Star Wars Galaxies

The Infamous Battlefields

Where to go?

Here's the thing.  There is only one Rebel PvE battlefield working correctly - at least as of today August 23, 2003 on the server Chilastra.  I can't speak for the other servers, but what we found is that when the battlefield warps you into the battlefield it is set to the coordinates 3785, -4037.  That's fine if you are on Corellia, because that's where it is supposed to send you.  However, if you are on Rori, you are out of luck. 

This means the only battlefield to play Rebel PvE on is the Corellia Rebel PvE.

Temporary Enemy Flag

Many times you cannot get into a battlefield when you have a temporary enemy flag (TEF).  Unfortunately the game does not ever give you direct feedback on what gives you a TEF, so it's hard to tell what it was for certain, but it appears that healing yourself or others or fighting anything even mobs without any faction gives you this flag.  If anyone can test to narrow this, then it would be great.

How do you fix it?  Sit around.  Don't heal anyone, don't fight anything.  Watch tv for 10 minutes and come back.  You should be able to enter the battlefield then.

Battlefield entry 

Once you get in, it's time to scramble away before you have a turret spawn right on top of you and a stormtrooper to boot.  Run away from the structure you see.  If you are entering a battle that is in progress then there is a good chance that these have already spawned and you will die upon spawning.  Which makes it important that you follow the next step.

After you've entered you should take out the small turret and Imperial trooper that spawns outside the wall where other Rebels come in.  You've already bugged out from their firing range.  The trick is to move just inside range to get aggro on the stormtrooper, then run out of range of the turret.  Turrets hit hard, so be sure to have a medic with you.  After you are out of turret range, take out the stormtrooper.  Then you go back and start hitting the small turret.  Turrets can be beaten by moving in for a few hits, then moving back out of range to heal before re-engaging.

Winning the Battlefield 

Okay, you've secured the route for people who spawn in.  Hopefully they will fix the spawn point so that  you don't need to do this, but this is a decent stop-gap.

Now it's time to start doing your objective, blowing up the 4 objects that were given waypoints in your datapad.  The trick to this is to attack from afar and do not engage the stormtroopers inside.  This is a bug, but you can shoot base structures without pulling aggro as long as you are out of range of the stormtroopers.  You will notice that walls, and what not are in the way, and that's okay because a cool thing about battlefields is that you can blow up all the walls, etc. by shooting them.

Clear out all the waypointed structures and you win!

Bugs and General Information

1.  The biggest bug/exploit is the lack of aggro by the stormtroopers.  This makes battlefields incredibly easy, but it probably is known by the devs already because the reward for winning is terrible.  We wanted to engage the stormtroopers, but there are like 8 all standing together.  They would have killed us within seconds if we had engaged one and we were trying to learn.  Dying and waiting for the new BF to spawn would have slowed us down.  They do not move around at all, so you can't use pulling tactics or even patience.  The troopers outside the walls move, but those inside are completely stationary.  I don't think they've worked out how to do mobs and walls yet.  Even on faction missions the mobs love to warp outside of walls and don't really know how to follow a wall to exit a building.  The warping is probably there because of this. . .  to keep them from getting stuck, etc.

2.  Low Rewards. You do not receive points for each of these structures, but instead receive a base reward of 25 points.  Whenever you take out a certain number of stormtroopers you receive a message stating that you have earned a battlefield ranking of 1.0.  My guess is that this number goes up if you kill many NPCs, so that winning the battleifield can be worth more if you have fought harder to attack it than others.  If this rating were to go to 2.0, you would receive 50, 3.0 = 75, etc.  Even if this is the case, the reward is terrible for the amount of running that is necessary to reach the battlefields and the strength of the NPCs.  The stormtroopers give only one faction point, when they would normally give nearly the whole battlefield's worth in faction points by doing missions from faction terminals.  The battlefield is interesting and fun, but very risky and very low reward.

3.  There is no way to call pets (except for the declared residence exploit).  Unfortunately, you cannot set up camps in battlefields.  Accordingly, you are not allowed to use pets of any kind in PvE unless you have the declared residence bug/exploit (Not sure which to call it because those with it did not TRY to get it).

4.  Artisans are out of luck in PvE.  Everyone heard about the ability to make structures that can help in battlefields?  Well, in PvE this is not possible unfortunately because there is not a Rebel base.  This may be possible in the PvE battlefields that are for defending, but the current bug that warps players to the Correlia PvE coordinates keeps us from finding out.  Artisans can still go and have a good time, but their special skills will not be as useful as they are supposed to be in other types of battlefields.

5.  Difficulty is either super high or super low.  You can use the guide above and win very easily with two players, but trying to win without exploiting (I don't plan to do this again except when testing - I don't have a huge group willing to run forever in order to test and fight legitimately unforutnately) would be INCREDIBLY difficult for a small group, but fairly easy for a large one.  8 stormtroopers are bad, but not at all impossible.  One party of 20 with advanced players could wipe the battlefield clean in a few minutes. 

6.  Warp point is too close to the base.  Players should load in somewhere safe!  Please follow the guide as the people to initally warp in get a few seconds to load in and get out of range while things spawn, but lets keep sending /bug reports until the devs hear us and move these spawn points somewhere less ridiculously under fire.

