Slicing post-nerf, please look at the numbers BW

[ohmslaw]

According to my data, I was actually losing money slicing, So at 400 slicing I dropped it for another skill. I truly believe this was their intention, to force players to drop slicing altogether to propagate other crafting and gathering needs.

 

Bottom line, They overshot when they nerfed, they know it, but they wont admit it.

[Ithylid]

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 its 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.

 

So, besides biochem, what are the other crew skills stated purpose in the game mechanics for end game? Or they are only leveling skills?

[dinwitt]

Players were abandoning other crafting skills for slicing which was causing the problem to feed on itself.

 

Eventually the cost of raw materials from abandoned gathering and mission crew skills would push slicers back into those skills, as the time to make enough credits to obtain those items would make the cost of remastering their old crew skill seem trivial. Which, thinking about it, is what's happening now, except faster because the reduced earnings from slicing has made the inflection point so much smaller.

 

And if people were actually choosing slicing over their one crafting crew skill, then thats a problem of crafting crew skills outside of biochem not actually being useful at level 50.

Edited January 12, 2012 by dinwitt

[Raddpuppy]

So is the complaint that you lost money on a mission that potentially advances your skill?

 

That happens to crafters all the time. I don't see the problem.

 

Yep but crafters can still profit from crafting. A slicer doesnt make as much. Im my guilds slicer for the short cuts in the FP's so i cannot craft on my own. luckily they all contribute to gearing me for my sacrifice. In return i also provide them with some awesome schematics. If you work with other people slicing isnt that bad but it would be nice to have half the play money our bio crafter has 20k per level 50 stim on our server. He is rolling in the credits. why not put slicing back to how it was and buff the other crafts. Then maybe everybody that doesnt slice will mind their own business. Oh wait, no they wont because people always have to complain about somthing.

[ArmoredJuneBug]

Let's get the obvious thing out of the way - slicing was giving too much money, and this needed to be corrected.

This wasn't obvious at all.

 

I suspect it's not what you intended but even pre-nerf it was easier to make credits from gathering professions and it still is.

 

Slicing was severely over-nerfed, for no other reason than the only purpose of the skill is to generate credits.

 

Again, that might not have been your intent (though how could it not be, when you get nothing else out of it!).

 

Sure, you have a chance of mission drops - as much every gathering/mission skill has a chance of bonus drops. The only thing worthwhile to come out of that are grade 5 and 6 Underworld Trading missions.

 

The rest you can hardly give away, at least on the servers I play on.

 

I don't particularly mind Slicing being pointless from a credit perspective, as far as ready cash goes anyway, but then something has to be added to the skill.

 

Augments are too much of a lottery to be worth it, I'm about as likely to end up with a level 47 premium-quality Presence Augment as I am with a level 50 artifact-quality Endurance/Defense/<primary stat> one.

 

Which means I'd have to price the desirable ones at 20-50k credits just to break even or make a moderate profit. Needless to say those aren't leaping off the shelves.

 

If I invested the same amount of time and credits running missions in, say, Underworld Trading directly I'd net vastly more ready credits from selling the mats and would likely end up with desirable schematics instead of undesirable missions.

 

I have one 400 Slicer and one 390-something, both stopped running missions in the skill post-nerf after it became apparent that it'd never be worth it compared to running gathering materials and sell the materials, or even craft what salable items there are and sell those.

 

Slicing needs to, at the very least, provide enough ready credits to be competitive with skills providing usable/salable crafting materials. Currently it's a far cry from doing that.

 

I realize that balance is a constant struggle in a MMO but the Slicing situation reeks of a controlled over-nerf to force people out of the skill as soon as possible. That was never necessary, since Slicing doesn't provide anything desirable except credits it would have sufficed with a rather minor reduction in credit gain at lower levels.

 

In addition, the missions seem broken since the only worthwhile missions to run seems to be Moderate/Abundant ones. Obviously it needs more extensive testing than what I've been able to do but higher-yield missions almost never break even while lower-yield ones does so in a small, but fairly consistent, way.

 

It's like the returned boxes provide pretty much the same amount of credits and missions chances.

 

As I said, I can't provide enough data for this on my own but surely the point must be that higher-yield missions are to be more desirable/profitable?

 

The certainly are with every other mission and gathering skill I've tried, and were with Slicing pre-nerf.

