Smuggler Archive
Thread: Top 5 responses from SOE
btw why isn't anyone rating most of these posts? Has anyone else realized that all of a sudden (on page 5 alone) there are 5-star posts all over the place under the SMUGGLER Forum? It's awesome!!! I am very, very upbeat now about, at minimum, my fellow Smugglers....wtg!!!
ps. most everyone here is right btw about a hidden but emerging issue...we've said ALL this before, over and over. Why make us keep saying the same things 6mos later and 6mos from now again?? Why can't we at least (like ALL the other Elite professions) get some basic guidance on core professional issues like % quality of equipment used does/does not affect avg slice % and so forth? We've asked for so little on most occassions (during the interim of fixing Smuggler I mean) and STILL gotten nothing. It's honestly seeming to us like they hate us, I'm other professions you know, on other servers (sorta) to boot. I read and post on those and Smuggler is the only one that even non-Smugglers scratch their heads about regarding Forums response and in-game abilities (I'm sick of getting asked for 3mos now why my Master box is ugly and why I have no clue if using sh**ty clamps/knives or using ace clamps/knives makes a difference or if using trash WUKs/AUKs or ace ones matters. I have mapped results on a chart for crap gear with crap kits, crap gear with good kits and all other combos and the laymen's data still means almost nothing).
Yellow text is from me:
Thunderheart wrote:
.
The thing is that smugglers essentially are a "space based" profession (at least the way we think of it)and giventhe inherent client/server limitations, its atough proposition any way you look at. For instance, lets say Imperials do a search for contraband at starports. Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport? And then there are the guys that run back and forth across that threshold just to lag things out. This is one tiny piece of a larger puzzle. It has to be a cool game mechanic and work in the game system and in a big MMO environment.
How about giving people a TEF towards law enforcement (IMPs, CorrSec, etc) if they carry over a certain amount of spice ("personal use" amounts would not trigger the TEF). Maybe another flag such as the aggro flags based on your association with certain groups - carrying spice repeatedly would be like shooting at CorrSec or Imperial troops (hazardous to your health). TEFs could be temporary for as long as you are carrying your crates of spice. I'm not sure if the aggro system in place could handle temporary aggro based on inventory, you'd have to check with the programmers.
As per my previous post I truly believe spice should be illegal to sell on the open market (bazaar).
The key here is that while I was in beta and I knew everyone (I actually have almost all of it saved on my hard drive, but doing a search on "smuggler" with 12 gig of materials would be insane).
You mean all my rantings still exist in this universe? *Winces* I promise to be good from now on.
Its all a process and we're working on it and its going to take time. The devs want to make a good game, you and I want to play a fun game and as a community, I believe we can make this whole experience very cool.
The game still has fun moments.Sometimes drudgery gets in the way of fun, but I'd love for the game both deeper and less dependent on mind-numbing grinding. Implementingsome kind of danger associated with spice would go a long way to help.
"Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport?"
Then work around it! When a new item is inserted into the inventory, set a flag (illegalMaterials) equal to 1 if it's illegal... then all you have to do is check that ONE variable every port.
"perhaps then whenever a player uses spice (since it was illegal in the starwars universe) they get a TEF kind of thing for imperials...or whenever it is traded around. "
This is a horrible suggestion... you're actually suggesting that they NERF smugglers!!! Who would buy spice if they had to be careful about using it? It's far too late to implement a NERF to an already crying profession. Any change must BENEFIT the smuggler.
Let's face it, BH's and CH's are the 'pet' classes of this game. Dissapointing, since in all of the SW films/books there were maybe2-3 BH's mentioned and no prominant CH's.
Smugglers? Yep, there were quite a few mentioned.... not as many mentioned as Jedi, but still.
I personally find it obscene and disgusting that a CH pet can 'die', only to be be 'resurrected' after storing it for a few hours. Our faction 'pets' get permadeath, yet the CH pets are divine in some fashion.... I find it particularly disgusting since we smugglers get the discount on faction perks (i.e. pets). Death is death, people. Stop this damned madness. If my stormtrooper or AT-ST is dead, CH's should have to run and find a new baby Rancor after the one they currently have gets 'killed'.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I'd go into other professions, but I don't have the taste to.
My feeling is that the devs have no clue as to the proper 'balance' for professions. They're running blind, and heed to the most 'popular' profession's whinings..... well, except for the 1000+ post to fix we smugglers. But that's understandable.... we were hastily slapped together in the last stages of beta, and been pushed aside for PA towns, mounts, vehicles, and countless other 'fixes' and content addition. They don't know what we should be, besides 'slice monkeys'.
I appologize, I needed to vent that.....
