Development Cycle Archive

Dude get a grip. Just go ahead and give up on Bounty Hunter...your not going to make it. At Master Bounty Hunter I can kill a defence stacker but only if we play by my rules. That includes starting at 60m and I get the first shot. ChargeShot. So don't go ranting about being weak when you are not even to Master yet. You should lose where your at now. Grow a pair and go be an image designer...we need more in the game.

i think it would be a great idea for those that a busted with contraband, the the imp hire BH's to punish them for these horrid acts of crime. Players that are searched and have been found guilty, be but on the BH terminals for further punishment. This would be an added game fun factor for those that wish to carry contraband and for those that play the bounty hunter profession. Cause im sure the average BH would love to kill other players than jedi !

Calus Gipec

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Thunderheart wrote:

In a galaxy far, far away, it is a time of civil war. The Empire has taken control over the galaxy and attempted to build the ultimate battle station to enforce the will of the Emperor. The rebellion destroyed the fearsome Death Star and this galactic conflict is at its peak.

In Massively Multiplayer combat, each profession should have a distinct role. Each role should help define the profession and have a relationship with its abilities in combat. In popular fantasy games, wizards cast ranged spells, warriors are “tanks”, and clerics “heal”. Each archetype has a specific role in combat and they all depend on each other for success. Additionally, each role gives any particular player group a unique feel depending on how many of each type is involved in a group and the role they play when combat gets tough.

In a science-fiction oriented game, those traditional roles aren’t so clear cut. Most skills and abilities are redundant because of balance issues, which take away from the unique feel of the profession. Many players have stated that they would like to see SWG professions have a more unique feel to them and we would like to know what your thoughts are.

Some basic balance considerations are:

* Ranged and Melee Professions

In SWG, a key thing to consider about each profession and its role in combat is that there are many ranged combat classes and many melee combat classes. Each ranged combat profession should have a unique aspect to their “ranged” abilities that helps distinguish them from other ranged combat professions, and likewise, each melee combat profession should have a unique aspect to their “tanking” or melee abilities that helps distinguish them from other melee professions.

* Redundant vs. Unique Abilities

There are two basic set of combat skills any profession should have. The first are Redundant Abilities. These are abilities that either most or all combat professions posses, in other words, “everyman combat skills”. The second set of combat skills a profession should posses are Unique Abilities. Unique abilities are the abilities that give a profession its unique feel in combat. In other words, it defines the profession and its role in combat.

* Game Space

Another basic concept to keep in mind when thinking about combat professions and their role in combat is Game Space. The next big consideration for assessing combat abilities is where the combat takes place. There are indoor spaces and outdoors spaces. Indoor spaces would be dungeons, bases and the like and outdoor spaces would be wilderness and/or city spaces.

* PvP and PvE

In SWG, players can choose between PvE and PvP playstyles and even shift back and forth to play in elements of both. PvE is “Player versus Environment” and basically deals with fighting computer controlled enemies in combat. PvP is “Player versus Player” and is real players fighting real players and tends to be very tricky because anytime something in game is at stake (like faction equipment, etc), it is important to keep things fair and balanced, but also fun.

* Profession Lifespan

What is the profession’s role in its novice state and how should the skill progress over the course of a player’s time investment in the profession? At all times any given profession should have a distinct role and value in combat. As a player progresses from Novice to Master, the profession should reflect something special about the profession and also be fun to play.

Given the basic considerations listed above, please answer the following questions:

What defines theBounty Hunterrole in combat?

A bounty hunter is independent. Works alone. A good bounty hunter is extremely resourceful and uses whatever methods are at their disposal to take down or bring in their mark. They must be versed in all sorts of skills to be able to face all kinds of opponents. Bounty hunters should also have unique styles that depend on what works best for them.

What basic combat elements should they possess?

Two options.

One would be a complete revamp of the profession. The only line we currently have would be Investigation.All otherbranches would change. Take out all of the current weapon skill branches from the bounty hunter profession and only have one tree devoted to "combat accessories." These accessories would include wrist rockets andand special flame throwers and stuff. These could only work on our NPC marks from the novice bounty hunter level, and only used on player marks if we have gotten Investigation 3. This combat accesories branch would be aquired by getting combat xp, and would require much more xp than any other branch in the game besides Jedi.

There would also be a line that deals with traps for sentient beings. These could only be used on other players by bounty hunters who've completed Investigation 3. This branch would require trapping xp.

The two above lines would only work on marks and would not work in general non-mission pvp combat. No one would pick up these skills unless they really wanted to be a bounty hunter.

The Investigation branch would remain the same.

I'm not sure what the fourth branch would be, but it could be something similar to the Investigation branch.

The combat abilitisof bounty hunters would be weakend somewhat ontheirown, but it would require significantly less skill points to become a bounty hunter, yet, at the same time, require much more experience points to achieve.

The novice box could require the same amount of combat xp as is required for any three branches of any other combat related profession, plus Scout Trapping 4.

The otherpossibility would to keep what's there and augment it with a few more abilities and give bounty hunters working knockdowns and better defenses.

I would MUCH prefer the first option, which would make the profession much more fun to play. If the profession took up less skill points, we could pick up any other combat profession we want and could all have individual styles. I'd love to be a bounty hunter who's part commando and part unarmed combatant (Teras Kasi). I'm sure others would be some sort of brawler as well as ranged.

What offensive abilities?

To trap their opponents. I'd like bounty hunters to be able to use flame throwers on their wrists or wrist rockets they can fire at people. That would be more fun than an LLC.