[Drewser]

Yep but crafters can still profit from crafting. A slicer doesnt make as much. Im my guilds slicer for the short cuts in the FP's so i cannot craft on my own. luckily they all contribute to gearing me for my sacrifice. In return i also provide them with some awesome schematics. If you work with other people slicing isnt that bad but it would be nice to have half the play money our bio crafter has 20k per level 50 stim on our server. He is rolling in the credits. why not put slicing back to how it was and buff the other crafts. Then maybe everybody that doesnt slice will mind their own business. Oh wait, no they wont because people always have to complain about somthing.

 

What stims are selling on your server for 20k each?

 

Just checked our GTN there was one purple level 50 Willpower stim (required Biochem300) listed and one level 40 purple stim listed.

 

Everything else was lower level and nothing was for over 10k. Doesn't look like much of market.

[Volki]

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.

 

 

Bull.

 

Slicing was nerfed because you fear people will advance too fast in their class and craft and that as a result you will lose some subscriptions sooner rather than later. You are pro-grinding. I just cancelled my subscription over your deceptive, untruthful post.

 

Bioware is now on my Sh*t List, just like SOE.

 

Nice way to shoot yourself in the leg.

 

Have a nice day.

[Volki]

Eventually the cost of raw materials from abandoned gathering and mission crew skills would push slicers back into those skills, as the time to make enough credits to obtain those items would make the cost of remastering their old crew skill seem trivial. Which, thinking about it, is what's happening now, except faster because the reduced earnings from slicing has made the inflection point so much smaller.

 

And if people were actually choosing slicing over their one crafting crew skill, then thats a problem of crafting crew skills outside of biochem not actually being useful at level 50.

 

Yeah, this Damion Schubert "damage control guy" is full of it.

 

It's insulting and a slap in the face the way he lies (since slicing was nerfed either on a lark or to make leveling a grind--to retain subscriptions). I cancelled my account.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Volki

[JeramieCrowe]

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.

 

As a slicer since Early Access, I have to say that this is absolutely right. The amount of money I was making before was embarrassing. It was nice, but it was embarrassing.

 

Now, I still make a profit. After all, I *NEVER* send companions to do gathering things, so my profit is 100%, just time cost, yet you can still profit if you choose to send a companion to slice.

 

I, for one, am extremely happy to see BioWare staying on top of the economy and dynamically involved with a dynamic system.

[Volksworgen]

A bug snuck through launch? bwahaha Are you kidding me? **** load of bugs snuck through launch, you can only pretend like the game is just fine for so long BW lol Edited January 12, 2012 by Volksworgen

[JeramieCrowe]

Yeah, this Damion Schubert "damage control guy" is full of it.

 

It's insulting and a slap in the face the way he lies (since slicing was nerfed either on a lark or to make leveling a grind--to retain subscriptions). I cancelled my account. He can suck you know what.

 

LOL! Damion Schubert the "damage control guy"?! You have no clue who he is, do you?

 

Fact: Slicing was fauceting too much flow into the economy.

 

Fact: It needed to be throttled back.

Edited January 12, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[JeramieCrowe]

A bug snuck through launch? bwahaha Are you kidding me? **** load of bugs snuck through launch, you can only pretend like the game is just fine for so long BW lol

 

The game is awesome. It's a good thing that those of us actually playing the game know this too much to buy into your little tirade.

[Volksworgen]

The game is awesome. It's a good thing that those of us actually playing the game know this too much to buy into your little tirade.

 

It's okay, you are one of the pretenders and this game is going to die because of pretenders like you. Not everyone is a die-hard SW fan and play the game just for the title even if it's broken. Some people can actually see what's going on with the game.

[ArmoredJuneBug]

Fact: Slicing was fauceting too much flow into the economy.

 

Fact: It needed to be throttled back.

I used to believe that too, feeling a little guilty about making so much money, until I actually started using my other skills.

 

Pre-nerf Slicing doesn't even come close.

[Volki]

LOL! Damion Schubert the "damage control guy"?! You have no clue who he is, do you?

 

Fact: Slicing was fauceting too much flow into the economy.

 

Fact: It needed to be throttled back.

 

I don't give a cr*p who he is. A liar is a liar.

 

**Edit

 

Video of him giving an interview regarding crafting:

 

 

 

EDIT***

 

Bah. I hate when I lose it. My apologies to Damion Schubert for calling him a liar. I don't know him so that was uncalled for. That was just downright mean of me, and I dislike mean people =/

Edited January 14, 2012 by Volki

[JeramieCrowe]

I used to believe that too, feeling a little guilty about making so much money, until I actually started using my other skills.

