What Needs to be done to Make Crafting Useful

[Chromiie]

everytime i read a post of people talking about crafting I get totally confused. Right now I am lvl 44 bodyguard. I have armstech (400) Scavenging (400) and investigation (385). The last weapon I have used from a quest was the reward I got off the class quest from DK. EVERY weapon i have used since was crafted by me. These weapons have been far better than any quest/flash point/badge vender/pvp vender weapon i have seen. As lvl 44, i have to blasters waiting for me to ding 45. I have the pattern I need to have 2 purple qty blaster for when I hit 50. I get really confused when people say crafting is useless when I have gained nothing but good things from it.

 

I'm guessing you didn't read?

 

It's well know that you CANNOT craft anything on par with the Pvp or Hardmode commendation vendors. Well may some not all don't know for certain but still we where told "Oh yea we love crafting here at Bioware" yet it seems they thought of an interesting crafting system but not much else.

 

Do a quest that offers a piece of gear that is at your level then compare. Which was easier, faster or cheaper to get? That's what the OP is saying. Crafting right now is far too expensive and time consuming compared to the alternatives.

[Squiddish]

I will submit that, I guess, crafting skills that aren't Biochem and Cybertech are alright when you're leveling up.

 

If you never get gear from commendation vendors and never do flashpoints or heroic quests.

[JarenVestrit]

which brings me to "custom" gear (orange).

 

These are given out waay too freely, and as others have said, as soon as you find a look you want, you just need commendation and vendor-mods for the rest of the game.

and the mods are really easy to get from vendors/missions, so no love for crafters there either.

 

I completely agree with this. I love my Orange gear, but it should only be craftable. That would be a good START to making crafting useful and profitable.

[Meraxos]

I agree 100% with the OP.

 

Overall I love SWTOR but the crafting is the worst I've seen in a top tier MMO in years. It's as if it was put together by a robot. There's no imagination to it. No feeling of reward whatsoever.

[--Grim--]

An easy fix for making crafting useful while leveling would be to increase the price of items on the commendation vendors while also decreasing the commendation drop rate.

 

At the end of running all the quests, etc on a planet it is very easy to have 50 plus commendations. More than enough to deck out the player and all his companions with orange gear, buy weapons, etc, etc and still have extra commendations sitting around.

 

This makes it pointless for anyone to buy or craft any mods / gear while leveling.

 

This doesn't solve the post 50 crafting problems but at least there would be a reason to craft while you level. Right now there is absolutely no reason to craft while leveling unless you are a masochist.

 

The companions system of doing crafting is brilliant. The implementaion of the crafting market vs quest drops, etc is beyond moronic.

Edited January 9, 2012 by --Grim--

[Kibaken]

everytime i read a post of people talking about crafting I get totally confused. Right now I am lvl 44 bodyguard. I have armstech (400) Scavenging (400) and investigation (385). The last weapon I have used from a quest was the reward I got off the class quest from DK. EVERY weapon i have used since was crafted by me. These weapons have been far better than any quest/flash point/badge vender/pvp vender weapon i have seen. As lvl 44, i have to blasters waiting for me to ding 45. I have the pattern I need to have 2 purple qty blaster for when I hit 50. I get really confused when people say crafting is useless when I have gained nothing but good things from it.

 

While leveling it's fine. I was the same way with saber hilts. Easily 15-20 rating above the quest rewards I was getting.

 

As soon as you hit 50 and do your Ilum dailies you can get barrels better than anything you can make. There is NO love for crafting once you hit 50.

[ApoJake]

I'll list some of the issues as i see it:

2: which brings me to "custom" gear (orange).

These are given out waay too freely, and as others have said, as soon as you find a look you want, you just need commendation and vendor-mods for the rest of the game.

and the mods are really easy to get from vendors/missions, so no love for crafters there either.

/rage

 

So true. What is the point of lvling crafting skills when I can just get some Orange item as a quest reward and mod the $*&@ out of it and make it better than anything any crafter can make.

