Smuggler Archive
Thread: My take on the whole BH/Jedi/Smuggler thing-- And my suggestion to the Devs
Well, since we all now KNOW that PvP Bounties WILL NOT BE OCCURING anytime soon, we can put the discussion aside.
Wes mentionned in an earlier post that there are too many variables (let me know if my paraphrasing is incorrect Wes) to implement such a system immediately.
HOWEVER, we DO know that NPC Bounties are likely to occur. This is a good start to the changes we wish to see made, and although it is in no way a solution to the Jedi inestation of the Galaxies, it IS a way to get smugglers more content.
What I'm sure that we can all agree with is that we DO NOT want to see spice production replaced by spice rewards.
Another great idea that was mentionned - but did not get much notice (it would seem) was an earlier post about balancing the Jedi by having their enemy's THE SITH hunt them. THATS A GREAT IDEA imo. The Sith are the natural enemy to the Jedi and the BH are ours. Now replacing the BH with Sith is not going to happen - but it IS possible to add the Sith to the hunt. At least with the Sith hunting Jedi - a Sith Padawan is a good match against a Jedi Padawan and a Sith Knight/Jedi Knight etc etc.
Just out of curiosity, why isn't there a Sith forum? Especially after the release of Episode III, the Sith are a very desirable part of this game, and meerly becoming "Dark" isn't enough. If I know I could create a Sith Character JUST TO HUNT JEDI, I'd be all over that. There's something to be said about the excitement in the Duel of the Fates (Darth Maul vs Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan), and I can really see a large player base migrate even from being a Jedi and falling to the Dark Side.
But alas, these are just my opinions, and it would seem as they go unnoticed by those most important.
/sigh
However. I'm happy to be skimming transported slice instead of manufacturing it. There's a couple of reasons for this. 1) we're smugglers, not drug-barons. 2) I'd much rather smuggle than craft. 3)We have no artisan, medic or (most especially) BE requirements and therefore have no business making medications, legal or otherwise.
On the Jedi/Sith thing, only one thing leaps to mind. "Always two there are." Jedi vs Dark Jedi, okay. Jedi vs Sith, no, that's just wrong.
Mythor wrote:
Someone up further suggested Jedi should be interested in just getting away, as would Smugglers?
Well, it's clear you don't have the slightest clue about that little game mechanic.
Jedi FREQUENTLY run from Bounty Hunters. Particularly the lower level Padawan players who have no real hope against a good Bounty Hunter.
The PROBLEM is that Bounty Hunters then carp and moan incessantly about Jedi running away and hiding instead of fighting. They chase them all the way back to their hideout, and then they set up camp outside and shout or /tell things at the Jedi. They'll often refuse to leave for DAYS at a time. And they see NOTHING WRONG with this behaviour. They even DEMAND ways to be allowed to bypass any restrictions between them and the player they want to kill. Then they act like it is somehow their god/dev given right to grief others.
Is that truly what people want for Smuggler?
Let me know. I still have time to respec away and never come back if that's what this community is going to push for in the future, instead of the infinitely better PvE content that would be far more rewarding.
So many of the issues people complain about in this game have been brought about by their use in PvP play, and yet those same people then turn around and want to add even more ways to PvP/PK into the game.
When will people learn?
The "somone" was the Original Poster, which was me. And well, it's clear you neglected to really read it. The whole point was to suggest ways of altering the game mechanic in question to make it LESS likely that the PROBLEM you specifiy occurs. It was also NOT suggesting that I want this for Smugglers(though I do), but if we *were* getting BH interaction, this is the way I'd want it, as we're a "get out alive" class, not a deulist class.
As was just mentioned, I consider it pretty closed, since(for one thing), Smuggler Bounties won't happen for a while, if at all. Hoever, I'll also state that the Reason I've included this as a smuggler issue is due to the cries of NERF SMUGGLER that the Jedi/BH situation has produced. And my personal solution to that problem, is encourage bounty targets to run for it, by making it meaningful to do so. If you are guaranteed X amount of time BH-free(or at least, free from this particular BH) from a successful elude, then it becomes desirable to do so, fewer Jedi stick around to fight it out, and we don't have to put up with being unreasonably nerfed and harassed for something we have NOTHING to do with. And yes, i do mean harassed-- I've gotten hate tells simply because I have my Master Smuggler tag up where some Jedi can see it after a group of Five BHs managed to get them with a lucky LD when he stood there and fought them.
i really dont know what the argument is about - A bounty is only placed if you screw the pooch, or fail the mission.
no employer would put a bounty on someones head unless you screwed them - that employer would never get anyone to work for him if that was the case.
