System Messages

Group Mechanics

Forming A Group

To start a group, just click and hold the MOUSE 1 button on any player, and then select the Invite option from the radial menu. You can also type /invite [player' s first name] in the Chat Input bar to invite someone to your group. The invite command and radial have a range of 90m. Players that want to join a group have to be within this range in order to be able to be invited. The group leader my also uninvite a player by using the /uninvite command and either targeting the player with it or entering the player's name.

A group leader may destroy a group by using the /disband or /leave command. To remove individual players, a group leader can use the /dismissGroupMember command and target them or include their name. Additionally the group member may use the kick radial option on players or use the kick option available in the group ui window.

A group may have from 2 up to 20 players in it. This includes pets.

Joining A Group

To join a group, you must first be invited. When you receive a message that you have been invited to join a group, simply type /join in your Chat Input bar. You can also bring up a radial menu on the character who invited you and select Join Group.

If you are invited to a group and do not wish you join, type /decline in the Chat Input bar. A Decline option also appears on the radial menu of the inviter, connected to the Join Group option. Like with the invite command, join group has a range of 90 meters in which the player must be in in order to be able to join.

Players may leave a group by using the /disband or /leave command. Both of these will allow the player to remove themself from the group.

THE GROUP LIST

Once you form or join a group, you'll see a new element: the Group list. The Group list contains the names and HAM bars of every member of your group. If you target a group member (for healing, perhaps) , that character's Status box will be marked by a small white triangle. You can target group members by clicking on their Status box.

The group leader's Status box always appears at the top of the Group list (but beneath your own HAM bars). If you target a group member, that character's HAM box will be marked by a white triangle.

Group Window UI

Group in Combat

GROUP CHAT

Members of a group can talk directly to one another by using a special and private group channel, which is automatically created when the group is formed. Group chat can be accessed through:

   * /gsay [message]
   * /gtell [message]
   * /groupsay [message]

THE GROUP LEADER

The player who first started the group is the group leader. He or she has access to a number of special commands, which are available through the Chat commands and radial menu options:

(Note, most of these functions were broken shortly after the release of the game and were never fixed/returned properly. It is my opinion that the vast majority of them are quite useful for a group leader to run a group and should be reinstated with their original purpose and function with a few exceptions. I believe that the group notification messages should be togglable by any member of the group however the functions like autoloot etc should remain with the group leader. The need for possible radius restrictions on these abilities such as making the ability only work within range of another group member could be necessary to keep exploitation to a minimum, in particular for the autoloot function.)

OTHER GROUP COMMANDS

All group members have access to the following commands:

Group Missions

Group Difficulty & Experience

When players group together, they combine their individual combat difficulty levels. This combat difficulty level is used to determine the payout and difficulty levels of missions. See the Quests and Missions section for more information.

Group Waypoints and Payout Range

When grouped players take missions, the game takes the cloest mission for the greatest majority of players as the one to which to create a nearest mission for group waypoint at. This waypoint is updated to all members of the group based upon how the current mission distances check out. The waypoint is created in the datapad and is updated regularly. For example if a group waypoint mission updates and brings the mission farther out than another mission, then the closer mission will then be selected as the nearest mission for the group.

Nearest WP

Members of a group may receive a cut into the payout of a particular mission if they are within 200 meters of the mission target when it is destroyed or completed. The split they get is determined by the mission payout divided by the total amount of players in group that are nearby within 200 meters.

Group Looting

Looting Rights

Looting rights are the ability for players to access a given container or corpse in order to be able to retrieve the contents. For the purpose of looting contents of public world containers, any player may open and take the contents even while another player is doing the same. This means that two players can both be browing a single container at once, and the contents belong to whichever player picks the particular item up first.

For corpse looting, the exact looting system is in question at the moment as there seems to be a lack of concrete evidence showing how the system worked. In SWG this seems to gravitate towards 2 popular theories:

1. The first theory is that Damage checks between the individuals attacking a creature compare to determine which has done the most damage to a particular mob. The highest damage dealer to the mob by the time it has died will have won the looting rights. According to this theory, the same applies when grouped. The highest damage dealer in the group is used for the group's loot rights vs other players.

2. The second theory is that damage checks are between total group average damage vs group average of other players. If a player is solo then they are technically a group of 1.

Note: I believe a fairer option for us to take is to implement it so that the first attacker on a creature/npc obtains a large bonus to their looting right calculations. I think that keeping it similar to total damage dealt is feasible, and with a bonus thrown in, it would help to alleviate cases were individuals or groups have spent quite an amount of time/effort into taking down a kill only to be usurped by random or malicious intent individuals/groups attacking and obtaining looting rights.

Group Looting Options

General Overview

Group Looting in Star Wars is a variety of methods for how players in Star Wars Galaxies can distribute loot. These systems will allow the group leader to determine what type of looting system his group will use.

Terminology

Looting Rights - determines which player(s) can loot an item

Loot Distribution - determines the method by which looting rights are determined

Party - a non-persistent group of players usually formed for relatively short periods of time and with a set purpose such as adventuring, resource gathering, etc. The minimum group size is 2 players and the maximum group size is 20 players.

Settings -There are 3 settings for group looting. These settings can only be set by the group leader. The party members will see by the icon near their names which setting has been chosen, and they will be notified every time the settings are changed:

Free-for-All - the first person in the party who clicks the item gets it. This is the current default method for Star Wars Galaxies. In a free-for-all loot distribution setting, the loot is placed in the backpack of the first person in the party that has looting rights to loot the item. If the character does not have enough room in his backpack to hold the item the item remains where it is and the player receives a message about their backpack being full, and the item stays on the corpse. Once the item is successfully removed from the corpse the entire party is informed via system message of who looted, and what item was looted.

