Another One Bites the Dust: SWG Edition!

[Morat20]

I'm not seeing the downside here.

It's basically asking, in WoW, for a single character to be the best tank, best healer, best crowd control, and best DPS in the game. And also to be able to craft jewels, mine, harvest hide, do leatherwork, do tailoring, and do enchanting. I'm not aware of any game with crafting that lets you be the whole supply chain.

The skill system in SWG meant you could be the best at any given niche, create your own hybrid, or whatever. If you got bored, you could change it.

If you just wanted to be a crafter and never leave a player town? Don't bother with combat skills at all. Don't like crafting? Use all those points for combat. There were tradeoffs, of course, 'cause you didn't have unlimited skill points. Just like in WoW there are trade-offs -- you can be DPS or Tank or Healer or some mix, but if you're the mix you're not as good as the pure characters.

The variety was really good -- you had flavor of the month templates, of course, and variants -- DPS stackers, defense stackers, etc -- but most people seemed to pick up a collection of skills that worked for them.

I ended up with a solo type character, at the end -- TKM meant I didn't really have a problem with combat. I had enough scout to harvest meat, bone and hide. I had enough artisan and merchant to survey, place factories and excavaters, and have loot vendors. I had enough Creature Handler to tame creatures, though I was working my way up to being able to make them into mounts when I quit.

It fit exactly my play style. My friend, also tended to solo, was Master Ranger, Master Rifleman and...something else? My wife was working on bioengineer with her Wookie. She'd done medic, some doctor, and some dancer -- she was all over the place and barely combat capable, but then she only played when me and my friend were teamed up. (Made her darn useful in camp, though).

Edited to add: If you hate all team sports, game mechanics with character classes, and economic gameplay -- I think the type of game you want is called "Single Player". :)

[Raph]

Well, that's fair. In SWG, it was much more about asynchronous contact and about weak ties, meaning it didn't have to be your friends, and didn't have to be trusted people. It wasn't like a raid group or the challenges of PUGs in class-based MMOs.

[WindupAtheist]

And if you wanted to craft but also at some point wanted to pewpew in a Star Wars game? NO FUCK YOU I'M RAPH KOSTER AND YOU'RE AN ANT IN MY ANT FARM NOW BITCH, WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

[Amaron]

stuff

The fact that you wrote all that in response actually makes me feel terribly guilty for not using a  face.

[Morat20]

And if you wanted to craft but also at some point wanted to pewpew in a Star Wars game? NO FUCK YOU I'M RAPH KOSTER AND YOU'RE AN ANT IN MY ANT FARM NOW BITCH, WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

*raises hand*

I did both of those. At the same time even. I didn't pew-pew though, since Pistoleer was fucked up. :)

Amaron: I liked the skill system. I liked the flexibilty and the ability to change. I wish more games used something like that, instead of locking you into a class and forcing you to have a zillion alts. I also realize it's a bitch to balance and complex as shit, and DIKU frankly works. :)

[Raph]

And if you wanted to craft but also at some point wanted to pewpew in a Star Wars game? NO FUCK YOU I'M RAPH KOSTER AND YOU'RE AN ANT IN MY ANT FARM NOW BITCH, WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

You had plenty of skill points to pewpew and craft and some left over to do even more. Seriously, it wasn't that big an issue in practice.

[Sky]

I think I did a short rant about not having crafting and adventure trees separate at some point in SWG.

But I like to 'cheat' at crafting. I want to have enough characters to cover all the crafting components and a shared inventory system to move items back and forth.

That said, SWG was one of the better games at actually being able to find components from others reliably (though quality was not guaranteed, obviously).

[Ingmar]

The reasoning is pretty simple: there are two reasons to have multiple characters. One is to try everything, and the other is to cheat.

In the case of a game design with player interdependence and team-based PvP, the impetus to cheat is really really strong. Instead of working with others for supply chains, you'd do the whole chain yourself. Instead of knowing that an area was infested with Rebels but being unsure of how to scout it, you'd bring in your Reb mule and waltz through.

The "try everything" aspect is still a great reason to do it, don't get me wrong. That's why we let you drop skills and change. What you're really saying is "you want to do it all at once." Which immediately plays against interdependence and team dynamics.

