Farewell People

[Muhir]

This might be a good time to take the ear plugs out and start listening to us, our issues have fallen to deaf ears way to long around here and your damn right about one thing, people are dissatisfied with the game and way to many old timers have left already.

hm, don't know why quotes came out like that

Don't mistake absences of some of us "old timers" as having left due to game issues. Many I know that were around since st2/3 like myself just have priorities that don't allow us to play for one reason or another. Sure, there are some that have left because of some of the issues that have occurred. But, there are a whole lot of us that still keep up with the boards on a very regular basis.

While we may not be active in gaming, we are watching! I can tell you that if you're unhappy with something, the solution is far better if its handled in private. By doing one of these scorch and burn posts on your way out the door just doesn't reflect well on you.

edit..... comments directed to OP.

Edited March 3, 2011 by Muhir

[Mimir[IS]]

Don't mistake absences of some of us "old timers" as having left due to game issues. Many I know that were around since st2/3 like myself just have priorities that don't allow us to play for one reason or another. Sure, there are some that have left because of some of the issues that have occurred. But, there are a whole lot of us that still keep up with the boards on a very regular basis.

While we may not be active in gaming, we are watching! I can tell you that if you're unhappy with something, the solution is far better if its handled in private. By doing one of these scorch and burn posts on your way out the door just doesn't reflect well on you.

edit..... comments directed to OP.

Who is OP? I had this lil guy flash through my head.

[C Del[IS]]

A chance to build 200% something, a chance that something uber drops from a raid mob or even a chance to cloak while taking damage I can see but, a chance to loot while cloaked is way to funny for me without the thought of "WTF! have I got myself in to, these guys are noobs", its like saying there's a good chance my PW can use sap on a mob or all 6 weapons will fire if he's lucky but there's a good chance he's gona be fighting with only 3.

This might be a good time to take the ear plugs out and start listening to us, our issues have fallen to deaf ears way to long around here and your damn right about one thing, people are dissatisfied with the game and way to many old timers have left already.

Ok. You could have said that you feel we don't listen enough and that you don't like the way cloaked looting is working, but instead you flew off the handle because of an innocuous comment and just called the people who donate their technical skills, money, and time to creating the emulator "noobs" (thanks for that). That really doesn't help things get done.

There aren't a lot of us that work on this thing. I'm sorry that things get missed or overlooked and that sometimes gameplay takes a step backward, but to say that we simply ignore the playerbase is downright insulting. Honestly, I agree with you that the random chance (it's 50%) to loot while cloaked is bad. To me, it seems like you should be able to loot cloaked (not sure how it was done in live), but that doesn't mean I'm going to call anyone who disagrees with me a nubcake.

[Terrell [BT]]

I think I kind of understand what Rez was talking about. Since we Jenquai have "rather fragile ships" I don't think it's unreasonable or even unbalancing to be able to loot while cloaked as we did in Live. (assuming we have loot rights to the corpse in question) The limitations on cloak in Live were reactor, and the restrictions on movement during power up on the first 4 levels, restriction against warp for L5, and that one always took at least 3 seconds to cloak even with improved cloaking. Low level cloak would engage faster with improved cloaking, L5 had stealth strike time doubled. Cloak could also be interrupted if enough incoming damage occured.

I do agree that we should have to decloak to fire, prospect, JS, use any skill other than Compulsory Contemplation, use any activatable equipment, or warp for levels below Group Stealth. IMO it would be better if doing any of the previous things would simply cause cloak to drop, rather than receiving a message about another skill being in use.

[Kenu [CDEV]]

about the looting in cloak thing, my reasons:

- you should have to take risks to be greedy

- fold space could be used as a get-away for looting

- it doesn't really make sense to be able to loot something while cloaked

- makes looting require some decision at times instead of being guaranteed

these are not necessarily permanent changes and if they are extremely unpopular they may be removed.

[Rezwalker]

To be honest I don't care one way or another if we can loot cloaked or not, I can live with one or the other, it's the "chance to loot while cloaked" that bothers me. Jenqs need to know if to loot and run or cloak and loot, they don't have the shields for guessing games.

[Kenu [CDEV]]

the chance was a way to be a little more forgiving on greedy looters. It makes being greedy more of a gamble. You could either choose to try and loot with a chance of getting killed before you can escape or you can choose to not loot at all. If there was no probability in that situation you would have to choose to not loot at all(provided the mobs stay in the general area).

