Chapter 1.2 Testing

[Tyclo]

SEAs: We are reevaluating our decision for the SEA removal too. The bottom line is that the current tool has some issues and will be changed in some way. It is difficult to add new content which drops SEAs because the SEA Removal Tool makes it so that SEAs are never removed from the economy. Nothing is permanent in SWG, but the SEA Removal Tool makes it so that SEAs area. It's the Anti-Decay Kit of Sentinels Republic and is not balanced in its current form.

SWG is about decay. Weapons decay, armor decays, speeders decay, clothing decays, droids decay, pets decay and buildings decay. The point being, the SEA removal tool has zero negative consequences and totally negates the decay process for attachments. It is not very difficult to obtain and craft while doing nothing but be detrimental to the economy. It even has unintended bonuses, where you can retrieve skills mods from BE crafted items which is damaging to the economy.

As far as the difficulty of looting new tapes, they are rare because of the SEA Removal Tool and new drops are intentionally limited. Even then, I know a lot of you hoard them. There is not a shortage of SEAs and the drop rate of high end SEAs is much higher here on SR when compared to Basilisk.

It's also worth noting that at 1000 condition on a piece of clothing, you have 20 uninsured or 100 insured deaths (or bring a Doctor for 0 condition loss) where you can grind the credits or farm the SEAs to replace your items. You can also use a clothing or armor repair to extend this. - You do not lose condition loss in PvP, so dying to a BH or in GCW will not cause decay.

We are working and planning out something further to extend SEAs, but this needs to be done now in preparation. When we have information available, we will provide it.

Squad Leader: Planetary Squad Leader abilities are too strong, it's been something that has been observed as problematic for awhile now. Especially in PvP where it's a borderline exploit, in PvE it's pointless or used in very specific scenarios that can still play out within 120m.

PvP: It's broken. I don't know what else to say. You can hide a SL on the opposite of the map or on top of a building where the SL cannot be killed. That's borderline an exploit.

PvE: This changes very little for most high end encounters. Death Watch Bunker, Geonosian Cave, Corvette, Axkva Min, most of Dromund Kaas and all of Taanab are all indoors. So if you want SL buffs to run any of these encounters, you must bring the SL indoors with even the old plant wide system. Other content such as Nightsisters, Krayts and Gorax, being able to permanently burst run without any consequences is not exactly an ideal situation from a balance perspective, but with a 120m range, which is higher than vanilla, you can still place a SL out of range to the same level of performance as before. Just instead of sitting your SL at Bestine medical center, you must now bring your SL out to the Krayt Graveyard.

Two Bounty Missions Per Target: Two bounty hunters should not have much issue taking down a Jedi target, especially since one bounty hunter seems to be able to kill a target in most scenarios. We are investigating any potential exploits with limiting the target count and have already have thought up a solution. We appreciate your feedback on the matter.

Avoid Incap: This was happening eventually. The ability to clear an entire dungeon while spamming AI is not its intended behavior. While not FRS, we are working on some balance changes for Jedi, but changing Avoid Incap had to occur sooner rather than later.

---

Closing thoughts, this is for the Test Center, we are testing these changes. These notes are posted for a reason, for testing.

Mindsoft and I sat in Discord all day today and at the Geonosian Cave. A total of five players came to test the instance and only a handful offered to help test or constructively discuss any of the other changes that are apart of these notes. Instead of working on fixes and improving the server, staff spent hours hearing the same personal complaints which offered very little feedback. Currently, I'm reading a lot of factually incorrect statements being thrown around and most of the comments I'm reading are emotionally charged. Jokes, rude comments and telling us that you're leaving/the server will die because of balances to additions (Not even base gameplay) is not helpful.

There have also been some incredibly rude, aggressive and hateful messages sent to staff today and before we start having to discipline players, I am going to remind everyone that we are humans, we do this for free, for fun and receive nothing in return. We are not here to ruin your game play experience and keep in mind that Sentinels Republic, nor any SWG Emulator, is run by a AAA game development studio, this is a hobby. We are just doing the best we can and in general going above and beyond as many of us have taken many personal sacrifices to bring you the server you play on.

