Smuggler Archive

---

Smuggler_Caylin wrote:

Hey guys, they are aware of the whole PVE and PVP concerns, take a step back from the argument please.

We already have 80% of the other thread dedicated to that argument. It is addressed here, so can we please move on?

---

---

Duckfat wrote:

I still think that making seperate types of missions for PvE and PvP with different rewards is a mistake. If you develop a different system for each you will generate more of a rift between the two types of play. The game should be designed to accomodate both without seperating them. That is why I believe that the missions should be the same with the same rewards and the same penalties. Instead of having a choice to do PvE or PvP with different rewards and cargo, you should have the same rewards and cargo but change the ammount based on the risk. If you want to take a large risk with the chance of a large penalty in order to make more in less time you are free to do so. On the other hand if you really do not wish to take the risk of PvP you can do less risky missions that have lower penalties but you will have to do more missions to get the same ammount of reward as the high risk person.

Example:

High risk mission = deliver 1000 units of glitterstim component A for a reward of 10 Nym enhanced vibro motors. You may be able to skim 100 units and not get caught. If you do get caught by either a patrol or from skimming you get 100 points of visibility.

Low risk mission = deliver 100 units of glitterstim component A for a reward of 1 Nym enhanced vibro motor. You may be able to skim 10 units and not get caught. If you do get caught by either a patrol or from skimmimg you get 10 points of visibility.

Now say there is a decay to your visibility of 10 a day and you get on the terms if your visibility is 200 or more. The high risk guy will get on if he is caught twice in the same day or three times in two days. The low risk guy can get caught twice a day and still not be on the terms for about two weeks.

This allows everyone to get the same reward, gives them the same opportunity to skim the same loot, and play the same game without having to argue about whether PvP or PvE is more advantaged in the game. The only difference is whether you want to take the high risk to make the faster profit.

---

---

Ternque01 wrote:

How about this instead?

High risk = deliver 1000 units of glitterstim component A for a reward of 10 Nym enhanced vibromotors. You may be able to skim 100 units and not get caught. If you get caught be either patrol or from skimming, you get 100 Infamy points and a100 visibility points.

Low (no) risk = deliver 100 untis of glitterstim component A for a reward of 1 Nym enhanced vibromotors. You may be able to skim 10 units and not get caught. If you get caught by either patrol or from skimming, you get 100 Infamy points (or 10) and absolutely zero visibility points.

This way even a PvE minded smuggler can still earn the same types of rewards from their missions, but since they are low (no) risk, you don't earn as many potentially from a skim-job.

---

---

RellikCro wrote:

---

GamerProX wrote:

To be honest, sense a *vast* amount of players in the game want Jedi, and the BH Missions that come with them, most of the people complaining against PvP are just doing so to get a free pass in the game. I mean come on, yeah, let me do everything I want in the game with no RISK. That would be lots of fun.

A large group might, but not everyone. I for one will not worry about it. That is an advance non-starter profession and thus can have options that might not agree with the general playerbase like PvP. Just like the GCW is an option to the general gameplay. This has been beaten, to death, and the dev's have made it clear that pve and pvp will both be in the revamp. We are now working on solutions.

BH in general, is a PvP Profession, you dont pick up BH just to hunt broken NPC Marks for 30min and get 20k for it. You Pick up BH cause your hoping and hoping for Player Bounties, cause Player Bounties are 100 times more fun, NOT cause we like killing players, but cause YOUR NOT A NPC! You have a mind of your own, youcan plan and think, you can try to out smart us, you can hire help, almost limitless.

While alot of BH's might want PC bounties I know several that do not and play BH for the PvE experience of it.

Oh is that so? What insane people are you dealing with that would enjoy spending 30min a day to try and finishone BH Mission, that will give them 22k as a reward, no loot, and a 50/50 chance of being broken, to start the whole thing over again. I have never, from day one, known a BH who enjoyed these missions. And I started being a BH from the 2ed day of the game, and have only Mastered 3 Professions, Scout, Marksman, and Bounty Hunter with that Char.

Its not being Uber or Owning someoneso dont Label me!!

You guys cannot see, cause you dont understand that you have the power right now to take something away from BH community we have wanted from day one, and you have the power to give it. By even thinking about a BH NPC, your gonna have BH players freaking out, but you dont understand that and thats the problem.

I do not think anyone is taking away anything from the BH community. Right now the BH community does not have PC Marks simply because SOE wont force PvP onto the playerbases for many reasons one of them due to griefing, the other huge one is per what GM posted about the idealogical reasons (I think he said idealogical... could be wrong). In fact if you have been reading the posts you will realize we are trying to work out a way to GIVE Bh's the very thing the majority of BH Community wants and that is PC Marks but with those that want to participate in taht playstyle.

Trying to force those that wish not to participate in something is not the way to get what you want. Trying to come up with viable solutions that include both types of play is.

I would like to ask you pesonally what you think of my above proposal about military missions.

Fine, sure. I dont care. I personally dont think there is any forcing in the PvP, Smugglers can stay away from the stuff that would give them a Bounty on their head, cause Jedi can avoid it, I *know* Smugglers can. So I dont see how this is forced, I see more of just having a fit just cause you can (Not you personally, in general) Im not trying to be offend anyway, but I have seen so many cool ideas get killed cause of this type of thing.

