Definitely agreed - but I don't think we can wait for the next earnings report to write an article. As I said - their subscriber claims are pretty believable anyway.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Absolutly, I just offered a different view point to maybe shed some light on the subject. Additionally Sony's Quarterly staments for 2005 should be out soon. I myself have canceled my account but I hope that SOE gets thing figured out. I would be happy to return to the game if I can see a significant change for the better. Good luck to all!
It would be possible for customers to put out a press release through businesswire or prnewswire detailing our unhappiness with the current changes to the game. This would show up in the news feeds on the financial sites and would get media attention. Not to mention it could probably do a wicked ding in their share price and cause a sell off.
Originally posted by parrotpholk For all you jumping to WOW have fun for the 2 months it takes to hit end game and have nothing to do. Not to mention the awesome lack of any depth besides it being nothing more than a hack and slash. I played for 4 months so yes I played WOW. SWG has issues but at least it has depth and some kind of story. Face it forums are nothing more than whiners and complainers and only reason I respond to this is because the whiners seem to think they represent everybody out there and it makes me ill.
I have just started playing WoW and I find it lacks in relation to player characters. There is really no story line directly related to Player races, only NPC characters. It can be mindless at points and most certainly they need to get Waypoints to there Quests. I spend countless minutes searching for a quest and not finding it only to bug someone for help. Long story short I would like SOE to fix the issues and restoring my faith in SWG.null
Originally posted by punkasaurus If SOE is publicly traded what is the ticker? It would be possible for customers to put out a press release through businesswire or prnewswire detailing our unhappiness with the current changes to the game. This would show up in the news feeds on the financial sites and would get media attention. Not to mention it could probably do a wicked ding in their share price and cause a sell off.
Most of Sony Group is publicly traded subsidiaries. At least from what I read on the web.
Originally posted by parrotpholk For all you jumping to WOW have fun for the 2 months it takes to hit end game and have nothing to do. Not to mention the awesome lack of any depth besides it being nothing more than a hack and slash. I played for 4 months so yes I played WOW. SWG has issues but at least it has depth and some kind of story. Face it forums are nothing more than whiners and complainers and only reason I respond to this is because the whiners seem to think they represent everybody out there and it makes me ill.
lol, depth? I in no way am bashing SWG, its a very good game. But depth ? If you thought it was easy to level characters in WOW, its only beat out by SWG where you can level almost any proffession in 4 days or less. The only thing remotely challenging in SWG is becoming a Jedi....and only then do you just have to have patience and wait out your time.....to have a character that sucks.
but yeah.....theres alot to do in SWG--- whats the point though when some noob playing 4 days is as good as you. Maybe things changed after the CU, I hope so.
Originally posted by Bama1267 No waypoints to quests please. The game is easy enough without haaving everything spoon fed to you.
Everyones game experience is different and I perfer to have Waypoints oppose to running around aimlessly and not finding anything. But that sounds like it works for you.
Originally posted by Bama1267 No waypoints to quests please. The game is easy enough without haaving everything spoon fed to you.
Everyones game experience is different and I perfer to have Waypoints oppose to running around aimlessly and not finding anything. But that sounds like it works for you.
In SWG it was fine because the quests werent really quests. Alot of them were just missions at a particular place on the planet you could and would never find without a waypoint.
In WOW most of your quests are easy to find if you can read the WHOLE quest. Alot of people just dont read or dont look far enough. Of course every now and then I do run into the problem of finding a part of my quest. But Id prefer it that way then ....go here...go here ....go here...done. Just doesnt seem like much of a quest then.
Originally posted by Bama1267 Originally posted by overdrv69Originally posted by Bama1267No waypoints to quests please. The game is easy enough without haaving everything spoon fed to you.Everyones game experience is different and I perfer to have Waypoints oppose to running around aimlessly and not finding anything. But that sounds like it works for you. In SWG it was fine because the quests werent really quests. Alot of them were just missions at a particular place on the planet you could and would never find without a waypoint. In WOW most of your quests are easy to find if you can read the WHOLE quest. Alot of people just dont read or dont look far enough. Of course every now and then I do run into the problem of finding a part of my quest. But Id prefer it that way then ....go here...go here ....go here...done. Just doesnt seem like much of a quest then.
Good point. When you put it that way it does make sense. I guess I was spoiled playing SWG.
For those having issues with quests in WoW, Thottbot.com is your friend. However, I'd advice taking some time with the quests, exploring the terrains and storylines. At least with your initial character.
Lol, back on topic. I don't have a problem with the Progress Report here and simply viewed it as an update to recent events. Hopefully in the future the staff will have an oppurtunity to pose the tougher questions to SOE. Even a little transparency would go a long way for us expatrioted SWG players.
Ico Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Lol, back on topic. I don't have a problem with the Progress Report here and simply viewed it as an update to recent events. Hopefully in the future the staff will have an oppurtunity to pose the tougher questions to SOE. Even a little transparency would go a long way for us expatrioted SWG players.
Just out of morbid curiosity, what tough questions would you have them ask? And, having asked those questions, what answers on the part of SOE would satiate you? I have a sneaky suspicious that you would like honest answers less than you would like no answer, and that perhaps, there would be no article on the CU, even remotely positive, that you would EVER accept as valid. I mean, if you take ten seconds to think about some of this stuff without resorting to Hitler, Satan, or other evil scapegoats, you'd see the answers in front of you, plain as day.
SOE, why did you ignore your fans?
We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things. As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices.
SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion?
Because they weren't doing it constructively. They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers. It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion or had a positive one.
SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system?
One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded. We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels.
SOE, why did you put levels into the game?
To be fair, levels were already in the game. They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds.
But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance. You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality.
Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it.
SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles?
Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is. Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse.
Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment.
SOE, are you in league with Satan?
We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can. We aren't perfect, but we are working hard. If that's in league with Satan, then yes.
I haven't read everything, as I stopped playing SWG ages ago, but reading the first few pages one comment really got my attention
I think if a website. or gamer magazine actually set out to get facts rather then statements they would uncover a world of deceit in the gaming world. I think a lot of people would be hurt, and a lot of others completly disappointed in the companies we have loved for so long. I think the magazine/website would have it's hands full...too full....
I think that has fairly little to do with gaming, but with every company providing a public service. the moment they say "Yes, you're right our product sucks ass right now" (to put it blunt) they'd loose even more. while I agree that SOE is overdoing it a bit in the "Everything is just perfect" department, it really is just good business. never say anything negative about your own product, as when you do you'll hurt the image of your product *far* more then when others say something negative about it
The CU is a great enhancement for the game. It bring a more action-oriented combat and also more even gameplay in pvp.
I have sent countless "Tickets" to them and always got a friendly mail back within 24 hours and the problem has been solved. Payment have always worked great and when a friend got double-charged they solved it instantly and also gave him 10 days free gametime.
SWG also has (or maybe had) the best community out there but since they all couldn´t be invincible, they launched their emergency-pod and left the game, blaiming SOE for making the game "Dumb"..
Still, I know have cancelled my account. Not because of SOE, but because the "fans"/community who couldn´t handle a change to a game!.
Originally posted by punkasaurus There were many of us who felt there was very little wrong with the old combat system. They dumbed down the game and it sucks now.
Please clarify. You say the game is dumber, but you don't say why - and I'm having a hard time seeing how taking down three Krayt dragons while in another room drinking coffee by a pure crafter could possibly be smarter than something that requires, no, demands team work, attentiveness, and adaptability. How is it dumber? Please tell me, because my pitiful skills using logic and facts don't seem up to the task.
