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

Aethyrprime · February 2, 2012

updated.

Aethyrprime · February 3, 2012

PTR updates considered.

Saldrex · February 3, 2012

Adding perks in the form of clickies and what not just leads to more imbalance rather than fixing anythng. You compare them to biochem / cybertech but the perks they have are more oriented at money saving that actually providing something. Everyone can still get the effects of medpacks or grenades without being either of them.

I am also against the moving of armorings from cybertech to other professions as I feel this would be something that severely devalues the profession. Armor professions can provide 7 slots worth of gear and some like to say cyber does double due to two slots of mods which i would rather say.

5 * 2/3 for the 5 armor slots that accept armorings and not belt / bracers

2 belt / bracers (if you are lucky enough to get one that is orange)

2 * 1/4 for the one slot in the weapon for those with two weapons

1 for ear piece

this would be 6 5/6 of your slots a number that is less than 7

I could come up with a lower value for mods if I counted the orange as a percentage of the gear as well

5 * 1/2 armor with enh slot

2 * 2/3 belt and bracer, no enh slot

2 * 1/5 weapon

1

that would make 5 7/30 of your slots.

I do not see how the other professions are in more need of the armorings than cybertech

The value would go further down if I looked at it in terms of most people and removed the elusive belt and bracers as well. For most people it does not have the same gear coverage without them.

I am much more for an idea that all profs that are not cybertech or biochem gain augment slot adding consumable. The various slots can be divided between the professions so they all did 4 slots each. This would help make augments useful. It would give goods useful in all content levels to all the crew skills that are lacking as most people on the forums seem to see them. It helps make the game better for players as it allows them to customize their gear more and never feel forced into a look (especially with the coming crit crafted orange gear). It keeps them from having to make orange versions of every gear for crafter as quite a few have asked for as it alleviates the need to (it would be more of a mess and hassle for everyone otherwise, trying to find the piece you want which is not always up or someone to craft it for you could be a pain). It could be free for the professions to do it to their own gear, giving them a perk more inline with the current perks of professions. These would not cause imbalancing since they are not adding anything "effect" that exclusive to the crew skills.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Saldrex

Aethyrprime · February 3, 2012

Adding perks in the form of clickies and what not just leads to more imbalance rather than fixing anythng. You compare them to biochem / cybertech but the perks they have are more oriented at money saving that actually providing something. Everyone can still get the effects of medpacks or grenades without being either of them.

It does no such thing.

It's very simple. All crewskills should get clickables or none. Period. No if's. No ands. No butts about it. Since 2 of 6 get them. The rest should be fixed.

I am also against the moving of armorings from cybertech to other professions as I feel this would be something that severely devalues the profession. Armor professions can provide 7 slots worth of gear and some like to say cyber does double due to two slots of mods which i would rather say.

Your math is nice and all but it doesn't address the suggestion at all. I do implore you to read the full thing before forming an opinion regarding the removal of armoring mods from cybertech. I am suggesting giving them a "TON" in exchange for 1 mod.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Aethyrprime

Lexlo · February 3, 2012

didn't read the whole thread but...

400/400: Grants an Item Schematic that lets you remove mods/armor/enhancement from "X" without charge. Reusable.

X being that crafting class' item type. So armor for armormech. etc

_Flin_ · February 3, 2012

I ask myself whether the OP ever RE'd a lvl 49 base blue schematic to a purple II. These when crit are close to BIS.

My opinion about moving Armorings has been stated quite often and has not changed. Armorings are useless at endgame and the only thing that is actually useful for Cybertechs while leveling (apart from Earpieces). It wont help any profession to get these, but severly nerf Cybertech. Which will be left with earpieces only (which is already the case at maxlevel)

Saldrex · February 3, 2012

It does no such thing.

It's very simple. All crewskills should get clickables or none. Period. No if's. No ands. No butts. About it. Since 2 of 6 get them. The rest should be fixed.

Your math is nice and all but it doesn't address the suggestion at all. I do implore you to read the full thing before forming an opinion regarding the removal of armoring mods from cybertech. I am suggesting giving them a "TON" in exchange for 1 mod.

Maybe you did not read all of what I was trying to say and well clickables can work if they provide no exclusive effects. The effects you have mentioned in the first post all provide effects that would have implications in pvp and other situations. Some can be seen as forced for role or encounter or what not unless fairly mundane with little or no real benefit. They can quickly become hard to balance such as the grappling hook or the net gun for example. The shield one depending on its effectiveness / cool down could feel like something almost mandatory for a tank. I am not a fan of design like that. They all provide effects that one cannot use otherwise in your proposed ideas.

As is though biochem and cybertech do not really provide exclusive effects (much better balanced in the coming patch). If you want grenades you can buy them. If you want medpacks or stims you can buy them. Rather than having to make them continuously for yourself you can make the reusables with the profession. The saving of the resuable is the cost, the reusabel provides no new exclusive effects. Maybe having them make consumable nets and grappling hooks, etc that others could use would make it better but it would still be the introduction of a new effect that may need some rebalancing.

On the whole cybertech issue. I will admit right now that my main is a cybertech, I have grenades and never use them but am willing to accept the perk of infinite grenades being my cost saving perk (though it saves me nothing). I talked about ways to add cost saving perks to some others as my suggestion and I am sorry you did not like it or did not mention anything about it.

I have read your post, what you are talking about is something that would rework the entire crew skill of cybertech and others to a degree. Part of what a lot of people outside of your post talk about is the moving of armorings specifically and not 100% directed to your post but I felt a need to mention it.

You mentioned the new system of turrets (i assume the major benefit to cybertech was the base item for these) which I am not really a fan of as it forces the need for profession in pvp and profession makeup of your groups starts having an effect on success and what not. Not having enough cybertechs might make your team lose which to me would not sit right with me.

You mentioned the crit boost item, I am more in favor of a guarantee item like I was trying to say with the augment slot adding consumable. If it is not added it is not a benefit to cybertech who you were going to have make it.

Ok you switched the enhancements out of artifice and to cybertech which helps lower its value which was made up through the new clickes you were adding but without the clickes it would just work to devalue the profession of artifice instead (in a way also cybertech since some seem to see armorings as more valuable since they adjust the armor of the gear)

I saw you move augments there but that does not do much unless augments become more useful. As I talked about in my suggestion, by adding the item that adds slots for them to gear, they would now be usable in all tiers of content. Some patch eventually is supposed to add crit oranges but until then they are not extremely useful. The new cirt orange gear might end up limiting if implemented as just that, enforcing the use of relatively similar looking gear for most people as the crit oranges become superior and take away from the diversity of the game it seems like the devs really want. I will definitely agree that something better can be done with augments and having more control over them might be nice as well as the production of augment slots. From what it sounds like you are leaving slicing with only money and mission skills which feels a bit strange to me, I am not sure what you were planning to do with slicing after taking it away or if you were just leaving it like that. I am more in favor of having sliced terminals have a chance to yield augments rather than exclusively credit boxes with the only way to get them being mission skills.

The vehicle that cybertech gets right now are very lack luster and nothing special, I have no problem with how it is now. The issue many seem to have with it is that they are bop which to me is not a problem. The real problem would be that they cost way too much to make and are no different than vendor mounts. Though again I have no problem with them the way they are now. As is they are nothing more than a novelty. Even if they were boe I would probably never sell as it would cost more than double the price of the same speed with a different paint job, probably around 4x the price. 10 mandalorian iron does not come cheap.

I do fail to see the "ton" of benefit for the loss of the armorings. While I agree with the need to do something to rebalance and give the lack lust professions some new goods that are useful for level 50 and beyond, I sadly am not in agreement with all the proposed changes as you have stated them.

Also as I said before with the idea of the augment slot adders and how they would be divided between all but cybertech and biochecm. Having them alone would alleviate the need for your first point of needing to reverse engineer all gear to orange gear. Allowing the reverse engineering of all gear to orange would probably lead to cluttered skill log and possibly hard to find items on the GTN of the exact item you are looking for. Even trying to find a person who has the schematic for some obscure item could easily end up a pain and be simply not be fun but rather a limiting factor in customization. There would be no need to reverse engineer the look of raid gear to keep the look when the patch allows the removal / replacement of armoring (to a degree I think that the looks are something earned by the raiders). The big thing with wanting to have the gear reverse engineered and recrafted would be for the augment slot paired with the look. A much simpler solution was the augment slot adding item I was talking about. If you want a clickie for all the crew skill, the ones with the augment slot adding could have an infinite use item that adds the slot to the respective ones they are allowed to or an extended amount for personal use only. Other profs would have to buy the item, like they could medpacks or grenades. This would make it another money saving perk without adding new effects to the game or any exclusive ones. It also allows for much more varied customization when augment slot items start becoming the best in all slots. I know you mentioned something about adding an item for augment slots however briefly, but I think it alone could supply the needed changes for all the reasons I have stated and you did not explain much about. I think it is more of a major issue to add this new consumable than anything else with the coming crit oranges.

I think that hit on all of your main ideas except for part 4, then again I have no qualms with it really. It is not that I completely dislike all your ideas, I have concerns with some of them. Adding to a crew skill is more ok than moving something to me. If you become a profession for an aspect that is now taken away it can feel insulting, especially after putting a lot of work reverse engineering that craft all the way up. As I said with the clickies you were mentioning, not having a consumable version for all to you would bring it above the professions that you are trying to balance them around. If there were consumable versions as well (or if they did not work in most situations, you mentioned level restrictions as one thing) they might be alright. They might have some major impacts in pvp or other areas of the game if they are exclusive effects. If the effects were not exclusive, having consumable versions of reusable. I am really just against your idea for exclusive effects.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Saldrex

Aethyrprime · February 3, 2012

I ask myself whether the OP ever RE'd a lvl 49 base blue schematic to a purple II. These when crit are close to BIS.

My opinion about moving Armorings has been stated quite often and has not changed. Armorings are useless at endgame and the only thing that is actually useful for Cybertechs while leveling (apart from Earpieces). It wont help any profession to get these, but severly nerf Cybertech. Which will be left with earpieces only (which is already the case at maxlevel)

Perhaps the 400/400 synthweaving meant nothing to you. I've RE a blue lvl 50 to a purple and crit on it.. What's your point?

