Legacy system family tree---what is the benefit?

[smore]

So you're saying the legacy is a mandatory feature?

I thought it was optional, might have read wrong then.

 

BTW I don't want to write down a legacy name that won't fit my character even if hidden because it's still there and has no ties at all with my character ; even less if I'm going to get stuck with it. Now, how about they implement new species/classes and then you find your non changeable legacy name not fitting at all?

 

This mandatory system in its actual state is being thrown into our throats. The popup is a pain.

This would have never passed the QA in LotRo, Rift, WoW.

Another thing that would have been avoided in the above games is you could not have 2 male characters linked as spouse... (I find it kind of funny though).

 

I'm just asking for 2 very simple things

1. Do not oblige us to write down a legacy name to get rid of the popup
   
2. Allow players to have different last names for their characters
   

It's not even hard nor costly to implement.

If you see it from that perspective, yes, it apparently is a mandatory feature. BUT then if you accept it as such (whether or not you do is another discussion), the popup makes absolute sense. I guess it's a matter of perception.

As for passing QA/testing*...if something complies to the design document, it will pass QA, regardless if the player (in this case, you and others who may feel the same way) likes it or not.

 

To the bullets in the list:

- i guess under the assumption of Legacy being 'mandatory', they have every right to oblige you to choose a legacy name. I know this is probably an insufficient answer to you, however.

- the last name thing may be harder than you think, all sorts of questions can pop up with it's implementation:

• Would it be mandatory or optional?
  
• Do you allow players to add/change the last name after the character has been created?
  
• How do you handle first and last names on the database level from the perspective of uniqueness of names?
  
• possibly others that don't come to my mind - i'm no MMO dev
  

 

The answers to the above questions may seem easy - admittedly even i can come up with some - but their implementation can be more complicated than we think, especially considering that we don't know how the underlying database is set up. In that light, adding different surnames it's probably a whole lot more complicated than, say, the legacy race unlocks.

 

While we are at it, are there any other MMOs out there that even have full-blown last names implemented? I've played LoTRO and Rift and i'm sure none of the two has last names - or didn't when i last logged in/created a character.

 

As with almost every game system in almost every game, Legacy and its implementation can not and will not please everyone. That does not mean that the implementation is perfect but it doesn't mean that there's a way of handling it which would be better for everyone. The developers make a decision (right or wrong) and the players have to find a way to handle it.

 

*Please note that i'm using testing and QA as interchangeable terms here since i understand most everyone in the US does the same. If we tread testing and QA as two different things then i may even agree with you that an overly obtrusive popup might not be considered "quality".

[Kaskali]

So you're saying the legacy is a mandatory feature?

I thought it was optional, might have read wrong then.

 

BTW I don't want to write down a legacy name that won't fit my character even if hidden because it's still there and has no ties at all with my character ; even less if I'm going to get stuck with it. Now, how about they implement new species/classes and then you find your non changeable legacy name not fitting at all?

 

This mandatory system in its actual state is being thrown into our throats. The popup is a pain.

This would have never passed the QA in LotRo, Rift, WoW.

Another thing that would have been avoided in the above games is you could not have 2 male characters linked as spouse... (I find it kind of funny though).

 

I'm just asking for 2 very simple things

1. Do not oblige us to write down a legacy name to get rid of the popup
   
2. Allow players to have different last names for their characters
   

It's not even hard nor costly to implement.

What if I want to opt out of receiving rewards for certain quests because it just kind of fits my character's personality? How about it I want opt out of getting social points because I really like my social bar blank? What if I dislike one of my companions and I do not want to recruit him?

 

They cannot anticipate the idiosyncrasies of everyone who wants to opt out of part of the game.

 

You get to choose a shared last name/title for all your characters. It is part of the game. I am sorry that you would have liked them to make the system differently, but they did not. I would have liked another stealth class, but there isn't one. That is not my decision, and it is not something that they are likely to change.

 

It is not an oversight or a failure of their QA team. Neither is allowing same-sex relationships. Bioware has a long history of making games that allow players to play as they want, which includes the possibility of having same-sex relationships.

 

These are design decisions. They are things Bioware did intentionally. They gave you the means to hide your legacy name if you want. There has to be something more important to get upset about than not being able to formally opt out of the legacy system.

[sheeldon]

i think ur mistaken this is a single player game not an mmo lol

[ninjashadowdark]

i think ur mistaken this is a single player game not an mmo lol

 

well if this is single player game how come i see people playing lol

[TurokDarkstar]

well if this is single player game how come i see people playing lol

 

It's a bug soon to be patched out.

