Ohoni
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Posts posted by Ohoni
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No then what do CTs do?
CT's are the jack of all trades crew skill. They get the exclusive market on earpieces and speeders, and also can generate most of the mods, for weapons and armor, but none of the hulls. I don't think that everything needs to be exclusive to only one trade skill, there should be a few points of overlap, like maybe both Artificing and Armormech can make Enhancement mods, and Cybertech can make all, or at least most types of mods, even though other classes can make them too. Cybertech would be the jack of most trades, master of few.
CT should be a bit like I remember Engineering being in WoW, you get a little of everything, mostly support options and gizmos that are either fun or useful, occasionally both.
They can make niche items like speeders and droid parts and ear pieces yes but only ear pieces might sell well.Those "niche" items you mentioned are more important than the orange hulls that Armormech can get, at least. I'm not suggesting taking armoring mods away form Cybertech, and they can even have Barrels back, I'm just saying that other crewskills should have them too.
An Armormech Trooper should be almost completely self-sufficient on armor alone, able to both make pre-fab armors AND mod custom armors, but needing to go elsewhere for his weapon needs. An Armstech Trooper should be almost completely self-sufficient on offense, able to both make pre-fab guns AND mod custom guns, but needing to go elsewhere for armor. A Cybertech trooper should be able to mod both custom guns AND armor, but not be able to make pre-fabs or hulls for either, and also have fun little "trinkets" on the side.
Those are the big mods since they actually influence the protection armor gives and the damage weapons do.Yes, which is why for Armormech to be a viable crew skill, it needs to be able to provide these as well, to make the hulls them make worth anything.
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Not Planetary.... Faction specific.
But Slaign said that the Nar GTN is not faction specific, which would indicate that it does not share the same database as the others. Is the Fleet GTN distinct from the Coruscant/Kaas ones too?
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Thing is you have to get your hands on the right orange gear first ... having armortech is most useful for that.
Yes, but as I noted, one, you can get orange gear from other sources, like from mission rewards, and two, once you have ONE piece of orange gear that you like, you'll never need another. You might change anyways, for fun, but you'd never have to, and even if you got a second set of orange gear for free, the cost of moving your mods over to it is non-trivial. Making orange gear shells isn't a completely worthless activity, but it's not enough to justify the crew skill.
There are companion skills that produce mods, and there are companion skills that produce orange-quality items that need mods. The system seems pretty logical to me.That equation only balances out if A: you need to replace the orange "shell" every time you want to change out the mods (which would sort of defeat the purpose), OR B: the shell costs a dozen times more than a full set of mods would, because the mods could be changed out dozens over the lifetime of the hull. Which would you rather sell a $5 flashlight, or a $5 pack of batteries?
Artificing can't make augments.No, but neither can anyone else, Augments are "made" by Slicer missions, which anyone could pick up on the side.
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There just aren't enough people smart enough to put materials on the markets. Yet.
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You can also find it next to ANY crafting trainers in the game, just look for merchants in the crafting quarters on any planet. Btw, it's a MUCH better deal to just buy them off the merchants than to send a crew member after them, you usually have to spend ten times as much to send them on the mission as the materials you'd get back cost from the vendor.
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You have two options, both based on the fact that Nar Shadda has a cross faction GTM.
Wait, so the "Galactic Trade Network" is actually Planetary in nature? Why isn't it a single auction system no matter where you access it from?
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Yes, commendations allow you to spend approximately the same amount on each type, but 1. As you pointed out, commendation gear is only for certain levels and is quickly outdated. 2. We are talking about crafting here, not commendations.
I mentioned them because that's one area in the game where there's an easy "this= that" relationship.
In crafting, it costs the same amount of credits and time to send my crew on missions or hunt down nodes to make a single armor piece as it does to make a single mod.
It's been a while since I played a skillset that could make mods, but as I remember they cost well fewer resources than a full piece of armor, especially of the high-quality types. Could you give an example of same-level armor and mods and what each would cost in materials?
