SWG Galaxy, latest patch...

[Mr Bean]

It's pretty fucking tame, really. Everytone got the same nerf, it just changes the landscape slightly.

It realy affect some people though such as the Healing classes and the most dramatic effect was on Teleporters. Before I could jump 190 Meters per port and use barley any endurance so I could port for about five minutes strait. Or enough to go across Steel Caynon North to South about eight times before going endurance dry.

After ED my porting got me 140 Meters per jump and I could get... maaybe across twice before running out. But that was just the charm of teleport. It COULD be the fastest traval (bar none) power, but you had to spend slots on it to get it there.

Back to SWG. Yes combat was a point and click and special and special affair. What still gets me is the Jedi hit squads(Which still exist.)

Basicly on alot of servers there existed a semi-peace between Dark and Light Jedi, and because it was so hard to get Jedi in the first place only the Hardcore, guilded folks could do it.

Meaning that if you ran into one Jedi you ran into several.
The side result of this was the "Jedi Hit squads", simply put if you ran anywhere either TEF(Temporary enemy flag) or Declared(Can PVP vs opposite faction) you would die, as Jedi would hang around major spaceports and player cities and instantly desend on any TEF's or Declared and kill them, normaly with several Jedi attack one target.

So could step off onto a supposed Imperial controled planet and be jumped by half a dozen Light Jedi Masters, or step off onto a Rebel friendly planet and be choked to death by ten Dark Jedi.

This problem went on for many months and when I left, it STILL had not been fixed, the offical Dev response was... Oh well deal with it, One jedi can kick any non-Jedi's ass, and if you run into several your going to die. Even if said light Jedi are slaughting hundreds outside the Emperors retreat.

[Hotfoot]

It realy affect some people though such as the Healing classes and the most dramatic effect was on Teleporters. Before I could jump 190 Meters per port and use barley any endurance so I could port for about five minutes strait. Or enough to go across Steel Caynon North to South about eight times before going endurance dry.

After ED my porting got me 140 Meters per jump and I could get... maaybe across twice before running out.

A healer might not be able to be as uber per heal, but can now reduce endurance drain or recharge time effectively.

It's really something they should have done at the beginning of the game, in my opinion, and it was silly to do it now, but meh. I had to redo my character as well, as 6-slotted Stamina isn't nearly as good as it used to be, and 5-slotted hasten is crap.

Have you tried reslotting your porter with 2-3 range and the remaining in End reduction? Should put you on a level of parity with where you were before.

Right now, 3-slotting is the new 6-slotting. Never have more than 3 slots of the same type of enhancement, and you'll be fine. This also frees up some slots for other powers in the case of Stamina and Hasten (and lets you drop SS altogether if you just want to drop hasten, though I've found it to be massively useful with brutes in CoV).

But, as I said, the change is nowhere near as massive as people are complaining it is. I've found that people in MMORPGs, however, will find a way to bitch about anything. The new PvP zones in CoH/CoV are no exception. For the first week, there was literally nothing but "OMG NONCONSENUAL PVP" and "PVP IS BEING FORCED ON ME AGAINST MY WILL" on the boards. Never mind that no mission they accepted would ever make them do anything in a PvP free area without telling them first, and that by entering the zone itself, you are aware that PvP can and will occur, even between other heroes. The fact that the game posts massive signs to that effect, has a 30 second pvp-free timer each time you enter the zone, plus a popup window informing you of your sitaution, AND starts you off in a part of the zone in which PvP cannot occur, well, that seems to be beyond their understanding.

Never mind that PvP is pretty much risk free, and you suffer no loss of XP or debt gain or anything other than a quick teleport back to the safe zone's hospital.

But I vent.

[Dorsk 81]

Man, that game was almost too laggy to pvp even with the auto-attack/specials queue. I wonder how well 40 people will be able twitch-shoot each-other in Theed...

Boy, how long have you not been playing for? I haven't seen a single soul PvPing in Theed, apart from BHs chasing Jedi, since the CU. I can't speak for every server, but the only pvp I ever see is at base raids, because then the defending factions have their high level base NPCs to do all the work for them. I miss the days when any jumped up little shit Swordsman could go take down an AT-ST in seconds, and NPCs couldn't do squat.

Anyway, more on topic, about the patch, after DLing it for nearly three days, then having to wait hours for a spot to open up on the Test Centers, of which there are only 4, for the whole community, I finally got to test it a bit.