 

And another thing on Mods:

There is no incentive for them to create "whatever mod ##" green when people can just use commendations to get "whatever mod ##" that's blue with the same name and number but is BETTER than what the crafter can make.

[Synthine]

I'm guessing you didn't read?

 

It's well know that you CANNOT craft anything on par with the Pvp or Hardmode commendation vendors. Well may some not all don't know for certain but still we where told "Oh yea we love crafting here at Bioware" yet it seems they thought of an interesting crafting system but not much else.

 

Do a quest that offers a piece of gear that is at your level then compare. Which was easier, faster or cheaper to get? That's what the OP is saying. Crafting right now is far too expensive and time consuming compared to the alternatives.

 

Again, expensive and time consuming? Let me say again...since low 20s i have crafted EVERY weapon I have used that turned to be far better than any other weapon I have seen from any vender or loot drop. I just hit lvl 45 tonight, I had 2 pistols waiting for me to get to that lvl. Guess what...if you guessed that I already have 2 lvl 50 purple qty pistols waiting on me to get to lvl 50 then you guessed right. Expensive?? really?? I have bought EVERY skill, speeder ability, and have even opened up inv spots and still have 200k just to throw around. Credits is far too easy to get in this game. I am not even trying to farm money and I have plenty and a useful craft to boot. Still, not sure why people complain about this.

[--Grim--]

Again, expensive and time consuming? Let me say again...since low 20s i have crafted EVERY weapon I have used that turned to be far better than any other weapon I have seen from any vender or loot drop. I just hit lvl 45 tonight, I had 2 pistols waiting for me to get to that lvl. Guess what...if you guessed that I already have 2 lvl 50 purple qty pistols waiting on me to get to lvl 50 then you guessed right. Expensive?? really?? I have bought EVERY skill, speeder ability, and have even opened up inv spots and still have 200k just to throw around. Credits is far too easy to get in this game. I am not even trying to farm money and I have plenty and a useful craft to boot. Still, not sure why people complain about this.

 

Just because you can, doesn't make it cost / time efficient. The vast majority of players will take the easy route. The easy route is faster than crafting, and will get you gear that is just as good or better in a lot less time, for a lot less credits (or free).

 

Crafting is uesless in it's current form for anyone who cares about their time.

 

If you like to spend endless hours doing something that other people can accomplish in minutes, then SWTOR's crafting system is your holy grail.

Edited January 9, 2012 by --Grim--

[Painaid]

I really gotta agree with your point that right now the economy is almost nonexistent. There is NO NEED to buy and sell crafting materials AT ALL since everyone is self-sufficient. You can't sell gathering items on the AH and make some quick credits money like you can in other MMO's.

 

This is the main problem that I've seeing. The issue of crew skills being useful at end-game can be easily alleviated by adding new useful patterns and schematics. For the issue of there being NO ECONOMY, it is going to require an overhaul of material requirements.

 

One of the things that only further aggravates this problem is that you can only choose one crafting profession. Even if I wanted to choose two crafting professions, thereby having to buy mats on the GTN to level it, I am not even allowed to do so.

 

Seriously, what was Bioware thinking when they developed this system?

[Amatiste]

I tend to solo alot. I don't farm the dailies, and usually have just enuff commendations to get whatever special weapons. Most everything else I craft for myself. Granted the highest char i have is 21, but while do find the system a wee tedious, for the most part my crafted stuff is better than rewards. Now, I don't PVP, and likely never will, so I'll never see that gear. Hardmode stuff, who knows. But in LOTRO at least, you could never craft something better than instance/raid gear, nor do I think you should. As for economy, the game is a week old, have patience before calling DOOM!

[Chromiie]

Hey guys remember this?

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/12/massively-interviews-bioware-on-swtors-crafting-and-pvp/

 

Yes. There are elite, rare recipes. People who want to dabble in crafting, can, and can be successful in it and make themselves a little bit better. People who are not terribly interested in crafting can do the mission system and still get some cool stuff out of their companion characters. People who are really into crafting have a huge, complex system that they're going to be able to go into and become masters at.

 

The best stuff is always going to come from other players, and then be made by other players. There will be stuff that you can craft that is among the best stuff in the entire game. So very close to the top tier that you could get for anything.

