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Interview: Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills Part 2

Interview: Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills Part 2



The second part of our interview with Star Wars: The Old Republic's Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills delves a bit deeper into companion integration and recipe mechanics. We also gained insight into how the system deals with avoiding intense grinding. We also include a video of Erickson's overview of the unique Crew Skills system after the jump.
Interview



Video of Part 1 (Overview). Part 2 continues below.


Can the companions of two players from the opposite faction fight over a node?

Daniel Erickson: Your companions are actually controlled by your own aggro stuff. So if you weren't aggroed to another player, they would not. It would be first come, first serve... obviously, if you sent your companion to go grab something and then you saw that thing was no longer available.

One of the things you probably noticed about the companions is that they are directly controllable as well. You don't have to directly control them. You could say, "Attack their companion." You could get a pretty good drop on their companion if they were down scrabbling in the dirt and you used your companion's big nasty attack ability -- his big cooldown -- against them. You could assume that yeah, you could keep somebody busy, knock off their companion, and then go for the node if you're battle crafting.

Will players also have the option to gather materials from nodes without using their active companion?

Absolutely. You can always do it yourself. In fact, if there are multiple nodes you are trying to hit, then that could be a really disciplined way of doing it. Anything you have a gathering skill for, you can do yourself or you can send your companion to do it.

You referred to Treasure Hunting rewards as a "random number generator" result. What would you say to those that are discouraged by the random number generator usage?

There are lots of things in the game that are not that way, but our loot system is always working in that way. Drops are random by their very nature, and Treasure Hunting is an extension of that.



You mentioned Vette excels at Treasure Hunting. Are companions restricted in what they are able to do regardless of what they excel at, or will they be able to do everything?

All companions can do all skills that you know. You're the one who has the Crew Skills on your character, so you say, "I learned these Crew Skills." You can assign anyone to it. Companions have bonuses to them, but those bonuses aren't so large that they would ever restrict you. The balance is... we don't ever want you to say, "I don't want to take Vette out today" because that would be too much of a blow to my Crew Skills game.

We need to make sure the bonuses are enough to be impactful but not enough to make it nonviable to use somebody else for the same thing. Just because you have Vette on your team doing Treasure Hunting doesn't mean you will feel like "oh, I have to leave her home because I wouldn't want to send Companion B out to Treasure Hunt."

Is every passive companion at your disposal able to do crafting all at the same time or are restricted to a maximum number?

To be clear, you can have up to five companions working on a crafting table. You can have up to five companions working on different crafts, and have other companions out on mission skills or doing something else like missions for gathering. Crafting limits at five, but Crew Skills you could have everyone going at once because crafting for us is one third of Crew Skills. But you can have one companion out who will trail around and follow you in the world.

By including an offline component to crafting, will new players six plus months out be at a disadvantage or will there be a system in place to deflate the time values of old content like in other MMOs?

I don't think the parallels really make sense because it is the same thing for any crafting system you have in any game -- crafting takes time. In ours, crafting an individual item takes even more time than in most games so you can do it offline. At the same time, you can be online and ignoring it. But you have to remember your companion is doing it and you're not doing it. So there really is not a difference in the person who shows up day one as a new player, who obviously can't craft what you can craft because you were doing it for six months. You are going to know far more recipes and far more skills -- you are going to be way down the line. They are going to be at the very first beginning levels of it.
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Comments

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  • Mongo's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #46 Mongo Posted 11/19/2010 6:05:43 AM
    Not sure if this was mentioned but in a DE interview he mentions the following

    Within Biochemistry you can make Implants (which are permanent items. Not sure if he means permanent as in binding or permanent as in not a onetime use item), Adrenals (boosts strength for a brief period), and Stimpacks (heal)

    Affection alters chance to crit on treasure
    Gear restrictions for Dark/Light side

    Each class starts on a specific spot on the dark/light meter (e.g Sith start Dark)