HOTDOG wrote:
Spiderhammer wrote:
I'm not sure why we are pushing(well some of us anyway) for player bounties on smugglers... I only have to look at the utter disaster for much of the game that the jedi bh thing seems to be... just my take
To be clear. A Smuggler Bounty system would differ GREATLY from a Jedi Bounty system.The MAIN reason why is players that chase the Jedi prof are quite different from those that take the Smuggler prof.
Jedi are players that either see Jedi as an endgame, want the power or see themselves as Jedi. They don't expect to be hunted by something that they cannot handle.
Smugglers want to break laws and EXPECT to be chased down by powerful beings when caught. Our thrill is the chase.
Other reasons are:
Smugglers won't lose XP.
Smugglers are on par with BHs combatwise.
Smugglers are just straight up cooler than Jedi. It's always been that way, right Han?
You have got to be kidding me. The BHs who will hunt smugglers will be taken from the same pool of players that the BHs that hunt Jedi come from. There will be no difference between the two bounties.
My take on this is that the system of player bounties as implemented corrupts the professions involved. The Jedi have so much time invested in becoming Jedi, that any setback is a huge deal and they whine. The imbalance of play/arrogance of Jedi/sheer number of Jedi fuels a hatred and a need to take them down a peg.
This coaslesces into a visceral desire to defeat the other side, which leads into win at all costs, IE exploit and cheat. Almost every instance of exploits I have witnessed dame from a BH or Jedi.
Add into this that the respec has made (at least on my server) BHs to breed like bunnies, and you get a very volatile mixture.
One I wish to stay away from. If you add player bounties for smugglers we will get sucked into this morass.
I think that if you want to participate in this game, then add super elite iconic classes (like jedi, sith, etc) that would give players somewhere to progress to beyond normal proffs (like jedi does)and makes a clear delineation for skills. If you are a super elite BH, then you have your own skills and do not use Smuggler skills to hunt Jedi.
By his own admission, you would need to accept PvP in order to get "the good stuff".
Sorry, but I fail to see why I should be forced into PvP in order to enjoy the highest tiers of the new system. There's no good reason for it and if the highest tiers of Smuggler require PvP, you are FORCED to either accept that, or essentially leave the profession.
If you have to be "careful" to "avoid" having a player collectable bounty placed on your head... that sounds an awful lot like you're being "careful" to "avoid" being "forced to PvP".
If you read back over what you just said, you might notice something - nothing you said actually has to involve any player but the Smuggler in question.
The system will work perfectly fine as a PvE and a PvP system running in tandem. Having the PvE system be "second string" is totally unacceptable.
But I'm giving it up anyway. It's clear Mought has his mind set and that's fine. I've no intention on stopping my push to have the PvE side of this be equally as challenging and rewarding as the PvP side.
Anyone who doesn't like that can get stuffed, cause I'm through trying to pound it into their thick skulls.
You're forced into battling Higher Level mobs for higher level loot - so why not the same for Smuggler missions.
BTW - You are the minority on this issue - and as thus, you can elect to take the risk by doing the mission, or you can not, and just buy the reward from someone daring enough to be a real smuggler.
Mythor, you can't seriously believe AI can be anything close to a human can you? Have you ever coded anything before? Do you understand how computers work? For the sake of argument, I'll assume not.
Put very simply, all code breaks down into 1's and 0's, On or Off,(when it comes to the codetranslating to hardware,high voltage or low voltage triggers). Programs get pretty complicated in combining all those triggers but that's all programs are. Yes or No triggers. Humans can, obviously, handle more then yes or no. The only way anAI could ever match a human was if it was infintely dynamic which isn't impossible but is so entirely improbable it may as well be impossible. It would require programs to be more then Yes or No triggers and would subsequently require the hardware to be more advanced then high and low voltage sensors.
We want human rivals because human rivals aren't stagnent. Human rivals aren't limited by the possibilities the creator could think of and figure out how to account for. Yes, there will be whining, there will be exploiting, there will be "balancing," but those are small prices to pay for the benefit of having opponents who constantly challenge you, opponents who can dynamically come up with strategies to beat the strategies you just came up with in that fight. We want a constant threat not a threat which only has to be tested to find it's limitations and essentially remove the threat because of it.
