Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Publish 6: Released Wednesday Morning
moonreft wrote:
Smuglers please read!
ever stop to think that this is not a big deal with a storage droid???
now thats useing your noodle.
Yes, we Smugglers thought of that a long time ago.
Hopefully the scans detect "nested" items as contraband, like the Act 2 CoA disk. Otherwise, yes, this is a HUGE oversight by the Devs.
moonreft wrote:Smuglers please read!
ever stop to think that this is not a big deal with a storage droid???
now thats useing your noodle.
Personally, I don't think there's much for anyone to be concerned about and think the crackdown is a dud (at least if my time spent on bria for the few hours it was up was any indication. I think the only group that will be affected negatively by the "opression" will be the entertainers who have to sit in the cantinas and listen to the same 10 lines coming out of stormtroopers all day. Even when you do get picked to be checked there are a fair amount of checks that take place that almost anyone i saw that got scanned got off. (At one point testing getting scanned and passing with 20 crates of spice on me I just gave up and picked a fight with the stormies myself)
But that is entirely not the point. It much more about game design, entitlements vs. skills, and precident then it is waking up tomorrow and being worthless or having our worlds turned upside down. You don't see any smuggles calling for the publish to be held up to reconsider the chef revamp impacting the usefulness of spices or crying out about the bazaar cap change having an immediate detrimental impact on the spice market, or any of the other concerns we have with some of the new changes? But here you have some people fighting to avoid the bad precident that a free ride for imps has.
Although I haven't agreed with the need to hold things up over this (becuase the indication I have is that in practice the "successful" scans won't be frequent enough that major opression is felt and these newfound powers are used enough to be learned/ingrained behavior) I do agree with the concerns over the design and consider them valid both in the current context of contraband scans/crackdown as well as potential future contexts.
KnightHawk420 wrote:
You know they could of just went as originally planned and not even listened to your correspondent in the first place to even give you ANY abilities at all in this. You know this is how it started.. smugglers were never meant to smuggle squat with this patch. You can blame the devs all you like, but you really should lay blame with the rest of this community. It was your correspondent who even introduced the wet dream of smuggling with this "crackdown". It was the imperial community at large that cried outto have some option of immunity from scans.
Well, actually, the smuggler community as a whole said "If they put in contraband, that's our turf and we should be getting a break on scans." Which makes sense, because, hey, contraband IS smuggler territory. Though I'll say this. I'd rather they have not put in any contraband at all, given how this has gone. I think it would've been better to remove contraband altogether and just have the scans scan for faction alignment and faction equipment (as evidence of alignment) and leave contraband out of it until a better system could've been devised.
It was us the community that pushed to have the changes made to the imperial faction. An argument we fought with good cause. If for no other reason the change to allow imperials to bypass these scans had more posts and a bigger thread than the smugglers wanting to be superior smugglers. As it had existed imperials got "gimped"... smugglers got NOTHING. At least now imperials no longer gimped, and smugglers got "something". I can understand that smugglers in general don't feel this wasn't everything they hoped for. That much I can sympathize with... but then again that sure as hell was NOT the focus of this patch. This patch was a GCW related patch.
It's not that we feel this wasn't everything we hoped for. BELIEVE me, we're used to NOT getting what we want and we're quite used to getting squat. If this patch was a GCW focused patch, they should've left contraband out of it. Contraband has nothing to do with the GCW. The GCW is about the war between the factions. Contraband affects everyone in the game, not just the factions. That's like saying if they'd instituted combat changes so that Imps had better armor than everyone, it'd be just another GCW patch, despite the fact that that game mechanic would affect everyone in the game.
The vocal members of the smuggler community do NOT address issues directly. When you as smugglers can begin taking into account the downsides to imperial officer smuggling, and then come up wtih suggestions keeping these things in mind then you "might" be heard and accepted. But at this point you stonewall obvious truths about the system to benefit your own argument. When you 3 or 4 vocal members can learn to take a balanced objectiveapproach to issues andnot simply look at them thru theprism of your profession you might begin holding more weight, and have something the developers can actually use to better the profession. You refuse to accept any of the reasoning of why the system as it exists now is a good thing as proposed to the way it was. You simply stonewall the arguments. You will not be heard. No more evident by the fact that you have even inflamed your own correspondent. The 1 person who actually championed the fight to give smugglers ANY "smuggling" ability at all.
