Because it makes people want to level crafting skills. Making player crafters into glorified vendors does not. No, it isn't. (Edit: Unless you meant in circulation, in which case we agree. Crafting materials and re-engineering keeps inflation somewhat in check.) It may be a side effect in some cases (see: Biochem reusables) but that's not the point. Indeed, if that were the point it fails hard - as it's much more lucrative to not bother with crafting. Contrary to a real world economy there's no point to in-game credits other than to afford you better gear. That's it, you can't buy yourself creature comforts or anything else we might associate with wealth. Let's say crafting actually made you money. Let's say I just bought all the best crafted equipment in the game for my toon, which left me broke and all the crafters with... a gazillion credits. So now I have the best gear in the game and have spent more time with progressive content. What do the crafters have? A gazillion credits with no value what-so-ever. Right. Without BoP items there are no such perks, as everyone would have them. Actually, it's also true. If everyone could buy a Cybertech speeder, or use the best Cybertech grenades or whatever, why level up Cybertech? Why is everyone rolling Biochem? Because it's the only crafting skill that offers a tangible, exclusive perk that requires players to actually have the skill in question. You want artifact item modifications, ship/droid armor, weapons and what-have-you on top of that? You can, all you need is credits - which you'll have in ample supply by not bothering with those other crafting skills. And you'd still be wrong. I'm not saying that because I think that's great, or fun, or whatever. I'm saying it to save you a lot of grief in the end, because that's how things are. No, not really. Crafted items will never compete with operation/hardmode/PvP gear for all slots. It can't, because that would render a lot of other content moot. Even in a worst-case scenario there'd be limited amounts of buyers and enough sellers to cause at least some competition, which means market prices. As I've already mentioned, even in my mid-30s I would be up a couple million credits by not going the crafting route. Are you going to sell mid-30s artifact gear for 500k each? That's not going to be much of a market. Heck, even if you could... what would you do with the credits yourself? It's all 'whatever gives the most pluses'. You might personally be happy with the notion of being a crafter of epic renown, at least until you realize the general population doesn't care and is just taking advantage of the fact, but it's not going to work out for the game in the long run. And they would, which would be bad for the game overall. No, I can absolutely see why a couple of people still would - regardless of how bad an idea it was. That's not enough to make it a good implementation for the game as a whole, however. Your, or indeed my, personal preferences aren't relevant here. This is something that relates to the player base in general. And at that level it's not sufficient without incentives as those I mentioned. On the contrary, I'm a completionist - I want to do everything. Obviously I'm fairly put off by the lackluster level of crafting in the game as a whole at this point. My personal preferences are irrelevant though, as I mentioned it's about what's workable for the game population as a whole. Contrary to real life credits isn't the hard cash of the game, gear is. Even if you could make bazillions of credits from crafting, what would you do with it? Right - get better gear. No, that's not how it works. Every crafting skill could very well provide exactly the same bonuses, only in different ways. Though sure, making your Jedi/Sith an Armormech might not be the best choice - but then it never really were. Unless it's an alt craft-bot, in which case it doesn't matter anyway - right?

Doh! Oh well, I'll just hit that Cloaking Screen and quietly slip away then...

Frankly I'm not sure if those are enough. Too much is stacked into the stealth opener as it is, instead of purely nerfing it (which is likely to still leaving it too strong) those skill points and abilities should have their synergies changed to work with the wider toolset. Too much rests on the opener, which means it's either going to make the spec OP or UP depending upon the strength of the opener. It'd be better design to make the spec more broad, not as dependent upon that one ability.

Am I missing something here, did the OP mispost the thread? It's in the 'Operative' section after all, I'm not surprised to hear that it's a lackluster ability for snipers but it feels that's somewhat besides the point?

Unfortunately that's not true. Operative melee attacks are Tech attacks, which have a base Accuracy of 100% and can't be defended against. Which means any accuracy rating goes to waste since you will hit and there's no dodge/parry chance to reduce. Only weapon attacks can be dodged/parried, or proc shields, and Operatives have very few of those. Snipers have far more, and may want to stack some accuracy rating, however.

