Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband/Missions PART 2 (Solutions)
HOTDOG wrote:
I agree vamp. TOTALLY- but we can't ignore those that do not wish to PvP- This way it is TOTALLY consequental and cannot be debated.
Just for clarity, here's how a Player Bounty on a Smuggler might play out. My character, Kelsin, is approached in Coronet by a wealthy Rifleman who wants their full suit of Composite Armor sliced. Initially I am hesitant because I've been doing a lot of slicing lately, and I'm sure my Infamy must be getting up there, but he offers to pay a sum I cannot pass up, and so I accept the job. I figure afterwards I'll go find a Bounty Hunter terminal and check if I've been posted. But as I'm finishing the job (slicing 9 pieces of composite) I get a system message: "A Bounty on your head has been accepted by Pik Uke!" Damn. Good thing I'm a Master Smuggler with Underworld 4, or he would have had a few minutes head start on my while I was looking for a Bounty Hunter Terminal. As it is, there's no time to lose as I run across town to the nearest BH terminal. I slice it, and it tells me the Bounty was placed by none other than Jabba the Hutt himself. Crap. That means I'll have to head to Tatooine to find a member of Jabba's organization. I /burstrun to the Starport and buy my ticket to Tatooine, choosing Mos Entha as my destination. I take a moment to slice the travel terminal, to give a false read on my pursuer's next Galactic Search (which I know he'll have to conduct after I leave the planet). Then I spend a tense few minutes waiting for the shuttle. Finally it arrives and I'm off to Tatooine. Once there, I have to find a member of Jabba's Organization, so I hop the shuttle to a Player City near the palace, hoping to find a spawn of Jabba's Henchmen nearby. It's this part of the Hunt that is most risky, because while I might get lucky, it could be a while before I find them and that Bounty Hunter is just getting closer. By the time I find a Jabba's Henchman, the Bounty Hunter has probably figured out that I sliced the Travel Terminal and is onto my real location, so there's no time to lose. I actually have negative Jabba Faction, so I have to use my /sneak command to approach them without being shot on sight and explain myself. I do so, and offer a 5000 credit /bribe to the Henchman, figuring that's the most I'm willing to pay before having to strike some alternative /deal. Fortunately the bribe is accepted! The Bounty is removed, and my Hunter is called off. Sorry Pik Uke.
that's an old proposal, but if you showed something like that to a person, they'd be much more likely to think it was cool than if you ask the loaded question: "Do you want to be forced to PvP as a Smuggler?" Point is, there is a world of difference between the two and it's not fair to anyone to only talk in loaded terms.
Ternque01 wrote:
GKM wrote:
Instead of High risk Low risk missions how about this: Military and non-military missions
Military Missions = Military weapons/enhancements/AA's/CA's/Armor Components You gain visibility doing these type of missions
Spice Run Missions = Spice enhancing components, for example components that can enhance the duration of spice effects or enahnce the strength of their effects. You gain no visibility doing these type of missions
What the hell does Jabba need military goods for? If anything his thugs are equiped with randomly aquired weaponry (sliced no doubt). Gangsters arent the military - they are like a business entity with a good Sears shotgun. They don't deal in high tech military weaponry. They aren't terrorists.
Maybe factionalized smugglers can take the military missions, but they would be smuggling for their faction, not Jabba the Hutt. You won't go to Jabba's palace and get an option to smuggle for the rebellion or the empire. Doesn't make sense.
Maybe you could go to a special "Rebel Smuggling Outpost" or "Imperial Illicit Item Requisition Outpost" to take a military goods smuggling mission.
Sounds like a pain in the ass. My bet is that just coding smugglers to work for crime bosses would make the most sense. Smugglers deal with underworld bosses. Having smugglers smuggle for factions isa great idea, but that would be more to code. Being able to smuggle illegal guns for the rebellion past Imperial blockades has always been a dream of mine (kinda like the one where I go to Endor and burn Ewoks alive with aflamethrower - but that is my deepest fantasy).