Actually, I'maddressing your issues directly even as I type this. I addressed the previous poster's issues directly as well. And I brought up issues of my own. That we may not agree is beside the point. And I do very much take into account the rest of the gaming community, and have come up with a number of possible solutions for Imperials. In fact, I've even posted a few in here and in the "In Testing" thread that started all this. Don't know if you remember them, though, they might've gotten buried pretty quickly. It's also not just three or four of us. Other folks have posted on this issue. Plenty have posted within the smuggler forum, but there are well over four smugglers who've posted that this implementation of contraband is ill conceived. We refuse to accept the reasoning of why this system is a good thing because we don't see it as a good thing. It's a bad thing. It's not just about us, either. Today, Smuggling skills become a faction perk. Tomorrow, maybe it's medical skills for rebels, or dancing skills.
What if, as part of a later GCW patch, the devs decided to give rebels a new ability called "jubilation". This jubilation ability allows rebels to sing and dance as a result of high morale derived from Rebel victories and lets them heal battle fatigue and mind damage. Not only that, but they can do it faster than master dancers and musicians and such. And they can "win support for the cause" by healing other players as well. And all this without ever spending a skill point on entertainer abilities. That would be just as bad as what we have here. And yet, it'd be GCW focused.
The issue is that this patch, regardless of its focus, screws up the balance between the professions, dilutes the uniqueness of a particular profession, and mucks with the skill point cap by giving professional abilities as faction perks. That's wrong, and it's bad for game design across the board. And this would not be stonewalling the arguments. It's making counterpoints. Stonewalling would be if I never addressed anything you said directly and refused to answer any of your challenges. From what I've seen, most of the "three or four" smugglers HAVE answered challenges directly.
Try seeing it from the skill point and profession uniqueness perspective instead of what may be your narrow faction perspective. Not all of us have attacked our correspondent either. Personally, I've questioned why he doesn't see this as more of a problem, but I've tried making arguments to prove my point, not attacked him. That's me, though. I can only speak for myself on that point.
But again unless your willing to weight your own concerns of your profession against the larger game as a whole. If you continue to ostracize your correspondent, if you continue to ignore certain aspects of the system. Then you will not be heard and good riddens.
The simple fact is Imperials had a far better argument going into this than you do.And your argument is not helped 1 bit by the inadequacies of your posistion.
You may see it as inadequacies, but as I said, try considering this from the profession balance point of view, rather than the "Imperials need lovin' too" point of view. If it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone else. This is about game design and giving away profession-specific abilities. No one's saying Imperials aren't entitled to some perks. No one's saying that the crackdown shouldn't give them an edge. Personally, I'd love to see squads of stormtroopers patrolling the streets, harassing the pedestrians and looking for rebels. I'd love to see them burst into Rick's Cantina and shake down suspected dissidents. I'd also like to see them have some advantages (and some disadvantages to keep things fair) in the GCW. I'd like them to be more of a real military power. And I think that, if you're scanning for faction alignment and dissident status, of course an Imperial should get off scot free. They're not LOOKING for Imperials. They're looking for Rebels. If that'd been all this patch was limited to, I'd say it's a great thing.
Even with the contraband thing, the devs could've tweaked things to make it so that Imperials aren't 100% immune to scans, but still get off with really just a slap on the wrist. I'll post my suggestion again here:
1.) Everyone gets a 5% chance of beating a scan. Imperials get a 10% chance by virtue of their faction alignment. Novice smugglers get 15%, on up to 95% for master smugglers. That's to EVADE scans.
2.) Overt Imperials who get caught have a roll to determine how many items that they're carrying are discovered. The more illegal stuff you have on you, the more likely more of it will be found. So, carrying one or two doses of Muon may only end up having one discovered, but carrying three or four crates may end up having the majority of them discovered. For each discovered item, you can either (a) "pull rank" which reduces your standing in the Empire by 20FP per illegal item, or pay a fine of $1000 per item.
3.) High ranking coverts who get caught pay 30FP per item OR $1200 per item.
4.) Low ranking coverts pay 40FP per item, or $1500 per item.
5.) Neutrals who get caught lose 60 Imperial faction standing, AND have to pay $100 per item. The lower your faction goes, the more likely you are to be attacked. If your faction hits -3000, you're attacked when you fail a scan (treated like a criminal). If your faction hits -5000, you're attacked on sight (treated like a dangerous criminal).
6.) Covert rebels who get caught with contraband get scanned for faction. If no faction is found, treat them as neutrals. If faction is found, they're outed like in the current system and attacked.
