Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband/Missions PART 2 (Solutions)
I am sure everyone by now knows my playstyle
supa187 wrote:
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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.
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.
Brandon Reinhart / GreenMarine
SOE Designer, Star Wars Galaxies
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Best Post. EVER. This is so true. You can't have one without the other because there are strong followings behind both. Back in the early days of MMORPG it seemed that there was far more PVP but over the last 6 years Ive played online games Ive seen it changing. More people want a safe world with no threats, and no penalties of dying and so on.
Regardless of that though, I would never play a game with no PVP. And like I said Im sure a strong part of the community will agree with me on this.
lol But I 100% agree with this post, both GM's and supa's. While I would play a game with pure PvE, I would also support PvP playstyle even if I was never going to use it.
Here are my thoughts on the big three areas that GreenMarine has brought up. I'll apologize ahead of time if these ideas have already been given, as this is a huge thread.
- 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 see a solution to the PvP vs. PvE as having mission NPCs that are factioned to Imperials, Rebels, and Neutral.
If you do a mission for Rebel or Imperial-factioned NPCs, this will result in PvP against that faction. Fail a Rebel mission, then the Rebels put a hit out on you. Fail an Imperial mission, the Imperials are pissed at you. PvP enters because it becomes factional.
If you do a mission for Neutral NPCs and fail, then this will result in PvE. Enemies would be whatever is appropriate to that mission.
This way, the people who what to be in PvP with their missions can choose either Rebel or Imperial NPCs, and the ones that do not can stay away from the Imperial and Rebel NPCs and only do missions for the Neutral NPCs.
- 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 tricky. No one wants confiscation of their items. I think that right there will kill any market with illegal goods.
Loss of GCW faction is good, but then people who don't care about that faction aren't affected.
Loss of NPC faction is good if it is appropriate to the scenario when you get caught.
Combat and risk of death should be an option if the player wishes to avoid the scan. When a scan takes place, they should have a dialogue box that comes up with the choice "Stay and be scanned" or "Make a run for it". Making a run for it starts the combat.
The other one is credit fines. If you make the credit fines high enough, people will take the scanning more seriously. Not 3500 credits. Make it 20,000 credits. Don't have the money? Then you have the option to fight your way out or run. It's all about giving people options.
Scenario:
I come across a scan. I know I have illegal goods, and I have 10,000 credits. I have the option to let the scanning party scan me, and hope they don't find anything, or I can choose to fight them right there. If they do find something, they're going to charge me 20,000 credits, which I don't have, so I'm also going to have to fight them. There are several choices in there, and they're mine to make.
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.
The only way I see the depression or turn-away in the markets of spice and slices is if they are confiscated. I don't believe anyone wants items taken away, because who knows how much they bought it for, what they went through to get it, etc... etc...
If anything other than confiscation is done, the market will be fine with illegal goods.
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%
The number issignificant, but does not qualify as "large" by any stretch of the imagination when considered along with the overwhelming majority of neutrals. I think it's very important for the devs to have a realistic view of their playerbase's demographics.
This is not to say I don't think the game should have strong and enjoyable pvp systems; I do, in fact. I don't, however, think these systems should come at the expense of players who have no desire to pvp. Greater rewards for a pvp playstyle because of the old greater risk canard is an example of this.We need to strip this system down to basics before we start thinking clearly:
What is the risk? Worst possibility, your character dies and you lose a certain amount of time and probably need to repeat what you were doing in order to complete it. If it was a pve death you have item decay. If it was a pvp death, pass on the decay. From this, we establish the pve player suffers a greater penalty for death. Is there a greater chance of death in pvp? We can't answer that for this system since we don't know just how challenging/difficult the npcs will be.
What are the rewards? Ultimately, it's whether or not you enjoyed your tinyadventure. Like, fun. It's becoming a foreign concept. If you primarily like pvp and are playing this out pve style, you're probably bored. If the reverse, you're probably annoyed. The actual award is irrelevant providing the adventure was fun, you were challenged enough to feel that you earned something, and that the reward wasn't a broken something or other.
Hidden Agendas and Other Motives: What favoring pvp does is provide pseudo-content with little to no developer effort. Once the system is written, it runs itself. And that is a lazy approach that won't satisfy anyone for very long.
Morwen wrote:
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%
The number issignificant, but does not qualify as "large" by any stretch of the imagination when considered along with the overwhelming majority of neutrals. I think it's very important for the devs to have a realistic view of their playerbase's demographics.
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I consider 1 in 3 a pretty large amount of the community. Two neutral to every factioned. That's a very large amount of the community.
As said before by holocron i believe (or was it Q?) that the act of signing up to a faction was considered consenting to pvp.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
NickHeel wrote:
Vampirerobot wrote:
We'replaying a MMORPG, not a single player RPG. I would feel very cheated if I couldn't have Smuggler content that involved other players. In the same way that Bounty Hunters get to hunt other players at the peak of their profession, I want the peak of my profession to involve working for and against other players.
It's been said many times that we don't just want a Smuggler mini-game that is cut off from the rest of the Players. I want to see a system that gives me the option to:
1) Smuggle for other players and perform Smuggling Missions, and gain Infamy/visibility if I am caught.
2) Choose to perform "exceptional" slices that cause my Infamy/visibility to rise when I do.
3) Choose to create and sell "exceptional" Spice, that causes my Infamy/visibility to rise when I do.
4) Have Player Bounty Hunters come after me when I become too Infamous/visible for my own good.
