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The main things SOE and LA could have done from the start....
Dekarn
Member Posts: 35
The main things they should have don't differently are....
-Time line. This game should have been in the old republic....when jedi were common.
Sadly, Jedi are the reason for the games demise.
Don't get my wrong, I loved my jedi...more so when i sold him for 1k US dollar a WEEK before the NGE :P But ALL of the fuss was over the jedi debate. half the game loved jedi, the other half hated them.
LA forced SOE to find a balance, so that jedi could be in the game, and not overpower everyone else. But they also had to make it so it was worth the effort to become a jedi.
(SIDE NOTE: I had to hologrind 26 professions to get my jedi....hehehe..my poor guildmate on Tarquinas had to do 32 professions to get his....so i guess i can't complain)
anyway, Had Soe and Lucas arts made jedi a starting profession, and kept them on par with the rest of the proffs. but still had ALL the professions...the game woulda been better off.
They still had alot of other issues to work on. Like letting smugglars actually smuggle. balancing TKM and BH....ect. Screwing up jedi to begin with killed the game. all the people who worked hard for the jedi felt ripped off when the jedi revamp came out.after that, the CU came out which made exploiting easy...ANYONE on Dant could get knight in no time by joining solo groups. not only that they got uber rich off it. After that, they took out ALL the extra professions and made everyone feel like they wasted the last 2 years of there lives...
a sequel to this game NEEDS to be in the old republic, and have MANY professions.....end of story.
Comments
There is nothing wrong with Jedi, in the proper timeline.
Alternatively, there is nothing wrong with the Battle of Yavin-ish time period, as long as you don't have a bunch of Jedi running around.
It's the combination of the two that was a killer. Because they chose the Yavin time period, they were stuck with trying to allow Jedi but make them rare,and that just was doomed from the start.
Given that the movies being released at the time were Jedi-laden Prequels, and not the original trilogy, it was incredibly stupid of them not to set it in the Episode 1/2 time period rather than post-ANH. This forced them to keep putting anachronistic crap like Mustafar and Jedi Starfighters into the game decades (chronologically) after their time.
C
I agree completely.
Jedi are a great addition. heck, it practically defines most of our memories of star wars. its just not star wars without a lightsaber...
But the timeline was just poor judgement. Vader purged the jedi...so technically they couldn't even be called jedi...they where force sensitive...but not true jedi.
I could not possibly disagree more.
They certainly screwed up the way they handled Jedi, that's a certainty. Force Jedi to RP, don't allow them in the GCW, make them run and hide constantly... where they screwed up was trying to constantly balance Jedi. People wanted the power of a Jedi but with no consequences. SOE should have told those people to go pound sand. Instead, they catered to every whiner out there. "BH should be able to beat Jedi one on one!" So Jedi gets nerfed. "No way Jedi should lose to a BH one on one!" So Jedi gets augmented. SOE paid way too much attention to one on one battles, and forgot it's a WAR. Nerf the CMs, FORCE the Jedi to stay hidden, nerf doc buffs just a little... fix bugs and add content. Problem solved.
But Jedi ARE Star Wars. They are more powerful than non-Force wielders, and they are a huge part of the mystique and lore. You can't remove them. And the timeline was perfect for the crowd they were trying to attract, which, unlike the prequel movies, was the original Star Wars fan.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
theoretically i agree. I was happy with jedi in the timeline...
The problem is exactly like you said. they tried to cater to too many whiners. So old republic woulda been better.
I also agree that jedi should be stronger then one person of any class...they are hybrids. But it does create imbalance and whiners. in a mmo...you gotta remember if someone gets schooled by ANYONE else of a different class, they start crying nerf...( like shamans in wow)
So while i'd prefer it if jedi were stronger and playable in trilogy timeline....i admit it does create alot of imbalance. and as a die hard SW fan and a die hard SWG fan since beta....all i ever wanted was balance
The problem is that their approach to the problem was never going to allow the game to work the way you are describing. You point out why in your post - they balanced the game for one-on-one duels instead of a war, and this made them endlessly have to keep re-vamping things as different "template" combos were discovered and came into and out of vogue.