As for what I said read the suggestion losing armoring is not a bad thing when you gain so much more.

KingsGambit · February 3, 2012

Stuff

I have to say that I realise how much and how well thought out your post is. Kudos on the effort, but I disagree with almost all of those ideas. Many of them serve either no function whatsoever, serve a function already filled elsewhere or make players more powerful than they already are without any balance.

I can't address so much text, but the bits that caught my attention:

"All Equipable/Usable items in game (shop purchasable, quest rewards, loot from mobs of any kind including raid mobs) can be Reverse Engineered to a pattern"

There would be too much unnecessary recipes. Gear is supposed to progress along with our characters. There is no need for everything to RE. What would be better would simply be adding moddable gloves and boots to armor/synthweave recipe lists, allowing players to craft full matched sets. They would thus be the only, single place in the game where an entire matching armour set could be purchased from one place.

"If you are dead set on keeping augments as they are then please at least let us craft something to socket it on to existing non crafted gear."

There is no need for this whatsoever. As it is, the PvE game is already balanced for the most part. I have no trouble in FP/Op HMs with what I have now. PvP would be silly as people die faster without damage reduction going up. Pointless.

"Wrist - Grappling Hook Attachment"

Bounty Hunters/Juggernauts already have this ability. Why does a sniper need it?

"Wrist - Net Gun Attachment"

Cybertech has a grenade that does this.

"- grenade launcher (maybe rifle only)"

Troopers already have this and agents don't need it

"Move the "Armor" type modifications out of cybertech"

I semi agree with this, even tho I am cybertech and these are good earners.

I don't understand the current distribution. I believe armoring should be divided up as appropriate between armor/synth, enhancements should move to cybertech and mods remain where they are. There's no logical or explicable reason for enhancements to be in artifice. This gives armor/synth a much needed boost.

"Give Cybertech the ability to craft a consumable item which increases crit chance or efficiency during crafting"

This is completely pointless. Why not just boost the crit chance across the board if there will be a consumable everyone can (and will) use that does it? Why cybertech? This serves no purpose.

"Cybertech

Reusable grenades that make a difference. - Agreed. The nerf bat balanced them too much.

Ship armor that beats the artifact (grade 6) stuff." Unnecessary. I can already beat every space mission without trouble.

I don't understand why EVERY armour also needs a set bonus. The whole point of the existing system is that it's only the top items that have them. They aren't particularly great for the most part either, just make okay powers a little better, or crap powers slighly less bad. There should be a choice between the set bonuses of the special armours, or the aesthetic, customisable appeal of moddable gear.

As a healer for ex. the game insists I have alacrity on all my top gear. However, alacrity is worthless, particularly in comparison to useful stats like crit/surge and power. So I have my own well modded gear, with bits mixed in. I have set bonuses from both champion and columi gear, but don't use them because they suck.

Powers and classes are already balanced well enough in PvE and in PvP there will always be balancing of one sort or another. Adding more set bonuses and augment slots does nothing.

I think the point you're missing is that any change you make like these doesn't just make you a little more powerful, it makes *every* player more powerful. As such, you might as well not do it at all for the difference it makes. You are also suggesting giving game-altering abilities to classes that are already balanced in terms of pulls, knockbacks, leaps and stuns. If a tank could CC like an operative or a mercenary leap about like a powertech what would the point be in other classes?

Edited February 3, 2012 by KingsGambit

Aethyrprime · February 3, 2012

Maybe you did not read all of what I was trying to say and well clickables can work if they provide no exclusive effects. The effects you have mentioned in the first post all provide effects that would have implications in pvp and other situations. Some can be seen as forced for role or encounter or what not unless fairly mundane with little or no real benefit. They can quickly become hard to balance such as the grappling hook or the net gun for example. The shield one depending on its effectiveness / cool down could feel like something almost mandatory for a tank. I am not a fan of design like that. They all provide effects that one cannot use otherwise in your proposed ideas.

When I read it I don't get out of it what you are. You see, when I read it to me I clearly stated that every crewskill should have something for everyone. There should be a tank, dps and healer option for each clickable slot. I simply listed a few ideas to get the ball rolling.. not a full list of final effects and I clearly state that as well.

Going with the assumption you made on the exclusivity of a crewskills benefits to one over another.. I'd agree with you. But since that is specifically not what I suggested then I just have to say, please look at it a bit more carefully and not just skim. I know I am wordy but I try my best to make all of them count.

As is though biochem and cybertech do not really provide exclusive effects (much better balanced in the coming patch). If you want grenades you can buy them. If you want medpacks or stims you can buy them. Rather than having to make them continuously for yourself you can make the reusables with the profession. The saving of the resuable is the cost, the reusabel provides no new exclusive effects. Maybe having them make consumable nets and grappling hooks, etc that others could use would make it better but it would still be the introduction of a new effect that may need some rebalancing.

I disagree with both nerfs. I think that they were fine if the rest of the crewskills got something special too. I believe in balancing without the use of a nerfbat "if at all possible", or a sledgehammer as is the case in many of these kneejerk reactionary changes.

On the whole cybertech issue. I will admit right now that my main is a cybertech, I have grenades and never use them but am willing to accept the perk of infinite grenades being my cost saving perk (though it saves me nothing). I talked about ways to add cost saving perks to some others as my suggestion and I am sorry you did not like it or did not mention anything about it.

I'll look at it again more carefully but I'll admit after I saw you didn't get what I suggested clearly I didn't read it fully because it seemed as you illustrated in the first part of what I quoted here that you didn't understand what I wrote. Now having replied I see where the confusion is and hope that I've corrected it!

I have read your post, what you are talking about is something that would rework the entire crew skill of cybertech and others to a degree. Part of what a lot of people outside of your post talk about is the moving of armorings specifically and not 100% directed to your post but I felt a need to mention it.

It wasn't apart of my original suggestion and I was initially against it too. (I have a 200/400 cybertech btw and a 275/400 biochem). But after thinking about it I could see why it made sense. As an armor maker.. it's really a kick to the gut to have armor.. without armor.. ya know? The two armor makers get nadda for their gear to start with stat wise. It's just not a good design idea. The mods sure! Why not? Keep that with others for cross class fusion but let me explain why.

My Bounty Hunter is my Cybertech. As I am leveling up that cybertech I can admit, I haven't really had the time/resources to worry about RE'ing Willpower, cunning or strength mods/armor/etc because they don't apply to my primary class as I am leveling. Once I hit am starting to sit on tons of extra resources I will probably start researching those types of enhancements. Sadly it seems this is the case for everyone else too. I can't ever find armor mods with anything but +aim on it in the Market on my server.. The problem becomes easier over time as more people max it and start researching the off class items but for now it seems there's only 1 non BH cybertech on my server and they are still low level because there's never anything higher than lvl 30.

You mentioned the new system of turrets (i assume the major benefit to cybertech was the base item for these) which I am not really a fan of as it forces the need for profession in pvp and profession makeup of your groups starts having an effect on success and what not. Not having enough cybertechs might make your team lose which to me would not sit right with me.

This is a misunderstanding so I will address it and correct it. The tower chassis are built by Cybertech, the augmentations for them from others. You will not need to bring a cybertech to a fight. You will be able to purchase your custom crafted towers before going to the world pvp enagement off the market, or, go to the planet and buy generics which will grant almost no benefits by comparison. (this is all covered in the other suggestion at great length and detail but is a crossed over idea).

So what that means is again you disagree with a misunderstanding not really what I suggested. At least you posted exactly what you think it meant so I could correct it! Wish everyone who had a differing opinion would do so. Would be easier to alleviate concerns!

You mentioned the crit boost item, I am more in favor of a guarantee item like I was trying to say with the augment slot adding consumable. If it is not added it is not a benefit to cybertech who you were going to have make it.

Crit boost and efficiency consumables to be used during crafting. If you played Lord of the Rings even for a few weeks as I did you'd understand what I mean. It was a decent crafting system. They had items to help make crafting produce critical success that could be crafted by the a tradeskiller.

That being said let me say I don't see a reason why both can't be done! I am fully in favor of an augment slot adding item. Which crewskill would get it remains to be seen. I believe each should be able to socket their own "slots" and that's it as a self only benefit of each crewskill.

Ok you switched the enhancements out of artifice and to cybertech which helps lower its value which was made up through the new clickes you were adding but without the clickes it would just work to devalue the profession of artifice instead (in a way also cybertech since some seem to see armorings as more valuable since they adjust the armor of the gear)

This is subjective to opinion tho. Again this is a fully fleshed out idea meant to be taken as a whole to imho perfect the crafting system and add more customization to characters. I'm a firm believer in "Customization is King".

I saw you move augments there but that does not do much unless augments become more useful. As I talked about in my suggestion, by adding the item that adds slots for them to gear, they would now be usable in all tiers of content. Some patch eventually is supposed to add crit oranges but until then they are not extremely useful. The new cirt orange gear might end up limiting if implemented as just that, enforcing the use of relatively similar looking gear for most people as the crit oranges become superior and take away from the diversity of the game it seems like the devs really want. I will definitely agree that something better can be done with augments and having more control over them might be nice as well as the production of augment slots. From what it sounds like you are leaving slicing with only money and mission skills which feels a bit strange to me, I am not sure what you were planning to do with slicing after taking it away or if you were just leaving it like that. I am more in favor of having sliced terminals have a chance to yield augments rather than exclusively credit boxes with the only way to get them being mission skills.

That is why I am against the crit for golds without all items in game being able to be RE'd to a gold. Otherwise it even says in my OP to put an item in game which allows you to add an augment socket to gear to the game. I'll quote it for you if you wish!

The vehicle that cybertech gets right now are very lack luster and nothing special, I have no problem with how it is now. The issue many seem to have with it is that they are bop which to me is not a problem. The real problem would be that they cost way too much to make and are no different than vendor mounts. Though again I have no problem with them the way they are now. As is they are nothing more than a novelty. Even if they were boe I would probably never sell as it would cost more than double the price of the same speed with a different paint job, probably around 4x the price. 10 mandalorian iron does not come cheap.

