Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In Concept 1-1: Combat Roles; Bounty Hunter
Though not a Bounty Hunter myself, I've debated the topic with guildmates, and have come up with some ideas.
Given the basic considerations listed above, please answer the following questions:
What defines theBounty Hunterrole in combat?
Simply put, a Bounty Hunter is a feared and merciless opponent, a stalker and a killer. Take Boba Fett (one extreme example, but a good example nonetheless) - he'll arrive at his destination in either absolute stealth or declare his presence obviously, sending any possible marks nearby heading for the hills. A Bounty Hunter's REPUTATION should play a big role in Player vs. NPC combat. For instance, if I, a random pistoleer, walk up and engage a thug on the streets, chances are that thug will either fight to the death or kill me. Let's face it, I'm not that imposing...but if Boba Fett, a "master" Bounty Hunter, appeared out of nowhere and attacked that very same thug, chances are that thug will run screaming in an NPC's version of burst-run.
A unique way that a Bounty Hunter could interact with NPCs could be this REPUTATION value, either through skill tree based mods or a record of the player's actions. When near an NPC (remember, this is as opposed to a mob - monster/creature of any kind), the Bounty Hunter could randomly trigger any number of reactions. Panicked NPCs could either run, immobilize with fear and beg for their life, or attack the Bounty Hunter (that is, if the Hunter isn't already in attack mode with some other foe. We don't want a massive train of enemies to overwhelm our protagonist, here). Not only would this immerse the player more in a Star Warsy feel,this would grant a tactical advantage, and perhaps grant specialized loot - finding a datadisk on a fleeing NPC's body, the Bounty Hunter activates it to trigger a dynamic quest, where the Hunter discovers a warren of criminals and a large bounty...large possiblity for unique stuff, here. Of course, not every NPC would be affected...certainly not Nightsisters or Dark Jedi Masters.
Given the vast amounts of skill points required for Master Bounty Hunter, he/she should be the ultimate death dealing machine. At this moment, a Bounty Hunter can deal out a tremendous amount of damage in a large firefight, but takes a decent amount in return, and this is about right. A Bounty Hunter shouldn't be perfect, should have to rely upon medical support in a group battle, but should be the ultimate in solo fighting, and should thus recieve stealth bonuses.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
Again, I'm going to use Boba here as an example. Allow me to describe a typical Fett arsenal - Sniper Rifle, supply of neuro-toxin darts, Sawed-off Carbine, dual pistols, Rocket Launcher, Wrist-Mounted Flamethrower, Grenade supply, Grappling cord, and the ever-present Jetpack.
While not all these weapons should be available (again, Fett is simply too powerful for any player to attempt to emulate), with Flamethrowers, Grenades, Rockets, and the Sniper Rifle conspicuously absent. However, this should be expected, as these weapons are already devoted to the Commando and Rifleman professions, respectively. What's left are the more unconventionalequpiment - darts, whipcord, and jetpack. These all fit the image of a stealthy killer, yet should not be mainstream weaponry, which is why I suggest a continuation of the Scout trapping line somewhere in the BH tree.
What offensive abilities?
A Bounty Hunter should be the ultimate in the way of knockdown attacks and other status-ailments. They confuse, trap, and finally finish off their prey with immensely powerful (yet slow, and calculated) attacks. I suppose I'm proposing that BH Carbine be fixed so it doesn't give such absolutely crippling HAM costs, perhaps giving Bounty Hunters a unique carbine weapon, much like the scatter pistol they get. It should be a relatively slow gun, but have a huge damage output and very low HAM costs.
What defensive abilities?
As I said before, in groups, Bounty Hunters should need to have logistical backup. Soloing, however, should be slightly different to make up for this defence mod defecit. Again, another continuation of the scout tree could be a CLOAK ability, similar to mask scent, but with an effect on NPCs, not mobs. A Bounty Hunter doesn't waste his time on the wildlife, he instead destroys any humaniod opposition. While CLOAKED, the Bounty Hunter gains evasion bonuses to enemy fire, and is not easily detected. Hence, he can attack a mark while CLOAKED, and the enemy is befuddled, he cannot locate the Hunter for a few turns to counterattack. Again, this should only work on NPCs, and could contribute additional tactical value to a grouped Bounty Hunter - recon, and the ability to pull a single NPC out ofa group. This ability should work like mask scent, when voided, the buff dissapears and cannot be recast for a set time limit, and cannot be applied in the middle of combat. Perhaps Bounty Hunters need to craft/purchase CLOAK kits?
What unique abilities?
Here's a rundown of the CLOAK skill set, incorporated into the Investigations Tree.
