Another One Bites the Dust: SWG Edition!

[Mrbloodworth]

Battle fatigue and related systems was great. 

[MournelitheCalix]

Not...exactly. You have to look a bit deeper. People are often, to be blunt, really confused about what they want. In games, especially complex ones, they often don't realize what would happen if they GOT what they wanted.

I respectfully disagree here.  I think the development of preCU SWG would have greatly benefitted after the first maximization patches by listening to the player base.  Many fixes that people were asking for and that the game greatly needed were summarily ignored and the player base correctly identified huge problems in the combat system. 

The biggest case in point was how mind was affected by combat.  Early on people saw how grossly overpowered states were and mind shots.  When BH's first started terrorizing people with eye shot was the first time that the dev team was alerted to a problem and they promptly ignored the base.  When eyeshot was "addressed" the problem had not only bloomed but graduated into a full fledge catastrophy when people started using the CM Mind disease and Mind poison abilities without any check.  Mind fire came later but that also went to show you instead of addressing the root problem that team made it a lot worse.

Had they listened early on, I think the CU would not have been deemed "necessary."  In turn many people like myself would not have left as early and disgruntled as we were.  The mind flaw was just one thing to, its important to note I could also say the same about Squad leaders, riflemen, carabineers, Bounty Hunters, stacking and crafting issues like DE, Armorsmith and Chef.  The team would have done well to listen to the many lists they were provided from feedback with their customers.

[DraconianOne]

EDIT: Really the problem with SWG was the SW part. Make it a fantasy game without all the expectations the Star Wars license places upon it, and I'd have probably played it. The developers wouldn't have felt like it needed to be NGE'd to be more "iconic", and it probably wouldn't be getting shut down right now.

Totally agree with you (but don't tell anyone).  SWG was about as Star Wars as my sweaty arse.

[Morat20]

I think I was unclear -- you may be right in specific cases but saying something that's close to "The customer is always right" in videogames is a generally bad idea.

Game's aren't like customer service, especially not when your loudest and most virulent feedback comes from a tiny, self-selecting sample (forums, mostly). However, if a single feature or gameplay element is causing 90% of your customers to complain -- by all means, look at it.

Just be aware your customers generally have no fucking idea what they really like and don't like about a given game. (Or, in some cases, know way the fuck too much). They know if they like it, but they couldn't coherently explain why they liked X better than Y in a way that'll help you design.

And to be honest, a lot of times they'll bitch about one thing but really mean something else. Whatever they're bitching about is just an icon for the real problem.

[Lantyssa]

IIRC, the "happiest" the SWG forums and playerbase ever was was during a six-month or so period when the Dev team did NOTHING but basically tackle, one after another, a serious of really annoying issues -- most of them simple bugs, bad GUI choices, and broken mechanics. There weren't a lot of fixes that altered gameplay, other than making it work 'as intended' more than anything.

Yes.  I believe that was the couple of months Gordon Walton was in charge.

[Goumindong]

I think I was unclear -- you may be right in specific cases but saying something that's close to "The customer is always right" in videogames is a generally bad idea.

Game's aren't like customer service, especially not when your loudest and most virulent feedback comes from a tiny, self-selecting sample (forums, mostly). However, if a single feature or gameplay element is causing 90% of your customers to complain -- by all means, look at it.

Just be aware your customers generally have no fucking idea what they really like and don't like about a given game. (Or, in some cases, know way the fuck too much). They know if they like it, but they couldn't coherently explain why they liked X better than Y in a way that'll help you design.

And to be honest, a lot of times they'll bitch about one thing but really mean something else. Whatever they're bitching about is just an icon for the real problem.

Unfortunately this also probably describes the design team as well.

[MournelitheCalix]

IIRC, the "happiest" the SWG forums and playerbase ever was was during a six-month or so period when the Dev team did NOTHING but basically tackle, one after another, a serious of really annoying issues -- most of them simple bugs, bad GUI choices, and broken mechanics. There weren't a lot of fixes that altered gameplay, other than making it work 'as intended' more than anything.

Yes.  I believe that was the couple of months Gordon Walton was in charge.

I remember that time to, it was after the DE "revamp" that caused DE's to quit the game.  SOETyrant  I believe he was called.  His changes made the game better and there was a perception that finally someone was listening.  Sadly I think he joined Vogel in SW:TOR almost immediately after taking over and things immediately went downhill.