I can't argue with anything here. I believe that vehicles should get some love and somewhere around page 10 I think someone made a good suggestion for it I just have to find the right way to include it in the already crowded OP.

I do fail to see the "ton" of benefit for the loss of the armorings. While I agree with the need to do something to rebalance and give the lack lust professions some new goods that are useful for level 50 and beyond, I sadly am not in agreement with all the proposed changes as you have stated them.

I hope after reading this response you will be able to say your mind is changed on this point as most of your basis for feeling this way I believe is unfounded.

Also as I said before with the idea of the augment slot adders and how they would be divided between all but cybertech and biochecm. Having them alone would alleviate the need for your first point of needing to reverse engineer all gear to orange gear. Allowing the reverse engineering of all gear to orange would probably lead to cluttered skill log and possibly hard to find items on the GTN of the exact item you are looking for. Even trying to find a person who has the schematic for some obscure item could easily end up a pain and be simply not be fun but rather a limiting factor in customization. There would be no need to reverse engineer the look of raid gear to keep the look when the patch allows the removal / replacement of armoring (to a degree I think that the looks are something earned by the raiders). The big thing with wanting to have the gear reverse engineered and recrafted would be for the augment slot paired with the look. A much simpler solution was the augment slot adding item I was talking about. If you want a clickie for all the crew skill, the ones with the augment slot adding could have an infinite use item that adds the slot to the respective ones they are allowed to or an extended amount for personal use only. Other profs would have to buy the item, like they could medpacks or grenades. This would make it another money saving perk without adding new effects to the game or any exclusive ones. It also allows for much more varied customization when augment slot items start becoming the best in all slots. I know you mentioned something about adding an item for augment slots however briefly, but I think it alone could supply the needed changes for all the reasons I have stated and you did not explain much about. I think it is more of a major issue to add this new consumable than anything else with the coming crit oranges.

Unfortunately this is not true. There are tons of gear which are green loot or quest rewards which I think are way better looking than any of the gold items I've seen in game. Furthermore, there are white items in shops which have skins which are not available any way else. Truly, "social" as you can't put stats on them. These items are sometimes really cool looking and a total shame that they can't be used as real armor. With the proposed "Everything to a gold" plan, this would no longer be the case as I would be able to mix n match all kinds of gear!

More customization options == more happy people!

Also, one of the suggestions is specifically to clean up the crafting window. Also we know the market is going to change as well. No one is happy with it. Saying someone has too many patterns is just crazy talk.

I think that hit on all of your main ideas except for part 4, then again I have no qualms with it really. It is not that I completely dislike all your ideas, I have concerns with some of them. Adding to a crew skill is more ok than moving something to me. If you become a profession for an aspect that is now taken away it can feel insulting, especially after putting a lot of work reverse engineering that craft all the way up. As I said with the clickies you were mentioning, not having a consumable version for all to you would bring it above the professions that you are trying to balance them around. If there were consumable versions as well (or if they did not work in most situations, you mentioned level restrictions as one thing) they might be alright. They might have some major impacts in pvp or other areas of the game if they are exclusive effects. If the effects were not exclusive, having consumable versions of reusable. I am really just against your idea for exclusive effects.

Well since you are really only against the idea for exclusive effects and there are no suggested exclusive effects there should be no problem at all!

Thanks for the post.

{Edit: I'll respond to KingsGambit tomorrow.. it's late and I want to sleep, but rest assured I will get to all of your points because I believe you have also misunderstood a few things..)

Edited February 3, 2012 by Aethyrprime

Saldrex · February 3, 2012

When I read it I don't get out of it what you are. You see, when I read it to me I clearly stated that every crewskill should have something for everyone. There should be a tank, dps and healer option for each clickable slot. I simply listed a few ideas to get the ball rolling.. not a full list of final effects and I clearly state that as well.

Going with the assumption you made on the exclusivity of a crewskills benefits to one over another.. I'd agree with you. But since that is specifically not what I suggested then I just have to say, please look at it a bit more carefully and not just skim. I know I am wordy but I try my best to make all of them count.

I do not think I am miss understanding anything. The are exclusive becasue you asked for them to be BoP items with NO mention of them being usable otherwise. The assumption is that they are BoP and exclusive.

The only statement of the mechanic was:

These functions should have a gamut from lvl 10-50 on the same leveling curve as Biochem & Cybertech re-usables. Meaning every so many levels they could create a Bind on Pickup enhancement; Use it; Then select the piece of armor/weapon they wish to attach it too. Once attached the user will be able to drag n drop that item to their hotbar and click it as they would a relic for various effects.

I am not a fan of anything that is exclusive to one profession or another. As I have stated there are consumable versions of the current reusables. Not implementing a consumable version (that can be sold specifically is what I am referring to) would give a new effect exclusively to that crew skill. The effects from bio and cyber are pretty much mimicked by the consumable versions. Having biochecm or cybertech does not give a true advantage, it only saves money when trying to use the effects. Not to mention adding new effects could disrupt the balance of the game. Would grappling hooks make marauders unstoppable in PVP? That might be extreme to say but there could be serious implications to implementing these. Making them with no consumable could make it seem mandatory for someone to pick up the profession for either pvp or pve which is something I am against especially when a player can buy grenades and medpacks still. I like them staying purchasable as well so that no single crew skill grets a true advantage in functionality.

I disagree with both nerfs. I think that they were fine if the rest of the crewskills got something special too. I believe in balancing without the use of a nerfbat "if at all possible", or a sledgehammer as is the case in many of these kneejerk reactionary changes.

I think that the crew skills might have needed them. Buffs cannot always be done in a game, they simply cannot. Buffing everything else is like nerfing the one thing through relativity. Buffs can nerf content through relativity as well through trivializing it due to gear or newly introduced class / crew skill mechanics. If pve is also buffed up to compensate, wouldn't it just end up being a nerf in the end? I agree that not everything needs to be nerfed into oblivion. Devs have stated that they wanted biochem to have a perk that is nothing more than money saving and that is the direction they are going. Due to this I was looking at a way to mimic the same perk, money saving, in the professions that did not have it. Having the crew skills both produce the augment adding item consumable to be sold and one for infinite personal use would achieve this and help alleviate other problems to come when crit orange gear is released. These slot items would be given to Synth, Armor, Arms, and artifice and have all the slots of gear divided between them.

I'll look at it again more carefully but I'll admit after I saw you didn't get what I suggested clearly I didn't read it fully because it seemed as you illustrated in the first part of what I quoted here that you didn't understand what I wrote. Now having replied I see where the confusion is and hope that I've corrected it!

I think I better explained my suggestion this time around with the division of the slots. As I said before you hit a bit on what I am talking about with the slots adding but did not elaborate much on it. I have a much more detailed proposal for it. It did not seem like a main point of your proposal either, just something you would like to see implemented along side your systems that already took care of the "issues". My idea is more of the reverse with having it be the main point that possibly solves all the main issues you are trying to solve with the one addition of the augment slot adding items.

It wasn't apart of my original suggestion and I was initially against it too. (I have a 200/400 cybertech btw and a 275/400 biochem). But after thinking about it I could see why it made sense. As an armor maker.. it's really a kick to the gut to have armor.. without armor.. ya know? The two armor makers get nadda for their gear to start with stat wise. It's just not a good design idea. The mods sure! Why not? Keep that with others for cross class fusion but let me explain why.

My Bounty Hunter is my Cybertech. As I am leveling up that cybertech I can admit, I haven't really had the time/resources to worry about RE'ing Willpower, cunning or strength mods/armor/etc because they don't apply to my primary class as I am leveling. Once I hit am starting to sit on tons of extra resources I will probably start researching those types of enhancements. Sadly it seems this is the case for everyone else too. I can't ever find armor mods with anything but +aim on it in the Market on my server.. The problem becomes easier over time as more people max it and start researching the off class items but for now it seems there's only 1 non BH cybertech on my server and they are still low level because there's never anything higher than lvl 30.

As I said before, moving things could devalue professions for people. Anyone not a force user but still an artifice would lose much by losing the enhancements. I know for me I became a cybertech for the armorings and it would devalue all the effort I put into it. The whole insult about armor not being on armor could easily be fixed another way that is much more neutral to this (at least to me) by taking the orange gear and looking at the minimum level and setting the armor value to that of a green or while of the same level. This would give the orange the armor but change nothing. For some reason I do not see how it is insulting. You can make non orange gear as is that functions the same if not better. They have the ability to crit slots and will have the ability to crit slots on their oranges in the future, making them potentially the best in slot items as some are saying. I know I have thought about switching to armormech quite a few times while leveling, I had it in beta and liked it as well. I know with some of the ideas you were talking about, you were moving while adding the clickies, but I do not think that the clickies as stated should exist and without them would devalue artifice and I am still not sure what the plan for slicing is with the augment move as well. I would rather see slicing start receiving augments from locked chest as well as making them more useful as a system than just an oddity on select pieces of gear.

The problems to me as far as diversity on the market are probably less about people maining cybertech than about the companions they have access to. I know I can make all the aim and cunning mods / armorings at artifact level and as a BH that covers all my companions surprisingly. That to me was somewhat of a complaint and would have like to have companions that used strength or willpower as well to make the random drops with them to not always be vendor trash. I would probably know more types by now if I had reasons for them. As I was leveling I kept my gear up to date on me and my companion through cybetech for the most part, granted I only bothered with cunning / aim. I never bothered with anything better than greens while leveling for the most part as they never felt like a good investment with commendations / out leveling etc.

This is a misunderstanding so I will address it and correct it. The tower chassis are built by Cybertech, the augmentations for them from others. You will not need to bring a cybertech to a fight. You will be able to purchase your custom crafted towers before going to the world pvp enagement off the market, or, go to the planet and buy generics which will grant almost no benefits by comparison. (this is all covered in the other suggestion at great length and detail but is a crossed over idea).

So what that means is again you disagree with a misunderstanding not really what I suggested. At least you posted exactly what you think it meant so I could correct it! Wish everyone who had a differing opinion would do so. Would be easier to alleviate concerns!

it was not clearly stated that they could be traded or purchases and the assumption becomes that they are not after talking about the other BoP items earlier.

