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mattst 6/02/05 7:35:56 PM
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Novice Member
Joined: 3/14/05 |
Here are some of the problems or reasons why i felt i had to leave swg for another game 1 The CU was pushed out around 5 days before the due date with little warning and at the time i was grinding jedi and would have been done before the CU came out. I would have like some time to play the old game with my jedi before it changed forever. 2 The CU hits ok lets log in and try out grinding jedi get missions move to first lair bols easy i did not need a buff anymore to kill these. Move in for the attack ok lets take this nice and slow hit one level 80 like me hang on here its taking a while to kill before the CU ot would take seconds and then the others start to attack had to force run away before i was killed. Right lets look at that again i had the right food or at least the right food before the CU and no buffs anymore so cant be that reason why an easy kill now kicks my butt. Ok next lets try something a little below my level find a level 78 2 levels below me so i attack its on its own should be no problem to a level 80 jedi well 10 minutes later i win hang on where is my xps look in the combat log i get none for something that takes me ten minutes to kill. 3 Leave my jedi to try my other alt change him to a BH with carbines that looks like a nice combo plus i have loads of nice weapons that cost me a fair packet but whats this they are now crap so i have spent hours getting the money and the K/Tissues to make these weapons for nothing. Next armor got loads of nice composite armor but hang on again under the new system all armor does is look nice mights has well run around in your underpants. But then again at least i can kill stuff with this one so i learn a little bit about the icons with this toon and will log in my jedi latter to try again. 4 Next stage i have been on for a few hours now and think i am getting the hang of it a bit more so log on the jedi and head out but not get any missions Dantooine is full of things to kill for xps. Success i kill a quacker and get 900 odd xps but it took me over 20 mins with having to run and heal a few times so how the hell am i going to get the 3-4 million xps i need to finish my grind? 5 All on the same day its now been 6 to 7 hours and i am getting the fealing that this game is now dead to me how can i even think about grinding jedi and getting maybe 20000 xps per hour instead of the 200000 i was getting before the CU so i head back to my home city on my bike and then bang i was killed in one hit by a hurtun when i went past it on my bike great now i have lost 200000 xps so i now have -xps to try and get back cheers SOE. 6 Day 2 whats this the server i am on is down and there are people saying we are getting a roll back of anything upto 7 DAYS. Don't worry i think its just panic when it comes back up everything will be fine and maybe i will be able to grind again. Well no when it comes back up i have lost all the xps i have grinded over the last 7 days which was over 3 million plus I have also now lost my ADK which was not even working on my lightsaber anymore the day before but we were told it would be fixed ok send in a ticket and see what they say. The reply comes and its the same cut and paste job everyone esle was getting saying we are very sorry for your lossed xps and items but there is nothing we can do. Now hang on here i was only days away from finishing my grind and now i am months away if it takes me 20 mins to get 900 odd xps. At this stage i am so mad i could cry. So what do SOE offer us x4 xps for one week big deal. There is no way i could make that back under the new system even if it was x10 xps per kill. Some say you have to group now to kill things like we used to be able to do but you cant group if you are a jedi without getting on the terms and with BH being the new TKA you wont last long which means you are going to lose more xps then you gain. So to sum it all up these are my main reasons/problems why i left 1 Can not grind jedi anymore. 2 Weapons and i worked hard to get and now usless. 3 Armor is now not needed, 4 Food is now not needed. 5 Whichs mean that the crafting side of swg of which i had an alt to do is now pretty much worthless. 6 I need to learn everthing again which will mean i will get killed and lose even more xps. 7 I don't wish to pay for a game which is still more or less in beta form. 8 Why should i play a game in which SOE really don't care how they treat you just has long has the money is coming in. I am sure there are more but i cant think of them all right now. Plus for give any spelling mistakes that is not one of my strong points. I now play WOW. Been so for around 5 weeks its not bad the PvP can be great and sometimes it can make you scream when you get killed by someone with ?? above there head ( those who play WOW will know what thats means) But SWG in its old form was in my opinion a lot better but lacked the pick up and play feal of WOW.
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SinisterCB 6/02/05 7:44:53 PM
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Novice Member
Joined: 5/30/05 |
Please clarify. You say the game is dumber, but you don't say why - and I'm having a hard time seeing how taking down three Krayt dragons while in another room drinking coffee by a pure crafter could possibly be smarter than something that requires, no, demands team work, attentiveness, and adaptability. How is it dumber? Please tell me, because my pitiful skills using logic and facts don't seem up to the task. I can clarify this. Read this article: http://pc.ign.com/articles/610/610552p1.html And I quote: "Let's make combat more fun and less mechanical. Let's take away some of the distraction that people have to get through and let them walk into the fight and click once and start battling something really fun." Debysue Wolfcale Sony marketing manager
I think thats what Squidi was talking about being dumb. Click once......Dumb is an understatement
LMAO Now all you have to do is click once and battle. What a moron. Here is a good lie from Dallas Dickinson, Sony Online producer and here is the Q&A: IGNPC: Let's talk about the practical implementation of the upgrade. Why did you guys decide to go live with it when you did?
