commendation vendors ruin economy/crafting

[TheRealBoz]

My expectation is that it'll change as players start to spend their main's money on their alts, as so many other games. 50k at 50 sounds minor, but is massive at low levels, and unlike credits, commendations aren't tradeable. Also, at lower levels I find the commendations a little low. For example, I gained around 15 commendations from levelling from 21 to 25 on Nar Shaddaa, I can get 7 level 23 mods, or 1 armor or barrel plus level 23 mods, or 2 armor/barrels. I actually want a lot more than that, and at level 25! If I had money from a main (and weren't a crafter myself by inclination), I'd buy.

 

Sure, I've heard it said that gear is irrelevant levelling up. Having seen the difference between a character wearing level 19 greens and wearing level 22-25 blues, I'm not in agreement. Seemed to be the difference between Mortar Shot taking out a full group of monsters and doing 2/3 damage to me around level 25.

 

The problem is that you can get a cheap orange armor and some mods via commendations, and mail them to your alt.

Edited January 9, 2012 by TheRealBoz

[Neumi]

The money payout for missions in this game is by far not high enough for one to afford a full set of crafted "blue" gear for his level along with training his abilities.

 

If that's not possible, why does the gear exist at all?

Only at high levels one can really "farm" his money. Once he finished learning and leveling, THEN he starts to gather money and then he can buy stuff all the time.

 

So I would suggest that the high end gear in the game should be crafted, yes. But high quality low level components as quest rewards are essential for playing.

[Neumi]

The problem is that you can get a cheap orange armor and some mods via commendations, and mail them to your alt.

I had the impression that all commendation equipment is bound on pickup. So there is no mailing, right?

 

 

Altering the commendation prices by 10 like suggested earlier would be more then stupid ... who has the time to gather 140 commendations for a level 25 lightsaber with the char he is playing? If the stuff would be tradeable then, high level players would farm low level areas all the time.

[Dharknite]

Sounds like crafters want others to play the game their way, where they control the flow of goods so the can overcharge for the decent gear. Kinda like how the non-slicers wanted slicers to play the game their way.

 

Instead of trying to nerf/tear down the commendation system why no ask for a buff to crafted goods. Something like more orange recipes, heck I am still looking for a nice looking pistol for my PT, I would gladly by an orange one on the GTN if they were available. Maybe you should ask to be able to make Lvl 50 items that are comparable to the vendors, but have different appearances or even have their own non stat bonuses, procs,etc.

[Binksie]

That's why I picked Cybertech. Sure I started with Armormech, Scavenging, and Slicing.. but when Slicing got nerfed and I realized everyone is using moddable gear and buying upgrades from vendors I tried to figure out which profession could provide what the vendors do not. Cybertech is what I came up with and making a million credits in the past 4 days selling ship upgrades has shown me this was the right choice.

[Elear]

Wouldn't work anyway, as excepting missions (which reduce money in the economy) and slicing missions (just about), the rest of crafting just moves money around.

 

So you didn't notice that it doesn't move it "around", but only in direction of certain players, ie crafters?

 

 

Why it wont work:

You're lvl 10, you have to spend most of your money on training, then scrape together enought to buy some overpriced gear pieces from people that want to afford gear for higher level, and scrape even more so you can level up your crafting at least a bit.

And quests? No, they can just give you exp, all has to come from crafters. Summary of day: you've spent half of it grinding credits.

 

Or maybe increase money gain from quests? Yeah, that would work. Non-crafters would have moneyz to give to their crafting overlords, and overlords would just have more free money.

 

No it wouldn't. It would just cause everyone to pick same craft, and market would only get worse.

 

 

Yes, armor/weapon crafting currently sucks if you don't bother with crafting epics and pricing them reasonably.

 

No, it's not reason to make every non-crafter game experience miserable in this gear dependant game.

 

Because not sure about you, but I don't want to farm pig-shark-men all day just to buy Dull Butter Knife to be able to kill stronger pig-shark-men and do my quests.

[thejumpingsheep]

I have to disagree about commendation vendor removal. I do agree that the economy is broken and so are tradeskills but here are the problems I note.

 

- Its entirely too easy to get materials for crafting

 

- Even if you made trade skill items viable they will be so mass produced that they will be worthless in no time since everyone can craft easily

 

- Tradeskills are way too easy to expect anything from them. WoW had terrible tradeskills too. EQ2 and SWG had it 100000x better.

 

- Commendation vendors do not sell the best gear in game. Just stepping stones.

 

- Best way to make trade skills viable is to give each of them a unique perk like a great bind on pickup item that is self only thus justifying the need for the trade skill.

 

 

Otherwise they need to redo the trade skill mechanics because as they are now they shouldnt be very powerful.

[TheRealBoz]

I <3 strawmen.

