Originally posted by Gutboy

Pre-cu PvP combat

Combat medic/Rifleman  64m mind poison/mind disease toss, followed by headshot you are dead.

Fencer/swordsman/TKA you will miss them about 99% of the time in combat

Jedi with the right template almost impossible to beat in combat.

Any other template loses to the above three.

Enjoy sandbox.

 

And yet I never had any of those templates but had a pvp total approaching 2000 at one point, interesting, I guess I just rock!

I've already highlighted what I think were the major flaws, and there were a few, but the combinations of templates that were effective still vastly outnumber the 7  combat "classes" that are in the game right now.

To me, it was at its best before:

•  Jedi appeared - As a master commando (especially after the heavy weapons upgrades...Flame Throwers, Acid Rifles, Lightning Cannons)/master TKM, the only class combo I hesitated to attack was a master BH/master CH.  Everyone stood a chance and not very many people were afraid to fight.  Also, before the bobo jedi activation technique was known, people played the professions they wanted to play, not what the holocron told them
• Combat buffs really took off -  Why bother with these.  The buffs took away so much spur of the moment PvP.  No longer could Iog in and just go kill rebels, I had to get buffed.   It should have stopped at high quality stim packs.
• Mounts/JTLS - A hundred people waiting for the shuttle.  Man, that was just a fight waiting to happen.
• High resist composite armour.  Everyone looked exactly the same running around in this crap. The first time I saw a jedi in full composite, I knew my time was up.  (this is more a personal pet peeve)

I guess my outlook is skewed. Lately I prefer FPS pvp.  Just log in and start fightin.

Edit: oh, and I also miss my imperial buddies running down to Anchorhead to say hello with 3 AT-STs a piece in tow.

And remember for the first couple of days where there was an imperial mission bug and everyone was running around in Stormtrooper armour? I played a Zabrak and I remember how much the non-human in the empire penalty used to bug me.

Originally posted by Gutboy

Originally posted by Warmaker

Originally posted by Gutboy

Pre-cu PvP combat

Combat medic/Rifleman  64m mind poison/mind disease toss, followed by headshot you are dead.

Fencer/swordsman/TKA you will miss them about 99% of the time in combat

Jedi with the right template almost impossible to beat in combat.

Any other template loses to the above three.

Enjoy sandbox.

 

 

I played none of those templates.

I did enjoy the sandbox.  Loved it as a matter of fact.

Your NGE?

10k subscribers at best.

Enjoy the NGE.

 

I am very much enjoying the game with my friends thanks for asking.

 What?... All 2 of them?

Enjoy the simplified game, after all, simple minds were their target audience.  "Reading is bad" and all that.

Also, please enjoy the... *chuckle* "Trading Card Game" on SWG   It perfectly complements that coloring book simpleton game SWG has become.

PvP pre CU was basically a deck of cards, whichever side got the King would win the battle, there were things that needed to be addressed pre CU that devs never came around to fixing but instead shoved the CU and NGE upon us.

There was doctor buffs that were too strong, composite armor that had 90% resist to everything and 40% to stun, other things among that. But in most pvp battles I've been in, it was a matter of how many of us had high damage weapons (ackley powerhammer, gorax bone batons, yellow cube sonic blaster and DXR6, etc) but overall pvp was lots of fun for me, I used to log on in the morning and go to Dathomir and run into a small group of overt flagged players and go at it and pick up the banana phone to call reinforcements and the fight would go on for hours (instead of minutes in the NGE). The best part of pvp was that it happened everywhere around SWG instead of focused on Restuss and we didn't have to contact the other faction to organize a time to pvp.

In the first few months (June-November 2003), pvp was mostly based between Anchorhead and Bestine, no doctor buffs existed, no enhanced weapons existed, most of us wore bone armor and some weapons didn't even exist (like the T21) but I was one of the first master bounty hunters on Lowca and managed to get a crafted scatter pistol which 1 shotted most players.