I suggest that everyone take a step back and realize that these changes are being made for the health of the server. We've given lots in terms of new items and content, but sometime we also need to take things away for the sake of balance. Sentinels Republic is almost 3 years old, which is older than live was before the Combat Upgrade hit. We have to make adjustments, balances and changes; otherwise we will have failed the player base. Not everyone will agree with every change, but some need to be made, no matter how difficult.

It's impossible to make everyone happy, but we are going to do what's best for the server and making the game fun and entertaining for everyone. We hope that you all understand.

[Tyclo]

Info required from players:
Are drop rates too high, about right or too low?
10 attempts so far, only got RIS Schems and Acklay Hides, a bit sad
Can you also check the quality of the bones and post details of their quality if they seem unusually high or low.
As stated above, cant tell yet
Does being ejected from the instance eject you from the geo cave?
Seen this too late, but the escape rope works just fine.
Please can you try and break it, find ways of exploiting it or getting around it and report back if you are successful!
Tried everything i could imagine to mess with it, (un)luckily everything worked out so far. Have had some LoS issues, but i blame my sometimes crappy connection.

So far, all is well. Just out of curiosity: Are the upcoming changes all fix or is this stuff up for discussion?

I was informed by Mindsoft that your loot drops were from before the loot was introduced. Try now.

1) This game does not need to be more difficult to play and achieve ones goals. Random loots and the slim chance to get something shiney should not be the highlight of the game. The fun isn't in the hours and hours of mindless grinding and AFK camping. I wish we'd see more clearly defined reward system than all this random-generated stuff. Should not have to kill the same mob 25x just to get that one piece that's needed to make an item.

2) My guild was doing Tanrat hunts but people stopped going because the loots stopped dropping. After the loot "adjustment" we saw disappointment after disappointment as one by one we'd fell empty Tanrats, or they'd give just stims which nobody in the group could use, or occasional low-quality tissues. Guildies won't group any more, they'd rather go solo them so they don't risk a good loot drop going to someone else in the group.

3) Same thing with Hydrostation and a couple of the other dungeons we've been on. Last dungeon we ran through it and there were no bosses. We couldn't tell at first that the bosses were missing. Going through the dungeon without bosses does not reward with hardly anything, unless you are a naked Ithorian, then you'll likely come out with a new wardrobe.

1) Most, if not all of the new content we've released has a 100% drop chance for loot. You can't always get what you want from an encounter, but you are always guaranteed something. Some of the new Taanab content is a 1 in 4 for most items.

2) While the patch note changes to Tanrats and Krayt loot drops where indeed vague, please understand the context. I'm working 60+ hours a week, am sleeping less than 6 hours a night, have been sick for the past week (No, it's not the Corona virus) and just started a brand new job. Detailing the exact numbers isn't something I can always do. I will miss something in the patch notes sometimes, nor I do not get paid to do the notes while also maintaining the website, the launcher, client side patches, code changes and helping the community. So please do not expect perfection 100% of the time.

As far as loot goes for Tanrats and Krayts, it was overbuffed in Chapter 1. About a 65% increase for loot with a 45% for Tissues or Pearls, which was too much. I dropped 20% off of the 65%, which brings us to about a 45% buff over pre-Chapter 1. I lowered SEA drop rate rates which created a void in the loot groups so I filled it with a buff stim pack, any other change would've been outside of my time limit, but I needed to adjust the rates as they were too generous. Now with the SEA Removal Tool being changed, I can safely readjust the SEA drops, but not until after this patch is live.

I am also naming all loot drops so player's know what they're getting, like the Acklay bones having names, I will be doing the same with Krayt tissues. Once that is done, I planned on posting information on what had been changed.

