Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband/Missions PART 2 (Solutions)
over the impact of "visibility" punishments for ripping off suppliers or failing
smuggling missions. There is a portion of the player base that desires PvP and a
portion that does not. The main issue is the possibility of "involuntary PvP" or
a player gaining a bounty who wants to be a smuggler but not participate in
PvP.
the mission suppliers offer two types of mission for each skill level. The
punishments for failing or cheating a mission then become:
- Normal Mission: You lose NPC faction with that supplier. You lose a
small amount of GCW faction if the supplier belongs toa faction. You
could possibly be ambushed by thugs from that supplier.
- CriticalMission: Harsher versions of the above + you gain
visibility.
missions. Also, some types of illegal cargo would only be available via critical
missions. The RISK is possible PvP as well as other penalties. The REWARD is
rare components (if you cheat the supplier) or better cash.
reasonable that we don't add visibility for normal players. That's too much to
ask of the player base as a whole. Later, we could possibly add a level of
illegality above Highly Illegal (say, Military Class) that gains visibility. It
seems wise to leave this area open for future discuss, but not include it in a
revamp.
the rare components? I would like to think I could at least be *somewhat* honest
and be rewarded with them. A few of the components for succeeding, but you have
the option to take more if you wish to face their wrath? Sure they may give me
oneor twopairs of hot pants with the chewbaccadesignthat
was part of their thanks for completing the mission. Hopefully they wont notice
the four others I took from the shipment...
entire player base on those bounty hunter terminals. I don't know if carrying
illegal items is enough justification to raise visibility. We currently have
underworld being vastly unuseable by neutral smugglers. I'd hate for them to
find two more of their skill trees largely unuseable as they had no wish to
participate in PvP. It would be rather silly that they could slice items and
craft spice all day long, but not be able to use the items unless they wanted to
risk a PVP consequence.
to get other players on the terminals has been through GCW involvement. Whenever
a player is involved in a GCW battle, for every battle won, they increase their
sides faction, lose faction from the opposing side, and gain in visibility. I
don't think people could say that the player did not consent to pvp as a
consequence that way. It's just one more trigger in normal PVP on
victory/defeat. It sounds pretty easy to do I would think.
the stories Han Solo had several military grade improvements installed on the
Falcon, I'd like to see the ability to do the same with my ship in the future.
He was always cautious of having his ship looked at too closely by the
authorities even when he wasn't smuggling, if I remember right
issue revolved around the punishments for being caught with contraband:
- Some players feel that dying isn't enough of a punishment.
- Some players recommended a faction hit.
- Some players feel that storm troopers are too weak.
- Players don't like that only storm troopers scan.
- Agreed, death isn't much of a
punishment. Time sinks are though. An impound lot or something equally
suitable as a deterrant. They aren't prevented from having the item, it's just
a major inconvenience if they get caught. - Faction hits don't mean much, unless
they were massive (As in a thousand or more) as far as GCW factions go. If the
factions are more NPC oriented, I wonder what difference it would make?
Currently I don't have to worry about my faction much at all. - How weak will they be after the
combat balance? /ponder - I can agree with that. I'd love to
see corsec and others involved with the scans.
Solution: The solution obviously has several parts.
We need to discuss more what the punishments should be. There are a few types of
punishment that we can draw from:
- Loss of GCW faction.
- Loss of NPC faction.
- Combat & risk of death.
- Confiscation of the illegal goods.
One possibility might be to make it so that the scanning NPC isn't the NPC
that attacks. Instead he "calls for backup" and the backup is relative to the
player's level. This brings up the possibility of a group of players using a low
level smuggler to spawn lower level faction targets.
color=#ff0000>Thesolution to stopping faction farming of scan spawned NPCs
is to prevent them from giving GCW faction. There are many other
legitimate ways to gain faction. Even if it seems inconsistant, it does make
somesense that the Rebels aren't necessarily going to reward a player for
killing troopers just doing their job.
This also means that high level smugglers would be dealing with security
forces tougher than your average Stormtrooper.
It seems that we should make more factions other than Imperial scan. Why
can't the Rebels scan in a Rebel controlled territory? They aren't going to like
spice abuse much either. Rebel commanders could then have some immunity from
scans in their home regions. Naboo's Royal Security Force (a neutral faction)
might also scan and have their own forces to deal with violators.
