Crafting ISN'T USELESS, the schematics drop in raids

[Naters]

Synthweaving is useless...

 

/Thread

 

so is armstech

[leihn]

It's the other way around.

 

Raiders start crying when they see non-raiders wear the same type of gear as them.

What losers.

Does it matter to you what other people wear?

Raiders want powerful gear to make it easier to kill monsters and trivialize content.

Same goes for non-raiders.

 

Mildly disagree, while I don't doubt that many raiders have that elitist attitude, the core point still stands. Raiders need gear from the previous tier to meet requirements for the next tier.

 

Unless there is a content progression in place for non-raiders there is no gear requirement for them that compels or necessitates a power increase.

 

Raiders don't get all their current gear to keep farming the current content when the next tier comes out, they move onto the new content or they quit playing when there's no more new content.

 

Non-raiders are the ones that stick to the same level of progression yet expect increasingly more powerful rewards for time invested.

 

Which simply doesn't seem like an interesting design element or direction because it's simply not necessary.

 

Offering other rewards and character progression over time = good. Offering increasing power when there's no content to demand that power = not so good.

[Bluejayoo]

You spend massive amounts of time raiding for schematics and mats, only to be able to make gear that isn't as useful as drops in the raids themselves or PVP gear. The time invested / reward balance for crafted stuff doesn't make any sense. You get better stuff faster doing almost anything else.

 

Not to mention this completely shuts out non-raiders from any form of end game crafting. As an example, there are no recipes above 47 in artificer that don't require rare dropped mats you can't get in normal Flash Points.

 

If Bioware was only going to allow hard-core players to craft they should have said so in the beginning and saved the rest of us from wasting our time.

[_Flin_]

Prototypical I want X but don't want to work for it thread.

 

Which is nothing anyone in this thread said. You might try improving your reading skills.

 

If you could be a "mastercrafter" without entering raids, nobody would need the gear from raids because they could simply purchase it.

 

Guess what, it is usually faster and easier to raid a few times and get drops than farming what is needed for quality items. At least in other games.

 

The two are unavoidably linked, and BW won't cater to a minority of people who want to craft but not raid when it will completely throw off the balance in gearing for raid progression.

 

It doesnt get more illogical. Where is the difference when raiders sell these items? Where is "the balance in gearing for raid progression" when Guild Serverfirst sells these items?

 

Furthermore why is it, that good gear = raid gear? The possibility to have crafting gear or companion gear or vanity gear exists, its just adding numbers into a database, without taking anything away from anyone.

[Xurk]

the "you have to earn it" argument. is false.

someone has to earn it. it doesnt have to be the player that ends up with the item. this is why raids can carry new members and gear them. the raid earned it, not the individual, the individual gets the benefit of the group effort for his personal use.

 

you can completely reverse that model and its still valid. an individual can do the effort of a group by having a series of quests or solo event areas where they put in the time.

 

the fallicy is believing that per-raider there is more going on than a flashpoint. for dps classes especially, there is often less to worry about; because the entire personal responsibility aspect is gone. you can die and the raid can still succeed, you cannot say the same for single player content. its succeed on an individual basis or fail. there is no "be carried" option.

[_Flin_]

Why does someone who never raids need gear that's better than raiding gear.

 

Why is it, that someone needs to farm raids to build gear that he doesnt need because he is farming the content anyway and has better gear than the crafted stuff?

 

I'd prefer 4-man Nightmare (or make it 7th circle of hell) difficulty any time. It's not possible for me to raid, so I have to quit this game? If it will be like that, I will have less problems with that than BW. No crafting and no more content without raiding? Then no money from Flin.

 

Which, of course isn't your problem.

 

I am happy to hear that there are Cybertech schmats that are better than commendation items. Only wish I could get them and craft them.

[TrevNYC]

I'd prefer 4-man Nightmare (or make it 7th circle of hell) difficulty any time. It's not possible for me to raid, so I have to quit this game?

 

This is where the logic train keeps derailing. Why is it that being unable to raid, and therefore unable to craft certain items without raid-gained materials and schematics means you have to quit?

 

They are going to make more content. It might not happen before you exhaust all that you personally are capable of doing, though. This is true of every single game there is that relies on content delivered from the game company.

 

What happens when you do all the content available to you at least once? The same thing that happens when you finish Halo or Mario Brothers or Frogger. You either stop playing until new content comes out, or you go back and repeat content (perhaps from a different perspective, or to pick up something you missed). You have at least 8 different stories to play before you're "done", even assuming you don't raid, or PvP.

