Slicing post-nerf, please look at the numbers BW

[DubsPro]

Somehow I never see you people talk about the amount of money you make selling schematics... I know I make a LOT of money selling mine...more than enough to compensate the loss on some missions...

[Jedicc]

Greetings folks!

 

The previous version of this thread has exceeded our post threshold, and we have recreated it for continued discussion.

 

As a gentle reminder to everyone, please remember the following:

 

Insults - Please do not resort to or use them in any way in your posts. Posts should be productive, not destructive.

Trolling - Please do not post messages that are purposefully designed to provoke, antagonize, or otherwise elicit a negative emotional response.

Agree to Disagree - Be respectful of others' viewpoints even if they are opposite of your own. Discuss disagreements constructively.

Flag, Don't Fight - Utilize the Flag Post feature to report possible rules violations, rather than responding to or fighting them.

Ignoring - If you feel you simply cannot get along with another community member, please place them on your ignore list.

 

 

Thank you!

 

• Insults - Nothing personal, but it's pointless to argue among ourselves when game designers refuse to communicate with players beside some simple copy and paste statements. I think many of us feel offended from this silent treatment.
  

• Trolling - We are getting no response from the BW/EA about the current state of crew skills. All we got are some simple copy and paste statements. Apparently, we trolls are being trolled.
  

• Agree to Disagree - You heard our voices. Now we would like to hear your voices. Agree or disagree.
  

• Flag, Don't Fight - I wish I can flag all those copy and paste statements. Sigh...
  

• Ignoring - Enough said. There is no response from the game designers after thousands and thousands of posts from the community. We are on the ignoring list.
  

 

This game still need a lot of works. It feels like it's still in its beta stage. Overall, it's a good game but it needs a lot of works.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Jedicc

[DenverRalphy]

Anybody that complains about slow respawn times on slicing nodes etc.. is grossly exaggerating. What are you doing? Sitting at a node point and waiting for respawns? That's crazy.

 

I can't go anywhere without spotting a slicing node somewhere within reasonable distance, and I'm not exactly playing on an empty server.

 

The only people that can't gain a respectable amount of money simply through slicing nodes are those that are either just too lazy and only run missions, or are trying to become rich with a lvl 10 alt that just made it to the fleet and expects that toon to fund their main.

[ThatJerkPat]

Somehow I never see you people talk about the amount of money you make selling schematics... I know I make a LOT of money selling mine...more than enough to compensate the loss on some missions...

 

Schematics sell for under 2k on my server or don't sell at all. Augment market is similarly dead. Not to mention the loot tables giving the same damn speeder/kuat drive yards missile pack over and over again. And of course the issue that once you get a schematic you no longer need to buy another, so there is a limited market.

 

Do something to drive the price up on augments (make them better, make more gear with augment slots) then make the cost to remove augments more than a profitable amount they could be sold for and that'd go a long way to making slicing worth something.

[ThatJerkPat]

Anybody that complains about slow respawn times on slicing nodes etc.. is grossly exaggerating. What are you doing? Sitting at a node point and waiting for respawns? That's crazy.

 

I can't go anywhere without spotting a slicing node somewhere within reasonable distance, and I'm not exactly playing on an empty server.

 

I play on a very high pop server and only play when grouped with my friends. Other gathering skills have a node respawn in ~5 minutes. So we can clear a zone and they can gather on the way in/out. With slicing the nodes take 4 times as long and we all have it, so its not really great supplemental income for the person that only gets 1 node. Slicing as a gathering skill is hampered by playing in a group, which is the point of mmos.

 

The other gathering skills generate new nodes by killing enemies so there will always be like 10x as many nodes available to a group.

[ryancwn]

Somehow I never see you people talk about the amount of money you make selling schematics... I know I make a LOT of money selling mine...more than enough to compensate the loss on some missions...

 

Schematic would be selling for a lot more if the schematic is a one time use only. The schematic loot table from slicing is very limited and I get more schematic variation from UWT mission on top of mats or gift compare to a net lost credit box.

[Spiritinblack]

I play on a very high pop server and only play when grouped with my friends. Other gathering skills have a node respawn in ~5 minutes. So we can clear a zone and they can gather on the way in/out. With slicing the nodes take 4 times as long and we all have it, so its not really great supplemental income for the person that only gets 1 node. Slicing as a gathering skill is hampered by playing in a group, which is the point of mmos.