CyberTech should be given the ability to create Turrets & Resource Gathering Towers chassis for objective based pvp.
These towers will be semi-permanent structures added to the game world in specified regions and follow specific placement rules. (see above link)
Towers will be consumed when used and thus be required to be restocked regularly when destroyed in pvp.
These towers will be modifiable to serve different purposes such as offensive turret, defensive turret or resource harvester through the use of modifications created by the various crewskills, such as weapons by arms tech, harvesters by artificer, etc.
These towers would harvest rare end game rafting materials granting pvp stats for use by all crewskills to craft end game pvp items (which should have valor rank based & level based usage requirements), for their guild. The harvested materials should be added to the guild vault with permissions on access for members of the guild.
Towers are faction vs faction locked for pvp rule set.

No where is it established that such a thing would be a tradable good. I am sorry if I misunderstood if that was your original intent. I have mixed feeling about a system like this being introduced. I do think it could be interesting but part of me likes it not being so tied to professions or guilds. While I think it is an interesting idea I am not sure however that I like professions being "needed" for pvp. I am much more accepting of a system designed around around guild pvp (as you mentioned with guild mats and what not for them) I would much rather see a system where the guild itself learned how to craft the items and possibly crafted through some sort of guild crafting station. They could be learned through guild ranks or some system involving the guilds.

Crit boost and efficiency consumables to be used during crafting. If you played Lord of the Rings even for a few weeks as I did you'd understand what I mean. It was a decent crafting system. They had items to help make crafting produce critical success that could be crafted by the a tradeskiller.

While I think it is interesting and probably a good idea but am still more in favor of a guarantee item if one of the other had to be chosen. I do not see why this would have to be added to cyberteh as a new consumable for them to sell when it could be implemented to other instead, like synthweaving or armormech or even to others. Each crew skill could effect different crafts or different mission skills based on the crew skill.

As is cybertech already has consumable that they can sell and I do not think they need them. Based on what I have read up on the forums quite a bit with people talking about the lack of usefulness of others and not being able to sell anything, I have thought that others could use consumables as well that people would need for all content levels in order to maximize your performance. If they do not receive such a thing, there will always be a push for better gear crafted by the professions since it is overgeared and "nothing sells" as a result. I am not going to argue about how to make money with those crew skills but rather having a consumable would make it much like the others in their end game usefulness and probably more inline with the current setup.

That being said let me say I don't see a reason why both can't be done! I am fully in favor of an augment slot adding item. Which crewskill would get it remains to be seen. I believe each should be able to socket their own "slots" and that's it as a self only benefit of each crewskill.

I would not agree with all of that. I do not think any specific crew skill should be the only one able to add slots. I propose that the augment slot adders are divided amongst Armormech, Armstech, Synthweaving, and artifice as many seem to claim they are lacking in current builds of the game. I have proposed this idea a while back in another thread with a distribution like this would be good:

Artifice - sabers, relics, offhands

Armstech - non saber melee weapons, non saber ranged weapon, implants

Armormech - 3 of the 7 craftable slots of armor, earpiece

Synthweaving - the remaining 4 pieces of armor

this would give a fairly even distribution of the augment slots, all of them would be able add slots to 4 pieces of gear. These items can be sold to others as well and do not give any personal advantage to others. I do not feel that the other two, cybertech and biochem would need to make any slots as they already provide consumables as is

In order to give a perk inline with what the devs want (cost saving only) and how crew skills are now would be to allow them to do their respective slots for free for themselves. As I said before, if you prefer them to be a clickie they can be, you could craft an infinite use item that is BoP and what not that adds slots to the respective pieces. A further thing I would probably do for a perk would be allow artifice and armstech to share gear slots when it came to personal use and the same with armormech and synthweaving but this is for personal use only. Why you might ask? The reason I think it would be good is to not make it harder on anyone who picked artifice lets say and does not use sabers. The perk would not save any money for them and should help out. It would be a nicer perk as well since you would be able to do half your own slots but only a quarter of others. This would be much more inline with the cost saving perks that are out now.

I am sorry if you thought I was looking to give it to one crew skill or if I was not as clear about this when I mentioned it before but I did have some elaborate ideas on it.

This is subjective to opinion tho. Again this is a fully fleshed out idea meant to be taken as a whole to imho perfect the crafting system and add more customization to characters. I'm a firm believer in "Customization is King".

I will agree that customization is king and I know it was to be taken all together. My problem however as I talked about with the clickies is that I see the ones your proposed to not be balanced in as they are now and could lead to problems. My problem with moving this is that if one thing is not done all you end up doing in devaluing other crew skills. I would must rather see stuff only added to the current crew skills than be moved out to another.

That is why I am against the crit for golds without all items in game being able to be RE'd to a gold. Otherwise it even says in my OP to put an item in game which allows you to add an augment socket to gear to the game. I'll quote it for you if you wish!

I will only partially agree on this. I think it is somewhat stupid to have an entire system developed in a game to be entirely worthless. Without allowing oranges to accept augments you end up destroying the entire augment system or destroy customization if only certain high end items can have them. As someone said before about balancing with it, gear could be balanced around having augment slots from now on, especially with higher end gear if it will cause issues. I really am sad to see augments as they were be useless as 90% of the gear could not take them and they ended up out geared.

I hope after reading this response you will be able to say your mind is changed on this point as most of your basis for feeling this way I believe is unfounded.

Sadly this still has not swayed my opinion as far as the benefits for the professions based on the changes as I am still hesitant in adding quite a few of the replacement changes. And again since this is about the moving of skill, I still somehow fail to see how synth and armormech are lacking due to the inability to craft aormorings. I know it was not your original idea as you stated. I somehow suspect it is more of a problem on the lines that people seem to value orange gear too much while leveling when in truth I find it to be an inferior way or leveling. You make much more money while leveling by not bothering with commendations. You more easily keep your companions up to date as well, which helps immensely solo. Granted with synth and armormech you can possibly keep your companions up to date with just them. To me it also feel like it just creates a self sufficiency when it comes to armor which is something I do not really agree with.

Unfortunately this is not true. There are tons of gear which are green loot or quest rewards which I think are way better looking than any of the gold items I've seen in game. Furthermore, there are white items in shops which have skins which are not available any way else. Truly, "social" as you can't put stats on them. These items are sometimes really cool looking and a total shame that they can't be used as real armor. With the proposed "Everything to a gold" plan, this would no longer be the case as I would be able to mix n match all kinds of gear!

More customization options == more happy people!

Also, one of the suggestions is specifically to clean up the crafting window. Also we know the market is going to change as well. No one is happy with it. Saying someone has too many patterns is just crazy talk.

I believe there are enough orange looks as is with all the oranges that exist from dungeons, commendation vendors, raids, crafted, world drops, quest rewards, and social gear. Having too many patterns it not completely the issue. Not everyone is going to be getting the crafting skill and will have to rely on others for the look. Finding someone with an obscure look might be difficult. It requires someone to reverse engineer pretty much everything they ever find in the world or at least to find someone who reversed engineered the particular item many time or got lucky enough to find it. Reverse engineering is one of the most subtle ways your funds are destroyed by destroying potential income. Finding someone with the obscure recipe may not be easy and instead require you to rolls a new character to get, lets say the bop quest reward and then attempt to learn the pattern from it. Not to mention with the coming changes you then will need to crit on it. Just having the augment adding item would let people add a slot to all the modable gear from all the sources I mentioned and alleviate the need to go out of the way searching for someone or needing to roll something new for it. I find it impractical to be able to RE everything to a pattern. The only reason to recraft the oranges that exist (and raid gear coming next patch) would be for the added augment slot and this would bypass the need for that. I think that less hassle == more happy people personally. I will not argue that against more customization, in fact I am very much for it with this.

Well since you are really only against the idea for exclusive effects and there are no suggested exclusive effects there should be no problem at all!

To me it is the main glaring problem with the way you mentioned them in the OP. Using the word BOP in the tittle denotes exclusiveness as it is untradable.

Idea #2 - BOP Gear "Attachments" aka, clickables
As it stands even if my previous Idea #1 was implemented, still none of these crewskills would have anything to compete with the biochem/cybertech end game usefulness of creations as all gear can be found better elsewhere with effort.

What I propose is that each individual crewskill be given an assortment of item enhancements I'm calling "Attachments", the player can create which can be attached to their respective type of gear which would grant a clickable function.

All of this to me talks about nothing but exclusiveness to the crew skill. If i wanted to have grenades and medpacks / stims in pvp right now I can. I can have them as any crew skill. This is what makes them non exclusive effects since all crew skills have access to them. They do not give a functional advantage to any of the crew skills. I am sorry if people do not understand that they can buy them to gain the same effect. The real perk is just cost saving and I think that is a better implementation for perks, rather than something that forces one into it. A lot is mentioned about biochem and cybertech and the real problem and reason people seem to be switching to them is the fact that nothing else saves them money. Especially in a game where crafted gear is never the best (pretty much a thing with all with raiding based games).

Thanks for the post.

You are welcome, I found some of your ideas interesting but I am not the biggest fan of the proposed implementation. I hope my insights at least prove interesting to you as well.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Saldrex

Aethyrprime · February 3, 2012

I do not think I am miss understanding anything. The are exclusive becasue you asked for them to be BoP items with NO mention of them being usable otherwise. The assumption is that they are BoP and exclusive.

Read this from the OP:

Notes: The effects would start small and scale up to max level. This would make each of the listed crewskills useful even in an End Game Raiding/PvP environment as well as through out the leveling process. This would help to give players access to abilities they may feel they currently do not have available to them with their chosen class/spec. Each slot should have different types of effects from stat boosting to custom abilities like above and offer a full variety of options for any advanced role, healer, tank or dps so that no single crewskill becomes the defacto choice for all playing a particular advanced class and role.