Alot of this sounds great, but that
last part I still have problems with. I am uncomfortable with a GCW faction
getting any kind of immunity to a contraband scan. If the neutral scans were
more prevalent by far than any rebel specific or imperial scan, perhaps I could
agree more. I am still uncomfortable with what appears to be selling out a
professions primary skill.
Summary 3: The third major issue
was that smugglers are worried that increased punishments for using illegal
items, like spices and sliced gear, will cause a depression in their
markets.
Solution: Actually, I disagree with this premise.
I don't think there will be a market depression. On the contrary, if I do my job
right, there will be a market increase. If spices become reasonably competitive
with chef food, or complement chef food in some way, more players will buy them.
Similarly, we should be able to modify slicing but also retain its value.
This is an issue I need to think about more before I develop a complete
opinion.
want, there is a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=61614" target=_blank>poll
located within these forums where the majority of voters said they would gladly
and unquestionable accept a hit to their profit if it meant having real
punishments involved. I wouldn't worry about this too
much.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
Thanks Kaern.
KaernLegorah wrote:
Gotta say Mackle, that I liked the idea behind you first example right off the bat. Very cool concept, and a great way to integrate the choice of PvP vs. PvE.
The second example I didn't like at first, but the more I read it the more I like it. Especially the idea of having people raid Bestine as a diversion, very very cool!
Great ideas
silversaber wrote:
Exactly.
IndySWG wrote:
This sounds well and good (and somewhat used to looking over my shoulder for BHs from playing Jedi I'm sure I'll give the PVP missions a go once or twice) ... but ...
This is still penalizing the player who choses non-PvP playstyles. "Well if you dont wanna play PvP you can't do the really cool missions" ... I mean...this isn't destroying a player base...it's a mission....and you've limited access to the really good ones to only those who PvP. You guys made the game of "optional PvP" ... you have to stick with it.
We need to come up with some significant PvE risk worthy of the same high level PvP Missions. Perhaps PvE'ers could have a high end mission which risks an experience debt (like the new jedi system).
Heya silversaber, long time no see.
What we need to come up with then is a way to make each mission diverge (like my first example on the previous page), where it can go either PvE or PvP. Personally, I would enjoy the thrill of running the risk of ending up on a BH terminal, but absolutely empathize with someone who doesn't enjoy that playstyle at all.
That is, in a nutshell, what it comes down to... if you are forcing someone to run the risk of PvP to enjoy their profession fully, you are forcing a playstyle on them. So how do we get around this?
Maybe you could run the rewards and penalties off in completely different directions, instead of having them similiar but just less for PvE?
Like, if you follow the PvE path of the mission, you run the risk of losing large amounts of faction with an NPC group, but could enhanced WUKs out of it if you succeed. If you fail or keep the item you were delivering, you take a faction hit with the mission giver. If you get spotted by local NPC authorities, you get an "infamy" hit with the local security forces. This way, failure in a few missions on Corellia could lead to -5000 Corsec faction and some hilarious trips to Coronet, but run no risk of PvP.
Then, on the flip side, going the PvP route of the mission could lead to the reward of a very substantialpayout but entirely in credits,which in the endcould lead to you ending up ona BH terminal. Now, because this is a very different payout for the mission, a Smuggler short on cash could decide to risk the PvP with a more instantly gratifying payout into their bank.
What needs to be balanced is making the extra risk worth it, or there will be no need for anyone to face the risk of PvP. By making the payouts vastly different but equally satisfying, you would basically avoid favoring one playstyle over the other.
First let me say that GreenMarine has done an incredible service to the Smuggler community with his recent involvement. It's nice to give accolades on this forum for a change. Good show, GM (and TH, too).
Hopefully, the incredible response from the Smuggler community and the quality of the responses makes the devs as excited as we are about bringing what can be an incredibly exciting dimension to the game. Makes me proud to be part of such a wonderful, albeith unethical, group of smugglers.
GreenMarine wrote:
Summary 1: The key argument was over the impact of "visibility" punishments for ripping off suppliers or failing smuggling missions. There is a portion of the player base that desires PvP and a portion that does not. The main issue is the possibility of "involuntary PvP" or a player gaining a bounty who wants to be a smuggler but not participate in PvP.