 

The other gathering skills generate new nodes by killing enemies so there will always be like 10x as many nodes available to a group.

 

From what I have learned nodes are on roughly a 10 min. spawn. ALL nodes. I run routes. ( you loot a node and sit and wait for it to respawn. then move on to a different one. rinse repeat till you can learn the times so you can do a route to get the most out of it.) It takes alot of time to learn it. I have watched ALL nodes respawn at around the same time. ( give or take the few seconds it took to loot it ).

 

Now for what I did not really want to get into. Slicing is NOT broke. This is more of a learn to play type thing. ( sorry if this bothers anyone but it is the truth. And, well, the truth usually bothers people.)

 

It has been posted by numerous people. It is on the internet to find. I make alot of money while just sitting arount on the fleet. It's called pick the right missions. I know people will come flame.... say they lost 53478209-7239-573489 amounts of money from it. And you are prolly right. It is because you did not pick the right missions.

 

There is an awesome spreadsheet on it. pre-nerf and post-nerf. Look it up and learn it. It will make you money.

 

Now the real money. GATHER the nodes. If you just run around.... gather while sending companions on missions you will make a ton. The higher lvl you get ( personal lvl of char) the more you make ( duh ).

 

I don't want my post to turn to a flame. ( it will they always do). From my experience, I can make roughly 20k in 10 minutes from gathering the nodes. And that is not really trying hard.

[hillltrot]

The Farming skill, LOTRO. Same problem. I don't think slicing should get more "money" in the lockboxes. Creates too much inflation. Inflation is bad.

 

In fact, another nerf wouldn't be bad.

[Urkanan]

Ok, seeing as this is the 3rd thread about this, I am gonna try to wrap my head around this:

 

Most people complaining about the slicing nerf seem to either

 

a) have picked slicing because they dont care for crafts, and slicing is suposed to be there for them non-crafter players

 

b) have picked slicing because it was the best money maker

 

c) have picked slicing simply cause they like it

 

 

So after the nerf, my conclussions are:

 

a) if you want minimal involvement in crafting, you are still getting money by clicking a [Free Credits] skill on a 5 minute cooldown. how can anybody demand the same benefits other players get for putting in the effort required to level armormech?

 

b) if you wanna have the best money maker, repick whatever the best seller is nowadays. YOU ARE NOT STUCK WITH SLICING. Please, simply do not give everyone grief because your [Free Credits] button suddenly got smaller

 

c) it is not like you can't make the same stuff you made before... "Oh but I get less gold doing it!". Hmmm... you sure you don't belong in section b)?

 

 

 

Please people, get a grip with Slicing already, and with all the BUAAAAAAHHH DEVs ARE NOT EVEN RESPONDING!!! too. Slicing still makes money, just not the crazy amounts it did. If something else is making more than slicing, go for it and quit whining.

 

Also Dev's stated WHY they nerf slicing, and seeing as how 90% of the complainers jhaven't even bothered to do any sort of math before starting the rant about Slicing losing money CONSISTENTLY (lol)...

 

 

YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL Biowarer is not responding; eventually they would have to shut some mouths with hard math, and showing your customers how off target (aka plainly short sighted) they are is hardly a good customer relations policy...

[Drewser]

Thats 60 mission hours. Total real time is 20 hours. I ran rich tier 5-3, bountiful tier 4, abundant tier 6-4. Running rich tier 5 and other tier 6 missions is required if you want to gain level 340 mission drops. Please, tell me your winning strategy for slicing and I will track it for a day and see where it comes out.

 

So did you run my system tonight?

 

I made over 70k with slicing tonight from 7-9:45 running as I described earlier while doing dailies. Would have been more but did dailies with another slicer in my guild so we rotated every box.

[Dorkfrey]

YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL Biowarer is not responding; eventually they would have to shut some mouths with hard math, and showing your customers how off target (aka plainly short sighted) they are is hardly a good customer relations policy...

 

The fact that you think enlightening an unknowing customer - is a *bad* thing makes me want to disregard everything you've written.

 

If Bioware had explained a few facts/figures - and had discourse with us, I suspect this topic would have been done with ages ago.

 

The fact that pre-nerf slicing income at 400 skill and level 50, was laughable to the amount of credits that are generated by level 50's in the course of "normal" play - makes me think there's no way that they could give "the hard truth" or even "math" about it.

 

The single biggest problem we've had, is people at startup, who didn't know entirely what they were doing with crafting - who often made losses - who saw slicers making bank, and flipped out.

