Slicing, the worst tradeskill BY FAR.

[MasterWindew]

A short study on slicing:

 

Generating nothing but credits, Slicing is a big contributor to market inflation.

 

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through questing, pvp, vendoring and space missions drops. (These are things EVERYONE does)

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through slicing drops.

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of every other tradeskill increases.

 

On a server level, slicing is very destructive to the economy.

 

On a personal level, slicing is still extremely stupid, since the current level of inflation (on my server, and I expect on most populated servers) causes some tradeskills to generate 3-4x the credits/min of slicing.

[Feedori]

This post is soooo yesterday.

 

More: Basically, everything you said is true but on such an infinitesimally small scale that its completely irrelevant.

 

For example: I can run Ilum and Belsavis dailies in about 60 minutes. I'll make somewhere around 120,000 credits doing them. I can also send all 5 of my crew on slicing missions (spending around 10,000 credits) and when they come back I will gain about 15,000 credits... for a net profit of 5,000 credits. Wow. Really blew the economy out with that one.

 

In the meantime my slicing missions will get me a schematic or two for somebody else's profession which will likely get them more credits.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Feedori

[Malpracticex]

they produce augments which is pretty useful in the gear that you can make.

[Erevan_Kindelar]

Slicing is there to provide people who do not want to craft (and therefore who cannot/will not benefit from that 3-4x increase in profit) with a "crew skill" option.

[CarpLTunnel]

Umm really? I think Biochem is the most game breaking to the economy. On my server its impossible to find any mods for any gear at all on the trade network because everyone is running biochem. What good are all your slicing credits going to do you if there is nothing to buy? Thats right, they wont do jack and *****. How many pieces of armor mods and other mods are on your GTN? On the server I am on I see half a page at most of level 1-50. Even if I sold my wares what good would the credits do me? I cant bribe a dungeon boss to surrender with my ample supply of space credits. I can buy gear but only mod the half that I can do myself, the rest of the slots are greens or blues at best.

 

Maybe I should just make more credits selling to twinks that buy purple crap at level 12 for an exorbitant amount of more credits that get you nothing.

[JoyProtocol]

Slicing on average provides between -10% and +15% return on lockbox missions. That's not where the money is. Just keep that in mind.

[TheRealBowser]

Slicing isn't a mission crew skill. It is a gathering crew skill. This has been gone over before... you will make a great deal of money with slicing, but you will not making it merely sending your companions out to gather lockboxes. You need to go out and gather them in the open world.

 

Every other gathering skill works this way. You won't save/make a lot of money from the missions, the majority of the work needs to be done in the open world. Why should slicing be different?

 

I'm not trying to argue that slicing doesn't have issues, but everyone always leaves this key fact out.

[Crohadan]

you make money in the slicing trade skill by NOT running crew missions. those are very frequently at a loss or minimal gain at best. slicing is not completely useless, but the market for augments is a small one. just focus on your world slicing nodes and youll do more then fine.

[Arellea]

A short study on slicing:

 

Generating nothing but credits, Slicing is a big contributor to market inflation.

 

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through questing, pvp, vendoring and space missions drops. (These are things EVERYONE does)

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through slicing drops.

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of every other tradeskill increases.

 

On a server level, slicing is very destructive to the economy.

 

On a personal level, slicing is still extremely stupid, since the current level of inflation (on my server, and I expect on most populated servers) causes some tradeskills to generate 3-4x the credits/min of slicing.

 

Credits are already worthless (even without considering slicing) due to the extreme ease in acquiring them and the complete lack of anything useful anyone can make to spend them on. Anyone that has been lvl 50 for a week or more already knows this though....

