Slicing post-nerf, please look at the numbers BW

[ArmoredJuneBug]

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.

[Anticasper]

As long as you take bountiful and rich missions you will most probably earn a profit now.

Good job Bioware.

[MnMrMustard]

We have been nerfed again, looks like harder than 1.1.

 

BW, slicing has gone from being the least profitable gathering skill, at launch others made more via GTN, to being COMPLETELY USELESS!

[PhoR]

Again, comparisons of straight credit rewards to what you can make selling items to other players on the GTN (for which prices can fluctuate wildly) are completely and utterly irrelevant.

 

If you do not understand why, please do everyone a favor and sign up for a remedial economics class at your local community college learning annex.

 

[Mountebank]

I can attest to this observation. I agree that yesterday was simply too good, but today is harsher than before.

 

Prior to yesterday, I saw a return on my Slicing missions. Not an immense one, but some profit at least. I accomplished this by maximizing my chances: 400 Slicing, only doing Rich or Bountiful missions (or Slicing missions when I found them), and making sure to only use companions with affection over 5k. On average I'd see a decent profit but nothing brow-raising.

 

Today, however, I'm seeing losses more than I'm seeing profits. For example:

 

Mission cost of 2025, premium (green) lockbox reward: 1946.

Mission cost of 1930, premium (green) lockbox reward: 1867.

 

These observations are over about 3 hours today. I'm getting profits sometimes, but probably about only every 3 or 4 out of 10 boxes (unless I crit).

 

This seems a bit much of a nerf now in response to yesterday's buff.

 

Also, can our companions' replies when returning with missions be at least a little accurate? I'm tired of them saything things like, "What can I say? Bad day at work." and seeing a surprisingly good reward, and then to turn around and say something like, "Results, as promised." and come back with a loss or an outright failure.

 

Loving the game still, but rather frustrated with:

 

1) the stealth buffing, nerfing. I mean c'mon; there are patch notes for a reason.

 

2) the ambiguity and unreliableness of current Slicing system.

[MnMrMustard]

Again, comparisons of straight credit rewards to what you can make selling items to other players on the GTN (for which prices can fluctuate wildly) are completely and utterly irrelevant.

 

If you do not understand why, please do everyone a favor and sign up for a remedial economics class at your local community college learning annex.

 

 

I find your lack of faith in my internets disturbing...

 

The lowest point in each material's cost-curve would still have a higher profit percentage than slicing.

 

Did they go over cost-curves with you at your community college?

[Putok]

Again, comparisons of straight credit rewards to what you can make selling items to other players on the GTN (for which prices can fluctuate wildly) are completely and utterly irrelevant.

 

If you do not understand why, please do everyone a favor and sign up for a remedial economics class at your local community college learning annex.

 

 

An economy where money can be created at will by anyone in large quantities for flying around on a spaceship for a few minutes is not even remotely comparable to an economy with a fiat currency controlled by a central bank.

 

You might want to take your own advice there. Unlike most economies in the real world, every single person in the game has very direct control over the money supply...

[MnMrMustard]

Let's get the obvious thing out of the way - slicing was giving too much money, and this needed to be corrected. A bug snuck through launch that resulted in some lockboxes giving out far more cash than our magic spreadsheets said they were supposed to give. The end result was that our economy was getting flooded with credits, which risks causing massive inflation in the economy. Players were abandoning other crafting skills for slicing which was causing the problem to feed on itself. Economic issues are tricky - once you let the horse out of the barn, it's pretty hard to coax it back in - and it's important that the dev team jump on these issues as quickly as we can.

 

Once we corrected the issue, the math started to fall into line, which is to say the metrics of our economy started to match what we expected slicers to have. It's important to note that, while slicing was always meant to be a little more casual, and less wedded to the other crafting skills than the other gathering skills, it was never meant to be a Magic Money Machine. Slicing is still profitable, I promise - the metrics are showing that slicers still do quite well - but it's no longer profitable to the degree where you were a moron if you chose any other Crew Skill.