Cybertech can make 5 grenades, Biotech various (exact number citation needed) stims, so I believe that the two armor making crewskills should have 1 "Attachment" for each slot. The weapon makers Attachments would need to be for main hand and offhand for both. Addtionally, I believe Artificer could be able to attach things to relics and/or earpieces (Making the ones without clickables worth something) and Weapontech place attachments on implants and/or ear pieces. Or allow both types of weapon makers to do both hand slots, ear slot and implant/relic slots. Or reserve certain slots for cybertech/biochem if a full rebalance were done with them included for trade offs elsewhere.

As I said. Something for everyone. Even tho I tried to explain it again you still some how came out with the wrong idea again.

Saldrex · February 3, 2012

Read this from the OP:

As I said. Something for everyone. Even tho I tried to explain it again you still some how came out with the wrong idea again.

I have read it and I know what you are saying. The reason I call it game breaking is that I do not agree that other advanced classes should get class mechanics of other advanced classes. Some classes gaining the mechanics of some other may not balance well. What if the grappling hook makes marauders OP in pvp by making it so you cannot get away from them or something. Introducing new effects where they never were would have implications. You are also not adding them universally as I was talking about by making the grappling hook something exclusive to the crew skill. The BoP tag you were talking about (you made no mention of having a tradable consumable version so I assume there is none) also makes it completely different from that of Cybertech and Biogchem which is the reason for adding them according your your OP. The thing with grenades is that I can make them for you if you wanted some and trade them to you. Grenades are not BoP, only the reusable ones are BoP. My BoP grenades do not give me new effects that others have no access to and the same goes with medical supplies. If you want to stun someone the grenade effect can provide it and the effect is not "exclusive" becasue others can use my tradable grenades to produce the same effect. I have no advantage over them other than not having to buy the "effect" again. This game also has not been balanced around other classes / specs being able to use "effect" from other classes / specs that they do not already have access to.

IF the tank / dps / healer bonuses you were talking about are implemented across different crew skills (still with no consumable version) it would put pressure for people who want play such roles to get that specific crew skill. That is something I am against. If they all have bonuses for each of the roles, there tends to be lass uniqueness about them or some may end up much more advantageous for some spec than others. It can be hard to balance in new "effects" into the game especially when there is no tradable version to recreate it for another to receive the same "effect" without the crew skill.

I am sorry I am not a big fan of your idea as is. Maybe you do not quite understand my analogies I try to make when talking about consumable versions existing as well. As I said before as well, some of the ideas were interesting if implemented differently.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Saldrex

Khazgor · February 4, 2012

It is always bad to nerf, it upsets people who have invested time into a crafting skill based on what was already there. The answer is NOT to keep nerfing cybertech and biochem. Instead I agree that other skills should be buffed.

The main thing that makes cybertech and biochem so attractive is the clickables that do not consume. So I suggest giving other crafting skills this as well.

To me it seems simple. Most tanks will take biochem, but there is a natural synergy there with Jedi Guardian and Jedi Shadow to want to take synthweaving, and many probably have. There is also the amazing synergy with a Trooper Vanguard and armormech. I should know, I started out with armormech and got it to 260, and every blue pattern avvailable before dumping it for biochem.

Since there is a nice synergy with tanks and these base craft skills there should be a craftable, non consumed, buff given to shields. Personally I think the purple level shields should just have a on use with cooldown on thier shield generators to buff shield and absorption. This should be scaled on par with the rakata cubes and perhaps a bit of a nerf to the rakata cubes is in order to help balance it out but still give more of an overall buff to tanks. This would actually help a lot in PvP as the crit buffs on dps classes can negate the shield chance on a tank completely with the 2nd roll system. This is pretty broken as it is and tanks should be able to shield in PvP!

For the DPS classes that take synthweaving and armormech it is pretty simple, allow the power generators to have an on use with cooldown to boost thier power (tech for armormech, force for synthweaving).

As for the Armsmechs and Artificers, they should have special barrels and hilts that do the same thing. Provide a buff to alacrity or surge.

These items should not necessarily be bound, but instead, like biochem, require a certain amount of skill to use. This would help same skill crafters sell to other who do not farm out the patterns.

Anyways that is my two cents.

Aethyrprime · February 4, 2012

I have read it and I know what you are saying. The reason I call it game breaking is that I do not agree that other advanced classes should get class mechanics of other advanced classes. Some classes gaining the mechanics of some other may not balance well. What if the grappling hook makes marauders OP in pvp by making it so you cannot get away from them or something. Introducing new effects where they never were would have implications. You are also not adding them universally as I was talking about by making the grappling hook something exclusive to the crew skill. The BoP tag you were talking about (you made no mention of having a tradable consumable version so I assume there is none) also makes it completely different from that of Cybertech and Biogchem which is the reason for adding them according your your OP. The thing with grenades is that I can make them for you if you wanted some and trade them to you. Grenades are not BoP, only the reusable ones are BoP. My BoP grenades do not give me new effects that others have no access to and the same goes with medical supplies. If you want to stun someone the grenade effect can provide it and the effect is not "exclusive" becasue others can use my tradable grenades to produce the same effect. I have no advantage over them other than not having to buy the "effect" again. This game also has not been balanced around other classes / specs being able to use "effect" from other classes / specs that they do not already have access to.

IF the tank / dps / healer bonuses you were talking about are implemented across different crew skills (still with no consumable version) it would put pressure for people who want play such roles to get that specific crew skill. That is something I am against. If they all have bonuses for each of the roles, there tends to be lass uniqueness about them or some may end up much more advantageous for some spec than others. It can be hard to balance in new "effects" into the game especially when there is no tradable version to recreate it for another to receive the same "effect" without the crew skill.

I am sorry I am not a big fan of your idea as is. Maybe you do not quite understand my analogies I try to make when talking about consumable versions existing as well. As I said before as well, some of the ideas were interesting if implemented differently.

It's actually the exact opposite. As it stands now in Huttball if the other team has Jedi/Sith healers they can just force yank their team mates across the map like a yoyo. It is easier to balance a game around EVERY ability being available to every class. That way no class gets screwed out of the fun. I have played games which allow for such an open skill system and while this game out of the box does not this suggestion would take great steps to help achieve a semblance of balance as the end result.

The BOP would be for the crafter to use. I never said there should be exclusive effects for one class that total overshadow the effects of another for another. That's just illogical deduction. Based on the statement I underlined and bolded you should have inferred that the meaning was all crewskills should have equally beneficial options for each slot for all advance class specs and their related roles.

Trust me I love the discussion but I just can't wrap my head around how you are arriving to your conclusions. Even with the giant paragraphs it just doesn't make any sense to me. My 15 years of online gaming experiences contradict every point you try to make.. It's mind boggling.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Aethyrprime

Saldrex · February 4, 2012

It's actually the exact opposite. As it stands now in Huttball if the other team has Jedi/Sith healers they can just force yank their team mates across the map like a yoyo. It is easier to balance a game around EVERY ability being available to every class. That way no class gets screwed out of the fun. I have played games which allow for such an open skill system and while this game out of the box does not this suggestion would take great steps to help achieve a semblance of balance as the end result.

The BOP would be for the crafter to use. I never said there should be exclusive effects for one class that total overshadow the effects of another for another. That's just illogical deduction. Based on the statement I underlined and bolded you should have inferred that the meaning was all crewskills should have equally beneficial options for each slot for all advance class specs and their related roles.

Trust me I love the discussion but I just can't wrap my head around how you are arriving to your conclusions. Even with the giant paragraphs it just doesn't make any sense to me.

I will say it like this I guess, I believe in classes having EXCLUSIVE mechanics. They were not designed to be the same. The class balancing is generally designed around them not having the same abilities. Not all classes would react the same to gaining abilities from other classes either. I know as a tank I do not feel like I deserve to get a CC ability. I do not think it would be good for me to get one at all even though it is something I always wish I had. Simply I think it would make me too self sufficient and probably cause balance issues if I had it. Without class variance the game would probably be boring as nothing would change outside of animation (at best). Class balance is usually based around tradeoffs, similar to the different classes of gladiartors who all had different strengths and weaknesses. Some of the abilities might be seen as lacking a tradeoff for some classes / specs to gain and lead to some imbalancing. I am not saying that a different version of a clickie that you did not give an example for would not work. I do question the grappling hook and what it might do to some of the classes that currently do not have it. So far that type of mechanics primarily comes from tanks who have already sacrificed things for it, one of the main things being damage.

The clickies I am talking about for respective roles as you were talking about would probably have to be the same across the board or one of the crew skills might have one that synergieses better in more situations or more so with a particular healer or tank by providing something they lack. In a way it would be a good thing for them to get it and in a way it is not to me. Receiving the ability would help them do an action they could not. Not having the ability without the crew skill might make it feel mandatory to take the crew skill (having a consumable version to get it without the profession as well would alleviate the need to ever be the profession and reduce the "need" to actually be it). The question is also again weather or not the class deserves to get this new ability depending on what it is.

I would agree that it is much easier to balance a game around every class having the same ability as well there is nothing to actually balance actually. Everything is balanced just like that and nothing needs to be done. However this kind of design takes away the uniqueness of classes, the variance of roles and play styles that different people may prefer. I have seen games that have tried to implement system where people have access to all abilities and many times I have seen them get abused and many people solo content they should not.

Your desire seems to be aimed as well at balancing the professions around cybertech and biochem with the apparent perks of reusables. To actually bring others into balance with them, the same design mechanics would need to be applied, otherwise you are buffing them much higher then they are right now. The current design of them is around consumables that are usable by all and infinite use version for themselves. As I have said before, the only perk for the most part is in money saving. This is the reason I always suggest consumable version of the armor attachments you keep talking about. Your current statement is around them being BoP with no mention of a BoE version that others could use. I would be much more ok with having a BoE version as well that needed to be continually purchased as this is how it is now for grenades and medpacks / stims. This also would help alleviate a "desired" profession from forming.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Saldrex

Harb_id · February 4, 2012

...

Hello Aethyrprime, nicely summed up post.

I was wondering why do you suggest that each crew skill should have its let's call it a bonus - whether it's a grenade set for Cybertech or upgradeable lightsabers for Artifice.

