How to make Armortech, Artificer, Synthweaving & Weapontech worth it 1-50 and beyond

[ColonelKer-Nal]

What you guys are failing to realize is that this game is NOT designed nor ever was supposed to be designed to make crafting the defacto way of getting gear.

 

No one is asking for crafting to make the best gear in the game.

 

But gear that is competitive with drops/vendors would be nice....

[Sharook]

I approve this idea.

 

Disclaimer: TL;DR past the first page

 

Some ideas for amstech attachments

 

- grenade launcher (maybe rifle only)

ability: launches a grenade with some effect, e.g. knockdown or stun or blind

(differing launchers for each effect)

 

- improved energy converter (or insert any appropriate techno babble here)

passive bonus: basically a reduction of energy costs for weapon related abilities (agent/smuggler) (or a small bonus to energy)

 

- extended magazine / coolant system (or insert any appropriate techno babble here)

passive bonus: basically a slight (1?) increase of ammunition / heat capacity (trooper/bh)

 

 

one concern regarding amortech/synthweaving:

as a character uses only 2 weapons max but you have several (6?) slots for armor, giving each armor slot an ability is quite OP in my opinion. each profession should only have access to one or 2 abilitis at one time (you can have more, e.g. by switching your fifle with another attachment)

thus attachments should be limited to certain items, e.g. synthweaving/armormech to breast and helmet for example.

 

one more thing how to make all professions more useful

why are ship upgrades all made by cybertech? doesen't make any sense!

 

- why aren't the weapons made by armstech (at least the beam generator and proton torpedoes)

- the armor plates by armormech

- some emp / shield generator stuff by artifice

- and the rest - which is still a lot - by cybertech

- allthough i think, we could even find something for biotech (shield regenerator?) as there are surely some semi-biological components in such a hi-tech thing like a spaceship

 

my2ct...

[Dziabonk]

Hi all,

 

First of all english is not my native language so please forgive me any mistakes You will find.

 

I've been discussing the same topic last night with a friend. I also went thru all posts here. And I just want to share my opinion. I don't want to quote anyone because I would have to quote many people and the post would not make any sense.

 

I want to say that I agree with the idea of moving armoring to Armormech/Synthweaving. I don’t understand people who say that it will ruin Cybertech. I understand you can feel unsecure when someone wants to take something from your profession, but you shouldn’t in this case. Why? Because no one says it should be the only change made to crafting system. As many people have said something else could be given or moved to Cybertech instead. This way both crafting skills could have something valuable and for many people this would make more sense and be more balanced.

 

Why it’s not good as it is now? I agree that crafting was made this way to give each class similar number of items to craft. Unfortunately some items are more valuable than others. Some items are replaced on higher levels and some you can buy only once and keep them to 50 or longer. Both types are not shared equally among crafting professions in my opinion. In my opinion this makes the “similar number of crafted items” argument invalid in this case. I won’t give an example because many of you already did that in other posts.

 

What can be given to Cybertech?

 

I will give two very simple examples below.

 

1. "Repair Nanobots”

 

I like the idea of repair kits but I wouldn’t give them to every class (here the "similar number of crafted items” fits perfectly). Instead give them to Cybertech and vendors. Vendor price would be higher and capped. Crafters could benefit from selling kits cheaper than vendors and not profit too much at the same time. If balance would require it, crafted kits could be a little more powerful then vendor ones.

 

2. “Nanopaint”

 

Someone mentioned that Cybertech doesn’t have anything like orange stuff. Give them paint that is consumable and can change the color/texture of orange items. This way both professions can have something useful and players can have more options for customizing their look. This also could be available from vendors to keep prices in line.

 

Other ideas

 

1. Unique skills

 

I like the idea of unique skills/items for all professions. They should be fun, maybe help a little, but shouldn't give any big advantage. They could be for example vanity items restricted to a specific profession.

 

2. Different modifications

 

I think this was supposed to be in SW:TOR. I think the system was actually prepared for many different modifications (ex. trigger only for pistols). Right now it seems like at some point someone made it simpler (reduced to "Mod"/"Enchancement" etc.) and because of that we have these weird shifts in professions. Making different mods for different parts of armor/items could be a good solution. It would have to be done very carefully. It also wouldn't have to brake what we have now. New modifications could be just added and player could choose between putting general mod or for example trigger mod in his pistol.