[Bonezmccoy]

All characters in your legacy get all of your global legacy unlocks, regardless of the arrangement of characters in your family tree.

 

The family tree is just a fun visualization of the relationships between your characters - we don't want you to ever have to "respec" your family to get the unlocks you want, or for guilds to require you to have a certain family arrangement in order to pick up the right rewards.

 

So in other words, you, William Wallace, want us to have...

 

FREEEEEE-DOMMMMM!!!!!!

 

(I'm sorry. I know you probably get that same lame joke 10k times per week, but it was out there. It was contextual. I had to. It was impossible to resist)

[Actua]

So let's sum up this thread.

 

Bioware: "here, have some pie, pie is nice, and you can leave it if you don't want any"

 

Forum poster : "**** you, your pie ain't solving all my existential issues"

 

Bioware: "Ok, don't take it then..."

 

Forum poster: " GIVE ME THAT *********** PIE BACK, even if it sucks, and I don't want it. Why isn't it cookies, HUH BIOWARE?!?!?!"

[Darth_Vicente]

So let's sum up this thread.

 

Bioware: "here, have some pie, pie is nice, and you can leave it if you don't want any"

 

Forum poster : "**** you, your pie ain't solving all my existential issues"

 

Bioware: "Ok, don't take it then..."

 

Forum poster: " GIVE ME THAT *********** PIE BACK, even if it sucks, and I don't want it. Why isn't it cookies, HUH BIOWARE?!?!?!"

 

So true

[Kophar]

i've been saying this all along about things like spell and combat animations, sound effects, and the in game music. We don't need them. Just have everyone stand there and report everything that happens using numbers. The animations and sounds effects have no in game benefit at all and are completely unneeded. A players imagination will suffice. There is no reason to have anything more to create a mood.

 

Yes, you sound like that.

 

Some of us like cool things because they are cool.

 

So let's sum up this thread.

 

Bioware: "here, have some pie, pie is nice, and you can leave it if you don't want any"

 

Forum poster : "**** you, your pie ain't solving all my existential issues"

 

Bioware: "Ok, don't take it then..."

 

Forum poster: " GIVE ME THAT *********** PIE BACK, even if it sucks, and I don't want it. Why isn't it cookies, HUH BIOWARE?!?!?!"

 

 

rofl and double rofl

Edited March 29, 2012 by Kophar

[Saxx]

One thing I really want to see included down the road with the Legacy System family tree is a biography option. In EQ2 and SWG it was so awesome to have biographies for your character. Coolest thing was in SWG if a CSR read your Bio and liked it they would sometimes award you a medal for it.

 

EQ2 really expanded upon the idea adding in books that players could write stories into. Could definitely see an option for the RP servers to have players convey adventures to one another writing down stories to some kind of digital medium expanding upon the Roleplaying aspect of the game. Only difficult is getting past the 100 Barsenthors and 500 Captains of Havoc squad.

[keltonz]

So let's sum up this thread.

 

Bioware: "here, have some pie, pie is nice, and you can leave it if you don't want any"

 

Forum poster : "**** you, your pie ain't solving all my existential issues"

 

Bioware: "Ok, don't take it then..."

 

Forum poster: " GIVE ME THAT *********** PIE BACK, even if it sucks, and I don't want it. Why isn't it cookies, HUH BIOWARE?!?!?!"

 

Hilarious and true.

[RolyartNala]

So let's sum up this thread.

 

Bioware: "here, have some pie, pie is nice, and you can leave it if you don't want any"

 

Forum poster : "**** you, your pie ain't solving all my existential issues"

 

Bioware: "Ok, don't take it then..."

 

Forum poster: " GIVE ME THAT *********** PIE BACK, even if it sucks, and I don't want it. Why isn't it cookies, HUH BIOWARE?!?!?!"

No, you got it wrong.

 

It's more like---BioWare, you are lousy at making pie. Give it up, you're not a pastry chef.

 

[Maximum_Aaron]

No, you got it wrong.

 

It's more like---BioWare, you are lousy at making pie. Give it up, you're not a pastry chef.

 

 

And yet you're still in their bakery.

[arestesian]

Only if you haven't made any alts so far as it doesn't allow race change for existing characters. So if you've already made different races of different classes, getting them to be "related" is going to be pretty far fetched.