Please don't take it the wrong way, but for me this seems like you are trying to treat each crew skill as an item slot, where you put your bonus after hitting 400, rather than a profession which primary goal is to create in-game items.

I never really understood the logic behind why a crew skill (or crafting profession in general, if we look at WoW) should provide any item-boost for its master.

Do we want people to pick skills based on what "bonuses" they need rather than what items they want to craft? (Just like we can see in WoW)

My point is that each crew skill can perfectly function without any bonuses, or skill-only items in both TOR endgames as long as each skill makes useful consumable items on daily basis. EvE Online Manufacturing & Industry is a prime example how crafting can operate without "silly" bonuses that are nightmare to balance.

Speaking about useful crafted-only items:

1a) double the cost for repairs by NPCs

1b) add consumable items that repair gear made by their respective crew skill (encouraging people to use these items to repair gear and keep NPCs as a last resort)

2) using tokens to obtain Rakata endgame gear now also requires certain items (whatever we call them) crafter by players, ideally by multiple skills with long-enough crafting time to keep the supply-demand balance

And we could go on and on with multiple layers.

Aethyrprime · February 4, 2012

I will say it like this I guess, I believe in classes having EXCLUSIVE mechanics. They were not designed to be the same. The class balancing is generally designed around them not having the same abilities. Not all classes would react the same to gaining abilities from other classes either. I know as a tank I do not feel like I deserve to get a CC ability. I do not think it would be good for me to get one at all even though it is something I always wish I had. Simply I think it would make me too self sufficient and probably cause balance issues if I had it. Without class variance the game would probably be boring as nothing would change outside of animation (at best). Class balance is usually based around tradeoffs, similar to the different classes of gladiartors who all had different strengths and weaknesses. Some of the abilities might be seen as lacking a tradeoff for some classes / specs to gain and lead to some imbalancing. I am not saying that a different version of a clickie that you did not give an example for would not work. I do question the grappling hook and what it might do to some of the classes that currently do not have it. So far that type of mechanics primarily comes from tanks who have already sacrificed things for it, one of the main things being damage.

I am a tank and I have a ton of CC. I could go on and on about how player choice and weaker versions of class exclusive skills would be better than anything else but you've already formed your opinion possibly based on prior experience or possibly based on worst case scenario speculation. I am not sure. I have however used such a system in various other games. I'll draw your attention to a more recent and popular one. Guild Wars.

Secondary Professions allow for endless combinations of skills. The trade off is. Secondary skills are by nature weaker than primary skills due to how the system works. Since what I am looking for is similar flexibility without over complicating the system or asking for a drastic game redesign to achieve it.

The clickies I am talking about for respective roles as you were talking about would probably have to be the same across the board or one of the crew skills might have one that synergieses better in more situations or more so with a particular healer or tank by providing something they lack. In a way it would be a good thing for them to get it and in a way it is not to me. Receiving the ability would help them do an action they could not. Not having the ability without the crew skill might make it feel mandatory to take the crew skill (having a consumable version to get it without the profession as well would alleviate the need to ever be the profession and reduce the "need" to actually be it). The question is also again weather or not the class deserves to get this new ability depending on what it is.

If you notice all of my "suggestions" offer lesser versions of the existing class exclusive. Shorter range on each skill by 10m in most cases or lesser damage, etc.. I even clearly stated since the original unedited post that these abilities should be weaker versions of the class exclusive abilities.

It's like saying to me that a truck driver should be incapable of driving a car because he is a truck driver and is proficient a driving trucks.

But we both know give the man a truck or a car and he can drive them both but he cannot drive a truck and a car at the same time. That is what I am proposing. A man can drive either a truck or a car by wearing a particular option of gear in to battle. But he can't do both at once because there's a trade off of certain things in certain slots of gear.

I would agree that it is much easier to balance a game around every class having the same ability as well there is nothing to actually balance actually. Everything is balanced just like that and nothing needs to be done. However this kind of design takes away the uniqueness of classes, the variance of roles and play styles that different people may prefer. I have seen games that have tried to implement system where people have access to all abilities and many times I have seen them get abused and many people solo content they should not.

That's your opinion and I highly disagree with it and again I am speaking from personal experience not from "gut feeling of what I may or may not feel based on a guess". Classes are a joke. They always have been they always will be. It's a horrible principal and never should have happened to begin with. Sadly, it did and we players just have to suck it up.

Classes are puppet strings to force linear progression systems down players throats. Classless games have their own problems but classes as a whole are a flawed and aging idea that repeats the same mistakes in every game with the same glaring imbalances. Class A wears heavy armor and supposed to do light damage; Class B has light armor and does heavy damage. Except it rarely actually works out that way. People ***** whine and complain till the entire system does a full 360 from nerfest to OP and back again.

Your desire seems to be aimed as well at balancing the professions around cybertech and biochem with the apparent perks of reusables. To actually bring others into balance with them, the same design mechanics would need to be applied, otherwise you are buffing them much higher then they are right now. The current design of them is around consumables that are usable by all and infinite use version for themselves. As I have said before, the only perk for the most part is in money saving. This is the reason I always suggest consumable version of the armor attachments you keep talking about. Your current statement is around them being BoP with no mention of a BoE version that others could use. I would be much more ok with having a BoE version as well that needed to be continually purchased as this is how it is now for grenades and medpacks / stims. This also would help alleviate a "desired" profession from forming.

The reason I am specifically not allowing for a BOE version is that each crewskill should have clickies equal to each other and be a trade off of one vs another. There simply are not enough button bars to handle clickables for every slot and all our skills. We'd need at least 1 - 2 more. That is why I suggested it be limited to a certain # of slots per crewskill and be BOP. 5 grenades, multiple kits/stims, armor, weapons/implants/relics/earpieces. Each should have an equal number of options.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Aethyrprime

Saldrex · February 4, 2012

I am a tank and I have a ton of CC. I could go on and on about how player choice and weaker versions of class exclusive skills would be better than anything else but you've already formed your opinion possibly based on prior experience or possibly based on worst case scenario speculation. I am not sure. I have however used such a system in various other games. I'll draw your attention to a more recent and popular one. Guild Wars.

Secondary Professions allow for endless combinations of skills. The trade off is. Secondary skills are by nature weaker than primary skills due to how the system works. Since what I am looking for is similar flexibility without over complicating the system or asking for a drastic game redesign to achieve it.

You must be an inquisitor then but that does not matter too much. I could say the same about you in which you based your views on prior experience as well. In truth that is probably the only way we can really form our own opinions on things. I know I played Guild Wars and for quite a long time, I have all the xpacs as well but that does not really matter either. I do fail to see how that game is perfect. It runs under a different dynamic entirely and there is a major focus on personal survival compared to other games. There are plenty of class combos that outshine others. I know back when it first released one of my first combos was unkillable in pvp and caused me to quit for a quite a while, I have soloed whole teams with it. Though there are some sacrifices you do make in GW, your main class meant a lot, it gave you your class stat pool and it gave you your class only abilities. Some of these lead to exceptional combinations with other secondaries. Again guild wars way by no means perfect. Not all secondaries combined were useful to some of the primaries.

I am not sure if you remember 55 monks and the abuse of mechanics involved in them. Well really many of the low hp builds abused the same mechanics. Endless combinations of skills leads to many problems as well and I would argue that not all skills deserve to be combined. Sometimes when you let certain skills combine it takes away the reason to combine others.

If you notice all of my "suggestions" offer lesser versions of the existing class exclusive. Shorter range on each skill by 10m in most cases or lesser damage, etc.. I even clearly stated since the original unedited post that these abilities should be weaker versions of the class exclusive abilities.

As I said before. I do not always feel that certain abilities should be combined even if some are weaker. To be honest, I do not know if some of your proposed "suggestions" would have an averse effect. I have stated hesitation as it would be something that needed testing. I also have stated that I would be much more ok with some of the ideas behind their implementation if you also included a BOE consumable version to sell to others without the crew skill.

I do not see why any crew skills (professions in any game) should give bonus abilities to the characters. To me it is a gimmick to enforce that people raise them, makes them mandatory, and in some cases makes certain ones feel more mandatory than others. I very much agree with what another poster said.

I never really understood the logic behind why a crew skill (or crafting profession in general, if we look at WoW) should provide any item-boost for its master.

Do we want people to pick skills based on what "bonuses" they need rather than what items they want to craft? (Just like we can see in WoW)

My point is that each crew skill can perfectly function without any bonuses, or skill-only items in both TOR endgames as long as each skill makes useful consumable items on daily basis. EvE Online Manufacturing & Industry is a prime example how crafting can operate without "silly" bonuses that are nightmare to balance.

I have proposed the idea of a consumable both as an extension of your system and a different system involving the addition of the augment slot adders (which I thought might be a much less extreme change to achieve many of the same goals, sorry you do not see it that way). I also know you have mentioned the idea that they will all provide the same benefit across all crew skills as well as having stuff for every role in each crew skill. Sadly without making them all have the same attachments (you proposed different ones) there may always be a tenancy for one to outshine the other across the 4 crew skills that you are giving them to.

It's like saying to me that a truck driver should be incapable of driving a car because he is a truck driver and is proficient a driving trucks.

But we both know give the man a truck or a car and he can drive them both but he cannot drive a truck and a car at the same time. That is what I am proposing. A man can drive either a truck or a car by wearing a particular option of gear in to battle. But he can't do both at once because there's a trade off of certain things in certain slots of gear.

Technically I could argue that your analogy supports the class itself being able to use a lesser version of its own ability and nothing more. Really though, in reality some things need training and no one can learn everything. The idea behind classes to a degree is a difference in training focus. A warrior generally focuses on melee combat and in many games can further specialize into a more defensive or offensive version. Not everyone can learn or do everything. SWG had an interesting system in its original design of a sort of mock freedom with forced specialization that ended up turning it into something interesting. The idea that I take away from it was that of brain points. You could only learn so much which inevitably lead to forced specialization if you wanted to become a master of a given tree. To me that might be closer to real life than any other system. The class system to me just states you are looking to be a master in X from the start of the game, more or less, and possibly with some variant version like I mentioned with the warrior.