90% of people want to try everything. 90% of those people don't want to have to dump stuff they have a ton of time investment in to try something new. Numbers obviously pulled out of my ass, but I think they probably roughly approximate reality. Respeccing is great, resetting a skill grind to zero is not, if that's what is being described.

[Morat20]

90% of people want to try everything. 90% of those people don't want to have to dump stuff they have a ton of time investment in to try something new. Numbers obviously pulled out of my ass, but I think they probably roughly approximate reality. Respeccing is great, resetting a skill grind to zero is not, if that's what is being described.

In practice it didn't really work out quite that badly, because you never 'started over'. You always had your cash, your gear, and because you could remove individual boxes, you were basically training a new talent without suddenly being a newb again. Say youyou were a Rifleman/Carbineer and wanted to drop Carbineer to take up TK. You'd only drop enough carbineer skills (if you  needed to at all) to take novice brawler and work up the brawl tree, dropping Carbineer boxes only when you had the unarmed XP to buy a new brawler box.

Which meant you'd generally keep all your defense stacking, to-hit bonuses, etc until you were replacing them with the new ones. The various "types" of XP were a bit of a pain, but it also meant you could bank them.

Personally I would have added an XP bonus to anyone who'd previously had, oh, a Master's box in a related skill (Like if you were a Master Rifleman, ranged Weapon XP would come faster) and MUCH faster XP to relearn a skill you'd once had. There was sort of the latter, in that you could keep some amount of XP even after you'd dropped the boxes. I don't remember what it was, but it was enough to pick up a box or two straight off if you went back.

[Amaron]

Sort of ontopic regarding one character per server:

I have to laugh a little that Raph basically had to go from getting fucked over by clownshoe retarded flatfiles (UO) to getting fucked over by Oracle (SWG).

[Rasix]

90% of people want to try everything. 90% of those people don't want to have to dump stuff they have a ton of time investment in to try something new. Numbers obviously pulled out of my ass, but I think they probably roughly approximate reality. Respeccing is great, resetting a skill grind to zero is not, if that's what is being described.

In practice it didn't really work out quite that badly, because you never 'started over'. You always had your cash, your gear, and because you could remove individual boxes, you were basically training a new talent without suddenly being a newb again. Say youyou were a Rifleman/Carbineer and wanted to drop Carbineer to take up TK. You'd only drop enough carbineer skills (if you  needed to at all) to take novice brawler and work up the brawl tree, dropping Carbineer boxes only when you had the unarmed XP to buy a new brawler box.

Which meant you'd generally keep all your defense stacking, to-hit bonuses, etc until you were replacing them with the new ones. The various "types" of XP were a bit of a pain, but it also meant you could bank them.

Personally I would have added an XP bonus to anyone who'd previously had, oh, a Master's box in a related skill (Like if you were a Master Rifleman, ranged Weapon XP would come faster) and MUCH faster XP to relearn a skill you'd once had. There was sort of the latter, in that you could keep some amount of XP even after you'd dropped the boxes. I don't remember what it was, but it was enough to pick up a box or two straight off if you went back.

Sweet merciful Cthulhu.  

[eldaec]

You had plenty of skill points to pewpew and craft and some left over to do even more. Seriously, it wasn't that big an issue in practice.

On a casual level this is true.

Problem was to get ~serious buisiness~ on any activity, especially crafting, required that you absolutely fill every box in a profession so you could reach Master, which typically added 30% to everything and made something of a mockery of the 'you can mix and match' ideal. After pre-reqs you could basically pick two professions.

I remember seeing the overweighted master boxes just before launch was the first moment I realised this was turning into a bit of a confused mess - felt like too many people trying to pull it different directions.

The "try everything" aspect is still a great reason to do it, don't get me wrong. That's why we let you drop skills and change. What you're really saying is "you want to do it all at once." Which immediately plays against interdependence and team dynamics.

EVE did this better
 - Add 'stuff' quicker than you can train it all.
 - In industry just have so much esoteric shit going on and keep lathering it on so nobody can realistically do it all.
 - In combat rely on the fact that you can only use one set of gear at a time to define roles.

I can't imagine ever permanently dropping anything that took a genuine grind to get in the first place (fuck weaponsmith).

