Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband/Missions PART 2 (Solutions)
GreenMarine wrote:
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.
I'm not a smuggler, but if this guy is working on your revamp, I'm considering a profession change. I'm just impressed by what this guy has to say. Perhaps there IS hope for SWG.
Skep
GreenMarine wrote:
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.
Please do not remove this from the plan. When I first read this I was very ecxited (and I'm not a smuggler nor a bounty hunter). I like the idea of gaining visibility through scans very much. You could add it now with this revamp. Make it like this:
gains no visibilty:
low and mid-level slices, low and mid-level spices, etc.
gains visibility:
high-level slices, high-level spices, new items?, etc.
This way no one is forced to gain visibility. You can also use slices and spices, but if you want the really good one you risk to have a bounty hunter after you at some point. This is risk vs. reward. This would make everyone happy. If you do not want a PvP Bounty on you, you just can't use the highest level illegal items.
Don't delay it if you can do this with this revamp. This idea is to cool to drop it.
GreenMarine wrote:
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.
Um.. talk about a loaded statement.
If the PvPers get better loot becase of increased risk .. then you need to come up with an acceptably higher PvE risk option. Otherwise whole abilities of the profession are left to people who want to do PvP.
GM just cause you like PvP doesnt mean that should be the most rewarding aspect of every profession out there.
GreenMarine wrote:
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
That's just plain insulting. This isn't a choice ... you have said yourself quite well that some players just do not have fun ... and rather actively have the opposite of fun thanks to PvP. If you make the most rewarding / profitable part of the proffession PvP ... that's not their choice you are punishing players who dont enjoy the same play style as you.
I agree PvP is a cool aspect to the new revamp ... but it should not be the "high end" content of the profession...it shoud simply be an alternate form of content for it.
GreenMarine wrote:
...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.
The slogan of some of those on the PvE side have chosen "The Right to CHoose is Universal". Some people in the past thread have tried to point out to them that they DO have a choice, and maybe coming from you, they will see that their slogan has been referencing something that is indeed going to happen. You, as aSmuggler, can CHOOSE to do PvP. If you accept the extra perks and rewards, you face the *possibility* of PvP.
I see this as a way to introduce a new playstyle to PvE'ers. I have never participated in PvP. I went Rebel for a week to do Covert stuff, and got up to Lance Corporal, but never once faced a real player in combat. I have at other times dueled people for fun, but only friends. I dont particularly care for PvP mostly because of the imbalances in the game that stem from overpowered profession (Rifleman & CM anyone?). If the field was more balanced, and I could pick virtually any ELite combat prof and be competitive, then I would PvP. I dont care about the 12 year olds trying to prove how cool they are, or the idiots who like to /emote infammatory things. I am mature enough to realize that its just a game, and the things people say in game dont matter at all. Its funny, really. Its a game. People who get so attached to their avatar might want to rub their eyes and look out the window....see the tree's? You are playing a game. If someone wants to be rude, then laugh, report them, and move on.
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.
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.
GreenMarine wrote:
On the issue of needing to be factioned to be TEF'd to be attacked by stormtroopers...
What if attacks from contraband violations ignore faction or come from "unfactioned" versions of the NPCs? I'm not sure if this meshes with Keldarin's plans for GCW consistancy, so I have to talk to him, but this would mean that being scanned and attacked would not result in a faction TEF. You wouldn't suddenly get ganked by other factional players because you were scanned.
This also solves the farming problem, because these NPCs would no longer give faction points.
Just one possibility...
I really like that idea....its the ganking by other factioned players that really worries players about said scans....because alot of the time those random gank kills are the ones that result in being ridiculed(usually by your PC killer), insulted, etc
GreenMarine wrote:
On the issue of needing to be factioned to be TEF'd to be attacked by stormtroopers...
What if attacks from contraband violations ignore faction or come from "unfactioned" versions of the NPCs? I'm not sure if this meshes with Keldarin's plans for GCW consistancy, so I have to talk to him, but this would mean that being scanned and attacked would not result in a faction TEF. You wouldn't suddenly get ganked by other factional players because you were scanned.
