Scout Archive
Thread: Save the adventure planets! ban vehicles and mounts from Dathomir, Endor, & Yavin
This is a repost from its own thread, but I like the idea a lot, and it would help add to the mysteriousness and danger of the high-end adventure planets - ie, the Star Warsiness - and be a nice aspect of a new "Imperial Crackdown":
FOCUS ON THE WILDERNESS - Ban vehicles and mounts on Dathomir, Endor, and Yavin
PROBLEM: Vehicles have made the planets smaller and opened up what used to be dangerous territory to even the newest characters.
REASONING: But adventure planets should be dangerous. They should be wild. And because of their history, their bordersshould be under tight Imperial control.
Endor is supposed to be a staging ground for the new Death Star, Dathomir is supposed to be a remote prison location, and Yavin is under investigation for its recent Rebel presence.
PROPOSED FIX: As such, the Empire should crack down and ban all vehicles and mounts from Dathomir, Endor, and Yavin.
Banning vehicles on Dathomir, Endor, and Yavinwould accomplish several things that would enrich SWG:
1) It would stress the wild nature of each of these planets.
2) It would make expeditions on these planets more difficult and make distance meaningful.
3) It would force people to carefully avoid aggressive, dangerous creatures rather than cruise by them fearlessly.
4) It would make resources on these planets more valuable due to the difficulty of traveling around them without risk.
5) It would make Rangers and Scouts very useful group members for expeditions into adventure planets.
I'd appreciate any feedback and responses you might have to this idea. Thanks in advance!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=1006001&page=1
Some criticism and followup comments from the original thread:
ASHRID wrote:
YES!
and while we're at it lets jedi mind trick everyone so they forget the speeder bike chase on Endor in ROTJ!!!!
I've heard some daft ideas in my time but this is one of the worst......
Imperial Troopers guarding the planet had those speeders.
Not everyday travelers.
As for harvester runs, hey, people managed to do it before mounts and vehicles, they can do it again. How quickly everyone forgets . . .
atimes wrote:
Why can't something ever be made simpler in this game without people complaining about how it's ruining something? So Dath the uber death planet is a little easier because we can ride around. All that means is a casual guy like me can have a little fun and explore the planet and just have a good time running around enjoying the content the planet has to offer without having to worry about a trip to the cloning center every 2 seconds.
Mind you if you actually want to get something done on Dath you still have to fight and in order to fight you still have to get off your speeder bike.
Dathomir wasn't intended to be a casual planet you could joyride around. Most planets, sure, but the adventure planets were supposed to be dangerous and not for everyone.
Also, I've always been able to stroll around Dath, Endor, and Yavin without being aggroed. Even during Beta, when Endor was on Super Death Mode and people were bleeding to death after one or two hits, all it took was some patience and strategic use of the overhead map to make my way around. Maskscent also helped, I'm sure, but I only had Exploration 3 or so. Back then, going big distances was an accomplishment and didn't require fighting at all.
Regardless, if people could do it before, they can remember how to do it again. Making it to the Imperial Prison used to mean something. Now it's just a few minutes' ride away on a speeder, and you can pretty much buzz past anything that might have made you cower in fear before. That reduces the danger in what's supposed to be a supremely dangerous place, and so I'd like to get us back to the days when crossing Dathomir was an adventure.
atimes wrote:
Vehicles were always meant to be in. They were supposed to be done at launch. If we had them at launch like the devs intended then this post wouldn't even be here.
The worlds are large by design. Adding vehicles makes the game no less difficulty. It just means you can ride around in relative safety. Remember to FIGHT these mobs you still have to get off your bike and then you are in the same boat as the l337 d00dz
Just because the Devs meant for vehicles to be in at launch doesn't mean that they would have kept them in on adventure planets. The devs have made a lot of changes based on feedback and based on how they've seen the game pan out. Krayts got bumped up in power because people were taking them down with ease. Same goes for many creatures.
The Devs have always stressed that they wanted adventure planets to be high-end content. Well, with vehicles, they're no longer high-end, since people can travel very far very quickly. Why is it that many of thehigh-end resources in the galaxy - I'm thinking Combat Medic and Doctor, especially, but also Tailor- come from adventure planets? The answer I'd give is that the Devs intended for those resources to be difficult to recover. Well, with vehicles, especially, they're VERY easy to recover. Ride out, drop some harvesters, ride back.