Solution: The solution I like most is to have the mission suppliers offer two types of mission for each skill level. The punishments for failing or cheating a mission then become:
- Normal Mission: You lose NPC faction with that supplier. You lose a small amount of GCW faction if the supplier belongs toa faction. You could possibly be ambushed by thugs from that supplier.
- CriticalMission: Harsher versions of the above + you gain visibility.
The rewards for critical missions would be somewhat higher than normal missions. Also, some types of illegal cargo would only be available via critical missions. The RISK is possible PvP as well as other penalties. The REWARD is rare components (if you cheat the supplier) or better cash.
What about normal players scanned with illegal items? For now, it seems reasonable that we don't add visibility for normal players. That's too much to ask of the player base as a whole. Later, we could possibly add a level of illegality above Highly Illegal (say, Military Class) that gains visibility. It seems wise to leave this area open for future discuss, but not include it in a revamp.
The normal/critical mission idea is perfect. It can be scaled out to having, instead of a "difficulty level," but an "illegality level." The more illegal a mission, the greater the risk (and rewards).
Illegal item scans should remain -- in fact they should be expanded. If you want to use illegal items, then you run the risk of detection. We shouldn't think of the current situation -- everyone running around with sliced weapons and a somewhat ineffective scaning system -- when thinking of what should be. Anything illegal should bring risk of fine, confiscation, or combat. (Maybe we can even bring a new Elite profession, the Lawyer...)
GreenMarine wrote:
Summary 2: The second major issue revolved around the punishments for being caught with contraband:
- Some players feel that dying isn't enough of a punishment.
- Some players recommended a faction hit.
- Some players feel that storm troopers are too weak.
- Players don't like that only storm troopers scan.
Solution: The solution obviously has several parts. We need to discuss more what the punishments should be. There are a few types of punishment that we can draw from:
- Loss of GCW faction.
- Loss of NPC faction.
- Combat & risk of death.
- Confiscation of the illegal goods.
One possibility might be to make it so that the scanning NPC isn't the NPC that attacks. Instead he "calls for backup" and the backup is relative to the player's level. This brings up the possibility of a group of players using a low level smuggler to spawn lower level faction targets. Thesolution to stopping faction farming of scan spawned NPCs is to prevent them from giving GCW faction. There are many other legitimate ways to gain faction. Even if it seems inconsistant, it does make somesense that the Rebels aren't necessarily going to reward a player for killing troopers just doing their job.
This also means that high level smugglers would be dealing with security forces tougher than your average Stormtrooper.
It seems that we should make more factions other than Imperial scan. Why can't the Rebels scan in a Rebel controlled territory? They aren't going to like spice abuse much either. Rebel commanders could then have some immunity from scans in their home regions. Naboo's Royal Security Force (a neutral faction) might also scan and have their own forces to deal with violators.
Dying is not a punishment at all any more. Bring back corpse runs! 
Your spawn point issue would be a major issue. People already camp trooper spawn sites. You should lose faction when detected but not gain faction by killing your opponent in these cases. (One can argue that you should only gain faction when doing faction missions or quests for faction NPCs, which can make people use the NPC quest system more than they do now, as there are all sorts of neutral faction NPCs.)
A few ideas on detection penalties:
- Charge a fine/bribe based on the severity of the offense and the economics of the player in question. (Don't grief newbies.)
- Confiscate the item. Too bad, you lose. This can open up a new method of Smuggler-related missions: retrieving confiscated items. Consider: Someone loses a Geo blaster because it was sliced. When confiscated, they get a datapad entry identifying the item lost. They trade the datapad entry to a Smuggler. The Smuggler "uploads" the item to a Smuggler Mission Terminal and gets a mission to recover it. Difficulty based on skill of the player originally confiscated from and the illegality of the item. Smuggler then has a mission to get it -- could be anywhere in the known galaxy. Kill the couriers/guards, get a locked container with the item in it. Woot!
- Combat. This could be immediate - the police force attacks immediately. Backup may also be called, who arrive shortly (30-60 seconds). Or, they may decide to track you down at a later date, perhaps when you're expecting it less. Wouldn't it be great to be sitting in your house and WHAM! In comes the CorSec police force demanding you to hand over your items or be attacked?