The material cost for a mod and an item are roughly equivalent.If that's true then the system is seriously imbalanced, since, as you point out, it would cost about four times as much to modify an armor up to a given level as to craft a new one, which would make appearance customization a HUGE rip-off. They could not justify orange armor as an alternative to an appearance tab with such a huge cost imbalance between the two. If they're meant to be equivalent systems then the cost between the two needs to be in balance.
Not every skill is for everyone, and you fail to see beyond your own personal views. You do not have multiple people arguing against your point simply because we are stupid. We are not. This should be clear by the reason and clarity of our posts.You clearly aren't stupid, you're just clearly missing some key elements of the situation, you have a very specific viewpoint as to what makes a good crafting system that just don't work for a broader player population.
You are asking that something you don't like be changed because you don't like it, and further implying that it is broken and unlikable. We are insisting that we do like it, and that if you do not, you should find something else rather than demanding a change to what we like. Our position is one of maturity. Yours is one of "No! I want it MY WAY!"How very humble of you to admit to your own maturity. I fail to see why asking for change is somehow a less "mature" position than asking for stagnancy. I see a system that I believe has flaws, so I ask for it to be changed, you see a system that you believe is without flaws, so you ask for it to be left alone. We can argue the merits of our relative positions, but if it's immature of me to request change to what I believe would be an all around superior model, it's no less mature for you to cling to the existing one. I think it would be best to leave the personal digs out of this.
I wish you luck, and hope you find happiness in life, this game and in crafting, one way or another.Ditto, and I hope that whatever the system we end up with, it turns out to be as engaging and profitable as you hope for.
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Well so far from what I have seen, many armor / weapon mods can be purchased through accomidations. Many mods can be taken off gear. Mods are obtainable other ways like shells can be.
This is true, but there's a lot less variety there, you can only get them at set levels, and within a level or two there will be better ones available. Armormech cannot currently make mods at all, which is the problem.
If you keep wanting to play the useless game, raid gear will probably wipe out most professions as they do in other games.
Sure, but that's only at endgame.
Wrong, my arguments do not assume an appearance systemOk, fair enough, but they only make any sense under an appearance system of some kind, one in which an item's stats is the only value worth considering.
Also, while I may have to replace my armor every few levels, you will have to replace 3-4 mods in every one of those slots every few levels, making you worse off.
Again, you're insisting something that isn't true, namely that 3-4 mods is somehow equal to 3-4 armor pieces, that quantity is equivalent. It's not. 3-4 mods is equal to 1 armor piece, so needing to get 3-4 mods is really no problem in comparison. Take Coruscant commendations, for example, one pair of pants runs 14 commendations, while a full set of mods to upgrade armor to at or above that level of strength runs about the same amount. Now, if each mod cost the same amount to make as a full piece of armor, and therefore cost the same to acquire, then yes, it would be a process that costs three times as much and would be a losing proposition for everyone involved, but that's not the game we're playing.
Finally, if appearance is that important to you, you would be crazy to think you will want to stick with ONE appearance for life. If appearance gives you kicks, then you will want to change it up and find new styles often.
In theory. Change can be good, but forced change is often bad. I don't so much care about changing looks as I do not looking stupid. Most of the time my character spends looking stupid, forced to wear mismatching random #### because it's whatever offers the best stats of the moment. I already have a chest piece that doesn't look stupid, now all I need is a good pair of pants.
If I could find a look that looked great AND could be modded to the best stats available, while I might be interested in changing it later, I wouldn't be compelled to do so in most cases.
Yeah, if it were as simple as DCUO where I could choose my looks from a menu then I'd probably change more often, hell my GL is currently rocking a festive Christmas sweater, but with the hassles involved in SWtOR it's just not worth the bother.
Orange shells will sell for prices much higher than individual mods, helping to even it out.Which just means that they'll be a super-niche market, with most players not even bothering with them until they have too much money to care how they spend it.
They can also provide for their companions, a great point you brought up. I doubt people want to manage mods on all their companions as well!Yeah, but I don't care if my companion looks a bit stupid, I'll just dump my spare mission rewards on him. Not to mention that most missions award items specifically FOr companions that tend to be as good, or better, than crafted. I had a BH last build and the "Makowear" stuff was typically much better than what I could craft for her at that level. Armormech is slightly better for a BH than a Trooper, since Mako can't wear hand-me-downs like Catman can, but there are still better options out there.
