actually, but doesn't really have to do with polticians.

The second problem is thatnobody has anyincentive to hang around starter planets,except for reasons stated above. But this could be solved*for* player cities withuse of a politician skill. At a certain level, perhaps Martial IV or Civics IV or maybe even Master, a politician on planets such as Tatooine, Rori, Talus (I hesitate on Corellia and Naboo, for they are generally *supposed* to be less wild), should be able to place an advanced mission terminal.

This mission terminal would basically be on par with mission terminals on medium planets. Perhaps there could be some sort of distance requirement from NPC cities, if you want to talk about balancing. The missions would pay more, and the creatures would give more exp.

This would generally put the starter planet player cities onequal footingwith the medium planet player cities, because you cannot deny that there is a definite advantage to living in the latter.

The reason I'm calling "foul!" on Dantooine player cities (and I have nothing against them, just these dang missions) is because as a mayor of a city composed of 90% combat/support professions, I can tell you that at any given moment, 75% of my online citizens are on Dantooine doing missions. And I can say right off that it's not because my city is lacking - my citizens, being mostly guildmembers, take pride in our city - all the time I see them chitter chatter about how suchandsuch city is so disorganized, etc. and how great our city is. And I know that almost all of them would *stay* around town if the missions paid more credits and experience. Many have told me directly this. But what am I to do? There is nothing I can do to improve on my city to keep them there. They aren't moving away - and Wayside always has a few crafters running around at any given time - but there's hardly anyone else around, and really, it's quite depressing.

I understand basic planets are supposed to be that...basic. But there should be somethingthatI can offer my citizens. And I think that having some sort of advanced mission terminal for the basic planet player cities would help that greatly.

Am I alone in thinking this?

In fact, I'll go on to say that on Tatooine the *max* payout is 10k. So when I'm solo or in a group of 20, the max payout those mission terminals is going to give is 10k. I've seen Dantooine go up to 22k in a group of two. I'm not quite sure of the max. Dathomir IS kind ofbalanced in this, you'd get about 22k missions with the same two - and I know in a group of 5, you can go up to 36k missions, most I've seen is 40k in a group of 8 master elites. Endor, however...I get 11k missions with two people.

It's just kind of...sad. I wouldn't mind if half my populace was on Dathomir - they'd have to come home eventually. But a Dantooine player city? Why leave?