There are many examples but here are a couple that jump directly to mind. In the old system npc's had vulnerabilities to certain weapons i.e electricity, kinetic, lightsaber, energy, acid, blast, etc. In the new system all damage types are limited to energy or kinetic period. It was possible to solo in fact I very much enjoyed being a master rifleman with ranged speed 4 running around coronet killing rebs as part of the galactic civil war. They dropped good items, gave great faction, great xp. it was fun. Now there is no point because there is NO experience or reason to do this. Basically everything in the game is borked now. I used to enjoy going to deathwatch bunker. My toon has the 8th jetpack ever crafted on Tarquinas good luck ever being able to craft another one. My looted bh armor can no longer be converted to mandalorian its bugged along with all of my uber rifles and other items that i either A) spent hours grinding to afford to buy or was lucky enough to loot off an npc. The new rifle specials are totally useless and there are master rifleman running around that used to be tkm firing with bh specials. Give me back strafe2 i hate this tricycle. This is not what i learned, not what i invested time and money into and not what i want. PERIOD
Originally posted by Squidi
Originally posted by punkasaurus There were many of us who felt there was very little wrong with the old combat system. They dumbed down the game and it sucks now.
Please clarify. You say the game is dumber, but you don't say why - and I'm having a hard time seeing how taking down three Krayt dragons while in another room drinking coffee by a pure crafter could possibly be smarter than something that requires, no, demands team work, attentiveness, and adaptability. How is it dumber? Please tell me, because my pitiful skills using logic and facts don't seem up to the task.
--> First of all .... if you check the SWG section of this forum you will see that I am one of the most active supporters of SWG and the combat revamp, so these comments are not from a SWG flamer or hater, but from a realistic SWG veteran.
Just out of morbid curiosity, what tough questions would you have them ask? --> Take a look at this SOE response : "This means the Combat Upgrade's publish pacing is not dictated by the calendar, but by how it evolves in the testing and tuning process." - Thunderheart, 10/28/2004 --> Try not to laugh. It seems to me that the developer/coder team had little to say about deadlines. It seems very much like marketing has dictated the schedule for 2 years now, and it sure has not given SWG a good name or rep. --> Consistently the patches and expansions in 2004 and 2005 have been pushed out too soon onto live servers, with A LOT of testing still to be done. It seems to me and many others here that SWG is in great need of a larger or more professional in house QA department that catches more problems sooner (already in Alpha testing). I would exclude the first 3 months of 2005 where we did see great progress in bug fixing. --> I have not seen any compensation from SOE (days added to subscription) for the days servers where offline (most recently patch 17 comes to mind, but some servers lost a week after the CU patch). Other gaming corps like those running WoW or EVE are adding days to player subscription. Double XP is nice, but when 30 % of mission targets are disappearing or are of incorrect level or are invulnerable, than double XP of 1 XP or nil is not breathtaking.
would like honest answers less than you would like no answer, --> What we would like to see are honest answers. When the EVE team lost their server (there is only one for 55k players) for a full day, they posted a detailed article for all players to read in the log in screen ... with all the shameful things that went wrong. And they apologized after explaining. And they compensated one extra day. And player flaming was MINIMAL ... because if you KNOW what happened and UNDERSTAND, you dont mind as much as when you are left in the dark or fed some PR crap. and that perhaps, there would be no article on the CU, even remotely positive, that you would EVER accept as valid. I mean, if you take ten seconds to think about some of this stuff without resorting to Hitler, Satan, or other evil scapegoats, you'd see the answers in front of you, plain as day.
SOE, why did you ignore your fans?
We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things.
--> Why not listening to the profession correspondents then, who not only compiled once, but maybe 10 times already detailed, priorized to-do lists ? Listening to 30 people is much easier than to 300k players. And some of the non-correspondents have drafted detailed, constructive, well-thought out design papers for enhancements to the game ... which the correspondents tried to bring to the attention of the dev team.
--> Why did you not do CU Alpha testing with the chosen sandbox teams ? All dedicated veteran players (many who had done a dozen professions or more, which means they would have not been totally fixed on their own profession). To put it into perspective .. I have been neither a correspondent nor one of the sandbox team members, so this argument stems NOT from being bitter about being ignored. And believe me, both these groups HAVE been bitter about it.
As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices.
SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion?
Because they weren't doing it constructively.
--> Many were doing it constructively. And no one listened. And no one seemed to care. And some representatives at fan gatherings speaking about "only 50 people dont like CU" did not help either. So people got more radical in their means of expression.
They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers.
--> I absolutely agree with in game server crash gatherings. However, I and MANY others cannot understand the heavy handed forum thread delete policy and player banning (temp or perma) policy. And then to have the chuzpe to claim that criticism is dying out (no wonder when the critics have been banned, their posts deleted .. or they cancelled and are losing their forum access).
It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion
--> no opinion is not automatically a positive opinion. You lost thousands of players , many having never posted on forums at all.
or had a positive one.
SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system?
One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded.
--> Many people here think you tried hard, then ran out of time and then had to implement what some called an "angry bag with varying skins" design. And an abitrary level difference based modifier that totally dominates the combat system and makes quality of skills, weapons, armor almost irrelevant. And one fact has been obvious ... none of the planets made it into live servers with ANY balancing passes .. as the many level 100-300 mobs one-hit incapping everyone in the first post-Cu weeks showed us. I am not sure if they are all gone til now (--> Corvette boarding quests are unplayable because of it with level 194 Super Battle Droids).
We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels.
SOE, why did you put levels into the game?
To be fair, levels were already in the game.
--> We never had problems with levels. They have been in the game for years now. But the new level difference based modifier dominating everything at the moment ... making quality of equipment more or less irrelevant (which caused A LOT of anger amongst the crafter population) ... which the developers introduced hasty and late in testing ... THAT has caused an insane amount of wailing and teeth gnashing and despair. It just does not fit as well as it should be.
They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds.
But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance.
--> After 2 YEARS !!! you can expect SOME balance. Difficult or not, people have been VERY patient with the dev team. And SWG is STILL a huge beta test that people pay for.
You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality.
--> Very much needed ... and I hope thats true. RotW was a step in the right direction. Instanced areas with intersting stories are the way to go on the other planets.
Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it.
SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles?
Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is.
--> Oh, we DO believe. And we DO know. Quite a lot of us ARE working in software engineering and project management with programs having an insane amount of code lines (SAP anyone ?). Even in the creative field (computer gaming). And we KNOW that things have NOT been shiny and perfect in SWG by any standards. You have very much need for improvement in QA, CRM, project management and cracking before pressure from the marketing department.
Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse.
--> There ARE professional tools for that. Are they used ? There ARE professional QA teams for that. Are they employed to do SWG testing ? There are international quality standards in the software industry .. has the team been certified in any of those standards which WILL improve product quality !?
Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment.
SOE, are you in league with Satan?
We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can.
--> That I believe 100 %. That you dont succeed as you should tells me that your team is too small or underfunded or both. Which means Sony or Lucasarts or both are milking too much profit out of SWG and standards suffer. Which is a problem of management, not the coders.
Once again the fact that this conversation is even occuring shows you just how bad things are at SOE.
They know they messed this up. They know we know they messed it up. Why not just give us what we want regardless if we are right or wrong? Both the pro and anti cu people would cease arguing if they just put up some pre cu servers.
Originally posted by Erillion Where are the questions about often pushing patches live too soon with not enough testing ? Where are the questions about long overdue bug fixes and profession fixes (ask them about the smuggler revamp promised in autumn 2003) !?! Lets see some journalism here, PULLEZZEEE !!!!!!!! have fun Erillion
If I asked 50 of you guys what the "number one issue" is, I'd get 50 answers. Read this thread, most of you seem to believe that SOE is somehow in league with Satan, but besides the CU being the devil's own creation, you guys cannot agree on what makes it so.
I cover too many games to "know" that the root of all evil is an obscure promise made in Autumn of 2003. This is why I wrote a general article that tells you what SOE said in response to questions about subscriber levels, fan outrage, etc. As I have before, and no one on the anti-CU side ever took me up on, I invite anyone who has a real argument and is a long time fan of the game to write a well thought out, constructive article about "what is wrong" with the CU. I am all for posting both sides of the argument, if I can find a writer to do it.