7.) Overt rebels get attacked without being scanned.
See, this system would've worked just fine. It leaves some penalties in so Imperials don't get 100% immunity, and thereby don't get smuggler skills de facto, but it still gives them a considerably advantage over everyone else. And there are other ways that this could've been done. It could've been set up so that the Imperial crackdown only applied to scanning for faction (which means Imperials get a walk), but the contraband crackdown is handled by local authorities like CorSec or SecFor. There's even film precedent for this. "But that's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the Senate??" "The regional governors will now have direct control. Fear. Fear will keep the local systems in check." They could've had local cops scanning for contraband and treating everyone, cover or overt, rebel, neutral, or imperial, alike. Get caught, and you pay a $200 fine per item AND lose standing with the locals. Go to -3000 standing and you get attacked when you get caught again. Go to -5000 standing, and you get attacked on sight by the NPCs of that faction. No muss, no fuss, and it creates COOL atmosphere because you can "skip town" to other planets where you have a clean slate.
Put simply, they didn't HAVE to give Imperials smuggler skills in this patch without requiring them to spend skill points to get 'em. They COULD'VE gone in plenty of other directions. What we're complaining about is that (1) they didn't, and (2) it'll be **edit** near impossible, as much of the opposition here has evidenced, to get any kind of true contraband/tariff system in place where Imperials WON'T expect to get a free pass and thereby be better at smuggling than smugglers. Let's say the Space Expansion comes out tomorrow and the devs create a fabulous new smuggling system. Imperials will feel entitled to immunity by virtue of this patch. Hell, you guys already feel entitled to immunity and the patch, technically, hasn't even gone live yet! This is what we've got a problem with. Smugglers will basically never BE smugglers as long as this issue goes unresolved.
If the Empire's officers expect a free pass, they should be overt to do it. Usurping other profession's skills outside of the GCW is a no no.
Rolassk wrote:
Please refer me to ONE post by a Rebel Smuggler that was against the 500FP penalty, because they believed it was too potent.
Here's my post on this issue nine days ago:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=53480
That line under the first quote isnot an "Oh my god this penalty is way too much," that's a "This penalty was silly and nobody expected it to stay."
I could dig up a few more, but you could also root around on the Smuggler or GCW forums for my posts.
And yes, I've seen a lot of other Rebels who had no problem reducing that penalty by half or more.
I have probably made 50 pro-crackdown responses, I am quite informed, and if you had fully read my postyou would have read the section on why I believe the DEVs have implemented things the way they have.
Let's look at the big picture here (and this is fundamentally why I think the DEVs removed the 500FP Imp penalty so quickly and are ignoring the Reb/Smuggler cries)
Before
Rebels
No factional penalties for race
Imperials
At minimum 1.5x FP penalty for any race, but human
Result?
At least a 2.5 - 1 outnumbering of Rebs to Imps on all servers (I know on my server at least all the major PCities on Corellia are Rebel and8 of the 10 rank four+ cities on Naboo are Rebel)
Now
Rebels
Chance of being scanned positive for contraband and turned overt until killed orafter finding a factional recruiter to go covert.
Imperials
Bypass of scans if Overt, bypass of scans if above a certain rank (I'm guessing Major and above)
Result?
More of an incentive to join the Imperial faction. Perhaps the DEVs way of trying to balance the factional numbers. Remember the DEVs saying we need to look into ways for making it more attractive to join the Empire? Basically joining the Rebels will no longer be a purely numbers game, there is now more risk for doing so.
I know what this topic is about...
I have something to look forward to after work, hehe. Oh joy!
newfound powers are used enough to be learned/ingrained behavior
should have been:
newfound powers aren't used enough to be learned/ingrained behavior
Ternque01 wrote:
I have to say this: too one degree or another, i am disapointed by the hit smugglers take from the imperial free pass on scans.
If the Empire's officers expect a free pass, they should be overt to do it. Usurping other profession's skills outside of the GCW is a no no.
Even inside the GCW it should be a no-no to the extent that it trumps profession-specific skills. NO ONE should be better than a master smuggler at smuggling, EVER. Personally, I don't think they should even trump novice skills.