Investigations IV - The
Investigations III
Investigations II
Investigations I
Novice Bounty Hunter - Cloaking +10. The Bounty Hunter gains a bonus similar to attacking while prone, his enemy cannot detect him for a period of time before rushing. Doubles the effect if already prone.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
How could/should they interact with other professions?
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
What basic combat elements should they possess?
The abillity to render one enemy only completely vulnerable, and perform the kill. However where you have more than one target, the BH should be able to avoid damage somewhat using dodge, but also be able to control other enemies in a non fatal manner using special shots and traps. A BH does not neccesarily have to do huge damage, just be able to pick at this prey whilst his prey is incapacitated.
What offensive abilities?
POISON ATTACK POISON ATTACK POISON ATTACK. As mentioned before, Bh should have a poison attack or dart. Having to get scout should mean something. When a BH gets Novice Bounty Hunter, an extra menu should go to the Harvest resource, as Harvest Poison. ie: creatures with venomous attacks should be harvestable for poisonous resource. The better the creature the better the poison and the better pass on effect that poison will have on prey. THIS is not a new idea, Jango Fett used poison in episode 2. and never had to touch the jedi. My vision of this in game is that you could use this poison to blind etc. at earlier lvl's and even incap for 10 secs or something at the highest lvl. or maybe do a bad health drain, giving the target a chance to escape but the BH will know that his health pool will be a big fat zero in a minute. To limit the darts usage have it as something that needs to be loaded, so that the BH wil have to open his inventry and lift in a new cartridge, and wait a few secs for it to load. This will never happen in heavy combat so chances are he will only get to use it once. Accuracy should improve, or maybe chance of effect, with Investigation, so that at a high low level it miss's often and you wont waste good poison, but at highr lvl is almost a dead cert.
dodge
What unique abilities?
the ability to poison and trap other players (npc and pc). Also underhand shot should include a mind pool drain as standard. Its the shot that i think defines what a BH is. A player that would use underhand tactics. Its a shot you use early in a fight, and should carry more wight.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
None that they cant do as a solo, high lvl darts should be too precious to waste on sharnaff and rankor., and should not work on mecanical enemies like at-st's.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
I think that the Bio engineer should also be able to make poisons by cross breeding between two very poisonous animals, and then similar to milking them, extract poison.
Also Artisans should have to make the dart launcher and caseings.
I also think that poisons should be considered contraband, this will involve smugglers then too.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
None, the purpost of the BH is to work alone, if there is a mark he can not beat, or perhaps that is garded he should hire other players to take on the surplus enemy while he deals with the mark. Maybe have factional BH missions that invovle you going into a rebel or imperial bases where you will need backup. What about a real payday for imp bases guarded by atst's. You would have to bring along a few Commando's for the trip
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
Factional Bounty's. ie: Imperial Bounty hunter terminals and Rebel Bounty hunter terminals. This should eventually become player based where overt players that cross a certain line, perhaps fail a certain number of inspecions on one day, or loose to many faction points in one go, run the risk of being hunted.
Thunderheart wrote:
What defines theBounty Hunterrole in combat?
The bounty hunter is a master of ONE vs ONE combat. He should have bonuses when initiating the attack and when being attacked by only one individual. However, he is not an army like the commando. If he is under attack by multiple enemies he should be penalized.
The bounty hunter is also a master of ambush. He should have first strike abilities in some circumstances. Why not a special "assasinate" which has a high special cost but allows the bh a first strike attack with a huge damage mutliplier.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
Speed and ingenuity. Rocket Backpacks? Perhaps before these can be added there should be some escape bonuses for getting out of danger to similute the operation of a rocket back.
What offensive abilities?
Again offense should be strongest in one vs one situations. This is the guy you want going after the enemies leadership..While the commando should be taking care suppressingthe group.
What defensive abilities?
Agility & Dodge.. You see this in the 2 combat encounters during Episode II when Boba is able to invade the Obi-Wan.
What unique abilities?
Speed and ingenuity. Rocket Backpacks? Perhaps before these can be added there should be some escape bonuses for getting out of danger to similute the operation of a rocket back.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
PVE:The ability to draw out an individual creature from a group for conflict.
PVP: Should have the ability to SEE the squad leadersof the opposing group.. and be able to target them with bonuses applied.
How could/should they interact with other professions?
************************** IMPORTANT *******************************
BH's would be feared by most individuals. PVP would be interesting... perhaps as a non-BH you could sign up to participate in BH PVP (perhaps on a weekly cycle).. thus allowing you to take out missions on others, but also be a target for someone else (up to a week after you take out a mission). In essence you could go BH "overt".
You don't necessarily even have to take a mission to go overt.. perhaps you just enjoy always looking over your shoulder.. or even waiting for a BH and killing him in return. The dev's could use a system similar to the existing faction overt system with the BH sysops to declare BH overt.
