Guild Summit: Agents/Smuggler Population

A nice idea would be to add interesting looking gear.

I enjoyed the cape/hat/duster idea with centurion gear but I grow tired of seeing it on champ/battlemaster and ALL the pve gear.

I'm presently levelling a smuggler (scoundrel). She is level 27.

The story is cool, very stylistically distinct from that of a Jedi, I think it works well.

The mechanics aren't so strong, I feel like the Smuggler got somewhat a mishmash of the leftover stuff and they don't really fit together really well. The first 10 levels were super painful due to Cover, which is perhaps the worst mechanic I've ever encountered in a game. When I hit level 10 and picked scoundrel I was immensely happy to remove cover from my bars. Unfortunately, the weird energy semi-melee thing with upper hand also seems very clunky. It might work a bit better at later levels somehow with more talent points, but it really doesn't feel like it works as a dps class in the 20s. That said, the energy / upper hand combination is pretty sweet as a healing mechanic, I like it a lot (in fact so far it feels a lot like the class was designed entirely around being a healer with these mechanics and the dps specs were shoehorned into them later on).

I think they're pretty important to Star Wars as a thing. Certainly Lando/Solo were pretty non-trivial...

I think the class would benefit a lot from mouseover healing being enabled (both while levelling and in groups with players), the continually losing your target when you heal something contributes a lot to the clunkyness of the experience. Perhaps also a somewhat different sequence of companions... Corso first seems entirely useless for any playstyle, and as a bonus he is an idiot. But really, cover sucks, and I imagine that turns a lot of people off very quickly.

• Have you leveled a Smuggler or Agent? Why/why not?
  
  My main is a L50 scoundrel
  
  
• Did you enjoy the story?
  
  Not bad at all. I love the fact that you're not "the one and only hero that can save the galaxy". The story is nothing about saving the galaxy either.
  
  
• Did you enjoy the mechanics? Why/why not?
  
  Somewhat. I'm playing a healer with a rogue kit and I loved soloing with it. Healing with it would also be cool if the heal skills were as good as Sages'.
  
  
• Are these classes an important SW fantasy to you?
  
  Yes, as much as the next guy bothering playing this game. We all care it's Star wars.
  
  
• Do you still play the class? If not, why not?
  
  yeah.
  
  
• *edit* Anything they could do to encourage you to try one if you haven't, or play the one you have?
  
  Not for me but for others, I recommend making them more viable in PvE, and making their gear look better. Currently when compared to Jedi or troopers, smugglers' looks and animations are clearly worse.

• Have you leveled a Smuggler or Agent? Why/why not?
  
  I have a lvl 50 Operative. I was simply looking for a stealth class and went with this one.
  
  
• Did you enjoy the story?
  
  Chapter 1 felt generic because the end twist became obvious to me before the prologue even ended. But then chapter 2 caused me to become emotionally invested in my character, and as a result had me absorbed in the story right up to the end.
  
  
• Did you enjoy the mechanics? Why/why not?
  
  Yes. To me Tactical Advantage is the defining mechanic for operatives, and I find it very satisfying when questing/soloing, which is how I spend most of my time. I do not enjoy the cover mechanic, but thankfully operatives have next to no use for it.
  
  
• Are these classes an important SW fantasy to you?
  
  As much as I like my agent, killing master jedis with poisoned daggers feels somewhat silly. Smugglers on the other hand definitely feel iconic with their obvious reference to Han Solo.
  
  
• Do you still play the class? If not, why not?
  
  Yes. I slowed down after 50, but that's mostly due to dailies being boring, rather than the class.
  
  
• Anything they could do to encourage you to try one if you haven't, or play the one you have?
  
  I wish they would change Diagnostics Scan to something, well, fun. That ability is single-handedly keeping me uninterested in the healer side of the Operative.

edit: changed formatting to be more readable.

Yes, sniper was my first character. Got it to 33 and gave up on it.

Only finished act 1, it was okay from what I remember.

Not really. Cover was fun at first, but after the novelty wore off it just because tedious and felt more limiting than anything else.

Agent? No. Smuggler? Yes

I try to do the daily pvp from time to time on it, and then remember why I quit playing it (cover)

I really wish if I tried to use an ability that requires cover while out of cover that it would just put me into cover in place. Sometimes (especially in pvp) I get removed from cover and don't notice. Maybe I fat fingered a movement key, accidentally pushed both mouse buttons, or someone hit me with an attack that removed me from cover and I just didn't notice as my eyes were on the combat 10 feet away. I'm sure it makes me a bad sniper, but it's the only character that feel clunky to me. Or, better yet, remove the cover requirement from every ability and just reduce those abilities dmg by 20% or something while out of cover.

Yes. Levelled because I've got full Rakata on my Guardian tank and the number of Scoundrels on my server can be counted on literally one hand, hence I wanted to see why that was the case; was the class bad? Was the story not enticing?

I enjoyed prologue and part 1. Instantly I was drawn into the story of a smuggler captain blockade-running and subsequently stranding on the forsaken rock that is Ord Mantell, and then trying to get my ship back, leading on to the merry chase 'round the galaxy after Skavak.
However, after you have reacquired your ship and Nok Drayen's treasure is introduced, the story starts rambling off on tangents. It still maintains some focus and continuity in Skavak, but the treasure hunt seems very forced. However, it's bearable and honestly works alright.