GreenMarine wrote:
Summary 3: The third major issue was that smugglers are worried that increased punishments for using illegal items, like spices and sliced gear, will cause a depression in their markets.
Solution: Actually, I disagree with this premise. I don't think there will be a market depression. On the contrary, if I do my job right, there will be a market increase. If spices become reasonably competitive with chef food, or complement chef food in some way, more players will buy them. Similarly, we should be able to modify slicing but also retain its value.
This is an issue I need to think about more before I develop a complete opinion.
I agree with your disagreement. The risk should match the rewards. Let those Smugglers who choose not to risk moving illegal goods make run-of-the mill spice and offer run-of-the-mill items. Those who take the risk can reap incredible rewards, at the risk of a Bounty Hunter knocking at your door. Spice should compete with Chef food, if not surpass it, but that's a separate discussion, which I'm sure we'll get to eventually. The risk/reward will be difficult to balance but consider the interest of the Smuggler community -- I think you'll have a lot of people on Test Center working with you to make things work.
GreenMarine is my new hero of the developer community!
RaithStarwind wrote:
GreenMarine wrote:
Summary 1: The key argument was over the impact of "visibility" punishments for ripping off suppliers or failing smuggling missions. There is a portion of the player base that desires PvP and a portion that does not. The main issue is the possibility of "involuntary PvP" or a player gaining a bounty who wants to be a smuggler but not participate in PvP.
Solution: The solution I like most is to have the mission suppliers offer two types of mission for each skill level. The punishments for failing or cheating a mission then become:
- Normal Mission: You lose NPC faction with that supplier. You lose a small amount of GCW faction if the supplier belongs toa faction. You could possibly be ambushed by thugs from that supplier.
- CriticalMission: Harsher versions of the above + you gain visibility.
I think the problemGreenMarineis that PvE players generally do not like the random factor of being attacked. Any form of Bounty Hunting/ Thug Ambushwill be met with protests because weather it is aPlayer or NPC there is a chance ofthe smuggler PCbeing caught unprepared. Againstplayer huntersthis is even more in protest because a player is smart enough to know when exactly thier preywill be caught unaware.
Incorrect, all the pro-pve posts I have read upto this point has demanded a very challanging revamp for play. Our only disagreement is on the type of response. Unpreparedness was not even a factor, if I am playing a smuggler I should always be prepared.
The way I see it you need to set up basic smuggler missionsso that there is NO chance of involvement with an ambushas a result. You do have the chance of facing npc foes along the way but you expect that when you take the mission and can prepare.You can gain moneyslightlymore thanmost combat missions of the same difficulty and occasionally an item. It would also be fun to form the other criminal organizations like theme parks where you must work your way into thier trust to get better missions further inside the base.
Skimming a little off the topshould not an option for PVE players. You are choosing to play it safe by staying with PvE so you wouldnt suddenly take such a risk by stealing.
We would like to play a smuggler just as much as you. I can agree to a higher chance of you getting a higher end reward but do not punish me for how I like to play. I have also proposed solutions that would meet all sides I believe by adding in new components targeted specifically for "the best playes out there" that need "the best possible" equipment which are usualy the same type of players that like to participate in PvP. This way you have a reason to take the "Military Risked" missions with the possibilty of PC BH for a reward that is targeted directly at that type of play also.
Would this not make alot of sense? Instead of just risk/reward you know also have risk/reward with the reward targetting the very type of play you seek out. I think this would actually make the "military type" missions VERY sought after and used and would greatly increase PC BH Bounties for the BH's while keeping it possible for PvE'ers to enjoy the full spectrum of their profession.
You could also add in "military" clamps and WUK's/AUK's as part of the risky reward for higher slices (and making those items also carry visiblity to the general playerbase (also plus to PC BH's)). These I believe are all good solutions of keeping PvE and PvP smugglers happy while adding in alot of potential for PC BH Marks.
Keeping in mind that I love the aspect of PVP Bounty Hunters after me, no matter what is decided on how to handle it I desperately WANT this. ^_^ Please dont let the PVE players kill this concept.