What did Doctosr and CMs do before? They got help from friends. They took out expeditions to protect them. And it helped with the interdependence of the game. Nobody could just stroll out like it was 500 m from Bestine and drop a harvester, and then stroll back every few days to check it. In many cases, the rares market was driven by danger.
And it's danger that's once again lacking now that you can access distant locations more easily than ever. Even on regular planets it's a bit too easy, but on adventure planets, rapid transport isvery much against the concept of having a dangerous place where not everybody could safely travel.
Close to the heart of it all is that Rangers and Scouts seem fundamentally worthless now. I'm neither, really, other than a bit of Scout, but I'm bothered by the fact that Rangers, especially, have basically been severely marginalized by vehicles and mounts. Why bother to travel with a Ranger? What's their role now that people can travel very quickly by themselves? Who needs camoflauge when they can get in a Swoop and buzz by red cons? There should be areas where only Rangers can travel quickly and where Scout skills are highly useful. The adventure planets should fulfill that role. Going there should be like climbing Mount Everest or cave diving- you go in by foot and face the world on your own.
Kershakk wrote:
I would invite the original poster to sweep these planets for resources, three times a week without fail, and every third time go find a 80% density of a particular steel, in an available flat surface and do this on foot alone. Also be sure to run back to it at some stage to retrieve the stuff from the input hopper so it doesn't overflow and also do this on foot. By the way also do this with no more than 40-50 points invested in *any* combat profession.
I understand you would like to feel like when you visit these planets it's dangerous and exciting but you see - that's your choice to go there. To stay abreast of the resource game, crafters must go, and go often. Crafters typically do not have a lot of combat skills or a personal army at their beck and call.
So what it was done before? It didn't mean it was FUN. Humans lived without electricity, cars and planes for millenia. You try take them away now and see what happens.
Option A) Pay Scouts and Rangers who have Surveying skills for waypoints to great resources.
Option B) Use other resources that are easier to access.
Option C) Pay for the resources you need and let others harvest them.
And there are other options, too, but those are the big three.
I've seen plenty of crafters burn out fast because they wanted to do everything themselves rather than divide the labor. A good many of them had multiple millions of credits, but instead of paying people to do some of the work, they insisted on soloing 100% of the game. To some people, profit is all that's important, not sanity. There's something to be said for outsourcing work you don't want to do so that you can focus on what you like. There's always SOMEBODY who will take your job and the odds are that they'll even like the work. It's a player mission and is something unique, after all.
It doesn't have to be that hard for a crafter to get the resources. It should just take some cooperation when you want to go into dangerous places for their resources, just like it should take some cooperation to take down the most dangerous enemies in the game.
PS - I used to run a high-end med component harvester operation for a Doctor friend of mine back on Dantooine and Lok in the early days when my feet were my only means of transportation. Dangerous? You bet. Challenging? Yep. Could the Doc have gotten into the areas I went to drop the harvesters? Not safely. But did she need to? No, I arranged to get free stims in exchange for handling it for her. It was a great operation, I had lots of fun, and she got the resources she needed without having to leave her home. It would work just fine for others, and the general odds are that you can find great veins of resources about 500-1000 meters from any given Starport.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=1006001
Electric,
Thanks for posting that.
Lots of food for thought there.
B
I don't think banning vehicles is the best solution. What I would like to see is imperial "road blocks" randomly spawned around the world. You're driving along, and BAM you get hit with an imperial tractor beam pulling you in for investigation. Either you jump off the bike and run away, hopeing to outrun the ST's on your tail, or you resign yourself to interrogation.
If you're a high-ranking imperial, then they apologize and immediately send you on your way. Lower ranked or neutral, maybe you get fined and detained for search/seizure of belongings (good chance for smugglers to see some action in this). If you're a rebel, maybe you get killed, or your bike confiscated.
Slimjim_Iapkre wrote:
This would also force everyone to take scout to go the adv planets, because they're so mountainous. Unless you wanted to never be able to keep up with your group. Boo.
If you've got no Exploration skills, you should be handicapped when exploring.
Do you climb Mount Everest unless you've trained for it? No, or else you die.
Do you travel into the Kalahari Desert without a guide to keep you away from dangerous places? No, or else you'd probabyl die there, too.
In either of these places, do you move quickly unless you've got some expertise in navigating harsh terrain? You sure don't.
And do guides go as fast as they normally would when they're saddled with inexperienced people in their group? Nope, they keep watch over them, scout ahead for danger, provide shelter and food for them, etc. They're caretakers for the group members, who are generally out of their element.