[WindupAtheist]

It's basically asking, in WoW, for a single character to be the best tank, best healer, best crowd control, and best DPS in the game. And also to be able to craft jewels, mine, harvest hide, do leatherwork, do tailoring, and do enchanting. I'm not aware of any game with crafting that lets you be the whole supply chain.

One can make a shitload of characters in WoW and do pretty much every crafting profession if they want to, but there's still plenty of stuff on the auction house because nobody but a poopsock 5% actually wants to do all that shit.

[Paelos]

Yep, most people play a couple of characters, pick the profs that complement them, and move on with their lives.

[eldaec]

. I'm not aware of any game with crafting that lets you be the whole supply chain.

There's UO, EVE, Atitd, and almost everything else bar the EQ clones.

EDIT : In fact, I don't remember even EQ forcing you to pick a crafter class?

[Ingmar]

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that one character to a server *hurts* community, not builds it. If I feel like doing something else on a given night, I have to go do it on another server where my character built for that activity is, which takes me *away* from everyone I know. That's as anti-community as it gets.

[Morat20]

Yep, most people play a couple of characters, pick the profs that complement them, and move on with their lives.

Which is, you know, what most people in SWG did. :)

You didn't think my TKM/some Merchant/Some Scout/Some CH was a flavor of the month, did you? :)

Ingmar: I can see your point, but my experience in WoW and SWG doesn't really support it. There seemed to be a lot more community in SWG than in WoW. That could just be player cities and houses. Frankly the lack of alts never seemed to be that big a deal. The handful of people so dang anal that they HAD to have multiple toons to cover all their crafting 'in house' or have a dedicated crafting and a dedicated combat toon bought two boxes.

95% of people just found a template they liked had fun doing whatever.

There were a lot of things wrong with the game (and your point about the huge Mastery bonuses is quite true -- it certainly had the feel of something slapped on at the end when they realized they'd never get the skill system working to their original ideas, or that their original ideas had some gamebreaking issues), but of all of them -- the lack of alts didn't really seem to be one of them.

As designed, the only people that really needed them were the ones who got them -- jedi, and that's because Jedi were supposed to be hunted. Not that that worked too well.

[Crumbs]

And if you wanted to craft but also at some point wanted to pewpew in a Star Wars game? NO FUCK YOU I'M RAPH KOSTER AND YOU'RE AN ANT IN MY ANT FARM NOW BITCH, WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

So your issue is with the single character slot.  I agree, that was restrictive.

[Bunk]

You had plenty of skill points to pewpew and craft and some left over to do even more. Seriously, it wasn't that big an issue in practice.

On a casual level this is true.

Problem was to get ~serious buisiness~ on any activity, especially crafting, required that you absolutely fill every box in a profession so you could reach Master, which typically added 30% to everything and made something of a mockery of the 'you can mix and match' ideal. After pre-reqs you could basically pick two professions.

I remember seeing the overweighted master boxes just before launch was the first moment I realised this was turning into a bit of a confused mess - felt like too many people trying to pull it different directions.

The "try everything" aspect is still a great reason to do it, don't get me wrong. That's why we let you drop skills and change. What you're really saying is "you want to do it all at once." Which immediately plays against interdependence and team dynamics.

I'll agree with eldaec here. I for example made what I intended to be a primarily social character, focused on tailoring (I have no idea why). Quickly figured out that in order to "matter" in the whole dynamic of the world, you had no choice but to master whatever profession you chose. I dabbled in the various entertainer trees for a bit, but ultimately dropped 90% of it because I just didn't have any room for it if I wanted to focus on crafting and still be able to leave town.

Maybe it was too much to ask to have a viable Tailor/Entertainer that could still shoot a blaster well enough to survive an encounter with a lone Tuskan Raider (I couldn't). So I dropped the entertaining almost completely and learned a few trees of combat skills. I still sucked at it, but at least I could explore a planet a bit.

It's too bad really, I get the idea for the single slot. The problem was, I loathed the idea of completely rewriting a character. If I spend the time to build a character up as one profession, I sure as hell didn't want to trash all those boxes to start a new one. I'm one of those guys who had four level 35 WoW characters at the same time. It wasn't about twinking, or muling - it was about wanting to experience different aspects of the game.

