Bounty Hunter Archive

As each publish comes and goes, we see the supposed "alpha class", or "end game" content of SWG being slowly whittled down to the point where the differences between it and the rest of the professions are small. Jedi are not what they once were, and if the trend continues, will shortly be no more than any of the rest of the playerbase. Good, bad, indifferent, who cares?

The balancing of Jedi, tho, has given birth to a new end game profession: Bounty Hunting. The bounty hunter has become the ultimate one-on-one combat profession in SWG. Ranged combat is clearly at the advantage over melee, and the bounty hunter profession offers some of the better specials and mods to be found in all ranged professions. The skill requirements have been lowered drastically over the life of the game, to the point where now its easy to grab loads of other skills with it to bolster your template (even healing skills). Some of the games best weapons are available to the Bounty Hunter, and a new one is on the way. This may well be the most powerful single combat profession in the game, which is most certainly a characteristic of a "end game" content.

Also consider the content and the money. Hunting down Jedi marks for 225k a pop offers, by far, the LARGEST sum of money available for combat from the game system and one of the most unique and detailed "mini-games" available to a single profession. With Jedi marks being made more and more "soloable" every day, and with the abundance of players who are or are trying to become Jedi, this content is plentiful. With droids that insta-locate the mark, its relatively easy to locate your target, as well. "Hiding" from these droids is only possible on Kashyyk, but many BHs enjoy the hunting aspect of content, and as such prefer to take marks on Kashyyk where the investigation and chase becomes part of the fun.

Unlike with previous end game content in SWG, tho, Bounty Hunters today get something that the previous end game content has never truely had: impunity. There is no added risk to be a bounty hunter, or to enjoy the fruits of the profession. The repercussions for taking and failing a bounty mission are non-existant, and getting killed by one's mark is no less trivial than any death a character may experience in the game. Bounty Hunters get to choose to PvP, to hunt, and even when to engage a mark all on their terms, on their time schedule, when they wish.

I'd say that all of these factors point to the conclusion that as Jedi is balanced down to 1:1 ratio with the rest of the playerbase, their undeniable replacement as the new end game profession is Bounty Hunter. Today's Bounty Hunter gets the money, the power, the content, has no extra risk to take on than any other player, and even lesser requirements for joining the profession than they previously had.

EDIT: This post was written several weeks ago. With the new loot drop changes, it feels even more relevant now.

Message Edited by FernGully on 08-09-2005 11:28 AM

here is the Jedi Forum, dont let the door hit you on the way out.

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Kaukiji wrote:
here is the Jedi Forum, dont let the door hit you on the way out.

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I was MBH a year and a half before your board registration date, sunshine.

day 1 vet sunshine, i registered when i needed to buy some tapes for pikeman.
BH was my first profession

dont cry to BH about how your getting owned, BH are meant to hunt jedi by their profession and their duty in the story plot of the game, jedi arent supposed to live, so if getting angry because your being sent to the cloner being griefed left and right, then stop playing jedi and play another profession

Theres still many jedi out there who can take down their hunter so if your not one of them then work at it and get better.

jedi isnt getting nerfed htat bad honestly, its just all of the FOTMers that are getting nerfed, and rightly so.

Actually, I really wasn't crying about anything. If you re-read the original post, you'll notice that I'm not at all saying its right or wrong that Jedi are being balanced to the rest of the population, or asking for this or that to happen, or suggesting any changes at all. I was simply commenting on how I see things as they are, or rather will be, when Jedi are brought down to the level of the rest of the playerbase. Its an analysis, nothing more. If you think something is misstated, or wrongly interpretted, please feel free to disagree. But don't put words or viewpoints in my mouth that aren't stated here.

jedi is no where near any normal profession. wait for the patch to go through, you will see.

i have heard of choke hitting for over 1k damage every 3-5 seconds because it ignores armor.

sabers have increased damage.

only thing that got nerfed was heals and defender.

I read half of your post....and it dawned on me....

You had little to no problem being the ""alpha class", or "end game" content of SWG" for almost a year and a half now. Sure the Jedi profession has had issues, but it has also always been the strongest (fully templated, double Mastery) profession in the game.

Now that the population of Jedi is forcing....YES forcing, them to be "brought in line" with the rest of the player base, you act as though it's the end of the world because YOU don't consider yourself to "be the best".

All I have to say is this...

You know the saying, "If it was easy, everybody would do it"? Well that's what being a Jedi came down to...any easy to use profession. I'm NOT saying the path to Jedi isn't long, I'm just saying it isn't that hard. Many Jedi like to justify their strength with the virtual "hell" they go through to achieve a Jedi character. Well given the fact that many Jedi over in the Jedi forums like to act as if they will quit the game becuase of these changes, and if they do quit, this will KILL the game....that tells me that the number of Jedi currently playing the game has grown too large to maintain the strength of an "alpha class".

I have Mastered the Scout profession if that tells you anything. I, and SOME others, are STILL here. Through all the percieved hate of non-Jedi and favortism OF Jedi, over ALL other professions, we have NEVER dropped the MBH title. Did we know something you did not? No. We held onto hope (at least I did) that for every Jedi that exploited their way to "Knight" status, passed my effort to keep them Padawans, they would only server as a means to "fix" the Jedi profession.

It's not as bad as you think...

I think most of the changes are positive, just all the MDef sheep who had noimagination to come up with something original are whinging.

In my opinion the BH hunting the smart jedi and not the FOTMthe job just got harder, but thats just my opinion which is worthless. Hopefully you guys will work out who the dumb ones are (more often then not the E-bay sort who have little or no idea) on your respective servers and act accordingly.

As a full template Jedi even I realise that when your almost beat and 3 seconds later your full health again, something is a little out of balance.

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Kaukiji wrote:
jedi is no where near any normal profession. wait for the patch to go through, you will see.

i have heard of choke hitting for over 1k damage every 3-5 seconds because it ignores armor.

sabers have increased damage.

only thing that got nerfed was heals and defender.

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Yeah, heard that one about choke, too Rumor. The only thing that's been officially stated to be changing about choke is force cost getting chopped in half, and it now bypasses defenses and armor. But it still doesn't tick anywhere near 1k per, much less over it. Before mitigation, choke ticks currently are around 700 per tick, with 4 ticks over 20 seconds.

But the upcoming pub isn't really my point. My point is that if you look at whats been happening over the last year, and the last couple publishes in particular, you see a downward trend in the relative power of Jedi. Based on whats been happening, I believe Jedi are going to be 1:1 eventually. It seems to me that the plan is to do it gradually, to make the transition easier for Jedi players to accept (a sudden "you're all equal now" announcement would cause lots of people to jump ship). So, no, it may not be all in this pub. But I believe its on the way.