3) That's not possible. The Hydro Station resets and wipes the entire encounter at once, then respawn the trash mobs (which drop loot btw) and the mini-bosses which have 100%, 80% and 30% loot group drop rates (There's 3 of them with these drop chances). Then there's the boss which has 3x 100% loot chances and a fourth 30% chance to drop loot from the mini-bosses (4 possible, 3 guaranteed). So I really don't know what else to tell you. - TSE, Norulac, Pirate. All the adds drop loot, the Mini-Bosses/Bosses have guaranteed loot. If you have issues with the drop numbers, I'm sorry, but like Chapter 1.2, this was on test for everyone to provide feedback on. Chapter 1 was on TC for 3 months, then with loot for the last month. Loot was toned back and increased a few times based on player feedback and my own person experience. From what I can grasp, it's fine where it's at now and if you happen to visit an encounter when it's on reset, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about that, the reset timers are already incredibly fast for SWG standards at 90 minutes to 2 hours.

[Xordium]

PvE: This changes very little for most high end encounters. Death Watch Bunker, Geonosian Cave, Corvette, Axkva Min, most of Dromund Kaas and all of Taanab are all indoors. So if you want SL buffs to run any of these encounters, you must bring the SL indoors with even the old plant wide system. Other content such as Nightsisters, Krayts and Gorax, being able to permanently burst run without any consequences is not exactly an ideal situation from a balance perspective, but with a 120m range, which is higher than vanilla, you can still place a SL out of range to the same level of performance as before. Just instead of sitting your SL at Bestine medical center, you must now bring your SL out to the Krayt Graveyard.

Ok had a mess around today with my SL and krayts it's no issue at 120m as they are stationary - no problem there from me. For kiting purposes if you are running circles on highend NPCs and /follow the kiter with the SL the agro doesn't switch to the SL from what I can see unless the SL actually assists in the engagement - the SL just runs a tighter circle, it can get stuck on stuff though. That's not so great. I totally agree it's far from an ideal situation but unfortunately the only one open if you are using pistols but that's a pistols problem not a SL. Anyway I plonked some ideas down in the wishlist area for SL. Think I'll switch to SL/CH if he's going to be more active may aswell make him useful when he's on field.

[Mack]

My thoughts:

SL changes: Needed. Planetwide SL makes for another AFK prof.

I would like to see something to make the SL nerf more palatable. Would it be possible if we could allow the SL to utilize their own buffs somehow? SL is a pretty big point investment and it would be cool if /retreat, /formup, etc worked, as long as the SL was within 128m of a groupmate. Would be OP if SL was alone, obviously, so the 128m of a groupmate would be needed. A nice consolation for SL, after taking the hit to planet wide buffs. Seems inline with making SL viable and fun to play. A guild mate suggested that that this option should only be available at Master SL.

Acklay Instance - Awesome. If the drops are nerfed I won’t be super excited about it though.

SEA Tool Change - Initially I was ticked about this like most others, but on reflection, it’s not a huge deal. Clothing repair means something now. You don’t die in PVE all that often and you don’t lose con in PVP.

AI change - Probably should be 30 on, 15 off. The only real issue with AI is the chaining. With 15 seconds off, that’s 15 seconds they have to spend a massive amount of force to heal up. Probably need to give something in return in that MDefender Box as a consolation. +5 Jedi Toughness or something.

Krayt/Tanrat Loot issues: If I’m not getting into PVP, I generally default to killing Krayts/Tanrats for loot to sell. I don’t know if something is screwy with the tables or what, but in around 6 or 7 buff sessions, I’m averaging about 1 flawless and 1 premium for my efforts per character I devote to it. If that’s the way it will remain, that’s fine, but I will have to up the prices to around 2mil per flawless to accommodate. Otherwise it’s faster to do Janta loops.

2 BH to a Jedi Mission - Don’t care too much. The real changes that need to be made with BH deal with the flamethrower and allowing other players in your group to help rather than watching you die to several BH. If more than one BH can take a Jedi mission, groupmates should be able to help.