Instead of continiously fighting between PvP'ers and PvE'ers we should start looking at solutions and stop blaming each other playstyle for the problems we have. I believe I gave a good feedback for a great solution.
GreenMarine wrote:
silversaber wrote:
I mean, how hard is it for you guys to make a NPC that hashit points greater than a Playerfully buffed? That can see through FD? That can go through any wall? That can have twice the firepower than any player can have?
Message Edited by silversaber on 06-22-2004 12:01 AM
The point isn't to create an insurmountable challenge. We can ensure the PvE smuggling missions will be fun and challenging for all players according to their skill level.
The addition of missions with a visibility/PvP/bounty aspect is to enhance the game for the players who are interested in pursuing that kind of gameplay. It doesn't exclude PvEers from anything but what they want to be excluded from.
silversaber wrote:
So, why are we going to be stuck with lesser missions witha lesser reward?
Message Edited by silversaber on 06-22-2004 12:01 AM
All due respect, but that's a very loaded statement.The quality of the missions and the quality of the reward will be worthwhile. The only difference is that there is a path for PvPers and that path includes additional rewards. Why? Because of the increased risk. While not every bounty hunter is awesome at his job, some will be. In my original post, I also pointed out that the other punishments will also be more severe. The increased risk doesn't only include the potential PvP.
And what I asked was, why cannot you Devs program a risk equal or greater than any BH can be? Thats my question. While its true that you cannot the AI to be as smart as a player, you can compensate in other ways to balance that.
Visibility decreases over time. There's nothing preventing you from occaisionally taking a high risk mission. If you manage your visibility well, you won't have to be involved in PvP. But you would be walking the line...and getting improved rewards for your increased risk.
Wonderful. We get a limited chance at the decent loot, while they get it all the time. Do you realize the economicdisadvantage you will give to those who prefer not to PvP?
silversaber wrote:
No matter how tasty the Devs try make the GCW PvP look,
the PK mentality of PvPrs will poison it for the rest of the Players.
Message Edited by silversaber on 06-22-2004 12:01 AM
This simply isn't true. While you may not enjoy PvP, or you may have had bad experiences, a large number of the player base regularly play PvP.
This I will contest you with. I remember the poll that was given about who was neutral, covert, and overt. And the Overt segment was approx<=10%, Covert was approx30% and the rest was neutral. My feelings were, that this poll was flawed because it didnt ask wether if those that played Covert was playing PvE only (orwith as little PvP interaction as possible)in the GCW, thus should be counted as PvE.You Devs automatically assumed (wrongly in my opinion) thatCovertsliked to PvP because they were in a Faction, while the truth was, thevast majority of Coverts just wanted to participate in the GCW without PvP. With this I have to assume that those that regularly PvP in this game is a very small minority in this game, and dont think that the best missions with the best payouts should be mostly targeted towards them.
You know it's important for the devs to have a realistic view of the game. It's just as important that you have one.
We make an effort to design systems that appeal to both PvE and PvP players. You have to find a way to compromise your view with that of the PvPers, because they aren't going away, just as you like to remind PvPers that you aren't going away.
Since when have the PKers ever compromised? They want to dominate this game and every other player in it, not compromise. They will make use of every flaw in this game to get an advantage, use every cheat they can get thier hands on. And use it ruthlessly to make every other players experience in the game as miserable as possible. If theydecide they dont like you, they continuosly hunt you down and kill you time and again and again, telling youthat its too bad that your family members wasnt online, that he would love to do this to them too. If they happen to get caught at this and banned, so what? They just have to go buy another game key and have thier friendspowerlevel him back upand twink him with new items.I have encountered this in every online game I have ever played. Every one of them.
And you can guess on how it makes me feel to see that they get rewarded with better missions and rewards becausethey have a higher risk.
If these players are not going away, then I want them as FAR away from me as possible, with as little interaction with me as possible.
RellikCro wrote:
Instead of continiously fighting between PvP'ers and PvE'ers we should start looking at solutions and stop blaming each other playstyle for the problems we have. I believe I gave a good feedback for a great solution.
GreenMarine wrote:
See this link for part 1:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=96114
Part 1 reached over 1200 posts in less than a week. Clearly the smuggler & bounty hunter professions care deeply about the design of any kind of smuggling system. I'm really happy with the level of response. A lot of people who don't normally post are chiming in with their opinion and, in general, the discussion has been civil.