 

Pre-nerf Slicing doesn't even come close.

 

It's intentionally designed to allow players to employ some measure of financial savvy. I like this intensely. I have several crafters. I know how easy it is to run out of money if I play this game like other games where money is too easy to come by, but then eventually simple items cost millions of credits.

 

If I try to outlevel myself in crafting, I'll run out of money. If I try to buy all my materials instead of getting it myself, I'll run out of money. If I try to focus on any one thing too much, I'll pay the consequences.

 

This is absolutely an ideal environment. It will keep the economy more balanced than any other MMO before, mark my words. Thus, it will vastly improve the longevity of this game.

[Medianoche]

Slicing is broken. Fix it.

[iamzombie]

So let me get this right...

 

Slicers are mad that slicing is treated the same as any other gathering skill? I have a char with synthweaving/arch/UW Trading, UW trading missions fail all the time, but slicers think there should be no chance of failure for them?

 

(some) Slicers believe they're being penalized for taking slicing because they can't gather from fallen mobs? Guess what, neither can archaeology.

 

I'll be the first to agree that crafting/gathering as they are, are quite broken. But don't think slicing is being picked on because it was nerfed down to a reasonable level of profit. As it is, scavenging and biochem are considerably easier to skillup/find resources due to the abundance of NPC harvests and gathering from world nodes.

 

I'm glad Bioware nerfed slicing, as it was at launch there was no reason to take any other ability, guildmates were making 350k or more a day at lvl 400 slicing. Now everyone is mad because slicing has the same rate of return that the other crew skill missions have? I find that laughable, at best.

[ArmoredJuneBug]

If I try to outlevel myself in crafting, I'll run out of money. If I try to buy all my materials instead of getting it myself, I'll run out of money. If I try to focus on any one thing too much, I'll pay the consequences.

Only if you rely on Slicing to provide the cash.

 

Use Treasure Hunting, Underworld Trading or whatever else that sells well on your server instead.

 

Max crew skills at any level you'd like, plus any amount of credits.

 

Slicing only provides credits, unfortunately it now does so at vastly lower amounts than any other non-crafting skill. Since those other skills also provide materials there's absolutely no point is picking up Slicing.

 

Only reason I still have two slicers myself is because I'm waiting for it to be un-nerfed to a reasonable degree, since I'm at 400 and 390-something skill.

 

Would I pick up Slicing on any new character I made today? Heck no, it's absolutely useless in its current state.

[ArmoredJuneBug]

... UW trading missions fail all the time...

Stop running orange, and ideally yellow, missions.

 

Don't run high-yield mission until they're green or grey.

 

Even so you should be wallowing in cash if you have UT, take a look on the GTN at the sale price for the materials alone.

 

Slicing only gives you credits, no materials.

 

That means it have to provide a competitive amount of credits/hour to be a worthwhile skill to pick up, or keep around.

 

If I send a companion off on the highest-yield level 50 Slicing mission I can expect the returns to be anything from a few hundred credit loss to about 1k credits ahead of the mission cost. I also have a chance to get a mission, which isn't worth anything unless it's an UT mission. Crits make no noticeable difference on the credit return anymore.

 

If I send a companion off on the highest-yield level 50 Underworld Trading mission I can expect returns of 5-10k credits. I also have a chance to get a schematic, which tend to sell for notably more than any mission save UT missions. If I crit my credit return effectively becomes 60-80k.

 

Treasure Hunting isn't quite as lucrative as UT but it's still far better than Slicing, even just running lockbox missions.

 

So no, Slicing was way over-nerfed - likely because BW wanted people to ragequit Slicing in droves and move on. Unfortunately this was misguided at best, since there weren't any significant problem with the skill, and the responses to the - quite justified - forum rage only exacerbates the problem.

[ShelkartMarne]

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.

 

THANK YOU!!!

 

Seriously, I think this is the single biggest way to minimize forumrage: just let the player know *why* stuff's changing and what the change is supposed to do. Sometimes, they may even be able to provide useful feedback!

[Phadian_gess]

Stop running orange, and ideally yellow, missions.

 

 

Treasure Hunting isn't quite as lucrative as UT but it's still far better than Slicing, even just running lockbox missions.