Moved Special Heavy Weapons Accuracy skill mods to the Heavy Assault tree (xxx0) in Commando. - Insignificant change. Commandos don’t rely on Accuracy vs Jedi. Jedi have little ranged defense unless going MDef. The accuracy can still be bumped up with SEAs, Citrus, and FS Mods.

Moved Special Heavy Weapon Cone Attack 1 special to Heavy Assault III (xxx3) in Commando. - Curious change. Means nothing IMO.

Moved Special Heavy Weapon Single Attack 2 to Special Heavy Weapon IV (xx4x) in Commando. - Insignificant. BH/MTK/Commando took this line anyways.

Moved 5 Special Heavy Weapon Speed from Special Heavy Weapon IV to Master Commando. - Again, Insignificant. +25 Special Heavy Weapon speed SEA and a lower speed Flamer is all it takes. And the FS mods allow for a slower, higher damage flamer.

Removed 10 Special Heavy Weapon Accuracy from the Commando profession. - Again, insignificant. The problem is vs Jedi, and Accuracy is not the issue.

Flamethrowers were meant to be slow and inaccurate, but to pack a punch when it hits. Low speed tissue/Imp Stocks/+25 Special Heavy Weapon Speed SEAs, FS Speed Mods make them capable of spamming crazy high damage specials far too fast. +25 Special Heavy Weapon Accuracy SEAs, FS Ranged Accuracy, and Citrus make the crazy high damage specials hit more often than they should. It’s an awful combo for PVP. In PVE... well it’s PVE and shouldn’t effect anyone else.

I’m guessing the thinking is that if people have to take BH3000/MTK/Commando0044, it will stop them from getting healing abilities so that will be enough, but an MTK with a PSG/food/using intim and warcry remotely skillfully will not take damage anyway and can still put out a significant amount.

I believe that a few things can happen with Flamethrower damage to make it not ruin PVP.

1. Flamethrower damage in PVP can be cut to 25%. This is the most likely and easiest option without screwing too much with the trees. This will give Jedi at least a chance without having to FR2 out of there if they survive the initial attack. It will force the BH to keep the Flamethrower equipped for longer and the TK toughness won’t kick in, making the BH take much more damage.
2. Cut Flamethrower damage by 50% in PVP and put the ability to hunt player Jedi in the MBH box. I can see a hobble strike (cutting off FR) or something similar added to the MBH box as extra incentive.
3. Cut Flamethrower damage by 50% in PVP and put /specialheavyweaponsingle2 in the Master Commando box. This would force BH3000/MCommando/TK0424, giving little ability to do damage as TK, no healing, and no melee mitigation 3.

Thanks for everything you guys are doing. I and many others appreciate the effort. I know it is a difficult task to keep everyone happy, and not getting a dime for it makes it even worse!

Sorry for the novel!

[binxsun]

March 5th, 2020
Added:

• Duplicator Hint Data Disk:
  • Obtained as a random drop from any of the mobs in the high end Taanab dungeons, these Data Disks will give you the combinations for the Duplicator Prototype. When you loot the item, no combination will be encoded onto the disk. One you use the disk, the combination is permanently encoded to be viewed an unlimited number of times. Possible combinations are broken down into 3 rarities: common, uncommon and rare. Slicing the disk with a Smuggler will yield the possibility for a better combination.