[Lantyssa]

Unfortunately it's really hard to attribute a lot of changes to any one lead.  Besides some things being in the pipe for so long, we knew there were like five factions trying to impose their own vision on the game.  Other than bug fixes, which he posted about being one of his focuses, I don't know what good or bad he did.

So other than not changing the game from under your customers... having steady leadership helps, too.

[Surlyboi]

The guy I truly blame is Julio Torres from Lucasarts. Fucker seemed genuinely proud of the fucking NGE and actively trolled the complaint threads in the forums with what amounted to "we're not changing back, so you can suck it" posts.

[Rishathra]

I'm not sure how much actual blame I would direct towards him personally, but the guy was definitely a colossal douchebag.

[Tale]

The people you're all mentioning merely inherited SWG from its developers.

The original team disintegrated when beta was cut short. The new guys only had an initial roadmap: finish mounts, vehicles, and player cities.

After that, it was a cheap tattoo place adding to a Monet. What's with all the water lilies? Needs more tramp stamp.

[Sheepherder]

I think I was unclear -- you may be right in specific cases but saying something that's close to "The customer is always right" in videogames is a generally bad idea.

Game's aren't like customer service, especially not when your loudest and most virulent feedback comes from a tiny, self-selecting sample (forums, mostly). However, if a single feature or gameplay element is causing 90% of your customers to complain -- by all means, look at it.

Just be aware your customers generally have no fucking idea what they really like and don't like about a given game. (Or, in some cases, know way the fuck too much). They know if they like it, but they couldn't coherently explain why they liked X better than Y in a way that'll help you design.

And to be honest, a lot of times they'll bitch about one thing but really mean something else. Whatever they're bitching about is just an icon for the real problem.

You literally contradicted everything you said point by point in the same post.

Players almost always know what they don't want after the fact.  This is due to the fact that when a developer has a bad idea it's inevitably "I'm going to violate you with a sharp object and you're going to enjoy it" bad.

[Morat20]

You literally contradicted everything you said point by point in the same post.

Players almost always know what they don't want after the fact.  This is due to the fact that when a developer has a bad idea it's inevitably "I'm going to violate you with a sharp object and you're going to enjoy it" bad.

No, seriously players don't know for the most part. They can be specific -- like "I really hate X" and scream for hours about it. That's what they say. What they really dislike might be anything from "I hate the fact that X doesn't make me an uber PvP king" to "X isn't as good as my alt's Y, which seems like it should be the same" to "This class doesn't play the way I want".

Or it could be X is just a pointless suck mechanic. If you just change whatever they're bitching about, you'll fuck game balance and screw up a dozen things that are related to it. (Something the SWG developers seemed to do often). If you understand WHY they're bitching, you can change/alter or just plain ignore the bitching depending.

But you can't give players carte blanche to alter design, because they'll "alter it" into them winning 100% of the time. Which is, frankly, a boring game they'd quit.

[palmer_eldritch]

I ran a NWN server where many players said they wanted it to be hard to get XP and items because they wanted to play in a roleplaying server and not a monty-haul server where everyone was max level and carrying a dozen magic swords. They wanted a realistic world, where players couldn't just walk in to an orc stronghold and expect to wipe the orcs out.

The harder we made the world, the more they min-maxed, grinded, exploited and did anything other than stop and talk to each other (ie, roleplay).

[Morat20]

One of the things I admire Raph for is his willingness to actually sit down and try to figure out what the hell gamers want, and how to give it to them.

Which is hard because "fun" is nebulous. And while games and gameplay have long been studied, the things videogames and MMORPGs -- and social games like Puzzle Pirates or Farmville -- can let you do really expands that beyond the well-known studies. In a way, video games are cutting-edge sociology.

I'm surprised they're not studied more than they are, but you'd need to find good socialogists who are ALSO gamers, because outsiders seem to make the weirdest-ass assumptions.

Raph fucked up SWG. Let's be honest. He delivered a ridiculous fucking mess. And yet...it generated a sizeable number of die-hard fans who are still looking for that game. They want a better, more functioning game, but he managed to put something together that people liked despite the glaring flaws. Sure, they'd want more now -- video games have evolved, tastes have evolved, technology has evolved....

But something in the way he put it together spoke to a lot of people. UO you could, possibly, handwave away. it was the first. It was novel. It tapped into the MUD/MUSH folks and gave them "more". Things can get popular just because there's not a lot of choices, you know? Best of a bad lot can be better than nothing.

