Star Wars Galaxies: Early Thoughts ... (Smuggler Discussion)

[TABLE cellSpacing=10 cellPadding=0 border=0 bgcolor=#F4FAFF]

HanseSOE I've read through suggestions. I'll answer a few questions, if y'all don't mind asking... (hah!)

So far... Smuggers are gunslingers and/or melee. Smugglers can get very lucky. Smugglers can crowd control. Smugglers can combo to do massive amounts of damage. ...and a few things that I won't give away yet...

Smugglers will not make spice. I'm also not commenting on the smuggling system.

ThaiKeyRho Do we get any expertise into increasing out "stealth" like abilities. ways to hide? ways to hide others (better)?

HanseSOE Expertise will leave your current invisibility abilities as they are now. There's only so much that can fit in the trees.

Dewbacca_BHG_ Think Smugglers should get some sort of Aggro break, a way out of combat. Dump your cargo and run ability so to speak?

HanseSOE Yes, that's part of crowd control.

ThaiKeyRho These are all pretty good pvp abilities. So.... There must be envisioned a drawback. Will we have lower armor (restricted to recon perhaps)? Will we have long cooldowns on the really big abilities that do massive damage? Will using or abilties get us in trouble with the law? Will our self heal become weaker to compensate for higher damage? Will we have to spread damage through the crowd or incapacitate one enemy while we work on another?

HanseSOE No armor restrictions are planned, at this point.

Some of the cooldowns on the heavy damage combos will be just long enough where you will be able to use them once every other PvE fight (30 seconds). The buff cooldowns will depend on how powerful the buff is.

Some of your abilities will attempt to keep you out of trouble with the law, but also have PvE/PvP buff components to them too... (ie: few abilities that are not useless in all situations)

I haven't begun a damage balance pass to comment on the heal. Right now, I have the expertise to increase your self heal and a buff that has a heal over time side-effect. Subject to change...

The smuggler abilities you have now will be improved for damage attacks with pistols. Melee will have new attack lines. So, based on what you have now, you should see a combination of single targets and area effect targets. Expect your high damage buff combinations to be single target, though.

Zeon_Zaku Ah, here's a question Hanse... Will we be getting weapon slicing back? Please?

HanseSOE Weapon slicing is not in expertise. The expertise modifies your weapons enough that you do not need it. Smugglers are not getting crafting abilities.

RagNoRock5x Notice the wording there

And how befor he said Smugling is not in the Expertise

Who can add?

HanseSOE Ah, you can see I'm being crafty... I did not say the expertise system does not affect Smuggling, though. I'm not working on the Smuggling system. I'm working on the Smuggling Expertise system. That's why I cannot comment on anything but the expertise.

Smuggler_Caylin How is a smugglers' luck being introduced into the system. What will it do?

HanseSOE It raises damage and supposedly affects loot drops, but I haven't confirmed this. We'll look into possibly adding more systems that luck stat modifiers affect.

shiplemw I don't think you need to worry about buying something back. BH's didn't have to buy anything back. If they ad on a modifier to the base skill as part of expertise it would be an improvement. Doubt you'll be buying anything back.

HanseSOE Tier 1 on the Smuggler General tab has 1 point to spend to get pistol abilities and 1 point to spend to get melee abilities (separate trees for those two attack groups). Other than that, everything else is additional to your existing abilities. I have not decided if it will stay that way or not, but it is natural to group your abilities by your attack type.

phoenik <<<<<< passes beer and pie to Hanse.....

First, thanks for the info, its nice to see.

Second, this talks about Combat, and I feel that we really are happy with that info, its just that we are truely a group of role players. (Smugglers Guild of the Forums) Our biggest concerns are not with how powerful we are going to be. (If we wanted powerful toons we would be BH or Jedi) But rather in the depth that you, the dev's, put into the content and smuggling system that you will not comment about.

I know that we will be happy (For the most part) with whatever combat setup you give us with some modifications. However, we will be more impressed with the other content.

Does the luck that you speak of coexist with the luck from stat based slothing or is this a seperate luck and if so what is it based on?

thanks

HanseSOE The Luck stat is modified for Smugglers. Anything that is added to the game will affect other classes, too, unless it's a specific Smuggler ability.

Kaworori I and the majority of people I know, only use Carbines for the performance they give over Pistols, especially the range, but also the other statistics. In order for us to be iconic we need a bigger incentive and a better benefit from using Pistols.

HanseSOE *Grabs his list* Uhm... Pistol bonuses... Decrease in action costs, while using a pistol. Increase in critical chance. Increase in speed of attacks. Chance to shoot twice. A buff that guarantees a critical strike. A buff that allows shooting multiple targets with a normal attack. A buff that doubles your next critical strike's damage. A buff that allows your next shot to disarm your opponent. Those are some of the pistol abilities. All of those are subject to change/removal.

Ramsey_Lanclo I can totally appreciate you not working on the smuggling system... Any chance you could get your brethren who is to pony up and approach us as well as you are?
HanseSOE I'm not ratting them out. I know they've read suggestions, though.

NeillM Are there going to be abilities that allow smugglers to reduce the amount of damage taken?

HanseSOE Yes, but I'm still debating them. I'll probably change the ones I have listed. That's a good line of questioning. Y'all seem to want innate armor. I have a feeling you min/maxers will still wear the best armor you can and add any innate armor abilities in, if they're added. So, I'm reluctant to add innate armor...

HanseSOE Oh, and the fact that armor does not seem to be iconic to smugglers.... But hey... Criminals like to get the best advantage they can, when dealing with shady people...

BigRay What about clothes with armor-y qualities? I think the general consensus is, you don't see smugglers running around with lots of armor on in the movies. Innate armor or a new line of armor that look like clothes (craftable by tailors to get them involved?) are the suggestions coming out of that line of thinking. Personally I'd rather see armor-y clothes.

HanseSOE I have time to work on the expertise system. I do not have any schedule time to make new wearables. If I had time to do so, I'd go all out and make all sorts of new items to use with the system. Sadly, new items are not part of the update. I am possibly doing a pass over the pistols and melee weapons to make sure there are no huge imbalances, but that's the extent to what I can do this update outside the expertise system.

Altyrell What exactly does that mean... {Again, playing devil's advacate} But off chance how will that "Pass Over" effect the Jedi Melee Weapon????

HanseSOE I'm not discussing Jedi weapons/abilities in this thread. We're on the Smuggler forum.

MsNiL Hanse, are you planning to do anything with the Fence ability?

HanseSOE Shhh... I need something to post about at a future date.

Graxul *sniff* all this info makes a tear come down this smuggler's face I've played around with some of the expertise trees for both jedi and bounty hunter. I'm most impressed with the ambush line of attacks that bounty hunters have and having something similar to that for smuggler makes me want to jump up and down for joy heheh.

Most of a smuggler's abilities currently are based around snaring and not so much for damage, which does limit us quite a bit since we don't have many damaging attacks just a lot of snares. So the info about increasing our damage capability some really is nice to hear especially with crit bonuses. The information about increasing our self heal is very nice to hear as well and a heal over time ability as well possibly? Just makes me smile more. I'm actually excited about this next update. Can't wait to hop on test center when more stuff is available and try some of it out.

HanseSOE Yup! I'm happy with how the ideas I've been collecting are shaping up. I've got a preliminary version to show off for a peer review now. Thank you everyone for giving me such good feedback!