Dallas Dickinson: We've been testing it for a full month, both internally and on the test center. We were simply not at the point of getting enough feedback from people.
What kind of shit is that? What kind of shit is that:? You test a game for a month? OMG what a f(*&cking moron. We gave them feedback all along!!!!!!!
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| "I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB |
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kefkah 6/02/05 8:40:04 PM
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Hard Core Member
Joined: 9/22/04
Foramu Otaku |
Originally posted by Squidi --> First of all .... if you check the SWG section of this forum you will see that I am one of the most active supporters of SWG and the combat revamp, so these comments are not from a SWG flamer or hater, but from a realistic SWG veteran.
SOE, why did you ignore your fans? We didn't. We listened as much as we were able, but there were so many voices that wanted so many different things. --> Why not listening to the profession correspondents then, who not only compiled once, but maybe 10 times already detailed, priorized to-do lists ? Listening to 30 people is much easier than to 300k players. And some of the non-correspondents have drafted detailed, constructive, well-thought out design papers for enhancements to the game ... which the correspondents tried to bring to the attention of the dev team. --> Why did you not do CU Alpha testing with the chosen sandbox teams ? All dedicated veteran players (many who had done a dozen professions or more, which means they would have not been totally fixed on their own profession). To put it into perspective .. I have been neither a correspondent nor one of the sandbox team members, so this argument stems NOT from being bitter about being ignored. And believe me, both these groups HAVE been bitter about it. As programmers, we were more intimately aware of what was possible given the time and manpower we had than the players. As designers, we were interested in making all classes viable, meaning that we had to nerf some other classes. Obviously, though better for the greater good of the game, it is not in the best interest of those who play those classes. At least in this situation, we couldn't play favorites and had to make the tough decisions that the fans didn't want. Let's face it, given the chance, most players would recommend suggestions that would make their class more powerful, make more money, and deliver more status - and that's just not possible. It's not that we didn't listen, it's that we couldn't agree with every one of the millions of voices. SOE, why did you ban people for expressing their anti-CU opinion? Because they weren't doing it constructively. --> Many were doing it constructively. And no one listened. And no one seemed to care. And some representatives at fan gatherings speaking about "only 50 people dont like CU" did not help either. So people got more radical in their means of expression. They were being loud and unruly, and they were ruining the playing experience of others - even going so far as to intentionally crash a few of the servers. --> I absolutely agree with in game server crash gatherings. However, I and MANY others cannot understand the heavy handed forum thread delete policy and player banning (temp or perma) policy. And then to have the chuzpe to claim that criticism is dying out (no wonder when the critics have been banned, their posts deleted .. or they cancelled and are losing their forum access). It's regretable, but we have to think about the majority of our fanbase, and despite some rather loud anti-CU protestors, the majority either didn't have an opinion --> no opinion is not automatically a positive opinion. You lost thousands of players , many having never posted on forums at all. or had a positive one. SOE, why did you clone Everquest 2's combat system? One of our primary goals with the CU was to make combat more interactive. None of this setting up a combat queue and running off to do chores, only to come back and have killed a Krayt dragon. The obvious solution was to make the combat queue only one command long - you can queue the next action, but nothing more. The other solution was to have a bunch of state changing attacks that had major, though very temporary effects on combat. For instance, a melee character can tank better with "Center of Being", which is a 20 second long boost to melee defense. At the very least, you have to reactivate it every 20 seconds. Do that with several skills and you've got to manage combat directly. It wasn't so much an effort to clone EQ2's combat as it was an effort to make combat more interactive and exciting. I think we've succeeded. --> Many people here think you tried hard, then ran out of time and then had to implement what some called an "angry bag with varying skins" design. And an abitrary level difference based modifier that totally dominates the combat system and makes quality of skills, weapons, armor almost irrelevant. And one fact has been obvious ... none of the planets made it into live servers with ANY balancing passes .. as the many level 100-300 mobs one-hit incapping everyone in the first post-Cu weeks showed us. I am not sure if they are all gone til now (--> Corvette boarding quests are unplayable because of it with level 194 Super Battle Droids). We've even tried to balance ranged professions by making them run slower while attacking, and made it so armor has a significant impact on your character's movement and rate of fire at early levels. SOE, why did you put levels into the game? To be fair, levels were already in the game. --> We never had problems with levels. They have been in the game for years now. But the new level difference based modifier dominating everything at the moment ... making quality of equipment more or less irrelevant (which caused A LOT of anger amongst the crafter population) ... which the developers introduced hasty and late in testing ... THAT has caused an insane amount of wailing and teeth gnashing and despair. It just does not fit as well as it should be. They just weren't quite as important - but then, in THAT game, you could have no combat training at all, find buffs and perfect composite armor, and solo the biggest and baddest