 

They could not see - that their actions - "could" generate vastly larger sums of credits than they had currently - and only saw "free money". There's a reason why I'm sticking with Artifice/Arch/TH (because I think Bioware will sort out the professions into some kind of balance eventually) - and that's because the "net credit worth" of the results of my missions, generates me more than slicing's "free press" could buy me if I had to purchase the things I generate otherwise.

 

For example: Brocart Filament Missions (my rank 4 recipes)... Mission costs say 1300 for a Rich one. I get between 18-35 Filament returned to me. To buy the filament off the vendor costs 150c per. If the mission succeeds, I haven't made less than 1400c "profit" on what's a relatively quick mission. Highest "profit" or rather, expense saved on that mission has been 3900 credits. Thirties aren't unusual returns on that though.

 

Okay - now if I Vendor off the Brocart immediately, I make a loss, however, if I use it to make something, or sell it on the GTN cheaper than the vendor sells it for, I can still make vastly higher profit than pre-nerf Slicing could. And Because those who had Slicing for the credits, they had to "buy" materials, because they were missing a tradeskills for self-sustain, and if they ONLY had Gathering skills + Slicing, then if they wanted to buy shiny purples, they had to pay for them, which covered the cost of RE's after a few sales - now Slicing earns less per hour than my level 18 Crafter who just missions and vendors his stuff.

 

If you look at all the missions - they can do this, and benefit the crafter far more than "free printing press" ever did, but all people saw was the "credits" and spazzed. And as a result, it affected the flourishing economy badly.

 

Also - I don't think you've got your head around the problem or ramifications of it in the slightest. That's okay - you're not the only one in this thread either. And no - My main and blokey with cash and credits isn't a Slicer (I have one - but he's barely played at all, and I don't bother slicing with him either - since it's not worth the time/effort mostly - if I want to make bank, or be profitable, I do Scavenging or UWT with him).

[LadyRaven]

Indeed. 1-3 green biochem compounds which are easily harvested off a corpse don't turn much profit trying to sell to another player.

 

My biochem wants to play on your server!

 

Or I could give up biochem and become rich, but no. I wanted at least one character with a crafting skill. sigh

 

As far as slicing goes. It seems to not be very worthwhile. Yes, I know I don't have to do missions, but many (and I do mean many) nodes I come across are borked. I can't believe there are that many people just using them for skillups and not taking the credits, that would be silly yes?

[Cyrosage]

Ok, seeing as this is the 3rd thread about this, I am gonna try to wrap my head around this:

 

Most people complaining about the slicing nerf seem to either

 

a) have picked slicing because they dont care for crafts, and slicing is suposed to be there for them non-crafter players

 

b) have picked slicing because it was the best money maker

 

c) have picked slicing simply cause they like it

 

 

So after the nerf, my conclussions are:

 

a) if you want minimal involvement in crafting, you are still getting money by clicking a [Free Credits] skill on a 5 minute cooldown. how can anybody demand the same benefits other players get for putting in the effort required to level armormech?

 

b) if you wanna have the best money maker, repick whatever the best seller is nowadays. YOU ARE NOT STUCK WITH SLICING. Please, simply do not give everyone grief because your [Free Credits] button suddenly got smaller

 

c) it is not like you can't make the same stuff you made before... "Oh but I get less gold doing it!". Hmmm... you sure you don't belong in section b)?

 

 

 

Please people, get a grip with Slicing already, and with all the BUAAAAAAHHH DEVs ARE NOT EVEN RESPONDING!!! too. Slicing still makes money, just not the crazy amounts it did. If something else is making more than slicing, go for it and quit whining.

 

Also Dev's stated WHY they nerf slicing, and seeing as how 90% of the complainers jhaven't even bothered to do any sort of math before starting the rant about Slicing losing money CONSISTENTLY (lol)...

 

 

YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL Biowarer is not responding; eventually they would have to shut some mouths with hard math, and showing your customers how off target (aka plainly short sighted) they are is hardly a good customer relations policy...

 

Seriously..

It's the third thread. You don't care, but obviously lots of others do. Why are you even posting, that surely wasn't helpful.

 

5 minute cooldown.. because generalizations surely help you look informed. Max level quests average 30 minutes at roughly 1400 credits a piece. They generally return 1000-1300, 1600 if really lucky! Some people have better luck (RNG), but it seems most do not.