How about referring to this post from SWG's site, the perfect reasoning behind SOE's issues and has yet to be argued against by the fanboys here...
from Handsnake from the SOE forum. I copied here because its a very good analysis of what had happnened:
Combat Upgrade - An Analysis of a Design Variance
I think that this should be here, as it bears on the subject of this forum. Please take the time to read all of the points as well as the conclusions. Keep responses civil, please.
I have tested the CU since it hit Beta and have been following the CU since publish 7. There are a number of unexpected problems with the implementation of the CU as it stands in Live (and how it developed in beta) that do not track with the available information given over the year since it was announced.
The way the current implementation of the CU is made up has several glaring variances from the previously released info - in that there was one central item that I have identified has caused the majority of the imbalances and problems encountered with the CU.
Putting a 'level' system on top of a skill based system.
This was not in the original CU documentation released on 03/31/05, and data from public statements of sources inside the CU 'sandbox' scheme (without violating NDA) have confirmed that it was never discussed with them to the degree it was implemented.
Herein I will list the worst issues reported about the CU and show that they are all tied directly to the 'level system' implementation that was added to the functional design of the CU.
1. Crafter Death - Crafters are 1 shotted by every aggro mob on every starter planet. The fragility of crafter characters at 'combat level' 1 is extreme. Surveying alone is impossible since spawns will appear under vehicles in motion and mobs will kill crafters in less than 2 seconds. The ability to at least run away has been removed - this makes crafters unable to function at a basic level.
The 'level' system has a damage multiplier. You will see this in further points. This damage multiplier makes anything higher level than you equivalent to instant death. Five levels above you will always kill you. Again, this point will be repeated. Since crafters will not have any combat rating unless they become a hybrid and drop pure crafting, they will always take max damage.
Furthermore, every animal will use the damage multiplier against a base value. There is no such thing, therefore, as a 'safe' enemy for crafters.
This is the result of the 'level' system. Before, each mob had different resists and damage ranges. They had a "threat" level, which was based on how high their offensive and defensive values were. Under the old system, that was the basis of the /con result. This threat level has NO relationship to the current 'combat level' system, no matter what the devs claim in the HOC chat. The threat level was an EVALUATION of an existing mob.
A 'combat level' is a MODIFICATION of a base value mob "angry bag" put into whatever 'skin' is appropriate, i.e, a level 34 dune lizard is the same as a level 34 peko peko.
The new COMBAT LEVEL defines the offensive and defensive values - not the other way around. This is an important distinction, and is critical to understanding the conclusion about the combat level system and why it was added to the CU at such a late date.
2. XP gains and lack of same: A significant number of people are finding odd results from attacking mobs slightly below their level and higher - as in getting little to no XP. The response of the devs is to have people focus on just fighting even leveled mobs.
The real question is: Why was the XP variance put in the CU in the first place? XP gains or rates of gains was NEVER addressed as a concern in the Combat Upgrade. It did not affect combat in any way, shape, or form in PVP, nor were there "problems" about the flavor of combat that were caused by XP being gained by anything you defeated.
It was never an issue at all.
However, in 'level' based systems, the paradigm is that LEVEL DETERMINES XP AT ALL TIMES.
In a skill based system, mobs are worth what they are worth - period.
The XP dilemma is a byproduct of the introduction of the level based combat overlay - and that is it. It offers NO positive effects to the pace of combat, the usability and distinction of all combat professions, the tactical nature of combat - in fact, it hinders advancement. It does nothing that the CU was written to do - at all. It has no purpose.
It has nothing to do with lessening the effects of overpowered buffs and armor and does nothing to address ANY SINGLE ITEM mentioned in the CU Documentation.
It is, in fact, the unavoidable side effect of the use of the level system. It was NEVER a goal of the CU and is present ONLY because a level system was introduced. The reason why it was is the kicker.
3. Certifications of weapons being based on level - Many people think that this was INTENDED. It was not. This was a FIX put in to deal with the fact that the level system made xp vanish from 'low level' mobs for people grinding their 2nd elite combat prof. The 'level' system FORCED the removal of certs tied to skills. Else, a TKM attempting to grind pistols would never be able to do so as long as the level system was in place - he couldn't kill anything ever that gave him Pistol XP.
So they pulled pistols (and all other weapons) from skill boxes and tied them to 'combat levels' as a work around for this unplanned-for circumstance. They did this with all the weapons at first, then came back to address the idea of a TKM/Ranger using a beam rifle. So a very few 'iconic' weapons were tied to skill boxes.
This is a cheat.
The original design of the CU, again, had NOTHING in it about un-latching the weapons from skill boxes.
It was because - simply put - The CU Was Never To Be Level Based.
XP was therefore NEVER supposed To Be 'Gated' to mob level comparisons. Crafters Were Never Supposed to be unable to walk outside. Weapons Were Never to be "floating" - they were supposed to be ADDITIVE* *(Commando/Rifleman was supposed to be able to use a beam weapon with a rifle special - ADDITIVE as in Ranged do ranged - melee does melee and the certs ADD)
So - if you've read this far - you're asking yourself "Why the hell did they put in the level system? What POSSIBLE use could it be?"
Mobs. Mobs, deadlines, and stats. Converting all the existing mobs to be balanced before May 5th was impossible. The only explanation is that they imposed the level system on the mobs because a level system makes the generation of mobs EASY.
You have 2 types of mobs - Humanoid and Non-Humanoid. You have 2 types of each of those - melee only, and ranged primary/melee secondary. These make each mob into an "angry bag" that can have a skin thrown on it, and the level system DEFINES THE DAMAGE DONE AT ALL TIMES TO ANYONE.
Quick. Easy. Fast.
No coding 350 different 'species' each with different xp values, resists, and attack values (not to mention individual, named mobs). Just a bag with a level, attack subroutine, and a skin on it. Damage multipliers (remember those?) will automatically generate "challenge". Damage mitigation due to level differences will SIMULATE weakening defenses.
Bam. Done. Quick. Easy. Fast. And WORTHLESS.
That's what they did. That's the MAIN problem with the CU. Take out the level system - leaving everything else in - and you have a viable product. You have crafters able to run away from things even without buffs and armor You have people able to still use the weapons they expect to use. And you won't encounter people UNABLE to progress in their profession. You have to do one thing though - you have to work on mobs and MAKE THEM WORK RIGHT.
It takes time which they claim they don't have. The Level system is like putting wallpaper over a broken window. It's a cheap easy and BAD fix that made more problems than they understood. Without it, the CU would work.
Originally posted by punkasaurus If SOE is publicly traded what is the ticker? It would be possible for customers to put out a press release through businesswire or prnewswire detailing our unhappiness with the current changes to the game. This would show up in the news feeds on the financial sites and would get media attention. Not to mention it could probably do a wicked ding in their share price and cause a sell off.
It's either SON or SNE, I believe. SWG subscription cancellations won't effect their stock. They have too many other products to fallback on. But rest assured, the board is not smiling at Smedley right now.
"I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB
Here are some of the problems or reasons why i felt i had to leave swg for another game
1 The CU was pushed out around 5 days before the due date with little warning and at the time i was grinding jedi and would have been done before the CU came out. I would have like some time to play the old game with my jedi before it changed forever.
2 The CU hits ok lets log in and try out grinding jedi get missions move to first lair bols easy i did not need a buff anymore to kill these. Move in for the attack ok lets take this nice and slow hit one level 80 like me hang on here its taking a while to kill before the CU ot would take seconds and then the others start to attack had to force run away before i was killed.
Right lets look at that again i had the right food or at least the right food before the CU and no buffs anymore so cant be that reason why an easy kill now kicks my butt. Ok next lets try something a little below my level find a level 78 2 levels below me so i attack its on its own should be no problem to a level 80 jedi well 10 minutes later i win hang on where is my xps look in the combat log i get none for something that takes me ten minutes to kill.