Then again, I think in my mind that there is a HUGE distinction between the characteristics of an underworld smuggler and a professional factional smuggler. Accommodating the two characters seems to be a bit of a challenge under one smuggler profession. For instance, a factional smuggler might be military trained for combat - underworld smugglers would use dirty fighting tactics. Also an underworld smuggler wouldn't buy military faction, while a factional smugg would. Try going to run missions for Jabba as a Rebel smuggler and see how hard you get laughed at in his throne room.
My point is that there is a distinction. A resolution to my "idea discrepancy" here is that Rebels and Imperials actually hire underworld smugglers to do their bidding. We know that the Empire uses Black Sun in secret (shhhh don't let it out). Maybe the Rebels pay smugglers on the side to move stuff. Who knows? Just playing around here
Message Edited by Ternque01 on 06-23-2004 01:08 PM
Basically the idea behind military and non-military smuggling missions was to take a shot at a solution for the people that want to PvP and PvE.
I think for the PvE players that absolutely dont want to deal with PC bounty hunters (no matter how fun it could be) they can choose the non-military type missions and gain credits or loot items that enhance spices. Maybe we should call them Spice Runs if you dont like the label non-military
The military type missions (we can call them illegal arms smuggling if that sounds better)rewards credits and loot items that enhance slicing. Or the rewards could be weapon power up items (imp form fitted stocks, PSG schematics, or whatever AA"s or CA's even). But these type of missions would give you visibility.
Also slicing with the enhanced knives/clamps will give you visibility.
Message Edited by GKM on 06-23-2004 01:37 PM
Vampirerobot wrote:
I'm picking up what you're putting down. However, I maintain that thinking of this as a PvE-PvP thing is a bad idea and unhealthy for the future of the profession. We need to acknowledge the difference between PvP and a Bounty. I'm in a faction but I'm covert all the time and don't PvP, I don't have stun armor, or stun weapons, I don't go around buffed all the time (I'm rarely buffed), I roleplay and I go for style over functionality (I wear a padded armor chestplate). But I still think it would be awesome to have a Bounty Hunter come after me, so long as I have the Smuggler abilities to escape the Bounty somehow. I certainly don't expect a Bounty to be a straight up PvP fight. I expect it to be very very different, and characterizing a Bounty as PvP is in my view terribly counterproductive to making the whole process fun. Don't jump ship on us this early in the game.
This shouldn't be about "PvE players" and "PvP players". It's about Smugglers.
Stop trying to confuse the issue.
If a player BH attacks a Smuggler, its PvP...... Period.
And to the poor, suffering Uber BH's posting here, Im sorry but I have no sympathy for you. As far as I am concerned,you can hunt wana-be Jedi, which will be numerous beyond counting,toyour hearts contentafter the Jedi revamp is patched live. Believe me, you will have no shortage ofJedi to hunt down and gank, so stop yer whineing.
silversaber wrote:
Stop trying to confuse the issue.
If a player BH attacks a Smuggler, its PvP...... Period.
And to the poor, suffering Uber BH's posting here, Im sorry but I have no sympathy for you. As far as I am concerned,you can hunt wana-be Jedi, which will be numerous beyond counting,toyour hearts contentafter the Jedi revamp is patched live. Believe me, you will have no shortage ofJedi to hunt down and gank, so stop yer whineing.
It may be that way to you, but players at large respond very differently to the ideas of PK, PvP, and what might be applied to us. I'm not confusing the issue, I'm asking you guys to talk about the ACTUAL issue, which is Smuggler Bounties. A PvP discussion is far too broad a topic to have any applicability to this very specific very niche scenario of Smugglers and Bounty Hunters.
It is a world of difference.
JediArashi wrote:
I agree with what yourtrying to doVampirerobot, and I think that little story is quite nice in detailing a potential Smuggler vs. BH encounter. However, it does leave out the encounter itself. If you failed in bribing the Jabba henchman just as the BH pulls up in his swoopbike, then what? Well, then it's a PvP encounter.
It could be just as fancy, you could describe using Smuggler DF skills to escape the BH for a short time, there are plenty of eloquent ways to describe the potential, but I'm not sure that is the place for this discussion. We are talking nuts and bolts here because that's what we need to have done before we can experience your story-driven consequence. Putting it in a nice wrapping won't help us flesh out what will work and not work in the system here.
