Is RE broke?

[Jamus_Divinus]

Purples are supposed to be rare. It makes no sense to make them easier to get. Not everyone wants the easy option. Long term goals are ok in an MMO imo.

[SalvorHardin]

The reverse engineering return rate is not currently working as intended. In an upcoming patch, we are improving the reverse engineering rates – especially for the higher-level items. We are also looking into the issue where a player receives "You already know that schematic" instead of learning a new research variation.

 

Patrick Malott

Systems Designer

 

Great news on the "You already know that schematic"...

 

Very bad news on the "improving the reverse engineering rates" !!!

 

This would be a slap in the face for us dedicated crafters. I started a thread about how RE'ing could be smoothed while not changing current success rates and that's all I would like to be changed.

 

Please don't give into the whiners. SWTOR is all about hiding the grind EXCEPT for crafting, to make sure the best crafted stuff could only came from real crafters. This was an intentional design choice and a good one too.

Edited February 8, 2012 by SalvorHardin

[Headgun]

Great news on the "You already know that schematic"...

 

Very bad news on the "improving the reverse engineering rates" !!!

 

 

/signed

[Fubbik]

Prices for items have been on gradual decrease over the past few weeks. You guys are always talking about your metrics, try looking at them. As more people have been learning the schematics the prices continue to fall. The markets are already saturating because these "epic" items are really easy to craft and will soon be as common as blues and greens if not more common.

 

In addition, by increasing the RE chance you will put an even greater strain on the Mission professions to provide the mats to create all these newly discovered purple items. The inflation on these mission items is already getting out of hand. On the Jedi Covenant server the TH tier 6 purple gems are selling for 25k a pop. It takes 4 of them to craft any of the epic items that use them (2 for offhands) and those finished products which also take other materials only sell for about 50k due to the abundance of people selling them.

 

Yep I have to take a 50k loss per item (at market value, I can acquire the mats myself for cheaper, but why not just sell the mats then) to sell the items that you claim have "too low" a proc chance. If anything, if you want to improve the long term stability of the economy you will cut the rates even further, not increase them.

 

You are making no sense whatsoever. Try learning the basics of supply and demand first please. If there is such a demand for the mats, then don't make the bloody items with a loss, seriously. You don't gain any points or achievements for being poor at business.

If you can't find products to sell for a profit, due to the "value" of the mats, then that's a totally different issue and has nothing to do with RE-chance.

 

An example would be the currently inflated prices of Bio-mats to feed the players powerleveling their skill to 400 in order to use the reusables. This has a sideeffect of high inflation on implant pricing, which might make them impossible to sell in the end.

[bo-zo]

Prices for items have been on gradual decrease over the past few weeks. You guys are always talking about your metrics, try looking at them. As more people have been learning the schematics the prices continue to fall. The markets are already saturating because these "epic" items are really easy to craft and will soon be as common as blues and greens if not more common.

 

Prices have been steadily lowering because endgame crafts are not competitive even with easily accessible gear. Why spend 50k to get a 22 epic lightsaber hilt when you can buy a 23 with a handful of daily commendations? Why spend 50k on a 22 epic enhancement when everyone can get one every day from a heroic quest?

 

Endgame crafting is, at the moment, broken.

[amonre]

So... is there anything in this game that is working as intended?

 

I lol'd.

 

QFT.

[maelstromicus]

The reverse engineering return rate is not currently working as intended. In an upcoming patch, we are improving the reverse engineering rates – especially for the higher-level items. We are also looking into the issue where a player receives "You already know that schematic" instead of learning a new research variation.

 

Patrick Malott

Systems Designer

 

Nice to see an official comment. Thanks.

 

However, please could you guys spend just a little more time fixing some of the game mechanics bugs and less time on the silly cosmetic things.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather have seen RE not getting broken, a long overdue fix for Directive 7, and Tionese crystal drops not being broken in the last patch. Instead we get things broken that already worked fine and a lovely cosmetic cooldown fix which is enough to give anyone a migraine...

 

I did send in a ticket about the above issues, along with the huge RE problem but it seems that all tickets now receive a generic fob off auto-response...

[Relk]

The reverse engineering return rate is not currently working as intended. In an upcoming patch, we are improving the reverse engineering rates – especially for the higher-level items. We are also looking into the issue where a player receives "You already know that schematic" instead of learning a new research variation.