I want you to ask yourself, after the newness of these "Smuggler" missions is gone, are you still gonna find smuggling and stealing items from Jabba and then dealing with some NPC afterword still "fun" after 6 months, or find it more of a chore you have to do?

I will till you hands down that doing Faction Missions...suck. Killing NPC's day in and day out is so annoying and just stupid I get bored out of my skull. Thats gonna happen to you too, you know it will. Sooner or later you will get sick of fighting Jabbs people, it wont be fun, it wont be exciting, but just like with faction, you have to do it to get your stuff.

Thats why Player Bounties would never get old, cause it would always be something new, he might find you in theed, coronet, at the Death Watch Bunker, anywhere, and anything could happen, you could out run him, nail a low blow and last ditch, pay him off, who knows, its almost limitless.

I will read your idea tho, its fine cause it seems GM has made up his mind anyway and like you said, its over. Hopefully you can sneak in something for your Professios revamp so it wont get old after 6months. Take the DE's revamp for example. They were so against Droid Commander coming into the game that it got removed, but now, they are asking the Devs for it again. They screwed up the Revamp, on their own, im glad they finally got some of the basic cool stuff, but they wont be making Combat Droids (their dream) anytime soon. I dont want that to happen to Smuggler.

I think GM's idea for Low/High riskMissions was great! But they *STILL* complain, they want PvP removed fully. Get your awsome stuff for no risk. Forget the movies, Han vs Boba, lets not do that, lets have it be a stupid NPC you can trick your way out of. Maybe im ranking, I dont know, but I have a passion here cause Player Bounties would keep me with SWG and away from WoW, its so closeI can taste it. But I have to depend on *you* and thats not a very comfortable place to be, no more than some awsome feature for Smuggler resting on the views of BH's....and BH's are complaining about that feature cause they dont like dealing with the "possible" Smuggler stealing an item, or who knows what.

Again read my proposal and please post what you think.

I still think people who wear sliced stuff, use it, should have to deal with PvP, I dont have the answer cause I cant understand the views of people who are so against any form of PvP. I have to leave it in your hands and hope you do whats right.

I think those that wear military sliced armor and use military sliced weapons should.

Message Edited by GamerProX on 06-22-2004 06:07 PM

Message Edited by GamerProX on 06-22-2004 06:07 PM

---

---

Message Edited by GamerProX on 06-23-2004 01:13 AM

Message Edited by Maverick315 on 06-22-2004 11:22 PM

---

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.

---

If it is for criminalorganizations then you are smuggling illegal items like spice and slicing devices. If you fail however or skim too much of the product for yourself you take the visibility hit for all player bounty hunters.

Then I would add imperial intelligence and rebel spy NPCs to key locations that offer similar missions for factional only items like the Cries of Alderaan buff or Imperial Armors. If you steal too much or get caught then you gain visibility with factional player bounty hunters and gain the same visibility Jedi have with that faction to the point you are TEF with that faction till you 'lay low' for a while. Lay Low being either a skill or a set number like battle fatigue you have to lower by being in a cantina or someplace you can blend in.

Again either way I would allow both PvE and PvP players to earn enough trust into the organization to buy spice materials and illegal items from vendors inside the parks. The items are limited however and are replenished based on how much smuggling has been done for the organization. Thereby really making it a crime war. If your organization has a strong following they will have a larger stockpile for sale.

These are just some ideas, the main point being that PVE smugglersshould be designed for smuggling for a group but being the kind of smugglers that does what he is told, plays itsafe,and faces no kind of Bounty Hunter Involvement. PVP smugglers on the other hand should see the greater thrill of profit in the risk and should not only face the threat of bounty hunters, but the added risk of factional issues if they have chosen to ally with a side in the GCW.

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.

---

Larki wrote:

---

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.

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.

No GreenMarine noooo, you were so close to having the whole BH aswell as the smuggler community simply love you. Player bounties have been on the backburner for FAR FAR too long. The time is now for player bounties. It still remains as a risk vs reward situation, you take the RISK of using a sliced (or other illegal item) and getting hunted, and you are REWARDED with a generally more efficient weapon.

I support this if it was a new typoe of illegal good, you simply can not make something that has been out for a year now and all of the sudden make it so you wil be hunted by PC BH's. Or you would go right back into the same situation where you would have to come up with both PvE and PvP options. My idea I posted back a bit was they could impliment some new "military illegal" contraband that would not affect what users currently have but could be gear towards the highly advanced combat professions that usualy want to participate into PvP (GCW).... Not saying all high combat professions want to participate in the GCW (PvP) but the new items can be geared so they really shine under systems designed for PvP, that way you do not even have to add in extra code for PvP/PvE balancing. It would be simply if you used the item you ran the risk of visiblity and because it would be gear towards those that want the best of the best (usualy in general PvP'ers) it would usualy find its way into hands which want that kind of content to begin with.

This would be a win - win for all players, Smugglers, BH's, and GCW participants.

Summary 2: The second major issue revolved around the punishments for being caught with contraband:

1. Some players feel that dying isn't enough of a punishment.


2. Some players recommended a faction hit.


3. Some players feel that storm troopers are too weak.


4. 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.

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.

---

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.

---

Please Marine, please don't fail us BHs now, we have put up with so much crap, so many broken promises and delays, this was our only hope for having a worthwhile profession. I'm sure I don't need to make a list of how badly broken BH is, so please don't disappoint us now /cry.

---