 

Are we done balancing? This being an MMO, you're never done balancing, and we will continue to monitor Slicing and the other endgame skills to ensure they are fulfilling their stated purpose inside the game mechanics, useful to the players who choose them, and healthy contributors to the economy as a whole. It is not unlikely that all Crew Skills will get further adjustments once the game and economy has matured and metrics points out a strong need. Once this happens, I promise we'll make a better effort to let players know the rationale of the changes we're making as we're making them.

 

 

I'm curious why you guys buffed this again and then nerfed it the next day. Was this a test to see what we would do?

[Helishron]

OK so everyone is saying that slicing is broke and I have seen countless charts showing how each mission pans out to an average credits per minute. What I have not seen is a real world example of slicing during a game session. As I had some homework today and was curious about it I decided to answer this question.

 

Methodology:

 

 

1. for 7 hours 19 minutes I did nothing but lock box missions with three companions. (Remember I’m doing homework at the moment so it’s not as lame as it sounds)
   
2. I did only Rich and Bountiful mission’s level 33-40 and level 41-48
   
3. If there were two rich or two bountiful missions I took the more expensive of the two missions
   
4. I always chose a bountiful or rich mission of the highest level available and always chose bountiful first.
   
5. I did no questing or any other activity that would earn me or cost me money for the entire time period.
   
6. Missions were being constantly done for the entire length of time with no more than a 3 minute pause between some missions
   
7. as I was more concerned about profit I did not write down how much all the missions cost…I seem to remember I was around 170k when I was done with the 50 missions.
   
8. I sold the 11 mission/schematic (M/S) drops on the GTN for 2x the networks base asking price. I.E. when you go to sell an item it will populate the buyout price spot with a number, I simply doubled this number.
   

 

Stats:

 

 

Start 11:00:00 AM

 

End 6:19:00 PM

 

Time in mins 439

 

Start Money 251,984

 

 

 

Lock box count 50

 

M/S drops 11

 

 

 

Profit from lock boxes 17,248

 

Credits per minute 39.29

 

Credits per hour 2357.36

 

Average profit per mission 344.96

 

 

 

Profit from M/S drops 53,872

 

Credits per minute 122.72

 

Credits per hour 7362.92

 

Average profit per mission 1077.44

 

 

 

 

 

Profit M/S drops + Lock boxes 71,120

 

Total credits per minuet 162.00

 

Total credits per hour 9720.27

 

Average profit per mission 1422.4

 

 

 

Ok so these are just the number I have after doing this and I will allow you to make your own judgments about what it all means to you. I also realize that selling things in the GTN is chaotic, can take hours or days, and one could probably make a lot more money off some of the stuff I sold than I did.

 

The burning question is if slicing is profitable over time. It seems by looking at the above information one can make approximately $2,357 credits per hour without selling items or 7,362 credits per hour if you do.

[Drewser]

OK so everyone is saying that slicing is broke and I have seen countless charts showing how each mission pans out to an average credits per minute. What I have not seen is a real world example of slicing during a game session. As I had some homework today and was curious about it I decided to answer this question.

 

Methodology:

 

1. for 7 hours 19 minutes I did nothing but lock box missions with three companions. (Remember I’m doing homework at the moment so it’s not as lame as it sounds)
   
2. I did only Rich and Bountiful mission’s level 33-40 and level 41-48
   
3. If there were two rich or two bountiful missions I took the more expensive of the two missions
   
4. I always chose a bountiful or rich mission of the highest level available and always chose bountiful first.
   
5. I did no questing or any other activity that would earn me or cost me money for the entire time period.
   
6. Missions were being constantly done for the entire length of time with no more than a 3 minute pause between some missions
   
7. as I was more concerned about profit I did not write down how much all the missions cost…I seem to remember I was around 170k when I was done with the 50 missions.
   