 

 

 

400 treasure hunting and i have about 2 companions on the job throughout the entire day and UNLESS i crit i lose anywhere from 500-1000 credits after my companion being gone for 30-45 minutes

[Pherdnut]

Yeah, this Damion Schubert "damage control guy" is full of it.

 

It's insulting and a slap in the face the way he lies (since slicing was nerfed either on a lark or to make leveling a grind--to retain subscriptions). I cancelled my account. He can suck you know what.

 

If you cancelled your subscription, how is it that you're still posting? Doesn't that kill your forum account?

 

Anyway, if you don't understand why they would kill profit for doing nothing with no time invested that you can just set in motion on seven alts while you play the game, good luck trying to find a game that does. Here's a hint though: If you didn't have seven alts running slicing ops as you played you were doing it wrong.

 

The QQing should have been about the oversight in the first place, not that they took away the entitlement crowd's free money button. Direct credit profit from missions you don't actually do yourself was a huge blunder.

[ArmoredJuneBug]

Anyway, if you don't understand why they would kill profit for doing nothing with no time invested that you can just set in motion on seven alts while you play the game...

Except that still applies to every other skill, just not slicing.

 

Pre-nerf I still made more credits from UT than Slicing.

 

The only change here is Slicing is now completely wasted, since it makes less credits than any other mission/gathering skill and can't provide anything but credits. Aside from being a monumental money-sink in the hunt for decent augments I guess, though that's not particularly compelling either.

 

It's certainly not a game-breaking issue, it's not like switching out Slicing for another crew skill is particularly difficult, but claiming that Slicing is now 'fixed' or 'balanced' is complete bs.

 

The skill is utterly broken in its current state.

[Cyrosage]

So let me get this right...

 

Slicers are mad that slicing is treated the same as any other gathering skill? I have a char with synthweaving/arch/UW Trading, UW trading missions fail all the time, but slicers think there should be no chance of failure for them?

 

(some) Slicers believe they're being penalized for taking slicing because they can't gather from fallen mobs? Guess what, neither can archaeology.

 

I'll be the first to agree that crafting/gathering as they are, are quite broken. But don't think slicing is being picked on because it was nerfed down to a reasonable level of profit. As it is, scavenging and biochem are considerably easier to skillup/find resources due to the abundance of NPC harvests and gathering from world nodes.

 

I'm glad Bioware nerfed slicing, as it was at launch there was no reason to take any other ability, guildmates were making 350k or more a day at lvl 400 slicing. Now everyone is mad because slicing has the same rate of return that the other crew skill missions have? I find that laughable, at best.

 

Well, you still got it wrong. It is not treated the same because it is a mission skill like UT and a gathering skill like scavenging, but there is NOTHING involved except credits. No armor, no crafting materials, just straight up credits. If you are not a slicer, you shouldn't really be posting here by simply saying you find other's feelings laughable. Real mature.

 

If you read the original post, which most people on the hater train are not doing.. the complaint is with slicing missions, not slicing in general. Slicing is great. Slicing the random nodes in the world is profitable (duh, one click is a little free money). The missions on the other hand, are barely even profitable. Most people are getting back less than they pay for the mission most of the time. Most missions are 30 minutes at 400. They cost about 1400. They return about 1200. Sometimes they give you more, and some people have great luck with the RNG and don't see much problem. But, most, get poor poor returns from missions. They are almost pointless. If one mission fails, it takes 5-6 successful AND profitable missions to pay for it, which could be 10+ missions due to the generally negative returns. 10 missions x 30 minutes is a lot for nothing. And it is not the SAME return as other crew missions, others give SOMETHING. The equivalent of slicing missions to scavenging missions would be you getting 3/4 of a piece of a crafting material. As in, you paid for a whole item, and got less than that. I pay for a whole credit mission, and get less credits worth than I started with. That's all. That's the point of the entire thread. Haters keep derailing this thread and adding wild speculation, which is even more ridiculous when coming from NON-SLICERS. If you have suggestions for your own professions, make a thread. This one was for feedback on slicing missions. All you did was say "you QQ, I laugh at you!"

 

Anyway, slicing is still great. Just not the missions. They make no sense with the current returns on the max level missions. Negative 200 credits for 30 minutes of time? Maybe 1000 credits profit over an hour of missions with extreme luck? Why not sell a grey vendor trash item, do a gathering mission, or craft something instead. The missions really are a waste now.