 

 

[Synthine]

Just because you can, doesn't make it cost / time efficient. The vast majority of players will take the easy route. The easy route is faster than crafting, and will get you gear that is just as good or better in a lot less time, for a lot less credits (or free).

 

Crafting is uesless in it's current form for anyone who cares about their time.

 

If you like to spend endless hours doing something that other people can accomplish in minutes, then SWTOR's crafting system is your holy grail.

 

lol wut? time efficient?? pushing n on your keyboard, the mouse clicking twice then wait? If you aim to tell me that having weapons WAITING on me to lvl is not the definition of time efficient all of you people must be high. This is not wow. Maybe bioware dont plan just to hand out everything as blizzard does. Sure, maybe it takes an hour for my companion to go gather something. On the other hand it only takes 2 items to make the pattern and not a stack of 20. Look at the mats vs time. Everything is balanced. Again cost?? Credits are EASY to comeby. "the vast majority will take the easy route" so you want to reward the lazy? im done with you...your points make zero since.

[cheggs]

Posted this some where else but might as well post it here as it is 100% for this post as well!

 

Hmm have you seen the stats on the 49 armour epic items they have more important stats than the first tier token stuff pve wise. the only one I would say is maybe worse than first tier is tanking gear. But for healers and dps crafting 49 gear with the right procs on gear is better.

My head item on my trooper is aim/End

 

Aim - 62

End - 50

Power - 50

Alacrity - 60

+ augment 28 power for a total 78 power

 

The first token is

 

Aim - 96 what works out as about maybe what 6 bonus damage/healing. And the crit would be like 0.1 or even less.

End - 81 what is about 250ish extra health as a healer/dps that shouldn't be hit.

power - 36 what works out as about 10 less bonus damage/healing.

Alacrity - 40 thats 20 less not matter how you see it.

 

The extra 30 aime does not add even near as much power and the crit is so small it don't add much ether on the token gear but the stats that do count are much higher on crafted gear.

 

So the Armstech,Armormech and synthweave are fine they are very good tbh for healers and dps. The tanking gear not so sure as I have not played tank or even started to craft tanking gear.

 

Biochem is fine tbh from my point of view as the mats for the tradable items are not insane so as more people start to craft them the price will drop by alot. And the tradable ones are only slightly less than the level 50 epic ones that cant be handed out like candy. But as meta gamers say maybe they should be droped down to same stats as tradable ones or have a longer CD on use so Biochems can choose what one to use.

 

Artificer and Cybertech well mods to ilum daily shop. Well something does need doing here as the Crafter 49 purples have a massive advantage over orange upgrades. Cybertech get a ear item and ship/droid items that are best in game but ship and droids are a very very small part of the game.

 

so sorry the only thing that needs doing in game for crafting is a boost to Artificer then to Cybertech.

 

But 90% of the crafting community cant be arsed to look at the numbers and then say its crap.

[Vexxation]

I agree with most of the posts so far. My main has synthweaving but at only level 200 in that skill, I'm bored by its lack of usefulness to said main - bear in mind that I came to this conclusion fairly early on so I've been lax about levelling it now. I can't make a single thing that's useful to my level since about level 15 (I'm level 40 now) so I've jsut let it slide pretty much and make gear for baby alts.

I have also played WoW since vanilla (sorry to bring it up but its the gold standard for mmos whether you like the game or not) and found levelling tailoring a pain BUT at least there I could make good useful gear that bridged the gap between quest rewards and instance drops. At the max level I could/can make gear that is equal to (or better than) raid drops for some item slots.

[Chromiie]

Maybe bioware dont plan just to hand out everything as blizzard does.

 

Wow clear fanboyism. World of Warcraft actually takes more time imo. You actually have to go look for mats, farm them or buy them. Crafting high level gear and weapons also is on par with raid gear. Old Republic is the game that is being easy not WoW.

[Squiddish]

Wow clear fanboyism. World of Warcraft actually takes more time imo. You actually have to go look for mats, farm them or buy them. Crafting high level gear and weapons also is on par with raid gear. Old Republic is the game that is being easy not WoW.