 

Expecting a mission that is supposed to return cash to return more cash than invested for 30 minutes of time is not as absurd as you think, check the other 2000+ posts prior to this one.

 

We do not expect the same benefits as an armormech. We don't get armor. We buy your armor. Now we don't profit from missions. So why are missions there?

 

OH YEAH! IT'S THERE FOR SKILL-UPS as some random guy stated repeatedly a few pages ago. I have a whole set of missions available at lvl 400. While it is great for a random guy to assert that the intention of the missions is for skill-ups, that is very possibly completely and utterly false. BW never supported or hinted at that claim. Slicing missions should probably make a small-decent profit. All of them. We should not have to run a couple specific missions because someone else ran them and said statistically they have less loss. We should not have to run lower level missions because someone else said they statistically have less loss either. They should all be viable with the same chance at failure as all other missions. Difference is, 1400 credits spent on a scavenging mission that doesn't fail will yield a crafting material. It can be used. Slicing mission that doesn't fail yields umm less credits? They can be used too. But so could the 1400 I paid originally.. You won't get part of a crafting material.. you'll get all or keep your 1400. I keep my 1400 or my 1200..?

 

Nobody is stuck with slicing. Nobody is stuck with biochem or armormech. Point? Biochem makes great items. Armormech makes armor (if questing gear is better, that's another thread entirely). Slicing is supposed to make credits. A profit is expected. Vast riches came to those who exploited with multiple characters. It was also ridiculous for low levels characters because no level cap was implemented. I just paid 25k for class skills on level up. You know how long it would take to cover that with slicing missions at roughly 200 credits profit x30minutes each? I could theoretically craft a max level purple armor and pay for it in one shot. I could fail one slicing mission and require 5 more missions to cover the cost of that one since it only involves credits.

 

You say most people did no math. One day I made a bunch of credits from slicing. Patch downloaded. I kept slicing. I lost a huge chunk of credits in one play session, checked my log, saw the return<cost and with the few failed missions, lost thousands. Backed off harder missions, leveled all the way, still seeing almost no profit at all. Keep trying, keep getting back little or nothing. Actually, if you look at the other posts, MANY people have tested, many people stated their findings. Sorry we didn't throw in some differential equations and provide tutoring to those who need it so everyone could reverse engineer the game code to see the MATH.

 

You lost all credibility when you stated the people should be thankful that 2000+ posts have not received an official response. Most people are not saying slicing is not profitable. Most are saying the missions are not providing a reasonable return. There are tons of slicing nodes that provide good credits. That's why I kept slicing. The missions do still suck and currently make no sense. There are missions for augments, they return augments. Great. Most missions are for credits. They should be removed or buffed a little. Otherwise, they make no sense. Congratulations on missing the entire point of the thread(s).

 

Haters gonna hate. Please do it in another thread so the rest of us can provide constructive feedback and provide our suggestions.

 

Speaking of which. My suggestion: Buff it some, implement a level cap. Since retroactive level cap is probably asking a lot to implement, just buff it enough for all missions to be relevant, enough for max level missions to be the ones a lvl 400 slicer would want to run, enough that a lvl 50 character would actually want to run slicing missions instead of something.. anything else.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Cyrosage

[Aesrei]

Honestly, it would make sense if a player's level had to at least equal the Mission Level of a given task, then rebalance it so the top-level missions provide the best return-on-investment. Pulling numbers out of the air, call it 30-40 credits/hour. Still nowhere near the 100+ from pre-nerf, but enough to be respectable. With the level requirement, if a player wants to farm multiple characters they still can but the time investment would be substantial. As it should be.

[NostalGeek]

The last few pages are going to hell in a handbasket....

[Kuolema]

I have been playing since the 13th and took Synthweaving, Archeology, and Underworld trading. I leveled each to 400 and have had them that way till yesterday.

 

After using the proof to craft the 2 pieces of Rakata gear, I dropped all 3 and took, Bioalaysis, Biochem , and Slicing.

 

Why does anyone care?

 

Because all the people who are QQ about slicing getting nerfed need to just stop. Seriously, I spent multiple of Hundreds of Thousands of dollars to lvl my original 3 and make the best items I could at endgame, on a profession that was of great use to me but no real retail value to the community. At no time did I ever once make money.... at all.

 

With Slicing you make money, some times you loose but ultimately you make more than you lost.