Edited January 25, 2012 by Arellea

[jamescloutier]

Umm really? I think Biochem is the most game breaking to the economy. On my server its impossible to find any mods for any gear at all on the trade network because everyone is running biochem. What good are all your slicing credits going to do you if there is nothing to buy? Thats right, they wont do jack and *****. How many pieces of armor mods and other mods are on your GTN? On the server I am on I see half a page at most of level 1-50. Even if I sold my wares what good would the credits do me? I cant bribe a dungeon boss to surrender with my ample supply of space credits. I can buy gear but only mod the half that I can do myself, the rest of the slots are greens or blues at best.

 

Maybe I should just make more credits selling to twinks that buy purple crap at level 12 for an exorbitant amount of more credits that get you nothing.

 

The mods issue isn't because of biochem. It's because most people can get equal mods from planet comms for "free" instead of paying for the mods players can make. Same iss ue when it comes to weapons & armor. Only things I've seen that sell are ear pieces, implants & ship upgrades. All of which are harder to come by from normal questing. At least that's what I see on my server (Tarro Blood).

[Wraeththu]

Slicing is a gathering profession. It's in the same group as archaeology, bioanalysis and scavaging. You go out, find lockboxes, and loot them instead of finding resource nodes and selling them. It makes sense in that regard and in that vein. As opposed to people who don't want to craft who just gather nodes for selling, just let them gather credits instead.

 

The issue was the addition of crew missions for the gathering skills. People got hung up on running lockbox missions, maybe because it feels odd to have companions around that are idle, I'm not sure.

[FrancoisTogruta]

Credits are already worthless (even without considering slicing) due to the extreme ease in acquiring them and the complete lack of anything useful anyone can make to spend them on. Anyone that has been lvl 50 for a week or more already knows this though....

 

I wish the devs would consider that and restore slicing to a level where you get between 0-50% return on any and all lockboxes. More on critical sucesses. It would make leveling tradeskills so much easier and much more fun as we could run them without going broke.

 

Not to mention other credit usages, playing the GTN, and stop wasting ppl's time trying to figure out how to manage without a level 50 sugar-daddy.

[pokota]

I hate to be contrary, but Slicing makes me a LOT of credits.

 

I run grade 5 rich, and grade 6 missions. Lock-boxes? Who cares, I don't even pay attention unless they're blue. Stop stressing over the small average profit you get from lock-boxes. And yes, you DO average out a profit from the lock-boxes obtained on missions when you factor in the crits.

 

But that has little to do with the profitability of Slicing.

 

Slicing is both a gathering skill and a complimentary mission skill. The gathering part is simple, and I won't go into that. The complimentary mission part is the BEST part of Slicing, and where it's an important part of the economy.

 

Basically, I run Slicing missions for the mission unlock items. Level 340 mission unlock items sell on the GTN for around 3-4k for the most common types, but upwards of 20k for the more rare types. This, BY ITSELF, makes Slicing profitable. It also makes the existence of Slicing a huge boon for the crafting professions. How many rare grade materials do you think the missions skills produce without mission unlock items? It would probably be a much, MUCH lower amount without mission unlock items on the market, I'm quite sure. In that regard, Slicing is directly tied to the progression of crafting, and the production of blue and purple crafted gear.

 

Also, while you can indeed turn a decent profit selling all those mission unlock items on the GTN, if you can USE those items, then you can often double that profit. A level 340 Underworld Trading mission unlock can be easily turned into 50k+, or it can fuel your crafting production so you can churn out blues, purples, and even Mastercraft pieces on a consistent basis.

 

TL:DR version - If you're not earning a nice profit with Slicing then you're doing something wrong.

[Magnu]

I hate to be contrary, but Slicing makes me a LOT of credits.

 

I run grade 5 rich, and grade 6 missions. Lock-boxes? Who cares, I don't even pay attention unless they're blue. Stop stressing over the small average profit you get from lock-boxes. And yes, you DO average out a profit from the lock-boxes obtained on missions when you factor in the crits.

 

But that has little to do with the profitability of Slicing.