Oh, and the whole idea of leveling a character through every profession to unlock Jedi. I just still shake my head at that. Being able to make a change, move in a different direction as a character grows is one thing - but to just power through every single class? Why would I even bother naming such a character?

[Lantyssa]

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that one character to a server *hurts* community, not builds it. If I feel like doing something else on a given night, I have to go do it on another server where my character built for that activity is, which takes me *away* from everyone I know. That's as anti-community as it gets.

It didn't work out that way.  You either didn't do that other activity or you changed professions over the course of a few weeks.  I've never seen a stronger community in a game than SWG.

[Samwise]

That said, SWG was one of the better games at actually being able to find components from others reliably (though quality was not guaranteed, obviously).

But the way the profession trees worked, you needed to have ALL the skill boxes in a profession (meaning you could craft any component that you might use) to get the Master box needed to be able to do ANYTHING in that profession at the highest level.  I.e. in terms of your skills there was no way to specialize in, say, assembling rifles, and work with someone else who specialized in making power cores or whatever.  If you want to make good rifles, you need Master Weaponsmith, which means you need to be equally good at making every weapon and every weapon component there is.

I mean, you could go through the charade of having a friend make your components so you could pretend that you were part of an efficient assembly line, but you were really just making more work for yourself and if your friend wasn't a master whatever you'd end up with a slightly lower quality product for your trouble.

God, you've gotten me started on SWG crafting again.  So many things about it were ALMOST really awesome and interesting.  ALMOST.

[Slyfeind]

The reasoning is pretty simple: there are two reasons to have multiple characters. One is to try everything, and the other is to cheat.

I'd think there's at least one more reason: to just build a character for its own sake, much in the way someone in ATITD builds a sculpture or someone in Minecraft builds a fortress. There are some aspects of "try everything" in there; like in WoW, if I made a gnome wizard and a human wizard, one is to experience the game with a short character and the other is to experience it with a slightly taller character. That can be solved with letting the player change races and appearances. But then if I wanted to make two orc warrior brothers, named Grott and Bruto, we can introduce name changes. But at that point, I wouldn't be playing Grott or Bruto; I would be playing one or the other with their name changed.

(Note this has nothing to do with roleplaying, though one could theoretically roleplay with any character, distinct or not.)

[Riggswolfe]

The reasoning is pretty simple: there are two reasons to have multiple characters. One is to try everything, and the other is to cheat.

In the case of a game design with player interdependence and team-based PvP, the impetus to cheat is really really strong. Instead of working with others for supply chains, you'd do the whole chain yourself. Instead of knowing that an area was infested with Rebels but being unsure of how to scout it, you'd bring in your Reb mule and waltz through.

The "try everything" aspect is still a great reason to do it, don't get me wrong. That's why we let you drop skills and change. What you're really saying is "you want to do it all at once." Which immediately plays against interdependence and team dynamics.

Well player interdependence isn't enough reason to make people have only 1 character. As for PVP cheating, that's easy. Make it so that once you choose a "side" on a server, that's your side and you can't make characters that join the other side. See, oh, every RvR type game ever.

Not having multiple characters cut out the many, many players who get lots of pleasure from trying alts. I have a friend who has played LOTRO since launch and not one of her characters is max level because she likes to try different characters and crafting professions etc.

Finally, referring to cheating exposes another issue I suspect. It sounds like some SWG decisions were made with an us vs them mentality. Players were the enemy who had to be convinced to play the game the way the devs intended it.

[Count Nerfedalot]

God, you've gotten me started on SWG crafting again.  So many things about it were ALMOST really awesome and interesting.  ALMOST.

And every single one of those almosts is situated squarely at the intersection of a neck-beardy theory and reality.

Once again, the problem wasn't so much with any individual system or design decision.  The problem was with the whole complicated mess of them combined, and how they interacted with each other and had apparently unforeseen negative affects on each other.  Lots of cool systems/interesting design choices were designed/conceived in isolation, but the overall meta-design was either non-existant, incompetent, or completely obscured by the atrocious implementations of each of those individual systems which were themselves apparently crunched out in isolation then haphazardly thrown together with a total lack of (or incompetent) architectural design.