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What you're asking for would make cybertech largely worthless in place of armormech. Artificing and Cybertech are supposed to be mod heavy crafting professions. As it is, cybertech losing barrels to armstech is a sore blow.
I see your point, but I see Cybertech as more of a jack of all trades. They should be able to make mods for BOTH armor AND weapons, while being able to produce "cores" for neither. They can also produce "accessories" that neither of the others can craft. Can't they made droid armors, ear pieces, speeders, and other nifty gadgets?
cyberteck cant build armors, they are both worthless without the other.A Cybertech can't build armors, but they only need one Orange armor per slot, even level 10 ones, and they're set for life, able to stock those armors with the mods needed to keep them up to date. They don't even have to get that shell from a crafter, by level 17 I'd earned two orange chests and an orange weapon through mission rewards. An Armor crafter, on the other hand, may be able to craft way more shells than he'd ever need, but he couldn't craft any of the mods needed to keep them up to date, so he'd need mod crafters at every level range to keep that armor up to date.
Out of the mod types, Cybertechs only make Armor Mods and Mods. They cannot make Enhancement Mods, Hilts, Crystals, or Barrels.So basically,
a Cybertech Trooper would need to go to an Artificer to get Enhancement and Color Crystals, and an Armstech for Barrels.
a Cybertech Jedi would just need to go to an Artificer to get Enhancement and Color Crystals.
an Armstech Trooper would need to go to an Artificer to get Enhancement and Color Crystals, and a Cybertech for Armoring and mods.
an Artificing Jedi would just need to go to a Cybertech for Armoring and mods.
an Armormech Trooper would need to go to an Artificer to get Enhancement and Color Crystals, and a Cybertech for Armoring and mods, AND an Armstech for Barrels.
None of them need an Armsmech for anything except maybe armor shells, and they only ever need one of those in their lifetime, which they can probably get through other means easier.
Balanced?
Actually, if you only care about credits, your best bet is 2 gathering skills and Slicing. But you will be spending all that money buying all the things you cannot make.Maybe at some point it'll be that way. I know for a fact that my characters with slicing have been better equipped and had thicker wallets than my characters with a core crafting skill maxed out above their own level. Yes, you need to buy more stuff along the way, but not by nearly as much as you save from not having to run crew missions and from being able to sell the crafting materials you collect. The actual crafting trade is a bit of a sucker's market at the moment.
If you RE up to Prototype levels, you will have the equivalent of orange gear with prototype mods.But that's only if you like the look of the crafted armor you're REing. If you like the look of an orange you already own, there's nothing an Armormech can do it improve upon it. I haven't really come across a crafting recipe that I've like the look enough to go through the painful slog to artifact level on it. Also, I didn't think you could apply Armoring mods to purple gear, so a few levels later and it'd be worthless.
Your arguments in favor of the current system seem to be taking place in a game that has a functioning appearance management system, because I would TOTALLY agree with you if the gear were more like DCUO where you could equip the very strongest gear possible AND the very best looking gear at the same time, without having to choose between the two, but given that this game lacks such a system, it's not about the strongest possible gear at any given time, it's about the strongest possible gear that you can stand to look at, and orange gear is far more consistent at that, providing gear that once you find a look you like, you can keep it until you find something better, while keeping it consistently upgraded to, if not quite the best level, at least a decent level.
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I'm sorry you feel that way, but you are mistaken about it being broken or useless. As per your argument involving cost, the costs level out to be about the same. Gear costs time and money to craft, yes, but so do mods. The difference is, crafters can invest this time and money into being able to produce the gear themselves, while modders must continually purchase new mods from other sources.
But can't Cybertech produce mods? So if they can produce mods, that would make them the only crafting class anyone would need. Unless the mods they produce are sub-standard, in which case no crafting class would be needed.
And you could argue that crafting non-custom armor is cheaper, but that wouldn't be of any value if you didn't happen to like the appearance of the armor produced, because there's currently nothing that can be done to change the appearance of a green/blue/purple armor, only to change the stats of orange armor, so if the best armor an Armsmech can produce doesn't look good to the prospective owner, then it's not worth half as much as an empty orange shell.