You start off with a really short and hopelessly bugged tutorial. You awaken in a med bay, C-3PO talks to you, tells you how to move, shoot, etc. Then Han, R2 and Chewie show up, you kill a few stormies and then you board the Falcon... Only you don't, because there's a bug, which stops you from boarding, and 9 times out of 10 there's nothing you can do about it, except make a new character, after waiting hours for another TC spot to open up, and try again.

Once you get past the bugged Falcon, you go into space and blow a few TIEs out of the sky, and Hyperspace to Ord Mantell, where everyone is trying to do the same missions, because everyone chose Jedi as their profession, although, I went Smuggler. I'm not sure what happens after you start doing your profession specific quest, because at this point I lagged out and lost connection.

I'll try logging back in later, when hopefully the server populations will have gone down a bit to take some screenshots if anyone is especially interested?

[Utsanomiko]

April 2004. I was active early enough to partake in some of the last +60-man raids of various factioned guild cities in the Scylla Server (not to mention the block-out of the 'new Rebel city' on Lok by Pax Imperia, but let's not stir up anything with that amusing tale).

I'm more interested in an explanation of some of the screenshots up on SWG's site right now, such as Vader in various non-Retreat locations and a Grievous look-a-like somewhere. Other than that, the biggest additions seem to involve lots and lots of in-game sourveniers and merchandise. I do kinda wish I could have been around to see usable sotrage furniture and multi-person vehicles.

Oh, and suppose you don't want to kill Stormtroopers and be an unlawful rebel? Sounds kinda pigeon-holed, even for a demo.

[Dorsk 81]

Oh right, well in short, there was a small GCW revamp a little while back, before the CU, the three main planets Tatooine, Naboo and Corellia can be controled, by taking into account how many bases there are of each faction, how many have been destroyed, etc. They add up to form an Occupation score, whoevers is highest has control of that planet and that factions NPCs then patrol the NPC cities.

Every so often, Vader, Luke or Leia will show up one of the cities, Theed or Coronet usually, they just say good job for having control of the planet, and here's a mission to kill x amount of enemy faction NPCs, nothing really exciting.

The Grevious look alike is just that, he's on Kashyyyk, part of a small series of Quest, he's called the N-K Necrosis and he drops good weapons and a Grevious starship.

[Mr Bean]

Right now, 3-slotting is the new 6-slotting. Never have more than 3 slots of the same type of enhancement, and you'll be fine. This also frees up some slots for other powers in the case of Stamina and Hasten (and lets you drop SS altogether if you just want to drop hasten, though I've found it to be massively useful with brutes in CoV).

I know I used to be five slot Port, Four range one recharge.(Distance per port is more useful that endurance used normaly, when I want to port in an emergancy I don't say geee glad I still have 1/2 my endurance left, I'd rather say gee I'm two hundred meters away Ha! I'm safe!

Never mind that PvP is pretty much risk free, and you suffer no loss of XP or debt gain or anything other than a quick teleport back to the safe zone's hospital.

But I vent.

An exploite has been discovered however with PVP. First Drones give you debt if you die to them(The invurable level 55 Drones that is) With a three man team they can grief anyone in any PvP zone, once the 30 second time limit has expired.

How? Simple you have one steathed person look for handy targets, the other two people stand around in the Hero or Villian mainbase (Whichever side they are on.) then someone with Teleport Foe(Assited and teamed) TP some enemy from wherever(Normaly the main base for the other side.) then TP the happless fool back to their main base where they are killed instantly by their Drones. Now here comes the shitty part(The above is shitty to as it gives you debt) The THIRD person in steathed in the enemy mainbase outside the hosptial targeting the person who just got zaped back to life(Or anyone else handy while second person finds more targets) back in where? The Kill-o-zap drones of course! Another death another batch of debt.

And then you ask yourself, can you make it out of the zone(Because you won't make it out of target range in time unless your a Teleporter) before your thirty seconds are up? Otherwise prepare to die forever unless the TP Foe misses(It happens) or you get out of the zone.

This also can be used with the less shitty but still bad TP foe into Hero/Villian huddle with Caltrops, Pets, mines and whatever else standing by to nuke you on port.

[Nephtys]

...as an outsider with friends griping about SW:G for more than a year... em.