The tradeoffs you have proposed are non existent between the 4 professions as you keep claiming they are. If all are equal in their bonuses covering all spec, there would be no tradeoff relative to them. Having a BH lets say pick the grappling hook profession as you mentioned it, would that be an example of both driving a truck and a car? I thought the analogy was directed at major and minor versions of the abilities you were introducing. The truck being the real ability and the car being the weaker one? I am not sure where you were trying to go with that analogy otherwise with your explanation of it If you are talking about shared CDs for the attachments, a truck and a car are a bad example for an analogy, they are not exactly interechangeable as a truck is not the same as a car and generally has a different license associated with it. A more appropriate example, using driving again would be, There are two roads that take me to the same place, both take the same amount of time to get there with no traffic, the traffic may not be the same down either and it is a choice I make when I chose one of the roads but I can always drive down a road but cannot drive down two roads at the same time.

That's your opinion and I highly disagree with it and again I am speaking from personal experience not from "gut feeling of what I may or may not feel based on a guess". Classes are a joke. They always have been they always will be. It's a horrible principal and never should have happened to begin with. Sadly, it did and we players just have to suck it up.

The truth of the matter is that we all tent to fall back on personal experiences to justify things. I do not know why you say classes are a joke and I am sorry you feel that way. If you do not like class based game then this one might not be right for you. I happen to prefer class based games. To me they give a variety of classes to play for a different experience and force me to roll more character, which in the long term is a good thing by helping me play longer. Games in which I could experience every thing on one character tend to be short lived for me and probably only get a month of play at best. I like classes, I like not having all abilities at my disposal, I like having to learn new methods to take on an encounter with different tools. Again, I am sorry if you do not like those things. To me those things bring a great deal of satisfaction.

Classes are puppet strings to force linear progression systems down players throats. Classless games have their own problems but classes as a whole are a flawed and aging idea that repeats the same mistakes in every game with the same glaring imbalances. Class A wears heavy armor and supposed to do light damage; Class B has light armor and does heavy damage. Except it rarely actually works out that way. People ***** whine and complain till the entire system does a full 360 from nerfest to OP and back again.

I am sorry you have a bitter taste with class design. I will say that no game is perfectly balanced. I am sorry you do not see talent specs as multiple paths to take with your class (or even advanced classes albeit permanent). I personally do not think that class that classes are a flawed aging idea. I think they reinforce the idea of needing to give something up for something in return. I have played games where there was no negative to choices, most people ended up tanks becasue the survival out weighed other options. But as I said before, classes give a new experience when you play a new character which I think is great about them.

there are people "whine" about everything in every game and not all of them who "whine" scream for nef-fests. There are ones who want a buffs as well. Some of it tends to be about concerns, some of it tends to be on wanting things that are not there, some of it is to make things easier, some of it is things not actually being what they want it to be. They do not always lead to nerfs but nerfs can be needed. In truth I do not know why I bother with forums some times. The truth about many social outlets and have studied that when it comes to surveys and other such opinion gathering is that they are biased towards the opinions of extremists if you do not go out and select a random sample of people yourself from a non biased pool of people. People who feel strongly one way or the other tend to be more vocal about issues. There is also nothing to be gained by elaborating more on this topic so I will just leave it here.

The reason I am specifically not allowing for a BOE version is that each crewskill should have clickies equal to each other and be a trade off of one vs another. There simply are not enough button bars to handle clickables for every slot and all our skills. We'd need at least 1 - 2 more. That is why I suggested it be limited to a certain # of slots per crewskill and be BOP. 5 grenades, multiple kits/stims, armor, weapons/implants/relics/earpieces. Each should have an equal number of options.

The reason I mention the BOE version is the fact that you are actually buffing them beyond cybertech and biochem with the proposal. Which you still have not addressed as one of my issues. And stated in the proposal that you were creating these BOP items to bring them up to par with the current cybertech / biochem. I have no problem with them having multiple. I have a problem with being BOP only. Sure too many slots may be needed for it as is but the truth of the matter probably is that almost no one uses grenades unless cybertech. Allowing people to use cybertech grenades or medpacks / stims without the crew skill skills but mot the mew system seems like you are recreating what you were originally fighting against.

I am sorry we both look for different design paradigms in games.

Aethyrprime · February 5, 2012

We need to form like a creed and keep both of OP's threads alive so that Bioware hears us and implements OP's ideas.

Thanks!

Cemellyn · February 5, 2012

I have a rough idea to add on but unsure how it will affect the grand scheme of things or how it can be implemented. Haven't read through the entire thread but anyway here goes.

The purpose is to give players with a preference for crafting another alternative for playing the game by introducing Crafting or Consignment missions. Completion of missions will reward character with specialization points which can be spent on skills to improve their crew skills.

Most Crafting Missions will require either

Donation of Credits (Variable amounts)
Donation of Raw Materials (Variable quality of variable amounts)
Donation of Crafted items (Variable quality of variable amounts)

Points can be spent on various Specialization Skills such as...

PROCUREMENT SKILLS

Eye for a good deal (1/2/3) - Crew skills now cost (3/5/10)% cheaper
Greater Yield (1/2/3) - Crew skills returns with more (3/5/10)% more items
Successful Hunt (1/2/3) - Improves rate of success by (3/5/10)%
Lucky Catch (1/2/3) - Crew skills that has a chance of finding artifact quality materials improves chance of getting artifact quality material by (3/5/7)%

_________________________________________________________________________

MISCELLANEOUS

Waste Reduction (1/2/3) - Items that you RE yields better returns on raw material used.
Good Salesmen (1/2/3) - Items that you sell to vendor yield (3/5/10)% higher returns
Expert Haggler (1/2/3) - Items or Services from NPC vendors is cheaper by (3/5/10)%
Efficiency (1/2/3) - Crew skills takes (2/3/5) % less time to complete.

_________________________________________________________________________

MANUFACTURING - ALL

Built to last (1/2/3) - Items you craft has high durability by (3/5/7)%
Durable (1/2/3) - Items you craft takes lower durability loss by (3/5/7)%
Warranty Guaranteed (1/2/3) - Items that you craft cost (3/5/7)% less to repair
Shock Resistance (1/2/3) - When wearer dies in PVE, there is a (3/6/9)% that durability will not be lost.
Quality Control (1/2/3) - You have (1/3/5)% higher rates of a critical success to add an Augment slot to the item you crafted.
Superior worksmanship (1/2/3) - Items you crafted will boost stats of the modifications place into it by (1/2/3)%
Exceptional worksmanship - Items you craft now stand a 1% chance of improving the stats of mods placed into it by another 1% on top of Superior Worksmanship.
Masterful worksmanship - Improves the chance of Exceptional Worksmanship occuring by another (1/2/3)%
Perfectionist - Improves the bonus on stats increment for Exceptional Worksmanship by another (1/2/3)%

_________________________________________________________________________

MANUFACTURING - WEAPONRY

Potency (1/2/3) - Increases the maximum dmg rating of the weapon. Example: Rank 1 (3 - 8), Rank 2 (3 - 9), Rank 3 (3 - 10)
Consistency (1/2/3) - Increase minimum dmg rating of the weapon. Example: Rank 1 (4 - 8), Rank 2 (5 - 8), Rank 3 (6 - 8)
Light Weight (1/2/3) - Reduce the Cooldown timer of your attack abilities by (1/2/3)%
Lethality - When your weapon scores a critical, there is a 5% for it to apply the following effect:
- Haemorragh (1/2/3) - Applies a DoT effect on target equivalent to (2/3/5)% of your maximum weapon damage for (5/10/15) seconds
- Breaker (1/2/3) - Reduce target's armor rating by (2/4/6)% for (5/10/15) seconds
- Overwhelm (1/2/3) - Reduce target's defense by (3/6/9)% for (5/10/15) seconds
- Debilitate (1/2/3) - Reduce target's stats by (2/4/6)% by (5/10/15) seconds
- Hinder (1/2/3) - Reduce target's movement speed by (2/4/6)% by (5/10/15) seconds
- Blinding (1/2/3) - Reduce target's accuracy by (2/4/6)% by (5/10/15) seconds
- Fervour (1/2/3) - Applies HoT effect to user equivalent to (2/3/5)% of your maximum weapon damage for (5/10/15) seconds
- Voracity (1/2/3) - Applies DoT effect to target, and applies a HoT to user, equivalent to (1/2/3)% of your maximum weapon damage for (5/10/15) seconds

[*]Ferocity (1/2/3) - Improves Lethality chance of a Proc by (2/4/6)%

[*]Overclock - Grants your weapon an activated ability

Devastation - Temproraily increase your damage by 10% for 10 seconds
Destruction - Temprarily increase your critical chance by 10% for 10 seconds
Celerity - Reduce cool down of all attack abilities by 100% for 10 seconds
Vigour - 10% chance for a proc to occur w/o a critical hit and increase chance of a proc with a critical hit by another 5%

_________________________________________________________________________

MANUFACTURING - ARMOR

Comfortable (1/2/3) - Reduce cost of your abilities by (1/2/3)%
Light Weight (1/2/3) - Increase your def by (1/2/3)%
Abalative Layering (1/2/3) - Increase armor rating by another (1/2/3)%
Regenerative Module (1/2/3) - Increase health regeneration outside combat by (2/4/6)% of wearer's maximum health. Also reduce Cooldown of revival by medical probe by (10/20/30)%
Improve Regenerative Module - Allows regenerative module to work in combat
Advance Regenerative module (1/2/3) - Enhances effectiveness of Regenerative Module and Improved Regenerative Module by another (1/2/3)%
Resistance Layering - Adds additional resistance to specific types of damage.
- Kinetic Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Kinetic Damage
- Energy Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Energy Damage
- Elemental Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Elemental Damage
- Internal Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Internal Damage

[*]Trauma Module (1/2/3) - Decrease critical dmg against wearer by (1/2/3)%

[*]Advance Trauma Module - When wearer is a recipient of a critial damage, there is a 5% chance of a proc occuring

Emergency Kolto module (1/2/3) - Heals wearer up to (3/5/8)% of their maximum health for (5/10/15) seconds
Emergency Adrenal module (1/2/3) - Injects an adrenal stim into the wearer and increase def up to (3/5/8)% for (5/10/15) seconds.
Emergency Shielding module (1/2/3) - Projects a personal force field that reduces damage taken by (3/5/8)% for (5/10/15) seconds.