Also, as for "selling your wares", it's actually much more money-efficient to go triple-gatherer and just sell the materials you find. I've made much more profits off of selling left-over materials after clearing a material tier than I ever did selling the items I could have made with those materials.
I wish you luck in whatever path you choose, but choose the path you find viable and stick to it. Don't try to change the other paths. If there truly is an imbalance, people will gravitate away from the broken skill, this will bear out in the metrics, BioWare will notice, and they will address it.
I'm saying that I picked Armormech, expecting that it would provide me with all the armor I'd need form 10-50, but I'm finding it already becoming obsolete by 20 because it isn't providing me any of the mods I need to keep my armor up to date.
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I like how you quoted all but my last two sentences in which I talked about armormech and synthweaving possiblye being the only way to get augment slots and mobs being able to be taken out might make them equally valuable since you only ever need one armor or one mod.
Modulator slots are nowhere near useful enough to justify the crew skill's existence. I've often replaced gear with modulator slots with superior gear without them, they're nice to have, given the option, but far from necessary, and far to uncommon to count on.
The armor crafting skills are not made obsolete by Orange items, in fact, they play an important role in their use. There are orange versions of every armor graphic in the game, however, most of those orange versions can only be crafted by their respective armor crafting skill. These schematics are discovered through Underworld Trading.Yes, but this is essentially a "hair dressing" skill then. It's moderately useful, but not really. It's only useful for so long as you aren't comfortable with your look. Between levels 1 and 17 as a trooper, I had a couple of decent chest pieces, and a bunch of terrible ones that I had to suffer through because they had the best stats at the moment and there was no way to change my appearance while retaining those stats, but by level 17 I'd acquired a pretty good orange top. Are there better ones later? Probably, but I could live with this top through to 50 if nothing better happened to come along. I certainly wouldn't go well out of my way to get a different one.
I WILL need better stats though, better and better ones at each level I go, so while being able to craft orange "shells" is a nice side effect, it cannot possibly justify the skillset, it solves a potential desire, but does not solve any sort of need like stats do, and it's entirely possible to acquire all the orange gear you'll ever needby low levels and never have need of them again.
Now, if orange shells worked like "style"s in DCUO, where you could easily shift from look to look once you'd ever used them once, then I could see a purpose to it, where some players would want to acquire a huge wardrobe of different looks, but given the hassle and cost of stripping all the mods out of one shell to put into another, I don't see many players doing this on a casual basis.
Crafted Armor also has it's place in the world. If you wear entirely orange items, that means you have to keep 32 Mod slots up to date in addition to your 6 non-visible slots. Add in critical crafting, and that's another 6 slots. Add items for those slots that may perhaps have more than one mod slot, and the number grows from there.
First, if you want to maintain a consistent appearance, this is currently the ONLY way to do it, so whether it's a hassle or not is sadly unavoidable. Second, even if you don't care about your appearance, going the custom+mods route is still better, because while you need to collect "more things," mods are cheaper than full gear. You can buy a full set of Commendation mods (with stats of your choosing), for less than the cost of Commendation armor, for example.
They obviously can't make it too difficult to fully mod-up a fully-orange-geared character, because that's currently the ONLY option for appearance customization, so it needs to be fairly easy to manage.
For more information on how crafters can find such a wide variety of items to craft, refer to my guide on reverse engineering here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=45866
I read that and it's a good guide, but Armormech is still highly impractical under the current systems.
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They can't just make the schematics so anyone can use them, because then Jedi would be running around in Sith armor and they don't want that. What they should do, however, is make sure that the random tables are completely separate between Rep and Imp sides, so that nobody on the Republic side will EVER come across a piece of gear or a schematic that can only be used by an Imp character.
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Roll an alt, take Cybertech/Artifice, make mods, mail them to yourself. Sell some on the market, too.
That solves my problem, sure, but it doesn't solve the problem I was talking about, namely "what's the point of Armsmech?" Your solution is a way that people can advance while completely ignoring Armsmech as a viable crew skill, but it does nothing to fix Armsmech itself. Are you just accepting of the fact that there is an entire crew skill tree that is designed around offering practically no benefit to the players that select it, much less to anyone else?
