Why is Crafted Gear not the best?

[_Ender__Wiggin_]

First, if you're not crafting while leveling, you're wrong. It's literally three/four mouse clicks. That's it. That's the entire crafting dynamic. I'm not sure what's fun or exciting about clicking the mouse three or four times and having the item researched/failed/delivered to you. Whatever, that's the system that's been designed.

 

Second, crafted gear isn't the best because crafting is broken.

 

Third, profit?

[TechMaestro]

There is no reason a compromise cannot be made. Have the helm, chest and legs drop in PvE and the rest through crafting. Make the crafting ingredients drop in raid as well.

 

Normal mode should drop tier 1 gear and crafting components.

Hard Mode should drop tier 2 gear and components.

Nightmare mode should drop tier 3 and components.

[DariuszPol]

Unless mats are insanely rare or hard to acquire crafter gear should never be BIS. Some may disagree with the 'work for gear' approach but IMHO the best gear should only come from PVP and PVE content respectively.

 

And this way you make all crafter worthless. Ask ANYONE what is the best crafting skill for your class and they will say:

~ Bounty Hunter ? Biochem!

~ Agent ? Biochem!

~ Sith ? Biochem!

~ Jedi ? Biochem!

~ Trooper ? Biochem!

~ Smuggler ? Biochem!

 

Because after 3 weeks your crafting is useless for everyone and there is no point keeping it while others have nice med packs. Sorry but NO! NO! NO!. I don't care if mats should be in some hard dungeons or flashpoints or something BUT as far as I know - Crafters should make best gear in the game at the end.

[Nelena]

Horribe idea imo. Crafted gear should never be the best ingame. Raidgear has to be the best, period. However crafting really is ****ed up atm. Way too easy and lame, and also biochem is the only useful skill in endgame.

[crowncrow]

And this way you make all crafter worthless. Ask ANYONE what is the best crafting skill for your class and they will say:

~ Bounty Hunter ? Biochem!

~ Agent ? Biochem!

~ Sith ? Biochem!

~ Jedi ? Biochem!

~ Trooper ? Biochem!

~ Smuggler ? Biochem!

 

I am not sure if this is still true after they nerfed Biochem a week ago... Oh well, I understand the logic behind their decision however it leaves crafting more and more irrelevant in the long run. My personal suspicion is that they simply must do something about improving it. Why put some much development time into so many companions, its not like we need all of them for anything else? I hope Bioware is simply observing our reaction to the current, clearly underdeveloped crafting system, and they will make improvements on the bases of that. After reading about their upcoming plans it is clear they are listening...

 

Horribe idea imo. Crafted gear should never be the best ingame. Raidgear has to be the best, period.

 

Personally I am bias to the idea that crafting combined with raiding, (with emphasis on the combined part for those who keep insisting in seeing this issue in black and white terms), should give the best gear, at least in the long run.

 

On the other hand I am not too attached either way and the only thing that is strange to me is when people say things MUST be this or that way. Oh, I understand that Bioware should use, whats tested and based on popular play styles from other games, but why kill innovation in the process? Do we want another WOW? Is it so inconceivable to expect a bit more then the streamed lined experience we are offered now? Perhaps when it comes to crafting I am biased to a more sandbox style of play of Eve Online, but I still thing that this game has great potential. The risk is that if they focus too much on trying to compete with WoW and limit their "innovation" to voice acting and other minor details they will all ways remain just another WoW clone.

Edited January 27, 2012 by crowncrow

[DariuszPol]

I am not sure if this is still true after they nerfed Biochem a week ago... Oh well, I understand the logic behind their decision however it leaves crafting more and more irrelevant in the long run. My personal suspicion is that they simply must do something about improving it. Why put some much development time into so many companions, its not like we need all of them for anything else? Perhaps Bioware is simply observing our reaction to the current clearly underdeveloped crafting system, and they will make improvements on the bases of that. After reading about their upcoming plans it is clear they are listening...

 

Personally I am bias to the idea that crafting should give the best gear, at least in the long run. On the other hand I am not too attached either way and the only thing that is strange to me is when people say things MUST be this or that way. Oh, I understand that Bioware should use, whats tested and based on popular play styles from other games, but why kill innovation in the process? Do we want another WOW? Is it so inconceivable to expect a bit more then the streamed lined experience we are offered now? Perhaps I am biased to a more sandbox style of play of Eve Online, where everything is player crafted, but I still thing that this game has great potential. The risk is that if they focus too much on trying to compete with WoW and limit their "innovation" to voice acting and other minor details they will all ways remain just another WoW clone.