 

that last part alone makes all the QQ laughable.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Kuolema

[xaoshaen]

I have been playing since the 13th and took Synthweaving, Archeology, and Underworld trading. I leveled each to 400 and have had them that way till yesterday.

 

After using the proof to craft the 2 pieces of Rakata gear, I dropped all 3 and took, Bioalaysis, Biochem , and Slicing.

 

Why does anyone care?

 

Because all the people who are QQ about slicing getting nerfed need to just stop. Seriously, I spent multiple of Hundreds of Thousands of dollars to lvl my original 3 and make the best items I could at endgame, on a profession that was of great use to me but no real retail value to the community. At no time did I ever once make money.... at all.

 

With Slicing you make money, some times you loose but ultimately you make more than you lost.

 

that last part alone makes all the QQ laughable.

 

 

If you couldn't make money with Underworld Trading, the problem wasn't with the crew skills. Having leveled Slicing, UWT, and Cybertech all to 400, UWT is by far the biggest money maker of the three. Its per hour yields are better than pre-nerf slicing. Currently I won't run Slicing missions unless I'm bored and fishing for schematics. Rank 2 and 3 UWT trading missions are far more profitable. If you happen to snag some Promethium or Mandalorian Iron...

 

The point you're missing in your lament is that of course it costs money to level Armormech or Cybertech: you GET something in return. With Slicing, the sole valuable product is credits. Once there's no significant profit margin, there's no reason to run missions. The only reason I haven't dropped it entirely is that picking up the occasional slicing node is still handy.

 

Once enough people stop running slicing missions, augment runs may show a profit, but right now those are also a credit sink overall.

[Cyrosage]

I have been playing since the 13th and took Synthweaving, Archeology, and Underworld trading. I leveled each to 400 and have had them that way till yesterday.

 

After using the proof to craft the 2 pieces of Rakata gear, I dropped all 3 and took, Bioalaysis, Biochem , and Slicing.

 

Why does anyone care?

 

Because all the people who are QQ about slicing getting nerfed need to just stop. Seriously, I spent multiple of Hundreds of Thousands of dollars to lvl my original 3 and make the best items I could at endgame, on a profession that was of great use to me but no real retail value to the community. At no time did I ever once make money.... at all.

 

With Slicing you make money, some times you loose but ultimately you make more than you lost.

 

that last part alone makes all the QQ laughable.

 

Why DOES anyone care? You still made gear. You wore the gear. You could have even sold it, who care about that. You made a thing that benefited your character.

 

Slicing is supposed to make money. And it does if you gather. The MISSIONS are severely lacking in returns. THAT'S what the OP posted about.

 

Again, you, like most of the haters (grats on "QQ" by the way, very mature!) miss the point. Nobody is crying that slicing makes no money. The missions don't make enough to make sense. If the whole point of slicing is to make money, why are the missions pointless? Yes, slicing is profitable if you gather nodes. Got it. Nobody ever said it wasn't profitable by clicking a node. Other missions yield crafting items, not take them from you. Slicing missions just take money from you.

 

Nobody harps on gathering nodes because that's not broke. This thread was feedback on slicing MISSIONS. Why do the haters never see that? Half the haters say suck it up (very constructive) or "you just gotta do certain lvl 4-5 missions, you guys are all dumb, look at the statistics haha! noob!" At lvl 400, I should be able to run the top missions with moderate profit, not breaking even, not gaining a mere 2000 credits and hour when they could be gathering stuff of value or that can be used. By stopping the "QQ," you imply we should just pretend the missions aren't there.

 

Or.. we could make a thread showing they aren't pulling their weight, fill it with suggestions and other feedback, accumulate over 2000 posts, wait for an official response, fight off the trolls, and keep the haters from overshadowing legitimate concerns of MANY players.

 

Your suggestion is great too though. Just laugh at the concerns of others posted in a forum, a place for feedback. No wait, no it wasn't.

[Medianoche]

Slicing is broken.

Don't pay attention to anything else anyone says anytime.

[Aesrei]

For a quick comparison, if harvesting nodes is supposed to make slicing worthwhile and missions are just for leveling, why don't other crafting missions cost materials instead of credits? If you ran an L1 Scagenging mission & had to pay in desh to run it, would you be satisfied with a miniscule return after investing perfectly good capital and waiting for it?

[prieestt]

I don't have a lot of numbers available to quantify what I'm about to say, but I think this slicing stuff has slowed down quite a bit because people are making money. I've been slicing everyday since the nerf and from before that, and I am constantly making money.