 

 

These are only examples of what can be done. Like I said no one wants to make one profession better than the others. It’s actually the opposite. Most of the people here want to give crafting professions more sense and balance and give ideas what could be done to achieve it.

[Aexrael]

Idea 1 and 3 are great, and would help the crafting system and it's crafters considerably.

[Amiracle]

Make companion gear only come from crafting.

 

Helps crafting and will stop greedy people from rolling need on gear for their companion in groups where all the members are players.

[MichaelKage]

I'm an armstech - yesterday i had 3 mil credits, got the 1.5mil mount so now i have 1.5 mil

I dont grind ( mobs / resources/ dailys )

I have ALL blaster recipes from 13 to 50 upgraded to a purple schematic ( some versions i got 3-4 purples since i get lots of recipes with presence or shield rating ).

 

I sell 5-6 items / day for between 6k to 25k a pop / steady income!

 

And im happy! sure i have absolutely no use at 50 for armstech/scavenging/investigation other then my ( semi useless ) wealth.

 

But then again i canceled my subscription today.

[Danakar]

Incorrect I think that you got it backward. Give the Augmentation devices to Cybertech and the base armor part to their respective groups, Synthweaving (force), Armortech (tech). Making armor that doesn't even have armor in it kinda blows.

 

Yes, such a device would sound more fitting with Cybertech and I would GLADLY hand over my Armoring if BioWare would give me those instead. However, BW seems to care more about taking something away than giving something in return.

 

But I would be more than happy to see Armoring spread across Armormech/Synthweaving if we would get the following item:

 

Prototype Augmentation Device

Consumable BoE

This device can be used to craft a single Augment slot onto an item. Consumed on use.

 

It would be great if Cybertech could also RE such a recipe (or add a second one) into a personal reusable version:

 

Reusable Augmentation Device

(requires Cybertech 400)

This marvel of cybertechnical engineering is not consumed on use.

 

[Almagnus]

I would definitely love to see that option.

 

Perhaps there needs to be a series of augments that turn random mod gear into "set" items?

 

I would imagine that these "set" augments would only work if they were slotted into the appropriate type of gear (helms, boots, gloves, pockets, etc).

[Aethyrprime]

Lots of good suggestions. I'll work out a bit of rewording on the OP with some updated ideas here when I wake up.. too tired right now lol..

[Aethyrprime]

o hai.. too many pages deep..

[Aethyrprime]

I approve this idea.

 

Disclaimer: TL;DR past the first page

 

Some ideas for amstech attachments

 

- grenade launcher (maybe rifle only)

ability: launches a grenade with some effect, e.g. knockdown or stun or blind

(differing launchers for each effect)

 

- improved energy converter (or insert any appropriate techno babble here)

passive bonus: basically a reduction of energy costs for weapon related abilities (agent/smuggler) (or a small bonus to energy)

 

- extended magazine / coolant system (or insert any appropriate techno babble here)

passive bonus: basically a slight (1?) increase of ammunition / heat capacity (trooper/bh)

 

 

one concern regarding amortech/synthweaving:

as a character uses only 2 weapons max but you have several (6?) slots for armor, giving each armor slot an ability is quite OP in my opinion. each profession should only have access to one or 2 abilitis at one time (you can have more, e.g. by switching your fifle with another attachment)

thus attachments should be limited to certain items, e.g. synthweaving/armormech to breast and helmet for example.

 

one more thing how to make all professions more useful

why are ship upgrades all made by cybertech? doesen't make any sense!

 

- why aren't the weapons made by armstech (at least the beam generator and proton torpedoes)

- the armor plates by armormech

- some emp / shield generator stuff by artifice

- and the rest - which is still a lot - by cybertech

- allthough i think, we could even find something for biotech (shield regenerator?) as there are surely some semi-biological components in such a hi-tech thing like a spaceship

 

my2ct...

