Tailor Archive
Thread: Your feedback for the Correspondent Summit: Tailoring, combat balance, and random stuff that we want
/agree. I hate having to tell wookie customers, "im sorry, but I cannot make you that 'decorative waist wrap'with +4/+17 melee..as just an example. Its as if they got tired and maybe even lazy when it came to creating the clothing for Wookies.
GLOOMIE wrote:
Why, oh why are we yet again discriminated as Wookiees?
5) Fixes: short term.
6) Fixes: long term.
From another sticky, and excellent thread (my comments in red):
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"17. Additional options for reinforced panels in clothing in order to facilitate combat-related BE tissues going into clothing.
• Wookiee gear lacks reinforced fiber panels. (Wich means a Wookieecant get the maskscent or camoflauge bonuses!- discrimination!)
o only one wookiee garment requires a reinforced fiber panel (Wookiee Shoulder Pad). (More garments wich requires reinforced fiber panels!)
o With the wookiee shoulder pad & a bandolier, wookiees may only have 2 bonuses total (other species can usually have 4: pants, shirt, jacket, bandolier) (DOH! - discrimination!)
o The Crested Battle Padding and Wookiee Battle Padding are both field gear items and should take one or more reinforced fiber panels. (At least these!)
o Wookiees need a "skirt" option with a reinforced fiber panel in order to correct this disadvantage, so that a wookiee would be able to gain 3 combat bonuses (or make all bonuses use synth clothing!)
18. Fix outstanding publish 6 bugs
A. Equipping issues:
Wookiees cannot wear the crafting aprons. (DOH - discrimination!)"
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And finally but not least: Wookiees need more clothing!
/wookieehug
Gloomie "The Elder CLOWN" and proud, but almost naked and without maskscent and camoflauge bonuses, Wookiee.
6) Fixes: long term.
I sell a lot of components to chefs and armorsmiths. I like that people are depending on me. And it's a good source of income.
Message Edited by Knocky on 07-21-2004 02:11 PM
1. Not necessary to wear armor all the time even when fighting some decently challenging stuff:
- as it stands right now if I were to go to the nightsister caves on dathomir in a group unarmored I'd basically be playing russian roulette. Because the second that something hits me it will likely kill me.
- I think that it shouldn't be necessary to be buffed, brandied and fully armored to go with a group on a group hunt. Basically I
How to fix this: (a few possible solutions)
- lower the damage that the high end mobs do per hit, make things challenging by having more enemies that do less damage than a few enemies that do crazy damage. This way if your soloing you may have a hard time and will require all the buffs and brandy and stuff to survive. Yes there is a lag issue, but c'mon some things have around 300k ham and hit for around 2000 damage per hit. There is no way a group of 20 people without full armor could take one on.
- another suggestion is to have it so that armorsmiths can make plating that can be inserted into some articles of clothing to give very small resists. Perhaps you can make a reinforced shirt that has a 4% resist or something. Its not armor level by any means but its something to absorb damage. Or make a bunch of the clothing that currently exists like the ubese shirt. The ubese shirt for those who don't know is considered light armor and those who where it will have it absorb around 50% of the damage delt to the wearer. But this is only for the chest piece. But if a tailor could be supplied by an armorsmith and add armor attachments to clothing they could give some types of clothes light armor resists. So instead of wearing armor all the time you could wear some reinforced field wear. I would recommend it for field wear but not for casual or formal wear. This would provide players with some decent resists if they are hunting in a group, and they can have a bit more variety then everyone wearing composite.
- this will also be good because for a change the almighty armorsmith will for once be a supplier of another profession. As of right now nothing the armorsmith makes is used in the crafting of other professions. Bio eingeers and tailors and droid engineers are used to supply everyone with things but the armorsmiths don't supply anything. If armorsmiths could make these reinforcement segments for tailors it may give low level armorsmiths who haven't mastered the profession or can't afford all the specific resourses a possible source of income as well.
Anyways let me know what you guys think.
Reading all this, and checking out the hellish hate threads popping up all over the boards, I had a thought. At this summit in august, who are you going to be talking to? Reason I'm asking is that this could be a good jumping point for a number of positive changes in the way the community is addressed and the way the game is handled.