Armstech - guns, barrels (an item part that determines the levels of guns)
Artifice - Lightsabers, generators, hilts (an item part that determines the levels of melee weapons), enhancements
Cybertech - Droid armror, mods, armoring (an item part that determines the levels of armor)
Armormech - non jedi armor
Synthweaving - jedi armor
Slicing - augments
Yes, that's how it's meant to work, but the products produced by Armsmech aren't of any real value once people start getting access to crafted/looted/reward orange items. Even Armsmech is able to craft the core mod for their type, able to replace the barrels in orange weapons, Armsmech can't even make the core "Armoring" mods. It might be enough if they could do that much, and perhaps the "Enhancement" mods suitable to armor-wearing classes, but they should have something to offer beyond empty clothing "shells."
If you got your wish, you would be totally self sufficient and have no need to trade with other players, thus making the economy of the game pointless. And if that happened we would all have huge amounts of credits to spend on very little
I think that each crew skill should offer complete independence in one bracket. An Armsmech Trooper/Smuggler should be 100% independent when it comes to armor, they should never have to look anywhere else for their armoring needs. They should still need others for weapons, of course, and for stims, and all that other stuff. Likewise Synthweaving should keep a Jedi completely set for armor, Armsmech should keep a Trooper/Smuggler completely set for guns, Artificing should keep a Jedi completely set for sabers, etc.. You should be totally self sufficient in one way, but completely empty in another that you'd need to look elsewhere for.
You can roll 8 characters on a server. You could easily become self sufficient, crafting wise. it would just take a little time.Which is also true.
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So Artificing will still be useful under the current system, so it's just Armormech, Armstech, and Synthweaving that are obsolete and should be ignored?
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So you're saying that Cybertech should be the only useful crafting skill and that Armormech should be completely useless? I haven't used Armstech or Artificing in a couple builds, but can they still make mods for their own stuff?
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I think the problem he's displaying is that there aren't enough purples. Blues can come in handy, but when you run a material mission, ideally you'll get purples. I would agree that based on that data, he should probably be getting half as many blues and four times as many purples, if not more, from that sample size.
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I have a level 17 Trooper (had a higher level in beta, but that's where I'm at right now) that is running Armormech right now, but already I have an Orange chest piece, and since there isn't an appearance management system in the game yet, orange gear seems to be the only way not to be at the whim of the random appearance of "whatever you get," so I imagine I'll eventually have an entirely orange wardrobe, at which point, what does Armormech have to offer? Who would want a piece of unmodifiable armor with a fixed appearance that you may or may not like, when you can look however you want using orange gear?
As I understand it, Armomech should be able to craft orange "shells", but those shells are completely worthless without the mods that go into them, so once I have the look that I like, being able to craft shells isn't going o be worth any more than being able to craft blue and green gear that I can't equip without changing my look in a potentially negative way.
That being the case, Armormech needs a significant change under the current sysem. Either A: they need the ability to make mods, so that an Armormech capable of making level 15 chest pieces can ALSO make the mods that would make an orange chestpiece equally as strong, OR B: there needs to be a better appearance modification system in place that is largely gear-independent, so that a player can equip a level 15 blue or green piece of Armormech armor, take advantage of those stats, without having it mess up his look.
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Well, I went Armormech for my Trooper, and I find that I use a lot of the pieces I make, but I see a wall ahead of me, as I found an orange chest piece, and hope to find an orange pants I like at some point, and eventually probably a whole orange wardrobe rather than being at the whim of chance as to whether I'll look like an idiot or not, so then what? Once I have all orange stuff that I like the look of, what's the point of crafting new armor? I hope that either they'll make it so that Armormech can craft armor mods so that we can keep our orange armor up to par with the other armor we can craft, OR that they implement an appearance tab soon so that I can continue to craft armor for stats and then slot it without having it mess up my look.
The current gear/loot system REALLY annoys me, since too often the pieces I find either have lame stats or lame appearance, and I'm almost never as excited by quest rewards as I'd like to be because they're almost never anything that I actually have a use for. I'm overloaded with Commendations.