8. I sold the 11 mission/schematic (M/S) drops on the GTN for 2x the networks base asking price. I.E. when you go to sell an item it will populate the buyout price spot with a number, I simply doubled this number.
   

Stats:

Start 11:00:00 AM

End 6:19:00 PM

Time in mins 439

Start Money 251,984

 

Lock box count 50

M/S drops 11

 

Profit from lock boxes 17,248

Credits per minute 39.29

Credits per hour 2357.36

Average profit per mission 344.96

 

Profit from M/S drops 53,872

Credits per minute 122.72

Credits per hour 7362.92

Average profit per mission 1077.44

 

 

Profit M/S drops + Lock boxes 71,120

Total credits per minuet 162.00

Total credits per hour 9720.27

Average profit per mission 1422.4

 

Ok so these are just the number I have after doing this and I will allow you to make your own judgments about what it all means to you. I also realize that selling things in the GTN is chaotic, can take hours or days, and one could probably make a lot more money off some of the stuff I sold than I did.

 

The burning question is if slicing is profitable over time. It seems by looking at the above information one can make approximately $2,357 credits per hour without selling items or 7,362 credits per hour if you do.

 

I am very curious what missions/schematics you got because on my server I have been able to sell them for far more than that. Unless of course you were very unlucky and 11 cybertech schematics.

[Helishron]

I am very curious what missions/schematics you got because on my server I have been able to sell them for far more than that. Unless of course you were very unlucky and 11 cybertech schematics.

 

Unfortunately i did not keep a log of that or the missions i was doing. I also was not trying to play the market so to speak so my money for missions/schematics was a bit lower than it could have been. Mostly just wanted an easy base line...or a 'this is about the least you can expect to make' comparison. Things as you highlight can get dicey when using the GTM

[ArmoredJuneBug]

Again, comparisons of straight credit rewards to what you can make selling items to other players on the GTN (for which prices can fluctuate wildly) are completely and utterly irrelevant.

Credits == credits.

 

As has already been said, even the worst-case returns on materials is better.

The burning question is if slicing is profitable over time.

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.

[Fubbik]

Again, comparisons of straight credit rewards to what you can make selling items to other players on the GTN (for which prices can fluctuate wildly) are completely and utterly irrelevant.

 

If you do not understand why, please do everyone a favor and sign up for a remedial economics class at your local community college learning annex.

 

 

Actually that's not true, and here's why:

 

The monetary cycle in MMORPGs isn't a closed environment. Credits will enter the economy in several ways, through quests, killing mobs etc. As more people reach 50, the influx of credits into the economy will continue to increase, causing inflation. This is of course pretty self-explanatory.

This inflation will increase the "value" of commodity when traded between players, increasing gain for suppliers, and yes, this has no relevance as to how "good" slicing should be in a strict sense. (money-sinks counteract the inflation, but are currently not even close to making it balance)

 

BUT, the mere fact that inflation exists will diminish the actual value of credits per se, and as slicing is a nominal gain of credits, it's relative usefulness will decrease as inflation increases. Yes, slicing does accelerate inflation as well, which gives a catch 22 and hence a gamedesign that was poor from the get-go.

 

TL:DR: Slicing will only get worse as time passes and it's already extremely crappy.

[keepster]

for a few days it seemed like they buffed it a bit but it now feels like they nerfed it again

[frankiethefisch]

If people are using one of their three crewskill slots to have this profession, it should net them profit regardless of which difficulty mission they are running. I have been keeping track of the missions I have been running and the cost/return analysis is simply pathetic. If i wanted to lose credits constantly, I would buy things off the trade network for the highest price per item, at least that way the credits would be going to another player. Currently, if I run a slicing mission, I am losing credits on a regular basis when I am SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETING the missions. I started playing just after the "slicing glory days" and understand from playing other MMOs that you can't give one profession an advantage over the others. However, the current slicing skill results in a loss overall, meaning my crewskill, that should be helping me to be able to purchase the things other people are able to craft with their crewskills, is actually holding me back from buying their items. I understand you can't let slicing outshine other crewskills, but there was no reason to reduce it to the point of loss. Edited January 23, 2012 by frankiethefisch

[Dregolas]

They nerfed this way too much. I liked that I could make money without having to go through the AH. It was nice to bypass crafting and selling, and just go straight for the money. Sure slicing needed a bit of a nerf in the beginning. But this is just way too much. All I really use it for now is for the random slicing nodes I come across while questing. I barely send my crew on missions anymore.