C
I attribute the problem directly to one event: the almost-immediate promotion of Raph Koster up and away from SWG development. Once player cities and vehicles were added, he was moved to bigger and better things. He, of all people, would have seen the larger picture here, and driven development in other direction from where it was going. Obviously I don't know it would have been OK for a fact had Raph stayed on longer, but the way I see, it, it was his model, it was his baby, it was his sandbox. And nobody else in a position of power there had the foresight to figure out what would happen.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
The original system, with permadeath, saberTEF, and Jedi visibility but also with full template Jedi being ridiculously powerful, as they were depicted in the prequels would have worked.
If they stuck to it. Most unlocks would have never gotten beyond a few boxes in progression, and would have stayed that way. The original concept, in keeping with the period, was predicated on the idea that anyone showing enough Force senstivity to be using a lightsaber would have been hunted down relentlessly by the Empire. I mean, look what happened when Obi-Wan used the saber in the cantina? His vis shot through the roof and the garrison in Mos Eisley dropped everything it was doing to find him.
You can have an endless number of Jedi players in SWG and it's not a problem if they are not seen. My guild had pretty strict rules about Jedi, but we were an RP guild and we took playing the role seriously. No equipped sabers in public. No paddy robes in public. No Jedi titles. You went out to the grind spot, you put on the robes and equipped the saber, but transport to and from the grinding spot was in civvies. You were supposed to be in hiding, not flaunting your uberness. Like those asshats in Theed dueling...
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Siobabble, I would have loved your guild. We had nothing like it on Intrepid, and I didn't have the time to devote to forming my own.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
i don't totally like perma death....
its seemed drastic to lost ALL your progress if you died. especially since jedi became targets. you grind 20 some odd holocrons and die during a random spike of lag didn't seem fair.
i agree there should be punishment for death...considering how powerfull a jedi should be. But perma death woulda taken the reward outta working so hard for one.
Perhaps what coulda happened. is instead of unlocking a jedi...u could start as one from the begining.. But same rules... Perma death. You could make ur jedi uber powerfull...but one death and he is a complete gonner and u need to start over. Sorta like a hardcore mode like in diablo 2. Fanboys could get there jedi...they could be rightly overpowered. But they likely would not overpopulate the server, as they die and don't comeback.
not that it matters now. i just hope they get it right IF/When they make a sequel. **crosses fingers**
But that's what Permadeath was.
Your Jedi toon dies, but you still have the force senstive slot, and you could reroll a new force sensitive toon, and try again. You didn't need to regrind your main toon to reopen the slot. The slot was still open, you just had to reroll.
The catch is, three deaths, and all your progression is wiped out. Your toon is dead. Try again with a new one. Actually, they could have made it so you keep the toon, but it's sent back to the beginning, all progression lost, but you could keep your toon's name, none of its stuff. Of course back then Jedi didn't have lots, so it was a matter of what was on your person or in your bank that would be lost.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I agree with everything in your post except your overall resolution. Instead of setting the game in the old republic time period, they should have left jedi out all together. I preferred the pre-hoth time period, and as such the only jedi around were the a handful of the main story line characters.
What I think would have been good is to have a faction buy for jedi assistance at an outpost during a raid (similar to buying turrets and stormtroopers). Make it very expensive, throw a reuse timer of 24 hours or so on it, and have either Luke or Vader join the outpost defenders. Of course you would have to make it were only one could be called per server in that time period, but on the upside, make them nearly undefeatable. Despawn would be after a set period of inactivity (say 30-60 mins). In other words, make them hard to get and not hang around for ever, but a very unexpected and powerful surprise for those attacking your outpost.
Koster was no saint and he wasn't perfect.
BUT..
He understands game design. He understands balancing a system. He understands the different types of players (killer, socializer, achiever, etc), and he knew how to design a game for them all to play. In short, he understood his own design.