 

Leave voice acting - that is not innovation at all (since conversations always lead to "kill 40 mobs"). Little innovations are group conversations. Nothing more.

Biochem is still only thing you can do as crafter in this game. Why ? SIMPLE. Everything elase is just about creating gear and you can find gear better than one you can craft.

So in 4 weeks of regular gameplay your crafting skills will become useless.

It sux right ?

 

I don't know a single lvl 50 who would have something else than Biochem in the end. And by nerfing it they want to be useless to. Like they implemented crafting because 'every mmo have a crafting' but only because of that.

 

I don't know why company so experience as Bioware made stupid things like this.

[zDracor]

If the full sets of craftable BoP exotech gear is still available (used to drop in raids, and require raid mats) Then that's still the best possible gear in the game. While it's rating 136 (Columi equivalent) It can be critically crafted with an Augment slot. 7 Augmented 136's + 2 augmentend Columi implants, + an augmented earpiece > Rakata. It'd just be really, really hard to get. Theres also at 3 least 3 BoP rakata pieces available for each crafting skill, also can be critically crafted.

[RocNessMonster]

Yes, it has 5k players. And after laucnh and peaking at 250k subs it went straight dowhill in player numbers in couple of years ending up to 5000 players worldwide atm.

 

The ****** TOA expansion is what killed DAOC, just like any other game. Expansions ruin MMOs.

[crowncrow]

Leave voice acting - that is not innovation at all (since conversations always lead to "kill 40 mobs"). Little innovations are group conversations. Nothing more.

Biochem is still only thing you can do as crafter in this game. Why ? SIMPLE. Everything elase is just about creating gear and you can find gear better than one you can craft.

So in 4 weeks of regular gameplay your crafting skills will become useless.

It sux right ?

 

I don't know a single lvl 50 who would have something else than Biochem in the end. And by nerfing it they want to be useless to. Like they implemented crafting because 'every mmo have a crafting' but only because of that.

 

I don't know why company so experience as Bioware made stupid things like this.

 

Agreed!

 

I am a 50 lvl and for now I am using some gear that I have crafted to purple with an augment mod, but it is sad that in a way I have reached my top in synthweaving and soon I will not be able to use any of my stuff. I can still sell it to some 49 levels, but who wants to buy expensive gear at 49 when at 50 you will soon get better from drops.

 

Ok crafting best endgame gear aside they should at least let us change the look of our apex gear, I don't like how my shadow PVP will look and I don't want to look like every other guy with same spec. If you think about it, it makes PVP very predictable and streamed lined gear wise, after a while you will see a guy and right off the bat you will know what specs he/she has...

Edited January 27, 2012 by crowncrow

[OniHouse]

And this way you make all crafter worthless. Ask ANYONE what is the best crafting skill for your class and they will say:

~ Bounty Hunter ? Biochem!

~ Agent ? Biochem!

~ Sith ? Biochem!

~ Jedi ? Biochem!

~ Trooper ? Biochem!

~ Smuggler ? Biochem!

 

Because after 3 weeks your crafting is useless for everyone and there is no point keeping it while others have nice med packs. Sorry but NO! NO! NO!. I don't care if mats should be in some hard dungeons or flashpoints or something BUT as far as I know - Crafters should make best gear in the game at the end.

 

Actually the best thing to do would be to first rotate all other Crew skills with "rakata" quality BoP patterns and then taking biochem afterwards . For example with Synthweaving you can make the same Rakata bracers+belt that you get from raiding BUT with an augment slot as long as you make them till you crit. This makes those two items BiS no matter how much you raid, unless you can somehow get better then Rakata gear?

[ChicksDigHarleys]

OP must have quit playing DAoC before ToA, because after that, you had to have a template full of artifacts and your master levels to be competitive in PvP. Yeah, everyone a couple pieces of custom crafted, but you weren't going to beat any ML9s in ToA artifacts with an all crafted template.

 

Crafting should be better than it is now...no doubt.

[Tharrn]

Crafting has been dumbed down in MMOs as a general trend. Interdependency is apparenty something that must be avoided at all cost. God beware people need to interact or something.

 

I was told by a friend that Neocron had a good crafting system (never played it myself). I loved the (original) SWG crafting. Different mats, different outcomes.

 

Here they do have a basis to make crafting worthwhile - components dropping in instances only. Should also be possible to get mats with PvP quests theoretically. It would only add an additional step to the current system though. Find a crafter to make it. And thus we are back to the beginning of this post - heaven forbid I need other players!

[Norumaniac]

Unless mats are insanely rare or hard to acquire crafter gear should never be BIS. Some may disagree with the 'work for gear' approach but IMHO the best gear should only come from PVP and PVE content respectively.