 

Slicing is both a gathering skill and a complimentary mission skill. The gathering part is simple, and I won't go into that. The complimentary mission part is the BEST part of Slicing, and where it's an important part of the economy.

 

Basically, I run Slicing missions for the mission unlock items. Level 340 mission unlock items sell on the GTN for around 3-4k for the most common types, but upwards of 20k for the more rare types. This, BY ITSELF, makes Slicing profitable. It also makes the existence of Slicing a huge boon for the crafting professions. How many rare grade materials do you think the missions skills produce without mission unlock items? It would probably be a much, MUCH lower amount without mission unlock items on the market, I'm quite sure. In that regard, Slicing is directly tied to the progression of crafting, and the production of blue and purple crafted gear.

 

Also, while you can indeed turn a decent profit selling all those mission unlock items on the GTN, if you can USE those items, then you can often double that profit. A level 340 Underworld Trading mission unlock can be easily turned into 50k+, or it can fuel your crafting production so you can churn out blues, purples, and even Mastercraft pieces on a consistent basis.

 

TL:DR version - If you're not earning a nice profit with Slicing then you're doing something wrong.

 

This. As a joke I put up on AH a level 50 purple speeder schematic (forget the actual description) for 10mil credits. It sold in a few hours

Edited January 25, 2012 by Magnu

[Lucretia]

I don't know how anyone could consider Slicing to be worthless. I doubt the server I'm on is the only server were purple augments and Mission Discoveries sell for tons of credits.

 

Way I see it, slicing can either help those that actually craft with getting Missions w/o paying huge amounts of credits or helps those not crafting make huge amounts of credits selling Missions to those that do craft...

[Pherdnut]

Post-nerf slicing is fine. Cybertechs should get superior augment potential though.

[Xanideyn]

A short study on Hitting Level 50:

 

Generating nothing but credits, Hitting Level 50 is a big contributor to market inflation.

 

For every Level 50 on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through questing, pvp, vendoring and space missions drops. (These are things EVERYONE does)

For every Level 50 on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through slicing drops.

For every Level 50 on your server, the value/utility of every other tradeskill decreases.

 

On a server level, Hitting Level 50 is very destructive to the economy.

 

On a personal level, Hitting Level 50 is still extremely stupid because I have not hit level 50 yet

 

I made a few changes for ya

[Deax]

Had 400 pts in slicing, dropped the entire crew skill. Almost completely worthless.

[JohnSixteen]

Post-nerf slicing is fine. Cybertechs should get superior augment potential though.

 

QFT. It sucks running a 1 hour mission, just to get a green augment that nobody will buy in a million years.

 

The epic ones can have some solid value, the blue ones have more worth than vendor fodder, but the green ones are trash at level 6... nobody in their right minds would use them.

[Russell_Solo]

I originally chose Biochem, but making stims, picking plants, and mucking around with green goo just wasn't my cup of tea. I retrained Cybertech. I like the idea of being a tech nerd a lot more than a botanist. All I really care about as far as crafting is making things that appeal to my esoteric nature, not how much profit I can make. But that’s just me.

[DarthTHC]

I think the OP's point was that Slicing brings too much money into the economy. If that's the correct interpretation, the OP is way off.

 

If you look at slicing nodes in the world, a node might get you as much cash as killing a few mobs in the area (and, of course, looting and selling the trash they drop). That's really not much. Plus it's not like there are nodes everywhere. This won't really add a whole lot more credits into an economy than just playing the game does.

 

If you look at missions, the return-per-time is pretty abysmal. It's "free", easy money, but it's not exactly a deluge of credits.

 

So, no, Slicing isn't going to cause hyper-inflation.

[MasterWindew]

I think the OP's point was that Slicing brings too much money into the economy. If that's the correct interpretation, the OP is way off.

 

If you look at slicing nodes in the world, a node might get you as much cash as killing a few mobs in the area (and, of course, looting and selling the trash they drop). That's really not much. Plus it's not like there are nodes everywhere. This won't really add a whole lot more credits into an economy than just playing the game does.