Wouldn't this just give the game an 'All Jedi + Bounty Hunters' syndrome? Much like WoW's undead rogues? And instead of balancing a bunch of classes, they're making you restart on a game that's got a broken economy anyway?

Yeeck. I don't even play and this sounds godawful.

[Hotfoot]

I know I used to be five slot Port, Four range one recharge.(Distance per port is more useful that endurance used normaly, when I want to port in an emergancy I don't say geee glad I still have 1/2 my endurance left, I'd rather say gee I'm two hundred meters away Ha! I'm safe!

Emergency porting is, generally, not the best way to run, but to each their own. Still, you're out of range from any normal attack just using unslotted teleport.

An exploite has been discovered however with PVP. First Drones give you debt if you die to them(The invurable level 55 Drones that is) With a three man team they can grief anyone in any PvP zone, once the 30 second time limit has expired.

How? Simple you have one steathed person look for handy targets, the other two people stand around in the Hero or Villian mainbase (Whichever side they are on.) then someone with Teleport Foe(Assited and teamed) TP some enemy from wherever(Normaly the main base for the other side.) then TP the happless fool back to their main base where they are killed instantly by their Drones. Now here comes the shitty part(The above is shitty to as it gives you debt) The THIRD person in steathed in the enemy mainbase outside the hosptial targeting the person who just got zaped back to life(Or anyone else handy while second person finds more targets) back in where? The Kill-o-zap drones of course! Another death another batch of debt.

And then you ask yourself, can you make it out of the zone(Because you won't make it out of target range in time unless your a Teleporter) before your thirty seconds are up? Otherwise prepare to die forever unless the TP Foe misses(It happens) or you get out of the zone.

This also can be used with the less shitty but still bad TP foe into Hero/Villian huddle with Caltrops, Pets, mines and whatever else standing by to nuke you on port.

Ah yes, the TP Foe in a safe zone exploit. They're working on that, that and the Confused save zone killing exploit. Thing is, those are pretty rare, for the most part. Since they're known exploits, people abusing them can be reported to the GMs. In the end, it's likely to be resolved by the next patch or so.

As for TP Foe outside of safe zones, well, hate to say it, but tough shit. They're at the same level of risk you are by doing that, and it can be done to them in return. Yeah, they've got more people, but the game's designed towards group-based PvP a hell of a lot better than it's designed towards 1 on 1 pvp. You go it alone in a PvP zone, and you're asking for trouble.

Doesn't change the fact that the moment you enter the zone, you know you're in for PvP. Don't like PvP? Leave or just don't go at all. It's not being forced on you. It's essentially a zone-wide arena.

[Mr Bean]

As for TP Foe outside of safe zones, well, hate to say it, but tough shit. They're at the same level of risk you are by doing that, and it can be done to them in return. Yeah, they've got more people, but the game's designed towards group-based PvP a hell of a lot better than it's designed towards 1 on 1 pvp. You go it alone in a PvP zone, and you're asking for trouble.

Doesn't change the fact that the moment you enter the zone, you know you're in for PvP. Don't like PvP? Leave or just don't go at all. It's not being forced on you. It's essentially a zone-wide arena.

The problem is TP Foe is a one sided attack. That being that it only requires YOU to hit your target(Who gets no defense aginst it) Meaing that You can dual Accurasy enhance it and easily hit the 95% accurasy cap aginst players at which you have a one in twenty chance of your TP Foe.
Meaning what you have is essentialy City of Gankfest as grand chaotic battles don't happen thanks to the fact that two people can beat anyone regardless of setup or skill level. One to see and one to port into the instant kill Drones at a base. And if thats changed then into a small killing field. Until we get some defense aginst TP Foe its almost a WIN button if you have any kind of planning.

I don't disagree with you on the point that PVP is not forced heck I LOVE the way PVP is implented. Just that for now the PVP mechanics have a borked gamebalance breaking power.

[Dorsk 81]

On top of all the negative feedback on the forums, and getting GameSpy.com to print an utterly bullshit article about the new patch, here, with ridiculous claims that professions prior to the changes take months to grind and fights with certain mobs take nearly an hour to resolve and the feedack of the community is positive, they, SOE, decided to fire their Community Relations Correspondent, and made it official last night.

Wouldn't this just give the game an 'All Jedi + Bounty Hunters' syndrome?

In shot, yes, it has. I've been on the test centers since finishing dling, and for there are probably ten Jedi for every other profession, and probably about a five to one ratio for Bounty Hunters.

