Smuggler Archive

• This system is likely to be very lucrative for Smugglers, given the high end components requiring players to brave high end content to acquire them.


• The system ties in better with the rest of the game world.


• Smugglers will hopefully no-longer be treated like slice-monkeys now that there is a greater deal of effort and worth prescribed to the action.


• Renewed interest in abandoned locations. I haven't been back to the Avatar station since I got my UR-G8. I haven't been to the Death Watch Bunker since I got my DE-10s. I haven't been back to The Warren since I got my badges (and briefly for that Boba Fett mission). People tend to get what they need and then seek out easier pastures, such as the Krayt Graveyard. This offers one more reason to brave the dangers.
  
• Player Perception. Since the dawn of SWG, the majority of players have operated on the mistaken belief that full composite armor, full doctor's buffs and a 35% damage slice are required elements of playing the game. This change may just possibly help to promote the idea that slices are added boosts, not the default setting. (Weapon jamming would have promoted that idea a lot more, however)
  
• Far better than what we have - No matter what system we get, it has to be better than handing someone their precious Proton Carbine and cheerfully telling them about the -4% speed slice you just gave them.


• Interdepence (kinda). Most smugglers, being unable to survive these locations solo, will have to rely on other, combat-oriented characters to help them out. This could promote grouping. It could also promote price gouging similar to the early Holocron craze. Human nature being what it is, expect to see more of the latter than the former.
  
• Mystique. Only the truly dedicated or the truly insane will be able to afford the luxury of multiple level 4 slices (like, a whole suit of armor). This may put the smuggler's art up in the same area as RIS armor and (*heeheee*) Jedi. It could also alienate new players by making it seem the entire process is unattainable except for the veteran elite.

• The risks involved aren’t related to avoiding any law enforcers/authority and are pre-slice, not post-slice as contraband should be


• It’s attainable only through loot drops.


• Not so good for the 'little man'; those without the contacts and supporting guilds will be hard pressed to compete


• Weapons have caps on slices,


• Crafters are cut off from this system


• To get the most out of this, you’ll have to get up off your arse and work for it!


• Explaining the whole damned thing 40 times a day. Non-smugglers are notoriously ignorant of what slicing entails.


• This system echos the krayt tissues loot drops, it doesn't seem all that underworld like/Smuggler esq.

• This makes a 'good smuggler' defined by her ability to "get stuff" from endgame content locations, rather than her ability to act and think like a smuggler. A good smuggler is someone who keeps a ready supply of loot items in her backpack. Depending on how you look at it, this fits in with the Smuggler ethos of being able to procure rare items for their clients (think Mirax from the Xwing series), or turns us into loot-monkeys

• Will this eventually be tied in with the Smuggler contact/quest system once it’s implemented?


• Will a Smuggler need vast amounts of components at hand and thus require a storage house?


• Smuggler will be required to get the components themselves, as customers are too lazy and suppliers charge too much,


• If the top tier of slicing will be worth all the effort/useful enough,


• Whether caps on damage etc. will still prevent an item being sliced on that particular stat,


• Drop rates being too common and causing a lot of items to flood the market,


• Drop rates being too few and making it next to impossible to acquire what’s needed to slice,


• Would this not to graduallycreate a large amount oflegendary esq level weapons, something that the CU was implemented to specifically adddress and remove from the game?


• Will lower end slices be able to be replaced/added to by hier tier slices as they currently are on TC?


• Camping is a bigpossibility.


• Smugglers requiring a full combat template in order to compete.

• Can there not be a compromise with the current version on TC and the component parts, allowing a slice for each tier, giving the option to use a component, but not requiring it, the none-component slice being considerably less potent than the component slice.
  


• 
  
  When you get scanned and caught with a sliced weapon, the imperial or rebel in question can...
  
  
  
  
  1) force you to remove all the slicing bonuses. Weapon is reset to factory standards and you must see a smuggler again for a reslice (looted parts are returned to you. it'll be too cruel to have them "confescated")
  
  
  
  
  2) As a veeeerrrryyy slim chance, break your weapon as an "example". Weapon no loger fuctions requiring a smuggler to reset and re-tune.


• PLEASE make these loot drop components 'contraband'. In fact these are theIDEAL things to have confiscated should a scan and search fail. This idea would allow all players to loot the components but only Smugglers to safely transport them.


