[Major tip for Advanced Prototype Powertechs]

Something I figured out on my BH just recently - haven't noticed this tip spread around too much.

 

Flame Sweep adds stacks of Prototype Flame Thrower, in addition to Flame Burst. HOWEVER, you don't actually need to hit an enemy in order to get the stack. Plus, you can use Flame Sweep outside of combat.

 

So really you can just Flame Sweep 5 times before every fight and open up every battle with a fully-buffed flamethrower. No need to use the Flame Burst over and over in combat to get it done.

 

Figured this would be useful for my fellow AP Powertechs out there. I know there's a few of us.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

if this go live like that will kill the game, or at least lot of people will quit ( me and everyone on my guild at least)

 

all the critical craft with augment thing is absurd and the worst idea possible, they could have made a buckle to add an augment in everyitem (armormech would do it for ranged weapons, synt for force armors etc) so crafter would gain someting and woldnt kill the game.

 

 

like it is now, everyone will be forced to break every item that drops with better stats( or better look, or higher prestige one, like nigthmode operations per example) and the chances to get the schematics arent 100% i think.

 

SO, with this nigthmare that they call a patch we will go to the new operation, something drops, we break it, and we can gain NOTHING, so we need to spend dkp again when it drops untill we get the schematic, and of course, armormech and synthweaving will be THE ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE tradeskills now, great. they nerfed biochem many times because we was forced to have it, but didnt learn nothing and they are doing the same mistake again.

 

 

short answer: we will be forced to have syntweaving or armormech so wrong here.

 

we will be forced to break every item that drops( since u will want to have the latest nigthmare operation gear)and it wont have 100% chance to get the schematic.

 

we wont change the gear never, since lvl 10 gear will be THE SAME as lvl 100000000 mega nigthmare 100people operation.

 

tat least the operation gear MUST HAVE the augment slot on it, so the people that et together to kill a boss and get an item can equip it, it is more fair than a lvl 10 getting that look on the auction house for money.

 

Some fix to this: the buckle idea like i said.

 

or the Look Tab,

 

u can do many things, but pls forget this awfull idea

 

No, you do a raid and you pull the armoring and mods out of the gear you get. If you like the appearance of the gear, then you RE it to learn the schematic. Or heck, just wear that gear if you don't care about augment slots, it's not like you NEED them anyways.

 

The point is to wear what you like, it doesn't do anything to stop progression. Stop overreacting to something you don't understand.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

Btw, you DO realise that as of 1.2 the FP and Ops gear becomes fully moddable AND RE'able don't you? Why bother running a flashpoint for gear, when you can just buy it at a low price on the GTN due to it being in abundance?

 

For the appearance. Same reason armor sells on the GTN now. You are still not understanding this. People don't want to wear the FP and Ops gear because they all look the same. They want to look how they want. That's the entire point of changing it so you can take the mods out of the high-end gear.

 

People will need to go to crafters in order to get the appearance that they like. Since the color system is not unlimited, but still needs to be matched to chest, there is still value in having tons of chestpieces with different colors. Same with having lightsabers with different hilt designs, and guns with different appearances as well. You'll be able to find the one you like and purchase it from a crafter who has found that appearance and RE'd it.

 

You keep saying "it's so easy to buy it" and then in the same breath you say "this system does nothing for crafters." Who are they buying it from then? The people that took the time to hunt down multiple copies of that appearance, RE them until they got the schematic and got the crit-crafted version.

 

But I agree, this is pointless, because you keep saying the same thing over again, I keep pointing out how you're wrong, and you continue posting misconceptions and things that betray you have no understanding of what's going on.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

The irony is, it is in Bioware's best interest to keep people doing things like FP's and Op's in order to maintain sub levels. So, that means an increase in the number of items dropping which in turn means an increase in the number of items being sold on the GTN from schematics gained from RE'ing those FP items. Potentiallly resulting an abundance of each item on the GTN. With each instance of said item looking the same.

 

...which is where the crafter, who has taken the time to go run lower level and heroic flashpoints in order to find in-demand schematics, comes in and puts up his orange augmented armor for sale, which looks nothing like those items but is still just as effective.

 

This has never been about raids and hard mode flashpoints. You seem to be under the impression that the only things crafters are getting is the ability to craft level 50 stuff. That's why you keep saying things like you'll need to raid to craft. It's NOT that.