 

In this game your legacy name can be displayed, so you'd know that someone is of this legacy so they're related somehow to that name.

 

The flaw is that the legacy relationship is currently limited to just blood relations and marriages, instead of making it viable for non-blood related relations like clans (like Ventress' night sisters with a matriarch and sisterhood of assassins). If there was a Clan option for legacy relationships the system would be more fitting and complete, but again, being short sighted in terms of content development, BioWare opted for less and pawned off the whole "Anakin > luke x leia" family crap that SW is supposed to be about and based the entire Legacy system off of that. A legacy can be applied to a great many things, not all of them require blood relations.

 

 

 

 

I don't need the game to tell me that, I for one already made "Clans" for my characters to belong in instead of forcing them to be blood related. My characters belong to the greater will of the Clan regardless of their name, race, and class. They may be different species but they all do work to further the goals of the Clan. The legacy relation system in place in 1.2 is pointless for me since I have different races, and I refuse to bow to their inferior planning and lack of freedom for player choices.

 

 

Or how about some sort of Legacy crest or pattern to display on your character/gear, or anything that shows off that this character belongs to a legacy in a more meaningful way than turning a title on or off. Other games have capes that display guild symbols, and while capes in this game isn't likely to happen, allow for a little doohickey to show off a player's unique legacy could be well appreciated.

 

 

 

Legacy as it stands doesn't really appeal to the people it was supposedly intended for. They wanted to "balance" the benefits of those who utilize it and those who haven't but couldn't figure out how. So they opted for the lazy approach, make it meaningless and have no effect on whether it's used or not.

I would have done different skill animations to be chosen if characters are linked, get the linked characters as a combat assist character/or temp companion for a few seconds (on a massive cooldown and restrictons), pass on Legacy gears by turning one of their gears into a legacy item that is available for the other characters to assess via the legacy menus.

 

There are tons of ways to make Legacy and the relationship options meaningful without upsetting game balance, but it wasn't planned as such, and it was delayed till now because they still had no clue as to how to get it to work. They need better designers, it's like they don't know how to make the game better and more meaningful as time goes on and keeps borrowing the same old crap other MMOs failed to do right in the first place. BioWare isn't really learning from other people's mistakes, they're repeating them at the moment and looking like they'll continue to repeat the mistakes until something drastic comes along.

 

My initial reaction to your clan point is; it already exists they're called guilds and they operate outside of the legacy system.

I may be oversimplifying out of confusion, but it almost looks like you want the legacy system to allow you to create a personal RP guild for all of your characters.

[Ahebish]

And yet you're still in their bakery.

 

They put heroin in their jelly rolls.

 

I can't help myself.

[Maximum_Aaron]

They put heroin in their jelly rolls.

 

I can't help myself.

 

Delicious heroin jelly.

[RolyartNala]

And yet you're still in their bakery.

Luckily, their bakery is ALSO a restaurant/coffee shop/yoga gym! And I love yoga. I do yoga on other players so hard that they come to the forums and scream "Nerf!"

 

But the bakery part of the operation? Not worth my time.

 

[Aloro]

Sorry for not being as succinct as i would have liked to be i was rushing if I'm honest. The first 2 lines were in response to your quote the rest was just my general rambling which was not clearly articulated.

 

Heh, no worries. Thanks for clarifying.

 

To clearly articulate my problem with your response: I do not agree that the system would result in anyone being forced to do anything. The rewards in legacy today offer no incentive to end game content such as PVP or Raiding and even if it did it would only be if those rewards were required to complete the content that any guild would have to demand it. Just because some elitist idiots will does not IN MY opinion warrant the need to make concessions to a game system. You can agree or disagree i don't care, my personal belief is i would rather deal with the community BS but have more innovative engaging systems.

 

You don't agree that some guilds would require players to have specific family tree connections, even if those specific connections were required to get some of the legacy perks? Fair enough. It doesn't matter, because that requirement doesn't exist. The design here avoided that whole issue. Guilds won't require specific connections in family trees because connections in family trees don't have any mechanical benefits.

 

I don't see what's not to like about this design choice. You say you'd like more "innovative engaging systems"; I don't disagree. I do however think that the legacy system as proposed is interesting and has potential.

 

Which led me into my thought process of why i feel frustrated with the general direction of the game catering to people who have more time and not creating rewarding engaging experiences. The legacy system is about how much time you invest in the game and thus you get rewarded. Which rightly or wrongly i have 10/20 hours of time to play a week and so for me getting any type of reward from the legacy system is going to take a while due to how much time it takes to unlock or save up the money to gain any benefit.