General Information

1.  Battlefields last for 60 minutes or until you destroy the 4 instillations that have waypoints on them. 

2.  /battlefieldstatus command displays the Planet, battlefield type (PvE, assault, defend, PvP, etc.), Number of players for your side (may show both sides in PvP - dunno), and time left on the battlefield before a reset.

3.  /placebattlefieldstructure can not be done while standing or running.  Additionally, players are required to be near a constructor that is of your faction's alignment.  There is not a Rebel constructor in the Rebel Assault PvE battlefield, so the command cannot be used.

Imperial Factional Equipment list

Combat Upgrade Overview 1

This update is intended to give you a very high level overview of where we are headed and what our goals are. We are open to significant shifts during the hands-on testing opportunity alpha testing gives us, so we don't want to communicate specific details that may end up being completely erroneous after the alpha testing period is completed.

This will be the first of many updates. We look forward to sharing more information with you though it may not be an "every week" frequency at the start. Prepare yourself for a whole lot more fun, flash and interactivity.

High Level Purpose

The SWG combat upgrade is intended to create more exciting combat. The goals for the Combat Upgrade are:

1. Make combat more interesting, diverse, hands-on, and less repetitive.
2. Create character inter-dependences that facilitate group tactics.
3. Make combat feel more like Star Wars

Feature Summary
Here are some of the new features we have added to bring you a more exciting combat experience. More news will be provided as the new combat system shakes out.

1. Make Combat More Interesting

• New HAM System
Separate special action costs from damage – no more dying from using your special actions!
Special action cost adjustments – more variety and tactics in gameplay, special actions now cost time instead of health.
Context sensitive abilities – Exciting new visual effects allow you to make tactical decisions based on changing situations – you can "see" what others are shooting you with while in combat.

• Profession and Character Upgrades
New abilities to help professions – each of the combat professions will be given a specific role in combat to fulfill.
“Mind” stat Balance - it won’t be the all-important stat in combat that it is now.
Make all species viable in combat – Different species will have different advantages based on their stats.
Dramatically reduce probability of “first strike” always determining victory.
• Improved Visuals

Enhanced weapon effects - more effects all around.
Counter-move and Recovery effects – You now have ways to recover from attacks - no more one sided combat!
State (DoT, Diseased, etc.) effects - new state effects and dots balanced with moves and counter moves.
Hit reaction effects - new visual effects increase the feel and pace of combat so players can react.
New Weapons Types - Added weapon types with their own visuals.

2. Create Interdependence

• Improve Professions
Professions now have unique roles in a group and make all roles useful.
Profession archetypes are more likely to be special and sought after.

• New Death and Incapacitation Rules

Change to the way HAM interacts with death - group with friends to increase your overall stopping power.

• Weapons and Armor Interaction

Profession specific benefits for wearing armor based on Profession - new roles for different armor types to prevent any one set of armor from being "the best".
Armor types are affected differently by different weapons. – there should no longer be a “best” weapon.

• High End Content
Tough NPCs and creatures will require groups to take them down.
Buffs and HAM drain/regeneration put back into balance.
Players can still solo character advancement.

3. Make Combat Feel More like Star Wars

• Look and Feel
Added new faction armor – four new armor sets.
New weapon balance makes all the Star Wars weapons usable in combat
Stormtrooper armor is now viable in combat – wear it with pride!

• Ranged Combat
Make ranged combat more interesting and important - we are working to extend combat range.
Prevent ability to make one’s self immune to range damage - No more unbeatable stacker templates.
New ranged weapons – more blasters, more blasters!

Blair
Producer

Combat Upgrade Overview 2

Greetings...

I’m Blair, producer for Star Wars Galaxies and more specifically in charge of the Combat Upgrade (CU) project. I’ve been around for a while now, and many of you may recognize me from when I worked on the Live team. In the upcoming weeks you will start to see what Combat Upgrade is all about. Next week, I’ll have a development diary set up, where you can see what happens on a daily basis. The diary will let you in on what changes we make, what feedback you give, and what the daily work on Combat Upgrade actually is. What we’ve got today is the first round of public documentation which talks about the hard work the CU team is doing. Our plan is to review the feedback this weekend, and prepare a response of the most frequently cited issues next week. Have a read. (It’s long!)

Combat Upgrade Update We looked at the current combat system in SWG and iterated designs several times to be sure that it is on target with your input for the system and for our overall mission which is to make SWG more fun, more accessible (easy to understand, hard to master) and Star Wars-centric. During this process we worked to make every system easier to understand, more engaging and more fun to play.

This vision document summarizes the exciting updates of the Combat Upgrade.

Statistics

Star Wars characters will now have a single hit point bar, called "Health". When health reaches zero, the player is incapacitated.

Offensive attacks are performed ultimately to damage your opponent’s health statistic in order to win in combat. Players continue to perform special actions in combat that they receive during their character’s advancement. These actions draw from two point pools "Action" and "Mind". You must have the required number of pool points to perform the action.

There will be no more stat migration capability.