But SWG had it, or at least some of it. People are still arguing and bitching about SWG, and there doesn't seem to be anything like a "I loved the CU" or "I loved the NGE" crowd as there is a pre-CU crowd. There were people who liked CU better or NGE better, but I haven't found any, really, who didn't ditch the game for another that "did it better".

Maybe SWG was simply lack of choice for a sim-World/social-space type game. I think it was a bit more, that Raph was a bit ahead of the curve in realizing that social bonds could be encouraged, and that doing so made games stickier -- and generated devoted fans.

Trying to figure out what that X factor is, and how many people respond to it, and how to get their attention is the rub. I think a lot of this is just wild-ass guessing, luck, and good timing.

[Malakili]

I ran a NWN server where many players said they wanted it to be hard to get XP and items because they wanted to play in a roleplaying server and not a monty-haul server where everyone was max level and carrying a dozen magic swords. They wanted a realistic world, where players couldn't just walk in to an orc stronghold and expect to wipe the orcs out.

The harder we made the world, the more they min-maxed, grinded, exploited and did anything other than stop and talk to each other (ie, roleplay).

Which one, if you are willing to say?  I played on City of Arabel for a long time and it was pretty low magic, and while there was a lot of min maxing, there was also a LOT of RP. 

[palmer_eldritch]

I ran a NWN server where many players said they wanted it to be hard to get XP and items because they wanted to play in a roleplaying server and not a monty-haul server where everyone was max level and carrying a dozen magic swords. They wanted a realistic world, where players couldn't just walk in to an orc stronghold and expect to wipe the orcs out.

The harder we made the world, the more they min-maxed, grinded, exploited and did anything other than stop and talk to each other (ie, roleplay).

Which one, if you are willing to say?  I played on City of Arabel for a long time and it was pretty low magic, and while there was a lot of min maxing, there was also a LOT of RP.  

It was called Battledale. The server worked pretty well, but partly because we didn't always give people what they said they wanted. We stayed low magic, and we did it simply by not having many magic items in the game - not by making the items that existed hard to get. Making something difficult to obtain doesn't actually make it rare. If it's possible to get it then people will get it (assuming they keep playing). It just means they have to jump through hoops, and probably resent you for making them do it.

But it's a good example of the way that how people behave isn't the same as the how they say they behave.

[5150]

Uh, no. If the bitching is as universal as that the customer is almost certainly right. They're paying to have fun (in theory), a system like that is a huge anti-fun wall for most people.

I'll disagree with you here because no one knows where to draw the line and you can't define 'universal' as a forum community. Players would ask for faster levelling and/or easier to kill stuff and then they'd soon be bitching the game was too easy and that there were maxed level and bored because there was nothing to do/no challenge.

[WindupAtheist]

I forgot about enforced downtime. That would have kept me from ever playing regardless of literally anything else. Fuck that shit.

[Tale]

I forgot about enforced downtime. That would have kept me from ever playing regardless of literally anything else. Fuck that shit.

That seemed more about confusion. Here's how it worked:

* Health and Action wounds (part of hitpoint/energy pools turns black, reducing pool until healed): Instantly curable by a Doctor (in the field, using a medical droid or campsite). Many people mistakenly thought they had to visit a Medical Center. Others only used /tendwound, a newbie medic skill intended for those who hadn't yet crafted wound packs. Many also thought they had to sit around in the Medical Center or campsite, which slowly healed you, point by point, over time.

* Mind wounds (affecting third hitpoint/energy pool) and Battle Fatigue (reduces effectiveness of heals on you): Curable fast by watching/listening to someone with dancer/musician skills (higher skill = faster heal), in the field by setting up a campsite, or in a Cantina (type of building in player city or NPC city). But many people relied on the newbie entertainers who healed you more slowly in an NPC city cantina, or sat alone in camps trying to heal themselves.

Seriously, I used to walk my Doctor into Medical Centers and one-shot cure the noobs who were sitting around having "enforced downtime". I'd get reactions like "what did you just DO to me?".

Another thing people didn't understand was that you needed to clone (create a bind point). If you died and respawned at your clone point, there was no penalty other than short-term rez effect. But if you just respawned somewhere else or without cloning, you took major health/action/mind wounds. This led to people accumulating all-black HAM (I levelled up by curing them). Many people were also unaware Doctors could resurrect in the field, as the Doctors they knew sat on their asses in cities spamming "20k for buffs".