Changes:

• You may now call a pet inside of a private structure which you have admin rights to.
• Norulac Raider Captains no longer have a chance to wield stun batons.
• Schematics obtained from the Pandath Loot Kit Vendor now have increased uses.
  • Expanded Travel Pack: 1 use to 2
  • Tank Farms: 1 use to 3
  • Camping Chairs: 1 use to 3
  • Camping Cot: 1 use to 3
  • Mining Table: 1 use to 3
  • City Planters: 3 uses to 5
  • City Torches: 3 uses to 5
  • City Pavilions: 3 uses to 5
• Commando:
  • Note: We are changing the skill trees in Commando to curve the uses of Flamethrower in conjunction with the Bounty Hunter profession. Due to the introduction of Special Heavy Weapon skill tapes and the skill point reduction of scout from 15sp to 5, we've made some changes to balance this profession combination choice.
  • Moved Carbine abilities and skill mods to the Heavy Support Weapon tree.
  • Lowered Carbine Speed and Accuracy skill mods in the Commando profession from 60 speed and 70 accuracy to 30 speed and 40 accuracy. (Be real, you never used it anyways...)
  • Moved Special Heavy Weapons Accuracy skill mods to the Heavy Assault tree (xxx0) in Commando.
  • Moved Special Heavy Weapon Cone Attack 1 special to Heavy Assault III (xxx3) in Commando.
  • Moved Special Heavy Weapon Single Attack 2 to Special Heavy Weapon IV (xx4x) in Commando.
  • Moved 5 Special Heavy Weapon Speed from Special Heavy Weapon IV to Master Commando.
  • Removed 10 Special Heavy Weapon Accuracy from the Commando profession.
  • Commando skill box descriptions reflect the above changes to the profession.

Additional Notes:

• Acklay Bones now have names to indicate theirs stats:
  • Acklay Bones: Normal common Acklay Bones (Vanilla)
  • Sharpened Acklay Bones: Old "Rare" Acklay Bones
  • Gleaming Acklay Bones: Common Acklay Bones with high stack cones.
  • Crushed Acklay Bones: Mix between common and sharpened, chance for slightly higher damage and use count but with a wider range and lower min damage.
• SEA Removal Tool: We are investigating further changes.

I would celebrate the Commando nerf if it were in conjunction with saberblock changes as the only reason people currently use it is it is the only thing that can even come close to being successful against when hunting Jedi. From a developer point of view, do you see any applicable replacement for the commando/bh build?

[Tyclo]

PvE: This changes very little for most high end encounters. Death Watch Bunker, Geonosian Cave, Corvette, Axkva Min, most of Dromund Kaas and all of Taanab are all indoors. So if you want SL buffs to run any of these encounters, you must bring the SL indoors with even the old plant wide system. Other content such as Nightsisters, Krayts and Gorax, being able to permanently burst run without any consequences is not exactly an ideal situation from a balance perspective, but with a 120m range, which is higher than vanilla, you can still place a SL out of range to the same level of performance as before. Just instead of sitting your SL at Bestine medical center, you must now bring your SL out to the Krayt Graveyard.

Ok had a mess around today with my SL and krayts it's no issue at 120m as they are stationary - no problem there from me. For kiting purposes if you are running circles on highend NPCs and /follow the kiter with the SL the agro doesn't switch to the SL from what I can see unless the SL actually assists in the engagement - the SL just runs a tighter circle, it can get stuck on stuff though. That's not so great. I totally agree it's far from an ideal situation but unfortunately the only one open if you are using pistols but that's a pistols problem not a SL. Anyway I plonked some ideas down in the wishlist area for SL. Think I'll switch to SL/CH if he's going to be more active may aswell make him useful when he's on field.

I have read your SL suggestions, for now, we don't have any immediate plans but I have seen your post. Revamping a profession like SL could take two or three weeks. The changes now are for balancing, but we are looking to make professions like Squad Leader, Ranger, Carbineer and others more viable.

[Tyclo]

My thoughts:

SL changes: Needed. Planetwide SL makes for another AFK prof.

I would like to see something to make the SL nerf more palatable. Would it be possible if we could allow the SL to utilize their own buffs somehow? SL is a pretty big point investment and it would be cool if /retreat, /formup, etc worked, as long as the SL was within 128m of a groupmate. Would be OP if SL was alone, obviously, so the 128m of a groupmate would be needed. A nice consolation for SL, after taking the hit to planet wide buffs. Seems inline with making SL viable and fun to play. A guild mate suggested that that this option should only be available at Master SL.

