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Obraik
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261
From Helios:
Greetings everyone. Rogue5 is out traveling for the summits today so he won’t be able to send out his usual com-link. As such, you’ll have the distinct pleasure of my company in his stead today. 
For those of you that don’t know me, I’m known as Helios around these parts. While I've been a systems designer for a fair whlie, I’ve also recently taken up the Lead Design role on Galaxies and wanted to share with you what the vision for SWG is, going forward.
The number one focus of the design team is to refine the game that the NGE has brought us by aggressively hammering out bugs and improving existing game mechanics. A close second objective is to emphasize the Galactic Civil War conflict in interesting and engaging ways. The timeline as it exists in SWG provides us with a prime opportunity to capitalize on the great fiction surrounding the GCW. While this certainly implies PvP combat, I want to assure you that non combat player competition will certainly also be a factor in this conflict. Expect to see much more GCW flavored game experience in the coming publishes.
The number one focus of the design team is to refine the game that the NGE has brought us by aggressively hammering out bugs and improving existing game mechanics. A close second objective is to emphasize the Galactic Civil War conflict in interesting and engaging ways. The timeline as it exists in SWG provides us with a prime opportunity to capitalize on the great fiction surrounding the GCW. While this certainly implies PvP combat, I want to assure you that non combat player competition will certainly also be a factor in this conflict. Expect to see much more GCW flavored game experience in the coming publishes.
Specifically, today, I want to touch on the features of publish 29 which will help pave the road for the vision we have for SWG:
Waypoint/Interior work
- The waypoint system will be refined to work seamlessly both indoors and out. This will allow easier navigation to points of interest or mission objectives.
Lair Modifications:
Various improvements to the creature lairs are being implemented. These improvements will allow us to set up things like attack “waves”, rare spawns and boss creature spawns with more precisions and consistency. Various improvements to the creature lairs are being implemented. These improvements will allow us to set up things like attack “waves”, rare spawns and boss creature spawns with more precisions and consistency.
Targeting Enhancements
- We’re going to review the targeting system for both combat and non-combat situations. Specifically we’re shooting for targeting assist mechanisms similar to what we have in space. This upgrade to the targeting system will also make it easier to target things for situations like house decorating.
Tool Tips
- You’ll start seeing improvements to the character sheet in this publish starting with tool-tips that give a better idea of what various character attributes do for you. This is the first step in reintroducing meaningful character stats to SWG. With the changes to the combat system (see below), player stats will become more important as we de-emphasize player level as an explicit input into any given attack. The expertise system will add more stats for players to tinker around with.
Weapons & Combat System Changes
- We’re going to alter the combat engine to place primary importance on player equipment instead of player level. This means that acquiring better equipment will be of great importance.
- Existing weapons will automatically have their damage/speed values changed if necessary.
- Various other combat mechanisms are being investigated in support of the Expertise system that’s also being developed in this publish. Things like glancing blows (misses) and critical hits are all being looked at.
Expertise System
- For this publish we’re going to develop the framework for the expertise system. The portion being developed for this publish will not be visible to players when the publish goes live. This initiative is strictly to build the supporting framework for the Expertise system.
- With this system, players will gain new stats and abilities based on how they spend their Expertise points, which are earned as they progress in level. The first professions to have their Expertise trees deployed will be Bounty Hunter and Jedi. This will happen in publish 30. We’re targeting 2 professions every publish after that.
High End Content
- The Galacitc Civil War erupts in a major conflict that will cause drastic upheaval on one of the planets in the Galaxy. This spectacular event will be showcased at this year’s E3 and will make its debut on a galaxy near you with publish 29. Players will choose a side to fight for and will join this massive battle amidst Imperial troopers & Rebel commandos.
Quest Content
- Publish 29 will bring all new quest content that will take your character from level 37 to level 41. The planets on which these adventures will take place include Corellia and Talus.
Bug Fixes
- In our continued bid to drastically improve the game experience, we will continue to aggressively address current bugs and live issues during publish 29 development. You can look forward to a wide variety of issues being fixed from all facets of the game.
/discuss
I wanna skip 28 for 29 
Comments
Oh wait.. here's a target lock.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
3 Years? You are being kind.
Four years of development work PLUS the 2 years and 9 months of SCREWING this game up.
They ARE implementing a form of target lock. BUT NOOOOOOOO .... they can't go back to the original combat system (preNGE at least) because it would mean the F'ed up when they changed it.
$OE is bag of brown and the bottom of the bag if rotting away.
Sago Mactow
Former SWG 2yr 7 month Vet
6/26/03 - 1/26/06
Jedi, Master Shipwright, Master Architect
DFR Councilman
Tarq Server
That statement is priceless!
SOE knows what you like... You don't!
And don't forget... I am forcing you to read this!
Im waiting for the big one though:
"there will be no classic server" "there will be no classic server"
"there will be no classic server" "there will be no classic server"
etc, etc, ad nauseum.......
Oh wait, here's a classic server.