Look on Youtube and search for videos like "lost battle of Lok" or "hellaz pvp", well basically anything that comes from Lowca. Most of the videos contains Jedi, around winter-spring 2004 pvp was at its best and around winter 2004-2005 the Jedi population had taken control of pvp and that's when it started going downhill and I migrated to just hunting Jedi with BH (like I used to after they were first unlocked in Nov/Dec 2003.

Raiding player cities (ones with player faction bases) was about the most fun I've had, we pulled an all nighter once trying to take down bases but the players of that town were there to defend it and it went back and forth all night. When the devs added those static faction bases (Naboo, Crellia, Talus) it actually hurt the use of player faction bases.

I never really enjoyed pvp in the NGE, the CU was actually pretty fun but far too short lived to really remember much.

Originally posted by precuorbust

An example of Pre-CU...  You could never ONCE set foot into combat, yet be as valueble if not more so than an alpha class Jedi...

By being a Doctor who set himself up to provide optimum combat buffs by buying or making the best, etc.

Or by being the weaponsmith who made the best Krayt fitted weapons on the server.

Or by being the best armorsmith, who made the 90% stun comp armor...

Or by being an available entertainer, and giving those mind buffs...

God I miss that.

 

Wow this sounds a lot like AoW. 

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by precuorbust

An example of Pre-CU...  You could never ONCE set foot into combat, yet be as valueble if not more so than an alpha class Jedi...

By being a Doctor who set himself up to provide optimum combat buffs by buying or making the best, etc.

Or by being the weaponsmith who made the best Krayt fitted weapons on the server.

Or by being the best armorsmith, who made the 90% stun comp armor...

Or by being an available entertainer, and giving those mind buffs...

God I miss that.

 

Wow this sounds a lot like AoW. 

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by precuorbust

An example of Pre-CU...  You could never ONCE set foot into combat, yet be as valueble if not more so than an alpha class Jedi...

By being a Doctor who set himself up to provide optimum combat buffs by buying or making the best, etc.

Or by being the weaponsmith who made the best Krayt fitted weapons on the server.

Or by being the best armorsmith, who made the 90% stun comp armor...

Or by being an available entertainer, and giving those mind buffs...

God I miss that.

 

Wow this sounds a lot like AoW. 

 

Original SWG was 10X the game AoW could ever be on its best day. Especially the crafting.

One of the early major faults in the Pre-CU days was, in hindsight, Doctor Buffs.  It led to a lack of diversity, IMO.  Sounds crazy, but here's why it did.

Buffing health wasn't the bad thing.  But what it did was buff the secondary stats, like Action and more importantly, it's recovery.  Action, if you remember was 1 of 2 building blocks for everything your character did in combat (the other was Mind points).

Normally, donning armor, using weapons, performing abilities, all eat at the Action and Mind points pool.  Essentially more powerful actions / attacks ate huge chunks from Action & Mind pool.  This was important, because in general, the more comprehensive in protection the armor was in resists, the more heavy handed weapons, all ate up great huge gobs of Action & Mind.  In high resist armor's case, it slowed down the recovery of Action & Mind very noticeably if you were not buffed.

With the 90% Stun Composite, you could not even equip the full set if you were unbuffed.  And even if you did, the Action & Mind recovery was terribly low.

This was supposed to be the balance of the original system.  Power, protection, etc. came at a steep cost:  It limited how many actions you could do in a given time because all that power balanced out with high costs.

With Doctor Buffs, you could don the heaviest armors, Composite Armor, which counted as "Heavy" compared to the other lighter stuff, and as a consequence, took less damage if it wasn't armor piercing.  With the buffs, you could get custom weapons that were built for high damage, accuracy (for the optimal ranges), but at high Action & Mind costs.  The buffs allowed players to spam with the heaviest, most powerful gear.