 

ALL orange armor in the game is RE'able with a learnable schematic. All of it. All the way back to the starter planet. You keep saying "the same item" over and over but the appearance variation literally includes all of the armor in the game at the time. The people who take the time to go back and farm these items to learn schematics will benefit. The people who'd rather not, will pay for them.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

I get both of your points of view and I think the answer really falls down to the following question (yes I know, kinda ironic):

 

Will most crafters be willing to invest so much time and efforts to get various appearances ? (assuming of course you gain schematics from REing which I'm still not sure about)

 

If YES then Tarka made a point, that could be a problem.

But I personally believe not a lot of people will be doing that, thus rendering most concerns non-relevant.

 

He's made it clear that in his mind, it's not going to take time and effort at all. His answer to that was that raids are guaranteed to drop Tionese and Columi gear. I really don't think he understands the system.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

I'm not going to repeat myself again. I've said my piece for the benefit of the devs.

 

You have a romantic view of what's coming, but when all is said and done, it does nothing to add variation on the same item. It does nothing to create a "niche" for players.

 

It's just even more emphasis on a non-crafter focused system.

 

I can't help but laugh at this point. Someday you'll have to explain to me how having BIS items only available through crafting is a non-crafter focused system. I know you've been repeating a bunch of stuff, but I still haven't seen you do that yet.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

 

Sigh. You are focusing on a "one crafter, one buyer" scenario. That is not conducive to how MMO economies actually work....

 

When a recipe / schematic is widely available, then the chances of its resulting crafted item being sold on the economy system is often very high. Unless of course, the item that was created is of little value because of too much supply, and not enough demand.....

 

And in TOR, the majority of schematics obtained are widely available to all.

 

No, this is going to require effort. To get specific looks, you'll have to go back and run flashpoints/heroics multiple times in order to get enough examples of that piece to drop. Some appearances aren't guaranteed to drop at all and come in random boxes. You then have to RE this piece, destroying the item, in order to have a CHANCE to learn the schematic. It could take quite awhile to learn how to craft a specific piece of armor. Yes, everyone with that crafting skill can do it, but the majority won't put in the effort.

 

You then have to crit that armor as well in order to make it.

 

 

Yes, there are some differences in aethetics between different pieces of the same slot BUT there is no difference between two pieces of the SAME item because the colour matching system is put into the hands of the buyer / user of the item, not the crafter.

 

Thus limiting the variation in aethetics when creating said item.

 

 

True for non-chest pieces, but chest pieces are already the most popular orange items to sell. The color system doesn't let you pick any color you want for each piece, it is locked to your chest color or its default appearance. So chestpieces with popular colors will be in high demand. Let's say I want my Trooper to look green. I have to find a green chestpiece. The Armormech dude who goes out and RE's his trooper's green chestpiece to learn the schematic will be my best friend.

 

Also, not true at all for weapon appearances.

 

 

And how long will that take? Not very long at all per person. Why? Because Op's are guaranteed to drop raid items, FP's are guaranteed to drop Tionese and Columni items.

 

 

You're like really focused on raiding, I don't know why. Raid and Tionese and Columi items are meaningless, unless that is the appearance you want. Since the orange shell can have equivalent stats to those items, the only reason you'd RE those is if you wanted their appearance. If I wanted the robe I found back on Coruscant with an augment slot, I have to go run that heroic again, probably multiple times, get the item, have the appropriate crafting skill, successfully RE it and then crit it. Then I'd have to go do a raid to get the top-end mods and armoring to fit it. Or, I could buy from a crafter who already did most of that for me. You tell me what most people will choose, remembering that everyone will only be able to craft in ONE area. If I'm artifice, I'm reliant on synthweaving people for my armor. If I'm synthweaving I need an artifice dude for my lightsaber. If I'm biochem or cybertech, which were the two most popular before this, then I need both of them.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

And when EVERYONE is able to craft the same item, AND crit it, then what happens?

 

I'll give you a moment to think about that.......

 

Here's a clue:

Imagine a whole pages of identical clothing, all the same colour, all the same design, all with the same number of slots (4 of them).

 

No, being a crafter ISN'T a "niche". Why? Because there are lots of other crafters, all making the same thing to the same level of quality, with the same colour. NO variation at all. ALL ways of creating variation (both in aethetics and stats) are put into the hands of those who buy the items. Not those who make them.

 

And for those crafters who aren't raiders, tough schnitt. Because they can never offer items for sale that are competitive.

