Coming Changes to BH/Jedi

[Lolindir]

Coming Changes to BH/Jedi

02/01/2022
The SWGEmu Team

There is a lot of speculation going on regarding two commits that have been pushed to gerrit. Both commits are what we refer to as "two way doors," which means they can easily be toggled once they go live. So I would like to break down the commits a bit so they are easier to understand for all, as well as a change to the ToS regarding Jedi and Visibility.



First of all Jedi have fallen under a ToS rule when it comes to visibility for a long period of time. That is as follows:

4.1.3 Phishing is defined as deliberately and persistently wandering into the "visibility radius” of a Jedi to force them onto BH terminals. That said, the galaxy’s currently a dangerous place for a Jedi and they can’t expect to be in one location for long without attracting attention.

This has given Jedi an unbalanced amount of protection when it comes to their visibility. We are going to remove and/or revise this policy because part of playing a Jedi is the fact that you can get visibility and land on the Bounty Hunter Terminals. With that being said there are still rules in place for harassment for all players and should be followed.



The proposed changes:

[Added] Config option to anonymize jedi missions on bounty hunter boards

• With the AnonymousBountyTerminals configuration enabled the missions will not show the name of the player directly on the terminals when the mission is listed.

[Changed] Mission rewards to anonymous Jedi missions to static amounts with additional bonus credits upon completion based on target difficulty

• Payouts are listed as a static amount and the remainder of the payout based on mission difficulty will be given as a bonus upon completion of the bounty mission.

[Added] Additional message to seeker droids with target name if missions are anonymous

• The name of the player Jedi will be given once a Seeker Droid has found the target

Example:




[added] Config variable to allow for custom bounty mission expiration time

• Currently player bounty missions can be held for 48 hours before they expire. We are reducing that amount of time to 24 hours. This is in order to prevent friendly BHs from holding a Jedis mission so they cannot be hunted by those that may wish to see the contract carried out.

[added] config option to disable visibility generated from group members

• With this change Jedi will not gain visibility from players that they are grouped with. However, they are still open to gain visibility from all other players and NPC's.

Other issues we are actively looking into:

Pulling AI into a private structure

• This is a violation of the ToS. Additionally, we will implement a check to prevent AI from following a target into a privately owned structure.

Jedi in Private Houses Being Listed on Bounty Hunter Terminals

• We are aware that it can be frustrating for our hunters around the galaxy to pull a mission, track and find their target is sitting AFK in a private structure. So we are going to look to implement a method that if a Jedi is AFK in a private structure they will not be listed on the Bounty Hunter Terminals. When the Jedi exits the structure, their mission will again be listed on the terminals.

~The SWGEmu Team

[avimeso]

I have no issues with this. Seems reasonable.

[djpwnz]

Am i missing something here? I thought this post was suppose to be about how we got to this point. Like why are these changes happening? I would hope based on the community feedback that has already happened today you will not be pushing this to Finalizer without really thinking who this is affecting. As for the change to pulling the mobs inside a house- those players should be banned, as it is a violation of TOS.

[SoUncool]

Thanks for the clarification, Lolindir. I gotta ask about the AFK Jedi in houses thing. I know they do it to bleed off VIS once they have it. Is there a way to stop that bleed once they're in houses? This just seems like a fairly blatant abuse of one game mechanic (private houses) to avoid another (consequences of gaining VIS).

[franklin920]

This is a terrible idea and have no idea we're these ideas came from or who put them in the queue, but how is this even needed? The only people who want group Jedis are the same people who farm the Acklay every night.

No reason not to be a Jedi now ladies and gents, since you can group with three other Jedi and run the game. This is the new ADK except Jedis don't have to wear armor

[Hakry]

Am i missing something here? I thought this post was suppose to be about how we got to this point. Like why are these changes happening? I would hope based on the community feedback that has already happened today you will not be pushing this to Finalizer without really thinking who this is affecting. As for the change to pulling the mobs inside a house- those players should be banned, as it is a violation of TOS.

Part of the issue is players have other players hold their bounty missions for 48 hours so they cannot get hunted. This is harder to do on Finalizer due to less characters available to each player, but still possible.

As for AI in private structure: It is for sure a ToS violation and they should be reported. All we will be doing is making it not possible for the AI to enter as an extra measure.

Thanks for the clarification, Lolindir. I gotta ask about the AFK Jedi in houses thing. I know they do it to bleed off VIS once they have it. Is there a way to stop that bleed once they're in houses? This just seems like a fairly blatant abuse of one game mechanic (private houses) to avoid another (consequences of gaining VIS).