3 Leave my jedi to try my other alt change him to a BH with carbines that looks like a nice combo plus i have loads of nice weapons that cost me a fair packet but whats this they are now crap so i have spent hours getting the money and the K/Tissues to make these weapons for nothing. Next armor got loads of nice composite armor but hang on again under the new system all armor does is look nice mights has well run around in your underpants. But then again at least i can kill stuff with this one so i learn a little bit about the icons with this toon and will log in my jedi latter to try again.
4 Next stage i have been on for a few hours now and think i am getting the hang of it a bit more so log on the jedi and head out but not get any missions Dantooine is full of things to kill for xps.
Success i kill a quacker and get 900 odd xps but it took me over 20 mins with having to run and heal a few times so how the hell am i going to get the 3-4 million xps i need to finish my grind?
5 All on the same day its now been 6 to 7 hours and i am getting the fealing that this game is now dead to me how can i even think about grinding jedi and getting maybe 20000 xps per hour instead of the 200000 i was getting before the CU so i head back to my home city on my bike and then bang i was killed in one hit by a hurtun when i went past it on my bike great now i have lost 200000 xps so i now have -xps to try and get back cheers SOE.
6 Day 2 whats this the server i am on is down and there are people saying we are getting a roll back of anything upto 7 DAYS. Don't worry i think its just panic when it comes back up everything will be fine and maybe i will be able to grind again.
Well no when it comes back up i have lost all the xps i have grinded over the last 7 days which was over 3 million plus I have also now lost my ADK which was not even working on my lightsaber anymore the day before but we were told it would be fixed ok send in a ticket and see what they say. The reply comes and its the same cut and paste job everyone esle was getting saying we are very sorry for your lossed xps and items but there is nothing we can do. Now hang on here i was only days away from finishing my grind and now i am months away if it takes me 20 mins to get 900 odd xps.
At this stage i am so mad i could cry.
So what do SOE offer us x4 xps for one week big deal. There is no way i could make that back under the new system even if it was x10 xps per kill.
Some say you have to group now to kill things like we used to be able to do but you cant group if you are a jedi without getting on the terms and with BH being the new TKA you wont last long which means you are going to lose more xps then you gain.
So to sum it all up these are my main reasons/problems why i left
1 Can not grind jedi anymore.
2 Weapons and i worked hard to get and now usless.
3 Armor is now not needed,
4 Food is now not needed.
5 Whichs mean that the crafting side of swg of which i had an alt to do is now pretty much worthless.
6 I need to learn everthing again which will mean i will get killed and lose even more xps.
7 I don't wish to pay for a game which is still more or less in beta form.
8 Why should i play a game in which SOE really don't care how they treat you just has long has the money is coming in.
I am sure there are more but i cant think of them all right now. Plus for give any spelling mistakes that is not one of my strong points.
I now play WOW. Been so for around 5 weeks its not bad the PvP can be great and sometimes it can make you scream when you get killed by someone with ?? above there head ( those who play WOW will know what thats means) But SWG in its old form was in my opinion a lot better but lacked the pick up and play feal of WOW.
Originally posted by punkasaurus There were many of us who felt there was very little wrong with the old combat system. They dumbed down the game and it sucks now.
Please clarify. You say the game is dumber, but you don't say why - and I'm having a hard time seeing how taking down three Krayt dragons while in another room drinking coffee by a pure crafter could possibly be smarter than something that requires, no, demands team work, attentiveness, and adaptability. How is it dumber? Please tell me, because my pitiful skills using logic and facts don't seem up to the task.
And I quote: "Let's make combat more fun and less mechanical. Let's take away some of the distraction that people have to get through and let them walk into the fight and click once and start battling something really fun." Debysue Wolfcale Sony marketing manager
I think thats what Squidi was talking about being dumb. Click once......Dumb is an understatement
LMAO Now all you have to do is click once and battle. What a moron. Here is a good lie from Dallas Dickinson, Sony Online producer and here is the Q&A:
IGNPC: Let's talk about the practical implementation of the upgrade. Why did you guys decide to go live with it when you did?
Dallas Dickinson: We've been testing it for a full month, both internally and on the test center. We were simply not at the point of getting enough feedback from people.
What kind of shit is that? What kind of shit is that:? You test a game for a month? OMG what a f(*&cking moron. We gave them feedback all along!!!!!!!
"I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB
--> First of all .... if you check the SWG section of this forum you will see that I am one of the most active supporters of SWG and the combat revamp, so these comments are not from a SWG flamer or hater, but from a realistic SWG veteran.
Just out of morbid curiosity, what tough questions would you have them ask? --> Take a look at this SOE response : "This means the Combat Upgrade's publish pacing is not dictated by the calendar, but by how it evolves in the testing and tuning process." - Thunderheart, 10/28/2004 --> Try not to laugh. It seems to me that the developer/coder team had little to say about deadlines. It seems very much like marketing has dictated the schedule for 2 years now, and it sure has not given SWG a good name or rep. --> Consistently the patches and expansions in 2004 and 2005 have been pushed out too soon onto live servers, with A LOT of testing still to be done. It seems to me and many others here that SWG is in great need of a larger or more professional in house QA department that catches more problems sooner (already in Alpha testing). I would exclude the first 3 months of 2005 where we did see great progress in bug fixing. --> I have not seen any compensation from SOE (days added to subscription) for the days servers where offline (most recently patch 17 comes to mind, but some servers lost a week after the CU patch). Other gaming corps like those running WoW or EVE are adding days to player subscription. Double XP is nice, but when 30 % of mission targets are disappearing or are of incorrect level or are invulnerable, than double XP of 1 XP or nil is not breathtaking.