I added the first part of your post to the OP in a quote because I really dig those ideas!

 

Now to address the rest of your post xD! Cybertech has 5 grenades each on a separate cool-down. Biochem has a number of reusable option also on different cooldowns. That is why what I suggested was allow all slots for arms/synthweaving and give artificer and armstech all the other slots which would give them a similar number as the rest. So each crewskill would be able to click up to 5/6 objects on different cooldowns.

 

If you check out my post in my signature about pvp and end game balance ideas you'd see I have several items in the pipeline for Cybertech, Armstech, with constant money sinks. Also several people pointed out repair kits which I think should be a great thing as well. If you could buy a repair kit and it be a cheaper way to fix your armor in the long run and only cybertech can make it.

[Leon_Slayn]

I like your idea, but I think that the mods to armor should remain in the cybertech branch. What I would like to see is synergy between cybertech and armortech. That being, allow us to make armor that can be modified. Wouldn't that add an interesting dynamic to have a suit of armor for sale and the ability to get with a cybertech buddy to make it even better. The market value of a fully modified armor set would be greater than the individual parts.

[Kheldras]

Personally, moving the armor mods OUT of cybertech and INTO synthewaving and armortech would help make those two professions more worthwhile.

.

 

I second this, as Cybertech & Armourmech, it would help Armormechs & Synthweavers a lot.

 

I still have Mods, Earpieces, Speeders (could get a facelift, or a Unique Cool Speeder), Droid Parts & Grenades, would Change grenades to making batches of 5-10 though.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Kheldras

[Aethyrprime]

I like your idea, but I think that the mods to armor should remain in the cybertech branch. What I would like to see is synergy between cybertech and armortech. That being, allow us to make armor that can be modified. Wouldn't that add an interesting dynamic to have a suit of armor for sale and the ability to get with a cybertech buddy to make it even better. The market value of a fully modified armor set would be greater than the individual parts.

 

This doesn't make sense tho. Making armor that provides no armor is annoying at best. It doesn't make any of the gear worth making to me. I have ignored it and used quest golds for the most part because it takes less time and often looks better.

[Aethyrprime]

Just because so many people are crying nerf this nerf that.. I must once again bring this topic to the top and hope that people realize crewskill balance needs to be addressed at the core concepts before any nerfing is done.

 

BOOST ALL CREWSKILLS UP! Don't nerf them down!

[ApoJake]

Well said. Make crew skills actually worth something. I'm hoping what is implemented now is just a skeleton system that BW plans to expand greatly on because I honestly feel that the potential is there for crew skills to truly be something fun and exciting rather than just dull and pointless as it is now.

[Aethyrprime]

I hope you are right ^^

[Destoroyah]

some of the things I think they need to add is Every Crew Skill sould have consumables long and short duration, maybe some instants.

 

Also I'd like to see items like augmentation kits that the varius crafters can make that give players a chance to improve a item to crit quality and would be good for quest rewards and drops in the game that don't have them. Another posibility is a chance quality improvement kits so you can like improve a item from blue to purple and maybe even to orange.

[Arell]

First of all, great post OP. You've made it look very detailed on your ideas, aswell as sharing some other people's ideas. I particularly like idea #4, as currently the crafting windows are pretty horrible to navigate, aswell as displaying what you have discovered in a proper and neat way.

 

I decided to copypaste (and slightly adjust) two of my thoughts from different posts as they are both quite long.

 

Post #1

If everything is 100% balanced across the board, then why bother playing? What makes a difference if I play Agent, or Sorcerer, or Sentinel, if in the end it all balances out?

 

Having different crew skills that give you solitary access to certain edges, gives people an advantage in combat. Whether that be crafted gear, crafted stims, crafted item modifications, and it adds another dimension to the game in the fact you could be fighting a stimmed up agent, or a geared out agent, or one with the best item mods.

 

If everyone had access to everything, then what is the point of crafting at all? Why advance my level to 400 if I can just farm money and buy it? Should we queue up the Chinese Credit Farmers while we're at it?