The visibility bleed of is really slow and is earned at a much faster rate. Jedi do not AFK in houses to bleed of visibility. They AFK in houses so BHs do not want to pull their missions ever cause they are usually known for being a target that AFKs in a private house. This was a big issue on Basilisk and there were Jedi that Bounty Hunters ignored because it was a waste of time to even track them.

This is a terrible idea and have no idea we're these ideas came from or who put them in the queue, but how is this even needed? The only people who want group Jedis are the same people who farm the Acklay every night.

No reason not to be a Jedi now ladies and gents, since you can group with three other Jedi and run the game. This is the new ADK except Jedis don't have to wear armor

You may be misunderstanding the group visibility change. Jedi will only not receive visibility from the members of their group. Any other players or NPCs that are near them will still give visibility. So that means all of the other NPCs and players in the Geo cave. Not to mention, none of these changes were brought about by any certain groups of players. So that is just rumor mill and should be dropped.

This just seems like another needless nerf against BHs. Jedi had phases reduced to 1 week, they have anti-vis policies (which seem to be maybe under review?), no penalties for AFKing in houses / purposely trolling BHs, etc. Now there is no way to tell how strong a Jedi is when hunting them, who you are hunting, and they now also are going to dominate group content. Seems like the best option is just for everyone to roll Jedi at this point...at least I don't see any negatives you get for deciding to become one.

I am not sure if you did not read the whole post or misunderstanding it.

• The very beginning of the post mentions the removal/change of the anti-visibility policies.
• The end of the post says we are making so Jedi AFKing on Houses will not list on the terminals, so Bounty Hunters do not waste time hunting targets AFK in a house. They can log out and bleed visibility, they stay online in houses to troll Bounty Hunters.
• Jedi was not changed as it comes to group content? I am not sure where you have pulled that one from. They will still receive visibility from EVERY player and NPC that is not in their group.

[SoUncool]

The visibility bleed of is really slow and is earned at a much faster rate. Jedi do not AFK in houses to bleed of visibility. They AFK in houses so BHs do not want to pull their missions ever cause they are usually known for being a target that AFKs in a private house. This was a big issue on Basilisk and there were Jedi that Bounty Hunters ignored because it was a waste of time to even track them.

Thanks for clarification. Is there any plan to *stop* the "gonna be logged in and AFK in my house forever" behavior? Even taking them off the terminals while they're in a private structure doesn't seem like that much of a great fix, tbh. It just rewards the behavior. Which, again, seems somewhat exploitative by using one game mechanic to bypass another.

[Hakry]

Thanks for clarification. Is there any plan to *stop* the "gonna be logged in and AFK in my house forever" behavior? Even taking them off the terminals while they're in a private structure doesn't seem like that much of a great fix, tbh. It just rewards the behavior. Which, again, seems somewhat exploitative by using one game mechanic to bypass another.

We definitely can see that perspective on that however there is no simple way around that. It is their private structure and part of SWG is players having their own housing they can make private. If some other potential alternative comes to light it could be something we look into. However all of these changes were really minimal on the dev side of things and lots of alternatives are not. We still need to maintain our current scope of development. I personally have put more time into this then I would have liked and it has taken away from other things I was working on.

No I read the post pretty clearly...

-The very beginning of the post mentions the removal/change of the anti-visibility policies.
It states "We are going to remove and/or revise this policy". I am curious to see what it gets revised to. Since it could still benefit the Jedi heavily.

-The end of the post says we are making so Jedi AFKing on Houses will not list on the terminals, so Bounty Hunters do not waste time hunting targets AFK in a house. They can log out and bleed visibility, they stay online in houses to troll Bounty Hunters.
"So we are going to look to implement a method" to me this reads as "They will troll you until this gets implemented, which we do not know how long it will take to do so." I have no issues with the 2nd part, you are all volunteers and things take time. However if the fix for the afk doesn't go in at the same time as everything else, then it just is more time that Jedi troll BHs with the benefit of we can't even ignore the ones that we know are purposely trolls.

-Jedi was not changed as it comes to group content? I am not sure where you have pulled that one from. They will still receive visibility from EVERY player and NPC that is not in their group.
It states "With this change Jedi will not gain visibility from players that they are grouped with. However, they are still open to gain visibility from all other players and NPC's." So now it is just going to be full jedi groups doing end game content. I mean just being in a large party that isn't giving them Vis is just making them hone in on end game group content as the "correct" class to be. Sure they will get it from a NPC, but how much vis does a krayt dragon give? Or any number of other end game creatures.

So your first point, you are irritated over speculation of something that has not happened yet. The not clearly states This has given Jedi an unbalanced amount of protection when it comes to their visibility.