See my other response, we will eventually get to SL. Development takes time and we've only had light discussion on the matter outside of fixing the immediate issues.

Acklay Instance - Awesome. If the drops are nerfed I won’t be super excited about it though.

I suggest checking it out TC if you're curious about loot. The respawn/lockout timer is currently reduced for testing. There will be two Acklay's, the instance Acklay with about the same loot chances as the current but slightly lower stats, then another Acklay in the same location as the current, which is harder and un-soloable but with better loot chances and new loot drops including two weapons and a speeder.

SEA Tool Change - Initially I was ticked about this like most others, but on reflection, it’s not a huge deal. Clothing repair means something now. You don’t die in PVE all that often and you don’t lose con in PVP.

We are adjusting the way the SEA Removal Tool works. You will be able to pick one attachment, with a chance to receive others. Patch notes will follow once it is deployed to test.

AI change - Probably should be 30 on, 15 off. The only real issue with AI is the chaining. With 15 seconds off, that’s 15 seconds they have to spend a massive amount of force to heal up. Probably need to give something in return in that MDefender Box as a consolation. +5 Jedi Toughness or something.

Keeping it at 30 would defeat the purpose of the change. Players are currently agroing entire dungeons and killing them in ~20s. If the Defender doesn't want to waste force healing for 15s, then don't agro too much with AI or bring a Doctor/CM/Healer.

At the high end, calculations for skill mods increase exponentially. This is not an simple addition.

Krayt/Tanrat Loot issues: If I’m not getting into PVP, I generally default to killing Krayts/Tanrats for loot to sell. I don’t know if something is screwy with the tables or what, but in around 6 or 7 buff sessions, I’m averaging about 1 flawless and 1 premium for my efforts per character I devote to it. If that’s the way it will remain, that’s fine, but I will have to up the prices to around 2mil per flawless to accommodate. Otherwise it’s faster to do Janta loops.

I think everyone got too use to the overpowered loot drops for the two weeks they were live post-Chapter 1, nor are the patch notes being read or anyone working together to understand the changes/mechanics. (No one seems to be helping each other out with anything btw) There are some players who have figured it out, but others who have not. As I stated, I want to do a full write up explain the changes, but my time is very limited and every moment I spend here or in Discord explaining is wasted development time.

Krayts/Tanrats are not broken. There is nothing wrong with the loot drops and most of the junk is removed, there is a 15% chance to receive stims, but that's because I had to tone it back because of the SEA issues. They are a ~30% better (If not more) than pre-Chapter 1. I just killed 20 Legendary Tanrats and got 6 flawless geodes, 4 premiums and a horrifyingly high amount of tissues that I will need to adjust.

Krayts/Tanrats have two loot groups. One is a 100% loot drop chance that is slightly better than the pre-Chapter 1 drop rate. The second is a 45% second loot chance with a 35% chance for an extra drop of Tissues or Pearls depending on the mob type.

Krayt Ancients and Tanrat Legendaries have a chance to drop Pearls. Krayt Grands and Tanrat Mythics have a chance for Tissues.

Also consider that:
1. Lesser pearls/geodes are new addition, that's an extra 15% loot chance for a pearl on the pearl variants or 5% on the tissue variants on top of any of the changes listed above. That alone is a massive buff to drop rates.
2. By making both Ancients and Grands high end Krayts (Same with Tanrats, which are also brand new) I have essentially doubled, actually, quadrupled, the number of mobs you can kill to obtain flawless pearls.

If you all want, I can just revert Krayt Ancients and Grands to pre-Chapter 1 since they are supposedly "broken." Or, I can revert them to Basilisk where your loot chances for flawless pearls hover around single digits. They are-FULL STOP-not broken and are actually dropping more tissues than I would like.