Providing lots of varied and interesting options for both crafting/socializing and combat was fantastic.
Shipping a world with so little actual content that participating in the various combat, crafting and socializing options (ie growing your character) was almost all there was to do was shortsighted.
Making hybrid crafter/combat players be weak sauce at both was stupid (issues with balancing hybrid combat characters is NOT equivalent).
Single character per server has some potential minor benefits, but only when considered in isolation. 
Allowing "respecs" but at the price of discarding weeks or months of effort that you had to redo if you changed your mind was just plain mean.
Starting with broken and incomplete systems, then changing the rules, changing the systems, completely revamping the balance, changing how gear works, etc, EVERY SINGLE MONTH while still never actually fixing the damn bugs, was clownshoes. 
Combining all of the above into a single monstrous clusterfuck, then throwing it all out for a completely different game, priceless. 

[Sjofn]

Not having multiple characters cut out the many, many players who get lots of pleasure from trying alts. I have a friend who has played LOTRO since launch and not one of her characters is max level because she likes to try different characters and crafting professions etc.

People who love alts are legion. 

[Samwise]

The single character slot was one thing that never bothered me in SWG.  I think because I felt like I was spending too much time grinding out one character as it was.    

For a combat-oriented character it might have been different, but for a crafter the game didn't really start until you finished grinding out the Master box of your chosen profession, since before that nobody was interested in buying anything you were selling.  That's another rant, though.  (Why was experience gained from actually doing what your profession was designed for about 1/100th of what you could get from grinding useless components by hand?  WHY???)

[Lantyssa]

I'm known for my alt-itis.  It wasn't an issue in SWG because I could be whatever I wanted.

It's like making multiple of any class in Rift.  Unless you're trying to see the Guardian/Defiant side, why would you?  There's no point nor need.

[WindupAtheist]

Finally, referring to cheating exposes another issue I suspect. It sounds like some SWG decisions were made with an us vs them mentality. Players were the enemy who had to be convinced to play the game the way the devs intended it.

Sure being able to do more than one thing (or maybe two things badly) without grinding up skills over and over might be "fun" but that would allow players to cheat the Interdependant Raph Koster Social Monkeydome!

[Count Nerfedalot]

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that one character to a server *hurts* community, not builds it. If I feel like doing something else on a given night, I have to go do it on another server where my character built for that activity is, which takes me *away* from everyone I know. That's as anti-community as it gets.

It didn't work out that way.  You either didn't do that other activity or you changed professions over the course of a few weeks.  I've never seen a stronger community in a game than SWG.

But was that because of the single-character per server or in spite of it?  And even if we assume that SCPS was a major factor in building community, would its effect have been greater, lesser, or unchanged if your single character could actually Master multiple skill areas simultaneously?  

I confess that I was one of those that wanted to excel in both crafting and combat at the same time.  Or not even at the same time really, I would have been perfectly happy to do it with two different characters played one-at-a-time, but on the same server during the same time period.  So once my single character got to the point where I could no longer progress in one without sacrificing the other, yet there was plenty of room to grow still in both, I became very frustrated.  I did stoop to starting a second account, but I hated myself for it, resented SWG for it, and came to despise anyone and everyone at SOE who made the design decisions that left me with that ugly choice.  I know, I was weak.  I was also nearly broke which made it hurt all the more.  

All the high-minded sounding pontification from the developers about the benefits of a single-character-per-server design is total bullshit as long as they allow anyone to have two characters on the same server just by spending more money.  It invalidates everything they say and opens the door to all sorts of ugly suspicions about ulterior motives.  Like greed.  Might as well admit it, SWG was the first AAA western title to officially adopt pay-to-win.  And it sucked just as much if not more then as it does now.

And the irony is, all that resentment I had over that devil's choice?  I suspect that it magnified my dissatisfaction with the many other flaws in the game and its management such that I left much earlier than I would have otherwise.  I didn't even make it to the release of the CU, as I saw where it was headed after the first (what were they called? Senators?) preliminary reports came out.  So probably they at best broke even with total income from me and my two limited-duration accounts versus what they might have gotten from me with a single account played all the way through till the NGE.

[Lantyssa]

But was that because of the single-character per server or in spite of it?  And even if we assume that SCPS was a major factor in building community, would its effect have been greater, lesser, or unchanged if your single character could actually Master multiple skill areas simultaneously?  