 

Patrick Malott

Systems Designer

 

Thank you for letting us know. I may scale down my REing until this issue is resolved.

[Rodobson]

I have been RE'ing the same pair of level 47 bracers trying to go from Tier 1 to Tier 2. It has been about 3 weeks, doing 5-10 a day. I have learned the + Presence version (garbage by the way and no one denies this), and attempted to relearn it 2 additional times.

 

The system is not "fine". The break even point for my investment (time and credits/ material) to learn this schematic is beyond reasonable now. And to learn that it is because of a bug is extremely frustrating.

 

I like the game's crafting system, I just wish I knew it was broken weeks ago before I wasted my credits. Nothing can really be done about this though. I just feel I should have learned the pattern I wanted by now.

 

I welcome the changes. Crafting should require dedication but the current level is absurd.

[Pack_master]

So far, crafting apart from Biochem (and maybe Cybertech for space) is completely useless, is it? I mean, when leveling it's nice to have Armstech, because your blasters are alsways up-to-date with fresh barrels, but when you hit 50, you get better Barrels than you can possibly craft the first day you do daily quests. This is just a big joke.

[Larkie]

Nice to see an official comment. Thanks.

 

However, please could you guys spend just a little more time fixing some of the game mechanics bugs and less time on the silly cosmetic things.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather have seen RE not getting broken, a long overdue fix for Directive 7, and Tionese crystal drops not being broken in the last patch. Instead we get things broken that already worked fine and a lovely cosmetic cooldown fix which is enough to give anyone a migraine...

 

I did send in a ticket about the above issues, along with the huge RE problem but it seems that all tickets now receive a generic fob off auto-response...

 

That dev didn't say RE "got broken", he said it's not working as intended. Translation: They didn't realize people would cry so much and thus are going to make RE easier. Which is hilarious, because they should have known how much some people would cry.

 

Congrats.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Larkie

[Kemic]

I was thinking of gaining access to all the purple and blue armorings, mods, and earpieces as a cybertech to advertise the skill and try to make some money off people gearing alts levelled mostly through PvP. But with the success rate I have had trying to get them just for my own main and alts, it just doesn't seem like its worth the investing costs to try and make money off it.

 

Honestly, I'm disheartened at the difficulty of trying to earn credits using a crafting skill for gear, especially considering most of the gear isn't even viable for anyone at level 50 (or at least modification type items are not compared to crafted level 50 purples which require items that drop from hardmodes).

 

I think I am going to wait until after they patch this RNG crap out of the equation before I even try to do this any more.

[seraphimx]

Making it easier?

 

I think it just broke, after the patch i RE 10 items, not to crit but just to get some parts back.

 

Gave me NOTHING in 10 cases, I stopped RE since then.

 

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

 

For all you people telling us to stop complaining:

 

- This game is good and it has a lot of potential. But its far from being the best.

- If you dont critisize a work, you cant know what to improve.

- So stop whining about whiners

 

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

 

Crafting is totally useless except for Biochem.

 

LVL400 Synthweaving = Crap ( I have it)

LVL400 Artifice = Crap (i have it on alt)

LVL50 Biochem its awesome.

 

Why make different types of crafting if the rest is useless.

[islander]

I've reverse engineered about 40 green bastion enhancement 22's today and still have not gained the blue schematic version. Normally takes less than 10 to get the blue.

 

 

If this was an intended change, you'd think it would have made it into the patch notes. Perhaps I just missed it.

 

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed to not get a blue out of REing about 14 level 48 focus items on my artificer. Upari crystals aren't that easy for me to come by being I don't gather them.

[Kapono]

So yeah.. think I could get a refund for all the mats I've wasted since Tuesday?

 

[Gixxerdude]

So that explains why I've recently RE'ed 93 Redoubt Nano-optic Reaction implants with out any purple proc's....

 

[Paitum]

The reverse engineering return rate is not currently working as intended. In an upcoming patch, we are improving the reverse engineering rates – especially for the higher-level items. We are also looking into the issue where a player receives "You already know that schematic" instead of learning a new research variation.