[*]Enhanced Trauma Module (1/2/3) - Increase chance of proc rate for Advance Trauma Module by another (2/3/4)%

_________________________________________________________________________

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Expert Engineer (1/2/3) - Improves rate of success on RE by (1/2/3)% and learning a more advance schematic
Dedication (1/2/3) - Allows the crafter to learn even higher level of schematics through RE the maxmium tier currently allowed. Example: Green -> Blue - Purple -> Purple T2 (Rank 1), Purple T3 (Rank 2), Purple T4 (Rank 3)
Superior Components - Enhancements, armorings, barrels, hilts, mods, augments etc can now be critically crafted and improves stats of its original item by another 3%
Replication - Allows crafter to RE dropped items/social items in order to learn a schematic. Base of 1% chance to succeed.
Dyes - Allows crafters to apply colour dyes to the item that they craft. Require raw materials.
Patterns - Allows crafters to apply patterns on the item that they craft. Verticle/horizontal/diagonal stripes. Various thickness & no. of stripes. Chevrons, checkered etc..
Symbols - Allow crafters to apply symbols on the item they create. Skulls/Heraldic or various icons etc..
Details - Allows crafters to add minute details to item they create. Targeter, Helmet Mini Camera, Antenna, Cabling, Diodes etc..

Edited February 5, 2012 by Cemellyn

ninjashadowdark · February 5, 2012

I ask myself whether the OP ever RE'd a lvl 49 base blue schematic to a purple II. These when crit are close to BIS.

My opinion about moving Armorings has been stated quite often and has not changed. Armorings are useless at endgame and the only thing that is actually useful for Cybertechs while leveling (apart from Earpieces). It wont help any profession to get these, but severly nerf Cybertech. Which will be left with earpieces only (which is already the case at maxlevel)

i bet you have not get tier 3 purple armor for crafting armor .... no you did not so its not useless ...

Aethyrprime · February 6, 2012

I have a rough idea to add on but unsure how it will affect the grand scheme of things or how it can be implemented. Haven't read through the entire thread but anyway here goes.

The purpose is to give players with a preference for crafting another alternative for playing the game by introducing Crafting or Consignment missions. Completion of missions will reward character with specialization points which can be spent on skills to improve their crew skills.

Most Crafting Missions will require either

Donation of Credits (Variable amounts)
Donation of Raw Materials (Variable quality of variable amounts)
Donation of Crafted items (Variable quality of variable amounts)

Points can be spent on various Specialization Skills such as...

PROCUREMENT SKILLS

Eye for a good deal (1/2/3) - Crew skills now cost (3/5/10)% cheaper

Greater Yield (1/2/3) - Crew skills returns with more (3/5/10)% more items

Successful Hunt (1/2/3) - Improves rate of success by (3/5/10)%

Lucky Catch (1/2/3) - Crew skills that has a chance of finding artifact quality materials improves chance of getting artifact quality material by (3/5/7)%

_________________________________________________________________________

MISCELLANEOUS

Waste Reduction (1/2/3) - Items that you RE yields better returns on raw material used.

Good Salesmen (1/2/3) - Items that you sell to vendor yield (3/5/10)% higher returns

Expert Haggler (1/2/3) - Items or Services from NPC vendors is cheaper by (3/5/10)%

Efficiency (1/2/3) - Crew skills takes (2/3/5) % less time to complete.

_________________________________________________________________________

MANUFACTURING - ALL

Built to last (1/2/3) - Items you craft has high durability by (3/5/7)%

Durable (1/2/3) - Items you craft takes lower durability loss by (3/5/7)%

Warranty Guaranteed (1/2/3) - Items that you craft cost (3/5/7)% less to repair

Shock Resistance (1/2/3) - When wearer dies in PVE, there is a (3/6/9)% that durability will not be lost.

Quality Control (1/2/3) - You have (1/3/5)% higher rates of a critical success to add an Augment slot to the item you crafted.

Superior worksmanship (1/2/3) - Items you crafted will boost stats of the modifications place into it by (1/2/3)%

Exceptional worksmanship - Items you craft now stand a 1% chance of improving the stats of mods placed into it by another 1% on top of Superior Worksmanship.

Masterful worksmanship - Improves the chance of Exceptional Worksmanship occuring by another (1/2/3)%

Perfectionist - Improves the bonus on stats increment for Exceptional Worksmanship by another (1/2/3)%

_________________________________________________________________________

MANUFACTURING - WEAPONRY

Potency (1/2/3) - Increases the maximum dmg rating of the weapon. Example: Rank 1 (3 - 8), Rank 2 (3 - 9), Rank 3 (3 - 10)

Consistency (1/2/3) - Increase minimum dmg rating of the weapon. Example: Rank 1 (4 - 8), Rank 2 (5 - 8), Rank 3 (6 - 8)

Light Weight (1/2/3) - Reduce the Cooldown timer of your attack abilities by (1/2/3)%

Lethality - When your weapon scores a critical, there is a 5% for it to apply the following effect:

Haemorragh (1/2/3) - Applies a DoT effect on target equivalent to (2/3/5)% of your maximum weapon damage for (5/10/15) seconds

Breaker (1/2/3) - Reduce target's armor rating by (2/4/6)% for (5/10/15) seconds

Overwhelm (1/2/3) - Reduce target's defense by (3/6/9)% for (5/10/15) seconds

Debilitate (1/2/3) - Reduce target's stats by (2/4/6)% by (5/10/15) seconds

Hinder (1/2/3) - Reduce target's movement speed by (2/4/6)% by (5/10/15) seconds

Blinding (1/2/3) - Reduce target's accuracy by (2/4/6)% by (5/10/15) seconds

Fervour (1/2/3) - Applies HoT effect to user equivalent to (2/3/5)% of your maximum weapon damage for (5/10/15) seconds

Voracity (1/2/3) - Applies DoT effect to target, and applies a HoT to user, equivalent to (1/2/3)% of your maximum weapon damage for (5/10/15) seconds

[*]Ferocity (1/2/3) - Improves Lethality chance of a Proc by (2/4/6)%

[*]Overclock - Grants your weapon an activated ability

Devastation - Temproraily increase your damage by 10% for 10 seconds

Destruction - Temprarily increase your critical chance by 10% for 10 seconds

Celerity - Reduce cool down of all attack abilities by 100% for 10 seconds

Vigour - 10% chance for a proc to occur w/o a critical hit and increase chance of a proc with a critical hit by another 5%

_________________________________________________________________________

MANUFACTURING - ARMOR

Comfortable (1/2/3) - Reduce cost of your abilities by (1/2/3)%

Light Weight (1/2/3) - Increase your def by (1/2/3)%

Abalative Layering (1/2/3) - Increase armor rating by another (1/2/3)%

Regenerative Module (1/2/3) - Increase health regeneration outside combat by (2/4/6)% of wearer's maximum health. Also reduce Cooldown of revival by medical probe by (10/20/30)%

Improve Regenerative Module - Allows regenerative module to work in combat

Advance Regenerative module (1/2/3) - Enhances effectiveness of Regenerative Module and Improved Regenerative Module by another (1/2/3)%

Resistance Layering - Adds additional resistance to specific types of damage.

Kinetic Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Kinetic Damage

Energy Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Energy Damage

Elemental Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Elemental Damage

Internal Resistance Layering (1/2/3) - Wearer receives (1/2/3)% less Internal Damage

[*]Trauma Module (1/2/3) - Decrease critical dmg against wearer by (1/2/3)%

[*]Advance Trauma Module - When wearer is a recipient of a critial damage, there is a 5% chance of a proc occuring

Emergency Kolto module (1/2/3) - Heals wearer up to (3/5/8)% of their maximum health for (5/10/15) seconds

Emergency Adrenal module (1/2/3) - Injects an adrenal stim into the wearer and increase def up to (3/5/8)% for (5/10/15) seconds.

Emergency Shielding module (1/2/3) - Projects a personal force field that reduces damage taken by (3/5/8)% for (5/10/15) seconds.

[*]Enhanced Trauma Module (1/2/3) - Increase chance of proc rate for Advance Trauma Module by another (2/3/4)%

_________________________________________________________________________

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Expert Engineer (1/2/3) - Improves rate of success on RE by (1/2/3)% and learning a more advance schematic

Dedication (1/2/3) - Allows the crafter to learn even higher level of schematics through RE the maxmium tier currently allowed. Example: Green -> Blue - Purple -> Purple T2 (Rank 1), Purple T3 (Rank 2), Purple T4 (Rank 3)

Superior Components - Enhancements, armorings, barrels, hilts, mods, augments etc can now be critically crafted and improves stats of its original item by another 3%

Replication - Allows crafter to RE dropped items/social items in order to learn a schematic. Base of 1% chance to succeed.

Dyes - Allows crafters to apply colour dyes to the item that they craft. Require raw materials.

Patterns - Allows crafters to apply patterns on the item that they craft. Verticle/horizontal/diagonal stripes. Various thickness & no. of stripes. Chevrons, checkered etc..

Symbols - Allow crafters to apply symbols on the item they create. Skulls/Heraldic or various icons etc..

Details - Allows crafters to add minute details to item they create. Targeter, Helmet Mini Camera, Antenna, Cabling, Diodes etc..

Whoah! Great post! I love almost all of it. The only part I don't care for is the super charging of crafted goods, but, only in the situation of everything not being able to be reverse engineered. If EVERYTHING was able to be reverse engineered then... I'd love 100% of it! I'm going to have a hard time fitting that all in the OP! LOL

Edited February 6, 2012 by Aethyrprime

jaubourg · February 6, 2012

...

You are a genius. Just saying.

shadowfoxe · February 6, 2012

i am impressed on the level of detail on this thread, amazing that people almost seem like they work for a game company to be able to come up with this amount of suggestions for bioware. Great thread

Improvements such as this and graphics improvements for some republic classes are very needed !

thanks

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

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