The Force Next Timeline (important post on page 6)

Not much you can do but keep truckin’ along and hope things turn out. One way or another the era/timeline are gonna end and we’ll start anew.

@Veric or in some other cases a toon that was created with no expectations of getting force and finding out they do…after selecting all feats…
#firstforcerever

So if they implemented darkside sub-classes what’re some thoughts on what they should look like?

This thread has already gotten rather long before I decided to cruise through it, so I’m going to post a few things in response to some of the running themes I’ve seen.

1) Most of what Zeromus and QS have said in this thread are spot on. I’d love to see the force levels tweaked so that we aren’t handing extreme levels to every newly awakened character. There’s no point, they’ve already got an advantage, there’s no point in giving them a ton more levels. Tone those down and rework them to make the choices actually be a choice versus consular for extra force or guardian cause lol I’m an engineer. The subclasses need a drastic overhaul and I think this would be an amazing first step in the right direction for balancing out forcers.

2) Please stop with the “no force in era 1” stuff. Its a horrible idea. You don’t like forcers cause they run around wrecking stuff? Lets tone them down as mentioned in #1 above. Taking them OUT of the game, even for a limited time (lol is there such a thing on LOTJ as a short time?) is not the direction we should be going. You don’t remove the key aspect to why people are drawn to the genre in the first place. And to say that the Star Wars genre doesn’t revolve around forcers is either naive or disingenuous.

3) What QS said about the myth of forcers being unkillable is absolutely truth. It’s not until they are in the Master levels that they are worth much, and there are so few of those anyway that it should be a non-issue. Plus, the Master levels shouldn’t be killable by random Joe Blow soldier anyway. As QS stated, take chances and you’ll be surprised by what you can pull off. I’d actually be willing to bet that more forcers are killed by non-forcers overall.

@Corey: I think you greatly over estimate the importance of jedi and sith in Lotj. Probably 90% of the people who first start playing here wont even have a chance to play a forcer for a year or longer. They hardly even factor into the day to day politics of the game at all.

No one is trying to perpetuate a myth about forcers being invincible. Sure they can be killed, but it is usually the forcer allowing themselves to be killed by making a monumental tactical blunder. Forcers either get killed by non-forcers in space, by chasing someone onto a ship, or fighting without a lightsaber. You’re right about taking chances, I WOULD be surprised if someone actually pulled off one of the few niche tactics that works against jedi/sith on an experienced player.

Most forcers who die to non-forcers are the victims of their own inexperience. Every accomplished, experienced forcer who has died this TL, that I know of, died to another forcer.

I’m not saying to remove them from the game, but they do need to be a little more balanced. There are counter plays available already, we just never see them ie: Cortosis. I am also very confident that Lotj will survive a few months without them.

@Corey, Era 1 went pretty well in my opinion and many others agree. Can you give me one example of how the absence of force had any negative impact at the start of this TL?

I’m a huge supporter of a no-forcer era 1, or a change to the way forcers work entirely. I like walldo’s idea of transitioning forcers into more of an Obi-Wan-esque advisory role as opposed to a front line fighter.

When it really comes down to it, Xavious is right, experienced players on master-level forcers become juggernauts and are rarely killed (even by the sweet tactics pointed out earlier in the thread), and when they are it’s because another experienced player on a Forcer got their number (or set up a good ambush). Examples: Quicksilver, Ocerion and Myself. You can hardly describe the three of us as clever, cerebral players, but we tend to become unkillable machines on our Force-sensitives and only really manage to kill each other. Edain last timeline was a behemoth that was in a position to run the gauntlet, Karn the timeline before, and Silver the timeline before that.

This timeline hasn’t really been any different as the same guys with the same powerhouses are always in the main forcer roles, and it’s not because of favoritism by any means. The reason this happens is because the PVP system is so detailed and takes so long to master that nobody really has the opportunity to figure things out before one of us rolls/buys a forcer and cleans their clock.

