Bounty Hunter Archive

This is really my thought.... And I do think it makes quite a bit of sense....

Certain MOBs or activitys hold a 'hidden faction' adjustment. Killing innocents could negative your points out but completeing a quest like delivering love notes (arg I hate that quest) could raise it. Crafters could gain points also, crafting unique items, or something to that effect... Anyways, I think there is a hidden faction system in game and when you hit a certain amount of points, bang, FS slot opens. This works so well if you think about it, it could combine all our little rumors and opinions, all those weird jedi artifacts could be part of a quest and completeing that quest will net you FS faction points. And if you think about it, yes this will limit the population of FS characters and its an organic system allowing all players the possibility of opening the FS slot. I remember the old EQ days when everyone thought there was a 'hidden' faction system built in that would monitor how many wolfs you killed or something. Wouldn't it be funny if thats what they did to us now? What are you thoughts on this?

Here are my thoughts on the Jedi in this game-

After reading the quotes from the devs I spotted several contradictions. One says that you can "disqualify" yourself from activating the force, another says they don't want to "prevent" a character from achieveing the goal if they are persistent. One quote mentioned that power gamers will achieve the FS much sooner, another says that "time is not a factor". Yet another contradiction- The devs don;t want to "give away the recipe" yet they claim a recipe will do no good as the process is different for every player. This seems to me like the developers either-----

1. have changed their minds often about the process

2. don't really have a system in place (or at least don't communicate well)

3. are misleading players in order to limit jedi

I'm not saying I believe any one of these in particular, but at least one must be true. Someone else mentioned the fact that becoming a Jedi is mentioned twice on the box. I double checked and yes that is true- yet if a player never read these boards he would not even know what a force sensitive slot is, much less how to become a jedi. This to me is very underhanded and I quite frankly understand why casual gamers would feel ripped off. I understand that the Jedi population should be kept low, yet don't advertise Jedi as a selling point among other professions as if anyone can easily play that way.

My advice to people is to not worry about the Jedi force slot. If there is no way to know how it works (one dev said that even someone who unlocks the slot may not know HOW they did it) then there is really no point in posting theories, as they are theories that cannot really be tested. I for one have a sinking feeling that the first people to be jedi will be the same people I see spamming pistol whip and walking around with 3 rancors following them. If I see a jedi that doesn't role play like one, I will do my best to defeat him and make him start over. Maybe I am a little bitter at seeing the same types of people rewarded in these online games, yet at least here I can do something about it hehe. To all the good natured people who want to play jedi in order to help others and protect those who can't protect themselves, I say good luck. To those who want to play as a jedi in order to be an awesome fighter who can take out anyone, I say watch your back. There will be MANY disgruntled people when you unlock your slot.

Cheers!!

"One says that you can "disqualify" yourself from activating the force"

Either a misstatement (ie: actually meant to say you can make it harder on yourself, or slow down your progress), a statement that applies to post-FSCS Jedi advancement (where it does make sense), or something they just changed later. They've made far too many other comments that one cannot disqualify yourself.

From my personal reading of the comments, this is the only actual contradiction.

"One quote mentioned that power gamers will achieve the FS much sooner, another says that "time is not a factor"."

Misreading the latter quote. Raph was denying that the sole limiting factor was time. The combination of the two quotes makes it apparent that one has to actually do things in-game in order to unlock the slot (which they stated, anyway), and implies the reasonably obvious point that someone who has more time to spend doing things will, as far as our calendars are concerned, accomplish it sooner.

"The devs don;t want to "give away the recipe" yet they claim a recipe will do no good as the process is different for every player."

Reading too much into it, I think. They don't want to provide any specific information about how one achieves it. Vague recipes compiled by players who simply are not absolutely certain _what_ they did are unlikely to be nearly as useful as specific guidance from the people who devised the system.

I know everyone's got their ideal image of what the smuggler profession -should- be, but I feel the only way I have to contribute to our obviously busted profession is to share my ideas. Broken down into the individual skill lines, here's what I think needs to be done to save Smuggler:

General:
Slicing:

from the spice tree, looks more like drug dealing lol

Alright, I know everyone who plays a Smuggler has their own ideal image of what the profession should look like, and posts such as this may be a dime a dozen, but I feel the only way I have to contribue to our obviously busted profession is to share my ideas. So, broken down simply, here's what I think can save Smuggler:

General:
Slicing, as it is currently, is obviously a placeholder thrown in at the last minute. The red wire/blue wire trick is a joke, and I know I speak for the entire Smuggling community when I say that. How can we cut apart wires on a public terminal hundreds of times consecutively, without permanently damaging it? Foolish. What we need is a seperate tool, called a Data Jack, which will serve as the slicing tool for anything computer-related.

Novice:
Add a smuggler-specific pistol. Something crazy and illegal, but not necessarily better than other pistols, so that we all aren't running around with the same weapon in our hands. We all know how retarded that is, when you can identify someone by the weapon or armor they're wearing. And for god sakes, increase the drop rate of sliceable items. Make data disks only openable by novice slicers (and higher). Other than that, add the afforementioned Datajack to the Smuggler's craftable items at this level.

