Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband/Missions PART 2 (Solutions)
GreenMarine wrote:
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.
GreenMarine wrote:
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.
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).
As my previous posted covered, a Solution to make the community fine with only high Risk missions open to people willing to PvP is by making it where the components recieved only make high Risk spices and clamps that would only be appealing to people who are willing to the better items and get the better slicing and take the chance of them being forced into PvP as well by BHs.
In addition one thing I failed to cover was that Smugglers do need a lot of love in the combat side to make it even reasonable for a pure Smuggler to take chances in being forced into PvP. Currently Smugglers are nothing more then a Marksman with a couple of extra skills and this isn't fair to a class that takes more skill points then other regular elite classes.
Solution: Since smugglers take both pistol experience points and unarmed experience points to become a smuggler, at Master they should be both at the level that a medium level pistoleer and medium tka should be. Now to do this, you would have to actually spread out the pistol and unarmed skills and mods throughout the Smuggler tree to ensure people don't just go up one skill to get all the skills and mods like it is currently. It would be strange that you would get pistol and unarmed mods and skills in the slicing and spice tree but its the only way to ensure people have to Master Smuggler to take full advantage of the mods and skills. It would also be nice if Smugglers got their own pistol and possibly their on VK (but the VK must be kinetic to ensure TKMs don't go up Smuggler just for the new VK and on the same bar level as the current TKA VK) or allow Smugglers to use the VKs that TKA's get at novice. Adding in speed mods and accuracy mods and possibly some form of evade to allow them to become more effective in combat would be very nice. The best solution would be giving a different evade aside from block or dodge to avoid stacking from taking up TKA or pistoleer skills. Since both TKA and Pistoleer will always cap out their specials because of their speed mods it shouldn't be seen as too much of an issue when combining Smuggler with either TKA or Pistoleer. Now if more unarmed is brought to Smuggler, making Underworld take unarmed xp would fit more in line so that it isn't just pistol xp dominating the entire class as it is right now.
I think that a lot of the pvp/pve issues are already solved with the faction system we already have in place. What really should be done is to expand on the existing faction system. Add the "criminal" and perhaps "security" factions to the game, such as Hutts, BlackSun, Nym's, CorSec, RSF, etc. Allow the smugglers to join the criminal factions, and the BH's to join either. That will allow that non-PVP smugglers an out, if they don't want to risk PVP they don't faction up, but they'll miss out on all of the nifty perks that come from being factioned (better mission payouts, perhaps special ship upgrades, limited edition BlackSun logo jackets, etc). BH's that want to hunt smugglers can faction up and the usual rules apply.
In addition to adding these factions, Rebels, and the new factions NPC's should start scanning for contraband. If your caught with it and you're being scanned by your own faction, you face similar penalties as imperials do today. However, if you're scanned by an opposing faction, you get tef'd and the usual penalties with that arise. Also, if you're on a "smuggling" mission, and you get caught by a scan, this would perhaps result in a mission failure, and increasing the visibility of the smuggler.
An interesting side effect for this is that we can now introduce a new factional dynamic to the game. Starting out we could have some interesting inter-faction relationships setup. Imperials are friendly towards Black Sun, neutral to Hutts, and against Nym's. Rebels however, might be friendly with Nym's but against the Hutts and Black Sun. RSF would be friendly to Imperial, neutral to Rebel, and against all the Criminal orgs. CorSec would be friendly to the Rebels, neutral to Imperials, and against all the Criminal orgs. These relationships would be important because "friendly" factions wouldn't put out bounties on each others smugglers. However, if a lot of Black Sun smugglers are caught by Imperials, their faction standing might shift, and suddenly Imperials will start offering bounties on Black Sun smugglers, or if the Hutts start making a lot of successful runs for the Rebels (Rebel sponsored smuggling missions), the rebels might change the Hutts to a neutral or even friendly standing.
Also, on the BH side, you can view them as the enforcers. The more failures the smugglers have (and I'm going to assume that being caught with contraband is considered a failure of a mission, because if you're made and the heat is on, who ever is on either side of the transaction will probably want nothing to do with you), the more "Visible" they become. This visibility pops them up on the BH terminals. Maybe even have Skill and Visibility impact payout, with Highly Visible Master Smuggler worth more than a slightly visible novice. This however should be limited, perhaps making it such that if a BH kills a Smuggler, that Smuggler can't be the object of a player BH mission for 24 hours or so, and all other BH missions against them are cleared. This would prevent some of the clone camping issues we have today. During their grace period they can still be attacked if TEF'd or overt, can still gain visibility, etc., they just can't be the target of a BH mission. Visibility should also impact smuggler missions, so that the more visible you are, the less likely you are to get the better paying missions (who wants to deal with a smuggler that dumps his cargo at the first sign of an imperial patrol?). Death by BH, payoff of BH, or successful smuggling runs would be the only way to reduce your visibility. I think that allowing a payoff is a good dynamic to introduce, as I'm sure there are some BH's out there that wouldn't mind looking the other way for some extra credits. The risk there is that we could penalize BH's for accepting payoffs. If a BH takes a mission for a Smuggler, takes a payoff (which would mark the mission as finished), and then the smuggler is caught by a contraband scan within some time period, the BH gets a corruption flag or something similar to the visibility that smugglers receive. The more corrupt a BH becomes, the lower the level of his missions (as his handlers loose faith in him), and perhaps a chance that he too could show up on the BH terminals, as BH wouldn't like one of their own going bad (and a little taste of their own medicine).