[leihn]

This is where the logic train keeps derailing. Why is it that being unable to raid, and therefore unable to craft certain items without raid-gained materials and schematics means you have to quit?

 

They are going to make more content. It might not happen before you exhaust all that you personally are capable of doing, though. This is true of every single game there is that relies on content delivered from the game company.

 

What happens when you do all the content available to you at least once? The same thing that happens when you finish Halo or Mario Brothers or Frogger. You either stop playing until new content comes out, or you go back and repeat content (perhaps from a different perspective, or to pick up something you missed). You have at least 8 different stories to play before you're "done", even assuming you don't raid, or PvP.

 

This is what I agree with essentially.

 

WoW did a pretty good job with this in late WotLK and all of Cata, creating a non-raid level of progression and a ton of casual (not necessarily time commitment, but style of play) friendly content without compromising what raiding and high level PvP represent, end-game.

 

I have no problems with there being increasingly difficult Flashpoints awarding increasingly better gear provided that the gear matches the content. WoW opted to keep Flashpoints more accessible because quite frankly, the playerbase that is highly skilled but unable to participate in Raids for challenges is the minority to the playerbase that is either poor-to-average skilled and unable to participate in Raids or highly skilled and able to participate in raids, thus they oriented the dungeons to be easier than the raids because they were able to satisfy a larger number of people with those resources.

 

This leads to the dungeons in WoW rewarding increasingly better gear, though effectively one to one and a half tiers behind what is available in Raids, but with the advent of the loot pinata Raid Finder, the access to raid-level content (albeit at an easier difficulty with slightly diminished loot) is more open to players who cannot attend raids either due to skill or timing commitments.

 

There's nothing wrong with there being gear progression outside of raids if there is content to demand it.

 

There's everything wrong with devaluing what other people worked hard to get by handing it out to people at anything close to an equivalent rate when there is no functional need.

[BlueWanderer]

If raiders need raid gear for raids, the simple solution to that is make the gear work like a set but only when in a op group of more than 4 people (i.e. it is raid buffed when actually in a raid)...

 

That way, when raiders get the best gear out there for doing the hardest raid mobs out there, they don't turn around and use that gear to solo the highly desirable non-raid mobs and hard flashpoints that non-raiders find challenging with their non-raid gear...

 

Then the game designers can make a progression for non-raiders too, that has tiered flashpoints and progression of gear. That gear could even be heroic area sensative, so it doesn't turn storyline or regular quest areas into trivial content...

[leihn]

If raiders need raid gear for raids, the simple solution to that is make the gear work like a set but only when in a op group of more than 4 people (i.e. it is raid buffed when actually in a raid)...

 

That way, when raiders get the best gear out there for doing the hardest raid mobs out there, they don't turn around and use that gear to solo the highly desirable non-raid mobs and hard flashpoints that non-raiders find challenging with their non-raid gear...

 

Then the game designers can make a progression for non-raiders too, that has tiered flashpoints and progression of gear. That gear could even be heroic area sensative, so it doesn't turn storyline or regular quest areas into trivial content...

 

I'd have no problems with this, and it would even out the silly people running around in PvP with tons of raid gear too.

 

Sadly, I don't think most people would agree.

[Obbu]

crafted raid gear should need a raider to craft it.

 

crafted pvp gear should need a pvper to craft it.

 

crafted space combat gear should need a space combat-er to craft it.

 

Arguing for crafting to exist as a self-sufficient micro game that can lord over any other content is only arguing for it to be nerfed into non-viability.

[Zennshi]

The amount of pompous elitism in this thread smells like hundred year old bantha poodoo.

 

 

Let me pose these questions to you right here, right now.

 

1) How does this effect you besides making your achievements feel less validated when the master crafter who has put in more man hours than your entire guild did has gear equal to yours?

 

2) What is so hard to believe about an ARMOR CRAFTER who can make really really good ARMOR???? Do you win a car on a gameshow that should be better than the car a team of car specialists made?

 

3) How is "what do you need the gear for" even a valid argument??? Seriously, what if the man wants to pvp sometimes, what if he wants to do a flashpoint sometimes, what if he just wants to look cool? Does this effect you? If it does, it sounds like a personal problem.

[sandjpics]

I agree with Blue. You should have a base set...then stats that only matter in pvp (i.e. expertise), then stats that only matter in Ops or FP (i.e. whatever u want to call it). PVP schematics available through PVP, PVE schematics available throught OPS and FP. They already have a slot that would work well for it...Augment slot. Each of the proffesions could share the responsibility for crafting augments...for example armstech creates augments for da guns, artifice for saber, etc. Just my two cents anyway.