 

And in regard to not being able to make money crafting stims, you need to look into selling your blue and purple crafting mats, prices these days are retarded. But come to think of it, I didn't pick Biochem so I could be rich. I picked it so I could have the ability to heal myself, and give me an edge in the form of a buff for survivability, not profitability. As such, do I really want everyone and their brother to have access to my advantage? Hell no. And I'm sure the same argument can be made for each different crafting class that can fabricate BoP items.

 

Everything shouldn't be 100% fair all the time, different classes should have different advantages, and the same with crew skills, it makes for a much more dynamic non-vanilla game void of everything-is-the-same-so-whats-the-point.

 

Agree or disagree?

 

While I agree with your opinion, I don't think you are touching the underlying issue. The problem is that when looking at availability of endgame products to their respective crew skill, Biochem seems to be the only real beneficial one to have.

 

Right now the arguments regarding "bad" crew skills I've seen most often used are:

 

1) Why should I take Armormech/Synthweaving when custom gear is superior?

2) Why should I take Armormech/Synthweaving when hardmode/specific vendorgear/raidgear is superior?

3) Why should I take Cybertech when modifications I can get from dailies and operations are better?

 

Looking at these in comparison, the major advantage of biochem is that it isn't affected by reaching endgame. A biochemist does not have it's benefits diminished by lootdrops or products available from vendors. Not only that, but it's amazing reusable products are insanely cost efficient aswell as cheap and easy to make for an artifact status craft.

 

This does not mean however that biochem as a whole should be nerfed. They should instead have a good look at the other crafting crew skills and fix them. They already implemented a decent fix to biochem by putting restrictions/requirements on the reusable items. One of the things they didn't fix however was the effort it takes to craft these reusable items.

 

I have been a pretty hardcore raider for over 4 years and I always felt like raiding should reward the best obtainable gear, but I am starting to change my opinion on this. I feel that crafting should be a real contender to it. While raiding should still provide the ultimate gear in the sense of LEGENDARY items -like they do in WoW, and not full legendary sets to outshine every crafted item-, I can't think of any reason why crafting shouldn't provide comparative/competative gear for those who prefer to focus on crafting.

 

The big trick to fixing this is the balancing in time and effort spent in raiding versus time and effort spent in gathering and crafting.

 

------------------------------------

 

In MY opinion a few of the following examples could/should possibly be implemented to not only balance it, but also improve crafting as a whole:

 

As a rule of thumb, obtaining your crafted item(s) or set will by definition take longer than obtaining it through raiding. This all assuming you are not that one unlucky raider that doesn't get to finish collecting his/her full gearset before the next Op tier gets implemented. Hypothetically, you could ding 50 while wearing a full green set of gear, get immediately pulled into a Nightmare Op by your guild AND the "Almighty and Holy Lord of Lucky Loot Drops and Priority Awarding" decides today is YOUR lucky day; but this is NOT usually how the system works (or created to work for that matter).

 

Next, all the crafted item should be looked at more closely, and not only the endgame craftables. A lot of aspects should be looked into and adjusted: the different types of mats required per item, the amount of those mats each needed per craft, the availabilty of said mats, the time it takes to gather said mats.

 

Consider implementing special (types of) mats, obtained through different means and/or adding special requirements and/or restrictions to them. Things like making certain materials bind on pickup/acquire, purchased through commendations or some other form of currency.

 

Add daily/weekly/repeatable crafting quests that award crafting commendations, tokens or flatout special mats/reagents.

 

Add more specific mission schematics that award required mats only obtainable through doing them. These should stimulate the economy more aswell.

 

Consider allowing to pair up multiple companions on the same mission to increase the amount of mats returned, or to increase the chance of rare mats to be returned.

 

Looking at Armormech/Synthweaving and the likes, consider "ultimate artifact crafts", and whether each of them are BoA or BoE. Consider whether certain BoP crafts should become BoE through mastercraft for example. Also, consider whether they should be upgradable whenever a new Ops tier gets introduced.

 

Consider adding rare schematics not gained through raiding, but purchasable with commendations, or from a new type of mission skill reward. As example, a mission skill schematic could unlock a questline to obtain a special/rare schematic. Or, once the space concept has been improved and fleshed out more, you could give it as a reward by tying it to a discovery through exploration/space combat.