 

If you look at missions, the return-per-time is pretty abysmal. It's "free", easy money, but it's not exactly a deluge of credits.

 

So, no, Slicing isn't going to cause hyper-inflation.

 

Credits only come from two places: mobs and quests. If slicing 'gives you as much credits as killing a few mobs', then that's twice the mob killing credits. On top of the mission credits.

 

Just to do the numbers:

if 30% of the server population has only slicing as a gathering skill, and only runs lockbox missions, instead of a random other gathering profession and running the corresponding gathering missions (and putting the mats on the market):

 

Let us assume a slicer's credit creation (credits created, not traded) increases by 30%

This 30% is easily attainable with both gathering credits and slicing missions.

 

The credit destruction from sending the companions on gathering missions decreases by 100% (since the cost of missions is already deduced from credit creation). Lets say this would otherwise consume 15% of your credit creation.

 

Based on these numbers, the slicer creates 52% more credits than the gatherer.

Globally the slicers now increase monetary supply by 15%

 

The market also has 30% less crafting materials. Not having tons of time to research the shape of the demand curve, let's assume this increases material prices by 20%.

 

15% more credits and 20% more costly materials, crafting materials now cost 38% more. To a pure consumer, who gets nothing from the 15% inflation, buying crafted items costs 38% more, and buying anything else on the market costs 15% more.

 

Not that I care... after all this is a video GAME. But slicing still sucks, since it's the only tradeskill that makes the game worse for hyper-casual players.

[pokota]

15% more credits and 20% more costly materials, crafting materials now cost 38% more. To a pure consumer, who gets nothing from the 15% inflation, buying crafted items costs 38% more, and buying anything else on the market costs 15% more.

 

Not that I care... after all this is a video GAME. But slicing still sucks, since it's the only tradeskill that makes the game worse for hyper-casual players.

 

This makes zero sense to me. Slicing, via unlocked mission items, is probably responsible for the largest influx of rare crafting materials in the game. This serves to drastically increase the available supply for crafting, which subsequently drives the cost of crafted goods downward.

 

Without Slicing, blue and purple crafted pieces would be much more expensive, both for the crafter and the consumer.

 

Unless you accounted for unlocked mission items somewhere in your math that I did not see, you are way, way off base.

[The_Mystic]

A short study on slicing:

 

Generating nothing but credits, Slicing is a big contributor to market inflation.

 

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through questing, pvp, vendoring and space missions drops. (These are things EVERYONE does)

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of credits earned through slicing drops.

For every slicer on your server, the value/utility of every other tradeskill increases.

 

On a server level, slicing is very destructive to the economy.

 

On a personal level, slicing is still extremely stupid, since the current level of inflation (on my server, and I expect on most populated servers) causes some tradeskills to generate 3-4x the credits/min of slicing.

 

Oh dear. You just don't get it.

[KurganNazzir]

Slicing does not 'generate just credits', thank you very much. I've received schematics and missions from world nodes, and the missions, as already stated, provide augments. I, personally, also don't make tons of money from slicing, though I do make a generous sum during the many hours I play. I have never had more than 500K credits due to the costs of skills, missions, repairs that are sometimes over 1K credits, and a little bit of GTN buying to keep me and my companion gear optimal (and I didn't have much money when I did the buying). Yes, some people have a lot of credits but I'm betting most, if not all, are level 50s who run the dailies all the time, as well as those who made a lot of money with slicing before it was fixed; though this is just an assumption on my part.

 

Slicing is not the sole contributor to your perceived economic inbalance, that takes several factors. Some people make a lot of money selling useful items on GTN, not because they have slicing. Quests generate quite a bit of income, as does general game play (loot). People need to stop blaming it solely on one thing when there are several contributing factors, just as in the real world.

 

Short version: your mileage may vary.