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What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
KILL JEDI!
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
KILL JEDI!
Negative bonus when dealing with civil npcs and lesser imperial officers("We don't need these scum here") but positive bonus for higher ranking imperial officers and all rebel officers.
Request For Comments:
The community is invited to make commentsthrough April. At that time, the thread will be closed to further comments. Feel free to comment on any or all of the above items. Please stay on topic.
I wanted to go ahead and sum up alot of what I'm reading in other posts that I think mirrors what most BH's agree about.
1. A system for PVP Bounties is neccessary.
2. BH should be the ultimateone vs one profession. This fits with the idea of BH's taking on Jedi.
3. BH's are primarily soloist. In a group setting the BH is more vulnerable than most. [IMO: they should have bonuses vs squad leaders, but be vulnurable from multiple combatents firing at them].
4. Suprise and speed are the BH's ally.. they should start very strong but become increasingly vulnerable as engagements continue.
5. The ambush or trap is an important BH tool. (Perhaps the basis for HOW and WHY BH's are the ultimate 1v1 combatent. "Quick Stun" "Ambush" "First Strike" specials that substantially drain the specials pool but allow the BH to get a great deal of damage off in a short period).
i think that a bh should be able to hold his own in combat. especially in a duel situation.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
i think that a bh should be able to choose what combat classes he wishes to get then have a generic bh tree that makes you a bh so you are not confined to pistol carbine or llc.
What offensive abilities?
maybe a first strike attack that does a lot of damage to the target when they first engage in combat with that person.
What defensive abilities?
bh should have a lot of defensive skills. also somewhat resists to jedi powers
What unique abilities?
an intimidate skill would be nice. maybe an attack that works like a "root" spell from everquest. maybe u could add a faction for the bothan spynet and any bh that needs to find a target if he finds a bothan with high spynet faction that player can work like the spynet npcs.
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
if the player bounties is instituted maybe make players grouped with bhs unattackable until bh in group with them is dead
How could/should they interact with other professions?
they should have more contact with smugglers dont know why just seems like they should.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
i dont know how easy it would be but i think that if a low lvl bh is grouped with a higher lvl bh. kinda like the high lvl bh is showing him the ropes the low level should have a bonus to exp gained.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
maybe bhs that are factionaly aligned should be given faction points for sucessful missions also. i think that bh should be able to take missions on people of the oppisite faction covert or not sort of like the jedis but when they are overt or grouped with overts they should get bounties placed on them.
As it stands, speaking of additional content for Bounty Hunters is rather difficult as we have no solid information regarding the future "combat pass."
However, one thing that can be addressed is the Bounty Hunter havinga fewredundant and/or weak "specials"in their skill tree.
1. Underhand Shot and Fire Knockdown similarities need to be address. My proposal is to make Underhand Shot an attack which, if it is the first special to clear the combat queue in an engagement, bypasses all defenses for a Knockdown. After that it would function as it currently does, which is to say completely useless.
2. In addition, Fire Knockdown, Confusion Shot, and Spray Shot all have Dizzy effects. This is quite useful, but makes Confusion shot fairly redundant at the Master level (though it is more consistent.) I would guess that SOE designed the Bounty Hunter without the intention of making Master Bounty Hunter truly useful. Notice that the last "Mission Difficulty Level" is placed at the third box up the Investigation tree, allowing for a Bounty Hunter to specialize in one BH weapon tree with enough skill points to master either the Pistoleer or Carbinier skill trees. Thus, having a Confusion shot would make sense, but it is rather disappointing that Master Bounty Hunter is not necessarily intended to be a Master Hybrid-Combat Elite with a diverse "specials" repertoire.
- My suggestion would be to take out the dizzy state effect on Fire Knockdown and instead put in an Action Fire DOT.
3. Bleeding Shot is ineffective. It is great that we can stack it with other DOT attacks, but it needs to be amped just a bit so that it isn't the equivalent of a paper-cut as far as bleeds go.
Looking into the future and the concepts...
Until we know the details of the future "combat pass," we have no way of gauging what possible new defenses we require. If Novice Medic becomes less critical with the addition of a new HAM system, thenthe Master Bounty Hunterwill have the Skill Points left over to specialize in either Pistoleer or Carbineer and gain the minimal defenses of those two classes.
With the removal of "defense-stacked" templates, andifa newHAM system made Novice Medic less critical, appropriately templated Master Bounty Hunters would be broughtin line defensivelywith the rest of the Combat Elites (ranged.)
We do, however, require at least a +16 or moreRanged Defense modifier at the Master level. +7 combined with Master Marksman's +14 is inadequate to say the very least.