My bad, I would have thought that self-explanatory. Anyway, the answer is because it requires the player to both level up the skill as well as gather or purchase the mats him/herself. This means more time played and more credits sunk into the crafting skill itself. Without BoP items there's no real point in leveling a crafting skill as you could just buy everything from those who did. Which would be a lot more efficient, as crafting represents a huge credit sink. To put stuff into perspective, at level 34 I had Cybertech at 400, all schematics bought and a lot of prototype and artifact schematics re-engineered. Had I skipped crafting and picked up another gathering skill I would not only have saved a couple of million credits in materials (rough estimate) but might made half as much again from my third gathering skill. What could I have bought with those credits instead of made myself a couple of artifact armoring plates? Pretty much anything. This even applies regarding BoP vs. skill requirement items. One of my alts has Biochem, before the patch I never re-engineered anything as there were artifact (reusable) items on the GTN. I could just build the cheapest premium items I could make, material-wise, to level up the skill and buy the items off the GTN. That saved me absolutely huge sums of credits. As well as time, obviously. That, in a nutshell, is why each crafting skill needs good exclusive (BoP) items. That's another issue entirely, and not what we're talking about here. The only problem with that right now is that crafted items, as a general rule, sucks compared to drops, PvP gear and even vendor items and mission rewards. I'm talking about exclusive, BiS-quality, items that only the crafter him/herself can use. Which is needed to even bother leveling the crafting skill in the first place. Credits in and off itself is only useful if you can buy something relevant with them, which you really can't at this point. Also, purely running dailies and good old farming generates far more credits than crafting can. Which makes crafting itself a losing proposition without the perks of exclusives. No. The fact that they're just a re-skinned version of existing speeders that cost far more to make than the vendor-bought ones do diminishes the desire to level the skill. To use this as an example of the above, if the Cybertech speeders were all awesome-looking more people would level up Cybertech just to make one for themselves. If Armormech could do awesome-looking, and/or just plain good, BoP armor-pieces more people would level up Armormech to make those for themselves. If Armstech... You get the idea. I'm not sure the idea I'm trying to get across has been successfully conveyed, if so I'm sorry about that. I'm not talking about making every craftable item BoP! I'm talking about providing a few exclusive items at various points, though definitely at the end-game, that are both awesome-looking and excellent stats-wise for each crafting skill. Maybe Armormech/Synthweaving could make a set of relatively cheap (material-wise) BoP bracers, waists etc. that are best-in-slot. Maybe Armstech could make some really awesome blasters/offhands that only they could use. Maybe Artifice and Cybertech could make a limited amount (3, say) of really awesome item modifications that they could only equip themselves. And so on... The point here isn't that anything that isn't BoP should suck, I believe crafting in general should provide a lot more competitive items than it currently does, but rather that there should be good incentives to actually level a crafting skill in the first place. It's the other way around, crafting isn't anywhere near breaking even at any point in the game. Well, unless you're a Biochemist and using all your reusable items every cooldown I guess. I'm quite sure BioWare wants everyone to craft, because ideally they'd want everyone to do everything. More playtime == more subscription money. More player crafting == more credits taken out of the economy, thus reducing inflation. Perhaps, but you'd still be wrong about this. This isn't really a matter of opinion, it's basic game theory. Or human psychology if you prefer.

Which makes you not only wrong, but also the exclusive minority. Sorry to put it harshly but it needs to be said. Without BoP items, or at least some form of exclusive bonuses, there's no incentive for the vast majority of player to level a crafting skill. And BioWare most assuredly wants everyone to do that, as it requires more playtime as well as acting as a huge credit sink to (somewhat) balance the inflation. You may not like it, I rarely do myself after all, but it's all about whatever gives the most pluses. Without incentives for crafting it's simply a waste of time and credits, as farming the latter to pay the oddballs who actually bothered with it for gear is a much better investment. Crafting needs to be improved in many ways but removing BoP items goes contrary to making crafting desirable. If anything there needs to be more and better BoP items. Ideally not just at level 50 either.

I were fully expecting you to talk about the looks of the sets.

As a healer-spec Op it's pretty much my primary damage ability. Sure, I open up with Hidden Strike/Backstab and use Shiv every cooldown but in between those I need to use something as long as I have the energy.