• Make all levels of components drop off enough variety of mob that spawn randomly on all planets such that there is NO one place to be camped. I really HATE camping, I left AO because of it.


• Ensure that Master Smuggler is the only one capable of the higher end slices and/or has a better slicing effect than those lower down the slicing tree.


• Addspace loot drops to the places where components can be found.


• Once the Smuggler contract/quest system is implemented, allow components to be received from it. Also, please consider using components as rewards for future quests.

Message Edited by WesBelden on 06-24-2005 07:19 PM

I am willing to give this new system a try, however I have two concerns that you didn't mention Wes...

1) Regardless of how the looting part of the system plays out, slicing without the looted components (lower level slices)should still be viable.

2) Can lower level slices be "undone" or overwritten by higher level slices?

Message Edited by mds248 on 06-23-2005 03:47 PM

Wes,

Very good summary of the items mentioned ...possibly another concern I would mention would be:

Would this not to start to create large amounts oflegendary weapons back into the markets and PvP, something that the CU was implemented to specifically adddress and remove from the game?

Might have been mentioned before, but I would like to see these components being optional rather than necessary.. Sorta like krayt tissues.. High end components would still be desired for optimal gear..

Message Edited by Grendiel on 06-23-2005 03:51 PM

Weaponsmith can make a scout blaster using blaster-pistol barrel, blaster power-handler and a weapon scope. Now they also can make a much better scout blaster if they use the advanced versions of those 3 subcomponets.

Now the point;
Why can't smugglers make items that will let me slice to the max damage (speed etc) of a weapon but if I use the drop item it will let me slice 10-25% over the max damage.

Same for armor but make the drops only usable by master smuggler.

Message Edited by Shadwe on 06-23-2005 04:54 PM

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WesBelden wrote:

If anyone's got anything to add to this, please do so, I'll fill in as people post (assuming you don't unleash the rage and hit random keys )

Suggestions

Can there not be a compromise with the current version on TC and the component parts, allowing a slice for each tier, giving the option to use a component, but not requiring it, the none-component slice being considerably less potent than the component slice.

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Saarek wrote:

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mds248 wrote:

I am willing to give this new system a try, however I have two concerns that you didn't mention Wes...

1) Regardless of how the looting part of the system plays out, slicing without the looted components (lower level slices)should still be viable.

2) Can lower level slices be "undone" or overwritten by higher level slices?

Message Edited by mds248 on 06-23-2005 03:47 PM

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I doubt that - but that would be VERY beneficial for smugglers if a lower level slice could be replaced with a higher level one.

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My main consern is that it needs to make sense.

Simply put, creatures have no purpose for a weapon upgrade, these tools should drop primarily off of NPCs not creatures. Also, Is there a particular race of beings that has a monopoly on this technology that makes it so hard to come by? Certainly its not the criminal element with the monopoly else smugglers would be able to make them. Is this technology not mainstream enough that Expert technologists (Artisans, Weaponsmiths, Droid Engineers etc.) cannot make them AT ALL? Perhaps mid-low level components should be craftable so that a common technology can actually be accessible to players, and the High end Loot Drops can simply be advanced versions of the crafted equipment.

What I would REALLY like to see is these components often being the cargo in the 'In-Concept' Smuggling missions, that would be great! Also if these components were 'Highly Illegal' especially any versions of them that would be included in a Smuggler mission.

I really hate to see when SW technolgy gets released into the game as a loot drop as opposed to being player-crafted, such that in order to get something as common in the SW universe as a vid-screen I have to kill thugs instead of going to the local SW-Mart.

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Cons:

• This system is likely to be very lucrative for loot campers, given the high end components requiring players to brave high end content to acquire them.Smugglerswill still earn next to nothing, asthey'll typically either need to purchase thecomponents, or perform the slice with components provided, thereby eliminating any justification for profit.

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Message Edited by IndySWG on 06-23-2005 05:59 PM

I don't agree with "components should be optional" thing, at least for the best level of slices. The component slice could not possibly be THAT much better than a non-component master level slice... thus making the component slice MUCH less profitable...

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WesBelden wrote:

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Pros

• A form of risk is involved and required, either taken by the client, the Smuggler, or the Smuggler’s supplier.

Message Edited by WesBelden on 06-23-2005 11:51 PM

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(edited for type-o)

Message Edited by IndySWG on 06-23-2005 06:11 PM