Players no longer have the so-called "drain" stats: Strength, Quickness, and Focus. They will continue to have the recharge stats "Constitution", "Stamina", and "Willpower", however they will be called "health regeneration rate", "action regeneration rate", and "mind regeneration rate".

Species differentiation will be defined by different regeneration stats, skill mods, and minor special abilities.

The only wounds a player can receive are health wounds. All other wound types will be removed from the game.

Health, Action, Mind pools

A character's maximum health will increase with the character's combat level up to 300%. New character health will be 1000, maxed character health will be 3000.
Players will be able to reference their combat level.
Short term buffs will modify this health value no more than 20%.
Long term buffs will modify this health value no more than 10%.
Species modifiers will affect no more than 10% of a base statistic.

Special Actions

The following profession trees will be modified by adding and removing new special abilities to bring them in line with the new system: Marksmen, Medic, Brawler, Scout, Riflemen, Pistoleer, Carbineer, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Commando, Pikeman, Swordsman, Fencer, Jedi, TKA, Doctor, Combat Medic.
All of the above professions will be re-balanced so that mastery requires a more equal number of skill points for each of the elite professions. No player will be able to master three elite combat professions.
The profession trees for Entertainers, Musicians, Dancers and Image Designers will be affected by the Combat Upgrade, and will likely need some profession tweaking because of the changes with wounds, stat migration and buffs to the mind. We will make adjustments to entertainers by creating some long lasting, minor buffs for combat professions. The initial changes to these professions will be:

Profession Dancer

Added new dance (Tumble) to Dancing Knowledge I
Added new dance (Tumble2) to Dancing Knowledge II
Added new dance (Breakdance) to Dancing Knowledge III
Added new dance (Breakdance2) to Dancing Knowledge IV
Removed the 15 second delay between stopping one song or dance and starting a new song or dance.
Removed chance of making a mistake while dancing.

Profession Musician

Added new song (Starwars4) to Novice Musician skill box.
Added new song (Funk) to Music Knowledge II.
Removed the 15 second delay between stopping one song or dance and starting a new song or dance.

Profession - Image Designer

Reduced Image Designer skill point costs by 16 by reducing each skill box between Novice Image Designer and Master Image Designer by one point.
Removed Image Designer action timers for Body and Cosmetic changes.
Special Actions (continued)

Players that have skill boxes in one of these affected professions will be allowed a skill re-spec for their character. This does not include the force sensitive skills. (A re-spec is short for "respecify". It is the chance to choose new skills for your character).

Special actions will follow a more traditional "3 phase" execution: Wind-up, Execution, and Cool-down. Certain actions don’t have a windup and will execute instantly.

The wind-up phase is the time from when the player begins a special move to when the move takes effect. During this time, there will be a UI element, visible particle effects (or animation), and sound effects to indicate the player has initiated an action. The length of the wind-up time is determined by the ability used, the character's advancement level and associated buffs on the character.

Some abilities can be interrupted in the wind-up phase by attacks from opponents.

Moving during the wind-up phase cancels the action. By extension, actions which have no wind-up time will not be cancelled by moving. (Many special actions will not have a wind-up. Wind-ups will be used for specials such as "Aim" where the player would be stopping to aim a weapon).

The execution phase is the time the special action uses to perform the action. It is determined by the weapon the character has equipped and any associated buffs on the character. During this time, no other actions can be performed. The execution time is indicated on-screen by disabling all other special action icons, by animations and particle effects associated with the action, and by sound effects.

The cool-down phase is the time after the action is performed when that action cannot be executed again. The length of the cool-down time is determined by the ability used, the character’s advancement level, and any associated buffs. All actions belong to a "cool-down group".

Actions which share the same cool-down group cannot be executed until the cool-down timer expires. Cool-down is visualized by disabling all icons in the same cool-down group. No sound effect or animation is associated with cool-down since the player will be doing other things during the potentially long cool-down phase.

While an action or group is cooling down, the player may begin actions that are in other cool-down groups.
Toolbar text will be updated to better describe each ability.

The icons for each ability will be redone in full color. They will visually indicate which abilities draw from mind, which draw from action, and which draw from both.

Weapons and Armor

All weapons will do a base damage of type of two possible types: "Kinetic" or "Energy". Several weapons will do additional elemental damage of one of the following types: "Heat", "Cold", "Acid", "Electrical".
Armor will resist a percentage of the base damage. Some armor will have additional resistances to the elemental damage types.

Armor layer crafting allows you to add protection against the special damage types. Raising protection against any element will lower protection against the opposing element.

Recon Armor receives a nominal bonus to energy protection and a nominal penalty to kinetic damage protection. This can be conceptualized as a free energy layer.

Battle Armor has even protection against all damage types – no modifiers at all.

Assault Armor receives a nominal bonus to kinetic protection and a nominal penalty to energy damage protection. This can be conceptualized as a free kinetic layer.

Armor layer crafting allows you to add protection against the special damage types. Raising protection against any element will lower protection against the opposing element.

Wearing advanced armor will apply de-buffs to your character such as slower movement, accuracy penalties, etc. Armor with basic cores will not apply de-buffs.

As your character progresses through the skill tree, (s)he will learn certifications for