I think it was because of a combination of systems.  A flexible profession system for one, but it was a combination of things.

To use Sjofn as an example, when I see one of her characters in WoW I think "hey, it's Sjofn" not it's Character X.  In SWG I thought of people as Character X.

That's not to say the system was perfect.  I was fortunate in that the professions I liked overlapped, and always could do some combat.  They probably could have done something where you have the skill points for combat, the skill points for crafting, and maybe a mixed pool where you could have augmented one or the other.  There were probably other ways to improve on it.

It's still one of the most flexible systems we've seen though, and it allowed me to play a character instead of playing a class, because I was never locked into the class.  For me that is a really important distinction.  I play alts to see content and try out classes I couldn't otherwise.  Any game where I can keep my character but I can try new stuff with her makes me love it.

[Sjofn]

I'm known for my alt-itis.  It wasn't an issue in SWG because I could be whatever I wanted.

It's like making multiple of any class in Rift.  Unless you're trying to see the Guardian/Defiant side, why would you?  There's no point nor need.

From the way SWG's system is described, it's not really the same. In Rift it's a matter of paying a little in-game money and boom, now you're good at X instead of Y and you can go on your merry way, so I can understand people not needing more than one of each base class (especially since not only can you respec, but you can have quintuple spec if you're rich enough). That doesn't appear to be the case in SWG, it was "How bad do I want to try this other aspect of the game? Enough to abandon all the work I put into the other thing?"

Chances are, the answer is "no." That shortens the life of the game considerably for me. But like I said, I knew this about myself and didn't give SWG a second look once I heard "one character per server." All the other shit that came after (it's really buggy, the combat is crappy, etc) would've kept me away anyway, but I do specifically remember the one character thing being the main reason I wasn't even curious about it. It's interesting to hear why, but I can't say I agree with the reasoning. But that is probably surprising to no one who has played these sorts of games with me!


As an aside, I enjoy that I am "Sjofn" to people who never even met Actual Sjofn. MY SKALD WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.

[Lantyssa]

As I said, it wasn't perfect.  Mind, we had EQ1 as a comparison at the time.  Being able to switch your profession around at all was pretty revolutionary.  (Was UO allowing reskilling at that point?  I never followed it too closely.)

[eldaec]

Why was experience gained from actually doing what your profession was designed for about 1/100th of what you could get from grinding useless components by hand?  WHY???

Original design was that the bulk of crafter xp would come from people using your shit. Which was an awesome idea. Only master boxes fucked that up, because your shit was worthless until you finished master (and no longer needed xp). Then xp came from all production, only factory production was deemed too 'easy', so that got nerfed because apparently sitting there mindlessly clicking things or macroing was 'fun and engaging'.

This all another great example of not having the team commit to one vision. Also a great example of the era when devs confused grind with achievement even more regularly than they do today.
 

[Ingmar]

As I said, it wasn't perfect.  Mind, we had EQ1 as a comparison at the time.  Being able to switch your profession around at all was pretty revolutionary.  (Was UO allowing reskilling at that point?  I never followed it too closely.)

DAOC had respecs, dunno about other same-era games.

[Samwise]

Original design was that the bulk of crafter xp would come from people using your shit. Which was an awesome idea. Only master boxes fucked that up, because your shit was worthless until you finished master (and no longer needed xp). Then xp came from all production, only factory production was deemed too 'easy', so that got nerfed because apparently sitting there mindlessly clicking things or macroing was 'fun and engaging'.

What I don't understand is why they felt the need to nerf usage xp (which they did, IIRC) rather than letting it work to the extent that it was possible.  I actually was able to make some money as a rising weaponsmith by selling crates of grenades, since they were the best way to grind that stupid combat XP and people didn't care as much about quality when it came to one-shot items, but I got just about ZERO experience from that (i.e. actually being a weaponsmith and selling some weapons) because I had to make them in a factory and because I didn't get any usage XP.  I mean, I can understand maybe not wanting people to be able to grind out the master box in a weekend by buying a bunch of resources and loading up a factory with them, but if you're actually making weapons that people are BUYING and USING?  You deserve some fucking XP.