[Skuldar]

There seem to be two distinct camps regarding the Slicing missions. One camp thinks Slicing lockbox missions don't have any reason for existing if they don't give at least a small profit if successful. The other camp thinks their main reason is for leveling the skill and therefore a profit is a bonus that is borderline unfair since profit comes already from harvesting Slicing nodes. Bridging that mindset gap seems to be impossible, from what I've seen in these forums.

 

From my viewpoint, Slicing is destined to be a short-term skill. It already declines in purpose at high levels when questing and grinding make Slicing returns mostly insignificant. This was true even before the extreme nerf. It functions as a useful leveling skill, where it can give extra income when people need it the most at middle levels. After that point, it gradually fades. It would seem the best course is to take it while leveling then drop it for something with better scaling and prospect.

 

I am struggling to see the vision Bioware had for Slicing. It seems like a shortsighted skill, both because they failed to foresee the potential that they felt needed a massive nerf, and because it still fails to have a long-term purpose.

[PhoR]

An economy where money can be created at will by anyone in large quantities for flying around on a spaceship for a few minutes is not even remotely comparable to an economy with a fiat currency controlled by a central bank.

 

You might want to take your own advice there. Unlike most economies in the real world, every single person in the game has very direct control over the money supply...

 

Actually that's not true, and here's why:

The monetary cycle in MMORPGs isn't a closed environment.

 

 

Who said anything about comparisons between the in-game economy and real world economies?

 

I specifically referenced a remedial economics class, where the only subjects covered will be the basic concepts of supply and demand. These concepts apply ingame just as they do in the real world regardless of the state of the economy (closed vs open).

 

Let me try to spell it out for you with an example:

Say I'm a "gold farmer". Which of these activities could I use to break the economy:

 

1) Complete space missions over and over, requiring a lot of concentration and time. You can pretty much only do this with a single character since it requires your attention the whole time, so there is a pretty hard cap on the amount of credits each person can make in a day with this method.

 

2) Have 100 accounts, automate a process to log into each consecutively, send companions on credit missions, log out. By the time I am done with each of my accounts the process can start over, collect the credits, mail them to a central "bank" character, and send my companions on more missions. I can do this with lvl 1 characters that never leave the homeworld and don't need to supply each of them with a stock of credits to pay for the mission costs. This can be scaled up pretty large.

 

3) Same as above, but let's use Underworld Trading instead. Not only is this much more complicated because I must constantly supply each alt with enough credits to pay for the missions, but if I flood the GTN with metal, the prices will plummet as supply far exceeds demand. So to keep profits high, I need to trickle my resources onto the GTN, which essentially caps the effective number of missions I can run per server.

 

 

For the average player, slicing "credit box" missions simply cannot be tuned to make as much money as other mission based skills because the mechanics behind it could easily be exploited to ruin the economy.

 

What we SHOULD be asking for are buffs to slicing nodes gathered in hostile territory (especially around endgame daily quests) and an overhaul of augment missions, which should be a major draw for slicing but are currently a complete joke.

Edited January 23, 2012 by PhoR

[Volki]

3rd vault slot costs 400,000 credits and speeder ability at level 40 costs about 250,000 credits.

 

How do they expect us to pay for this? Mindless grinding?

[Litefire]

Who said anything about comparisons between the in-game economy and real world economies?

 

I specifically referenced a remedial economics class, where the only subjects covered will be the basic concepts of supply and demand. These concepts apply ingame just as they do in the real world regardless of the state of the economy (closed vs open).