Spices:
First off, change the name of this line to Contraband, and add Slicing tools to it. Combining all smuggler crafting into a single skill was mentioned in another thread, and I think it's a grand idea. That way smugglers don't need to grind Slicing, just so they can actually have a decent chance of succeeding, end up PAYING people to use their own skill. Smugglers should be in demand, not begging for work. Increasing their Contraband skill will make their slicing easier and more reliable, and thus the two skill lines compliment eachother. This will also let smugglers choose to attain level 4 in their Contraband skill, get molecular clamps, and bypass the entire mess of screwing up peoples' equipment by failing slices. Everyone else can market their skills before tier 4, why not Smugglers?

Implement experimentation. Please. Pretty please. Let smugglers experiment away the after-effects of spices at the cost of raw effectiveness. Let us shift stat boosts back and forth depending on the needs of our customers.

Slicing:
Aside from the stuff I've already mentioned, Slicing ought to be reworked like this:

Slicing 1: Terminals - Add "Slicing: Travel Terminals", to allow smugglers (much) cheaper travel tickets. This would put smugglers in demand as product movers. Crafters hate paying space-fair from planet to planet if they operate multiple shops - smugglers could make it their business.

Slicing 2: Weapons - This can stay as it is, but add an experimentpoint bonus, much like a crafter's. This of course means that Slicing will have its own interface, where the Smuggler chooses what to upgrade (encumbrance reduction, weapon speed, etc), and how much, based on the points he has available.
Add "Slicing: Security Systems" for quest, dungeon, PVP purposes. I remember reading about this when SWG was first in developement. I have not forgotten!

Slicing 3: Armor - Same as current, but increase the Smuggler's experimentation points.

Slicing 4: Droids - Yes, slicing droids. This is pretty much a no brainer. Upgrade peoples' droids to have better armor, more damage output, faster motivators, higher module bonuses, all that stuff. And it will all be controllable, of course, through the Smuggler's handy Slicing Interface. Crafters get windows to work in...why shouldn't we? InceaseSmuggler experimentation points.

Dirty Fighting:
Please, pretty please, give us some kind of passive Pistol bonuses. Bounty Hunters get them, and -they're- a hybrid class too. The special abilities are nice and all, but smugglers should be able to hold their own with a pistol without needing to invest in pistoleer. Especially sinse Unarmed is required, and many Smugglers will want to train as a Teras Kasi Artist, so they don't feel their unarmed training was wasted. Better yet, add in dirty unarmed tricks to the Dirty Fighting line. *gasp!*

Underworld:
Add more story and quest content to the game, wherein a Smuggler's Underworld skill level will affect NPC reactions, quest options, faction standing, etc. Content. Content. Please.

Master Smuggler
3 uber spices.
"Slicing: Starships" - I have a feeling we'll get this anyway with the starship expansion, but just on the off chance that it's not being planned for, I'll mention it. People will want their ships tweaked, and we'd better be able to do something more than say, "Sweet dude. +11% to your hull strength." Especially if they really wanted more speed. Why would a Smuggler randomly upgrade some part of a ship (or weapon, or helmet)? Increase Smuggler experimentation points uberly.

If you do all of this, we'll stop bitching. I promise.

~Mar~
Smuggler, thug, scoundrel.
Kauri server

Great ideas there.

I know I mentioned the combining of the crafting of tools and spiced to one tree, don't know if anyone else mentioned it, but I still like the idea (pats self on back)

I especially like the idea of slicing droids and ships, and definately think we should be able to specify what we're imroving. The idea of experimentation like crafters do is great, but I'd still like to see things like FAN's and Clamps to make sure we don't critically fail someone's $40k master-level weapon.

I was thinking about how to open the FSCS today(who doesn't?) and it came across after reading a thread about medichlorians.

Rather than following the footsteps of Luke, why not Anakin? At the age of ten, Anakin was tested by Qui-Gon to have a high number of medichlorians. Maybe this "randomness" everyone is talking about is actually the number of medichlorians you may have. And maybe, just maybe, by following the steps of Anakin, a Jedi will find you or you will find it, you could run a quest for him/her(ala the parts to the Naboo cruise ship) and he will open your FS slot. Of course this Jedi would be in a very remote place, but this is only my opinion.

Please, no flaming?

The problem with this idea is that you'd be searching for a force sensitive link to your current character who will never be force sensitive. I tend to think that a lot of people make this mistake. The road to opening your FSCS might not have anything to do with the force. After all, the only characters that will have any connection to the force are those that are "born" with it (and this isn't your current character).

Maybe we all have to master our proffesion, do some theme park quests, give lots of money to SOE and don't put our hopes of becoming a jedi soon.

Well i have heard and seen a lot of you guys complaining about how nothing works at all for SL.

Well latly me and my friend have been hunting Force Sensitive NPCs (go figure) and each time before we fight...I do the same thing that I used to NEVER do...making it SOOOO much easier to kill them

I use rally than 2 steady aims....the commando i work with NEVER misses than with his flame 2.

Before i never used anything...and hed miss alot..than I tried using just rally....He hit more often...and we both werent hit as much...so i finally added 2 steady aims and it works great!

I thought Michael's face "magically changed" or something. I mean he denies the surgery and all...

Seriously though, I'm going to go ahead and re-do the State of the Professions post tomorrow, with the new input I have here. There is also LOTS of news possibly headed this way that will please many Image Designers.

"When changing hairstyle or color, it shows up as the default color to everyone else (including the designer), until the customer times completely out of the server."

Ah, I was wondering why I could never see a change when I was changing brown hair to blond hair, but the person I was IDing could see it just fine and no one else could... I hope they fix this.

/wish