[Siyko]

you're asking for unchecked inflation. players are too greedy to be responsible for keeping the economy in check.

[chton]

All I'm getting here is that crafters can't become right while being afk. Who other than crafters who want to make a mint need an economy? Who but the crafters miss this aspect? Who's game is ruined by this system? Crafters. I don't get how that ruins the entire game. If people are getting by fine now without needing crafters who but the crafters needs this changed?

So please stop saying it's going to ruin the game or the economy when all is does is ruin crafting. Now if you care about crafting then try to get things "fixed" but don't act like the game will come crashing down without deep crafting.

You tell me it needs deep crafting to succeed I say go back to the deep crafting of SWG until they fix it here... Oh wait that game tanked from day one and is an epic failure in MMOs, so try to find an emulator or wait for the next upcoming game that will have such deep crafting I'm sure if there's such a desire that there much be tons of them coming out. Just like all the sandbox games....

[_Flin_]

All I'm getting here is that crafters can't become right while being afk. Who other than crafters who want to make a mint need an economy? Who but the crafters miss this aspect? Who's game is ruined by this system? Crafters. I don't get how that ruins the entire game. If people are getting by fine now without needing crafters who but the crafters needs this changed?

So please stop saying it's going to ruin the game or the economy when all is does is ruin crafting. Now if you care about crafting then try to get things "fixed" but don't act like the game will come crashing down without deep crafting.

 

Well. That is correct. The current crafting system is a ruin. If you don't like to craft, you don't care. If you like to create items of value, you can, but only for levels 1-49.

No lasting value is possible, because noone will ever wear your stuff for longer than a few days.

There is no sense in crafting for level 50, because the only skilltest is whether you figure out not to do it. I'd like to have more things in the game like the White Crystals, which work exactly like I think interesting crafting pieces should work.

 

Do I think I should be able to make better gear than raids or pvp? Not necessarily.

Do I think I should be able to make better gear than running a few daily quests? Definitely.

 

Commendation vendors while leveling are not the problem. Not enough commendations to get a complete outfit. On Maxlevel it is something different, when all you can make is 22 mods and you get 23 from the daily quest vendor.

 

The issue is the uselessness on maxlevel. Might as well abandon this ruin altogether.

[Sky_walkerPL]

but only for levels 1-49.

It's "lvl 1-45".

People almost never buy gear on GTN between lvl 45 and 50 simply because they know that at lvl 50 they gonna swap everything anyway. So spending money on gear 45+ on GTN is a waste of money.

[Vgyer]

I myself am speced into cybertech and my only character so far is a lvl 37 PT,and i can say most of the time i would rather use the GTN over the vendors but sometimes the vendors have gear the crafters cant make(to be more specific MODS)i picked up a a rigor 12 enhancement for the extra shield proc and absorb awhile back and cant replace it yet,next thing is a steadfast enhancement 17 mod(belsavis vendor) which is also a def/shield proc boost and being a cybertech myself i cannot make those mods and i can imagine the pain those of you feel when trying to sell goods when you are restricted compared to the vendors in your recipes.

[uniz]

anyone with more than 3 pieces of orange gear will quickly find out how difficult it is to "keep" it up to level. add in your companion(s) orange gear and you will soon realize what to use your comendation tokens on. taking them out is not really intelligent.

 

in most of these mmo games crafting loses it value at max level. especially any profession that makes items you can replace from end game raid/content drops. the only professions that retain some value are those that make consumables used to tackle this content.

 

being able to craft gear equal to end game raid content will ruin the end game. end game is what keeps people playing and paying. this will never happen. educated experienced mmo players know this. it is something we accept. it is how these games work.

[_Flin_]

being able to craft gear equal to end game raid content will ruin the end game. end game is what keeps people playing and paying. this will never happen. educated experienced mmo players know this. it is something we accept. it is how these games work.

 

This is about vendor gear, not raid gear.

And furthermore your thesis is not a fact. The possibility to have gear that is on par with raid gear and pvp gear, but not helpful for raiding and pvp, will widen the endgame, not ruin it. Like crafter sets (e.g. reducing crafting times or increasing critchances) or companion sets (improving your companions). This thesis has no merit.

 

Just because WoW does it that way doesn't make it a genre law. It is probable, because 90% of the mmo-players have mainly played WoW, and when asked in a focus group or a market research interview they will say exactly what they already know. Even WoW, however, has something to offer for every craft, which SWTOR doesn't.

 

There exist other feasible crafting models, like in EVE, where most of the economy and most of the items are player generated.

 

But from your comment I only read that for you "endgame" equals "raid content" and "gear" equals "raiding equipment". I am quite sure the PvPers and crafters have a different opinion concerning what exactly constitutes endgame and which equipment is important for it. As do the collectors. As do the goldfarmers. As do the achievement addicts. As do the explorers.

 

etc.