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Yeah, the very best time to send companions on crew missions, or to queue up a full deck of crafting jobs, is right before logging off, at least until you get three companions and don't have to worry about taking your primary out of action.
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Oh, and one other thing, the whole "fits within the lore" escuse is just plain, 100% BS. Just drop that one. None of this "fits within the lore." Obi Wan in New Hope was wearing rags, and yet presumably had "level 50 stats." He didn't weave those robes to include the armor properties of his Clone Wars armor, he just got the stats. Leia didn't need to "mod up" her slave girl outfit to have the stats needed to take out Jabba.
Basically, gear-dependent performance is completely outside the lore, at most, the only effect gear would have on performance would be that heavy armor would be tougher than light armor, and some armor would offer slightly higher armor stat within its class than others, but the gear of a "level 50" Jedi in the lore would provide no significant advantage over "level 1" armor.
So gear with stats is already completely outside the lore, and therefore any system that involves modifying low level gear to incorporate the stats of high level gear is equally outside the lore, lore simply cannot be used to justify anything when it comes to appearance customization.
Really the appearance tab is the best system if one is trying to be true to the lore, as it relegates gear to its proper role, just a general stat-modification mechanism, almost completely divorced from how your character looks.
a crafting system that makes you work for it, thats madness!!! no, wait, that doesnt sound right at all......Nobody's talking about simplifying the crafting system, the crafting system should be left largely untouched. We're discussing simplifying appearance customization, in such a way that it has almost nothing to do with crafting, as is the case in most other games.
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If you want something I think you should work for it. The current crafting system makes you work for it. It works within the confine of the lore and really is enjoyable.
I don't think effort for effort's sake is always justified. It's like a TV remote. Yes, every time I want to change the channel I could get up and manually flick through the channels, or maybe I could make it extra hard and insist on using the remote but putting the remote upstairs after each use so that I need to go up and down the stairs each time, but on balance I think it's just all around better to go with the convenient option of keeping the remote nearby and using it to change channels instead.
I'm not saying that everything in the game needs to be handed out without requiring effort, I'm not objecting to having to earn the gear itself through gameplay, I just think that the current mechanic smacks of "busywork," of being inconvenient for inconvenience's sake. The "reward" you get of not looking like a thrift-store reject is not something that should require the amount of effort that must be put into it. This is something that should be available right at the player's fingertips at all time. It does not make me feel "better" to have "earned" the right to look how I want, it just makes me frustrated that I have not.
Again, if you value the effort of hand-tailoring the specific outfit you like, then feel free to do so, with or without an appearance tab, just as I could hide my remote upstairs if I felt like it, but it should be your responsibility and self-control that creates that system of work for reward if it's you that values such an interaction. That system should not be enforced on everyone, even if they don't share your interest in self-flagellation.
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Thanks for the input. I found my Powertech much easier to understand because the damage types were more clear. I have a level 14 Gunnery spec right now but had been using Plasma because I didn't see what the benefit to armor piercing would be. Now that I understand what a potential damage increase it is, I'll probably switch. They should make this more clear in the tooltips for the ability, something like "this will cause Kintetic attacks to do +X% damage on average" or something, because the effect armor has on your damage isn't really clear.
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The custom item mechanic is better than an appeareance tab.
No, the custom armor and appearance tab are not in competition. It's like saying that vegetables are better than meat, there's no reason to make silly arguments. An appearance tab system alone would be better than the custom item mechanic alone, but both together is better than either of them could possibly be alone.
The fact that you can ignore the apearence tab if you don't want it is fine and dandy but you cant say it doesn't effect crafting.I didn't say that, but I did say that it only effects them in ways that they deserve to be effected. They do not deserrve to have a monopoly over appearance customization. Crafting should be a viable competitor to the standard loot/reward mechanisms, they should provide alternative wears that are as good or slightly better than competing items, but they should never corner the market on any given mechanism and having to interact with the player economy for simple character customization is FAR too much hassle to be justified from a non-crafter perspective. I have an Armormech character right now, and am having plenty of benefit from it just in being able to craft gear for myself and my companion, I have no need to even use the reward or dropped armors I find in most cases because my crafted gear is superior to it.