would like honest answers less than you would like no answer, --> What we would like to see are honest answers. When the EVE team lost their server (there is only one for 55k players) for a full day, they posted a detailed article for all players to read in the log in screen ... with all the shameful things that went wrong. And they apologized after explaining. And they compensated one extra day. And player flaming was MINIMAL ... because if you KNOW what happened and UNDERSTAND, you dont mind as much as when you are left in the dark or fed some PR crap. and that perhaps, there would be no article on the CU, even remotely positive, that you would EVER accept as valid. I mean, if you take ten seconds to think about some of this stuff without resorting to Hitler, Satan, or other evil scapegoats, you'd see the answers in front of you, plain as day. SOE, why did you ignore your fans? We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things. --> Why not listening to the profession correspondents then, who not only compiled once, but maybe 10 times already detailed, priorized to-do lists ? Listening to 30 people is much easier than to 300k players. And some of the non-correspondents have drafted detailed, constructive, well-thought out design papers for enhancements to the game ... which the correspondents tried to bring to the attention of the dev team. --> Why did you not do CU Alpha testing with the chosen sandbox teams ? All dedicated veteran players (many who had done a dozen professions or more, which means they would have not been totally fixed on their own profession). To put it into perspective .. I have been neither a correspondent nor one of the sandbox team members, so this argument stems NOT from being bitter about being ignored. And believe me, both these groups HAVE been bitter about it. As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices. SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion? Because they weren't doing it constructively. --> Many were doing it constructively. And no one listened. And no one seemed to care. And some representatives at fan gatherings speaking about "only 50 people dont like CU" did not help either. So people got more radical in their means of expression. They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers. --> I absolutely agree with in game server crash gatherings. However, I and MANY others cannot understand the heavy handed forum thread delete policy and player banning (temp or perma) policy. And then to have the chuzpe to claim that criticism is dying out (no wonder when the critics have been banned, their posts deleted .. or they cancelled and are losing their forum access). It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion --> no opinion is not automatically a positive opinion. You lost thousands of players , many having never posted on forums at all. or had a positive one. SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system? One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded. --> Many people here think you tried hard, then ran out of time and then had to implement what some called an "angry bag with varying skins" design. And an abitrary level difference based modifier that totally dominates the combat system and makes quality of skills, weapons, armor almost irrelevant. And one fact has been obvious ... none of the planets made it into live servers with ANY balancing passes .. as the many level 100-300 mobs one-hit incapping everyone in the first post-Cu weeks showed us. I am not sure if they are all gone til now (--> Corvette boarding quests are unplayable because of it with level 194 Super Battle Droids). We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels. SOE, why did you put levels into the game? To be fair, levels were already in the game. --> We never had problems with levels. They have been in the game for years now. But the new level difference based modifier dominating everything at the moment ... making quality of equipment more or less irrelevant (which caused A LOT of anger amongst the crafter population) ... which the developers introduced hasty and late in testing ... THAT has caused an insane amount of wailing and teeth gnashing and despair. It just does not fit as well as it should be. They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds. But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance. --> After 2 YEARS !!! you can expect SOME balance. Difficult or not, people have been VERY patient with the dev team. And SWG is STILL a huge beta test that people pay for. You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality. --> Very much needed ... and I hope thats true. RotW was a step in the right direction. Instanced areas with intersting stories are the way to go on the other planets. Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it. SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles? Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is. --> Oh, we DO believe. And we DO know. Quite a lot of us ARE working in software engineering and project management with programs having an insane amount of code lines (SAP anyone ?). Even in the creative field (computer gaming). And we KNOW that things have NOT been shiny and perfect in SWG by any standards. You have very much need for improvement in QA, CRM, project management and cracking before pressure from the marketing department. Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse. --> There ARE professional tools for that. Are they used ? There ARE professional QA teams for that. Are they employed to do SWG testing ? There are international quality standards in the software industry .. has the team been certified in any of those standards which WILL improve product quality !? Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment. SOE, are you in league with Satan? We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can. --> That I believe 100 %. That you dont succeed as you should tells me that your team is too small or underfunded or both. Which means Sony or Lucasarts or both are milking too much profit out of SWG and standards suffer. Which is a problem of management, not the coders. We aren't perfect, but we are working hard. --> Have fun, Erillion
This, my fellow mmorpgers, deserves a QFE.
Basically, I will tell you what it boils down to in my opinion. Its their customer relations to their player base. I love SWG mostly for the community and the community is what keeps people playing in many cases. SOE and Lucas Arts are not in the league with the devil. That role belongs to Mr. Gates and he would promptly take down any competition. They ARE, however, notorious for not listening to their correspondents, alpha and beta testers, polls (errant or not) and seem to have all the subtlety of a bull in a room full of pentium chips.
Here is the kicker and the million dollar question. Why are we here asking you to ask the questions? Even the guys and girls who have supported the CU? Because simply - SOE will not listen to us and if they are - there is no evidence to help support the claim. Whether or not we know it, we are here because we ware hoping you can get them to realize that all we want is open dialogue. The myraid of ideas, bug reports, warnings, suggestions and so on are almost never looked into. Instead, we have fixes put in place that hurt other professions, patches that are not tested and unleashed upon us (which I might add we are not compensated for the downtime - though such an act is now becoming a standard in many other mmorpgs) and then we are given statements from SOE that we aren't giving feedback. I promise you that I was there during the CU beta. Everyday I posted and they got to the point where they would just empty the thread and allow us to post again - the time stamp showing us that all that was going on was a massive delete at the end of the day. That hurt me personally because I was really trying.
Before this becomes too long and thus ignorable - how about this. How about going back to SOE and asking them about the idea of a Customer Relations team to help show that they care about us. I myself would come back after they put such a team and place and held to these policies long enough to show that they are serious.
In the end, there is still hope. We are here asking you to help us make SOE understand that they need to communicate and interact. Not delete posts, unleash patches of doom and generally use bacta shots to heal ships.
Comments
Definitely agreed - but I don't think we can wait for the next earnings report to write an article. As I said - their subscriber claims are pretty believable anyway.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Absolutly, I just offered a different view point to maybe shed some light on the subject. Additionally Sony's Quarterly staments for 2005 should be out soon. I myself have canceled my account but I hope that SOE gets thing figured out. I would be happy to return to the game if I can see a significant change for the better. Good luck to all!
If SOE is publicly traded what is the ticker?
It would be possible for customers to put out a press release through businesswire or prnewswire detailing our unhappiness with the current changes to the game. This would show up in the news feeds on the financial sites and would get media attention. Not to mention it could probably do a wicked ding in their share price and cause a sell off.
I have just started playing WoW and I find it lacks in relation to player characters. There is really no story line directly related to Player races, only NPC characters. It can be mindless at points and most certainly they need to get Waypoints to there Quests. I spend countless minutes searching for a quest and not finding it only to bug someone for help. Long story short I would like SOE to fix the issues and restoring my faith in SWG.null
Most of Sony Group is publicly traded subsidiaries. At least from what I read on the web.
Everyones game experience is different and I perfer to have Waypoints oppose to running around aimlessly and not finding anything. But that sounds like it works for you.
Everyones game experience is different and I perfer to have Waypoints oppose to running around aimlessly and not finding anything. But that sounds like it works for you.
In SWG it was fine because the quests werent really quests. Alot of them were just missions at a particular place on the planet you could and would never find without a waypoint.
In WOW most of your quests are easy to find if you can read the WHOLE quest. Alot of people just dont read or dont look far enough. Of course every now and then I do run into the problem of finding a part of my quest. But Id prefer it that way then ....go here...go here ....go here...done. Just doesnt seem like much of a quest then.
Good point. When you put it that way it does make sense. I guess I was spoiled playing SWG.
For those having issues with quests in WoW, Thottbot.com is your friend. However, I'd advice taking some time with the quests, exploring the terrains and storylines. At least with your initial character.
Lol, back on topic. I don't have a problem with the Progress Report here and simply viewed it as an update to recent events. Hopefully in the future the staff will have an oppurtunity to pose the tougher questions to SOE. Even a little transparency would go a long way for us expatrioted SWG players.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Just out of morbid curiosity, what tough questions would you have them ask? And, having asked those questions, what answers on the part of SOE would satiate you? I have a sneaky suspicious that you would like honest answers less than you would like no answer, and that perhaps, there would be no article on the CU, even remotely positive, that you would EVER accept as valid. I mean, if you take ten seconds to think about some of this stuff without resorting to Hitler, Satan, or other evil scapegoats, you'd see the answers in front of you, plain as day.
SOE, why did you ignore your fans?
We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things. As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices.
SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion?
Because they weren't doing it constructively. They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers. It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion or had a positive one.
SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system?
One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded. We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels.
SOE, why did you put levels into the game?
To be fair, levels were already in the game. They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds.
But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance. You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality.
Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it.
SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles?
Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is. Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse.
Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment.
SOE, are you in league with Satan?
We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can. We aren't perfect, but we are working hard. If that's in league with Satan, then yes.
I haven't read everything, as I stopped playing SWG ages ago, but reading the first few pages one comment really got my attention
I think that has fairly little to do with gaming, but with every company providing a public service.
the moment they say "Yes, you're right our product sucks ass right now" (to put it blunt) they'd loose even more. while I agree that SOE is overdoing it a bit in the "Everything is just perfect" department, it really is just good business. never say anything negative about your own product, as when you do you'll hurt the image of your product *far* more then when others say something negative about it
Again...
There were many of us who felt there was very little wrong with the old combat system.
They dumbed down the game and it sucks now.
The CU is a great enhancement for the game. It bring a more action-oriented combat and
also more even gameplay in pvp.
I have sent countless "Tickets" to them and always got a friendly mail back within
24 hours and the problem has been solved. Payment have always worked great and when
a friend got double-charged they solved it instantly and also gave him 10 days free gametime.