 

It's not anywhere NEAR what the older version used to make, but I make more than enough to buy whatever it is that I want now. Underworld Trading, Archaeology, Treasure Hunting, and such make a lot of money at the 300 and 340 mission levels for whatever reason, and by doing only Rich and Bountiful missions between levels 2-5,

 

I am either breaking even or making more. My companions aren't affectionate at all but I am making money for sure. I am only level 35, but when I get to 50 and slicing makes garbage money, there will be dailies where I'm told you can make a lot more money with a lot less time than slicing.

[xaoshaen]

Which is to say... slicing missions are essentially useless.

 

Do you know why UWT missions sell so well? Because the results are even more lucrative. I wasn't exaggerating when I said that UWT made more money for me than pre-nerf slicing. "Breaking even" on missions while leveling a skill that offers no other returns seems, well, useless.

[Emped]

please put slicing back to the original way it was , it will be good people will start buying stuff. thank you.

[Felfox]

Not that I expect this to get a response or make anyone see reason but I really would like to say a few things about slicing and crafting in general.

 

Slicing is not the problem, the problem lies in crafting in general, the ease of which very powerful gear can be attained at all levels of play and the inferiority of the crafting system in general.

 

As it stands, the best gear comes from commendations, fairly easy to do flashpoints and heroics. So easy is it in fact that there is no need for any craft in this game beyond biochem. The point of crafting is to make good gear for yourself and your friends so that you can stay on top of your game, and any extra gear you make can be sold to others that need it so that they can also stay on top of their game. This extra income, along with missioning naturally is then used to buy your skillups and any EXTRA money is then saved for future skillups, repairs, and that big shiny speeder you've had your eye on since the game started.

 

Now the thing about slicing is that it supposedly gives a ton of money, or at least it used to and so on. Slicing can still have a place in this game but people are looking at it as nothing more then a cash cow and then seem to complain to those with it that they should nerf it and that it causes inflation and blah blah. However, they're sorta right (the cash part anyway) As it stands, since every other skill is essentially useless or overshadowed by other easier gear in this game, slicing is the only real side skill worth taking because it lets you pick up the nickles and dimes lying around as you quest. That money wont be that great in the long run, but at least you can get it...

 

This is the other problem with the way people view it too as, they see it as nothing more then gathering money, that the purpose of an mmo is to gather money. Yes money sinks are really expensive in this game later on, but really, money is a useless commodity once you've made the journey, all that's left is repairs and buying some fancy super expensive item to show it off because you can. Did you need that gold plated speeder? probably not, could you afford it though? Sure why not, what else are you going to sink money into.

 

If the craft and game system was done properly, people would be crafting, and slicers would be paying for those expensive items because they can afford it, thus giving you more money to afford to craft more often to help other people alt and play. As it stands, more gear needs to become single use, mods need to gradually loose effectiveness as they get reused and reused. Commendation gear needs to not be so strong and people should be looking to deck themselves out with player gear more often so that money moves around more instead of going to NPCs. The economy won't inflate because this 'extra pocket change' will be circling to other player's and regular costs are so high anyway that it takes a LOT of pocket change to get into the profit zone while leveling.

 

 

 

Slicing is not a regular gathering skill. It doesn't directly assist anything at all and while you can get it from nodes, since the item you get from running slicing is -money- its a also a bartering tool to gain you what you would on mission skills. Slicing isn't limited to green crafting items essentially since you can trade it in for anything. However! Remember that taking slicing means LOSING your third crew skill, this means that you can either kiss your regular core gathering mats or your specialty super good mats goodbye UNLESS you're able to find someone selling it on the auction.

 

As such, taking slicing automatically handicaps your craft due to its reliance on others. Second, because of this, you must take into account that every 'extra' credit you pick up or mission to obtain is in direct competition with the recommended skill you're trying to replace, be it gather OR mission skill. That means that every time i get a lock box of 200 credits, that has to equal what i would have gotten from say, a scavenging node. And every time I obtain 1000+ 'extra' credits, they have to match about what people would sell their rare mission mats for on the auction. If I send a companion on a lock box mission, it shouldn't just be to break even and skill up... I should get enough money back to even out what someone would have payed to get their rare mats.

 

 

 

Final notes:

 

I took slicing for one reason, because my friends didn't. I took cybertech, friends went something else, essentially i didn't want:

 

1) to not be in competition mat wise with my friends.