You want to spend all your time with pve content that's perfectly fine. However, when it comes to risk and reward, pve is much easier then pvp. The highest rewards should have the highest risk and that requires dynamically thinking people not limited programs which can only do so much.
Mythor wrote:
AI does not have as adaptive a "thought" process as a human. Obviously. Why you felt the need to explain that to me is quite beyond me.
Obviously a PvE opponent would provide a different kind of challenge to a PvP opponent.
But to blithely label PvP as flat out "harder" all the time in every circumstance is absurd. It isn't.
Different kind of challenge? Certainly. More likely to adapt to circumstances? Sure. But not inherently more difficult.
Ways PvE content could be "balanced" to provide a similarly challenging gameplay experience as PvP:
- "Hunters" that are beyond the level cap of 80.
- "Hunters" that possess skills beyond the 250 SP limit of players.
- "Hunters" that possess weaponry with damages beyond those players can have.
- "Hunters" that can perform moves/abilities players could not in the same circumstances.
- "Hunters" with higher Health values.
- "Hunters" with better Armour than players.
- "Hunters" with higher movement speeds.
- "Hunters" with vehicles (that have higher Health/speed than player vehicles).
- "Hunters" that can "warp" to catch up if a player moves to a range that might cause a "despawn".
- "Hunters" in groups greater than 1. Or 2. Or 20.
- "Hunters" with larger Force pools.
- "Hunters" with higher regen rates.
I could go on if you'd like?
The point is that many other factors besides the opponents "skill" or "brainpower" go into deciding whether a fight is challenging. The most skilled Novice Marksman in the game would get soundly trounced by a Jedi Master who didn't know how to use anything but the basic lightsaber "attack" skill.
It wouldn't matter that the Jedi was being controlled by a rather stupid player. An AI would just as easily have won. An AI would probably have done it even easier, in fact.
Same as a highly skilled player would not be overly troubled by a Level 82 hunter coming after them, whereas a lesser skilled player would get squashed.
If it turns out that everyone is finding the 82's too easy, fine! Bump it to 83. 84. 85...
Would you find that as interesting as fighting another player? Perhaps not. If bumping the opponents level is the devs idea of balancing it, I'd even agree with you.
But don't try and claim that PvP encounters are always harder. That is a facet of game design, not an incontrovertible fact. PvE elements can always be made far harder to defeat than an "equal skills" encounter against a player.
Whether you (or I, or anyone else) would find that as interesting is another matter.
My apologies for taking so long to reply. My internet crapped out on me last night. Here is my reply I got typed up right before it did.
The reason I felt the need to explain it is because throughout my gaming, and I have been gaming as long as I've got memories, one thing has always bugged me about games and that is the AI. You can play a game through once and get beaten by the ai. You can play it again and again and each time you'll find it easier until you'll find you can play through the game without ever dieing and phenominally faster then you could before. My experience has shown me this and if you don't trust that, I can host and give you a link to a little video I have of a guy beating Super Mario 3 in about 12 minutes. The reason why, is because the AI never changes. It is what it is unless someone manually goes in and changes the code yet people adapt and discover how to best defeat the AI. Of course the AI is much better in SWG then it is in Super Mario 3 but the basic fact of AI and human interaction stays the same.
Obviously pve is a different kind of challenge then pvp and yes, to blithely label pvp as flat out harder is absurd. However, I never said pve wasn't a different kind of challenge and I certainly wasn't being blithe. It would seem so but the truth is, I simply lacked specificity. There will always be exceptions to a "rule." Pve is hard, just as hard as pvp, at first. That first time you experience a new AI is generally always hard but that difficulty diminishes with more encounters because you adapt but the AI does not. This is why pvp can be called harder then pvp because each encounter is new even if the opponent is the same. Of course this discussion hinges entirely on how we each organize things in our own thought processes and is subsequently an entirely ridiculous discussion.