Let me be an Infamous Smuggler in a multiplayer setting, and I will be happy. I don't regularly PvP, my character is not a PvP template, but I want to run the risk of being hunted by Bounty Hunters. That's the long and short of it. It would be fun.
I couldn't have said it better. You got a way with words, Vampirerobot!
I think what alot of people are forgetting is how hard we fought to NOT have a single player smuggler mission system with no content from other players aside from the end product or a bounty hunter. While all this sounds well and good and would be fun, we're just "prettying up" the old design of smuggling missions and not including interaction with other players...which is the main reason people play MMORPGs, the interaction with other players. There must be "missions" from other players, that is what we fought for all this time.
Now, so far I'm loving the set up for the missions as far as the option of going a potential PvP route or a simple PvE one. That's good. I can certainly denounced myself as a PvPer but I do think the PvP missions should yield a higher payout. The Devs have stated that PvP should be the high-end content within the game. And as GM said, you're not having a bounty forced on you if you have common sense and monitor your visibility. Other than the retraction of non-smuggler bounties and scans...I love it.
Solution: Go back to the orginal design of this communication with GM. Players hire us to smuggle their Endorian Wooly Hide, and their Lokian Wheat, or other illegal items. That is the dynamic, new, and interaction with other players we seak. This type of content is also why many Smugglers love slicing aside from the cash: the interaction and feel of "illegality" with other players. Even these immersive and rich smuggling missions will get old after you hit Master and run your 20th one. I'll guarantee you that you'll see Master Smugglers largely ripping off suppliers JUST to get a bounty on them so they'll have content with other players...and that should not happen.
I am not sure we would want to try and make it so crafters would have to hire us to smuggler their resources. This will cause a feedback to the devs similar to when they redid the crafting system (which if you all recall was taken completely back out of the game, not fixed). I just havea fear if we do anything that is going to interfer with established playing aspects of the game currently we are going to get a huge backlash and the devs will not ignore it. If it is not gamebreaking to not add in the new system then they may just say "the players have spoken, take it out" and we would of just lost a major portion of our revamp.
I still say the best way to counter this is not to try to change what is currently in the game but to add new features that would need to be used for this course of action. Maybe put in a system where crafters can not get some of the more rarer resources in a quality that is much higher then normal but they must use our services to smuggler it from planet to planet as the empire is actively searching for this ulter rare commodity.
Once again, good communication, GM. I'm actually hopefull now. Thanks for all your direction.
I would say yes and support this idea if you were in a situation that required you to combat another player (Smuggler). But if you just has to purchase items and/or services from a smuggler that is not PvP, that is PwP (Player with Player) we are not combating we would be providing a service similar to any crafter out there. Unless you also want NPC Crafters? NPC Entertainers? NPC Doctors? I mean all these professions provide a service, not combat. They allow you to interact with other players not combat other players.
GamerProX wrote:
Marcus-Reighn wrote:
When I think of smuggler I think of Han Solo, and him always being chased by bounty hunters. Who is to say that these bounty hunters that chase our player smugglers would have to be players as well. For those not concented to PVP, perhaps NPC bounty hunters could be generated instead of the plain storm trooper spawn. When caught perhaps the player could be presented with an option to pay off the NPC BH, kill him/her, or run from them. The latter would be harder to implement I imagine, an NPC BH chasing a player smuggler via bike, but it is a cool concept.
Can I have an NPC Smuggler then?
nindustrial wrote:
While I'm not necessarily advocating forced PvP on those who don't wish it, I'm just curious about one thing. I've read many replies where it was stated that PvE should not be restricted from the increased rewards of the Critical Missions, but instead should be given an equally challenging risk for increased rewards, such as NPC BHs. My question is this: if you're willing to essentially submit to being targeted by a powerful enemy who is going to be coming directly for you, then what is the difference between that and having a PC BH being the one coming directly for you?
GM actually posted what the difference is and I agree with him on his points:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=98062#M98062
Rueger_Karde wrote:
"I would just like to ask why everyone thinks PvP is higher risk? According to GM's own post regarding why players do not like to participate in PvP the actualy "end risk", the dying, was not even a factor. Risk has nothing to do with why we do not want to PvP, it has alot more to do with the other reasons GM posted and it has alot to do with it ruining our gaming experience.
I have and will continue to look for compromises that will be beneficial to all players, but I am not going to suggest or support solutions that punish one or the other in rewards. Both styles can be equally created with the same amount of "risks" it is just coming up with the correct solutions to do it that is holding us back."
Weather or not YOUR reason of why you dont want to PvP has anything to do with risk it is in fact riskier to participate in PvP vs PvE (oh God I swore I wouldn't do this). Look, the points have been stated over and over. Its not our fault if you cant look past your own arguments and see ours. But we have moved on from this arguments and while you say you are going to look for compromises, dont keep beating the horse in the meantime.
RellikCro wrote:
nindustrial wrote:
While I'm not necessarily advocating forced PvP on those who don't wish it, I'm just curious about one thing. I've read many replies where it was stated that PvE should not be restricted from the increased rewards of the Critical Missions, but instead should be given an equally challenging risk for increased rewards, such as NPC BHs. My question is this: if you're willing to essentially submit to being targeted by a powerful enemy who is going to be coming directly for you, then what is the difference between that and having a PC BH being the one coming directly for you?
GM actually posted what the difference is and I agree with him on his points:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=98062#M98062
Ahhh, now I see. I'd say I have to agree with those points as well, especially the emotion; that thought had not crossed my mind (I've never actually participated in PvP). Thanks for clearing that up.