Once Skavak is defeated, however, Rogun the Butcher and The Voidwolf becomes the primary antagonists, and then everything goes down the drain. They get so little stage-time that you hardly feel vested in them, and they rarely, if ever, directly affect your actual experience, meaning they are never established as antagonists. Entire chapter 2 and 3 seems awfully disjointed and tacked on, and it was hard to keep interested in the story when you become a Republic Privateer.

It would be obvious to break up linearity and actually make Privateer choices matter. Want to set up a personal pipeline of credits rather than help the republic? Do it! The devs could have made it Smuggler-phase only and perhaps, if you did so, allow 500 creds to tick in daily to your character. In a full year of playing that would amount to roughly 200k - hardly gamebreaking in any way, and if the majority of the playerbase, as of guild summit stats, got less than 1 mill. creds due to excessive repair costs (Bioware's words, not mine), it wouldn't hurt. Plus it would lend some gravitas to your choices.

Summary: Prologue + Chapter 1 = great, Chapter 2 + 3 = some of the worst waste of story potential I've yet to experience in a game.


As a dps, yes. At level 47 I crit higher than my Rakata geared Defense specced Guardian, and it sounds like I'm in the middle of an old Stallone-movie with all the punches. As a healer it was ridiculous how much gear affected the capabilities; I've since acquired full Columi and after that the crit heals become reliable enough for me to feasibly sustain energy throughout a fight while maintaining high throughput. As a newly dinged 50 Scoundrel, it was at times unreasonable how taxing on resources relatively small heals were, compared to, say, a Sage's healing.


It's Han Solo. Of course it's iconic and important.

It's an alt, so occasionally. Great for doing dailies fast in stealth.

I don't need encouragement to play it since it's my alt; it'll never become a main as I, both due to mentality and principle, don't reroll and thus force my guild to rearrange their roster to commit me.

For new people: Roll one to become a high-valued commodity.

do plan on playing all clsses, i have not played either agent or smuggler yet. i guess they just didn't seem as appealing. first i played marauder, saber wielding force choking ancestor of vader, now that's iconic, next i rolled a BH bobba fett again iconic. tbh i dno't see the SI as iconic, i know its the ancestor darth sidious, but it really doesn't remind me of him. them we have he agent. i'm not eing funny. but i can't think of a single iconic agent.

seems to me like they made the smuggler. and thought what can we mirror this with? an agent. lets make james bond in space. i know every1 raves about the agents story, and it might be the greatest story of the lot. but as a fan when i bought the game it didn't jump out at me as to a class i had to play

2 points tho

1)i have not read the starwars books. yet. maybe when i do i will discover the agent that is a starwars icon

2)i do see the icon in the smuggler and when i roll republic it is the first one i will play

My current main is a level 50 sniper.

In addition to the issues with cover, I also think a good reason for the lack of Agents in the general populace (at least on the sniper end) is the fact that you don't get a healing companion until Dr. Lokin. Frankly, with the way the mobs are tuned, it is much, much harder to level without a decent healing companion. And even though u can gear out the ship droid, he misses out on a lot of stats by not having a weapon. I noticed that the healing got a LOT better once I got Lokin.

I have a lvl 36 juggernaut now, and I have to say that I die a whole lot less as a juggernaut than I did levelling up as a sniper. I'm not sure how much of that is due to being able to buy artifact level gear for him and how much is the class mechanics, but it just feels less frustrating. I remember having to basically suicide any quest boss that had a group of mobs because Kaliyo would always die to the concentrated fire of 3 or 4 mobs and then I would die immediately afterward. I'd get a few of the mobs so damage wasn't an issue, it's just that I couldn't heal her up so by the time 2 mobs died, she'd be gone and it'd be just me against the gold level mob. Once I got Lokin, I could tank those groups myself and he'd keep me healed.



Also, I found the final title on the Imperial Agent extremely lackluster. Agent and Cipher Agent are decent, and then for all your effort you get <name here>, Master Conspirator. Not quite as cool as "Darth" so-and-so. Not to mention unnecessary since the Imperial Agent has a real imperial rank ( i think he winds up as a Major or Colonel by the end of the storyline). Personally, I was hoping for something like "Spymaster" or "Star Agent" and placed in FRONT of the name.

Yes. I have a level 50 Gunslinger, I heard that it would be one of the harder classes to play and that drew me to it.

YES! The story is the BEST I have experienced in the game. I have several alts (All different classes, Republic/Imperial) and still nothing can beat my Gunslingers story line and wit.

Yes. The cover system did take a little while to get used to, but after one does know how to use it, your basically a walking nuke.

You can play the Smuggler as two different Characters

Heck yes

I personally find it surprising that players don't play Smuggler Gunslingers. Best story in the game with the highest end game DPS of any class? Guess I don't understand people. However, I did introduce a relative of mine to the class and her exact words were "Wow, I thought this would be hard but its easier to play then my Trooper. Why don't more people play this class?"

I specifically leveled a smuggler first because I liked the beta story the best.

The nerf forced me to change my playstyle and spec tree.