On PvP raids, we'd have a couple of doctors behind walls doing cures, rezzes and rebuffs (drag the fallen person's corpse to them) and an entertainer in a campsite over a nearby hill, so we could keep fighting. You could destroy us by figuring this out, but most people didn't.

The SWG downtime system worked, but it may have been too complex.

[Morat20]

The SWG downtime system worked, but it may have been too complex.

Let's go with "Poorly Documented". And also "Shit NPC alternative". Sitting slowly in the medical center was too slow. Pay-to-heal droids and entertainers in the cities would have worked. People in the field would have preferred a campsite and handy doctor/entertainer, since it'd be quick and then back into the action.

People who hit ghost hours would just need to pop back to a city every hour or so and spend a bit. As long as PC's, in the city or out, were better and quicker....

But yeah, lots of people didn't know how it worked and the game was very bad on educating players to what was a complex mechanic, at least for MMORPGs.

[Ingmar]

Is it just me or did you just say 'there wasn't actually forced downtime' and then go on to describe the mind healing as being forced downtime?

EDIT: It sounds like at a minimum people were dependent on other players for healing, unless they themselves were Doctors?

[Soln]

Is it just me or did you just say 'there wasn't actually forced downtime' and then go on to describe the mind healing as being forced downtime?

EDIT: It sounds like at a minimum people were dependent on other players for healing, unless they themselves were Doctors?

correct, which is why one popular FOTM was Master Doctor / Master Rifleman.

[Tale]

Is it just me or did you just say 'there wasn't actually forced downtime' and then go on to describe the mind healing as being forced downtime?

EDIT: It sounds like at a minimum people were dependent on other players for healing, unless they themselves were Doctors?

correct, which is why one popular FOTM was Master Doctor / Master Rifleman.

It's not correct.

1. I didn't say "there wasn't actually forced downtime". I said confusion/complexity seemed to convince people it was a bigger problem than it was.

2. You didn't need to be a Doctor to heal. I'm sorry I gave that impression - I was speaking as someone who played as a Master Doctor. It was a game where you chose skills from different trees, so if you didn't include any medical skills at all, you were deciding to be reliant on other players for healing.

3. The base medical profession was Medic (generic heal/cure/crafter). Mastering this led to Doctor (close-range heal/buff/cure/crafter) and Combat Medic (long-range heal/poison/disease/crafter). The higher you went up one of the Medic trees, the better crafted heal packs you could use. You needed Doctor skills to craft the better ones, but Medics could obtain and use more powerful medicines from Doctors. e.g. I sold Stimpack B, usable by novice medics, crafted from the best possible resources and experimented on as a Master Doctor, meaning they could deliver big heals.

4. Master Doctor/Master Rifleman sounds like overkill if it's just so you can buff and heal, as you could do this without spending points on medical crafting skills. Probably another result of confusion over complexity.

I don't want to paint SWG as teh bestest gaem evar. I found my fun there and I think it had a lot more to offer than people realise, but it had big problems.

[Surlyboi]

TKMs could also meditate all their wounds away. There were multiple ways to get rid of those black bars.

[Shatter]

TKM's were a great class but my favorite was combat medic.  Before they nerfed the ability to throw poisons threw a wall you could literally take out a raid party and not even get into LOS lol.  Good times good times

[Morat20]

TKMs could also meditate all their wounds away. There were multiple ways to get rid of those black bars.

TKM was quite awesome for that. Very solo-friendly class. I think you needed the Master box for that particular skill, which balanced it out somewhat.

[Surlyboi]

Just master meditation. Which was always the first line I went up after getting the TK line opened.

[Soln]

Is it just me or did you just say 'there wasn't actually forced downtime' and then go on to describe the mind healing as being forced downtime?

EDIT: It sounds like at a minimum people were dependent on other players for healing, unless they themselves were Doctors?

correct, which is why one popular FOTM was Master Doctor / Master Rifleman.

It's not correct.

1. I didn't say "there wasn't actually forced downtime". I said confusion/complexity seemed to convince people it was a bigger problem than it was.

2. You didn't need to be a Doctor to heal. I'm sorry I gave that impression - I was speaking as someone who played as a Master Doctor. It was a game where you chose skills from different trees, so if you didn't include any medical skills at all, you were deciding to be reliant on other players for healing.