What defensive abilities?

There are defensive abilities bounty hunters should posess and abilities I'd like them to posess. It's easier for me to think about what I'd like. And that includes the ability to escape with the use of grapling hooks and jet packs, both of which I doubt will ever come to the game, but would be really cool. Defensive abilities versus our marks, but not other players outside of our missions, could be the fourth line.

What unique abilities?

Already discussed.

Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?

Bounty hunters work alone and should not have much of an advantage in group combat.

With my proposal, they would give no advantage to a group in combat, unless they are grouped with others for bounty hunter missions.

How could/should they interact with other professions?

Merchants should be able to hire bounty hunters to go after customers who broke contracts. See Flatfingers'contract concept on the Core Systems forum for more details.

There should be several types of missions that deal with smugglers.

One idea I proposed is smuggler mission terminals that anyone could access. These would be delivery missions as they are now, but with a catch. There would be a warning that says, "by accepting this mission, you will be smuggling serious contraband. If you get caught, there will be a bounty put on your head. Do you wish to accept this mission?"

They must deliver the contraband to another location.

Originally the idea was just having the goods would generate the mission on bounty hunter terminals, but I'm trying to fit it into the Crackdown now.

Any bounty hunter in the galaxy looking at the terminals could get a mission. Droids would work just as they do on NPCs and now Jedi.

Like I said, anyone could volunteer to do these missions. But people in the smuggler profession would with, say, Underworld 4, would get paid significatnly higher for completing the delivery without getting caught by a bounty hunter.

The other mission type would have to do with IDs.

One day people log into the game to see a message in their Inbox saying that the Empire has now issued IDs to all upstanding citizens. All good citizens need not worry, and that this is just a way to save society from the Rebel threat. To get ID cards, they must go see Imperial officers in various cities. Rebels would get discovered if they went there. Rebels will either chose to hide or run from the troopers asking for IDs or they could get fake IDs created by smugglers.

Smugglers would have special tools created by master artisans that they can use to craft fake IDs. These tools would decay over time, and randomly so. Some would decay much faster than others, and this is something that would not be controlled by the quality of the tools. The worst quality tools will create fake IDs that have flaws imperceptible by the smuggler creator, but Imperial officers and Stormtroopers could have a significantly higher chance of catching the flaws the worse the ID's quality is.

After a while of IDs being caught that were created by a specific smuggler, the smuggler's signiture would be identifide. To lesson the chance of being identifide, smugglers can buy new tools on a frequent basis. The longer they keep one tool and use it, the easier they will be caught. If they have been identifde as helping Rebel scum get fake IDs, bounty missions will be placed on the terminals for bounty hunters to take. Some smugglers will chose to use the same tools over and over again because they would want the challenge of a game of cat and mouse with bounty hunters. Other smugglers would want no part in this and would chose to simply not get into the fake ID business.

What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?

It depends on whatever combat profession we have, since we would have no benefit inside our profession for combat outside of our missions. We could still put the rest of our skill points into anything from Combat Medic to Teras Kasi to Rifleman. Or we could put skills points into musician or whatever, but that woiuld not help us at all against our marks like putting those skill points into a pure combat profession. It is the outside-the-profession combat skills that we would use to interact with other combatants. Also, we could interact with other combatants if they are grouped with us when we do our missions.

What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?

Many bounty hunters would want to be in a third faction, one other than the Imperial or Rebel faction. Ideally it would be something like the Hutt faction previously mentioned by the devs, or some sort of independent mercenary faction. There would be Hutt faction points and rewards. As a Hutt, we could get contracted to either side. We could become very short termImperials or Rebelsand be able to do their missions and get paid their money. But the faction points we'd get for these missions would be for Hutt instead of Rebel or Imperial As mercenaries, we could enter the war on either side. A contract period could last a week, and then there would be no ability to sign up to one side or the other for another few days to a week. This would prevent folks who just want to switch back and forth at will. Also the switch from one side to the other would cost Hutt points. This woud not be just a bounty hunter faction. It would be open to anyone who sees themselves as independent of either side, and mostly those who would like to associate more with the seedy underbelly of the galaxy than with ideologists. But in general, bounty hunters and smugglers would be most likely to join such a faction. I'm sure there would be business folks who'd want to join too, selling black market wares to independents, to the underworld, and to either side.

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.

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Mykasoda wrote:
I just have a suggestion for the Bounty Hunter profession to make it more interesting to play. Would it be possible for NPC's of factions to provide missions for Bounty Hunters out there to kill people that have the max faction against them? I think it would be much more interesting if Bounty Hunters were ableget missions tosearch and destroy players. Also, this would keep players aware of their factions and would punish them more for their thoughtless killing of NPCs.

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I agree with most of the posts here; Some of wich are contradicting, but that would only give the DEV's some options...

I must admit, Ihave not read -all- the posts but something was quite clear through the posts that I -did- read...We have PvE...We have PvP...But wemiss something...

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Thunderheart wrote:

(...) PvE is “Player versus Environment” and basically deals with fighting computer controlled enemies in combat. PvP is “Player versus Player” (...)

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Bounty Hunters need raw power coupled with tactics to be able to perform their tasks in the SWG...So why don't we have BHvT (Bounty Hunter vs. Target) as a form of combat...? Then we would be under the same rules as all others in PvP but we would still have the upper hand when we're "on the job", ensuring that the Bounty Hunters are -at least- on par with his or her target...

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