 

Almost everything in MMOs is time based though, when you get down to it. Just about the only exception is story, which by and large just happens once.

 

The only way i would have found the system more worthy was if it was in general more engaging and allowed for more complex choices along the way that had an impact so that my time invested actually had some real consequence and meaning rather than the very hollow grind that i PERSONALLY feel the system represents.

 

At the end of the day this is my opinion, I am honestly happy if you like the concept and the mechanics that it represents. To me the system is a fantastic idea delivered in a basic and dull fashion.

 

Time will tell if people like it!

 

I'd absolutely love to see a more narrative-based legacy system, where our personal stories impact our mechanical benefits. I'm not sure how to implement it, but sure, in the abstract I agree that this could be an improvement. But then, in general, the stories are (to me) the best part of this game, so that's what I'd like more of, all across the board.

 

I'd love to have e.g. ways to tie my alts together through the in-game narrative. If I designate one of my alts as a rival of another, it'd be cool if I could somehow have them work against each other, undermining their efforts. If I designate one of my alts as an ally or spouse or child of another, it'd be nice if their name appeared every now and then in my plotlines... something to tie this together would be great.

[Rammi]

 

I'd absolutely love to see a more narrative-based legacy system, where our personal stories impact our mechanical benefits. I'm not sure how to implement it, but sure, in the abstract I agree that this could be an improvement. But then, in general, the stories are (to me) the best part of this game, so that's what I'd like more of, all across the board.

 

I'd love to have e.g. ways to tie my alts together through the in-game narrative. If I designate one of my alts as a rival of another, it'd be cool if I could somehow have them work against each other, undermining their efforts. If I designate one of my alts as an ally or spouse or child of another, it'd be nice if their name appeared every now and then in my plotlines... something to tie this together would be great.

 

I totally agree.

 

Until a day where my choices within legacy have an impact my desire or want to invest in it are not a priority, although I'm sure I will dabble!

[Caladax]

I'm not sure why anyone is arguing with the OP. Either they don't understand him, or they think he's wrong. Let me try to explain what I think he means:

 

The family tree system is a graphical display interface where your characters are shown, and you can decide how they relate to one another. The choices you make in this interface will not be visible to any other players, and will have zero in game effect. This feature could be replicated with more functionality by a pencil and paper (that is, everything you can do in the family tree, you can do with a pencil and paper, but you can actually do more with the pencil and paper, such as choose options which aren't in the interface, come up with intricate back stories for the characters, and so on).

 

Also, the family tree could easily be on the web site, since it has no effect in game.

 

So the point is, why did they do this? It adds nothing to the game, not even for role players. It costs resources, and does nothing.

 

Don't compare it to gear, or light saber crystals, because those have a constant visible graphic in game, and other players can see them. This system, unless you keep it open, is never viewed by other players, and only viewed by you for 5 minutes until you get bored of it (because how often do you think you'll really play around with linking members of your family tree?).

 

I don't care that they're putting it in, and I'll probably look at it for those 5 minutes, but I just don't see why they're doing it.

 

If NPCs reacted negatively to a jedi who was the son of an evil sith, or positively to a smuggler who was allied with a sage healer, or other players could even see it, or you could have some greater interaction with your relatives, or a thousand other things, then I wouldn't be asking this, but since it's worse than just a pencil and paper, what is the point?

 

This isn't a complaint. Maybe some people will find this fun, and good for them. Maybe it will even get them to think of writing fan fiction based around their characters or something. It's just that this doesn't make sense to me as a feature.

 

Imagine, if you would, that instead of character portraits, and lines with words, there were circles with different shapes (a star, a square, a trapezoid, and so on), and you could connect them with different colored lines, not as a puzzle game, just as an arbitrary choice. Now, consider that you mentally assign the shapes to your characters, and the line colors to types of relationships. Is that any different than this feature?

 

How about if they added a new currency, you get 5 each time you click on a button, but no one will ever know how many you have, and you can't spend them on anything. Is that something that's fun for anyone?

 

Maybe this will be fun for someone, I don't know, but I think the OP has a fair point that having more in-game effects (even just the ability for other players to see your family tree) would make this feature more interesting than not at all.

[Tamanous]

Likely been covered but I think the OP missed the memo.

