Smuggler Archive
Thread: An alternative for those of us not wanting to pursue force sensitives?
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BigLands
Sun Aug 22, 2004 2:53 am
#1
Lo folks -I got to thinking about an alternative for those who don't wnat to go down the force sensitive path and this is what I came up with - as ever it needs a little work, but this might help balance out teh hordes of people who could end up FS/Jedi. Anyway, any constructive feedback is welcome.
Legendary Professions
Legendary Professionals are individualswho have pursueda chosen career to it's ultimate level. They havegone beyond mastery to an almost mystical understanding of their profession's skills, knowledge and raised their usae of theseabilites toa near art-from level.
Legendary Professions - Requirements
You may have only ONE Legendary Profession
You may not combine a Lgendary Profession and Force skills (both take too much focus to co-exist, tho Legendary Jedi Master might work)
You must already be a Master in your given profession
You must have 10 skill points available for your Legendary Slot
You must have 1000 AP available
For each of your 4 skill trees you must pay 2x the XP required to reach the final box before master*
(in the case of Smuggler this would be 600,000 pistol for Underworld, 100,000 Slicing XP, 900,000 Pistol XP for Dirty fighting and 40,000 Spices XP)
* Tho crafting professions deserve a break - 2x the XP required to master would be hellish for them!
You must also progress through the Legendary Profession quest.
Initially it requires you to find an NPCLegendary Trainer - this person should move around!
This is a 4 step quest, each step geared towards one of the skill trees in your profession.
I'd be tempted to put a required time period between each of the four stages of the quest - how does a month sound?
Eg. For Smuggler
Your Underworld Quest might be to Travel to Jabbas palace and conduct negotiations with the Empire and the Rebels for Jabbas covert support
Your SlicingQuest might be to travel to the Geo cave and retrieve an encrypted data disk, which you then have to slice, which gets you a schematic for a Legendary Smuggler only clamp or laser knife for improved slicing results.
Your DirtyFighting Quest might be to pick a fight with a particularly tough enemy in a cantina, who will drop a schematic for an upgraded DL-44 usable only by Legendary Smugglers
Your Spices Questwould be to travel to an advanced world(s) and assemble the ingredients for a particularly obsucre spice, which then becomes a schematic you can use at Legendary level.
Eg For Chef
Your Entrees quest might be to go and prepare an entree for Jabba or Nym (or even the Emperor!!!) ( Schematic for Entree and Special hat)
Your Desserts quest might be to track down the pages of a recipe book across several cities (new Dessert schematics and special apron)
Your Mixology quest could be to track down the inventor of a famous cocktail whose recipe is now lost (get the schematic for the dring and a cocktail shaker)
Your Cooking quest could be to findsomeone who makes a special legendary Chef crafting station with impoved experimentation(get the schematic)
What you get at Legendary 'Profession'
The Legendary Title - eg Legendary Smuggler, Legendary Bounty Hunter, Legendary Chef
Additional Skill bonuses to each of your skills(linited, I would suggest to +5)
The access to the certs/schemata found during your quests
A single new special attack forprofessions which use them -- not necessarily something 'uber' but something different enough from the rest of your specials to have a utility.
Summary
There is a lot of work involvedin this for the devs -4 quests for each profession and items to go withthem.
I feel this would bea great investment - it provides those of us who don't want to be Force users with away out, and might go towards luring some of the hordes of people currently thinking of FS as the only progression for them in game, back to their root professions.
What do you think - worth getting teh Devs to look at as a future enhancement?
FenrirL0S
Sun Aug 22, 2004 3:59 am
#3
As a ultima on line veteran player the word "legendary" itself make me sick.
So my answer to your proposal is a big NO. The idea itself of creating a item that would give you better slices would send crazy the slices market. With legendary professions perks you would make it mandatory for people following those skills forced pve.
Yes I said forcing pve you understood well.
Guess what drove veteran players like me with 4 and more years of subscription out of uo? the fact that to stay competitive in our profession and as pvper we had to become hard pve since only by pve you would have been able to get the legendary scrolls (ugh the conatus - I have to block the nausea) that would have unlocked our improvements in the skills.
That and the spread of pve uber items like the special knives and clamps you cited (anyone here that tried to fight in faction or order/chaos wars after the infamous aos release that brought us those horrible diablo style items?).
Force sensitive skills at least aren't mandatory for a smuggler, I can always pick one or two of them just to raise some modifier but they would never be something so game-breaking as your infamous proposal.
Sorry for the rant, but I don't want to see another Ultima On Line fiasco.
Fenrir Lupo.
Master Smuggler
So my answer to your proposal is a big NO. The idea itself of creating a item that would give you better slices would send crazy the slices market. With legendary professions perks you would make it mandatory for people following those skills forced pve.
Yes I said forcing pve you understood well.
Guess what drove veteran players like me with 4 and more years of subscription out of uo? the fact that to stay competitive in our profession and as pvper we had to become hard pve since only by pve you would have been able to get the legendary scrolls (ugh the conatus - I have to block the nausea) that would have unlocked our improvements in the skills.
That and the spread of pve uber items like the special knives and clamps you cited (anyone here that tried to fight in faction or order/chaos wars after the infamous aos release that brought us those horrible diablo style items?).