I want to try and distill the discussion down and start to find solutions. Here were the three big issues that turned into long discussions.
Summary 1: The key argument was over the impact of "visibility" punishments for ripping off suppliers or failing smuggling missions. There is a portion of the player base that desires PvP and a portion that does not. The main issue is the possibility of "involuntary PvP" or a player gaining a bounty who wants to be a smuggler but not participate in PvP.
Solution: The solution I like most is to have the mission suppliers offer two types of mission for each skill level. The punishments for failing or cheating a mission then become:
- Normal Mission: You lose NPC faction with that supplier. You lose a small amount of GCW faction if the supplier belongs toa faction. You could possibly be ambushed by thugs from that supplier.
- CriticalMission: Harsher versions of the above + you gain visibility.
The rewards for critical missions would be somewhat higher than normal missions. Also, some types of illegal cargo would only be available via critical missions. The RISK is possible PvP as well as other penalties. The REWARD is rare components (if you cheat the supplier) or better cash.
Many people have been arguing this point again about the PvE vs PvP aspects of this design. The point is that this system makes one less attractive and the other more attractive to play. Why should PvE be considered a lower or higher skill level than PvP? Why should you only be able to get certain cargo and rewards depending on your play style?
IMHO a better solution would be to give everyone the same missions and base the risk/reward and whether or not it becomes PvP on how much the player is willing to risk. In addition the more control you have over the infraction should cause more penalty. Therefore both the PvE player and the PvP player can get the good rewards and cargo. The only difference being in the amount of risk you wish to take. You can smuggle more items and try to steal more but if you get caught you get penalized more. If you do not wish to be hunted then you should take less risk by smuggling less and stealing less. Both sides have the same opportunity to get the same reward it will just take the low risk player longer doing more less risky missions to accumulate the goods.
I would also like to point out again the reputation system. Thus far everyone is just talking about the risk of being put on the terms and having to choose PvP vs PvE. What about the RP issue? There are some that have already decided that they could care less about getting hunted by a PC BH and all they care about is farming loot. This gives them a serious advantage without some sort of penalty as they can just steal everything, deliver the loot, get killed by a BH, rinse and repeat. The effect of reputation modifying your missions will keep these players from ruining the RP play of others.
What about normal players scanned with illegal items? For now, it seems reasonable that we don't add visibility for normal players. That's too much to ask of the player base as a whole. Later, we could possibly add a level of illegality above Highly Illegal (say, Military Class) that gains visibility. It seems wise to leave this area open for future discuss, but not include it in a revamp.
I find it interesting that there are some players that are so worried about their own ability to stay off the terms and not have to deal with PvP and yet they are still so willing to put the general populace on the terms. Like I said before, I doubt the empire would put average joe user on the BH terms for using spice or sliced gear unless they actively used it against the empire. That would be just to many bounties to be paid. Instead they would go after the source which is the smuggler. Therefore I am glad to hear that this is how it will be.
Summary 2: The second major issue revolved around the punishments for being caught with contraband:
- Some players feel that dying isn't enough of a punishment.
- Some players recommended a faction hit.
- Some players feel that storm troopers are too weak.
- Players don't like that only storm troopers scan.
Solution: The solution obviously has several parts. We need to discuss more what the punishments should be. There are a few types of punishment that we can draw from:
- Loss of GCW faction.
- Loss of NPC faction.
- Combat & risk of death.
- Confiscation of the illegal goods.
This is one area that still has alot of gray area to me. Most of these penalties are really not that much of an inconvenience to most players. The thing about losing faction is what faction will you be losing? Why would you lose reb faction for trying to smuggle through an imp patrol? Then again losing imp faction means nothing to someone with -5k already. And what about the player that wishes to remain neutral, losing faction really means nothing if he does not plan to ever declare. NPC faction could be useful to hinder a smuggler from getting missions from that faction but if you are going to make faction an importan factor for smuggling missions shouldnt smuggler be able to buy faction for these factions? As it is right now all we can buy with underworld is imp or reb faction. Combat and risk of death is nothing since death really means nothing. Confiscation should only apply to the mission cargo. Taking prized possessions from a player like sliced gear that a player may have paid millions of credits for is not going to please many people in the community. Fines were also mentioned but credits are not that much of an issue for most and you cant really inflate it when there are newbs with fewer creds.