When I started visiting these boards, I had the distinct impression that the people on the boards (us) had a voice, that the devs regularly stopped by, and that there were correspondents (you) who were in close communication with the devs. That feeling has fled like a mynok in a rancor nest.Any communication to the individual professions seems to be fleeting at best (not from you, from the devs), and there is a real sense of the devs hiding unless they absolutely have to stand up and deliver bad news.Now there are a lot of issues here that can be argued for who knows how long, but the long and short of it is that there is a communication breakdown that is not being addressed.
When Galaxies was under development, and we were all so excited about the prospects that this game had to offer, there was a great feeling of community amongst the board members and there was a lot of hope that this time, things would be different, this time the game's support staff was not only interested in helping the player out, but they were really and genuinely excited to be doing so. Things haven't felt that way on the boards in a while. I remember the devs telling us that they would be working with the various professions to help the given communities grow and feel like part of the star wars universe. This was the first time in what I can remember of online gaming history where so much devotion was given to working with the customer, where so much care was promised by the development staff, and it looked like the devs were actually staying true to their promises.
But then things got bogged down. The Monthly questions faded into obscurity. Was there ever a dedicated developer for each profession? Was anyone ever concerned with making this game into something other than EQ in Space??? We watched as spaceships were postponed, as necklaces vanished (were never to be seen as it were), as what we perceive as simple things like clothing not being equip able at zero condition got ignored. We felt the Devs underwent an exodus back into their computer labs, leaving Thunderheart (Bless his patience) out alone in the cold with all of us, the macabre villagers toting pitchforks of complaint, and torches of angst...
However I refuse to lose hope in this matter. Not with Star Wars, not with this thing that has affected just about every aspect of our modern lives, not with this universe that has so much potential. There has to be a way to work with the devs to truly make this a fantastic gaming experience.
So I ask you, no beg you, no I charge you with one obligation to spearhead at this conference in august. Work out a communication structure that allows for information to be quickly and easily passed between the developers and the board members, and get from the developers a firm commitment to work with us on the boards to at least begin working on these issues.
Now, with this all wrapping up, I have to say I think you are doing a great job with what you have to work with. I also have to say that I wish you the best for the trip in august; I suspect there will be much positive to come out of it.
--EDIT-- Now with this all being said, I have to state that I think the most important thing that can happen at this conference is to get solid and truthful responses from the Devs and the support staff regarding their stance on the forums, the utilization of the forums for input and feedback, if the player base can use the forums as a tool to interact with the devs, and how would the devs best like that interaction to happen? In addition to this, the Devs AND support staff need to make a firm commitment and
follow through on this to show those of us who've lost faith that they are willing to work with us to create a better game. In short we need an end to the lip service that has been shown to the community, and some real work on the development and support team's parts to show that the people posting on the forums are not a marginalized minority that is ignored in favor of corporate decisions. Or if the company is going to tow the corporate line, at least have the kobolds to stand up and be up front about it with your community members. --ENDEDIT--
Be well.
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Now, onto the questions::
1) Our Combat role. What is our role in combat? What would you like to see our role be? What would you like to avoid?
I see tailoring as perhaps the softest of the crafting professions, beaten out perhaps only by Image Designer, meaning that if you want to engage in combat, its going to be tough, especially with higher level mobs.Honestly I don't see much role for a tailor in a true combat situation save as a backup or supplementary capacity -- helping to slowly eat away at the beastie as the heavy combat profs do their dirty work. What I do think is important is our ability to craft clothing that is of a similarly useful capacity as amour, something that the devs have currently scratched the surface of but haven't by any means fully utilized. In short we need BE Tissues allowing a low end bonusing to clothing (+1 to +15) On every skill and ability in the game.
2) Clothing's role in combat. What role should clothing have in combat? What role should armor have? What can be done to make clothing a viable choice over armor in some (but perhaps not all) situations?
Role: Support and minor character enhancement.
Fix: Amour should work as a defensive barrier, but should be balanced in the degree of protectiveness and the ability for the person to move -- meaning that the 'heavier' the amour, the more slowly one moves and is able to act/react. Look at the difference between heavy plate mail and leather amour.