Its being easy, but its not allowing us to make anything useful in return.

 

Maybe when you learn a basic schematic for some purple gear, you could still RE it to learn a BETTER purple piece.

 

For example, say you find a schematic for the Awesome Chestpiece of Butt Kickery

 

+60 Aim

+50 End

 

(totally random stats for example)

 

Of course, you can crit it to give it an augment slot. Now, say you reverse engineer it, and learn the Awesome Chestpiece of Critical Butt Kickery!

 

+60 Aim

+50 End

+20 Crit

+20 Power

 

 

RE a purple schematic, get a BETTER purple schematic. Then people can find their rare schematic, and STILL be leet crafters and improve on it.

Alternatively, give crafters a way to spend resources researching a piece of gear, so they don't actually have to MAKE one, they can just do the research (which will take MORE mats than to craft it) and get a 100% chance of learning the next schematic up.

 

Thoughts?

[Ethern]

I can only agree with the OP. Guess why I'm biochem since day 1.

[taffeta]

I dont understand why people are saying everything is useless. My toon is cybertech and by reverse engineering the lvl 49 earpieces, you can get a purple with an augment that is better than anything you can get from the vendor. I know mastercrafts are not too common but I get at least one a day. Crafting is fine. You have 5 toons that will craft for you. Put them to work to get the patterns most people want and then put them to work trying to make mastercrafts.

[Azure_DDi]

Most of the fixes proposed here take considerable balancing, revolution over evolution. Some that may be quicker to implement (code) that would give something in the interim may be:

 

Bio: sorted as is, relatively, as it gives a re-usable and income from selling consumables to non bio's

Armour makers: free repair and/or X% bonus on armour they can make when they wear it

Weapon makers: free repair and/or X% to damage on what they can make

Mod/cyber: free to swap-out mods

 

the bonus would not apply to PVP/PVE gear at all, only the kit they can make themselves and have the schematic for.

 

Could also consider allowing makers of stuff to be able to un-bind it, again restricted to stuff they can make themselves and only on kit in their own inv - not a service they can do for others.

[djvapid]

What people seem to want out of a game is something alike to Star Wars Galaxies. A game that doesn't absolutely require you to go fight x amount of creatures.

 

A game that allows you to choose a "crafting" class (so to speak) and gain levels through crafting and providing a player-run economy that could hold its own.

 

Unfortunately, SWG is dead and the kind of game you're talking about doesn't really exist and won't - because the amount of players who enjoy this sort of game are far, far outnumbered by people who prefer a thematic rail shooter.

 

SWTOR has introduced some novel concepts. Completely voiced over, a new approach to crafting, etc. It's all been done before, but not in the entirety that Bioware has done it.

 

Small steps. I doubt you'll see many MMOs in the future that aren't equally voiced over. The standards have been set, people won't want it any other way.

 

So we've accomplished /some/ good things as a consumer. It's important to look at the glass as if it were half full.

 

Which leads me back to point: you won't see something like crafting holding it's own up (even SWG went with the NGE, which everyone universally agrees ruined the game). Developers think we want rail shooters, raiding and pvp.

 

They apparently don't think we want to create our own economy and have (gasp) non-combat classes for crafting and such.

 

Here's a tip: find me a game that does away with all NPC vendors and doesn't demand that you follow a set path for progression and you'll find your "perfect game" as you guys seem to want to see it.

 

But to conclude and in a "nod" toward Obi-Wan from a New Hope:

 

"This is not the game you're looking for."

[Zennshi]

I have made a few suggestions before but I will paste the relative ones from my thread which is apparently being reported by a lot of haters.

 

So this is what I propose we do for Crafters.

 

 

 

Edit : 1/3/12

 

As far as vendors go, they should be removed so crafters(barring biochem, their goods are fairly unique as vendors don't really sell anything like it) have a shot. Or, take away the competitive goods (because honestly, why do crafters have to compete with vendors, that is just bad design) and instead have the commendations be used to buy materials. Perhaps end game crafted goods (the ones I will mention below which would be = to end game raiding recipes) and/or end game crafting recipes be bought with commendations(you will have to make them expensive so the raiders don't feel too slighted that crafters can get gear that they can).

