Smuggler Archive
Thread: Depending On Smugglers
StGabriel wrote:
I don't think that how scans work now really helps anyone, leastwise Smugglers. I get scanned and there's a chance that I get put overt and have to waste time finding a faction recruit. That's about it. A non-fun game mechanic that penalizes me for using things that I need to use if I'm going to be at all competitive with other players.
Some of you guys are acting like I'm trying to nerf smugglers or I'm trying to beg for magseal unlockers. I'm not. The purpose of my post is more an overarching concern that any particular game mechanic gets looked at in terms of what it does to other professions. Smuggler content can be fun for smugglers AND can maintain fun for other professions.
Said this once before, but here goes again...
Scans are not "Smuggler content". Scans were going to happen no matter if there were Smugglers or not. It just happened that someone related the two and gave Smugglers a chance to pass the scans. If this hadn't happened you wouldn't even have the possibility of grouping with a Smuggler to pass the scans.
If you have a problem with the Crackdown and the scans, you're posting in the wrong place, and I just don't think it's that big a problem. Have you seen the excited posts on the Smuggler forum where Smugglers joyously announce being scanned? It just doesn't happen that often. I'm a covert Rebel Smuggler and haven't been scanned once, despite running all over Corellia, Tatooine, and Dantooine carrying all kinds of spice and sliced equipment. When/if it happens, then I'll deal.
As for the rest, no slicing kits. Like I said before in the old PnP RPG days, if you needed that door or treasure chest unlocked, you got a Thief to do it. In SWG, you need a Smuggler. There's plenty of us around, just get to know us.
Gabe-You can't get loot in locked containers either, buddy! YOU NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO! Why are magseals any different? Why should you get our business? THIS IS HOW NOVICES ADVANCE!!
And as for your sob story about you guys not having any content? Whatever! You are a COMBAT profession. Where is there NOT combat in this game? There's PvP. There's mission terminals. There's POI's. There's dungeons. There's looting. All of these things rely on combat! In fact the game revolved AROUND combat. All professions that aren't combat (including smuggler) are there to HELP combatants! We make your spices, open your junk, fix your weapons, build your weapons, build your armor, heal your wounds, make you pretty houses. And in return you get us things. You get us things from difficult places like the belly of a Krayyt dragon. Welcome to an MMO.
Why are you SO determined to water down our profession and take our skills?
We want to SMUGGLE! We dont' want to make drugs. We don't want to slice your guns. WE WANT TO SMUGGLE.
Is that clear enough for you? Now keep outta our forums, because every time you come in here you just end up insulting us, whether you mean to or not.
The thing is a 35 speed slice isn't an increase of 35% speed, rather it is a 35% reduction in your delay. Your delay drops from 100% to 65%. This means that you actually swing 53% faster (1/.65 = 1.53).
A 35% increase in effectiveness on the armor would make it 90%, which doesn't translate to 330% improvement in damage attenuation.
It does though. The utility of armor increases in an, after a fashion, exponential fashion with increased resistances. Utility for armor is, roughly speaking, how much damage you can take before you die. With a 50% resist you can take twice as much damage as all incoming damage is multiplied by .5. With 90% resist you can take ten teims as much damage as all incoming damage is multiplied by .9. Thus while there is a sense in which 90% armor is 40% better than 50%, that is really only at the surface level.
With a 67 resist you take about 1/3rd of the regular damage. You can live about 3 times as long. With 90 resist you take about 1/10th damage. You can live about 10 times as long. Thus the 90 resist armor is about 3.3 times better.
If I am facing an opposing swordsman that uses sliced equipment when I do not, he will deal more damage and take more. Using the best case situations of above you see that he will have an overall advantage of 1.53*3.3 = 5.04 or he will be about 504% better assuming all other variables are kept even.
So I have to laugh off the idea that slicing could be optional given the huge power swing we are talking about. If the intent of smugglers was to have slicing be truly optional I think that slicing would have to made much less powerful. If weapon and armor slicing only improved a character by 10% or so then I think that it would be MUCH more palatlable to put some added risks and hassles to carrying sliced weapons.
If anyone is interested, here is a graph I have sitting around that shows the "utility" as defined above for various armor resists. Note that this is only considering resists and doesn't deal with AP versus AR.
Message Edited by StGabriel on 03-25-2004 11:08 PM
Well I have also seen many further elaborated contraband proposals that would follow-up on the publish 6 stuff and that is what I am reacting to. I'm using scans and other existing or possible in-game content as examples for a discussion of how content for one profession crosses to others.
Finally, regarding the "story" of contraband -- I realize that you guys have an argument but I think you guys have to realize that this argument is fundamentally predicated around a specific opinion about how the game should be that might not actually work in practice. And in particular that, as this is an opinion and not a matter of fact, people may and will disagree. Droids Engineers were really dead set on the idea that all droids (including higher level combat stuff) should be usable by all. I agree with them that this makes the most sense story-wise. However this idea simply doesn't work gamewise as there are already enough balance issues without handing everyone a level 30+ combat droid
A plausible story or link to SW content isn't enough for a game mechanic to go in. It has to work in the game too -- for all players. For example, maybe Teras Kasi really should be these godly folk that smite Jedis like flies. However having Teras Kasi play like that in the game is not really feasible and won't be able to happen no matter how much a hypothetical TKA might fight for that or whether that TKA is actually right or wrong about the base Star Wars material.
