POLL: Was Smuggler Broken?

[zetlaux]

*edit* I was trying to quote kinshi, but the text box was inserting dozens of dashes randomly throughout the post.

I agree that the design for smuggler was horrible from the very beginning. The slicing situation was the cream of SomeOnE\\\'s crop.

I wonder how feasible it would be to create a slicing menu similar to that of a secure trade where the slice would happen securely and in plain view of both players? I don\\\'t like handing my loot to strangers, but also as a Smuggler, making parts to let non Smugglers do the slicing on their own isn\\\'t very immersive. Kind of a catch 22 without some additional scripting for a \\\"secure slice\\\" window.

[kinshi]

It would be nice if the slicing could be done in a secure trade window.

That along with having to trust Merchants to sell consigned goods on their vendors, instead of getting rid of that stupid Bazaar price cap. (Seriously, what merchant can actually prove their sales get hurt by having regular people being able to sell a max of 20 items on the bazaar and the price they want to sell for?

Thats like making garage sales illegal and the government saying you can only sell via consignment shops (who then of course charge you a fee, and take a % off the top of the sale). in my book thats RACKETEERING! Its bad enough when aggressive merchants run around and buy out other's cheaper inventories then resell at a higher price for the purpose of price-fixing. Its like the mafia is running the player economy.

I imagine some of those guys would run protection schemes if they could.

[Judge]

as far as "secure" slicing, there should be some element of danger involved, remember what you're doing is actually illegal. be kinda like the guy growing the pot calling the cops when his crops get stolen.

[Judge]

actually i think you shouldn't be able to do it in view of any empire personnel ... have to do it in a seedy dark alley or something

[denvel]

I played a master smug pre-cu, pre-nge, and still have one now. The smug class should embody the underworld. Cracking safes, illegaly modifying weapons, smuggling contraband, theft, etc... I hope underworld ranks are implemented, as well as smug missions. It wasn't that the prof was broken, it was never finished. Had it been finished, it would have been a VERY popular class.

Crowd control, special 'illegal missions', making illegal modifications to weaps, armor, AND ship components, the smug language, and access to smug and bh only underground networks.

This class could add a lot to the game if it was finished, instead of just gearing it to fit a role in a party.

[Kronos]

I really have no comments on this as I was only a smuggler for a short time, but it did seem like they were missing something.

These conversations are great. ultimately this project is about giving the communities the base patch 14.1 and giving them the tools and knowledge to really tweak and modify according to their communities needs

[kinshi]

I think if you could give Smugglers ONE thing..it would be to allow them to actually SMUGGLE.

A reason to dodge the crackdown troops and local police..reasons that include their death, not just a trivial fine. Every smuggler wants his own personal chance to dump Jabba's cargo at the first sign of Imperial trouble and get bounty hunters chasing them (why SWG chose to have BHs waste time on jedis is beyond me) They want to have to smuggle themselves in their ship's cargo hold out of necessity.

My Smuggly vision

Smuggler missions require the Smuggler to get contraband in or out of secure facilities, at heart they are 'deliver missions' with destinations in the heart of Imperial military facilities, staffed full of crackdown patrol types who can scan you,and potentially force you into Combatant status. These missions need to be on timers, and dumping the missions should cause faction loss with the faction you are smuggling for.

Smugglers would go on the BH terms for;

1. Canceling too many Smuggling missions (nobody likes unreliable smugglers)
2. Having your cargo seized/intercepted (nobody likes smugglers who get caught)
3. Getting killed while on a smuggling mission (we paid you to deliver right, not to be a corpse)
4. Not delivering on time (Jabba eats promptly at 5 PM, since you are late, he will eat you instead)

[denvel]

But it should be a lot more than just delivery missions. SOE already did that with smuggler loot and smuggler missions-which is how you build underworld rep. Smuggling IS in game-ground AND space. Also, SOE got the BH's involved hunting smugg's too-to build undeworld rep for BH.

Ofcourse BH's go after Jedi's- that's Star Wars mythology. One neat thing SOE did was to add an option to place a player that killed you in pvp on the BH terminals. Which is why they gave smugg's the check player bounty status-also given to BH.

And you are ambushed on smug missions, and they do DB on smug missions.

The main points to keep smug going and to improve the class is:
1. ability to modify equipment, speeder, and ship components-illegally
2. creating an underworld that only BH and smug have access to -missions, bounties, alt travel routes
3. making them premier pistol class
4. monopoly on creating and selling spice
5. peddling influence-faction points
6. hacking-terminal slicing
7. checking player bounty status
8. also bluff and ruse abilities