Master Looter -The party leader chooses a player in the group to be the master looter (party leader is the master looter by default). This player is the only one who has looting permissions on the creatures that the group kills. The Master Looter can easily be identified by the Icon next to their name. If the master looter loots an item, but does not have enough room in his backpack to hold the item the item remains where it is and the player receives a message about their backpack being full. Once the item is successfully removed from the corpse the entire party is informed via system message of who looted, and what item was looted.

Lottery - The lottery system allows players to vie for which items they would like. A player can choose to pass on an item or to be included in the roll for it. When a corpse gets looted by anyone in the group, every member gets a window showing the list of item(s) on the corpse. Each player can either click on the individual items to bid or pass on them. Each party member can also choose, "Select All" which automatically places a bid for them for each item on the list. If no action is taken within 30 seconds by a player, the system automatically passes for them and they are no longer in contention for the item(s) on the corpse. If the player who wins the Lottery on an item does not have enough room in their inventory, they receive a message telling them their inventory is full, and the item stays on the corpse until someone else tries to loot it again. Once the item is successfully removed from the corpse the entire party is informed via system message of who looted, and what item was looted.

Group Looting Detailed

Group Friendly Looting

In November 2004 a focus thread was created asking 
your opinions for group looting and how it should 
work. Based upon your feedback we have incorporated 
some of these changes and posted what changes we 
were going to make. We then took the design 
internally once again to make more requested 
changes and now feel comfortable that you will 
enjoy the new group looting changes.  

Overview

Group Looting in Star Wars is a variety of 
methods for how players in Star Wars Galaxies 
can distribute loot.   These systems will 
allow the group leader to determine what type
 of looting system his group will use.

Terminology 

    * Looting Rights - determines which player(s)
 can loot an item
    * Loot Distribution - determines the method
 by which looting rights are determined
    * Party - a non-persistent group of players 
usually formed for relatively short periods of
 time and with a set purpose such as adventuring, resource gathering, etc.

Loot Distribution Settings 

Once a creature or NPC is killed the loot is 
assigned based on the loot distribution settings. 
These settings are determined by the group leader.
  There are 4 settings for Group Looting that 
the group leader can choose from:

    Free-for-All

        * In a free-for-all loot distribution 
setting, the loot is available for anyone to 
take off of the corpse. This is no different 
then what you are using today in Star Wars Galaxies. 

    Random Roll

        * In Random Roll setting the game randomly
 determines from all the group members preset 
who gets any given looted object.  For example, 
when someone uses loot all on a corpse with 
multiple items the items will go to different 
party members (even though only one person clicked on the corpse).

    Master Looter

        * In the master Looter setting only the 
master looter is allowed to loot from the corpse.

    Lottery

        * In a Lottery setting each player is 
given an opportunity to decide whether they are
 interested in the loot items presented or not.
              o Players will have a window that 
shows up with the items on the corpse. 
(see picture below). They will choose the ones 
they are interested in, and ignore the ones they don't want.
              o If a player chooses an item his 
name is added to the list of players vying for the item.
              o In order to keep any of the 
players in a group from griefing the rest of the
 group there will be a 30 second timer and any 
player who hasn't chosen the items he wants within
 the time frame is marked as Pass. If the window 
closes with the timer, it will automatically request
 any items that you've already selected to the server 
as opposed to nothing.
        * Once all the players are finished marking 
their items the game will randomly pick from the 
people who wants the item and give the items to 
the appropriate player. 

Lottery Loot Example

The following explains how the Lottery distribution
 system works

    * The party consists of four characters
          o 1- Han (Leader)
          o 2- Luke
          o 3- Leia
          o 4- Chewie
    * The party kills One of Jabba's Thugs who 
has a pistol and a pair of boots.  Each player 
gets a UI window that shows the items.
          o Han doesn't care about the pistol and
 he likes his boots so he selects pass all from 
the bottom of the UI.
          o Luke wants the Boots but doesn't need 
a pistol so he selects the boots and ignores the pistol.
          o Leia wants the pistol because hers 
is broken, but she doesn't want the boots because
 she has good shoes already.  She selects the 
pistol and ignores the boots.
          o Chewie has fallen asleep at his keyboard
 so after 30 seconds the game marks him as having 
chosen pass all.
                + Since there are no conflicts the
 game gives Luke the boots and Leia the pistol.
    * After a while the party kills a Stormtrooper.
  The Stormtrooper has a communicator and a rifle.
          o Han decides he wants the rifle since 
it does more damage than his pistol.  He chooses the
 rifle and ignores the communicator.
          o Luke wants the communicator but not 
the rifle.  He chooses the communicator and ignores
 the rifle.
          o Leia wants the communicator and the 
rifle so she selects both.
          o Chewie wants the rifle as well but not
 the communicator so he selects the rifle.
                + Since Han, Chewie, and Leia all 
want the rifle the game selects a random number 
between 1 and 3 and gives the winner the rifle.  
In this case it selects 2 and gives the rifle to Leia.
                + Since Luke and Leia both want 
the communicator the game selects a random number
 between 1 and 2 and gives the winner the 
communicator.  The game selects 2 and gives the
 communicator to Leia as well.
    * A little later the party is attacked by a
 crazed Jawa.  The Jawa has a broken pair of binoculars.
          o Han selects pass all.
          o Luke selects pass all.
          o Leia selects pass all.
          o Chewie selects pass all.
                + Since no one wants the broken 
binoculars they stay on the corpse.  At this point
 the looting rights are removed from the corpse 
and anyone can loot the item. This has changed as 
well.  At this point, if everyone passes, the item
 just gets cleared with the corpse when it cleans up.

Source References