The second point, I do not know how long it will take but should be fairly simple. These are all simple changes or we would have not touched them at all. None of which are even live yet.


Third point, without mathing it all out for you. Visibility will stack up really quickly if they are attacking a target and other players are around and last I knew the Krayt Graveyard has had various groups of players out there. Even if they stop attacking they will just die, cause healing and force run also give visibility.

[TongFei Kasamatsu]

Thanks for clarification. Is there any plan to *stop* the "gonna be logged in and AFK in my house forever" behavior? Even taking them off the terminals while they're in a private structure doesn't seem like that much of a great fix, tbh. It just rewards the behavior. Which, again, seems somewhat exploitative by using one game mechanic to bypass another.

I absolutely agree.

My $.02 is that a Private residence wouldn't stop Vader, nor a canon bounty hunter, or an IRL Law Enforcement with a warrant. A Jedi logged in and in a private residence should open the residence to being sliced by a slicer and access permitted to any BH with the mission. It should take 5 mins or something before allowing access, but a Jedi on the terminals, sitting in a house should be hunt-able. It should take a master smuggler and maybe once MBH skills are actually viable, only allowed to MBH. But the future goal should be to allow no safe place for more than several minutes if the Jedi is logged in.

Another nerf to BH...just like sony did.

Not gonna repeat what has already been said.

What is to stop a jedi leaving his house for 10 mins..his mission pops on the terms and some poor sod accepts it, then goes back in his house for another 20 hours? Same issue, bh gets pissed off yet again.

And why should a jedi's house be private? In case he is on the toilet or getting undressed for bed? This is a game ffs, if a jedi wants somewhere private he can log off and not troll bh's.

Imo, if a bh has a jedi's mission and they are in a house atk or afk a bh should be able to enter or blow the door open with a grenade/rocket laucher/bomb droid. Kinda make sense given the technology that is in this universe.

Make a bh and play it for 6 months Lolindir, that will give you all the information you need on what changes need to be made.

Preaching to the choir my friend.

[jordan428]

You may be misunderstanding the group visibility change. Jedi will only not receive visibility from the members of their group. Any other players or NPCs that are near them will still give visibility. So that means all of the other NPCs and players in the Geo cave. Not to mention, none of these changes were brought about by any certain groups of players. So that is just rumor mill and should be dropped.

I'll admit this is where I have difficulty understanding. What is the motivation behind this change? What is it meant to accomplish? If I'm following what you're saying, it almost seems as if you're implying that this change has no impact whatsoever.

[TimAllen1337ttv]

We're in a taxi cab, and the driver just started driving without telling us where he's going. Just let me know if this is going to continue so I can roll my BH to Jedi.
Thanks.

[Azkar]

This just seems like another needless nerf against BHs. Jedi had phases reduced to 1 week, they have anti-vis policies (which seem to be maybe under review?), no penalties for AFKing in houses / purposely trolling BHs, etc. Now there is no way to tell how strong a Jedi is when hunting them, who you are hunting, and they now also are going to dominate group content. Seems like the best option is just for everyone to roll Jedi at this point...at least I don't see any negatives you get for deciding to become one.

[Azkar]

I am not sure if you did not read the whole post or misunderstanding it.

• The very beginning of the post mentions the removal/change of the anti-visibility policies.
• The end of the post says we are making so Jedi AFKing on Houses will not list on the terminals, so Bounty Hunters do not waste time hunting targets AFK in a house. They can log out and bleed visibility, they stay online in houses to troll Bounty Hunters.
• Jedi was not changed as it comes to group content? I am not sure where you have pulled that one from. They will still receive visibility from EVERY player and NPC that is not in their group.

No I read the post pretty clearly...

-The very beginning of the post mentions the removal/change of the anti-visibility policies.
It states "We are going to remove and/or revise this policy". I am curious to see what it gets revised to. Since it could still benefit the Jedi heavily.

-The end of the post says we are making so Jedi AFKing on Houses will not list on the terminals, so Bounty Hunters do not waste time hunting targets AFK in a house. They can log out and bleed visibility, they stay online in houses to troll Bounty Hunters.
"So we are going to look to implement a method" to me this reads as "They will troll you until this gets implemented, which we do not know how long it will take to do so." I have no issues with the 2nd part, you are all volunteers and things take time. However if the fix for the afk doesn't go in at the same time as everything else, then it just is more time that Jedi troll BHs with the benefit of we can't even ignore the ones that we know are purposely trolls.