As an example, like in EvE Online, you could be scanning space and you discover an anomaly somewhere. You head there to find ruins/an abandoned cargo box/debris from a spacebattle/a ghostship/whatever, and said schematic or special mission you obtain there.

 

Consider adding special set bonusses or stat bonusses for crafters only. These could be based on (advanced) class or role, basic ones like increasing your primary stat by X%, or go as far as adding specific advanced class bonusses like you find on Ops gear.

 

--------------------------------

 

Post #2 (relating pretty much entirely to Cybertech - Be warned, some extreme ideas/changes)

 

At the moment Cybertech feels kind of awkward to me to be honest. First of all, I am not saying that it's badly designed or that there's no profit to be made, cause there clearly is. Also, please note that I have Cybertech on my main character and is my main focus of crew skills across all characters.

 

But for example, Armoring and Mods as currently, don't feel like they should be part of Cybertech. In my opinion they are suited more for the other crafting professions.

 

When I think Cybertech, I think about nifty gadgets/inventions. Kind of like engineering in WoW, as someone mentioned. But given the Star Wars theme, this can be really huge.

 

Examples:

 

1) Visors. Aside from currently earpieces, I would love to be able to create nifty looking visors or helmets. Things that feel and look "techy". These would be equippable and either replace earpieces or fit in the helmet itemslot, and preferably be visually represented on the characters.

 

2) Custom Ship Parts. Custom Ship Parts for "when we finally get to customize both the interior and exterior of our ships". Infact I'd love it if at some point BioWare decides to let us literally build our own spaceship. (Note that I do not expect this to be an easy task, but rather a very long and arduous process. Something that could possibly take weeks if not months of time dedicated mostly to obtaining materials through a combination of farming materials, special gathering missions, and crafting special parts which have a long cooldown and/or long craft time).

 

3) Speeders. At the moment we have two craftable speeders (iirc), and both are BoP. It would be nice if we could actually sell them on the auctionhouse. Also, crafting them feels so easy at the moment, even the Hotrigged Speederbike. It doesn't really feel like any real effort has to be spend in something that one would expect to be quite dificult to make. Atleast. the time and effort spent into making them currently simply don't fit the idea/scope of crafting a speeder. (Also, the GTN seems flooded with the schematics for these, which is wrong in my opinion. It should be more rare).

 

4) Droids & Droid Parts. While I like that we can craft droid parts as upgrades, I would LOVE IT EVEN MORE, and yes I'm going to go there, if we could MAKE our own companion droid from scratch! HK-47 anyone? While it would be a daunting task to implement something like this, I literally would LOVE it. Just make it so it's more meaningful and investing than they did in KOTOR II.

 

Or implement a system to allow our droid parts as a whole to change the visual appearance of our droids. This would mean we don't have to rely on Customization Kits for our droid companions. (Or consider letting cybertech also create those customization kits, if the former is inconceivable.)

 

5) Non-combat Pets. 'Nuff said; I'd like to make them!

 

6) Gadgets & Grenades. At the moment everything we can craft is grenades. It would be nice to take the focus from genades purely to a more broad spectrum. Right now we have a grenade for everything, stunning, slowing, rooting, knockdown, poison aoe, fire aoe, you name it...

 

It would be be nice to see some grenades replaced with with other gadgets. Like a taser for example, only usable in melee range, and only applicable to one person instead of a group. Or a trap of some sort, or a deployable turret, or a wrist-mounted bola launcher, or whatever really... Anything to make the spectrum broader than just grenades.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Arell

[Aethyrprime]

some of the things I think they need to add is Every Crew Skill sould have consumables long and short duration, maybe some instants.

 

Also I'd like to see items like augmentation kits that the varius crafters can make that give players a chance to improve a item to crit quality and would be good for quest rewards and drops in the game that don't have them. Another posibility is a chance quality improvement kits so you can like improve a item from blue to purple and maybe even to orange.

 

I wouldn't mind this at all.. It would be nice if even Cybertechs could make an item we used "like in lotro" to boost the chance for a crit. Wekcome to the OP! Updating with this idea.