I can understand if you assumed it worked 100% of the time and that caused incapacitation or problems in the future. Maybe we can add a system message when you loot while cloaked to warn players it's not a 100% deal.

the percentage might be a bit off, but I still think it's a good concept.

[HellHasArrived]

To the cloaking thing I only have one thing to say. When ever I go to float something I can no longer cloak unless I loot something, gate/dock, or relog which to me is really annoying especially if I am knee deep in mobs.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

What do you mean by "floating" something? releasing it into space?

[Terrell [BT]]

What do you mean by "floating" something? releasing it into space?

Hitting warp while tractoring something in, so that it floats in space, free to anyone who picks it up.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Ok yeah that's what I thought. So this is disabling your ability to cloak after you do it? If so that's definitely a bug. It would seem that the server is not recognizing that your tractor beam has terminated.

[Terrell [BT]]

the chance was a way to be a little more forgiving on greedy looters. It makes being greedy more of a gamble. You could either choose to try and loot with a chance of getting killed before you can escape or you can choose to not loot at all. If there was no probability in that situation you would have to choose to not loot at all(provided the mobs stay in the general area).

I can understand if you assumed it worked 100% of the time and that caused incapacitation or problems in the future. Maybe we can add a system message when you loot while cloaked to warn players it's not a 100% deal.

the percentage might be a bit off, but I still think it's a good concept.

What's the point of killing something if you are going to choose not to loot at all, outside of faction farming?

[Kyp [LDEV]]

I think his point is simply either the loot either isn't worthy OR the loot is less valuable to you than your forward progression and desire to have debt.

[Raizer Mackham]

That is true that you cannot cloak again as the server says you cannot do that while looting. But if you just kill another MOB and loot the corpse it restores the skill usage. I do it all the time will farming Drones in BBW.

Raizer

[Terrell [BT]]

I think his point is simply either the loot either isn't worthy OR the loot is less valuable to you than your forward progression and desire to have debt.

Nearly all loot is of some value, even if it's just for credits, and if it's in your range Trade XP for vendoring it. I'm really not in favor of reducing Cloak's utility, simply because it's one of the things us Jens do to make up for our poor shields & thin armor. No I don't think we need better shields, or good armor only that our key racial skill should not be reduced in utility.

Levelling up we will nearly always have worse shields than a Terran or Progen, with the exception of the Terran Explorer, and less margin for error given the style of playing as a Jenquai. IMO those shield and armor limitations are a fair price to pay for cloaking & teleportation, but when you weaken either of those skills, then the deal doesn't look as good.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Ok yeah that's what I meant, it seems that the server is not terminating your tractor beam when entering the warp state (perhaps just the visual part is stopping)

[Tienbau]

I fixed that looting bug with the spaced items.

Also the tractor beam staying there is a graphic bug which we haven't worked out how to stop. Simply terminating the effect doesn't work unfortunately. There must be a way of doing it, but I haven't yet found it.

Nevermind, managed to fix the loot beam - it's only been wrongly done since we first added looting.

Also just to clear up the 'Ninja' looting - if you own the husk, you can always cloak loot no matter what level, but if you don't you are subject to a chance test based on cloak skill.

[kjeron]

Also just to clear up the 'Ninja' looting - if you own the husk, you can always cloak loot no matter what level, but if you don't you are subject to a chance test based on cloak skill.

That's not how its functioning on the play server right now, looting any corpse, yours or someone elses, has a chance to break cloak. If the chance to break cloak only occured on corpses you didnt own that wouldnt be so bad.

My guess is that once you open the corpse, it no longer belongs to you, others cant loot it because you have it open, but you no longer own it the moment you open it, so even your own corpses are looted as though you didnt own them.

[Slayerman]

Never used a cloaking character but imagine this being the case.

If im sat in space, no one can see you... good stuff.. You fire, you have a 'location' as you can see where your 'weapon' originated.

Tractor 'BEAM' - why would you NOT see where the beam originates?

Surely a bright beam coming from no where is a give away to where you are? Maybe guns cant lock on to you, but you still should have the chance of being hit as a gun can be fired in a general direction.

Not saying it should be as easy to hit a toon that is cloaked compared to one that is, but for someone to 'sneak in' and loot a corpse whilst someone else is tangling with other mobs in the area, there should be some risk involved in looting when cloaked.