His departure left behind a group of folks who quite obviously either did not understand his design at all, or, if they did, they didn't agree with or respect it. It has been admitted by a lot of his "heirs" that they themselves (the successor devs) are basically uberleet combat monkeys who do not respect non-combat content, nor do they think it even belongs in a Star Wars game. "There is too much reading," and "Sitting in a camp was fun?" and so on, just to name some examples. And no, those two did not take over themselves immediately from Koster (and one was no dev at all), but their attitude is exactly the same as those who did.
The people who followed Raph thus did not understand/respect/get his design, and so they were not able to fix the admitted flaws in the design. That's why they kept "revamping" things instead of just fixing the damn bugs.
EDIT:
Meanwhile, the players did understand the design, and by and large loved it -- we just wanted the bugs or mis-implementations fixed.
C
My points exactly, Chessack. So many people flame Raph for some reason; I have yet to interpret what the hell they are talking about. And yet, with SWG being my first MMO (day 2 vet here, another day 1 guy who was unable to connect), I am ruined forever on all other types of MMOs. They just feel like multi-player games to me. The devs that took over for him, every one of them since then, have all been about following the rest of the lemmings off the cliff into WoW land. Nobody does it as good as WoW, nobody CAN do it that good. If they'd have inserted someone who had been with the design from the beginning, things would have turned out much differently, I think. At least for a while.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
I think the same way and have been trying to tell people in posts on this site and on others when they thought lets make game liek WOW it was doomed because people playing wow had bought it for a reason so they could play WOW not SWG mix with WOW.
My opinion is..
From the beginning I think SWG should of been a level based class system.. I loved all the different professions, however I did not like the unbalanced templates.. I would rather have 12 different balanced combat classes, then to have a game that allows 2 templates that everyone went with.. Anytime you offer mix and match, you end up with people cherry picking to make the most optimal template for fighting.. 2 at most.. That was SWG problem with combat balance..
Crafting classes too were unbalanced, and should of been fixed easily. I would of made some simple changes, as many suggested in profession forums that were always ignored..
As for the Jedi issue.. How do you keep the game from turning into one with 2,000 Jedi's per server? One option would be to allow 1 Jedi per "account", and make it a very long duration of advancement.. I would probably make the Jedi class level 6 to 10 times slower then any other..
The final option to all this, is to reset the game back to Pre-CU and cut back the skill points to where you have to use all your points to master 1 elite profession. and make fixes to bugs and crafting.. If you wish to cherry pick your template it's impossible to master anything.. With the lower tiers costing more points then higher ones.. You would end up with a 1/2 assed jack of all trades.. I think that would drop 150 skill points down to a lil over 100..
As for your comment on the Jedi issue, that's pretty much what they had, at least pre-publish 9. After that, you could make both of your characters Jedi if you wanted, but that was a bit of a waste if you ask me.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
Screw Jedi.
It was a great setting, although if they absolutely insisted on having f-ing Jedi they should have gone immediately post Ep6. The fall of the Empire and the rise of the New Republic. Still plenty of fighting on both sides to go around and emerging Jedi could be explained easily.
But to think Jedi were necessary is a flawed argument during SWG's timeline. Who blew up the Death Stars anyway?
1. A force sensitive with an assist from a Smuggler.
2. A "trader" in nge terms.. and a Rebel Ace Pilot.
Jedi destroyed NEITHER Death Star, which when you boil it down was the most significant turning points of the war. Star Wars was NEVER about the Jedi until Lucas made the prequels.
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
The timeline was perfect, and I'm glad they insisted on having player Jedi. Jedi weren't necessary for everything, of course. They weren't Star Wars in the sense that they saved the galaxy and ruled the universe and provided free pie to all. But as a concept, they are a HUGE part of the lore. To make an online Star Wars game that caters to everyone, and that is supposed to be the only game in town, you HAVE to provide a path to Jedi. And you should make them powerful. But you should also make them extremely rare. What you're talking about sounds like MMO Battlefront.
Just like your argument, it's all opinion. I'm glad they started the way they did. The problem was the way it ended up, and I think we can both agree on that.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum