Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Jedi System - How would you have done it?
Hadean
Member Posts: 27
Put yourself in the shoes of the developers during the creation of SWG for a moment. You are discussing how to put Jedi in the game and are given carte blanche on how to implement it. As you are brainstorming several problems present themselves.
1) No Jedi: Nothing to grind for. Player Jedi are non-existent. Canon is absolutely preserved. Bad from a marketing point of view.
2) Alpha Class: Very long grueling grind to achieve Jedi. Rarity somewhat high and canon is more or less preserved. The Jedi are powerful. Bad from a marketing point of view.
3) Easy Jedi/Starter: Simple Jedi attainment, rarity is low and canon is not preserved. The strength of the Jedi is lowered for balance issues. Good from a marketing point of view.
It seems to me that developing Jedi for this game was doomed for failure. How do you make the game marketable without shredding canon to pieces and ending up with Jedi running rough-shod over the galaxy during a time when the central tenant of the story says they are almost extinct. I can only come to one conclusion. You must either say to hell with Canon, or to hell with Jedi.
I would like your opinions on how you would have implemented it if you were in charge.
"If you don't take care of your customers somebody else will."
Comments
Simple,as it was realy early on,it's mind numbing hard to become one (holo grind,usualy need to grind atleast 12 proffesions) ,perma death + BH system (if you die,you start with novice jedi,all previous trees are reset) ,you are very powerfull (alpha class).You barerly saw any jedi till the village,most jedis stayed as hidden as possible to avoid BH etc.
The only problem with this system was that people whined that it is too hard to unlock jedi (you have whiners in every game,basicly kids crying they cant be jedis from the get go)
Jedi should be an alpha class but they need restrictions or they unbalance the game, the perma death thing in SWG worked great but people whined to much about it, so from a marketing perspective a bad thing. What about introducing a massive restriction on items/loot and attainable objects. This would fit in with believable jedi lore, ie not being allowed to own possessions, without taking away from the original sci-fi self aware samurai ideal. People ultimately want the power to show off in game, this would address the balance a little and would encourage more people to add more accounts as they tried to appease their love for power - Jedi class, and love for trinkets - other classes, good for game balance and good for marketing.
Option 2 (Alpha Class) was marketed pretty heavily. So bad for marketing it wasnt.
Option 4- change the darn setting of the game to accomodate the Jedi lovers.
Option 5- Set it prior to Episode 3 and in January 2004 introduce an episode, Order 66, ie Darth Vader comes hunting you down to permadeath your FS character as was originally mentioned in the marketing of the game. Oh the backlash!
I rarelly post on this forum... but this is a good topic...
permadeath, the BH system and lightsaber TEF/visibility was, in theory, a great system. You were incredibly powerful, but in a way always fearing your own shadow. that is the closest thing to canon "SW Real life" (i know it is a weird expression, but bare with it) possible.
But there is a drawback.... you don't have a connection lost, or a client crash or go loading on the starport in canon Sw.... I personally took down 9 jedis when the permadeath system existed and jedi coul use composite armor. I did not took them in a fair fight. I got them while loading or logging in .... It is not really very fair for the guy that unlocked the jedi was it?
Now in their place, what I would have done, was something somewhat simpe. the system to control the jedi population was in place already. it just needed to be made really operational.I would have buffed BH's in way they would become balanced with the jedi when fighting the jedi.. Special armor with LS and force resists, somekind of force lockdown field, .. it is not like it is hard to figure something that would make BH's powerful vs jedi and at same time, didnt alter BH's power vs the rest of the population. T. zhan got the yasalamari (?) out of this hat, and , voilá, some second rate smugglers could overpower Luke Skywalker....
there would be a lot of whines from the jedi community of course but who cares. If a jedi played smart it would take a lot of time to get on the terminals. If needed , you could take jedi visibility off while grouped, what allowed the jedi players to grind in a moral social way.... but that visibility would kick in if seen by non group players... there were so many ways to solve the thing....
in the end SOE took the , to a point righ approach, jedi's starting profession, slightly better in many aspects others in some areas, but nothing really special--- sadly with that canon and imersion took one directly in the groins.... we have cantinas full of jedi fighting one another while stormtroopers pass 5 m away...
"If you don't take care of your customers somebody else will."
People will hate my idea for the system, well I had two ideas both of them no one would have liked.
1)No Player Jedi, however a Player "Force Sensitive" Profession.
The idea behind it is this, you have no true "Jedi" running around. Rather the Player would unlock a Profession that would allow them some very minor force powers and the use of a Lightsaber. For the most part it would just be another Melee Profession. You would still have to craft a Lightsaber (One Handed, Two Handed so on) It just wouldn't be "Alpha" for the most part.
For the most part the Force Sensitive would be like Luke when he was just starting out. It wouldn't be anything bigger then all of that, maybe some new skills and specials could be add'ed down the road if and when the timeline was bumped up.
People I feel would have been unhappy as many people feel Jedi = Uber. However the idea behind doing it this way is to keep some form of game balance in. Lightsaber Damage wouldn't have gone in, rather Damage would have been based off the type of Color Crystal in the Saber.
2)Jedi is rewarded and unlocked, by a GM and for Players who have helped the game out in someway.
Now this idea many people would have hated, however I feel this could have worked out somewhat better not just for SWG but MMO's as a whole.
See one of the faults MMO's tend to have is they tend to reward people doing things that well... Don't help the game out imho. Back in my UO days I remember one of the Galhads (Two Players well known for being looters and pk's) talked about how he found that he was much more rewarded by being a jerk and being 'evil'. One of his coments was also about how most MMO's never have any real way to reward "good" gameplay and never really anything too harsh for those that do act up.
This idea would come down to having the Dev's and others pick out Players well known for doing things on the server they play on. Putting on really good events, helping newbies out, doing Role Played Storylines and what not. If the Dev's or those running the system in this way feel a Player has shown good gameplay, they reward him for it. And Jedi is a good reward... One good thing that could come out of a System like this is you would show that if you are going to be nice, helpful and not run around like an ass whenever you get in game you can get rewarded for it.
The fault with this system is well it would have never worked. You would have gotten tons of people posting about how "they" should be unlocked. Or how Player A shouldn't have Jedi unlocked cuz all he did was make some stupid story about how him and his friends killed a Krayt.
The idea kinda falls under something they did in UO, Blessing Player Run Inn's and what not (Blessing was a GM came and add'ed things that Players are unable to make or get in game also those items cannot be picked up, deleted so on.) It ended mostly due to people screaming about how unfair it was.
Really over all whatever SOE did with Jedi in SWG wouldn't have worked, and hasn't worked. I feel whatever system they put in would have just ended up in some kinda mess and with Players throwing fits about it. Be it about how it doesn't belong in the game due to canon, how the whole Jedi vs BH system needs to go, so on and so forth.
SWG just showed that an Alpha Class just does not work. And is not heathy for the games long term.
do you believe if i say that i played SWg a lot in it's peak, had the means, time and devotion to unlock jedi, but only mastered marksman, brawler, scout, pistoleer and bounty hunter? And did , i think, all the aurelia quests/trade ins only to get a few boxes that helped my profession/template (bounty hunter pistoleer)
if the game didnt had any jedi i wouldnt have been affected. And more interesting, while there would have been many whiners, that most of the people that played SWG back then would have still played the game in that time frame with or without jedis.
Back in the day, when the game first came out NOONE was a jedi and NOONE knew how to become a jedi. The best rumor was the path was opened by doing random quests, and that’s what people did. Then it was reveled that following holocrons, mastering 4 profs. The first 3 were told to you and the 4th was luck.
This was back in the day when jedis where uber rare and if you dared spark up your saber the whole world would be after you. I only had one friend make it to jedi, back before the force village, and it was a pain. He could only quest on remote planets in fear of death. If someone did see him it wouldn’t be long until bounty hunters came after him. It came to a point he would walk around with a house on him, picking up two quests in the same area, dropping a house and finishing up his quests, he lived in fear of using his jedi skills.
It was a great system that worked well, in the time SWG is set Jedis are in hiding and don’t stand around space ports with their sabers out. SWG was a great game pre-cu and NGE. The jedi system worked and the pop was high on all the servers, I don’t even know what the game is now but it isn’t fun.
my system?
NO PLAYABLE JEDI
game would have been great
used a better timeline then people wouldnt be bitc*in bout jedi's
No offense but no it would of been the same POS that SWG is.
Edit: Come on people when you think of star wars you think of jedi, bounty hunters, smugglers and officers. Jedi arent gods so its not like you cant have them in a game. the clones seem to kill them very well.
No offense but no it would of been the same POS that SWG is.
Edit: Come on people when you think of star wars you think of jedi, bounty hunters, smugglers and officers. Jedi arent gods so its not like you cant have them in a game. the clones seem to kill them very well.
That's your opinion. Having been there in the start you had all different professions pvping rather than after the first unlock and the hologrind. Alpha class NEVER works in an mmorpg. And during this timeline, there were almost no jedi.
And when i think of the original SWG...i think civil war and space battles , not some magical guy playing with a glowstick. Gimme a good blaster any day
I always thought it would be cool to have utilized the Jedi ranking system. There were all those ranks and the only easy way to gain ranks was to do the "Fight clubs"... Which was ridiculous.
How about if there were only a set amount of Jedi allowed on each server. For example, 50 maybe. It would be mostly like the Hologrind, only after you've mastered all the professions you needed, you then need to defeat a Jedi in a duel. That Jedi would be stripped of their Jedi status, and the winner would then become a Jedi themselves. No Jedi grind, you instantly have your Jedi powers and you ARE the Alpha class, only you risk being hunted by both Bounty Hunters and wannabe Jedis. This way, there would only ever be 25 Jedi and 25 Dark Jedi on any server at a time.
This would keep the Jedi population reasonable. You wouldn't have a Jedi Grind to get all your powers, you would just defeat a current Jedi then complete a trial or two, in which you would be able to learn all your new skills.
The only grind from there is the ranking system. As a Jedi, if you kill a Dark Jedi, you get 1 point per rank of your opponent. And vice versa.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
No offense but no it would of been the same POS that SWG is.
Edit: Come on people when you think of star wars you think of jedi, bounty hunters, smugglers and officers. Jedi arent gods so its not like you cant have them in a game. the clones seem to kill them very well.
That's your opinion. Having been there in the start you had all different professions pvping rather than after the first unlock and the hologrind. Alpha class NEVER works in an mmorpg. And during this timeline, there were almost no jedi.
And when i think of the original SWG...i think civil war and space battles , not some magical guy playing with a glowstick. Gimme a good blaster any day
Hence in a previous post you will read i said differant timeline that way you people would stop bitc*in bout jedi in the game.
No offense but no it would of been the same POS that SWG is.
Edit: Come on people when you think of star wars you think of jedi, bounty hunters, smugglers and officers. Jedi arent gods so its not like you cant have them in a game. the clones seem to kill them very well.
That's your opinion. Having been there in the start you had all different professions pvping rather than after the first unlock and the hologrind. Alpha class NEVER works in an mmorpg. And during this timeline, there were almost no jedi.
And when i think of the original SWG...i think civil war and space battles , not some magical guy playing with a glowstick. Gimme a good blaster any day
I agree with you Miagisan. The game was IMO much better when there were no Jedi. I would have liked there to be no player Jedi at all, but having a CSR playing a Jedi at special events would have been very cool.