The one idea that I thought was really good was some sort of time sink. Time is the one thing that people really seem to care about while they play. One way that you could implement this is to put people who are caught with contraband in a locked room with a timed door. You dont need a seperate timer for each person, just make a door that opens once every five minutes. If you get locked up just as the door opens you got off easy but then there is the risk that you got in there just as the door closed.
One possibility might be to make it so that the scanning NPC isn't the NPC that attacks. Instead he "calls for backup" and the backup is relative to the player's level. This brings up the possibility of a group of players using a low level smuggler to spawn lower level faction targets. Thesolution to stopping faction farming of scan spawned NPCs is to prevent them from giving GCW faction. There are many other legitimate ways to gain faction. Even if it seems inconsistant, it does make somesense that the Rebels aren't necessarily going to reward a player for killing troopers just doing their job.
This also means that high level smugglers would be dealing with security forces tougher than your average Stormtrooper.
I think the stormtroopers should be about the level of the ones in the naboo weapon facility. Not unbelievably hard for the unbuffed but still takes more than a few hits from a buffed person spamming specials. They should still not have faction and be a faction farm though.
It seems that we should make more factions other than Imperial scan. Why can't the Rebels scan in a Rebel controlled territory? They aren't going to like spice abuse much either. Rebel commanders could then have some immunity from scans in their home regions. Naboo's Royal Security Force (a neutral faction) might also scan and have their own forces to deal with violators.
I like this idea the best. Not so much the rebel/imp thing but the scans by neutral faction. The reason is that it becomes a true inconvenience to players that continuously break the law. Neutral faction like the corsecs or naboo security will attack you if you have to much negative faction without having to worry about you getting a TEF. I know that these guys may still be easy to kill but if there are a bunch of them in a city you are trying to do business in it can be very inconvenient.
Summary 3: The third major issue was that smugglers are worried that increased punishments for using illegal items, like spices and sliced gear, will cause a depression in their markets.
Solution: Actually, I disagree with this premise. I don't think there will be a market depression. On the contrary, if I do my job right, there will be a market increase. If spices become reasonably competitive with chef food, or complement chef food in some way, more players will buy them. Similarly, we should be able to modify slicing but also retain its value.
As long as the benefits of using sliced gear and spices are better than or on par with the punishment people will continue to use them. This is because they use them 100% of the time and may only get scanned 25% of the time they play.Even as you make the scans occur more often and increase the penalty I think that the majority of the player base will still want the added benefits.
This is an issue I need to think about more before I develop a complete opinion.
At this point, we know the arguments from every side in the debate. There have been enough posts for us to understand the views involved. In this thread, let's talk about possible solutions and compromises. Instead of perpetuating the debate on PvP vs. PvE, look for ways that the two views can be reconciled. This is the next key in effective game design for massively multiplayer games.
Morwen wrote:
GreenMarine wrote:
This simply isn't true. While you may not enjoy PvP, or you may have had bad experiences, a large number of the player base regularly play PvP. You know it's important for the devs to have a realistic view of the game. It's just as important that you have one.
I'm going to dispute this statement, specifically the "large numbers" part. The source data is your own demographics via the most recent astromech stats published at the conclusion of Act 3.
Declared players: 0.71%
Factioned Players: 32.05%
Neutral Players: 67.95%
I think economically they should be equal--but there could be little things (such as artwork or some other collectible) that's different for one and the other. Why? Just because those things are fun to collect and it will provide a reward for those who PvP and think it's the more demanding side of the game--just a point of pride.
I think the hardcore pve holdouts are doing alot of stereotyping and generalizing. They need to realize that there is give and take and to chose their battles.. Truth of the matter is, you have access to everything you need to fullfill all your duties as a smuggler under GM's proposal. Yet that's still not enough. If the pvp content isn't in the upper tier, where do you suggest it be placed? It doesn't make sense for it to go anywhere but the top. If you want the best of the best, you need to be able to avoid the best of the best, and that doesn't mean NPCs. That means real actual players. Remember folks, this is multiplayer game. Player interaction is encouraged.