SWG also has (or maybe had) the best community out there but since they all couldn´t be invincible,
they launched their emergency-pod and left the game, blaiming SOE for making the game "Dumb"..
Still, I know have cancelled my account. Not because of SOE, but because the "fans"/community who
couldn´t handle a change to a game!.
mmm
Well if your a new player then you really never got a chance to try the old system.
SOE, why did you ignore your fans?
We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things.
--> Why not listening to the profession correspondents then, who not only compiled once, but maybe 10 times already detailed, priorized to-do lists ? Listening to 30 people is much easier than to 300k players. And some of the non-correspondents have drafted detailed, constructive, well-thought out design papers for enhancements to the game ... which the correspondents tried to bring to the attention of the dev team.
--> Why did you not do CU Alpha testing with the chosen sandbox teams ? All dedicated veteran players (many who had done a dozen professions or more, which means they would have not been totally fixed on their own profession). To put it into perspective .. I have been neither a correspondent nor one of the sandbox team members, so this argument stems NOT from being bitter about being ignored. And believe me, both these groups HAVE been bitter about it.
As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices.
SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion?
Because they weren't doing it constructively.
--> Many were doing it constructively. And no one listened. And no one seemed to care. And some representatives at fan gatherings speaking about "only 50 people dont like CU" did not help either. So people got more radical in their means of expression.
They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers.
--> I absolutely agree with in game server crash gatherings. However, I and MANY others cannot understand the heavy handed forum thread delete policy and player banning (temp or perma) policy. And then to have the chuzpe to claim that criticism is dying out (no wonder when the critics have been banned, their posts deleted .. or they cancelled and are losing their forum access).
It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion
--> no opinion is not automatically a positive opinion. You lost thousands of players , many having never posted on forums at all.
or had a positive one.
SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system?
One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded.
--> Many people here think you tried hard, then ran out of time and then had to implement what some called an "angry bag with varying skins" design. And an abitrary level difference based modifier that totally dominates the combat system and makes quality of skills, weapons, armor almost irrelevant. And one fact has been obvious ... none of the planets made it into live servers with ANY balancing passes .. as the many level 100-300 mobs one-hit incapping everyone in the first post-Cu weeks showed us. I am not sure if they are all gone til now (--> Corvette boarding quests are unplayable because of it with level 194 Super Battle Droids).
We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels.
SOE, why did you put levels into the game?
To be fair, levels were already in the game.
--> We never had problems with levels. They have been in the game for years now. But the new level difference based modifier dominating everything at the moment ... making quality of equipment more or less irrelevant (which caused A LOT of anger amongst the crafter population) ... which the developers introduced hasty and late in testing ... THAT has caused an insane amount of wailing and teeth gnashing and despair. It just does not fit as well as it should be.
They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds.
But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance.
--> After 2 YEARS !!! you can expect SOME balance. Difficult or not, people have been VERY patient with the dev team. And SWG is STILL a huge beta test that people pay for.
You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality.
--> Very much needed ... and I hope thats true. RotW was a step in the right direction. Instanced areas with intersting stories are the way to go on the other planets.
Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it.
SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles?
Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is.
--> Oh, we DO believe. And we DO know. Quite a lot of us ARE working in software engineering and project management with programs having an insane amount of code lines (SAP anyone ?). Even in the creative field (computer gaming). And we KNOW that things have NOT been shiny and perfect in SWG by any standards. You have very much need for improvement in QA, CRM, project management and cracking before pressure from the marketing department.
Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse.
--> There ARE professional tools for that. Are they used ? There ARE professional QA teams for that. Are they employed to do SWG testing ? There are international quality standards in the software industry .. has the team been certified in any of those standards which WILL improve product quality !?
Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment.
SOE, are you in league with Satan?
We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can.
--> That I believe 100 %. That you dont succeed as you should tells me that your team is too small or underfunded or both. Which means Sony or Lucasarts or both are milking too much profit out of SWG and standards suffer. Which is a problem of management, not the coders.
We aren't perfect, but we are working hard.
--> Have fun, Erillion
Once again the fact that this conversation is even occuring shows you just how bad things are at SOE.
They know they messed this up. They know we know they messed it up. Why not just give us what we want regardless if we are right or wrong? Both the pro and anti cu people would cease arguing if they just put up some pre cu servers.
Man i've had it.
If I asked 50 of you guys what the "number one issue" is, I'd get 50 answers. Read this thread, most of you seem to believe that SOE is somehow in league with Satan, but besides the CU being the devil's own creation, you guys cannot agree on what makes it so.
I cover too many games to "know" that the root of all evil is an obscure promise made in Autumn of 2003. This is why I wrote a general article that tells you what SOE said in response to questions about subscriber levels, fan outrage, etc. As I have before, and no one on the anti-CU side ever took me up on, I invite anyone who has a real argument and is a long time fan of the game to write a well thought out, constructive article about "what is wrong" with the CU. I am all for posting both sides of the argument, if I can find a writer to do it.
How about referring to this post from SWG's site, the perfect reasoning behind SOE's issues and has yet to be argued against by the fanboys here...
from Handsnake from the SOE forum. I copied here because its a very good analysis of what had happnened:
Combat Upgrade - An Analysis of a Design Variance
I think that this should be here, as it bears on the subject of this forum.
Please take the time to read all of the points as well as the conclusions. Keep responses civil, please.
I have tested the CU since it hit Beta and have been following the CU since publish 7.
There are a number of unexpected problems with the implementation of the CU as it stands in Live (and how it developed in beta) that do not track with the available information given over the year since it was announced.
The way the current implementation of the CU is made up has several glaring variances from the previously released info - in that there was one central item that I have identified has caused the majority of the imbalances and problems encountered with the CU.
Putting a 'level' system on top of a skill based system.
This was not in the original CU documentation released on 03/31/05, and data from public statements of sources inside the CU 'sandbox' scheme (without violating NDA) have confirmed that it was never discussed with them to the degree it was implemented.
Herein I will list the worst issues reported about the CU and show that they are all tied directly to the 'level system' implementation that was added to the functional design of the CU.
1. Crafter Death - Crafters are 1 shotted by every aggro mob on every starter planet. The fragility of crafter characters at 'combat level' 1 is extreme. Surveying alone is impossible since spawns will appear under vehicles in motion and mobs will kill crafters in less than 2 seconds.
The ability to at least run away has been removed - this makes crafters unable to function at a basic level.
The 'level' system has a damage multiplier. You will see this in further points. This damage multiplier makes anything higher level than you equivalent to instant death. Five levels above you will always kill you. Again, this point will be repeated.
Since crafters will not have any combat rating unless they become a hybrid and drop pure crafting, they will always take max damage.
Furthermore, every animal will use the damage multiplier against a base value. There is no such thing, therefore, as a 'safe' enemy for crafters.
This is the result of the 'level' system.
Before, each mob had different resists and damage ranges. They had a "threat" level, which was based on how high their offensive and defensive values were. Under the old system, that was the basis of the /con result.
This threat level has NO relationship to the current 'combat level' system, no matter what the devs claim in the HOC chat.
The threat level was an EVALUATION of an existing mob.
A 'combat level' is a MODIFICATION of a base value mob "angry bag" put into whatever 'skin' is appropriate, i.e, a level 34 dune lizard is the same as a level 34 peko peko.
The new COMBAT LEVEL defines the offensive and defensive values - not the other way around.
This is an important distinction, and is critical to understanding the conclusion about the combat level system and why it was added to the CU at such a late date.
2. XP gains and lack of same: A significant number of people are finding odd results from attacking mobs slightly below their level and higher - as in getting little to no XP. The response of the devs is to have people focus on just fighting even leveled mobs.
The real question is: Why was the XP variance put in the CU in the first place?
XP gains or rates of gains was NEVER addressed as a concern in the Combat Upgrade. It did not affect combat in any way, shape, or form in PVP, nor were there "problems" about the flavor of combat that were caused by XP being gained by anything you defeated.