Just my 2c

[Mimir[IS]]

Never used a cloaking character but imagine this being the case.

If im sat in space, no one can see you... good stuff.. You fire, you have a 'location' as you can see where your 'weapon' originated.

Tractor 'BEAM' - why would you NOT see where the beam originates?

Surely a bright beam coming from no where is a give away to where you are? Maybe guns cant lock on to you, but you still should have the chance of being hit as a gun can be fired in a general direction.

Not saying it should be as easy to hit a toon that is cloaked compared to one that is, but for someone to 'sneak in' and loot a corpse whilst someone else is tangling with other mobs in the area, there should be some risk involved in looting when cloaked.

Just my 2c

/agree

If a cloaked toon can escape mob detection as well as other players, me thinks it is way past time to make a Mimir cloaker. I will be the nastiest ninja looter in game. I can see it now, slip into a FB cloaked, wait until the master is dead and pounce. LOL all the real owners of the loot will see is their loot floating away out of the dead mob.

The above was complete BS but, if the "See cloaked device" works should it be a non issue? Any player with the device/skill will see the Ninja looter and he/she/me will have a name and be labeled as a thief.

[Terrell [BT]]

/agree

If a cloaked toon can escape mob detection as well as other players, me thinks it is way past time to make a Mimir cloaker. I will be the nastiest ninja looter in game. I can see it now, slip into a FB cloaked, wait until the master is dead and pounce. LOL all the real owners of the loot will see is their loot floating away out of the dead mob.

The above was complete BS but, if the "See cloaked device" works should it be a non issue? Any player with the device/skill will see the Ninja looter and he/she/me will have a name and be labeled as a thief.

Anybody with a Terran Scout or Progen Sentinel in the group, with Scan 5 (or a Jenquai with Scan 5) would be able to see said looter regardless of whether or not they had a device. Scan 5 means that whenever a cloaked object is detected, all group members can see it. Having control of loot rights to the player or group that does more than 50% of the damage to the mob, fixes the issue of ninja-looting, the /credit kill command for raids helps when the looting rights need to be changed.

[Terrell [BT]]

Never used a cloaking character but imagine this being the case.

If im sat in space, no one can see you... good stuff.. You fire, you have a 'location' as you can see where your 'weapon' originated.

Tractor 'BEAM' - why would you NOT see where the beam originates?

Surely a bright beam coming from no where is a give away to where you are? Maybe guns cant lock on to you, but you still should have the chance of being hit as a gun can be fired in a general direction.

Not saying it should be as easy to hit a toon that is cloaked compared to one that is, but for someone to 'sneak in' and loot a corpse whilst someone else is tangling with other mobs in the area, there should be some risk involved in looting when cloaked.

Just my 2c

Wouldn't this also depend on the level of intellegence of the mob that sees you? A V'rix or a Human, and maybe some of the smarter bio-mobs may figure it out. Other mobs may simply have a few "thoughts" such as Food, threat, mate, fight, & flee. Can mobs, at some point in the future get an additional characteristic, Intellegence? IIRC they will get Alturism, Bravery, & aggressiveness. (Would think mobs with higher Alturism may be more likely to be intellegent.)

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Terrell, they already have it, it just doesn't manifest because we haven't done a whole lot with AI code yet.

[Terrell [BT]]

Terrell, they already have it, it just doesn't manifest because we haven't done a whole lot with AI code yet.

That's going to be interesting. Looking forward to seeing how it affects the game. Orefield guardians that actually are aggressive enough to make explorers of all 3 races pay attention, or get killed, is a good thing.

[echarboneau]

Wow, this thread has really progressed since I went on vacation and returned again. Some interesting stuff here when people aren't making it personnel. I would just say to the people who are making it personnel, and this, again, is not my day to blow sunshine in the direction of the Developers. But, for those of you who are making it a personality issue with cheap quips and such, don't bite the hand that feeds you. I know, having first logged onto the Net 15 years ago, that Emily Post and Ms. Manners don't carry much weight in cyber-space, but you either win with a winning idea or you *** yourself with cheap, tawdry comments. The DEVs often make decisions that make me scratch my head, but I don't know what the long term plan is for the game or its many, many sub-parts. (Occasionally they even make decisions that p**s me off a lot.)

Thanks again to the DEVs, the GMs, and everyone else who progresses this thing, this game, that is so important to me. I hope some of the more intelligent aspects of this thread are carried on in less contentious threads.