 

But here is what I propose we do to fix the gear problems :

 

 

Augmentation Slots.

 

They are far too rare to be of any use, slicers already dealt with having cluttered mission logs because no one buys augments. If they did buy augments, it was because they were fortunate enough to have gear with augment slots. However as things stand the items you can buy from vendors and raids are still superior. So this is my proposal :

 

Green items will have no Augment slots base. Critical greens will have 1.

Blue items will have one Augment slots base. Critical blues will have 2.

Purple items will have 3 Augment slots base. Critical purples will have 4.

 

You might be saying "WHAT, NO, THAT WILL MAKE SLICERS HAVE A USE" INDEED YOU ARE CORRECT BUT THIS ALSO SOLVES THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PROBLEM =)!!

 

I do not have the numbers to give real values on this, however with item budgets in mind, this will work. Crafted Purple Critical items will have the same item budgets as end game raiding gear if they use max level augments, the only difference will be the crafters will have a little bit more choices of how they want their stuff distributes their stats, which if you are the one making the armor or weapon... shouldn't you have this right over the one who kills someone and takes what they have?

 

....

 

 

 

This change would effectively :

Give people who enjoy crafting the ability to invest hours of sweat, labor, missions, and frustration to have something to show for it. All of a sudden Armormech has the ability to keep up with vendors by being able to craft gear that is equivalent, albeit not completely equivalent because you are able to tweak its stats a bit here and there, but you can make it just the same by using what are now "worthless" augments.

 

Gives slicers something else to do, while giving people who want to play the game and not grind and craft a way to keep up with repairs, and hopefully encourage them not to go to goldsellers which we are starting to see a lot of anymore....

 

Make Augments something people would want to buy.

 

It will also probably upset a great deal of level 50s who like being the only ones with full bag upgrades, but everyone will be 50 eventually guys, get over it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1165318#post1165318

[Zennshi]

What people seem to want out of a game is something alike to Star Wars Galaxies. A game that doesn't absolutely require you to go fight x amount of creatures.

 

A game that allows you to choose a "crafting" class (so to speak) and gain levels through crafting and providing a player-run economy that could hold its own.

 

Unfortunately, SWG is dead and the kind of game you're talking about doesn't really exist and won't - because the amount of players who enjoy this sort of game are far, far outnumbered by people who prefer a thematic rail shooter.

 

SWTOR has introduced some novel concepts. Completely voiced over, a new approach to crafting, etc. It's all been done before, but not in the entirety that Bioware has done it.

 

Small steps. I doubt you'll see many MMOs in the future that aren't equally voiced over. The standards have been set, people won't want it any other way.

 

So we've accomplished /some/ good things as a consumer. It's important to look at the glass as if it were half full.

 

Which leads me back to point: you won't see something like crafting holding it's own up (even SWG went with the NGE, which everyone universally agrees ruined the game). Developers think we want rail shooters, raiding and pvp.

 

They apparently don't think we want to create our own economy and have (gasp) non-combat classes for crafting and such.

 

Here's a tip: find me a game that does away with all NPC vendors and doesn't demand that you follow a set path for progression and you'll find your "perfect game" as you guys seem to want to see it.

 

But to conclude and in a "nod" toward Obi-Wan from a New Hope:

 

"This is not the game you're looking for."

 

No one says that it has to be one way or the other...

[Squiddish]

What people seem to want out of a game is something alike to Star Wars Galaxies. A game that doesn't absolutely require you to go fight x amount of creatures.

 

A game that allows you to choose a "crafting" class (so to speak) and gain levels through crafting and providing a player-run economy that could hold its own.

 

 

That's not what I want. When WoW has a crafting system VASTLY superior to yours, something is terribly wrong with yours.

[Ossirian]

Thread with some of my collected thoughts and suggestions. Its a touch on the long side but worth a read.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=156394