[Lazzerswords]

Well, neither do I. But "time and effort" and "raiding" are two different pairs of shoes. Because for "raiding" you need 15 other people, which reduces flexibility to zero.

So you whiny crafters want to make better than raid gear so can NOT raid? *** is the gear for then? looking good in a empty republic or empirial city?

[Jeargroth]

The amount of pompous elitism in this thread smells like hundred year old bantha poodoo.

 

 

Let me pose these questions to you right here, right now.

 

1) How does this effect you besides making your achievements feel less validated when the master crafter who has put in more man hours than your entire guild did has gear equal to yours?

 

2) What is so hard to believe about an ARMOR CRAFTER who can make really really good ARMOR???? Do you win a car on a gameshow that should be better than the car a team of car specialists made?

 

3) How is "what do you need the gear for" even a valid argument??? Seriously, what if the man wants to pvp sometimes, what if he wants to do a flashpoint sometimes, what if he just wants to look cool? Does this effect you? If it does, it sounds like a personal problem.

 

 

^ AGREED^ Lots of I want to be more special than you cause my play style is better than yours.

[SansSariph]

When I played WoW I used to raid. I "understood" the argument that raiders should get the best gear.

 

Since I quit, I don't feel like raiding anymore. It's dawning on me that the "raiders get best gear" argument has zero basis.

 

Why can't there be 4-man progression? It's harder to design epic encounters with only four people, I understand this. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Some of the heroics in Cataclysm were legit very hard and very fun before everyone starts to outgear them (and before they get nerfed).

 

Why should a crafter need to group at all, even? Everyone says it should be that way because that's just how things are. Why? WHY? I beg people to think critically about the status quo. Why shouldn't someone be able to devote their entire endgame to nothing but crafting, if that's what they enjoy? There doesn't need to be a false dichotomy between raiding and PvP, the game can be deeper than that.

 

It's up to the player base to make it clear that's something they're interested in though.

[leihn]

The amount of pompous elitism in this thread smells like hundred year old bantha poodoo.

 

 

Let me pose these questions to you right here, right now.

 

1) How does this effect you besides making your achievements feel less validated when the master crafter who has put in more man hours than your entire guild did has gear equal to yours?

 

2) What is so hard to believe about an ARMOR CRAFTER who can make really really good ARMOR???? Do you win a car on a gameshow that should be better than the car a team of car specialists made?

 

3) How is "what do you need the gear for" even a valid argument??? Seriously, what if the man wants to pvp sometimes, what if he wants to do a flashpoint sometimes, what if he just wants to look cool? Does this effect you? If it does, it sounds like a personal problem.

 

All of these arguments can be 100% reversed.

 

1. How does raiders getting better armor effect you besides making your crafting efforts feel less validated when the raiders put in more effort and coordination and overcame more challenges than your one man grindfest?

 

2. What is so hard to believe about stronger enemies and more difficult encounters having rarer and more specialized schematics and/or materials required to craft them? Should the man who spends his life making iron daggers suddenly know how to craft the finest daedric armor? Does it not make sense that when you're pilfering advanced technology that you'll learn how to make more advanced weaponry?

 

3. What's the value of gear if there is no applicable need for it? Does it make you feel better knowing that you are more powerful than someone else just because you invested 500 hours into the game even though that power has no real applicable use?

 

etc.

 

The real problem in any raider vs non-raider argument (note I'm not saying casual vs hardcore) is that the end game is and traditionally has always been defined by ORGANIZED play, this extends to PvP as well, but that's a different argument altogether.

 

The solution isn't to give equivalent (or even near-equivalent) rewards for single player or small group unorganized play that will never need or apply those rewards.

 

It's to design more casual friendly progression paths that warrant either additional power or other methods of character progression.

 

This is something that WoW has done remarkably well in the last two expansions (opening up accessibility to casual friendly content) and something that SWTOR solely lacks.

 

It isn't elitism to think that raiders who acquire stronger gear to combat stronger encounters logically makes sense.

 

Raiders don't typically play a game that keeps them content capped, if SWTOR isn't going to be able to release content at a reasonable rate to challenge Raiders they aren't going to sit there and farm the same content that they've overgeared over and over. They'll start rolling alts and gearing up alts until new content is available or quit for a new game. This has always been true for MMOs.

 

Non-raid players are the only ones who overgear content and continue to play the same content because they are effectively permanently content capped. That's why I simply think that rewarding non-raid players power to trivialize their capped content isn't the solution.