I think that changes like this would introduce a very interesting mini game for the smugglers and bounty hunters, help expand the GCW, and help satisfy the PvP vs PvE issues that a lot of players have worries about.
Something else that has been bouncing around in my head is the idea of smugglers smuggling for players. I like the idea of a smuggler being able to call a shuttle and "take" the player somewhere to help avoid scans, but I think we should expand that a bit. Why not give the smugglers the ability to land somewhere other than starports? Give them the ability to land "outside" of the major starport cities. They wouldn't have direct control over the location, but they'd show up on planet 1 or 2km away from the starport they were heading towards. This location would be a waypoint where they "hid" their ship, and in order to leave the planet with their ship they would have to return to that spot to respawn it and launch into space. Risks with doing this however could be that on their way down to land the local authorities might spot them, and send a team out to investigate. This wouldn't let them totally avoid scans, (as the troops sent out to investigate could still scan and catch them) but it would help lend the illusion that they're sneaking into somewhere. You could even use this outside of the entire smuggling realm. Rebels might use this to help avoid any imperial entanglements near their destination, and imperials could use it as a way to sneak into a rebel controlled area without detection. I think this alone would add an interesting new element, and give smugglers an additional tool that would help make interacting with them more attractive to more players.
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.
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.
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
Message Edited by DRWolfe on 06-22-2004 11:56 AM
Regarding illegal contraband and smuggling, I don't think that end user items should be the most illegal items. I don't think it would enhance the play experience for smugglers or for other players at all. If the consequences for having illegal items is too severe, people just won't use them, and then an entire half of the smuggler tree would be useless. Noone would want sliced items or spices anymore. I personally believe that end-user sliced items should be only quasi-illegal, and that getting caught with quasi-illegal items should bring a minor punishment. However, I also think that end-user slicing is far too powerful. I think end-user items should only get a 5-10% slice (I'll explain where the balance of the slice should go in a minute).
For spices, I think the punishment should depend on how much you have. The amount you have should determine how likely you are to get caught, but once you're caught the stormtroopers should then"know" how much spice you have on you and decide whether you just have the spice for personal use, or if you're a smuggler, and punish you accordingly.
Now, I personally think that the bulk of the slicing side of things should change dramatically, and in a way that will lend itself more to smugglers smuggling sliced goods, rather than allregular players turning into smugglers just to get their gun through customs. I think that slicing should take more of a role on the crafting side of things, slicing components and resources. A smuggler might slice a crate of projectile pistol barrels, giving them 5-10% in one or more stats, and a new randomserial number for the crate. Asmuggler could also'spike', or 'dope'a block of resources,choosing one or two attributes to increase, and then increase it by only50-100 points or 5-10%(maybe more or less, depending on balance, and never abovelike 990 or 999 or so for the final result). The new resource should get a new random name, also. You can never make more than a crate's worth of identical sliced components, and you can never make more than a block of identical spiked resources, so crafters can't do huge runs ofsouped upitems. Slicing components would require special consumable tools, and spiking resources would have extremely specific resource requirements depending on the resource you're spiking.
The reason for making slicing so much more complicated wouldn't just be to make slicing more fun and challenging, though. I think there's a way to also use this new system to make smuggling more fun and challenging, and to keep smuggling specifically in the hands of smugglers in a way that uses PLAYER created content. The way to do this is to make it so that while slicing weapons or armor can be done on the spot, slicing components and spiking resources can only be done at special NPC slicing stations (like crafting stations). Each slicing station is hidden in a seedy spot, like a back room in Jabba's palace, and a smuggler has to gain the NPC station owner's trust through doing missions before they can use that station. Also, each station can only be used for certain types of components or resources. For instance, Jabba's component slicing station is only good for weapon barrels, Tantel armor segments, and stun protection layers.His resource spiking station is only good for non-ferrous metals. Nym's slicing station would be good for slicing blaster power handlers and composite armor segments, and his resource spiking station would only be good for spikingcereal flora foods. The station for slicing ship components could bein Jabba's space casino. Each planet would have a different seedy location for a different component slicing station and resource spiking station, this way smugglers would have to travel to get their components/resourcesto the crafter they've contracted with. Not all types of components would be sliceable, but all resources would besliceable, so all crafters would at least want the services of smugglers for spiking their resources.
The likelihood of smuggling these items through customs would depend both on the skill level of the smuggler, and the quality of his smuggling "container" which smugglers could craft. Sliced components would be considered illegal, and if found would be confiscated and the player would receive a severe fine, and the smuggler would have to work something out with the crafter he contracted with. Spiked resources, on the other hand, would be considered highly illegal, and not only would they be confiscated, and the smuggler fined, but the player would be attacked. Scans would not be able to tell if a final product uses sliced components or spiked resources, however. Smuggling would be kept within the smuggler community.