But if there had to be Jedi in this game I'd say make it a PvE only class or neutral only.
I would not implement Jedi in the Rebellion era if I had the say as to whether or not Jedi were in game as a player race. However, if I had to, I would set it up one of two ways.
First way:
The game (not each server) has a maximum amount of Jedi, X. Each account has a very very slim chance of being randomly selected at login to be allowed to create a Jedi. If you are selected you can create a Jedi. This Jedi will be an alpha class, however, you get three deaths and then your Jedi is deleted and the login server then selects a new account to be allowed to create a Jedi. The number of Jedi in game never goes above X.
This would keep Jedi invisible as everyone would want to kill them because the player may then get a shot at creating a Jedi. Also, your chance of being selected each successive time decreases so that it's more likely that others will get a shot.
Second way:
Each account can have a single Jedi. Jedi is not an alpha class. You must have a maxed character to create a Jedi. Jedi are always PvP enabled and lose XP upon death to keep them out of sight.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
You people just dont get it. The reason why SWG was changed was because it had no jedi element in the game. You people saying that the game would be better without them are people who dont want to play jedi and you failed to keep SWG afloat. Star Wars MMO should and always foremost have JEDI in the game. Jedi's arn't gods they can be killled and they arn't all powerful they just have a differant skill set. And yes i understand the timeline which is where SOE and the creators of SWG failed. You dont make a star wars game in a timeline where the jedi are all but extinct. You fan boi's n gurls go nuts and say OMG jedi arnt in this timeline your ruining our game. If you hate the game so bad for having jedi get a contract from lucas and make your own otherwise let it go.
I disagree totally in this sentence. The new star wars is all about jedi. But the star wars i grew up with, jedi was a subplot. I beleive a game without jedi would have been 10x more exciting, and less alpha classes are always good. Alpha classes cannot be balanced with the rest. This was a move by LA marketing to entice more players. BE A JEDI! Bleh.
There's more to Star Wars than Jedi.
Considering SWG, there were more players when there was little to no jedi... When jedi appeared and got all the dev focus, subscriptions started to fall.
Actually Star Wars fans started to leave the game, and on Star Wars Fan forums the first noticeable wave of "Don't play SWG" appeared... The game went from Star Wars to Jedi Online, and it lost what Star Wars it had.
I would have not had Jedi as an actual profession, but allowed players to have Force skills that would primarily enhance their other skills. I would also allowed players to gain some of the force poweres and even lightsabers, if they chose to, but these more Jedi-ish abilities would have caused the player to gain a public TEF, along with BH visibility. It would depend on how powerful the abilities were as implemented (I wouldn't really make them any more powerful than a normal full templated combat character), but there could be a possibility of some sort of penealty for getting killed while playing pretend Jedi.
In my ideal system, nobody would have ever been an actual Jedi, but they could have had some of the powers and pretended to be, which would have fit the timeline.
Jedi's as an alpha class by holo grind with perma death. That being said, there would have also have to be a way to reattain the FS slot If you killed your jedi.
Ah the days when Star Wars had smugglers and droids and actually seemed alive. Now we have Star Wars which is everything but alive. It's Jedi and clonetroopers. People can try and claim Star Wars heroes are Jedi but not all heroes in Star Wars are Jedi. In fact, the greatest hero in Star Wars is a droid, R2D2.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
I disagree totally in this sentence. The new star wars is all about jedi. But the star wars i grew up with, jedi was a subplot. I beleive a game without jedi would have been 10x more exciting, and less alpha classes are always good. Alpha classes cannot be balanced with the rest. This was a move by LA marketing to entice more players. BE A JEDI! Bleh.
Again, I totally agree with you Miagisan!
When I was growing up a lot of kids wanted to be Han more then Luke.
Totaly random on how to unlock jedi
1 jedi per 500 character per server allowed.
Perma death and skill loss.
That should keep them at bay....
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!