 

Let me try to spell it out for you with an example:

Say I'm a "gold farmer". Which of these activities could I use to break the economy:

 

1) Complete space missions over and over, requiring a lot of concentration and time. You can pretty much only do this with a single character since it requires your attention the whole time, so there is a pretty hard cap on the amount of credits each person can make in a day with this method.

 

2) Have 100 accounts, automate a process to log into each consecutively, send companions on credit missions, log out. By the time I am done with each of my accounts the process can start over, collect the credits, mail them to a central "bank" character, and send my companions on more missions. I can do this with lvl 1 characters that never leave the homeworld and don't need to supply each of them with a stock of credits to pay for the mission costs. This can be scaled up pretty large.

 

3) Same as above, but let's use Underworld Trading instead. Not only is this much more complicated because I must constantly supply each alt with enough credits to pay for the missions, but if I flood the GTN with metal, the prices will plummet as supply far exceeds demand. So to keep profits high, I need to trickle my resources onto the GTN, which essentially caps the effective number of missions I can run per server.

 

 

For the average player, slicing "credit box" missions simply cannot be tuned to make as much money as other mission based skills because the mechanics behind it could easily be exploited to ruin the economy.

 

What we SHOULD be asking for are buffs to slicing nodes gathered in hostile territory (especially around endgame daily quests) and an overhaul of augment missions, which should be a major draw for slicing but are currently a complete joke.

 

 

1. Space mission are static spawns, the asteroids fighters, stations, turrets, shields, bridge are all in the same place every time... No randomness completely predictable..

 

2. requires level 7 and a companion to do slicing, a lvl 1 isnt going to farm credits with slicing.

 

3. UT/TH you finally have a point here that is valid.

 

 

Sorry trying to use TOS violating RMTers as a reason to make a crew skill subpar is a poor argument, and once bioware saw all those credits trickling to 1 char from 100 accounts logging in and out from 1 ip address and system hardware id.. ya that account is going bye bye.

 

Ways to fix slicing since everyone is opposed to just increasing the credits from the lockboxes.

 

cut augment mission times by 2/3rd, increase crit chance on augments by 20% and add rich and bountiful lvl 6 augment missions.

 

Add a new mission that returns an Augmentor Device(lvl 6 mission 1.5 hour 2.2k cred) that will add an augment slot to any piece of gear,

 

Add in more Discoverable 340 Mission schematics and increase the drop rate slightly when doing augment missions(vs a lower drop chance on lockboxes

).

[ArmoredJuneBug]

Which of these activities could I use to break the economy:

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.

[PhoR]

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.

 

And what's to stop me from GTN trading WHILE running scripted slicing missions?

(Hint: you can do both, so comparing them against each other is "Absolutely irrelevant" as you like to put it)

 

You keep saying it's irrelevant, but the developer seems to agree with me and they have FAR more information about the current state of the economy than anyone else.

 

If it were really as bad as you make it out to be, there would have already been a mass exodus away from slicing. (yet another piece of evidence that doesn't support your hypothesis)

 

At this point, can we at least agree that Augment missions need a serious redesign?

Edited January 24, 2012 by PhoR

[Litefire]

If it were really as bad as you make it out to be, there would have already been a mass exodus away from slicing. (yet another piece of evidence that doesn't support your hypothesis)

 

At this point, can we at least agree that Augment missions need a serious redesign?

 

 

uhh ya there has been a large exodus from slicing. most of the people dropped it for bioanalysis and whatever their trade skill was for biochem.

[PhoR]

uhh ya there has been a large exodus from slicing. most of the people dropped it for bioanalysis and whatever their trade skill was for biochem.

 

Can you link me to your census data?

[Litefire]

Can you link me to your census data?

 

go look at your GTN and see how few mission schematics are listed compared to prenerf.

 

and then see how many people are posting biomats on the GTN... 27 pages of mats on my server.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Litefire