Your registration date for the forums says July 12, 2003, Mythor. Have you been playing that long? If you have, surely you remember how the game was when you began and how it was right before the CU. Do you remember how people used to make fully formed groups to take on Night Sisters? Do you remember how the biggest, baddest mobs were those with 10k HAM and hit for the same amount they do now but our HAM was stuck around 1000 without buffs? Do you remember how people started complaining the game was too easy and remember how a little while later we started seeing mobs with increasingly large HAM and resists? Do you recall how ridiculously large HAM and resists got on the hardest mobs? Do you remember the warping mob problem where you'ld attack a mob at 64m and suddenly have it right on top of you? Do you remember how annoying that was? I could go on if you like.
We've experienced those things on your list already (even combat levels are nothing new. Creatures always had them. Ask any long time Ranger) and most people thought it was messed up. Why do you think there was a combat upgrade in the first place? Why do you think they keep tweaking the AI? Those things you list, they aren't a fix. They're like pressing a shirt to a gunshot wound in the gut. It may slow death down but without immediate attention, you will die.
There is skill involved with pve. However, once you learn the program you're using, the only skill involved is your ability to adapt and pve doesn't require much adaption at all when compared to being challenged by an opponent which adapts as well.
Saarek wrote:You're forced into battling Higher Level mobs for higher level loot - so why not the same for Smuggler missions.
BTW - You are the minority on this issue - and as thus, you can elect to take the risk by doing the mission, or you can not, and just buy the reward from someone daring enough to be a real smuggler.
As opposed to someone who is a fake smuggler? Implying that your are better than I am?
Thats a pretty narrow minded point of view. Daring, fear, whatever, has nothing to do with my decision whether to or not to participate.
My opposition to the player bounty system is becuase I feel that it will ruin the smuggler profession. BHs will be come the center of our existence and these boards will become a mirror image of the BH boards. Smugglers will become as whiny as Jedi. I quit Jedi becuase I did not want to associate with the whiners (Jedi) and I fear the same will happen to smugglers.
I personally do not care if I am taken out by a BH. Its happened before, and was always my fault.
As far as being a minority opinion or not, I am at least not a sheep
Raanan wrote:Your registration date for the forums says July 12, 2003, Mythor. Have you been playing that long? If you have, surely you remember how the game was when you began and how it was right before the CU. Do you remember how people used to make fully formed groups to take on Night Sisters? Do you remember how the biggest, baddest mobs were those with 10k HAM and hit for the same amount they do now but our HAM was stuck around 1000 without buffs? Do you remember how people started complaining the game was too easy and remember how a little while later we started seeing mobs with increasingly large HAM and resists? Do you recall how ridiculously large HAM and resists got on the hardest mobs? Do you remember the warping mob problem where you'ld attack a mob at 64m and suddenly have it right on top of you? Do you remember how annoying that was? I could go on if you like.
We've experienced those things on your list already (even combat levels are nothing new. Creatures always had them. Ask any long time Ranger) and most people thought it was messed up. Why do you think there was a combat upgrade in the first place? Why do you think they keep tweaking the AI? Those things you list, they aren't a fix. They're like pressing a shirt to a gunshot wound in the gut. It may slow death down but without immediate attention, you will die.
Yes, I have been playing that long. I'm not sure the exact date I started playing, because my SOE registration is actually older than that. I've been both a Ranger and a Creature Handler in that time, so I'm very well aware that creatures have "always" had a creature level. (They have not actually always had a CL we could see, or that actually mattered, that I'm aware of. CH got nerfed because people could call multiple Rancors, back when that was actually scary, if I remember correctly?
)Do you remember when PvE fighting was about the only game in town? Do you remember anyone crying that the PvE game was boring and too easy and wouldn't it be great if PvP could be added to every facet of the game even if it made no sense?
I sure don't.
The early days of the game were a lot more fun. PvP has destroyed so many aspects of the game since the early days of the invisible TEF murders.
Why do I think there was a combat "upgrade"?
Because the old system had gotten stale and was too complicated to balance. Axkva Min (the "hardest" Nightsister in the game) was supposed to be fought by a good sized group and it was supposed to be a hard fight. Yet some people were managing to defeat her 1v1. No matter what planet you were on, a mission taken from the mission terminals was easily defeatable by an even medium level player, so long as they had a buff and were wearing composite armour.
It needed rebalancing in a major way for quite a while before the revamp finally got to us.
Regardless, you just made my point for me. The PvE game got "too easy", and so it was adjusted to be more of a challenge. Sure, right before the CR the game was pretty easy (hell, I was a speed capped Rifleman with TKM secondary, very few things on a planet were a threat to me), but part of the reason it stayed in such an "easy" state for so long was because the devs were already working on the revamp that was supposed to "solve" the problem.