This movement and action inhibition should also apply to timers on special attacks and abilities. I would like to see composite amour incur a 20 second (Real time) penalty on stacking special attacks over and above existing recharge rates. Ubese is 15 second, Chitin is 10, Bone is 5. Mandalorian is treated as Ubese, Bounty hunter is the same.
Amour should also reduce movement speed by 40% to 60% (Movement speed reduction should not apply to vehicles; they do the work for you.) Composite = 60% reduction, Ubese = 50% reduction, Chitin = 45%, Bone = 40%
Certain mounts should be non ride able with certain amours. Composite should be vehicle only, Ubese should be large mounts (Dewback, Bantha) and above, Chitin should be medium mounts (Kadu, Vulture looking thingies that I forget the name of (vrock?)) and above, Bone should be all. Mandalorian should be treated as composite for this respect (jetpack), bounty hunter should be considered as Ubese.
This would force people to choose either speed and specials or slowness and avoidance of damage -- this put a demand on Clothing (if BE Tissues are expanded in their abilities to a wider range) as a totally viable option to amour.
3) The GCW. What do you want our role to be in the GCW (I know we've discussed this a few times)? How can we implement a tailoring role that meshes with our play style (i.e. not crafting slave)?
Uniform Creation.Specialized NON COMBAT quests would be super cool. Something along the same thought process as the proposed smuggler quests -- Or even something like 'go make NPC X 10 rebel flight suits' and get this sweet box of tissues or skill tapes or what have you. Reward needs to be worthwhile for this, no stacks of fire works or newbie clothes.
4) Stagnating profession. What can be done to revitalize it? Is this short-term or long term?
1) We need universal colors and more content. Just open up the frelling color palates for everything -- already you have issues with color blind people not being able to play this profession because many of the colors are so similar, and there is no identification system for them on the palate. This is a real problem that someone could force into a discrimination suit if they really wanted to.Colors are a spear (not a thorn) in our sides. As far as content goes,
I would like to see the development team dedicate one resource to work on new clothing models as a full time position. If they were to release 2-4 new items of clothing each month, I think that would be enough. Also this resource should not be the same person, it should rotate to facilitate a freshness and excitement for the clothing models created.
2) An Image-designer like interface for special custom orders so we can match the frelling colors people already have. This is already in the game, how hard can it be to tell the ID viewer to look at clothes as opposed to someone's face and hair?????
5) Fixes: short term. What short-term fixes would be the best use of development resources, if we do get to squeeze in a request before CB/JTL etc?
Above and beyond all, I think much of our issues at present stem from a lack of communication between the development staff and the forums community.If we felt more like our issues were getting addressed, then we would be in a happier place. Hell I think that even if we had a dev swing by once a month and say 'hey this is what were thinking about' or 'what do you all want to see' we'd all be 100000 times happier with the state of the game. If the bi-weekly questions we actually addressed and answered, I think we'd all be in a better position. If you really want our opinions, give us the credit of listening to what we have to say.
Short term dev resources: Color palates, Necklace Bug.
Long Term dev resources: ITEM DECAY IMPLEMENTATION. Constant content updates in the form of more clothes. ID like UI for custom orders.
6) Fixes: long term. What are our biggest long-term issues?
ITEM DECAY NEEDS TO BE IMPLEMENTED! Lack of content, various bugs (necklace, wrong placement for items in the listings, ect)
7) Playstyle(s). What is your play style? What sort of play styles do other tailors have? Does the game support these styles? What can the game do to facilitate your style of playing?
I'm about a 50-50 crafter / gunslinger. Personally I prefer sniping so I use a rifle; however there are any number of problems with combat and range for weapons I'm not going to touch. The game supports my style pretty well. As to other tailors, I don't know, I would assume most are crafters most of the time but who knows?
8) BE clothing: new stats. We've mentioned bioengineered clothing - that we'd like to have more stats. Which stats specifically? What would be the caps on them? How would that affect game balance?