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
I have seen some trouble in the making with these plans and the publish on test
1. the new Player Bounty system already allows the BH to chose when he tries to collect the bounty giving said BH a significant adavantage now add to that that the BH is also first in line with Jedi to get the new expertise trees and you have an inbalance that will be around for months before they can even see if it is "working as intended". Those expertise trees should be an all or nothing, if they are going to get the players to beta test this new system they have to bring it all online at the same time.
2. Another change to the core combat, though small, is not likely to go down very well... We all know how well the majority of weapon conversions have gone so far just imagine the cries if some ones lava canon is turned to junk
.
lol the quest content should have been in there at the launch of the nge /sigh. Regardless all these changes and additions just scream BETA.
The change to targeting is long overdue... I still wonder why they never used the space style targetlock to begin with.
/ui action cycleTargetOutward;
/ui openRadial;
/ui openRadial;
/macro targetLock;
It worked some two months ago, not sure if it still does. You can also substitute first two lines with /tar "player name". Start the macro, hold down LMB, and enjoy.
The trick is, opening radial sets your cursor on the target, second call closes radial, but the cursor stays. You can also mess with this a bit, repeating the targeting code several times in one macro with /pause 0.05 or something like that in between, to avoid the /macro 0.25s delay.
Hmm. Guildwars has 470+ skills. Each character choosed 8 out of a set of 120-140. Go ask on forums, how horribly unbalanced that game is. You might be surprised.
Total number of skillsets is 10^18 or thereabout. That is not including attribute combinations, class combos, etc.
Hmm. Guildwars has 470+ skills. Each character choosed 8 out of a set of 120-140. Go ask on forums, how horribly unbalanced that game is. You might be surprised.
Total number of skillsets is 10^18 or thereabout. That is not including attribute combinations, class combos, etc.
Guild Wars is not exactly an MMO tho.
Hmm. Guildwars has 470+ skills. Each character choosed 8 out of a set of 120-140. Go ask on forums, how horribly unbalanced that game is. You might be surprised.
Total number of skillsets is 10^18 or thereabout. That is not including attribute combinations, class combos, etc.
Guild Wars is not exactly an MMO tho.
500k people that played during last free weekend would disagree, but I don't want to get into this discussion again, since it has nothing to do with combat balance.
Thing is, balance can be achieved. The total number of skills, combinations, professions, etc. is completely irrelevant.
You're right... Lord knows it's tough to balance 32 professions when your whole dev team is busy churning out crappy expansions and revamps to grab a quick buck!
SOE knows what you like... You don't!
And don't forget... I am forcing you to read this!
Oh sure, that must be it Obraik...
This is why EVE online, CoX and all of the other games with more than 9 chosen professions have had to slim down, right?
Going from 32 to 9 professions is the lamest thing I have ever see ANY game do... And it simply astounds me that people are willing to defend this... Do you like to have less choices in life? Taking away character classes is lunacy, if anything games should add more rather than take away...
Did they really need to balance 32 prof's. Dancer doesn't need to be balanced does it?? Image Designer balanced? Droid Engineer balance? Doctor?
Am I wrong or is it just combat prof's that need balancing? I can't remember, but how many combat prof's were there? 12 or 13 or so?
SOE knows what you like... You don't!
And don't forget... I am forcing you to read this!
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Dont even try to tell me that Obraik. When SWG was released alot of the professions didnt even work. Commando, Smuggler, Combat Medic, Droid Engineer, and Pikeman were barely functional. CH was just a rough template. And Scout/Ranger only half worked. Try setting up the base profession system for tweaking when you got the community playing. Kind of difficult wouldnt you say?
Imagine it. You dont even have the base system set up. Half your professions are either completely empty or just running a rough template. Now you got 250k+ players screaming and yelling about this profession being able to own that profession hands down or another profession unable to do something it was supposed to do. Of course it would be difficult to tweak or balance them. Your trying to do the base set up along with the later balance and tweaking.
Add to that the time they constantly wasted on less important things like being able to call pets in buildings. Oh yah a real game breaking thing there. Lets waste 30 man hours just to fix this one issue that wont really get fixed because people ,wanting to call pets in buildings to annoy other players, will just call their pet outside then drag them inside. Yah real good use of programmer time there.....
I am not saying it would have been easy but if they had listened to their beta testers at the beginning and held off release just a few more months to finalize the base professions and had used a better plan of what was serious we might still have the Pre-CU system today. A working balanced Pre-CU system.
Kai
That's why they cop out when they use that excuse. Who had to balance Politician? Droid Engineer? There were maybe 12 that would need "balance" and many would argue they were pretty close to begin with.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Also, Obraik is technically right that GW isn't an MMO, but I'd say neither is SWG.
SWG Tempest: Cardo Dycen RIP
Eve: Cardoh Dycen
I support random drug testing for all SOE employees
I have to give Helios full credit for his recent communication and dialogue with players. He is doing everything right in that regard. If he can keep it going, and keep the game on a given course (though I disagree with it), then maybe he can turn things around. Best of luck.
Athela