Will we eventually find the best ways of taking down an even level opponent? Undoubtedly. Will we find ways to defeat opponents higher level than us? Certainly. Will this mean that such opponents won't be challenging in the meantime? Of course not. Will this mean that the PvE side of the Smuggler "Experience" will remain stagnant and become more and more easy to "beat"?
I certainly hope not.
Players of course have a greater degree of adaptability, but after the system settles down, players will become much more predictable too. You only need to look at the sheep-like tendency for masses of players to pick a "FOTM" template to see that. As the game moves forward, everyone will start knowing what to expect from other players.
The "balancing" of the PvP aspect will come from the developers anyway, if/when one side is gaining a clear advantage.
Why can't the PvE side do the same? If Smugglers are finding it too easy, shake up the parameters and adjust the skills of our opponents, just as what happens on the PvP side.
Mythor wrote:
Do you remember when PvE fighting was about the only game in town? Do you remember anyone crying that the PvE game was boring and too easy and wouldn't it be great if PvP could be added to every facet of the game even if it made no sense?
I sure don't.
I do! It was during beta, started up by leia4loot and r2tincan,resulted inSWGPVP.com and two "unofficial" PvP servers. SWGPVP.com fell apart because the leaderswithdrew their support of the game claiming it had no PvP potential because of (among other things)covert/overt flagging, which they felt took away from the original design concept of the game - to have anyone that signed up for a faction be overt all the time, withplayer bounties which could be applied to anyone that "unfairly" killed you.
The early days of the game were a lot more fun. PvP has destroyed so many aspects of the game since the early days of the invisible TEF murders.
Sorry, I think this point is complete melarchy. On Bloodfin, PvP has driven the server and the community since day 1. If not for the rampant PvP and people of the PvP mindset, Bloodfin would most likely be a ghost town.
Additionally, PvP and PvE are bonded by definition (and your own admission), so any aspect of the PvP game that supposedly destroyed the game could easily correspond to the same PvE aspect. That's to say, a guy who could hold his own in PvP combat could easily dominate the PvE game just by sheer survival ability (or whatever particular exploit or "I win" button that worked in PvP, with the addition of PvE specific bugs).
Furthermore, I have yet to see a game survive on solely PvE style play. SOE tried strictly cooperative play in EQ2, but soon (after their projections for the game weren't quite met and started sliding anyway) realized the error of their ways and implemented a PvP system. World of Warcraft, on the other hand is based on balanced PvP play, which Blizzard tookabout a year to balance,and literally gushing success. Every single person who worked on WoW, probably even the interns, are going to be able to retire wealthy.
Players of course have a greater degree of adaptability, but after the system settles down, players will become much more predictable too. You only need to look at the sheep-like tendency for masses of players to pick a "FOTM" template to see that. As the game moves forward, everyone will start knowing what to expect from other players.
The "balancing" of the PvP aspect will come from the developers anyway, if/when one side is gaining a clear advantage.
Why can't the PvE side do the same? If Smugglers are finding it too easy, shake up the parameters and adjust the skills of our opponents, just as what happens on the PvP side.
Your propositions are, quite frankly, every game developers' wet dream. Believe me when I say they've been trying for years to make more competent"AIs" which in games (and especially MMORPGs) are simply scripts.A more realistic AI involves logical mathematical constructs based on a given purpose (ie, "maximize your chance to win" a la Motif Backgammon).
The reason you'll never see such sophisticated AIs within MMORPGs - at least not for another decade - is because of the logical cost of those AIs in terms of database and general server side performance. To put that in perspective, let's just say that the avatar customization offered by SWG isa huge deal database wise. In fact, the size of the player database alone is probably several hundred terabytes, if not crossing into petabytes! Yet, all that information gets transferred smoothly from the server clusters to our machines in the blink of an eye. We'll likely never see anything likethis in another game unless hard driveandtelecommunications (internet2) makes a quantum leap -- which they appear to be doing as we approach the technical limitations of both, but it won't be for another five years at least.
That said,for now, we're left dealing with horribly scripted "AIs" and other humans to fight against, and personally, I feel the humans make the game. I play MMOs to play with and against other people, even if some of them are easier to kill than the AIs