This also solves the farming problem, because these NPCs would no longer give faction points.
Just one possibility...
I LOVE the idea of nuets being sucked in/allowed into battle...
And I really like the idea of NPC city NPC's giving zero faction!
IndySWG wrote:
GreenMarine wrote:
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.
Um.. talk about a loaded statement.
If the PvPers get better loot becase of increased risk .. then you need to come up with an acceptably higher PvE risk option. Otherwise whole abilities of the profession are left to people who want to do PvP.
GM just cause you like PvP doesnt mean that should be the most rewarding aspect of every profession out there.
GreenMarine wrote:
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
That's just plain insulting. This isn't a choice ... you have said yourself quite well that some players just do not have fun ... and rather actively have the opposite of fun thanks to PvP. If you make the most rewarding / profitable part of the proffession PvP ... that's not their choice you are punishing players who dont enjoy the same play style as you.
I agree PvP is a cool aspect to the new revamp ... but it should not be the "high end" content of the profession...it shoud simply be an alternate form of content for it.
It's the RISK of PvP. You gain visibility, not a player BH popping up in front of you. One of the high mission rewards was said to be a component of glitterstim or whatever. You need that component, then do a few missions and skim from the top (at least I believe GM said that) with little or no visibility. Make that a way to allow the PvEers to still get components/loot they need without insta-popping on the terms. How about having the payouts reflect the visibility? You barely get on there, the creds aren't worth it for some player BH to track you. You royally screw Jabba, you'll have MBHs on you in an instant looking for that payday.
I am afraid that making a PvE high reward mission will just result in flooding the market with whatever these loots will be. The only things that kill me in-game anymore are players. PvE, I can strategize about MOBs, know what damage they deal and are vulnerable to and plan accordingly. I can't /examine a player.
One other suggestion I'd like to toss in the hat, when a player BH kills the Smuggler, how about having him loot the stolen product from the last mission he did. The BH then has to return this item to an NPC collect his reward, or even keep it for himself and end up on the terminals himself. Bounties on Bounties (just a thought). Player bounties has been something I have hoped for since I started back near launch, and I'd love to see them be put in the game in a reasonable fun way.
Now just get those Jedi missions working while I wait for this to come down the pipe!
Toront
Look at it this way: You buy a new computer, you call your hacker friend over. The first thing s/he does is installs the windows updates (usually from CD if you're on an open network), ad aware, spybot, zonealarm, and opera/mozilla so you aren't burdened with microsofts garbage. Its something a hacker can do that makes your computer run better, but isn't actually illegal, voiding warranties etc...
Then you could: Say open up the box, put in some new parts overclock things whatever. Makes it run better but voids the warranty (harder to repair), more risk, more reward.
If you really want something fancy: Say outright hack into a local isp and power company to steal internet and power. Hack into a satelite dish with a decoder card and connect it to your monitor, install (depending on the rules where you are) kazaa and start downloading music etc...
So how does this apply to slicing. Well say currently sliced things are the middle level, harder to repair, not expressly illegal but not as good as they could be. My thought is that since virtually every piece of arms and armour used in game is sliced already you can't retroactively make things 'highly illegal' and expect to have no major problems for current players.
Bounty hunters: Bounty hunters should always be the 'mid level' of having ticked someone off royally. Steal a little bit, and jabba sends out a couple of people to see whats going on, low level nobodies, and if its not stuff that's worth much, thats as far as it goes. These people may take the lesser equivalent of blood money. If enough of them get killed a bounty is placed on your head. Kill enough bounty hunters and then the real goons come after you. This applies as well to jedi as smugglers. Real goons would be a group of elite NPC types who basically hunt you down and kill you. The RL equivalent. Some terrorist appears to have taken over some territory. So you send out some poor bugger in the foregin office or ministry of interior to see what the fuss is about. Say he gets killed, and sent home in a box, then you put a bounty on said terrorists head and see if anyone will save you the hassle of killing him. If that doesn't work you send in the army, and they kill him. If that doesn't work, you make some sort of bitter peace and try not to step on each others toes because he's a national leader now.
