Swordsman Archive
Thread: EMAIL TO THE DEVS (Draft) 08/17/03
Ok...as promised, here it comes.
I personally would have preferred to wait a little bit longer for 2 reasons:
1. To have a better idea about the consequences of the patch, especially regarding weapon stats.
2. I am notcompletely sure if the correspondent program will remain as it is or if there are going to be changes (weekly -> monthly, in reference to statements made by Xahn)
As you might have seen after the last set of answers, i started to think if i should maybe not include so many sub-issues in our issues for the next mail, as it gives them the possibility to simply pick one out and answer it, like it happened with our last mail. I think though that these sub-issues are interconnected and that further explanations regarding an issue should be allowed, justified and taken into consideration. If the Devs/Designers don't have the time tolook more thoroughly into the players issues, whether they are important and game-breaking or not, or don't give us the necessary information regarding all the aspects and visions regarding a profession, to have something to work with, i don't really understand the creation of the correspondents program in first place.
....here is thoughwhat i have come up with:
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1. The big patch: Feedback, issues and questions
Eventhough we know that general combat modifications and changes for other classes (weaponsmiths for example) have affected us, the patch notes didn't mention any changes specifically for Swordsmen. We would be glad to get more info about what has been changed for our profession and why. These are our questions and observations so far:
- Repositioning of the two-handed cleaver and the two-handed curved sword certifications: was this done in the light ofintroducingnew weapons,which you mentioned in your last set ofanswers ?
- Has the HAM cost of our weapons been reduced ?
We noticed that we actually are able to survive more oftenusing our specials after the patch than before. We are aware thatit might be too earlyto give you a clear judgement about this changement, as westill have to wait for the impact of theissues having been fixed for our weaponsmiths in this patch, but if you would ask us today how we feel about it we would say that it is a step in the right direction, but that HAM cost can still be lowered slightly.Please keep in mind that HAM cost has become even more importantto usnow becauseof the decrease in power of berserk, which was sofar often the only way, especially for starters, to make healthy progress and to survive, without committing suicide by using our so far high HAM costing other specials.
- The 75% reduction in PvP seems to be a loss for us.
The gap between higher damage dealing classes and lower damage dealing classes has become tighter. It's certainly good that fights last longer, but the longer it takes, the bigger the disadvantage in HAM costs get and if you add specialsthat other classes havelike pistol whip, knockdown, stopping shot to it, this changement is more a disadvantage for us.
Related links:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2177
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2604
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2382
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2. PvP / Ranged vs Melee
This is a constant topic across the boards and we have also seen some statements from your side regarding this issue:
Yes...one should probably not bring a knife to a gunfight. Yet there are 2 points which we think still have room for improvement without overpowering us or make things "unrealistic":
1. It is very hard to accept that a pistoleer can dominate us so much with his pistol whip at close range, which should be our strength, our "hometurf".Generally speaking, PvP'ing shouldn't be anyway a question of who gets his knockdown special ( which btw we can only achieve by using a posture-down / dizzy combo) out first, as that is unfortunately what it mostly seems to be these days. We have seen though that you are currently still testing and trying to find a balance for knockdowns, so that leaves us confident that things will change regarding this issue.
2. Ranged players have the big advantage of being able to kite us and it will and should probably always be like that. We feel though that this advantage is actually too big at current state, partly because of technical bugs, partly because of missing "counter"-options for us.
Proposed possible solutions:
- have the "stopping when attacking / being attacked"-issue other professions also have being fixed
- have the "out of range"-issue mentioned in our previous mail being fixed
- possible implementation of a /stick command
- possible implementaion of an "anti"-berserk: low damage output / boost to defense to be able to close in and would also help tanking big creatures in a group situation.
- being able to hit while running
- reduce accuracy for ranged players when running...as in real life
- make ranged players stop / run slower when shooting
- an ability to dodge
Generally we don't like to see other classes being nerfed, but in some cases (pistol whip) we don't see any other possibility if seeking some kind of balance.
Related links:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2271
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2382
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2517
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2510
...and the links mentioned in issue 1
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3. More facts, explanations, visions regarding our profession
We would be very glad to get a statement from our designer, like the BE's got from theirs, regarding his visions, concepts, what is being worked on and what we can help with.
There have been alot of posts and opposing opinions / test results on our board regarding topics like toughness, ranged/melee defense or counterattack where we either aren't really sure how they work or they don't seem to work as described.