2 BH to a Jedi Mission - Don’t care too much. The real changes that need to be made with BH deal with the flamethrower and allowing other players in your group to help rather than watching you die to several BH. If more than one BH can take a Jedi mission, groupmates should be able to help.

Flamethrowers are being worked on.

Group members helping? That will never happen, it's a technical dumpster fire and completely unfair to BHs. If there's a group of 20 players and a BH pulls a mission, he will never be able to defeat his bounty. Everyone is always grouped, this will nullify BH missions completely. Even if it makes sense "lore wise," lore goes out the window when it comes to balance. If people want "lore" then we can just remove Jedi completely since they're suppose to almost be extinct.

I have to be honest, this suggestion only sounds like it's coming from the "target's point of view and not considering the Bounty Hunter. I've been getting this suggestion a lot and it would not work, period.

Moved Special Heavy Weapons Accuracy skill mods to the Heavy Assault tree (xxx0) in Commando. - Insignificant change. Commandos don’t rely on Accuracy vs Jedi. Jedi have little ranged defense unless going MDef. The accuracy can still be bumped up with SEAs, Citrus, and FS Mods.

Go on Test Center and provide feedback with numbers. Post your findings here.

Moved Special Heavy Weapon Cone Attack 1 special to Heavy Assault III (xxx3) in Commando. - Curious change. Means nothing IMO.

Removes a fire dot from the Special Heavy Weapon tree.

Moved Special Heavy Weapon Single Attack 2 to Special Heavy Weapon IV (xx4x) in Commando. - Insignificant. BH/MTK/Commando took this line anyways.

Means they need (xx4x), can't try to get away with (xx3x). Yes, some did this.

Moved 5 Special Heavy Weapon Speed from Special Heavy Weapon IV to Master Commando. - Again, Insignificant. +25 Special Heavy Weapon speed SEA and a lower speed Flamer is all it takes. And the FS mods allow for a slower, higher damage flamer.

It actually means nothing because some have a 0.1 speed flamethrower, but I did it anyways.

Removed 10 Special Heavy Weapon Accuracy from the Commando profession. - Again, insignificant. The problem is vs Jedi, and Accuracy is not the issue.

It still means they can miss through saber block. Add in the fact that they require a second tree to be accurate mean something.

Flamethrowers were meant to be slow and inaccurate, but to pack a punch when it hits. Low speed tissue/Imp Stocks/+25 Special Heavy Weapon Speed SEAs, FS Speed Mods make them capable of spamming crazy high damage specials far too fast. +25 Special Heavy Weapon Accuracy SEAs, FS Ranged Accuracy, and Citrus make the crazy high damage specials hit more often than they should. It’s an awful combo for PVP. In PVE... well it’s PVE and shouldn’t effect anyone else.

If I could go back in time and stop the person who added Special Heavy Weapons SEAs to this server I would, but I can't. We're stuck with them.

I’m guessing the thinking is that if people have to take BH3000/MTK/Commando0044, it will stop them from getting healing abilities so that will be enough, but an MTK with a PSG/food/using intim and warcry remotely skillfully will not take damage anyway and can still put out a significant amount.

Please log onto test and provide screenshots with numbers. I've been getting a lot of suggestions/opinions from players, but not a single person has helped me test these numbers. All these changes are a start, this is on Test Center for a reason.

I believe that a few things can happen with Flamethrower damage to make it not ruin PVP.

1. Flamethrower damage in PVP can be cut to 25%. This is the most likely and easiest option without screwing too much with the trees. This will give Jedi at least a chance without having to FR2 out of there if they survive the initial attack. It will force the BH to keep the Flamethrower equipped for longer and the TK toughness won’t kick in, making the BH take much more damage.
2. Cut Flamethrower damage by 50% in PVP and put the ability to hunt player Jedi in the MBH box. I can see a hobble strike (cutting off FR) or something similar added to the MBH box as extra incentive.
3. Cut Flamethrower damage by 50% in PVP and put /specialheavyweaponsingle2 in the Master Commando box. This would force BH3000/MCommando/TK0424, giving little ability to do damage as TK, no healing, and no melee mitigation 3.