I'm not picking on TKA's, it's just an example that comes to mind.
- I assumed skill mods are percentages
- I assumed the order for damage reduction is toughness followed by mitigation and concluded with armor.
What all this shows me is: while slicing does give a significant advantage it is no where near the level your numbers infer. It also points out the numbers are quite small which invalidates the doomsday portrait you paint when writing of your ability to compete if you use unsliced equipment. Above all it points out to me a VERY unbalanced risk to reward ratio. Players gain a 214% advantage for almost no risk at all. That is very disproportionate.
My numbers wer pointed out as being a bit off so I fixed them
Message Edited by Raanan on 03-26-2004 09:03 AM
StGabriel wrote:
So I have to laugh off the idea that slicing could be optional given the huge power swing we are talking about. If the intent of smugglers was to have slicing be truly optional I think that slicing would have to made much less powerful. If weapon and armor slicing only improved a character by 10% or so then I think that it would be MUCH more palatlable to put some added risks and hassles to carrying sliced weapons.
Again. If you think this way, you are posting in the wrong forum. Slicing was ALWAYS meant to be ILLEGAL. That is a common knowledge. It is not our fault that Devs let the concept of illegal items errode, with spices and slices becoming something that everybody can and even must get. And frankly, I don't think it's Devs' fault they had to rush unfinished game into produciton to begin with.
As the song goes "But inthe end, it doesn'teven matter". If the Devs want to have a criminal factor in the game, they will have it one way or another. We only can wait and see which way the scales will tip.
Gabe,why doyou have to come in here and antagonize us? What did you expect, that we'd be all willing to concede your point and just drop over? Frankly, you're the only correspondent that has come in here to be combative. The other correspondents have been rather helpful to us, if memory serves.
Man, if you are this bored, get a pet or something...
Solo4114 wrote:
Just to reiterate this, since it doesn't seem to have stuck when I said it before.
Yes, slicing adds utility and benefits to armor and guns. Yes, in the current environment, where there is no downside to slicing, you really SHOULD have everything sliced if you're going to PvP. Same goes for having a CH pet. Or for that matter, battle droids when they come out. You should have every possible advantage you can get your hands on, because you can bet that the other guy will too.
BUT, that's under the CURRENT system.
Gabe, by making these items illegal for EVERYONE to own, EVERYONE would be faced with the CHOICE of gaining the benefits of sliced weapons/armor at the cost of increased risk, or foregoing the benefits in favor of more reliability and reduced risk. It'd all come down to a question of what was worth more to the player. Do they want an uber-sliced FWG5, but have to deal with the hassle of avoiding scans, paying fines, or whatever other negative consequences (and believe me, they should definnitely be no mere slap on the wrist) being caught entails? Or would they rather have a stock, well-crafted FWG5 and not have to worry about being hassled at every starport or wherever? Yes, the benefit of having that extra edge would be great, but man it would suck to run the risk of being busted. That'd be the dilemma that everyone would face equally.
Practically speaking, this imposes a sort of balance to the entire interaction and specifically to PvP. If you, as a non-sliced gun user go up against a sliced gun user, you can bet he's paid his dues in terms of either paying a smuggler or having to get dinged at checkpoints. You, on the other hand, have the advantage of not having to worry about those things. It'd be a tradeoff in either direction, and one that EVERY player would have to make.
This is why the notion that somehow you'd be "nerfed" by a change of this nature, an imposition of true illegality on certain items and acts, is a bunch of hooey. It's not a nerf. It's a rebalancing of the scales and an addition of some complexity and nuances to the game. Instead of every opponent having the same general suit of sliced composite and whatever the current favorite pistol is with the current favorite template, you'd have some real choices to make as to how you wanted to participate. And you could bet that your opponent would've faced those same choices and maybe come out differently from you.
This is one of the major problems with the game and one of the reasons why I supported (in theory anyway) the combat rebalance. There NEEDS to be more differentiation in the classes and there NEED to be "nerfs" on the power of some classes while other classes get "buffed". Templating is a BAD BAD THING in my book because it leads to stagnation. This was one of my major objections to CH pets that didn't require any tradeoffs. As it stands, having even a timid gnort as a CH pet is an instant advantage to you. All things being equal, the guy with the pet has more damage potential and sacrificed nothing to get it. That's wrong to my mind. The game should be about choices and sometimes hard choices. Players need to get the hell over the notion that they can and should have it all available to them without consequences.
If you want to use a pet in combat, it should require that you use a control device AS your weapon and not IN ADDITION to your weapon. If you want to use sliced gear, it should require you to beat scans or pay fines/penalties for using it. If you want to be a rifleman, you should really really ROCK at long range and really really SUCK at short range. And if you want to be a pistoleer, you should really really ROCK at short range and really really SUCK at long range. There should be no uber template that is the "best" in the game. Unfortunately, much of the game still works that way. We really need choices and consequences implemented. Checks and balances. Not a smorgasbord of "pick everything and pay nothing."
As my points have been ignored as well, I just wanted to state that you spelled it out as completely and easily understandable that anyone with an iota of common sense can read and understand 
/Agree wholeheartedly.