 

The solution should be expanding the progression paths and options for Non-raid players.

[TrevNYC]

The amount of pompous elitism in this thread smells like hundred year old bantha poodoo.

 

Let me pose these questions to you right here, right now.

 

1) How does this effect you besides making your achievements feel less validated when the master crafter who has put in more man hours than your entire guild did has gear equal to yours?

 

How is this less elitist than the arguments that you're answering? You don't know whether the "master crafter" has spent more man hours doing something than an entire guild of people did. People can powerlevel professions pretty quickly. It's not always easy to organize successful raids or guilds. If you don't want people to devalue your work, then don't devalue theirs.

 

2) What is so hard to believe about an ARMOR CRAFTER who can make really really good ARMOR???? Do you win a car on a gameshow that should be better than the car a team of car specialists made?

 

What exactly are you going for? In this example, the raider is the game show contestant who ostensibly lucks into something and the crafter is the "car specialist" that worked hard. That's fine, but it doesn't apply to what people are talking about here. A BoE schematic means that even the crafters who don't work hard can learn the craft. It would be like if the "car specialists" in your example went to Barnes & Noble and bought, "car specialization for dummies" for a ton of money, and in an hour they could make the best car in the world.

 

All the current system does is make the effort to get an operation-level drop equalized across the two systems. It takes the exact same effort to get an item drop from boss x as it does to have a schematic drop from boss x. One alternative would be to try to have an alternative system that was equal in difficulty, but that is problematic too. One, the debate would never end over which one was actually harder. Two, it's actually hard to design a "crafting operation" that would be identical in difficulty to an operation because the two are apples and oranges.

 

3) How is "what do you need the gear for" even a valid argument??? Seriously, what if the man wants to pvp sometimes, what if he wants to do a flashpoint sometimes, what if he just wants to look cool? Does this effect you? If it does, it sounds like a personal problem.

 

You're reading too much into the argument. If he wants to PvP sometimes, there's ways to get PvP gear. If he wants to do flashpoints, he already can make gear that is more than appropriate for those. If he wants to "look cool" that's subjective, and it's unclear that the raid schematics will do that any better than what he already can access.

 

The question is why do crafters need to make gear that is useful for raids if they don't want to attend them. The question is why anyone would bother with raids if they could just buy the same stuff from crafters, or make it themselves, after spending enough credits. The reality is that people need incentives to do things.

 

It's not really an elitist thing. Put the shoe on the other foot. Suppose there was a way for me to go into an operation and get an item that would teach me, a biochemist, how to make a piece of armor that a synthweaver had to learn the traditional way, completely bypassing traditional channels. Wouldn't that bother you? Would you be satisified if I asked, "how does this affect you personally, besides making your achievements feel less validated?"

Edited January 12, 2012 by TrevNYC

[Kainos]

It all comes down to entitlement. Gamers are a bunch of whining babies who think because they sit at a keyboard doing something for hours they are entitled to get something. God this argument has been boreing me to death since the first raids came out in games.

 

Raiders think they should have the best gear, crafters think they should be able to make the best gear, others think they should be able to get gear for flashpoints. It never ends because everyone thinks they are entitled to something since they spend their time and money.

 

Nothing new to see here, move along.

[Tenetke]

Here's a question.

 

Why does someone who never raids need gear that's better than raiding gear.

 

I mean, if your progress stops at world bosses and hardmode flashpoints then your gear progression needs stop there too.

 

I ask myself this question often when I see people in pve with pvp gear. I think they should change pvp gear so that you need say 100 mvp votes, and ranking to be able to wear 40+. Of course that locks out the pve noobs that only do a few warzones win or lose and instantly get enough for gear.

 

Do you see how silly that sounds? I won't say that people who don't raid need the gear, but to say that if you want to craft you must raid is equally as silly to me. I know my high end gear will come from pvp, but then again I really enjoy pvp (maybe not so much this games super slow version of it though).

 

I think what most people were hoping is that things would be just as available to small groups doing hard mode flash points, and not just raids. Personally it won't matter to me. I've changed over to biochem because in WZs you can't beat that extra bit of healing, especially when you take into account the debuff.

 

Aside from my example of showing you how silly it is, don't bring PvP into the lolpve game. They are different, again maybe not as much in this game. Now once we get a good arena system going, and some rankings that require more than just playing over and over things will be different.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Tenetke

[Sky_walkerPL]

When I played WoW I used to raid. I "understood" the argument that raiders should get the best gear.