That's a horribly poor idea. What crafting needs is more quality BoP items. Quality gear in general, sure, but BoP items especially. This because it's what drives people to bother with crafting to begin with, BiS exclusives. TOR isn't a game for people dreaming of being a renowned blacksmith in their second life, it's a theme park MMO for the general public. Thus there needs to be incentives. Without BoP, or exclusive items in general, attached to crafting there's no point leveling a crafting profession. It'd be far easier, and more efficient, to just farm credits.

No, it's not. It's a time and credit sink to keep playing the game for longer. To be effective in that regard there need to be incentives, which means BoP items or other things unattainable by personally leveling the crew skill. If there are no such incentive there's little point for the vast majority of players to even bother with crew skills, as it'd be vastly more efficient to simply farm credits and buy everything from the poor suckers who're still crafting. That'd be bad for the game overall. What the crafting skills need are more BoP items, or rather more desirable ones. If every crafting skill offered a couple of BoP BiS items, some unique vanity items and unique perks (such as reusable medpacs or grenades - if we assumed the latter weren't ruined by the cooldown) crafting would be in a much better place. Additionally... if craftable items were also better, or at the very least competitive with, mission rewards and vendor items that would be even better.

Absolutely irrelevant, neither option is the slightest concern as far as balancing Slicing missions is concerned. If all you want to to is farm credits then GTN daytrading is going to beat scripted Slicing missions all the time. If you don't want to do anything at all you could still farm unlimited credits once you had your 100 characters with 5 companions to put to work, as selecting the right missions still nets you a positive average. The difference between the two isn't the latter being an absurd fringe activity while the former is doable by any player, at any level. It's the fact that the former is a likely scenario for economical balance while the latter isn't.

No. The purpose of tradeskills is to have another time and credit sink for the general player population, keeping them playing for longer. The way to do that is offering incentives for leveling a crafting skill to max level. Currently there's little to no reason to go with anything but Biochem. That's the issue, not Biochem being too strong in its own right. And this from someone with 5 characters and none of them Biochem.

No, crafting is for everyone. At least that's the intent. It's another aspect of the game, requiring time and resources to perfect and which will keep people occupied for a long time. To motivate the general population to level up a crafting skill there needs to be incentives, like with everything in the game really. These incentives takes the form of very good (ideally a couple BiS) BoP items, the reward for leveling up the skill to the required level. If there were no such rewards most people would just as well drop crafting, as it'd be easier and more efficient to just farm credits and buy all the crafted gear since there's nothing they'd have to do themselves. This might be fine for the minority who like crafting as an end unto itself. It would not, however, be good for the game overall.

No, there really aren't. Unless we're talking about 'Create Ticket' being hardbound to '§' on many non-US keyboard layouts, which is just as annoying as had it been bound to the key '2'. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed but those that inconvenience basic gameplay are worse than anything else, because they're detrimental to everyone - all the time. Consider this my line of support for the OP.

Coming from an Operative myself I have to say that yes, Operative openers were by far too good and they still are. This isn't a game of headshots, thus things must change. There's a lot of things exacerbating this problem, however. Scoundrel/Op attacks are Tech attacks. Thus can't miss, be dodged or procs shields. This makes sense for some types of attacks, not all. Stealth is only a balanced mechanic as long as you don't have ridiculous openers. I'd rather the opener be fixed than the stealth mechanic nerfed. Too many abilities and skills buff the opener. Hidden Strike on its own is quite balanced overall I feel. However, add in 16% crit, 30% extra crit damage, a knockdown, a strong dot and a strong armor debuff (armor being the only defensive mechanic, save active damage reduction abilities, that protect against Scoundrel/Op melee attacks) and you have a disaster on your hands. Personally I feel that most, or even all, of these skills should be re-purposed to buff other aspects of the class rather then nerfed to oblivion because they all buff the stealth opener. Also, I'd rather play a tactically versatile class than a one-trick pony. But that's just my opinion, of course. Will the Scoundrel/Op have to be buffed in other ways if the opener is reigned in? Maybe. That's a completely separate issue, however, and one I'm sure BioWare will monitor as closely as they have this issue.

Just wanted to pitch in a big 'Thank You!' to the OP and contributors, from a healbot Operative with a gun fetish. Awesome thread, just what I were looking for!