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.
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.
Works for me - needs to be kept simple stupid though. Clear warning for the player taking the mission.
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.
I disagree - it all depends on the items contained in the Highly-illegal class. The users of high-end equipment tend to be PvP friendly. They are the ones looking for that extra edge, even if it's a small one. All that needs to happen here is that a small number of things with high combat benefits are put into this category.
The reason I think this is important is that there are far too many fragments to this game. There are private games occuring (BH vs Jedi, and the GCWfor examples) that do not impact the rest of the players. This is bad for continuity and immersion - these iconic systems (Smuggler included) need to be integrated into the rest of the game system. All players should have some means of interacting with these systems.
Summary 2: The second major issue revolved around the punishments for being caught with contraband:
- 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.
Fines or bribes are also possible, not everything must end in death.
Essentially stormtroopers are used far too much in the game currently. They are supposed to be elite shock troops of the Empire, not run of the mill security guards and police.
Perhaps there should be an Imperial soldier class that scans instead, calling in the stormtroopers as you've outlined.
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.
The ideal here would be to have different factions have different tolerance levels. The Rebels should be more lax about what they consider illegal - simply because they can't afford to prosecute. Punishments should be different too - Imps may kill on sight, Rebels might be more inclined to fine the player.
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.
It all depends on the relative value. The difficulty I see with the ideas you proposed is that production of spice will be very time consuming if all the parts come from missions. A smuggler that wants to keep up a spice business will have to spend a large amount of time in-game running missions to get the components. This will lead to burn-out - crafting (with experimentation) is a tough enough activity without building in time-sinks.
I mantain that it would be better to have two degrees of "purity" in the subcomponents to every spice. The lower grades of purity result in lesser spices - but they can be produced by the smuggler without missions. The higher grades of spice require the smuggler to rip off some of Jabba's special stock - leading to better spice, but smaller quantities and a risk to the smuggler.
There is one more point that fits in with both point 1 and 2. Bounty Hunters currently have a lopsided risk / reward. It wouldn't be as bad with smugglers as with Jedi but it's still there. Smugglers will face certain penalties for dying to a BH, but the BH simply fails the mission (PvP deaths being entirely toothless right now).
I suggest that BH be given a faction of their own "Bounty Hunter Guild". Success on a mission, be it NPC or smuggler gives an increase in this faction, failure causes a decrease.
BH missions then are dependant on the faction the BH has with the Guild. For sake of arguement - a BH with faction of less than 2000 cannot take smuggler missions (only NPC marks) as the guild doesn't trust him to do his job. BH with less than perfect faction cannot take Jedi missions for the same reason.
The penalty for failure can then be scaled to the difficulty of the mission (losing to a Jedi dumps thousands of faction, dying to a smuggler loses only hundreds for instance).
Akkori wrote:
Also, for those who want equal rewards if they choose not to do anything leading to PvP....just assign them their own personal SBD and be done with it. They want risk? This is the ONLY WAY to equate PvE risk to PvP risk. PVE IS NOT RISKY. Get that through your heads. PvP IS risky. Its risky becuase there is a human mind behind it. PvE is Java code. WHy do you think they uppped the HAM's on anything tough? TO make it more challenging.
So, the answer for the hardcore, stubborn, unwilling to try, PvE'ers, is to assign them their very own personal SBD. Every time they slice something, or craft any spice, their SBD pops in, kills them, and pops out. Problem soved...PvE'ers get the risk, and so now they can have their reward.
I am sorry but that IS a childish response.
The problem comes in from the start of SWG. Both Jedi and Smugglers are hunted in the movies. Basically, those who walk the criminal line are at risk from those whose profession is to hunt intelligent life forms.As was pointed out earlier the underworld line is designed for those who want to PvP.
The problem is trying to make a profession which by it's very nature is a PvP profession, like Jedi, into a strictly PvE profession (Meaning NO PvP posiblity at all). This is where the confusion takes place and as such should have been mention from the start that "Smugglers might be hunted by other players". With the revamp the DEVs are trying to correct their orginal error.