The same counts for our specials: besides the obvious fact that Two-hand sweep 2 and Two-hand area attack 1 have the exact same description, we are also not sure if some of the specials work as intended (2h area attack 2 and 3 seem to have the same damage, 2h area attack 3 does dizzy and not blind, without animation btw) , because often not only their descriptions don't seem to differ very much but also their actual effect in the game.
Same thing for our weapons:
How are they supposed to fit into our profession ?
Is the certification we get last also supposed to be our most powerful weaponor is there no ranking and the use of weapons should vary depending on our targets ?
If there is a ranking, is the two-handed curved sword to be our "best" weapon, as it is right now ?
What is the idea behind the Power Hammer ? (the most discussed and tested weapon on our board)
What about the cleaver and vibro-weapons ?
We know that we might be asking forquite a bithere....lots of questions. But the number of questions should also show you that it is very difficult to test and find issues, things that don't work as they should, if we have so little information about how things are thought of or intended to be.
We understand that designers are very busy people, but even if it would only be a one time statement, like the BE designer did, both sides would be helped alot.
As you told us in your answers, you are intending to give us more information regarding our specials for example. So if for some reasons you are currently not able to help us regarding the infos we need mentioned in this issue, would it be possible to get an ETA for the information you are going to release ?
Related links:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2321
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2562
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2549
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2682
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2467
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2577
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4. Missing skill in Expert Finesse Box
Maybe we were not clear enough on this issue in our first mail, but we would like to point out again that the fact of not being rewarded with anything at all when achieving this box, is very frustrating as collecting combat xp is a very timeconsuming matter.
Proposed solutions:
Maybe add a skill which could resolve other issues mentioned in this mail
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5. New weapons
If there is still a possibility to influence it or in case you need more ideas we collected some ideas regarding possible new weapons:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=1095
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swordsman&message.id=2080
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That's it.....as usual: feel free to comment or ask for modifications
Have a nice day 
Gorecki
Hello Gorecki,
I like your email and think that it is very professional. And it covers alot of the concerned topics... Though I hope that we could possibly put a little more emphasis on wanting the HAM costs lowered than what is stated. I dont see much of a difference between my old HAM costs and the latest patches HAM costs at all. In fact the only way I survive is by using stims on myself. I hope that one day the HAM could be appropriate enough that I wont have to have medic skills in order to be swordsman.... I dont know if I am the only one that feels this way though, but it is just my thought.
Thanks,
K'syick
Thanks Gorecki for the great work. There are some points you can take into consideration:
- increase melee/range defence
- "speed up" skill which allows us to speed up our attack in aperiod of time
- as above, "double defence" skill allows us to increase our defence in a period of time. Maybe lower our attack level as some kind of penality
- "Powerful strike" to lower enemies' attack leve, speed or something else. It's good to see if we can sweep away the weapons of enemies
- "Foot Spin" which allows us to lower the running speed of targets
- improve the animations and sound effect, also the light effect
That's all at this moment. I will add more later.
Gorecki -
Suggestion - Maybe in the Expert Finesse Box, you can ask the dev's to put in a Special Attack that does Low Damage ( Example: 2-200pts of Damage ) And the damage done to the target, steals HAM from it, And the amount of HAM stolen from target onto ourselves would be equal to the amount of damage done.
Example - I use special attack named something like "Steal HAM." I attack the target - Giant Baz Nitch - I hit the target with the Special Attack "Steal HAM" for 166 pts of damage. The 166 points of damage is then converted into HAM Points, it hurts the Giant Baz Nitch in the Health, Action, Mind Pools for 166 , and then the 166 is transfered back onto the attacker ( Us, the Swordsman ) And it heals our Health Action, Mind pools for 166. Add a Special Attack Delay ( Example cant use this same skill for another 6 seconds ). This would minimize downtime, and give us a better chance of soloing / staying alive.
Just an Suggestion for some sort of Skill that can be placed in Expert Finesse Box.
The HAM still seems rather high compared to other professions in terms of how long they can keep it up versus how long i can keep it up without being incapped. I too have novice medic and use stim c dureing fights alot to stay alive and to keep downtime to a minimum. Without stims I dread the thought of the downtime I'd have.
And good research 7seas. I agree we do need to put more weight on the issue of dont bring a gun to a knifefight. Not just turn the cheek the other way. If we're going to have any chance of survival in the future I belive we need to pressure them in to fixing the inballances rather then just accepcting that statement from Ralph.