Safe, flat places with cities in themare "civilized" territory. The inhospitable wilderness isScout and Ranger territory. Adventure planets should be the places where Scout and Ranger skills truly shine - "their" turf, as it were.
Herms wrote:
ban speederbikes from endor?! LOL
The speeders on Endor were owned by Imperial guards, who apparently didn't want people snooping around on those planets.
Put Imperial NPCs at all Starports on adventure planets. They would enforce the rules - the rules being that nobody leaves the Outposts on Dathomir, Endor, or Yavin with a vehicle or a mount, no exceptions. There wouldn't need to be any special scan or dialogue to set this up, the vehicles/mounts would simply be disabled and it would be as if the Imperial guards confiscated the vehicles/mounts for the duration of your stay (if anyone objects to the "realism" of that, ask them how they justify pulling a speeder out of their pocket).
The bottom line is that Imperial guards on these planets should prevent EVERYONE from using vehicles and mounts, even Imperials. It's a restricted area. Let's imagine that I'm a Captain in the US Army. Can I just waltz into, say, Area 51 or Fort Knox orthe Vieques military testing groundswithout any clearance? No. Can I walk into the White House or an airport or certain cities with a gun if I didn't get permission? No. And it could besimilar in this case. These planets could have restricted clearance on certain items. People should feel lucky to even BE there, in my opinion.
Can you climb Mt Everest without training? Can you cross the Kalihari desert without a guide? No for both...
But, can't you just simply buy a plane ticket and fly over both of those? Since we don't our own player ships, all we can do is drive a speeder, over the dangerous planets.
And the Imperial crackdown idea... the Empire would only want to crack down on certain planets, like Yavin (cause of the old Rebel base) and Endor, because of the Imperial base that will go there that they're planning at this point in the Star Wars timeline.
The Empire could care less if people want to go to Dathomir... they purposefully send people there to die, so what do they care if some nutty people want to go there for a little visit with the Nightsisters?
Keep the vehicles in, it's part of the game.
I think that there is a fundamental issue at stake here... and that is that vehicles can make certain aspects of the game too easy... (flying past aggroes, over minefields, away from a fight, etc...) and there is no counterbalance set in place. They should come up with a few ideas...
I suggest not being able to fly across water.
Perhaps they could ban speeders in certain zones, or if you take your speeder there, you risk rebel or imperial retaliation.
Perhaps, for those of you laughing at the Endor suggestion, they could make bikes destructable when you crash into a tree at full speed. (yes, that was in the movie)
Perhaps having rangers in the groups would help with navigation ON speeders? Increase the max speed some?
I know that some will like the ideas, and some will flame them, but I do see a need to even things back out a bit more. A fundamental in a skill-balanced game such as this... is balance. Right now, there is little out there to balance out the advantage of having a speeder. (unless you fly by a turret, or nightsister *choke*) I'm no power player, but I do think that they have severely disadvantaged rangers & scouts with the addition of the vehicles. I love my vehicle, and wouldn't want to part with it, but there does need to be something to balance things out, IMHO.
Go try running bounty hunter missions (a requirement for Investigation) without a speeder. You can grind investigation in a few weeks right now with vehicles (I'm 3/4 thru Inv 4 after 3 weeks) but before that it took MONTHS.
Chasing down a mark for two hours (or more) just to get 300XP out of 18000 is not something you want to inflict on other players unless you're going to give BHs 5-10 times the XP. Even with vehicles it can take 45 minutes to track a bounty mark on endor, dathomir or yavin depending on where he is, the speed of your droids, shuttle waits, his direction of movement.
Its just a bad idea all around.
Still these planest aren't exactly safe even on a vehicle. You can get knocked off your speeder by rancors or nightsisters. A nightsister can even attack your speeder with you still on it (happened to a guildmate) or hit you with a force attack that incaps most people in one shot as you zip by (I forgot what that attack was called but had it done to me while on a speederbike).
Yavin and Endor have spitting creatures that can do significant damage to the unarmored, even causing incaps.
I'd rather see more state-effect attacks made by aggros, making them more dangerous, and have the lairs and creatures spawn further ahead so we can make efforts to avoid them. I've had a helluva time sometimes on Dath where a lair of Ancient Bull Rancors spawns on top of me while riding and I get hit with that AE bleed they have.
Banning use of vehicles is not only a bad idea, but it makes no sense from a role-playing and immersion standpoint. Show me in the movies where a planet had vehicles banned. Introducing a difficult to negotiate planet like Dagobah that made it impossible to use vehicles because of the foliage density would be interesting tho...I'd like to see that.