Thanks for everything you guys are doing. I and many others appreciate the effort. I know it is a difficult task to keep everyone happy, and not getting a dime for it makes it even worse!

Sorry for the novel!

There are more options on the table, but none, including those you have listed are pretty. You're talking about adding A TON of calculations every time a combat event is fired, whether it's a flamethrower, a non-flamethrower, a jedi or against a player or a non-player, there's overhead. We tack on one calculation here, another there and next thing you know the server is lagging out every time a flamethrower is fired.

The goal is not to nerf the Commando profession into the ground, but adjust the BH/Commando template.

Sorry if any of my responses are heated, this is just the 10th or so time I've answered these same questions and that's an hour of a half of working on these issues that was instead spent answering questions on the forums. Now I get to go to Discord and answer the same questions again.

[Tyclo]

March 6th, 2020
SEA Removal Tool:

• The SEA Removal Tool has received an overhaul.
• You may now pick what SEA you would like to attempt to retrieve from a piece of armor or clothing.
• Player's skills and armor/clothing repair skill mods now determine the success to extract an SEA from a piece of armor or clothing.
• You are guaranteed to retrieve at least one SEA regardless of skills or skill mods, skills and skill mods increase your chances for each subsequent SEA retrieval.

The following increase the chance for extracting an SEA from a piece of armor:

• Novice Armorsmith.
• Master Armorsmith.
• Armor Repair skill mod.

The following increase the chance for extracting an SEA from a piece of clothing:

• Novice Tailor.
• Master Tailor.
• Clothing Repair skill mod.

The follow skill mod increases the chance for extracting an SEA from a piece of armor or clothing:

• Force Sensitive Luck

The following skill mods can no longer be extracted using an SEA Removal Tool due to their inclusion in Bio-Engineered clothing and ability to be crafted with high stat modifiers:

• Dancing Wound Healing
• Dance Battle Fatigue Healing
• Music Would Healing
• Music Battle Fatigue Healing
• Medic Wound Healing
• Medic Would Treatment Speed
• Healing Range
• Med Use
• Creature Taming
• Creature Agro Taming
• Creature Harvesting
• Camping
• Stun Defense
• War Cry

[RIPGorath]

Drove out there, forgot about taxi's

Did Acklay a few times, no weird stuff I noticed.

Few different versions spawned each time, LS resist one was a little ruff lol

I like the AI changes and finally have the SL changes that were badly needed. I am wary of the SEA tool changes, I've been doing nothing but high end MOBS the last 2 months and have only 1 +25 to show for it (that i was looking for, and that was only from krayts after the chap 1 stuff) Been doing mostly DJM's n Elders specifically those last 2 months.

Commando changes are nice as well, also is it true that flamethrowers don't have a PvP damage reduction modifier?

[Xordium]

I have read your SL suggestions, for now, we don't have any immediate plans but I have seen your post. Revamping a profession like SL could take two or three weeks. The changes now are for balancing, but we are looking to make professions like Squad Leader, Ranger, Carbineer and others more viable.

Cheers, I contract out to a game dev and I know we read all the forum posts. Got some of our best ideas from there. I know we all play an awful lot of games but you can't get exposed to all of them and there's always something you can implement (plagarise!).

Like I said I don't think the SL changes (upon testing) impact melee but they do more ranged kiters. But I solemnly believe that will be fixed when you have the spare time to look at them rather than gamey solutions. Kiting kind of works still depends on the planet - Lok and Tat being the easiest Dath doesn't work at all too many things unless the SL is directly atk (which is kind of the point).

So if the SL is actively played this impinges neither ranged or melee. If you're using a second character and afking it it works for melee, ranged only works if you attacking something that will stay ranged.