 

This patch is stage 1 of the legacy mechanic. There will likely be stage 2, 3, 4, 5, etc etc. Something added now might mean nothing more than an rp'ish introduction to new related mechanics down the road.

 

It is the same as asking what the point of the legacy mechanic is now prior to 1.2 knowing already there will be things added to it. If you think it makes you sound a little stupid asking about it ... you would be right.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Tamanous

[Caladax]

Likely been covered but I think the OP missed the memo.

 

This patch is stage 1 of the legacy mechanic. There will likely be stage 2, 3, 4, 5, etc etc. Something added now might mean nothing more than an rp'ish introduction to new related mechanics down the road.

 

It is the same as asking what the point of the legacy mechanic is now prior to 1.2 knowing already there will be things added to it. If you think it makes you sound a little stupid asking about it ... you would be right.

 

Hmm, if you think the OP is stupid for asking why they're adding this, because you think they're obviously going to add more functionality to it, then please explain the following:

 

The family tree is just a fun visualization of the relationships between your characters - we don't want you to ever have to "respec" your family to get the unlocks you want, or for guilds to require you to have a certain family arrangement in order to pick up the right rewards.

 

The legacy xp system being in place made sense, as it enabled you to increase your legacy level while waiting for the actual legacy system. Supposing there will be more functionality for the family tree (which the yellow quote seems to indicate there will not be), what would be the purpose of having the system in right now? Other than having people make their eventually important decisions blindly?

[TheNevet]

Yeah, family tree should def. show up as a tab when you inspect someone.

 

This.

[RolyartNala]

I'm not sure why anyone is arguing with the OP. Either they don't understand him, or they think he's wrong. Let me try to explain what I think he means:

 

The family tree system is a graphical display interface where your characters are shown, and you can decide how they relate to one another. The choices you make in this interface will not be visible to any other players, and will have zero in game effect. This feature could be replicated with more functionality by a pencil and paper (that is, everything you can do in the family tree, you can do with a pencil and paper, but you can actually do more with the pencil and paper, such as choose options which aren't in the interface, come up with intricate back stories for the characters, and so on).

 

Also, the family tree could easily be on the web site, since it has no effect in game.

 

So the point is, why did they do this? It adds nothing to the game, not even for role players. It costs resources, and does nothing.

 

Don't compare it to gear, or light saber crystals, because those have a constant visible graphic in game, and other players can see them. This system, unless you keep it open, is never viewed by other players, and only viewed by you for 5 minutes until you get bored of it (because how often do you think you'll really play around with linking members of your family tree?).

 

I don't care that they're putting it in, and I'll probably look at it for those 5 minutes, but I just don't see why they're doing it.

 

If NPCs reacted negatively to a jedi who was the son of an evil sith, or positively to a smuggler who was allied with a sage healer, or other players could even see it, or you could have some greater interaction with your relatives, or a thousand other things, then I wouldn't be asking this, but since it's worse than just a pencil and paper, what is the point?

 

This isn't a complaint. Maybe some people will find this fun, and good for them. Maybe it will even get them to think of writing fan fiction based around their characters or something. It's just that this doesn't make sense to me as a feature.

 

Imagine, if you would, that instead of character portraits, and lines with words, there were circles with different shapes (a star, a square, a trapezoid, and so on), and you could connect them with different colored lines, not as a puzzle game, just as an arbitrary choice. Now, consider that you mentally assign the shapes to your characters, and the line colors to types of relationships. Is that any different than this feature?

 

How about if they added a new currency, you get 5 each time you click on a button, but no one will ever know how many you have, and you can't spend them on anything. Is that something that's fun for anyone?

 

Maybe this will be fun for someone, I don't know, but I think the OP has a fair point that having more in-game effects (even just the ability for other players to see your family tree) would make this feature more interesting than not at all.

Bumping this for excellent logic. This man makes my point better than I.

 

It's not even the fact that the family tree is going in that bugs me, it's the fact that it is being touted over and over by BioWare as a BIG DEAL, as an important feature of the legacy system, which it clearly isn't, as indicated in this very thread by the lead dev on the Legacy System. This is really annoying. Why tout something as important (making family connections) when it has, literally, no effect on the game?

Edited March 29, 2012 by RolyartNala

[Mightywombat]

the legacy system is being added to help control the economy, with all those costs that are on the list..you will be spending many million credits on unlocks just race alone is 1.5mill. or neutral trade station on your ship 5mill and legacy rank 25