It was never an issue at all.
However, in 'level' based systems, the paradigm is that LEVEL DETERMINES XP AT ALL TIMES.
In a skill based system, mobs are worth what they are worth - period.
The XP dilemma is a byproduct of the introduction of the level based combat overlay - and that is it.
It offers NO positive effects to the pace of combat, the usability and distinction of all combat professions, the tactical nature of combat - in fact, it hinders advancement. It does nothing that the CU was written to do - at all. It has no purpose.
It has nothing to do with lessening the effects of overpowered buffs and armor and does nothing to address ANY SINGLE ITEM mentioned in the CU Documentation.
It is, in fact, the unavoidable side effect of the use of the level system. It was NEVER a goal of the CU and is present ONLY because a level system was introduced.
The reason why it was is the kicker.
3. Certifications of weapons being based on level - Many people think that this was INTENDED. It was not.
This was a FIX put in to deal with the fact that the level system made xp vanish from 'low level' mobs for people grinding their 2nd elite combat prof. The 'level' system FORCED the removal of certs tied to skills. Else, a TKM attempting to grind pistols would never be able to do so as long as the level system was in place - he couldn't kill anything ever that gave him Pistol XP.
So they pulled pistols (and all other weapons) from skill boxes and tied them to 'combat levels' as a work around for this unplanned-for circumstance. They did this with all the weapons at first, then came back to address the idea of a TKM/Ranger using a beam rifle. So a very few 'iconic' weapons were tied to skill boxes.
This is a cheat.
The original design of the CU, again, had NOTHING in it about un-latching the weapons from skill boxes.
It was because - simply put - The CU Was Never To Be Level Based.
XP was therefore NEVER supposed To Be 'Gated' to mob level comparisons.
Crafters Were Never Supposed to be unable to walk outside.
Weapons Were Never to be "floating" - they were supposed to be ADDITIVE*
*(Commando/Rifleman was supposed to be able to use a beam weapon with a rifle special - ADDITIVE as in Ranged do ranged - melee does melee and the certs ADD)
So - if you've read this far - you're asking yourself "Why the hell did they put in the level system? What POSSIBLE use could it be?"
Mobs. Mobs, deadlines, and stats.
Converting all the existing mobs to be balanced before May 5th was impossible. The only explanation is that they imposed the level system on the mobs because a level system makes the generation of mobs EASY.
You have 2 types of mobs - Humanoid and Non-Humanoid.
You have 2 types of each of those - melee only, and ranged primary/melee secondary.
These make each mob into an "angry bag" that can have a skin thrown on it, and the level system DEFINES THE DAMAGE DONE AT ALL TIMES TO ANYONE.
Quick. Easy. Fast.
No coding 350 different 'species' each with different xp values, resists, and attack values (not to mention individual, named mobs). Just a bag with a level, attack subroutine, and a skin on it. Damage multipliers (remember those?) will automatically generate "challenge". Damage mitigation due to level differences will SIMULATE weakening defenses.
Bam. Done.
Quick. Easy. Fast.
And WORTHLESS.
That's what they did. That's the MAIN problem with the CU.
Take out the level system - leaving everything else in - and you have a viable product. You have crafters able to run away from things even without buffs and armor
You have people able to still use the weapons they expect to use.
And you won't encounter people UNABLE to progress in their profession.
You have to do one thing though - you have to work on mobs and MAKE THEM WORK RIGHT.
It takes time which they claim they don't have.
The Level system is like putting wallpaper over a broken window.
It's a cheap easy and BAD fix that made more problems than they understood.
Without it, the CU would work.
With it, SWG is dead.
"I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB
Here are some of the problems or reasons why i felt i had to leave swg for another game
1 The CU was pushed out around 5 days before the due date with little warning and at the time i was grinding jedi and would have been done before the CU came out. I would have like some time to play the old game with my jedi before it changed forever.
2 The CU hits ok lets log in and try out grinding jedi get missions move to first lair bols easy i did not need a buff anymore to kill these. Move in for the attack ok lets take this nice and slow hit one level 80 like me hang on here its taking a while to kill before the CU ot would take seconds and then the others start to attack had to force run away before i was killed.
Right lets look at that again i had the right food or at least the right food before the CU and no buffs anymore so cant be that reason why an easy kill now kicks my butt. Ok next lets try something a little below my level find a level 78 2 levels below me so i attack its on its own should be no problem to a level 80 jedi well 10 minutes later i win hang on where is my xps look in the combat log i get none for something that takes me ten minutes to kill.
3 Leave my jedi to try my other alt change him to a BH with carbines that looks like a nice combo plus i have loads of nice weapons that cost me a fair packet but whats this they are now crap so i have spent hours getting the money and the K/Tissues to make these weapons for nothing. Next armor got loads of nice composite armor but hang on again under the new system all armor does is look nice mights has well run around in your underpants. But then again at least i can kill stuff with this one so i learn a little bit about the icons with this toon and will log in my jedi latter to try again.
4 Next stage i have been on for a few hours now and think i am getting the hang of it a bit more so log on the jedi and head out but not get any missions Dantooine is full of things to kill for xps.
Success i kill a quacker and get 900 odd xps but it took me over 20 mins with having to run and heal a few times so how the hell am i going to get the 3-4 million xps i need to finish my grind?
5 All on the same day its now been 6 to 7 hours and i am getting the fealing that this game is now dead to me how can i even think about grinding jedi and getting maybe 20000 xps per hour instead of the 200000 i was getting before the CU so i head back to my home city on my bike and then bang i was killed in one hit by a hurtun when i went past it on my bike great now i have lost 200000 xps so i now have -xps to try and get back cheers SOE.
6 Day 2 whats this the server i am on is down and there are people saying we are getting a roll back of anything upto 7 DAYS. Don't worry i think its just panic when it comes back up everything will be fine and maybe i will be able to grind again.
Well no when it comes back up i have lost all the xps i have grinded over the last 7 days which was over 3 million plus I have also now lost my ADK which was not even working on my lightsaber anymore the day before but we were told it would be fixed ok send in a ticket and see what they say. The reply comes and its the same cut and paste job everyone esle was getting saying we are very sorry for your lossed xps and items but there is nothing we can do. Now hang on here i was only days away from finishing my grind and now i am months away if it takes me 20 mins to get 900 odd xps.
At this stage i am so mad i could cry.
So what do SOE offer us x4 xps for one week big deal. There is no way i could make that back under the new system even if it was x10 xps per kill.
Some say you have to group now to kill things like we used to be able to do but you cant group if you are a jedi without getting on the terms and with BH being the new TKA you wont last long which means you are going to lose more xps then you gain.
So to sum it all up these are my main reasons/problems why i left
1 Can not grind jedi anymore.
2 Weapons and i worked hard to get and now usless.
3 Armor is now not needed,
4 Food is now not needed.
5 Whichs mean that the crafting side of swg of which i had an alt to do is now pretty much worthless.
6 I need to learn everthing again which will mean i will get killed and lose even more xps.
7 I don't wish to pay for a game which is still more or less in beta form.
8 Why should i play a game in which SOE really don't care how they treat you just has long has the money is coming in.
I am sure there are more but i cant think of them all right now. Plus for give any spelling mistakes that is not one of my strong points.
I now play WOW. Been so for around 5 weeks its not bad the PvP can be great and sometimes it can make you scream when you get killed by someone with ?? above there head ( those who play WOW will know what thats means) But SWG in its old form was in my opinion a lot better but lacked the pick up and play feal of WOW.
I can clarify this. Read this article: http://pc.ign.com/articles/610/610552p1.html
And I quote: "Let's make combat more fun and less mechanical. Let's take away some of the distraction that people have to get through and let them walk into the fight and click once and start battling something really fun." Debysue Wolfcale Sony marketing manager
I think thats what Squidi was talking about being dumb. Click once......Dumb is an understatement
LMAO Now all you have to do is click once and battle. What a moron. Here is a good lie from Dallas Dickinson, Sony Online producer and here is the Q&A:
IGNPC: Let's talk about the practical implementation of the upgrade. Why did you guys decide to go live with it when you did?