enemies in the game. We didn't want this, but that's the problem with skill based games. People will always find the quickest route to the end, and that becomes the dominant strategy. Frankly, we put in levels to prevent that. No matter how much stat crunching you do, you still won't be taking Krayt dragons as a pure crafter, nor should you. We also had issues with players going up in skill boxes and not feeling any more powerful. The CL has fixed this by giving a number to it. This should make the act of leveling up more tangible and enjoyable. It should also help new players to the game understand, at least at first, what kind of creatures you can attack out in the expansive and unbalanced wilds. But mostly, we did it so that we could balance new content faster. With such a broad and varied system as all these professions, that any character can be part of multiple ones, it becomes very difficult to balance. --> After 2 YEARS !!! you can expect SOME balance. Difficult or not, people have been VERY patient with the dev team. And SWG is STILL a huge beta test that people pay for. You have to take into account every combination, even the dumb ones. For instance, shouldn't a Pikeman Bounty Hunter be possible, even if Bounty Hunter has a majority of ranged skills? How would you balance it to make sure that all players can play the professions they want and still be successful? And more over, by using a standard by which to judge our own mobs, we can create and balance new areas at a much quicker rate. SWG has a lack of dungeons and theme parks - perhaps the first thing that most new MMORPG players expect - and we could pump those out faster and at a higher quality. --> Very much needed ... and I hope thats true. RotW was a step in the right direction. Instanced areas with intersting stories are the way to go on the other planets. Yeah, combat levels took something away, but we feel that the benefits that it brings to the table overwhelmingly recommend it. SOE, why aren't you fixing bug XXX and instead introducing new vehicles? Because bug fixing doesn't require our fully staffed art department and they need something to do. We've also got different teams dedicated to bug fixing, live content updates, and expansions. Now that the CU has gone live, we've moved that team around into the other departments, making them larger and soon, more capable. But it takes time to train these guys for their new responsibilities. Much of our staff was hired in December and have been single mindedly focused on a different function than bug fixing. You would not believe how absolutely unbelievably large and complex the SWG codebase is. --> Oh, we DO believe. And we DO know. Quite a lot of us ARE working in software engineering and project management with programs having an insane amount of code lines (SAP anyone ?). Even in the creative field (computer gaming). And we KNOW that things have NOT been shiny and perfect in SWG by any standards. You have very much need for improvement in QA, CRM, project management and cracking before pressure from the marketing department. Tracking down bugs is a nightmare, and if you don't yet know the system, it's even worse. --> There ARE professional tools for that. Are they used ? There ARE professional QA teams for that. Are they employed to do SWG testing ? There are international quality standards in the software industry .. has the team been certified in any of those standards which WILL improve product quality !? Bug fixing is a strange thing. For instance, balance issues are not bugs, and require the input and internal testing of our design team. Obviously, this takes more time than a simple bug fix. Some bug fixes require changes to some very important parts of the system, and require a lot of effort to fix and not break the game further. Some are just about impossible to reproduce on our equipment, or otherwise very difficult to track down. We base our bug fixing priorities on how easy it is to fix the bug and how severe it is. The game breaking stuff gets fixed as fast as humanly possible. Some of these other bugs that players are demanding (even terrorizing us about) are easily bypassed or otherwise merely frustrating. The game is still playable and the effort required to track down and stop the bug is not worth it when there are stability issues that need addressing first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We will eventually get to the bugs, but we've got more important things to focus our attention on at the moment. SOE, are you in league with Satan? We're trying as hard as we can to deliver the best game that we can. --> That I believe 100 %. That you dont succeed as you should tells me that your team is too small or underfunded or both. Which means Sony or Lucasarts or both are milking too much profit out of SWG and standards suffer. Which is a problem of management, not the coders. We aren't perfect, but we are working hard. --> Have fun, Erillion
This, my fellow mmorpgers, deserves a QFE. Here is the kicker and the million dollar question. Why are we here asking you to ask the questions? Even the guys and girls who have supported the CU? Because simply - SOE will not listen to us and if they are - there is no evidence to help support the claim. Whether or not we know it, we are here because we ware hoping you can get them to realize that all we want is open dialogue. The myraid of ideas, bug reports, warnings, suggestions and so on are almost never looked into. Instead, we have fixes put in place that hurt other professions, patches that are not tested and unleashed upon us (which I might add we are not compensated for the downtime - though such an act is now becoming a standard in many other mmorpgs) and then we are given statements from SOE that we aren't giving feedback. I promise you that I was there during the CU beta. Everyday I posted and they got to the point where they would just empty the thread and allow us to post again - the time stamp showing us that all that was going on was a massive delete at the end of the day. That hurt me personally because I was really trying. |
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Squidi 6/02/05 9:58:40 PM
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Novice Member
Joined: 5/16/05 |
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