Force sensitive skills at least aren't mandatory for a smuggler, I can always pick one or two of them just to raise some modifier but they would never be something so game-breaking as your infamous proposal.
Sorry for the rant, but I don't want to see another Ultima On Line fiasco.
Fenrir Lupo.
Master Smuggler
Nicolas_Frost
Sun Aug 22, 2004 4:08 am
#4
I see that point.
I was discussing something similar with a friend of mine. Perhaps the onlyway to progress through Legendary professions would be through PvP.
I guess I should've commented that I didn't like the clamps or knives either. I mean, who would want a slice from a Master Smuggler when a Legendary Smuggler could do better? Its the same when choosing between a Slicer and a Master Smuggler. The idea my friend and I had was for Legendary Bounty Hunters. Bump Jedi Missions up to Master Bounty Hunter. Put player bounties in at Investigation 3 or 4. Master BH's could only get the lower end Jedi missions, but those will grand Legendary XP, which will unlock Legendary BH, which will give you more difficult Jedi and player missions(based upon PvP rating), and all branches of any Legendary profession should only be attained through Ledendary XP.
I was discussing something similar with a friend of mine. Perhaps the onlyway to progress through Legendary professions would be through PvP.
I guess I should've commented that I didn't like the clamps or knives either. I mean, who would want a slice from a Master Smuggler when a Legendary Smuggler could do better? Its the same when choosing between a Slicer and a Master Smuggler. The idea my friend and I had was for Legendary Bounty Hunters. Bump Jedi Missions up to Master Bounty Hunter. Put player bounties in at Investigation 3 or 4. Master BH's could only get the lower end Jedi missions, but those will grand Legendary XP, which will unlock Legendary BH, which will give you more difficult Jedi and player missions(based upon PvP rating), and all branches of any Legendary profession should only be attained through Ledendary XP.
mashthekeys
Sun Aug 22, 2004 4:18 am
#5
Agrees with FenrirLOS, Also a former UO player and there needs to be a limit, where do we stop? there is no need to be better than master. having the ability to make every single player be 100% perfect and have no flaws is what ruined UO and made it boring as crap, please dont ruin my swg too. We needchallenges, Also on that note, Thank GOD that jantas and Nightsisters etc can fight back now!
BigLands
Sun Aug 22, 2004 5:18 am
#6
Ok - couple o' points - never played UO - so I'm not familiar with the issues you're describing.
Point taken on the clamps/knives - creating more problems for smugglers wasn't my aim 
- How about a schematic for a mutliple use/re-usable clamp?
- How about a schematic for a mutliple use/re-usable clamp?I don't think it's overpowering to give an additional +5 bonus to skills at the high end, and for the outlay (Lots of AP and XP and time taken for quests)
it's not as potentially unbalancing as force sensitivity.
The aim would not be to create 'super' characters - It would be to involve players incontent which brings a return for their invested time, without unbalancing the game.
One final note tho -we stillhaven't address the basic issue - the way this game is panning out is that the endgame will be force user related.
Now, I don't beleive my solution is perfect - faaar from it - but leaving things the way they are, with force sensitive being the only path left to progess will destroy this game as surely as the issues you describe with UO. If SOE are right, and 50% of the player base intend to pursue Jedi, then 6 months from now we're all screwed. There HAS to be another option - be it further development of Professions after Master or Profession specific 'epic' level quests and content or something else entirely.
fishbrains
Sun Aug 22, 2004 6:25 am
#7
hm, considering that I bought the game just to be a smuggler I kinda really like this idea. I might need to be refined a little more but this is a great rough start. I say we get some more feedback and see where we go with it
BigLands
Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:03 am
#8
Thanks Fishbrains - one other thing that occurred to me - the logical Smuggler Legendary trainers are probably Nym and Han on Lok....
C'mon folks - let's see what you think - any other constructive feedback?
KraytDragonMan
Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:12 am
#9
I really like this idea.. and to the guy who said it will force you to do more PvE: Who cares! If you were a REALLY good Fencer in RL but you spend your days eating patatoe chips while watching T.V. do you think you're going to be as good as someone who practices EVERYDAY?
VendtDarkfell
Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:52 am
#10
I think the idea, while promising, needs to go WAAAAAAAAY back on the stove-top.
There are too many professions that are: a) broken (i.e. the current merchant), b) have empty or nearly-empty Master Boxes (i.e. smuggler), c) under-developed (i.e. politician), and everybody's favorite, d) all of the above.
First comes the merchant/Jedi fix (on test-center now), then comes the combat "tweak", then comes JTL, then, maybe we'll see the Smuggler revamp. After the release of JTL, (and maybe some Smuggler love) will come the Combat Balance. After the dust clears from that, I expect we'll see another spit-and-polish of each profession. Oh, and somewhere in there is the GCW fix. . . (after JTL and before the Smuggler fix? They seem a patient bunch.)
Assuming all of this gets done before Y2 is over (cross your fingers), AND I can look down a list of viable professions with meaning and a Star Wars "flavour," THEN I will start thinking about. . ."hmmm, what should I do after Master?"
Tam Darkfell (Intrepid)
scall01
Sun Aug 22, 2004 4:09 pm
#12
The UO people who don't want this... It's already happening with FS people...
Iwedgian
Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:23 pm
#13
Nice idea, good thinking. I too fear that galaxies will turn into a jedi online game instead of just the normal empire verus rebellion backstory
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