-Jedi was not changed as it comes to group content? I am not sure where you have pulled that one from. They will still receive visibility from EVERY player and NPC that is not in their group.
It states "With this change Jedi will not gain visibility from players that they are grouped with. However, they are still open to gain visibility from all other players and NPC's." So now it is just going to be full jedi groups doing end game content. I mean just being in a large party that isn't giving them Vis is just making them hone in on end game group content as the "correct" class to be. Sure they will get it from a NPC, but how much vis does a krayt dragon give? Or any number of other end game creatures.

[Lolindir]

No I read the post pretty clearly...

-The very beginning of the post mentions the removal/change of the anti-visibility policies.
It states "We are going to remove and/or revise this policy". I am curious to see what it gets revised to. Since it could still benefit the Jedi heavily.

The phising rule will be removed, completely when this is merged to Finalizer.

-The end of the post says we are making so Jedi AFKing on Houses will not list on the terminals, so Bounty Hunters do not waste time hunting targets AFK in a house. They can log out and bleed visibility, they stay online in houses to troll Bounty Hunters.
"So we are going to look to implement a method" to me this reads as "They will troll you until this gets implemented, which we do not know how long it will take to do so." I have no issues with the 2nd part, you are all volunteers and things take time. However if the fix for the afk doesn't go in at the same time as everything else, then it just is more time that Jedi troll BHs with the benefit of we can't even ignore the ones that we know are purposely trolls.

The change have not been pushed to Finalizer yet. We are not done.

-Jedi was not changed as it comes to group content? I am not sure where you have pulled that one from. They will still receive visibility from EVERY player and NPC that is not in their group.
It states "With this change Jedi will not gain visibility from players that they are grouped with. However, they are still open to gain visibility from all other players and NPC's." So now it is just going to be full jedi groups doing end game content. I mean just being in a large party that isn't giving them Vis is just making them hone in on end game group content as the "correct" class to be. Sure they will get it from a NPC, but how much vis does a krayt dragon give? Or any number of other end game creatures.

As stated on top, this is a two way door change. If it don't work as we wish, we can revert it. With that said, if they are in a group like you say, they will still get on the terminals, or do you expect them to not have others around wanting the same content? You will get 20 new marks if they have a full group and they take the mobs away from 4-5 other players. I bet one is enough with the time and amount of specials they will use.

[Azkar]

The phising rule will be removed, completely when this is merged to Finalizer.

The change have not been pushed to Finalizer yet. We are not done.

As stated on top, this is a two way door change. If it don't work as we wish, we can revert it. With that said, if they are in a group like you say, they will still get on the terminals, or do you expect them to not have others around wanting the same content? You will get 20 new marks if they have a full group and they take the mobs away from 4-5 other players. I bet one is enough with the time and amount of specials they will use.

I expect them to all be in a group, doing end game content holding that area. At least on finalizer, there is a reason so little Jedi are on the terms right now anyways. The ones that are, the majority purposely are (as seen by them trolling or being fully templated, etc). Unless I am just wrong and Jedi are dying hand over first by the tons of BHs (but the BHs forums seem to indicate otherwise).
I do appreciate the clarification though of "The phising rule will be removed, completely when this is merged to Finalizer.".

So your first point, you are irritated over speculation of something that has not happened yet. The not clearly states This has given Jedi an unbalanced amount of protection when it comes to their visibility.


The second point, I do not know how long it will take but should be fairly simple. These are all simple changes or we would have not touched them at all. None of which are even live yet.


Third point, without mathing it all out for you. Visibility will stack up really quickly if they are attacking a target and other players are around and last I knew the Krayt Graveyard has had various groups of players out there. Even if they stop attacking they will just die, cause healing and force run also give visibility.

-you are irritated over speculation of something that has not happened yet.
I mean ya. I am irritated at these proposed changes and they haven't happened yet. I just know they are bad for the game. It doesn't require them to have been implemented for me to know this. As such, I have skepticism on other "potential changes" as well.

-The second point, I do not know how long it will take but should be fairly simple. These are all simple changes or we would have not touched them at all. None of which are even live yet.
Correct. I even mentioned I don't fault any of the devs for however long it takes. I know full well how long it takes to make changes like these, test them, push them through all the env, QA to sign off on it, etc. We are all giving feedback on proposed changes, which even though haven't gone live, are still planned to.

-"Third point, ....."
You keep saying "other players are around." Why? They will just be invited into the group / not all end game content has tons of players just waiting around. The excuse of "other players " will give them vis... I don't think will plan out like how you expect. We have seen that *some* Jedi try to get around any rules / mechanics in this game. I don't think this will be different.


So let me also ask this: Why are these changes happening the way that they are? What is the philosophy behind them?