3. The base medical profession was Medic (generic heal/cure/crafter). Mastering this led to Doctor (close-range heal/buff/cure/crafter) and Combat Medic (long-range heal/poison/disease/crafter). The higher you went up one of the Medic trees, the better crafted heal packs you could use. You needed Doctor skills to craft the better ones, but Medics could obtain and use more powerful medicines from Doctors. e.g. I sold Stimpack B, usable by novice medics, crafted from the best possible resources and experimented on as a Master Doctor, meaning they could deliver big heals.

4. Master Doctor/Master Rifleman sounds like overkill if it's just so you can buff and heal, as you could do this without spending points on medical crafting skills. Probably another result of confusion over complexity.

I don't want to paint SWG as teh bestest gaem evar. I found my fun there and I think it had a lot more to offer than people realise, but it had big problems.

uh I think we're both correct.  There was a forced handicap by wounds -- that was the temporary death penalty, which didn't expire on a timer but needed player action to refill pool(s).  And it's correct that you didn't need to be just a Doctor to heal Agil/Health wounds like you say.  I think the complexity probably was lack of documentation and/or lack of incentive for others to help you (when they weren't levelling heal xp)?  I dunno. 

I've often wondered how many of the problems could be tied to a crafting game whose output wasn't calibrated enough.  Certainly the over-reliance on powerful med buffs affected combat, as did uber poisons with CM's, Krayt Pistols, etc. 

[Morat20]

I've often wondered how many of the problems could be tied to a crafting game whose output wasn't calibrated enough.  Certainly the over-reliance on powerful med buffs affected combat, as did uber poisons with CM's, Krayt Pistols, etc. 

Supposedly -- and I'm using the word loosely here -- the original HAM design was fast-regenerating HAM, which meant what would end a fight was wound accumulation.

HAM was supposed to be closer to something like Focus in WoW -- skills would drain some of one or more of the pools, and when you ran a pool out you couldn't do anything (basically a self-stun, although I can't remember if you merely weren't able to use skills or if you dropped like a knockdown) until a few moments had passed and it had regenerated.

Running a pool out would give you a wound, whether it was because the guy attacking you had emptied your mind pool with his specials, or you ran it out youself spamming a special -- and when you had enough wounds, you dropped, end of fight.

You'd rez, heal the wounds, and head back.

Since regen never worked at anything like the correct speed they just made running a pool out be the fight-ender, instead of forcing a breather, and it ended up with massive buffs to take make it work. (Buffs to size, buffs to regen, etc).

Lastly, I don't think *anyone* ever ran the numbers on most crafting. There should have been a spreadsheet of minimum, maximum, and average crafting results for every product (not like paintings and furniture, but guns, armor, foods, buffs, etc), and the same for their combines (yes, it would have taken a lot of work. It was necessary) so that developers could see how good weapons, armor, etc could end up.

And with the understanding that the trend line would be towards the maximum, not hovering around the minimum, as crafters hoarded and stockpiled higher-end components.

Somehow, i don't think anyone had the time to vet the final crafting numbers properly.

[Ginaz]

TKMs could also meditate all their wounds away. There were multiple ways to get rid of those black bars.

TKM was quite awesome for that. Very solo-friendly class. I think you needed the Master box for that particular skill, which balanced it out somewhat.

TKM was my favourite profession to combine with BH to go after Jedi, pre-cu.  Since no armor had lightsaber resists, the unarmed toughness mitigated some of the damage.  The dizzy/knock down ability was also nice.  I was a master at keeping people on the ground for a good part of the fight (one guy was down the whole time) and TKM enabled you put multiple states onto an opponent.  And yeah, the meditation ability was very nice and had a fairly cool looking animation as well.

[WindupAtheist]

Any downtime more than stopping to eat a cheeseburger to restore health/mana and I'm out regardless of what else a game has or does.

[Morat20]

Any downtime more than stopping to eat a cheeseburger to restore health/mana and I'm out regardless of what else a game has or does.

The downtime there was functionally equivilant, or at least if it had worked as designed, to the "downtime" of armor repair in WoW. Except having a medic, entertainer, and scout (One person could be all three of those, at least enough for jazz) could fix it in the field -- like a repair bot.

[Ratman_tf]

This all seems strangely familiar...

[WindupAtheist]

The whole entertainer thing just sounds like a total pants-on-head Raphism.