I’m really excited for a new timeline (and having more time to play some day), but I really think force needs a serious overhaul. As fun as it is to wreck shop on everyone in the game, it really does get old after awhile. There was a thread some time back where Ralen and I were discussing a lot of changes with the subclass system, but I think if any of this gets changed it needs to be by someone who really understands smaug/swr pk and the ins and outs of it.

@Xavious – Era 1’s like and dislike from what I can tell is 50/50. For every one person I’ve heard that raved over it, I’ve heard at least one person complain. In fact, I’ve heard many people talk about how much they loved Era 1, and then right in the next sentence complain about it. As far as the “myth” I was talking about, just go back and read the threads and posts. People assume that a forcer just can not be killed and there is no way around it. This isn’t something that I just made up on the spot. This is a common running concept within the inner workings of the LOTJ culture. Getting rid of forcers because a few people don’t like that 1-3 players in the game can wreck house with one, is just simply not the answer to the problem. Fixing what is broken with forcers is the way to solve the issue, not pretending they don’t exist.

I gotta jump outta nowhere here to interupt and say era 1 this timeline was easily the worst I’ve ever been a part of, nothing else even near it. Given that I’ve zero tact whatsoever I’ll not get into too many details on why I’d say that, but I suspect if you ask outside a smallish group of people the reactions will vary between agreement with me, and a belief it was just bland. But there are probably 10 people out of the entire pbase who would say it was good, if they were being honest and not just trying to suck up to whoever asked.

Also, hearing how overpowered forcers are is just adorable. Niche tactics, tricks, space combat…ask Kresk sometime how just a good ole fashion “Punch the forcer in the face really hard until he falls down.” can work sometimes. That being said…finally quit making stupid excuses for why it would be a bad idea and add cortosis in, not as a magic quest item, not as a mythical development…just add the damn stuff in, there is still, as always, zero reason for it not to be in. 90% of the people on LOTJ actually think it would help, and the lulz the RPC would get out of people dying to forcers they attacked with Cortosis would crack me up.

Edit: A suggestion, not sure the viability of it…Forcers who roll a minimum of 75 force should automatically have their max combat set to 100. As in, can’t exceed that, period…no matter what…and they will have that as a max…period. No matter what. Subclasses should never add bonus levels to force, or in fact, give ANY combat advantage whatsoever, (I’d always just choose the one with the combat advantage…) and since it should be mentioned as often as possible, even though I mentioned it before, put Cortosis in, every freaken where.

Okay my two cents you have da force NO ARMOR option two nerf the shit out of the armor buff make it so steeping on a land mine hurts like the holy mother that it should. I guess there is option 3 do both. I don’t know much about force chars or combat yet. But from what ive heard to a forcer a land mine is just a little joke. I guess there is another option if you have the force and wear armor you take huge negs. To combat skills.

Sub classes just make all but sage 20 and make sage 30 add 40 combat to sage and Consular. Remove the bonus 10 levels of force.

Okay now all you force rolling freaks enlighten us all.

Putting a cap on combat levels might help also I think 149 stop the flurry magic. Or cheese ball it waving a glow stick around like that you will cut your arms off.

P.S. Forcers should walk on most any non forcer not using combat tactics.

Why would a forcer need combat levels? 100 combat, so you can see how much damage you’re doing and work to improve it…but beyond that? Flurry is a pain in the ass, admittedly, when forcers fight non forcers, but otherwise combat offers nothing but illusion to forcers.

As for explosives, none of them ever really do anything to anyone, forcer or not, landmine or grenade…its kinda silly. Guess I’m just of the belief that a grenade goes off in your hands/within feet of you, its not gonna tickle, and whichever parts of you they can find to question on that subject are gonna agree. Grenades are so useless outside of blowing up ships/people on ships/ship-play in general. Landmines…Unless there have been major changes recently, I can honestly say I’ve never seen a relevent landmine action that wasn’t related to a ship exploding in my entire time on LOTJ.