Other then that good points in the draft so far, especially in the pvp section.
Morell Taesio
I agree totally with 7seas.
Kiting in it's self is ridiculous, I would gladly give any of the Devs a paintball gun, dress up in good clothes and let them shoot at me over their shoulder while running. Assuming they don't trip and fall on their ass the chances of them hitting me are incredibly slim. Maybe they should give kiting characters a 25% chance to trip and fall on their ass, seeing as they really aren't looking where they're going.
People, when you see Arnie shoot 7 people with 7 quick shots froma pistol (held in one hand to boot)at 50 feet doesn't mean anyone alive could do it.
Hehe...i like that one...lol
...and yes, i guess getting that sentence out shouldn't be a problem and let the points speak for themselves...
Thanks
Gorecki
I think you really need to condense this into several small bite-sized things to say.
We already saw with the last feedback from the devs that if you don't condense your email, they will condense it for you, nearly to the point of misquoting you.
I don't think we need elaborate explanations of why we're saying what we're saying, the idea, I think, is that you wouldn't be suggesting it if it hadn't been thought about in detail, they don't want (and at the meeting, won't read) the entire train of thought.
For example, you're asking them aboutwhy they did somerepositioning of our weapons... if they only answer 5 things, do we really want that to be one of them? I, personally, don't care that much, by the time we're Swordsmen it doesn't matter which comes first because we can use both.
And if you think the HAM costs are too high, you should just say so rather than ask them if they were reduced.
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Maybe something more like this:
- The HAM costs of our abilities are still too high in light of the fact that we must do them from melee range.
- 75% damage reduction was aloss for us in PvP, given that it's nearly impossible to hit a running player with a melee attack. We feel that melee attacks should be reduced by less than ranged attacks to account for the difficulty of landing these hits.
- PvP and PvE: The damage bonus should be the same for hitting anyone wielding a ranged weapon. Rather than make it a huge bonus vs rifles and an insignificant bonus vs pistols, we feel it should be the same for all ranged weapons.
- In the swordsman skill tree, the Expert Finesse box has nothing in it. Since swords have a lot of AE attacks, we would like to see an AE intimidation skill, and Expert Finesse is a good place to put it.
- We do not feel that ranged weapon users suffer a big enough accuracy penalty when shooting on the run.
Short and sweet. If you look at what they did with your last email, that's all the developers are going to see anyway. No doubt our reports go to someone who is told to "reduce each of these to a few bullets". If we do it for them, we don't have to wonder what they'll cut out.
If you want, do some bullets and then explain them in all the detail you want, but have the bullets already there so we don't have some secretary trying to find them.
I'd like to make a move for removing the double move-penalty from melee weapons altogether. To clarify, I get a to-hit penalty if I am moving during combat (even alittle bit of moving) and I also get a penalty if my target is moving during combat (which happens alot in PvE and almost always in PvP) and they stack so if I move to hit something while its moving I get a bigger penalty. Remove the stackingof these penalties.
Yes, its harder to hit something moving vs stationary and only slightly harder to hit something stationary while moving but its not significantly harder to hit something that is moving while you are mocing towards it (if its within arms reach). So removing this penalty will give melee classes a large boost (if the out of range bug and the constantly jerky movement gets fixed).
Other than that it looks pretty good. And add to the "knife to a gunfight" that a 4ft long piece of steel has a better chance to hit at 3 feet away on a moving target than a projectile that is less than an inch wide.
Thanks for the feedback, Pecos.
I agree...that would definetly be the other way of getting them through. As you might have seen in my introduction to youi realized after getting their answers that i might have been giving them too much room to play with and this mail didn't turn out to be different in the end.
I have to admit that i was really impressed about the designers answers on BE issues. That showed me that there is also another way of treating issues. I'm not sure, but i might not be the only one of the correspondents wanting that kind of answer...even if it's only a one time thing....and in that case he would have to check our mail. Therefore i thought about giving it a last try sending it in the way it is right now. Of course if the answers we get will be of the same type as last time, we will probably have to do it your way...i agree.
Ok for you ?
Thanks again
Gorecki
Hehe...no thanks -reggie-...my current try to think myself through"Howto manage and apply democracy in a big group"-101 is fairly enough for me...lol
Btw...what does a master do, when he's master ?...lol
And were did you get those apprenticeship points from ? Other swordsmen or other profession ?