Skill points should count for something. If you invest them, you get the benefits of the profession. There are things that overts could get as perks which would negate the scan issues, such as Imperial Issue drugs, armor, and guns that are issued as limited run schematics craftable by the appropriate profession, and that such items could be better than regular civilian equipment, but no one should be smuggling better than smugglers. Even novice smugglers. Personally, I think the schematic idea would work MUCH better in terms of making the GCW more interesting and giving Imperials an edge. Wouldn't you rather have a really kickass set of stormtrooper armor that was better than composite (but still only craftable by armorsmiths)? Wouldn't you rather have imperial combat enhancement compounds which, when ingested, give you an edge in fighting pesky rebels? It'd be much more in keeping with the GCW, continuity, etc. to have things be Imperial Issue for the troops only, requiring them to be made by professionals (thereby not creating a "the game makes better gear than players do" problem), and giving the Empire an edge THAT way than by basically pilfering skills from another profession.
My question is how are smugglers so hurt by this??? Imperial smugglers maybe but rebel ones should be dancing in the streets. From what I have read all you have to do is group with your master smuggler buddy, who if he/she had the slightest bit of entrepreneurial spirit would charge everyone 5-10k for the priveledge of grouping with him/her bypass the scan then disband and smuggler goes back to get another group through; essentially doing what they are supposed to do... smuggle.
This gives a reason for people wanting smugglers on hunting trips and in general to be grouped with them. If you dont like it join the side of law and order work your backside off and make it to an officers rank. With factional decay GONE ladies and gentlemen there is really no reason to stay covert, unless of course you are a rebel. Then you best have a smuggler to get you past the scans or else be forced overt and then slaughtered. As rebels deserve to be 
Orange me:
StarRunner wrote:
My question is how are smugglers so hurt by this??? Imperial smugglers maybe but rebel ones should be dancing in the streets. From what I have read all you have to do is group with your master smuggler buddy, who if he/she had the slightest bit of entrepreneurial spirit would charge everyone 5-10k for the priveledge of grouping with him/her bypass the scan then disband and smuggler goes back to get another group through; essentially doing what they are supposed to do... smuggle.
Considering that the scan teams appear randomly, and you can't prepare for them, how much would YOU pay a SMuggler to hang out with you for an hour?
And how does escorting someone count as smuggling? Smuggling means moving illegal items from Point A to Point B. Going out on a hunting trip doesn't really count, does it? Is SMuggler now the Bodyguard profession or what?
This gives a reason for people wanting smugglers on hunting trips and in general to be grouped with them. If you dont like it join the side of law and order work your backside off and make it to an officers rank. With factional decay GONE ladies and gentlemen there is really no reason to stay covert, unless of course you are a rebel. Then you best have a smuggler to get you past the scans or else be forced overt and then slaughtered. As rebels deserve to be
From what I have seen of the patch notes posted several pages back there is FINALLY some content being added. Some of the punishments have been lifted off players who wish to be apart of the gcw, myself included. And the smugglers have been tossed their first bone, be happy I know that this is the first thing that the devs have done to really make me smile in a long time.
StarRunner wrote:
My question is how are smugglers so hurt by this??? Imperial smugglers maybe but rebel ones should be dancing in the streets. From what I have read all you have to do is group with your master smuggler buddy, who if he/she had the slightest bit of entrepreneurial spirit would charge everyone 5-10k for the priveledge of grouping with him/her bypass the scan then disband and smuggler goes back to get another group through; essentially doing what they are supposed to do... smuggle.
This gives a reason for people wanting smugglers on hunting trips and in general to be grouped with them. If you dont like it join the side of law and order work your backside off and make it to an officers rank. With factional decay GONE ladies and gentlemen there is really no reason to stay covert, unless of course you are a rebel. Then you best have a smuggler to get you past the scans or else be forced overt and then slaughtered. As rebels deserve to be
From what I have seen of the patch notes posted several pages back there is FINALLY some content being added. Some of the punishments have been lifted off players who wish to be apart of the gcw, myself included. And the smugglers have been tossed their first bone, be happy I know that this is the first thing that the devs have done to really make me smile in a long time.
Basically it boils down to this:
Imperials are given for free, a Smuggler ability. Because faction points can be bought easily and skill points are few, hard earned, and very limited,this degrades the smuggler profession. thats what this stink is all about.
as for the rest, well if the reports comming in from the Test Server areany indication ofwhat we should expect on the live server, then the scans will be few and far between. I really do hope they crank the frequency up.
I'm all for content and the rest of the patch looks great.
My beef is that nobody should be given the abilities of a profession just because they joined a GCW faction.