"I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB
Originally posted by Squidi
--> First of all .... if you check the SWG section of this forum you will see that I am one of the most active supporters of SWG and the combat revamp, so these comments are not from a SWG flamer or hater, but from a realistic SWG veteran.
Just out of morbid curiosity, what tough questions would you have them ask?
--> Take a look at this SOE response : "This means the Combat Upgrade's publish pacing is not dictated by the calendar, but by how it evolves in the testing and tuning process." - Thunderheart, 10/28/2004
--> Try not to laugh. It seems to me that the developer/coder team had little to say about deadlines. It seems very much like marketing has dictated the schedule for 2 years now, and it sure has not given SWG a good name or rep.
--> Consistently the patches and expansions in 2004 and 2005 have been pushed out too soon onto live servers, with A LOT of testing still to be done. It seems to me and many others here that SWG is in great need of a larger or more professional in house QA department that catches more problems sooner (already in Alpha testing). I would exclude the first 3 months of 2005 where we did see great progress in bug fixing.
--> I have not seen any compensation from SOE (days added to subscription) for the days servers where offline (most recently patch 17 comes to mind, but some servers lost a week after the CU patch). Other gaming corps like those running WoW or EVE are adding days to player subscription. Double XP is nice, but when 30 % of mission targets are disappearing or are of incorrect level or are invulnerable, than double XP of 1 XP or nil is not breathtaking.
would like honest answers less than you would like no answer,
--> What we would like to see are honest answers. When the EVE team lost their server (there is only one for 55k players) for a full day, they posted a detailed article for all players to read in the log in screen ... with all the shameful things that went wrong. And they apologized after explaining. And they compensated one extra day. And player flaming was MINIMAL ... because if you KNOW what happened and UNDERSTAND, you dont mind as much as when you are left in the dark or fed some PR crap.
and that perhaps, there would be no article on the CU, even remotely positive, that you would EVER accept as valid. I mean, if you take ten seconds to think about some of this stuff without resorting to Hitler, Satan, or other evil scapegoats, you'd see the answers in front of you, plain as day.
SOE, why did you ignore your fans?
We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things.
--> Why not listening to the profession correspondents then, who not only compiled once, but maybe 10 times already detailed, priorized to-do lists ? Listening to 30 people is much easier than to 300k players. And some of the non-correspondents have drafted detailed, constructive, well-thought out design papers for enhancements to the game ... which the correspondents tried to bring to the attention of the dev team.
--> Why did you not do CU Alpha testing with the chosen sandbox teams ? All dedicated veteran players (many who had done a dozen professions or more, which means they would have not been totally fixed on their own profession). To put it into perspective .. I have been neither a correspondent nor one of the sandbox team members, so this argument stems NOT from being bitter about being ignored. And believe me, both these groups HAVE been bitter about it.
As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices.
SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion?
Because they weren't doing it constructively.
--> Many were doing it constructively. And no one listened. And no one seemed to care. And some representatives at fan gatherings speaking about "only 50 people dont like CU" did not help either. So people got more radical in their means of expression.
They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers.
--> I absolutely agree with in game server crash gatherings. However, I and MANY others cannot understand the heavy handed forum thread delete policy and player banning (temp or perma) policy. And then to have the chuzpe to claim that criticism is dying out (no wonder when the critics have been banned, their posts deleted .. or they cancelled and are losing their forum access).
It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion
--> no opinion is not automatically a positive opinion. You lost thousands of players , many having never posted on forums at all.
or had a positive one.
SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system?
One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded.
--> Many people here think you tried hard, then ran out of time and then had to implement what some called an "angry bag with varying skins" design. And an abitrary level difference based modifier that totally dominates the combat system and makes quality of skills, weapons, armor almost irrelevant. And one fact has been obvious ... none of the planets made it into live servers with ANY balancing passes .. as the many level 100-300 mobs one-hit incapping everyone in the first post-Cu weeks showed us. I am not sure if they are all gone til now (--> Corvette boarding quests are unplayable because of it with level 194 Super Battle Droids).
We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels.
SOE, why did you put levels into the game?
To be fair, levels were already in the game.
--> We never had problems with levels. They have been in the game for years now. But the new level difference based modifier dominating everything at the moment ... making quality of equipment more or less irrelevant (which caused A LOT of anger amongst the crafter population) ... which the developers introduced hasty and late in testing ... THAT has caused an insane amount of wailing and teeth gnashing and despair. It just does not fit as well as it should be.
They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds.
But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance.
--> After 2 YEARS !!! you can expect SOME balance. Difficult or not, people have been VERY patient with the dev team. And SWG is STILL a huge beta test that people pay for.
You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality.
--> Very much needed ... and I hope thats true. RotW was a step in the right direction. Instanced areas with intersting stories are the way to go on the other planets.
Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it.
SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles?
Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is.
--> Oh, we DO believe. And we DO know. Quite a lot of us ARE working in software engineering and project management with programs having an insane amount of code lines (SAP anyone ?). Even in the creative field (computer gaming). And we KNOW that things have NOT been shiny and perfect in SWG by any standards. You have very much need for improvement in QA, CRM, project management and cracking before pressure from the marketing department.
Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse.
--> There ARE professional tools for that. Are they used ? There ARE professional QA teams for that. Are they employed to do SWG testing ? There are international quality standards in the software industry .. has the team been certified in any of those standards which WILL improve product quality !?
Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment.
SOE, are you in league with Satan?
We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can.
--> That I believe 100 %. That you dont succeed as you should tells me that your team is too small or underfunded or both. Which means Sony or Lucasarts or both are milking too much profit out of SWG and standards suffer. Which is a problem of management, not the coders.
We aren't perfect, but we are working hard.
--> Have fun, Erillion
This, my fellow mmorpgers, deserves a QFE.
Basically, I will tell you what it boils down to in my opinion. Its their customer relations to their player base. I love SWG mostly for the community and the community is what keeps people playing in many cases. SOE and Lucas Arts are not in the league with the devil. That role belongs to Mr. Gates and he would promptly take down any competition. They ARE, however, notorious for not listening to their correspondents, alpha and beta testers, polls (errant or not) and seem to have all the subtlety of a bull in a room full of pentium chips.
Here is the kicker and the million dollar question. Why are we here asking you to ask the questions? Even the guys and girls who have supported the CU? Because simply - SOE will not listen to us and if they are - there is no evidence to help support the claim. Whether or not we know it, we are here because we ware hoping you can get them to realize that all we want is open dialogue. The myraid of ideas, bug reports, warnings, suggestions and so on are almost never looked into. Instead, we have fixes put in place that hurt other professions, patches that are not tested and unleashed upon us (which I might add we are not compensated for the downtime - though such an act is now becoming a standard in many other mmorpgs) and then we are given statements from SOE that we aren't giving feedback. I promise you that I was there during the CU beta. Everyday I posted and they got to the point where they would just empty the thread and allow us to post again - the time stamp showing us that all that was going on was a massive delete at the end of the day. That hurt me personally because I was really trying.
Before this becomes too long and thus ignorable - how about this. How about going back to SOE and asking them about the idea of a Customer Relations team to help show that they care about us. I myself would come back after they put such a team and place and held to these policies long enough to show that they are serious.
Oh and in case you want to see a detailed history of where SOE went wrong from day 1 - allow me to post this link. If they truly did interact with the player base, what you find in this post could have been avoided. http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=generalgame&message.id=6304&query.id=145583#M6304
In the end, there is still hope. We are here asking you to help us make SOE understand that they need to communicate and interact. Not delete posts, unleash patches of doom and generally use bacta shots to heal ships.