There's two obvious flaws with the argument though, that I'd like you to consider. It assumes that PvE and PvP can be fully, and successfully, separated. It assumes that balance in either setting, ideally both, would somehow inherently improve just by said separation. In addition to that there's the added complication that BioWare would effectively have to choose which classes are intended to be viable in PvP and which ones are to be viable in PvE. Because inevitably such a separation will lead to each class have a toolset more suitable for one or the other. All this has been done already, to various extent in various games, and it's never produced a more balanced game or caused any less concern amongst the playerbase. The only really serious PvE/PvP concern is health/defenses vs. damage output ratios. TOR still falls short here, PvP combat being too quick, but it's far better than some of the competition (post-BC WoW, for example). This is also the point where PvP has to set the pace, not because it's inherently more important than PvE but because the latter is trivial to balance accordingly. After all, operation bosses won't /ragequit their operations, log onto the forums to complain endlessly and then cancel their subscriptions when they get nerfed. Players, however, will.

Credits == credits. As has already been said, even the worst-case returns on materials is better. No. It's whether or not it's a competitive source of income compared to any other non-crafting skill. If all you is Slicing nodes when running missions then the skill would, in the strictest sense, be profitable. It'd be a completely wasted crew skills slot, however. Anyway... BioWare; patch notes exist for a reason, use them. It's not like players aren't going to find out about any changes anyway.

This has nothing to do with PvP. It's about crafting, specifically non-Biochem crafting, not being good enough. Stacking consumables to trivialize certain situations were a game balance problem and an issue n both PvE and PvP. There can but that's very poor design, any game that tries to artificially separate PvE and PvP more always ends up having it blow up in their face. This because you'd have to effectively spend twice the effort with balancing for half the population. Actually it does, once you factor in time and effort as well as availability. With Cybertech on my Shadow tank I expected to be able to craft tank mods but I can't do that, those are only available from vendors. Also, mods are the cheapest commendation gear while requiring a very significant investment in materials just in the odd chance of getting the gear I want. Worst case I spent around 200K in materials, let alone the time spent gathering it all, to re-engineer my way to a single artifact mod. Had I settled for one with a couple of points less in Willpower and Endurance I could have gotten it for 2 planetary commendations. Even had I spent a tenth of the materials, credits and effort that still wouldn't have been a good investment.

Actually, that's complete and utter bs. The human eye is capable of registering far, far higher framerates than what any of us gets in the game. It's just more, or less, sensitive for particular forms of movement and motion. Which is how movies get away with running 24/25 FPS, by making the most of that motion. Most people can distinguish significant differences between 120 and 60 FPS, let alone 60 and 25. Incorrect, the non-functional AA on 6900 cards is not fixed by any of the latter driver releases. Certainly, an upcoming driver might fix this issue but that's not the case for any currently available release.

Incorrect statement, never presume to speak for anyone else. The game is very much in need of AA, much more so than some other Bioware games such as ME. It's almost as bad as WAR. Also, there are many examples of spots where meshes or textures don't quite match up - resulting in white lines or dots in the graphics. That too can be hidden by AA. Yeah, just no. People can appreciate well into the hundreds of FPS, it's just that particular motions or sequences that gets interpreted smoother than they actually are by the human brain. Which is why movies, which are usually 24/25 FPS, use special motion blur to mitigate the low framerate and why motion interpolation techniques used on modern TVs usually make such content feel 'wrong'.

Neither FXAA, SMAA nor MLAA are 'better' than MSAA. They usually have less of a performance hit, especially on games using deferred rendering, but they're not nearly as clean. The results aren't as good and there's a tendency to smear the UI and fonts that you don't get with MSAA. SSAA is better, however, and given that this is a DX9 game it's definitely worth a shot if you've got the horsepower. No, neither option works for me. Yes, because it clearly doesn't work. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it does so for everyone, this thread have ample examples of people that get identical results with AA set to 'off' and 'high'. Myself included.

I haven't had the time to fiddle around a lot with Slicing after the 1.1 patch and I certainly don't have enough results to offer any conclusive statistics, given that I've had a crit in 3 out of 5 missions. That said... I hate to say it but unless my results are an anomaly they may have buffed high-yield missions too much. *sigh* Time will tell, I'm sure.

Can people please stop quoting Uruare's post in full, thanks. It's a great post and I agree with most of it but that doesn't mean tacking one-liners onto lengthy quotes has stopped being bad form. You have a delete button, use it.