 

In short:

• There is no "supply and demand" for particular items, when said items are never given reasons to be taken out of the economy. In other words, they are never actually "consumed".
  
• There is no variation in aethetics, when a "colour matching" system is implemented that puts the power to change the colour of items into the hands of the user, not the crafter.
  
• There is no variation in stats of crafted items, when users have the power to exchange those stats at will.
  

 

Thus every crafter resorts to trying to sell "empty" moddable items and mods to go in them. With much much variation in stats and NO variation in aethetics on any one particular model of item.

 

No, you're still not getting it. The empty moddable items ARE different. That's where you find your niche.

 

Let's say I want the Trooper armor from the Maelstrom flashpoint. I like the look of it. If I'm not a crafter, I can go and get that armor anytime I want, but it won't ever have an augment slot in it.

 

Now let's say I'm a crafter. I think the armor looks cool and there's a market for it. I go run the flashpoint and get it to drop. I RE it and learn the schematic. Cool, now I can make that exact appearance as much as I want. And I can sell that on the GTN.

 

The incentive to buy this from a crafter is high for the non-crafter, because they can't get that item otherwise. They can only run the FP and get the non-augmented version.

 

This is where the variation comes in. You're selling appearances. There are a bunch of different orange armors in the game, all with unique appearances. And yes, the color matching will limit this somewhat, but you still need to have the right color on your chestpiece in order to get the appearance you want.

 

So the life of a crafter will be hunting down the orange versions of these armors, and REing until they learn the schematic. Then learning the schematic until they crit and selling that. That will be a BIS piece with a unique appearance that they can sell to other people who want to look that way, but don't want to put the time and energy into tracking down each appearance in order to RE it and learn the schematic themselves (and they'd also have to have the requisite crew skill and mats to make it).

 

This gives crafters them the option to make a BIS version of every single orange item in the game, if they put in the time and energy for it. That's a TON of variety, not the same item over and over again. There's going to be a market for that, especially from the people who are sticking to Biochem/Cybertech.

 

And you're still wrong about raiding. I have several orange schematics right now that don't require any raiding materials. These will be able to crit when 1.2 goes live and make BIS pieces.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

99% agree. Although I don't agree with the notion that the game favours one armour type user over another.

 

The prevalence and availability of moddable gear and mods that allow non-crafters to fully upgrade their armour "on the fly", goes against everything that a crafting system strives to acheive: the creation and sale of variable goods to suit a variety of different needs and requirements.

 

Crafters are just expected to churn out exactly the same armour sets and mods as every other crafter. Meanwhile the users are the ones who decide how to put them together and what colour they should be.

 

And the fact that gear and mods never actually "expire", means that once a player has purchased a moddable item, they never need to ever replace it again. Thus destroying any chance of creating a harmonised, player driven, "supply and demand" economy. All they need is to buy mods and slot them into their gear. Hey presto. No need for a crafter.

 

And if you want to make the best items, you have to be a raider.

 

Basically put, TOR's crafting system favours non-crafters and buyers of items, not crafters who may not be raiders.

 

/golfclap Bioware.

 

/facepalm That's the whole point of what this update is changing. Yes you can get orange gear with 3 sockets from commendations, quests, etc. They're giving crafters the ability to make orange gear with 4 sockets (on a crit, it adds an augment slot). That's the whole point.

 

You either have to craft or buy from a crafter to get BIS gear in the new update. That's it. That's the only way. It doesn't favor non-crafters. And you don't even have to raid to make these items. Crit on any orange gear and you get an augment slot. There's orange schematics sprinkled through all the levels or armormech/synth/artifice/armstech.

 

Again, now that you can pull mods out of raid items, these will be the items that everyone goes for, because it's the only way to get an augment slot. And the fact that you can RE orange items that are already in the game to learn that schematic makes things even better for crafters. Want a crit-crafter orange chestpiece from the lvl 35 heroic? You either have to RE it yourself and be a crafter OR you have to find a crafter that's gone through the trouble of learning that schematic and building it till it crits. That's carving out a niche. You could literally be one of the few people on the server that knows schematics for certain appearances. Oh, and if you want to fill those new augment slots you'll be buying from crafters as well.

 

You're either misunderstanding what they're doing or not thinking it through clearly enough. This update is giving tons of power to the armor and weapon crafters. They're going to be able to exclusively make you gear that is better than the stuff you get from quests/comms.

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

Requiring Artifice to PVP to actually have something worth selling? Lame.