Crafters of course had to cater to the narrower demands.  No longer was any armor valid outside Composite Armor, which offered the heaviest, best, most encompassing resists.  Composite was essential for PVP and to a lesser extent, PVE.  Ubese was light and great, but only against physical attacks like critters and such.  But against anything with energy weapons?  Ubese was a death sentence.

With the narrower demands, it killed off all other types of armor.  No more usage of Padded Armor.  No more usage of Bone Armor.  No more usage of weapons that did not fit a specific parameter, i.e. Armor Piercing.  Fighting even in regular clothes was completely out of the question because everyone was using Composite Armor.  Where before, fighting in clothes would be a decent idea because you'd have a completely unburdened Action & Mind pool with untouched recovery rates.  The lighter armors, to include Faction Armor, would have been valid for use.  They had resists for certain dangers, weaknesses to others, and would have been naturally less impacting on the Action & Mind pools / recovery rate.

But with Doctor Buffs allowing the heaviest gear and unrestricted spamming with such gear and weapons, it killed diversity for the remainder of the old days.

Someone was telling me this when I was early on in my playing time in SWG's Pre-CU days.  I thought my friend was smoking some good stuff and didn't believe him.  But after seeing everything, knowing how the system worked, etc., he was quite correct.

All those cool little pieces of equipment you found?  If it wasn't something like Composite, Laser Carbines, T-21's, or the other established few, bonafide pieces of gear... it wasn't valid for play.

This unbalance is what allowed players to solo areas & NPCs that were not supposed to be soloable.

I loved Pre-CU SWG to no end.  It still is, after all these years, the one MMORPG that provided me the most fun, enjoyable title with respect to its learning curve.  But the Doctor Buffs killed a huge portion of the game.

Originally posted by Warmaker

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by precuorbust

An example of Pre-CU...  You could never ONCE set foot into combat, yet be as valueble if not more so than an alpha class Jedi...

By being a Doctor who set himself up to provide optimum combat buffs by buying or making the best, etc.

Or by being the weaponsmith who made the best Krayt fitted weapons on the server.

Or by being the best armorsmith, who made the 90% stun comp armor...

Or by being an available entertainer, and giving those mind buffs...

God I miss that.

 

Wow this sounds a lot like AoW. 

 

Original SWG was 10X the game AoW could ever be on its best day. Especially the crafting.

One of the early major faults in the Pre-CU days was, in hindsight, Doctor Buffs. 

 I totally agree (only glimpsed through your reasoning, but I know what are you getting at because I had a similar view)

Doctor buffing was out of control and set an artificial standard for gears. It is kinda like a preview of what will happen to sports if there were no anti-doping agencies.

Originally posted by BlackWizards

SWG pre-cu and UO are basically the holy duo of mmo's at this point, no other games have received such praise and exaltation as these two. Unfortunately for me I did not play either at the time they where at their peek so I can speak little about them.

My question is simple, what was the pvp system of old SWG, was it FFA, was there loot, could it happen any where, could you share some stories, was it even a pvp centric game?

Thanks in advance.

who praised it? not enough people to make it viable as a bussiness it seems or it would still be here.

Originally posted by Xirik

Originally posted by BlackWizards

SWG pre-cu and UO are basically the holy duo of mmo's at this point, no other games have received such praise and exaltation as these two. Unfortunately for me I did not play either at the time they where at their peek so I can speak little about them.

My question is simple, what was the pvp system of old SWG, was it FFA, was there loot, could it happen any where, could you share some stories, was it even a pvp centric game?

Thanks in advance.

who praised it? not enough people to make it viable as a bussiness it seems or it would still be here.

400+K players praised it. That was a perfectly viable sub #, but SOE/LA wanted WoW #s. They didnt think it was "Star Warsy" or "Iconic" enough. So they kept dicking with it and made it worse.

The reason why it isnt here is because SOE/LA made it less viable.

Originally posted by Xirik

who praised it? not enough people to make it viable as a bussiness it seems or it would still be here.

 SWG existed until Lucasarts wanted a new MMO in swtor.

UO is STILL around.