2) wanted something different.

3) would be different and unique for flashpoint missions.

4) would assist my friends with extra schematics, missions and augs.

5) i'm horrible at the auction house and don't have the time to spend hours farming and still wanted to be helpful so thought i could just get stuff off the market with extra spending money.

 

Slicing is the jack of all, master of none skill, however, its so broken now that even if the crafting system wasn't a complete joke, it is so unhelpful that its only use is to collect extra pocket change as you level. The missions need to be much more useful or at least return other things as well. Hacking shouldn't just be about money, it should return you many more schematics, extra one time use items, things you can give to others, random mats, anything basically to just, help out the community and have things to sell.

 

Something I think that should be looked into, is that gathering and mission skills should have level caps. If you yourself aren't strong enough to venture out and get these items, neither should your crew. While this would sorta hurt other crafters too, it would help even out low level slicers a lot. Also, they could leave crafting skills without level gates though since technically its very -safe- to create items and they all have level gates anyway so at least you could have max level crafters that you just need to supply mats to with a high level gatherer.

 

I hope this helped to clear stuff up

Edited January 11, 2012 by Felfox

[Skuldar]

The fact that you think enlightening an unknowing customer - is a *bad* thing makes me want to disregard everything you've written.

 

If Bioware had explained a few facts/figures - and had discourse with us, I suspect this topic would have been done with ages ago.

 

The fact that pre-nerf slicing income at 400 skill and level 50, was laughable to the amount of credits that are generated by level 50's in the course of "normal" play - makes me think there's no way that they could give "the hard truth" or even "math" about it.

 

The single biggest problem we've had, is people at startup, who didn't know entirely what they were doing with crafting - who often made losses - who saw slicers making bank, and flipped out.

 

They could not see - that their actions - "could" generate vastly larger sums of credits than they had currently - and only saw "free money". There's a reason why I'm sticking with Artifice/Arch/TH (because I think Bioware will sort out the professions into some kind of balance eventually) - and that's because the "net credit worth" of the results of my missions, generates me more than slicing's "free press" could buy me if I had to purchase the things I generate otherwise.

 

For example: Brocart Filament Missions (my rank 4 recipes)... Mission costs say 1300 for a Rich one. I get between 18-35 Filament returned to me. To buy the filament off the vendor costs 150c per. If the mission succeeds, I haven't made less than 1400c "profit" on what's a relatively quick mission. Highest "profit" or rather, expense saved on that mission has been 3900 credits. Thirties aren't unusual returns on that though.

 

Okay - now if I Vendor off the Brocart immediately, I make a loss, however, if I use it to make something, or sell it on the GTN cheaper than the vendor sells it for, I can still make vastly higher profit than pre-nerf Slicing could. And Because those who had Slicing for the credits, they had to "buy" materials, because they were missing a tradeskills for self-sustain, and if they ONLY had Gathering skills + Slicing, then if they wanted to buy shiny purples, they had to pay for them, which covered the cost of RE's after a few sales - now Slicing earns less per hour than my level 18 Crafter who just missions and vendors his stuff.

 

If you look at all the missions - they can do this, and benefit the crafter far more than "free printing press" ever did, but all people saw was the "credits" and spazzed. And as a result, it affected the flourishing economy badly.

 

Also - I don't think you've got your head around the problem or ramifications of it in the slightest. That's okay - you're not the only one in this thread either. And no - My main and blokey with cash and credits isn't a Slicer (I have one - but he's barely played at all, and I don't bother slicing with him either - since it's not worth the time/effort mostly - if I want to make bank, or be profitable, I do Scavenging or UWT with him).

 

Great post!

 

Two things in particular have bothered me throughout this debacle:

 

1. The Slicing nerf came early and was very severe and did not seem to take into account the vastly diminished significance of Slicing income at higher levels. That latter point is what made Slicing still somewhat balanced prior to the nerf - you made great money at lower levels with minimal investment, but if you invested in another skill you could see that pay off later on and Slicing was left in the dust.

 

2. Official silence on this topic has been extremely frustrating. Just one single utterance about "balance". No numbers, no explanation of the mechanics or the growing danger they saw. No clarification of the purpose of Slicing or the credit box missions (which seem to have no reason to exist other than their potential credit profit). I wish they would stop treating us like children; it's insulting. Just give us the scoop and let us debate it from there, instead of leaving us to stew in endless speculation and paranoia.