 

The next post is huge so going to have to read that and think about what to respond with lol..

Edited January 24, 2012 by Aethyrprime

[Aethyrprime]

First of all, great post OP. You've made it look very detailed on your ideas, aswell as sharing some other people's ideas. I particularly like idea #4, as currently the crafting windows are pretty horrible to navigate, aswell as displaying what you have discovered in a proper and neat way.

 

{edited for size}

But for example, Armoring and Mods as currently, don't feel like they should be part of Cybertech. In my opinion they are suited more for the other crafting professions.

 

When I think Cybertech, I think about nifty gadgets/inventions. Kind of like engineering in WoW, as someone mentioned. But given the Star Wars theme, this can be really huge.

 

Examples:

 

1) Visors. Aside from currently earpieces, I would love to be able to create nifty looking visors or helmets. Things that feel and look "techy". These would be equippable and either replace earpieces or fit in the helmet itemslot, and preferably be visually represented on the characters.

 

2) Custom Ship Parts. Custom Ship Parts for "when we finally get to customize both the interior and exterior of our ships". Infact I'd love it if at some point BioWare decides to let us literally build our own spaceship. (Note that I do not expect this to be an easy task, but rather a very long and arduous process. Something that could possibly take weeks if not months of time dedicated mostly to obtaining materials through a combination of farming materials, special gathering missions, and crafting special parts which have a long cooldown and/or long craft time).

 

3) Speeders. At the moment we have two craftable speeders (iirc), and both are BoP. It would be nice if we could actually sell them on the auctionhouse. Also, crafting them feels so easy at the moment, even the Hotrigged Speederbike. It doesn't really feel like any real effort has to be spend in something that one would expect to be quite dificult to make. Atleast. the time and effort spent into making them currently simply don't fit the idea/scope of crafting a speeder. (Also, the GTN seems flooded with the schematics for these, which is wrong in my opinion. It should be more rare).

 

4) Droids & Droid Parts. While I like that we can craft droid parts as upgrades, I would LOVE IT EVEN MORE, and yes I'm going to go there, if we could MAKE our own companion droid from scratch! HK-47 anyone? While it would be a daunting task to implement something like this, I literally would LOVE it. Just make it so it's more meaningful and investing than they did in KOTOR II.

 

Or implement a system to allow our droid parts as a whole to change the visual appearance of our droids. This would mean we don't have to rely on Customization Kits for our droid companions. (Or consider letting cybertech also create those customization kits, if the former is inconceivable.)

 

5) Non-combat Pets. 'Nuff said; I'd like to make them!

 

6) Gadgets & Grenades. At the moment everything we can craft is grenades. It would be nice to take the focus from genades purely to a more broad spectrum. Right now we have a grenade for everything, stunning, slowing, rooting, knockdown, poison aoe, fire aoe, you name it...

 

It would be be nice to see some grenades replaced with with other gadgets. Like a taser for example, only usable in melee range, and only applicable to one person instead of a group. Or a trap of some sort, or a deployable turret, or a wrist-mounted bola launcher, or whatever really... Anything to make the spectrum broader than just grenades.

 

Several posters have suggested similar expanded options for Cybertech. I agree with that but am going to be working it in to a revision that includes creating pvp towers for resource wars found in the other thread in my signature. The two ideas are linked technically but deal with completely separate issues.

[Aethyrprime]

Updated the OP with Idea #6

[Aethyrprime]

Updated some formatting and descriptions.

[Aethyrprime]

Well said. Make crew skills actually worth something. I'm hoping what is implemented now is just a skeleton system that BW plans to expand greatly on because I honestly feel that the potential is there for crew skills to truly be something fun and exciting rather than just dull and pointless as it is now.

 

Me too..

[Arell]

Well said. Make crew skills actually worth something. I'm hoping what is implemented now is just a skeleton system that BW plans to expand greatly on because I honestly feel that the potential is there for crew skills to truly be something fun and exciting rather than just dull and pointless as it is now.

 

Not just concerning crew skills - this entire game has soooo much potential. ^^