[Darzil]

The problem is that you can get a cheap orange armor and some mods via commendations, and mail them to your alt.

 

I'd rather throw some cash from level 50 on some crafted level 21/23 mods etc than go back to Nar Shaddaa with them and grind Commendations to give to the alt! Cash is easier at 50 than low level Commendations !

[swdrgn]

I have to hand it to Rift and their end game crafting they have down pat. People could make special materials on a CD and certain armor pieces (not a full set) that were between dungeon and raid quality. It was good armor and in high demand. Both the armor and crafting materials sold very good and fast at the AH and the ecomony was solid.

[Aeryl]

I don't know what people are smoking when they say GTN gear is too expensive. Most sellers just use the automatic price. I put in a purple Advanced Defense Enhancement 13 and the suggested price was 1536. If you actually look at the time/credit investment to get the 4 Krayt Dragon Pearls alone, that's probably about 90% off. That's just my example, there are quite a few other purple mods going for really cheap, not to mention the tons of underpriced blues. Edited January 9, 2012 by Aeryl

[Darieltis]

I don't know what people are smoking when they say GTN gear is too expensive. Most sellers just use the automatic price. I put in a purple Advanced Defense Enhancement 13 and the suggested price was 1536. If you actually look at the time/credit investment to get the 4 Krayt Dragon Pearls alone, that's probably about 90% off. That's just my example, there are quite a few other purple mods going for really cheap, not to mention the tons of underpriced blues.

 

Don't know what server you are on, but on mine crafters are selling level 15 blues for 10k...greens are all that is remotely affordable, but vendor is better than green.

[Aeryl]

Don't know what server you are on, but on mine crafters are selling level 15 blues for 10k...greens are all that is remotely affordable, but vendor is better than green.

 

Sith Meditation Sphere ... I just bought Advanced Initiative Enhancement 15 for 1800. Only the 20-22 are in that price range.

[Onomas]

Don't know what server you are on, but on mine crafters are selling level 15 blues for 10k...greens are all that is remotely affordable, but vendor is better than green.

 

more crafters = more competition = lower prices. If you have a select few crafters, they can gouge as they see fit. You add more, then they will undercut each other.

 

Problem is commedation vendors were put in way to early. It didnt allow our economy and market to grow. Now you see just a few crafters charging outrageous prices. Or nothing at all.

 

We need to remove the crutch of the market system and allow crafters to make their investments worthwhile. Then you will see more crafters and prices will fall.

 

Commedations shouldnt have been used for armor, weapons, or mods. Should ahve been used for other things like speeders, ship decorations, companion gifts, special items, etc.

 

The commedations are a dime a dozen.

Items like this should be rare, not everyone having the same items.

Once you max out your gear, mods, etc... there is no need for you to buy anything else minus consumables which you probably can make yourself.

 

Crafting is in a sad state.

[Aeryl]

more crafters = more competition = lower prices. If you have a select few crafters, they can gouge as they see fit. You add more, then they will undercut each other.

 

Problem is commedation vendors were put in way to early. It didnt allow our economy and market to grow. Now you see just a few crafters charging outrageous prices. Or nothing at all.

 

We need to remove the crutch of the market system and allow crafters to make their investments worthwhile. Then you will see more crafters and prices will fall.

 

Commedations shouldnt have been used for armor, weapons, or mods. Should ahve been used for other things like speeders, ship decorations, companion gifts, special items, etc.

 

The commedations are a dime a dozen.

Items like this should be rare, not everyone having the same items.

Once you max out your gear, mods, etc... there is no need for you to buy anything else minus consumables which you probably can make yourself.

 

Crafting is in a sad state.

 

The problem isn't gouging or even oversaturated markets (as RE takes care of that compared to WoW), it's the silly GTN functionality itself. Like I said, the vast majority of people on my server just stick the item in the Sell box and use whatever price the market tool suggests.

[Terwilliger]

more crafters = more competition = lower prices. If you have a select few crafters, they can gouge as they see fit. You add more, then they will undercut each other.

 

Market irrelevance=abandoning crafting for profit=pricing intended to offset=lower prices still.

 

Crafting is in a sad state.

 

You're talking crafting for profit. You're also assuming profit is its purpose.

[bboudreaux]

as a crafter myself, personally for me, the commendations and commendation vendors are worthless.

Leveling up, I have always had better mods and gear than what I have found on the commendation vendors of that level, so I just get a case or a box and sell as vendor trash, now I don't even take commendations as a reward if something else is offered.

[TheRealBoz]

Market irrelevance=abandoning crafting for profit=pricing intended to offset=lower prices still.

That's not how economy works. Get you some knowledge.

You're talking crafting for profit. You're also assuming profit is its purpose.

 

Crafting for anything else is equally useless, because anyone can get better gear for even less time and money than it takes to craft it.