Everyone loves to have a monopoly when they're on the monopolistic side of the equation, but that doesn't make it fair or right.
Perhaps I shouldn't have opened the topic on a board filled with crafters, but this new layout doesn't have an "items" board and the general one is far too crowed to be heard.
You severely criple the usefulness of most mods. Mods are on par with ops gear at best but never better. So why take the time to fully mod out orange gear when you can just get potentialy ugly gear that already has all the good stats and cover it up with an appearence tab?I think it's a flaw in the current system that you can only apply mods to orange gear at the moment. I've come across mods before, but had no use for them because the only orange item I own is my gun. If I could mod all, or even some of my standard armor then I would definitely want to use mods to keep them in tip-top shape at all times. The mod system should NOT be about appearance customization, it should be about taking the gear you have and making it better, so that if you have level 15 armor, you can make it as strong as level 16, 17, 18, and so on, until you come across level 20 armor that's better still. It should also be about stat customization, so that if you get really great armor, but it's Defense spec and you're more interested in crit, you can swap in a crit mod to adjust it to taste.
The easy way: collect purples with nice stats but a look you might not want
The harder way: collect oranges from crafters, commendation and quests, collect purple mods for nice stats, look like you want to look
a appeareance tab would destroy the second option...
Exactly?
Wait, are you saying that like it's a bad thing?
1st Add every appearence (if they aren't already) to the orange gear list.
2nd Remove set bonuses from directly being on gear to a new gear slot/ new mod slot. (Something similar to the system Rift uses would work.)
With this you still get full customization, minimal overhauling of current systems, and orange gear is still an option albeit far more time/credit consuming. Overall I feel your apearence is a major part of an MMO and if you want to look great it should be a result of efforts. Not hey that ally rat had this cool chest piece in his loot table. (I think all greys should be modable but thats a whole other issue)
Yes, but it still fails to solve the scenario:
Players A and B are both level 15, and have identical level 13 armor. Players A and B both receive identical level 15 armor that is mechanically superior to their current armor. Player A either enjoys the appearance of the new armor, or does not care, and throws it on immediately. Player B prefers the appearance of the old armor, but wants to gain the new mechanical stats of the new armor.
Any system that proposes to be a solution to the lack of an appearance tab needs to be one that solves that scenario in such a way that Player B is not significantly put out relative to Player A. It would need to mean that he would be able to have the appearance of the old armor with the stats of the new armor, and not have had to spend a significant amount of time, credits, or other losses to achieve that effect.
Even if they did as you say, player B would still have to throw away his perfectly good armor, because he'd have no way of getting it to look how he wants, then he'd have to track down an orange version of the armor he did like the looks of, even though he had a perfectly good green version of it in his inventory, then he'd have to collect enough mods to equal the stats of the armor he'd thrown away, and all that JUST to be mechanically equal to Player A while looking the way he preferred. That's WAY too much work to ask of the players, by ANY reasonable standards.
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Needless to say, I support this. Not even hours into the new build I had to make costume choices that I didn't like, and I'm still stuck with an ugly combination of mis-matched pieces (currently "rocking" a white top with a skirt over drab green heavy armor pants). The orange gear is NO substitute.
Armormech needs to make armor mods
in Crew Skills
Posted
The problem isn't self-sufficiency, although I do think that they should be (but again, only over HALF their capabilities, remember that in WoW, for example, both "Armormech" and "Armstech" are contained in a single skill, so let's compare apples to apples here). The problem is that Armormech isn't even partially sufficient, because they can only craft hulls, which are completely useless in and of themselves. Mods are not just "extras" that you tack on to armor like gems/enchants, they are the core traits that make the armor worth using. Hulls without mods in them are basically social wear. My suggestion was that Armormech be able to craft Armoring mods, a hull+ Armoring mod IS equivalent to a WoW base armor without gems/enchants, and an Armormech character could still need to go to a CT to get the accessory mods, I suppose.
"Passable" is a highly subjective thing. That's part of the problem, they can't decide for us what we'll want to look like, they can't design the system so that everyone will be happy with the looks they assign us at any given level, which is why customization is so important, and gear that does not allow for appearance choice is functionally worthless.