/sigh
Ok, here is my idea on how to make a smuggler smuggle, it will fall in line somewhat with the staments made by others. Since day one of my playing SWG (which was in week two of it going on sale), I wanted to be a smuggler. I like the slicing and spicing ok, not crazy about the dirty fighting, but it could be reworked into something usefull and fun. The FOURTH TREE, which shall not be named here in it's present incarnation. This should be a smuggling tree. Smuggling xp, smuggling missions, and a system to allow player interaction, regarding smuggling. I like the idea of a smugglers "cant" a street language all our own, maybe gained at Smuggling II. I like the idea of a smuggling mission NPC, or mission terms (although I like the idea of terms less, a little to legit for smugglers.) For PC smuggling, I'd like to see a system where certain items are illegal or restricted to transport between planets. These would include radioactives, crates of weapons, crates of munitions, crates of spice, etc. There would be a fine for transporting these, a stiff fine, but not overly harsh. You would have the option of transporting these goods yourself and paying the fine/tax/tarrif, having the goods confiscated (if you can't afford to pay), or having them smuggled. You could negotiate a price with a smuggler to pay less for them to transport it for you, than what you would pay to carry it yourself. Of course smugglers who were caught attempting to smuggle, would have to pay a fine for smuggling, in addition to the usual fines (let's say double the normal fines, but with a chance to fast talk it down to somewhere between double and a normal fine, based on your skill level. Smugglers would also have the option to flee with their ill gotten goods, and to try to avoid the local security forces if discovered attempting to smuggle. Success in fleeing, would let you get away with the goods, failure would give you some amount of noteriety, and after gaining a certain amount of noteriety, based on the quanity and illegality of goods you were caught with. You would get a bounty placed on your head. Once the bounty was collected, then your noteriety would decline, and it would also decline over time, untill you lost your bounty TEF, whenever you noteriety was low enough. I would also suggest changing the way the spice tree works, make underworld into Smuggling Tree, and Make spice into the Underworld Crafting tree (ok, not a great name, but bezst I could think of) Put all crafting of spices, plus crafting of slicing equipment under he new crafting tree and make it cost smuggling xp, just like the smuggling tree. make slicing no longer have the crafting associated with it, but add certs for the equipment crafted in the crafting tree. ie. make fans certed at slicing I, mole clamps certed at slicing IV, still make the levels required for what you can slice, as far as terminals, weapons, etc. Make laser knives certed at novice of course, but that's all you get, you can't use mole clamps, or even fans yet. maybe lower terminals to novice along with container slicing, if you can't use clamps or fans yet. Make all crafting for gear and spices, experimantable, based on your one crafting tree ability.
Abevo Siclaster, Bria 
Disgruntled Buisnessbothan, with a gun (sliced of course)
I've only been playing the game since September, and have only been a master smuggler for about a month, now. I feel that I don't have nearly the currency put into this to complain as my illustrious predecessors do, but even I have to admit that TH's answer, although well meant on the surface, is meaningless.
From my readings and attempts to catch up on the materials here, it's obvious that the smuggler profession has seen nothing in terms of real assistance or fixing. There has been, in my opinion, an inordinate amount of promises and hope doled out to those playing the game, with little or no followup.
No wonder people are punchy and gunshy. They've been looking forward to getting even a little attention, and it's been denied to them at almost every turn. And with this latest reply, which smacks to them of delay tactic, it only furthers the discontent the smugglers are feeling.
I think a little evidence is required to make people have faith in your words again, TH. They've only been seeing text to this point. Actions do speak louder than words.
Come on, now. Give them SOMETHING to believe in.
To whom it may concern (who I doubt will be reading this),
Sincewe are now supposedly in the "development" stage can we get something new in the Master Smuggler's box in the meantime to shut us up? A new gun, spice, ability to slice the attribute of our choice at Master. Something. And did TH say we are a "space profession"? Does that mean we have to wait till 2007 for some real love. (ok that was a "low blow", get it)
But seriousely, even with smuggler's being unfinished I'm still enjoying my time as a smuggler. I know i'm in good hands with a correspandant like San, i've read nearly all his posts and websites. I just hope that one day we get the love that we most surely derserve.
This is down right horrible, and I can see EVERYONE so far agrees. The devs have been pushing us off for months and it will continue to happen. Well there were rumors we were going to get something with the mount patch, and of course it didn't happen, and everyone said to be patient, so then we were supposed to get something with the vehicle patch, of course that did not happen either, and everyone said to be patient. Now we have the big January profession fix patch, and OF COURSE we will get nothing. I just used the Nov and Dec patches for examples but we have been talking about the same issues for much longer than that.
It is blatently obvious, we will continue to get nothing untill we can make ourselves heard, even than we must expect it to be another 4 months of waiting. I do not blame San Tsu, but I must strongly request that you up your efforst to get attention for us, afterall you are the only one from the profession that they even pay slight attention to. If you are emailing them once a week, up it to once a day, if your doing it once a day do it twice a day. Quite frankly we need someone who is going to not let the devs rest until they give Smuggler a serious look, or else we will continue to get nothing.
I am going to start a petition that I ask all smugglers to sign, the purpose will be to get direct answers to direct questions, I know all of us are tired of the same boring responses.
Do what I am doing.. Cancel your account and wait 3 months.. Give tSony no money while they fix their messed up game. If enough people do this it will be amazing how it wont take "until Febuary or March" to fix our problems..
Sony has always historically given far more development to expansions to make more money while leaving everything broken and using the logic that as long as people are playing the game, that it cant be that bad... I am not putting up with it anymore.. See you all in 6 months if they fix everything (I am sure by then they will make it 300x more hard to level rather than put in high end content as well) or high end content will be handled by another 40 dollar expanson x 3
Starbuck
Master Smuggler-
Master Pistoleer-
Scylla Server