That’s not entirely true. There has been one person this timeline who was grenade-raping people who have pretty respectable HP. One, two, ten grenades might not matter much, but anyone with a bit if sense will be carrying 20-30 of them with an alias to arm them all. Off topic, I know, but just gonna nip that “grenades are useless” myth in the bud. Mines on the other hand….

Long time player (kinda, sorta) first time poster (for sure). Feel free to tell me this idea is crap but…

After reading most, and skimming the rest, of these posts here’s what I’ve got….

I like that ‘rolling’ a forcer is as difficult as it is. It’s part of the reason I keep coming back to this game. I use to be quite involved in the SWCombine back in the day and rolled onto this mud with a group of those cats probably back in…. 2005ish? I’ve come back several times though out the years (military life made consistency a little difficult) and have enjoyed myself each time. I have never rolled or played as a forcer.

It was said, forgive me for being lazy and not going back to get names, by someone that after ‘rolling a couple of forcers’ it kind of loses its ‘mysticism.’ Great. For you. For the vast majority of us who have not played a force user that mysticism is still very much alive. I dont think going back to an ‘ear 1’ style of play with 0 force users is the way to go. They need to be included in the game. Its Star Wars for crying out loud.

I’m going to take everyone’s word as far as combat goes because I have yet had to fight a forcer but it appears that it’s a little over-powered? Safe to say?? I’m not saying a Jedi Master is going to have too much trouble dispatching someone in close quarters but if one jedi can ‘clear a room’ with no real viable way for people to stop them we have a very viable issue. Especially if that jedi/force user is still young in training. Think about padawans and adepts in the stories. If I’m a forcer who just learned to use a lightsaber yesterday I’m fairly certain it’s going to take some time for me to be able to become adept with it. Perhaps change the way you ‘level up’ your lightsaber abilities? Much like smuggling skills, maybe actually having to use the weapon to gain max proficiency. It would cause more dependency on a ‘master/padawn’ relationship if you had fight/practice and use every/most of your abilities in the setting they were created for to be good at them. – -Like I said, I’ve never played a forcer so please let me know if I’m saying things that are already implemented.

As far as ‘dumbing-down’ the jedi class I think we need to have ways to have non-forcers be able to actually stand enough of a chance to cause worry to someone playing a forcer. Take Jango for instance. He did pretty well against a young Ben Kenobi. Someone who’s a master combatant, master bounty hunter should be able to stand a chance “WITH THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT.” It should be, by no means, an easy task to get said gear but it should be doable. Lightsaber resistant materials, absolutely. But why not a class/sub-class that’s designed specifically as ‘jedi-hunters’??? Characters with specific abilities/skills/traits suited to combat a Jedi? Force resistant, mental fortitude boosts, can use said special equipment? Make it a lot like a Jedi as far as it’s insanely hard to level properly and getting the proper equipment to use your skills/abilities/feats is a difficult task itself.

Like I said, just some thoughts.

EDIT: Speaking as a proud, former Mandalorian I dont think a Jedi should be able to take on a dozen fully trained, armed and armored manadalorians coming at him without making him a littler nervous. Mandalorians man!

In short – we aren’t going back to a force-less era 1 anytime in the forseeable future.

While I can’t promise any -major- force overhauls in time for the next timeline (honestly building, other code fixed and a Bounty hunting overhaul have to take far higher priority at the moment); there’s already a staff docket with a considerable ‘to-do’ list on the system – several ideas on it taken from this thread.

Keep on suggestin’.

(…and a Bounty hunting overhaul have to take far higher priority at the moment)

I love you, Ralen.

Actually, Kirash, your statement about “20-30” grenades proves my point entirely regarding grenades being useless. When you need that many of them to accomplish anything, something is broken. Grenades should really be reworked, a lot, to be less useless, and definitely to be less “Just stuff them in a bag after setting them all to blow up and blow something up”. It would be really simple to rob from the code regarding drones carrying grenades to change how people carry grenades.