 

Since I quit, I don't feel like raiding anymore. It's dawning on me that the "raiders get best gear" argument has zero basis.

 

Why can't there be 4-man progression? It's harder to design epic encounters with only four people, I understand this. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Some of the heroics in Cataclysm were legit very hard and very fun before everyone starts to outgear them (and before they get nerfed).

 

Why should a crafter need to group at all, even? Everyone says it should be that way because that's just how things are. Why? WHY? I beg people to think critically about the status quo. Why shouldn't someone be able to devote their entire endgame to nothing but crafting, if that's what they enjoy? There doesn't need to be a false dichotomy between raiding and PvP, the game can be deeper than that.

 

It's up to the player base to make it clear that's something they're interested in though.

QFT.

 

This should go to top-10 of my favorite forum posts.

But I can answer you for the question: Why? Because it's what to MMO gamers got used and with what they are familiar. Everything different will be out-shouted by them. And if you aren't MMO gamer? Than you should stay quiet cause MMO gamers know how everything was, is, and should be for better.

lol

At least: that's the picture MMO gamers hardly work for on this forum.

[Tenetke]

It all comes down to entitlement. Gamers are a bunch of whining babies who think because they sit at a keyboard doing something for hours they are entitled to get something. God this argument has been boreing me to death since the first raids came out in games.

 

Raiders think they should have the best gear, crafters think they should be able to make the best gear, others think they should be able to get gear for flashpoints. It never ends because everyone thinks they are entitled to something since they spend their time and money.

 

Nothing new to see here, move along.

 

I'm just curious, but if you don't think that raiding should give good gear or that crafting should give good gear or that fps should give good gear...where exactly should people get gear? Quests? I guess that could work with the heroic quests that are in place. They usually give something interesting, and some of them can be a bit hard.

[Keevae]

I'm just curious, but if you don't think that raiding should give good gear or that crafting should give good gear or that fps should give good gear...where exactly should people get gear? Quests? I guess that could work with the heroic quests that are in place. They usually give something interesting, and some of them can be a bit hard.

 

We all know the ideal solution... And that's end game content constructed in a way that takes the whole idea of "gear progression" out of quotation. If encounters weren't designed around DPS being able to do X damage in Y time, or tank being able to take Z damage in single/two quick blows we wouldn't even have to have this argument in every "traditional" MMO of last years.

 

Sadly it's easier said than done, and generally too much work for single encounter to make it worthwhile I suppose. As it stands, a a "top" crafter needs access to raid recipes. It's all fine. But same time, what''s not fine, is the materials required being Bind on Pickup.

When things are BoE rich crafter that doesn't raid can eventually buy all he needs and be happy without raiding. Win-Win.

[Bob_Ta-aar]

Nothing's worng in just crafting in endagme. Just as there's nothing wrong with raiding.

But if you can get craft the bet gear without even entering a flashpoint or doing anything in a group or even anything slightly difficult, then why should anyone still do any of those things? Dudes, it's an MMO, as stated many times here !

I'm aaall for good solo-content and I really hope those 40-overgeared-raids from WoW won't come to TOR, because unless you spend more time playing the game than doing ANYTHING else in your life, you just can't do that, that's why I quit WoW.

But seriously, like in most advanced games that have some depth, getting good results (like good gear) DOES require work . You ask why? Because the whole damn game would be pointless otherwise. Get a private server and a trainer to get your uber-gear in notime if you don't like it.

 

I think, what would be nice are uber-rare world drops of stuff like very good schematics. That way, EVERYBODY, no matter whether he prefers to play solo or raiding or whatever would have a chance in getting good schematics.

The goal should be, after all, that on every server there will be a FEW people owining the best schematics who then can craft t for everybody else willing to pay enough for them (or help supplying the materials).

 

I have nothing against schematics dropping in raids. Not even against materials that have to be aquired in flashpoint (at least if they're there abundantly enough, so you won't have to spend DKP for them or anything like that). If all the best schematics can ONLY be aquired by hardcore raiding, they become useless. The end-products could just as well drop themselves there.

That beeing said, any guild asking high DKP for such schematics and then even bullying it's members for selling the crafted items on the GTN, is just plainly beeing an ***. And everybody stupid enough to join or remain in such a guild shouldn't come here an whine about it .

[Bloodymoon]

I have not seen a single Artifice schematic in raids. Tons of Synthweaving, Biochem and Armoring, here and there some Cybertech and Armortech.

 

But not a single Artifice schematic. But well, since the raid bosses drop the Enhancements which are BoE...