 

Maybe you missed the part where Artifice will be able to craft BIS lightsabers? Bit of a market for that, don't you think?

[Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2]

Good stuff Georg. May I make a suggestion? I know last night you were considering ways to make current orange gear augmentable. Some people were saying that you should have crafters make items that would grant augment slots and what not.

 

I have another idea after reading this. Why not just make the reverse engineering schematic chance on orange items 100%? This way, people would actually have an incentive to RE this gear. As it is now, I'm not going to touch my valuable orange items to reverse engineer them knowing I may get nothing and lose access to that appearance forever. But if you guaranteed that I would learn the schematic for the item (and thus I could get it back), it would be entirely worth it. And this too solves your augment problem. If people want their current orange gear to be augmentable, they can RE it and craft it. OR wait for someone else to do so, and get it off the GTN.

 

I think this would result in a very diverse amount of orange gear appearances - not just the schematics you guys added, but all the stuff that's currently in the game that people have been using and holding onto and don't want to lose. Just some food for thought. I really appreciate the way you guys have been listening to the community!

[Augmentation Slots 1.2 ?]

At least it is good to hear you are discussing this as something you'd like to add.

 

I have mentioned this in the past, and I believe that you guys should add something like this:

 

 

Augmentation Device

Consumable

This device can be used to craft a single Augment slot onto an item. Consumed on use.

 

 

This in response to the upcoming changes where crit-crafted custom items would gain an Augment slot. While this is great, it would again shoe-horn people into a very limited selection of looks if they want to have 'best in slot' items for endgame and not only completely devalue their carefully amassed pieces of gear in order to look unique; but also every piece of custom gear that can be obtained through drops and from specialty/commendation vendors, as well as the new and upcoming endgame PvE/PvP gear.

 

Just when BioWare wanted to open up the Armoring slots and such so people could place them into their favorite gear; they again fall back to the same limitations and create the same problem of the 'clone syndrome' all over again.

 

The Augmentation Device could be created by certain Crew Skills (making these Crew Skills more worthwhile to get), works as a consumable and would apply a single augment slot to a piece of armor by the person that uses it.

 

With just this small change you not only increase the relevance of Augments by 100%, but it also provides the means for other people to put Augment slots onto their existing gear that has no augment (which is every single item dropped by random mobs and endgame gear). Lastly, it would level the field for everyone and allow people to craft Augment slots onto their favorite gear (my Jedi Battlelord set comes to mind for me personally).

 

The Augmentation Device would instantly increase the revenue of Augments and accompanying Crew Skills that can obtain/craft Augments and the Crew Skill(s) that could craft Augmentation Devices and allow for everyone to look how they want to look without being forced to look like a clone (again).

 

Also, the Augmentation Device would not diminish the overall value of crit-crafted Custom gear as people could still choose between buying the higher priced crit-crafted item or their regular counterpart (often made by the same person) and buy a separate Augmentation Device to achieve the same result.

 

Lastly, the mechanics for such a device are already in place as people responded that a similar item was already in Beta, but removed when the game went Live.

 

• And before the Synthweavers/Armormechs come along complaining that it would still diminish their precious and rare crit-crafted items; ask yourself this: What do you do with all those regular crafted items you made before you got lucky and crit-crafted one?
   
  
• So instead of asking, say, 250k for a crit-crafted piece but seeing no sales at all for your (wasted) 50k regular versions that nobody cares about; with Augmentation Device consumables you could sell both the regular versions at 50k and the crit-crafted versions at 75k (imaginary values just for the sake of comparison); resulting into a better overall net yield by being able to sell both your regular items and the crit-crafted ones.
   
  
• I know you're now going to tell me that it would be unfair regarding the number of custom gear that can drop in Flashpoints/mobs or purchased from Specialty/Commendation vendors; which would make you 'miss out' on potential customers. Not so when you can also make an Augmentation Device. That way people can be allowed the choice of purchasing new gear with an augment slot (crafted by you), or retrofit existing gear with an Augmentation Device (also crafted by you).
  

 

 

Bioware, please listen to this man. 1.2 is such a step in the right direction. But you're really throwing away TONS of orange gear if you don't allow us to add augment slots to them. I understand the desire to make crafters important. But having them able to make these augment consumables would do just that, in addition to all the unique appearances they'll be able to make (which will still have tons of value).

 

There's no reason to restrict what people want to wear, I think you already learned that lesson. This is a great compromise that will lead to extremely varied armor appearances and very happy players.