Attribute modifiers (+1 to +100 to any attribute), Skill enhancements for All skills (+1 to +15).Also I think there is a fundamental flaw in having so many pieces of clothing not being able to use BE enhancements (no synth or reinforced). We either need more of these types of clothing, or more types of items that use BE tissues.
9) Skill tapes. Love em? Hate em? Would you like to be able to craft something similar, rather than have them looted? Again, how do these affect game balance? How do skill tapes affect our income?
I have never used skill tapes, It would be very nice if we could make them however, with BE tissues or something.
10) Loot. Are you concerned about the increasing prevalence of loot, or loot-assisted crafting? What do you think of limited use-schematics? Those rug things? Looted items we can't make?
Loot assisted crafting is fine, IF we have a sizeable increase (50-70%) in our own content. The Lack of our native combat ability and the ease at which someone can become a master tailor with macroing, means that dungeons like the Death Watch Bunker are effectively off-limits to us. If someone really wants a full Mandalorian set, they can drop what they need to pick up Master tailor and get it with their friends or guild, and then drop tailor once they have their 'i wanna look like Jango' amour. I do not think that this was a well thought out decision or implementation of loot drop crafting content.
Limited use schematics were perhaps the worst and most ridiculous thing implemented into the game. They are garbage. Either make them unlimited use, load into your data pad forever schematics, or remove them completely. Who actually uses that frelling demolitions belt anyway? Garbage.
Rugs -- great concept, increase the drop rates of the components please? If its a junk dealer sort of thing, shouldn't it be fairly common?
Looted Items we can't make -- I'm not following you, which are these again?
11) DWB: does this adventure appeal to you? Why or why not? What could be done to improve future quest-related crafting?
It appeals to me in that 'pay me 500k in advance, and protect my thimble-wearing, needle slinging, bobbin tossing arse and Ill do my magic in the basement' sort of way.I think putting low level and mid level things of this quest archetype are a good idea. I don't mind the concept of the DWB, but I do mind the exclusivity. And as I said above, with the ease in which someone can become a master tailor, you've taken a good idea and removed those of us who love the profession, and aren't using the profession as a stepping stone to l33t h4x0r status, right out of the whole objective of the exercise -- to incorporate quest based crafting!
Improvements: What about instanced dungeons built around soloing?Or a dungeon where you have to complete a puzzle like in the old Jedi knight games? Or Tomb raider games? Just making more areas or groups of mobs to kill that are not 100k ham beasties? The thought of taking on a krayt just to get a crafters apron is pretty distasteful.
Also, well thought out rewards would be good. Even if it s something unique or new or rare that has no other value save as a display object, like the paintings in game? What about an antique sewing machine? Or a thimble set? What about color dyes for clothing?
12) Interdependency: components. How is that working? What effect does the component market have on your business and play style? How does the component business affect the economy? How does it affect the up-and-coming tailor? Months later, what is your opinion on wookiee armor segments? Would you like to be reliant on another class for certain components?
I like the interdependency -- I like that armousmiths use my panels, and that I use BE tissues. I think it would be a better situation if item decay were implemented, thus increasing the need for clothing as people's clothes became unwearable.
13) Experimentation. Do we want it? What would it affect? How would that affect our play style, income and fun level?
No, its a rather unecesarry process for the tailor. The *only* way I would think that experimentation would work out, is to increase the life of a decay enabled piece of clothing.
14) Socketing. Would you want to be able to control it, or just have it based on level?
Level based, totally.
15) Force sensitivity. What skills would you like to see that tailors would find useful? Are you concerned that too-useful FS skills will make force sensitivity "mandatory" for tailors (as to a certain extent experimentation skill tapes have become for other profs)?
I think the opening of force sensitivity is the worst thing this game could do. Not only are you re-writing the star wars cannon, you're facilitating the game becoming EQ in space. I honestly think you should only have 100 force sensitive slots per server, randomly picked, and no-one should be able to go beyond padawan status. However this is obviously no the way the game intends to be steered.
I think force sensitivity has no place in the life of a tailor -- it should not affect our skills or abilities in any way whatsoever.