[Ghost Rider]

On top of all the negative feedback on the forums, and getting GameSpy.com to print an utterly bullshit article about the new patch, here, with ridiculous claims that professions prior to the changes take months to grind and fights with certain mobs take nearly an hour to resolve and the feedack of the community is positive, they, SOE, decided to fire their Community Relations Correspondent, and made it official last night.

Wouldn't this just give the game an 'All Jedi + Bounty Hunters' syndrome?

In shot, yes, it has. I've been on the test centers since finishing dling, and for there are probably ten Jedi for every other profession, and probably about a five to one ratio for Bounty Hunters.

LMAO....I'm sorry the Jedi ratio is making me laugh, given the time setting.

Definitly hope you're getting something out of it all, Dorsk.

[desertjedi]

In all honesty I think Sony threw out the timeline way back when the holocrons first made their appearance.

[Thunderfire]

I've been on the test centers since finishing dling, and for there are probably ten Jedi for every other profession, and probably about a five to one ratio for Bounty Hunters.

I think it isn't that bad at the moment because jedis are one of the weaker classes now. They fucked up the game with PUB9 when it was possible to become a jedi via grinding.

[Cthulhuvong]

Its dead already, just leave it in peace!

[MKSheppard]

[Dorsk 81]

It's fucking depressing, isn't it?

Although, in fairness, alot of people would go into the Jedi forum to flame or troll for the pure hell of it. Lot's of lock happy mods there, locking damn near anything negative.

Still, doesn't bother me. I tried the system, hated it, and flushed SWG from my harddrive. Starting on CoV tomorrow.

[Thunderfire]

? Why is the pilot number that low? Everyone should be a pilot or is this the # of posts on the forums? Anyways the people the decided to implement this shit should be boiled in bacta for a few weeks...

[Dorsk 81]

? Why is the pilot number that low? Everyone should be a pilot or is this the # of posts on the forums?

Number of posts on the forums, go see for yourself, Link.

[Utsanomiko]

The forums have always been like that, even back when I first started. Jedi forums easily had as much traffic as all the other professions combined (though their replies were exceptionally stupid. I realize how cryptic the dev's answers were, but jesus, these kids would spaz out and hyperventilate over single sentence clarifications over stuff everyone else laready knew, or fall into mass confusion on the meaning of 'is' and 'will be'. Total retards.).

The thing is that now the player population will be able to reflect that rate as well. I'm still appalled how pigeon-holed crafters will be now (including everyone else), and how non-chalant SOE is about glossing over that detail.

[Mr Bean]

Crafters always got screwed over, the requirments were to high(To get Master-Bio Engineer I collected all the materials I need over about eight hours... plus thirty six hours of crafting time with tiny bits of invovlment from me)

Gee that was fun clicking over and over agian for thirty six hours... Hell fucking no, I did five hours of that and then said screw it and macro'd it. Which is how most people made Master Crafter due to the insane requirments for crafting proffesions, materials were easy to come by for most but the amount you had to make to advance levels was bat-shit crazy high. (Something like a few hundred Guild Halls for example, or for me, around two thousand Nuet packs)

[Utsanomiko]

I think I managed to master Armorsmith in ~12 hours over a week, but only after amassing millions worth of materials over a month (I went for making Ubese jackets; biggest chunk of xp per item meant less items to make total, even if it was a bit less xp per materials).

You've addressed the big problem with crafting in the game, namely how uninvolved the process is, even compared to combat's old 'specials queue' system or entertainment using a macro (my god, that was boring non-gameplay). For a game where player-made items are so important it sure was a complete chore and a farce that every thing was made by plopping materials into the schematic list, pressing some buttons, hoping the randomness of stats didn't fuck you over, and then wait 30 seconds for it to pop out. Also, it was stupid of them to give a 5% xp bonus for 'practice runs' that used the materials to make no actual item; that explains half the economic problems that occurred when everyone started grinding professions- due to SOE givinig everyone holocrons for Xmas that told them one of 5 professions they'd need to master in order to become a Jedi (Daikatana-level mistake if you ask me).

I've got a game design with a crafting system that's hands-on, visual, and requires a lot more intuitive decisions rather than a pure timesink (in SWG's case, waiting for the countdown after an assembly process you can do while 2/3rds-asleep). Part of a lot of MMO's problems is they use time and repetition-requirements to extend out gaming rather than interraction or content.