Painaid Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Let me preface this post by stating that I have been following SWTOR for many years and have remained an ardent fan of Bioware. I've also been a longtime fan of MMOs, particularly (you guessed it) WoW. I think SWTOR has the foundation of a great game. However, there is no doubt that there are many, many issues that need to be dealt with by Bioware...and quickly. Some of these issues simply are not defensible. There is perhaps nothing more integral to a healthy MMO population than a server economy. Right now, there is not one. This is due to several reasons. First: Crew Skills need a complete overhaul. Almost all of the crafting skills are useless at end-game, being far outpaced by commendation vendors and endgame PvP rewards. Only Biochem, and to a lesser extent Cybertech offer any redeeming values whatsoever. Because there is no constant use to craft consumables and other craftable items from professions, the demand for raw materials from gathering professions is at a near-standstill. Second: Everyone is self sufficient. I am a Cybertech. My gathering professions are Scavenging and Underworld Trading. As a result, I can gather all the materials I need by myself. I have absolutely no use for any other gathering profession. This is the same for every other Crew Skill. Bioware has made a huge mistake of boxing the professions into neat little categories. Instead of a crafting profession needing a wide assortment of raw materials from multiple gathering professions, it only needs materials from two, allowing everyone to become self-sufficient. The only profession that doesn't neatly fit into a nice little 3-way category with others is Slicing. And we all saw what happened to that skill. Third: Bioware has only allowed people to take one crafting skill. Consequently, this forces people to take two gathering skills. Therefore, even if I wanted to take two crafting professions, thereby forcing me to buy gathering mats to supplement them off of the GTN, I am not even allowed to do so. So where does this leave us? The economy is at a near stand-still. There is very little demand for raw gathering mats on the GTN. I literally have a bank full of metals and cloths from Scavenging and UWT. There is simply no market for them. There is no money sink or exchange of money other than repairing your armor and doing dailies. To fix this, Bioware needs to rethink their philosophy on Crew skills and the end-game economy: Self sufficiency in an MMO is bad for the server economy. There needs to be some level of dependency. All Crew Skills, not just Biochem, need to offer craftable items that make the skill worthwhile at end-game. Crew Skills need to offer a money and item-sink. Simply allowing players to craft a reusable flask or grenade does not work because there is no constant need for materials. The Biochem alternative in WoW is Alchemy. Instead of giving players a flask that never goes away, they simply double the timer on it. That is still a great bonus for alchemists, but it doesn't allow them to completely stop using their profession. They still have to keep making more flasks for themselves. Edited January 12, 2012 by Painaid
JarenVestrit Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) You're right about the crew skills problem. BTW, a customer service rep will be moving this to the Crew Skills forum shortly. Let me point you to this discussion: [OFFICIAL] What Needs to be done to Make Crafting Useful Edited January 12, 2012 by JarenVestrit
Painaid Posted January 12, 2012 Author Posted January 12, 2012 Thanks for that link. Might've been easier to find if there was a search function on these forums. But the point remains, and I think the issues are directly related. Until Crew Skills are actually relevant, there will continue to be no server economy. And without a server economy, there is no way that a viable 'end-game' can take place. This problem is literally holding the entire game back.
Valperion Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Well actually sythweaving you get 2 rakata tier 3 pve pieces. Bracers and a belt, but since you can't trade it. You would just get the pieces, drop the crew skills and just level biochem in about 3 days to lv400. Edited January 12, 2012 by Valperion
JarenVestrit Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 Oh, I completely agree with you. Between the Crew Skills issue, the duped credits, the general non-functional GCN, and the fact that the GCN is only available at the fleet hub, the economy is in deep trouble.
Gorgewall Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 You guys have been watching too much MSNBC Business. MMO economies of the Western variety are self-stabilizing. There is no problem.
MaGicBush Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 Thanks for that link. Might've been easier to find if there was a search function on these forums. But the point remains, and I think the issues are directly related. Until Crew Skills are actually relevant, there will continue to be no server economy. And without a server economy, there is no way that a viable 'end-game' can take place. This problem is literally holding the entire game back. Agreed.
Painaid Posted January 12, 2012 Author Posted January 12, 2012 You guys have been watching too much MSNBC Business. MMO economies of the Western variety are self-stabilizing. There is no problem. There is when there is no demand for any products due to the self-sufficiency and end-game irrelevancy of Crew Skills at level 50. The only active end-game market that I can observe across the spectrum is companion gifts. And these are being sold at a consistent net loss, so it hardly qualifies.
DeathDiciple Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 I fully agree. Even tho I like self sufficiency, it would make way more sense to give players both freedom to pick up multiple 'crafts' (and rely on economy) and make interdependency, trouble is, it will not do much good on its own until first point is sorted out (uselessness at cap, hell pretty much uselessness even during lvling, commendations are way easier/cheaper to get than even blue mods/items from crafting, waste of credits) The only thing crafted items are good for really is twinking new alts and companions during leveling....
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