 

Patrick Malott

Systems Designer

 

Thank you for confirming this. I'm not a big fan of the RNG nature of RE. But if you are going to keep the randomness, then at least make it friendlier. I'd guess that the current RE chance is < 2%.

[Anomini]

So that explains why I've recently RE'ed 93 Redoubt Nano-optic Reaction implants with out any purple proc's....

 

 

Likewise. Had been reverse engineering stuff and wondering why I was only able to get a blue out of the ton of things I'd made and then nothing after I finally got the blue. Blew through all my mats before I gave up. Frustrating. But glad to have found this and know that it's being worked on, and a known issue as well. Will be looking forward to the patch that fixes it and will hold off on crafting for now. Thanks.

[Dezeit]

For those people posting please leave RE's at the present rate I have to disagree.

Do I want it to be easy to RE a purple - NO.

Do I want a reasonable chance that I can make something useful if I spend some time doing it - Yes.

 

The present RE rate is too low, do you really think RE'ing 100 blues to get a purple you can't use is good. The cost of creating a blue is exponentially more expensive than a green.

 

What posters forget is it takes rare purple components from crafting missions to actually make the items. As long as the drop rate on these components remain low then the market will not be flooded. What will happen is that there will be more purples that people actually need and be prepared to pay for on the GTN.

 

I have sold some purples on the GTN at a reasonable price, but have lost hundreds of thousands of credits on Armormech that does not come close to break even.

[NJMorf]

Minor niggle: why is it called "reverse engineering"? You reverse engineer something to find out how it's made. You don't reverse engineer something you've made yourself, because you clearly already know how to make it. IMO the skill in the game should be called something like Prototyping, Redesigning or Revising: taking something you can already make and making it better.

 

As for the proc rate, I regularly set up a full set of 25 items (mixed blues and greens from the entire level range) in the queue before I log out in the evening, and then RE them all when I log on the next day. If I'm lucky, I'll get one item out of it, but more likely I'll get nothing at all. I reckon I'm seeing a long-term rate of maybe one new schem in 30-40 attempts. I hate to think how much it's costing me.

[Jarvus]

Yeah, we should be able to RE items made by other people, and learn patterns from those items, just like we can with items we make and some world drops. With the odds, I think the odds on higher lvl items are really poor, but if you just play around with low level items for niche markets or alts, the rates on REing them aren't that bad. Once you get much past lvl 40 or so though, the rates on successful REing -> learning a pattern start to get much lower.

[atteSmythe]

Great memories, thank you for sharing. Too bad the lore doesn't explain why it was called "Wi flag". My recollection is that one of the first players who noticed this curse had a character named "Wi".

 

That's my recollection as well - and I was also disappointed to not see it in the 'letter to the players.' Wherever I had originally read the account must have included more context.

 

Ah! Here it is, if anyone's interested. An explanation of the Wi flag, from Wi himself:

http://www.gamerdna.com/GuildHome.php?guildid=5849&page=2

 

To be clear, I highly doubt there's a 'Wi flag' situation going on here. But I always keep that story in mind - especially professionally - as a reminder that sometimes a bug is stranger than you can imagine. The Wi flag has also served to inform one of my personal litmus tests - the stranger a bug report, the more likely it is to be true!

Edited February 8, 2012 by atteSmythe

[shirokiran]

I don't mind the RE rate atm, and i craft and RE alot.

Its reward for those who do put in the time to get it right.

From exp, on avg it takes 10 to 20 RE from Green to Blue that i want.

And 40 RE on if im lucky to get from blue to Purple i want,

but then again i stop counting after RE over 100 of the same item.

 

so its much more reward when i do get the schematics i want.

for crafters expect to fail RE alot

[TalonZahn]

I'd like to be able to RE any drop related to the craft I have chosen.

 

An Armormech should be able to RE a world drop Heavy/Medium armor piece and get mats back or possibly learn the recipe for that item. There are way too many drops that give nothing back or can't even be RE'ed.

 

Tier armor should at least give the mats back.

 

While you're at it, can I get back the several hundred thousand I've pissed away on your broken RE system?

[Ruhx]

I wonder if this will include anything for RE on offhand items, and if that's a bug or by design? Apologies if it's in this thread, and I missed it but being able to make blue and purple offhand items would be a nice addition.