Stupid Nancy McIntyre said "SWG was not STAR WARZY ENOUGH" so they killed SWG and made it a WOW clone.

Pre-CU PVP? I enjoyed it, but like other poster said, it was unbalanced because of Buff and Composite gear.

Most PVP would end up in Forum rage, "OMMMMMMG> this dumb butt in his FOTM build and his buff bot and his 90% composite gear think he's so cool because he killed me and I"m a Musician!!!Q"

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-macintyre/0/b6/533

Originally posted by CthulhuPuffs

Originally posted by Xirik

Originally posted by BlackWizards

SWG pre-cu and UO are basically the holy duo of mmo's at this point, no other games have received such praise and exaltation as these two. Unfortunately for me I did not play either at the time they where at their peek so I can speak little about them.

My question is simple, what was the pvp system of old SWG, was it FFA, was there loot, could it happen any where, could you share some stories, was it even a pvp centric game?

Thanks in advance.

who praised it? not enough people to make it viable as a bussiness it seems or it would still be here.

400+K players praised it. That was a perfectly viable sub #, but SOE/LA wanted WoW #s. They didnt think it was "Star Warsy" or "Iconic" enough. So they kept dicking with it and made it worse.

The reason why it isnt here is because SOE/LA made it less viable.

Where do you get that 400k number? Lets be honest the CU and the NGE were just band aids to try and stop the game from bleeding subs. "Star Warsy" and "Iconic" were just ways to say "WoW is kicking our ass and we keep losing tons of players."  I'm pretty sure at that point in time SOE was king of the hill for MMORPGs. Smed had to do something. Im sure LA was wondering how their cash cow IP was getting destroyed by WoW and put pressure on SOE. Smed screwed up but in his defense I'm pretty sure LA didn't want excuses and this was probably the best thing he could do to shut them up. Sadly it failed miserably.

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by Warmaker

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by precuorbust

An example of Pre-CU...  You could never ONCE set foot into combat, yet be as valueble if not more so than an alpha class Jedi...

By being a Doctor who set himself up to provide optimum combat buffs by buying or making the best, etc.

Or by being the weaponsmith who made the best Krayt fitted weapons on the server.

Or by being the best armorsmith, who made the 90% stun comp armor...

Or by being an available entertainer, and giving those mind buffs...

God I miss that.

 

Wow this sounds a lot like AoW. 

 

Original SWG was 10X the game AoW could ever be on its best day. Especially the crafting.

One of the early major faults in the Pre-CU days was, in hindsight, Doctor Buffs. 

 I totally agree (only glimpsed through your reasoning, but I know what are you getting at because I had a similar view)

Doctor buffing was out of control and set an artificial standard for gears. It is kinda like a preview of what will happen to sports if there were no anti-doping agencies.

Originally posted by Burntvet

 

A lot of the /snipped stuff were symptoms of the same problem: SOE's inability to run a game over the long term. Doc buffs, and comp armor, and all the rest were not a huge problem, UNTIL the really high number value resources rolled around and that did not happen for a year or so on all servers. SOE simply did not test things out, using equipment approaching the max values, because they didn't think about it or that those values would be hit. 3k doc buffs were de-stablizing to overall game play, so was 90% comp and 500 per tick mind poison from CMs. Had they capped the max values of that stuff at some reasonable levels, or seen the need to do so, it would have prevented a whole lot of other problems. Instead SOE did one thing after another with no thought to what the overall and long-term gameplay consequences would be. Too bad SOE has no foresight, at all.

 To be fair I don't thik the resource system was pre-generated values - they are dynamic, unlike in most other games.

That why you see so many of those exceptional values are here 1 day and people will swoop to by those resources and gears and they will be gone the next.

It is quite difficult to test things in environment such as that.

If the resource system was like WoW where quality is static and availability doesn't fluctuate I would agree with you.

I think the dynamic resource and experimentation aspect of SWG pre-cu was that reason why SWG was loved by crafters in the first place.