-Arashi
Bloodfin
Point taken. But without vision what good are nuts and bolts? If you tell people that to be a Smuggler you have to PvP (or worse, tell them that to be a Smuggler they have to get ganked by Bounty Hunters constantly) you're going to get a negative reaction and no progress can be made. Because the nuts and bolts aren't in place yet, this is the time to talk vision.
So here are some questions you guys can answer:
- Assuming you are a Master Smugglerwho plays 1 hour a day and say 2 hours a day on weekends (casual player?), how often would you expect to get Bountied for your activities? What is too often? What is not often enough?
- Once Bountied, what percentage of the time would you expect to get away without a fight?
- If the Bounty Hunter catches up with you, what percentage of those fights would you expect to win?
And it's okay to answer "Never" to the first question.
Vampire Robot wrote:
- Assuming you are a Master Smugglerwho plays 1 hour a day and say 2 hours a day on weekends (casual player?), how often would you expect to get Bountied for your activities? What is too often? What is not often enough?
- Once Bountied, what percentage of the time would you expect to get away without a fight?
- If the Bounty Hunter catches up with you, what percentage of those fights would you expect to win?
Hmmm. I think you just opened a whole can of worms but I will throw in what I expect just to see where this goes...
1. Very- VERY rare to none at that rate- I would figure you would have to skim at LEAST 3 deliveries to earn enough Visibility to land on the terminals- I guess you could purposely fail 3 missions in an hour but I would imagine each mission would take you 30 min. to complete.
2. The thing here is being online while the bounty hunter is online- I'm sure more than one bounty hunter is going to come after you so maybe that won't come into play as much. You also have to consider that your visibility clock stops when you log off so each time you log back on it would pick up where you left off- (log off with 50% visibility- you log back in with 50%) sooooo I would gues about 60-70% of the time you would get away without a fight.
3. This really depends on the smuggler-
I expect the crafting profession/Master smuggler to have a50-70% chance to get away but if they decide to fight I don't think they are gonna make it.
I expect the combat profession/Master smuggler to have a60-85% chance to get away.If they decide to fight I would expect them to lose but they might surprise you.
I expect the Commando/Master Smuggler to be able to get away about 90% of the time should they choose to just run (especially if they throw a scatterpistol shot and lag up their hunter's screen). The Commando/Master Smuggler should be able to go toe to toe BIG TIME with a BH- it's pretty much a toss up.
I expectthe Triple Masters (MasterTKA/Master Pistoleer/Master smugglers to be able to manhandle any BH they come up against-
A BH's gun skills are deadly as anything- especially if they are combined with Pistoleer- but a triple master has Master TKA going for him and that ain't no joke.
So that's what I expect-
Just for clarification, I actually meant: what would you expect in order for it to be fun for you?
HOTDOG wrote:
Vampire Robot wrote:
- Assuming you are a Master Smugglerwho plays 1 hour a day and say 2 hours a day on weekends (casual player?), how often would you expect to get Bountied for your activities? What is too often? What is not often enough?
- Once Bountied, what percentage of the time would you expect to get away without a fight?
- If the Bounty Hunter catches up with you, what percentage of those fights would you expect to win?
Hmmm. I think you just opened a whole can of worms but I will throw in what I expect just to see where this goes...
1. Very- VERY rare to none at that rate- I would figure you would have to skim at LEAST 3 deliveries to earn enough Visibility to land on the terminals- I guess you could purposely fail 3 missions in an hour but I would imagine each mission would take you 30 min. to complete.
2. The thing here is being online while the bounty hunter is online- I'm sure more than one bounty hunter is going to come after you so maybe that won't come into play as much. You also have to consider that your visibility clock stops when you log off so each time you log back on it would pick up where you left off- (log off with 50% visibility- you log back in with 50%) sooooo I would gues about 60-70% of the time you would get away without a fight.
3. This really depends on the smuggler-
HOTDOG wrote:
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.
/agree.
I think that is fair- Of couse the payout should be a little higher on the High Risk as well.
I also think we are forgeting here that ALL of the negatives on the High Risk are amped as well.