Although this may be anunpopular proposal, I would also like to see several things happen to the Light Lightning Cannon. First, I would like to see it run off +rifle skill mods, we are Master Marksman by default with a redundant rifle skill in our current state. Second, I would take awaythe Light Lightning Cannon'sAoE ability and either amp the weapon with more random state effects (it does leave state effects on rare occasions, but should do so more often - it is, after all, lightning that we are striking people with) or introduce a new set ofspecials that function like a Brawler's Warcry, for instance.
AoE damage, especially Heavy Weapons AoE damage, should strictly be the realm of the Commando. Bounty Hunters should be narrowly focused upontaking out a single target. TakeBounty Huntersout of the GCW and into a 3rd Faction (with limited participation in the GCW with either temporary Overt "mercenary" TEFs, or by making Criminal Faction players always Covert and able to TEF against one side of the GCWif grouped with the opposing faction.) AllowBHs to duel and excel at that, but make them difficult to solo in PvE with no AoE or uber-high damage beyond what a Carbineer or Pistoleer might do. Quite simply, we should be regulated to one-on-one personal combat, particularly against bounties.
Finally, I implore the developers to consider three things:
1. Armor Certifications, with class-specific armor and armor abilities (Bounty Hunter included and most especially along with Commando.) And isn't it a bit ridiculous to have Jedi running around in full composite?
2. Combining the future "Smuggler Revamp" with a "Bounty Hunter Revamp." Our professions are inextricably part of the same animal, the criminal underworld, and as such we should both be lumped together in any future revamp. Give us a 3rd criminal faction already.
3. Bounty Hunter traps and Player Tracking (city/cave environment specific?), as part of the Investigation or LLC branches. Part of the enamore of bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe is their utilization of technology and special gadgets beyond just tracking droids. Like tangle-lines, poison darts, and the ability to pick out a target's face amongst the crowd...
What defines theBounty Hunterrole in combat?
Formidible 1 on 1, even 1 on 2, but large groups could take them down unless they were given the ability to escape/camoflauge.
What basic combat elements should they possess?
The utmost basic for a bounty hunter would the ability to capture/detain. Not all bounties are dead or alive, some are wanted alive as in the case with Boba and Solo. "He's no good to me dead". A whipcord or netting would be ideal for once you get the target's ham low enough.
What offensive abilities?
Wouldn't change anything, it works pretty good as is.
What defensive abilities?
Defense against knockdown. Escape/Camo would be great. But if a master bounty hunter could take on a jedi, they should be able to withstand most all elite class attacks.
What unique abilities?
The ability to use dual pistols as a Master Bounty Hunter (which should be the same for pistoleer), and the sole ability to wear mandalorian armor, which should be stronger than composite with less encumbrance. This would give the bounty hunter the defensive abilities to withstand most all elite class attacks. As only certain players can wear other armor, the same should be for a master bounty hunter. Also, though listed above, the ability to capture/detain your target. After all, why did we need to master scout with the trapping skills if we don't even trap our human targets?
Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?
Once again, the ability to capture/detain high ranking officials. Does anyone hear "roleplay interrogation"?
How could/should they interact with other professions?
They should have good relationships with artisians, such as weaponsmiths and armorsmiths, possibly working well with smugglers since they are the criminal/underworld element that bounty hunters often hunt or work for. Beyond that they are loners. Other players should come to a bounty hunter to take out another player as a final resort to the frustration of not being able to take them out theirselves.
What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?
Little to none in combat, unless they were hired to sneak in and capture the leader while the conflict was going on.
What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?
They should be desired by the Empire to hunt down jedi and elite professions of the Rebellion, and the Rebellion should want them to help defectors from the Empire make their escape to safe havens.
Stacie Sun
Bounty Hunter, Kettemoor
the 3rd faction of underworld would be a great idea for bh to be best at 1v1 but not allow them to go into imperial and rebel and have 99% of people be them
KJkiernan wrote:
Finally, I implore the developers to consider three things:
1. Armor Certifications, with class-specific armor and armor abilities (Bounty Hunter included and most especially along with Commando.) And isn't it a bit ridiculous to have Jedi running around in full composite?
2. Combining the future "Smuggler Revamp" with a "Bounty Hunter Revamp." Our professions are inextricably part of the same animal, the criminal underworld, and as such we should both be lumped together in any future revamp. Give us a 3rd criminal faction already.
3. Bounty Hunter traps and Player Tracking (city/cave environment specific?), as part of the Investigation or LLC branches. Part of the enamore of bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe is their utilization of technology and special gadgets beyond just tracking droids. Like tangle-lines, poison darts, and the ability to pick out a target's face amongst the crowd...