I also think you should implement inquisitors into the games, and have force sensitivity scanners at the entrance to every city star port, turning on TEF flags on anyone coming through, and calling in hordes of NPC dark Jedi and stormtroopers. The Empire doesn't frell around, and these candy-arsed stormtroopers in game are a joke.
16) Anything else you can think of!
The GCW is a sham. I've seem more terrorist activity at the WTC riots, and more violence against 'the other guys' in a salt water fish tank. If you really want to make this feel like a crackdown and civil war, make the imperial presence felt. Make the imperials crack down on rebs in cities, make them discriminate against non humans in their ranks. Make the rebels feel like they are fighting for their lives, and make it hurt when they are caught -- make the imperials confiscate any contraband they have on them.
EDIT: another question:
17) BE combat clothing: Do you think the current ability to put combat tissues into clothing is adequate? How would it affect balance if we could put more combat tissues into outfits? Do you feel that aesthetically the limited choices for BE combat gear is problematic? How do you feel about stacked tissues? How would you improve the current options?
Make all BE clothing bonuses no greater than +25 per outfit, and make them applicable to all abilities and skills. Let us create skill tapes with BE tissues.We need more varied clothing that takes panels and cloth.
2) Clothing's role in combat. BE clothing already has a role.
3) The GCW. The GCW is combat oriented. Other than being a supplier of tailored needs what else is there?
4) Stagnating profession. I would like to see new items added periodically. New items always cause renewed interest. You have a whole list here of cool items to add. Maybe add 1-5 per month.
5) Fixes: short term. Clothes should wear out.
6) Fixes: long term. Added items to the list.
7) Playstyle(s). I'm what has been called a department store tailor. I like to fill my vendor and fill email orders. I despise sitting with a customer who has no idea what styles there are or colors they like all the while making items time after time to tweak a color to their choosing. I would like to see some kind of way for the customer to choose their own color schemes. If it required a personal meeting with an ID style interface fine, but to me it would be great if a player could enter a special tent where they can pick out a costume, try it on, pick their owns colors all to see what they want. This would be a "computer" generated outfit and they would have to find a tailor to make it.
8) BE clothing: new stats. +25 is there for a reason. That cap is fine. If you go adding too many stats then you create an overbalance.
9) Skill tapes. I hate them. These are game mechanics pure and simple. There is no realistic way to rationalize some of the mods these items give. At least BE enhances have some kind of theory behind them.
10) Loot. I like the loot system where there is some dependency on other players. This game was advertised as a group effort game. By letting tailors go get their own schematics and parts they are systematically wanting to solo the game. I have no problem obtaining schematics and loot parts. It also gives new players a chance to earn money by finding these items to sell to tailors.
11) DWB: As a tailor no. As a combatant yes but like alot of of the high end game they are very high end. Once combat is revised maybe things will be different.
12) Interdependency: components. I actually have to work to find a good BE. At times I hate it but it is also good and separates the hardcore tailor from the rest. I will look for hours on end to find a good BE vendor to buy out their stock on crates. For this reason my BE clothing is always shopped because players can find what they want. If they don't I have tissues in stock to handle requests.
13) Experimentation. I see nothing to experiment on except durability or sockets.
14) Socketing. I would like to see it attached to experimentation.
15) Force sensitivity. I think giving FS to crafters is stupid. We are turning the galaxy into one big Jedi. I admit I always wanted to become a jedi through beta but as I see them now I want no part of it. I hate pvp because most of the cool dewds pvp and I want no part of them. The pve aspect appeals to me some but not enough. I simply want to open another crafter slot and that is it. I want crafting ability to depend on skill only and even less dependency on resource stats.
16) Anything else you can think of! Yes! Lean on those merchants to get a relist option. If this were in place I would actually fill my vendor with a selection. As I sit here now I have over 700 items to relist on my vendors.
17) BE combat clothing: I think as it is now a player must choose what they want enhanced. I think this is a good thing. If we are able to add several enhances then everyone will have this and we will in effect create a bunch of supermen/women. I don't want to see game play overbalanced at all. Make them choose an enhancement that best suits their combat style.
Message Edited by Alciril on 07-25-2004 04:11 AM