  • Shynx's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 18
    #48 Shynx Posted 11/20/2010 2:15:10 PM
    you mind linking your souce? i would very much like to read that one
  • Invader Mig's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #38 Invader Mig Posted 11/18/2010 5:46:09 PM
    I wonder if when he says that 1 or 2 people on a server might have an item, does that mean there may be a numerical limit on certain recipes. I just hope that means things are so difficult to get that it's like hitting the lottery and that their isn't an actual set number of recipes available.
  • adipokerface's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #45 adipokerface Posted 11/19/2010 1:23:10 AM
    It sounds like there will be lots of unique ones but they'll be variations of each other, if that makes sense..
    Basic example: only 2 recipes for blue shoes in the game but also 2 recipes of every other possible colour for the same item. Like I say just a basic example but yeah.. I don't think there'd just be say 2 of a specific item because that'd mess up the in-game economy with people selling their cool-downs constantly for crazy prices and people endlessly farming for these rare items. But if there's lots of similar ones then there'll be tons of variation so as not to unbalance the economy.
  • GMan3's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 11
    #47 GMan3 Posted 11/19/2010 8:33:13 AM
    I saw this to mean that it was more of a lottery to the drops and that some recipes were so rare that seeing more than a handful of dedicated crafters with the recipe would be extremely unusual. I highly doubt they would be foolish enough to actually limit the number of people on a server that could have a recipe though since that recipe would become lost as soon as someone decided to not play anymore.
  • Mongo's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #37 Mongo Posted 11/18/2010 4:24:29 PM
    Not really sure why, since i wasnt a big social crafter in other games, but this makes me want to be a hardcore crafter.

    I really hope the game ships with a phone app.
  • adipokerface's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #35 adipokerface Posted 11/18/2010 1:35:49 PM
    "The balance is... we don't ever want you to say, "I don't want to take Vette out today" because that would be too much of a blow to my Crew Skills game."

    Then why have bonuses at all? Even if it's a slight bonus, i'd still choose that character over one without a bonus every time.. I think they're trying to please too many people at once with some stuff they come out with.
  • Kaidyn's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #41 Kaidyn Posted 11/18/2010 7:34:47 PM
    They haven't really said what the bonuses will be exactly. Having a bonus to a skill may just be that they make it faster than the others. Also think about if you have a companion that is a healing class that has a bonus to a skill but you are going to do a flashpoint later with some friends and you are not sure if you will have a dedicated healer. So you que up one of your other companions that doesn't have the bonus skill to do something just in case you need the healer companion for the instance. I like the fact that there is alot of thinking and management that will go into this type of crafting.
  • adipokerface's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #44 adipokerface Posted 11/19/2010 1:15:19 AM
    Well he did say that Vette, for example, has a bonus in treasure hunting. I don't know.. I suppose in my mind, I read into that as she'd be able to find better treasure and seeing as it sounds like each quest like this takes the same time regardless of the companion character chosen for it, I don't think there would be a timing bonus.
    Unless it's not a universal quest time and it's different for each companion.
    Aaargh I hate not knowing!! This game just needs to come out lol
  • heybarn's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 240
    #34 heybarn Posted 11/18/2010 10:44:22 AM
    Great stuff - enjoyed watching this tonight (better late than never). I'm looking fwd to taking 3 mission skills or 2 mission and 1 gathering to hopefully make AH credits selling resources ;-)

    Oh, and the end was funny with Em coughing up a lung along with DE's reply!
  • nedostup's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #29 nedostup Posted 11/17/2010 11:51:29 PM
    Finally, we know how to pronounce Dashade!
  • Elkesai's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 230
    #33 Elkesai Posted 11/18/2010 6:21:08 AM
    Well, we know how Daniel Erickson pronounces it anyway.
  • ZealotX's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #23 ZealotX Posted 11/17/2010 7:34:40 PM
    Will someone please explain "direct control" over your companions?
  • Drenarb's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #24 Drenarb Posted 11/17/2010 7:45:03 PM
    I think what they mean by "direct control" is the ability to say "Hey, Companion, go gather this while I attack this," or "Hey, Companion, go attack this while I go do this." I'm pretty sure they don't mean you can switch toons and be able to move your companion around like you would your actual character.
  • ZealotX's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #27 ZealotX Posted 11/17/2010 9:22:53 PM
    ok. I think that's what it is. Although... it would be interesting if you could [button] + click to move your companion to a certain spot. That could be done without switching. This would help with strategy and the fact that lives are going to rest on how good their AI is. If there's one thing that AI will not do super well in any MMO it would be pathing/positioning.

    In dragon age and KOTOR you had to switch to move them because you had more than one out. In TOR you can only have one out at a time. Conceivably then, there would be no confusion in issuing movement commands. And then once they have executed your command then their AI simply takes over again.
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