 

 

I agree.

 

 

And PvP = Arena, not WZ.

[MilkPudding]

I have no problem with crafted gear not being the best but I have a huge problem with it being not needed at all.

 

Why do you put crafting in-game when the stuffs I made are not even needed by myself?

[blaquelotus]

Do you really not get it? It's very simple:

People would just stop raiding / pvping. There are a lot of people who only participate in those activities because of the loot. And they are in the same groups / guilds with people who enjoy the challenge in raiding / pvping itself. And all those groups / guilds would fall apart if the best gear could be acquired from somewhere else.

Would people visit operations? Yes. But how many times? And also in HM/NM? Not as much as today I'd say. BW would have to introduce much more content (which isnt just the same instance with different numbers) compared to now.

 

You cannot give the best gear to people via something "trivial" (asuming it's not bind on acquire) like crafting in a game where the whole endgame content is based upon "Please do flashpoints / operations / warzones".

 

In a strange way you kind of made his point. If PvP and Raiding are in and of themselves so boring that people will only do them to in order to get some gear. Then perhaps those aspects of the game need to be removed and replaced? That is basically the argument you're making. If however, PvP and Raiding are actually fun and worthwhile endeavors then people will do them regardless of the power level of the rewards.

 

Which then I guess brings us to the real issue here, and why people are so against the idea of top end crafted gear. Fear. Its a fear that an aspect of the game you (meaning any individual player) really enjoy may become more difficult to accomplish unless a large segment of the paying population feels forced to do it with you.

 

Believe it or not I'm not saying any of that as a bash. I can totally understand. Gamers tend to have the conceit that only the things they personally like in games are of value. However the truth is since its a form of entertainment everyone's likes and dislikes are valid to some extent. I know many people who only care about leveling toons, running auction house PvP, and crafting items. I also know many who love Raiding, and PvP. I personally enjoy all of the above. Nothing wrong with any of it so why not make all these endeavors worth while?

 

I personally think that crafted, Raided, and PvP gear should be equal, but with different focus. PvP gear should be set towards being the best for PvP. Raiding gear should be set for upping effectiveness in hard group content. Crafted items should be geared towards solo play. By solo play I mean maybe it gives bonuses to Presence, or towards Crew Skills or something of that nature. That way the people who enjoy those different aspects will all get the gear that's best for their interest. But that's just my idea.

 

I'm also not against just going with the idea that the OP gave. I don't think I've ever queued for PvP with visions of gear in my head. I do it because I wanted to PvP. Don't think I ever raided just caring about gear. I did it because I wanted to see the content, and beat the fights.

[Zorvan]

Why must they be BoP? I'll post this again. I wish crafting was liked how he described.

 

Originally Posted by Daniel Erickson

 

 

The best stuff is always going to come from other players, and then be made by other players. There will be stuff that you can craft that is among the best stuff in the entire game. So very close to the top tier that you could get for anything..

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/12/massively-interviews-bioware-on-swtors-crafting-and-pvp/

 

And as you'll see in the quote you provided, never listen to a damn thing the devs of this game say.

 

Notice how in just 3 sentences, Erickson demoted crafting from "the best" to "among the best" to "so very close to the top" while hyping it?

 

EAware have been the masters of the double-talk method from the very beginning. This is why you always have people arguing "The devs said..." followed by responses of "Nuh-uh, they said...".

 

I have yet to see anyone on this entire dev team, including their community staff, give a concrete and concise response to anything without leaving enough holes and leeway to have it interpreted a half-dozen ways.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Zorvan

[Tewnam]

it lost over half of its players in 3 years. And no, but few friends did.

 

What you're missing is that 2-3 is a LONG time for an MMO. That's basically a full lifespan. And you're also missing that the numbers being thrown around, such as 250k, was a huge amount of players, far above the average at the time. Of course it's going to stabilize. It sounds like you're trying to compare it to WoW, yet you don't realize that WoW is an anomaly. If you claim that any game without WoW's success is a failure, then you're a fool.

 

DAoC was a very successful game and pioneered the underlying concepts of faction-based PvP that all MMOs still use today.

[Truga]

DAoC was a very successful game and pioneered the underlying concepts of faction-based PvP that all MMOs still use today.

 

Sorry, but factions in MMOs are garbage, and the person that thought that idea up needs to get executed. All it promotes is imbalance and split community on servers.

[_Verja_]

I would rather see crafting gear do something else besides just make gear.

 

One thing that I liked about wow was the profession bonus that everyone got.

 

For example; A blacksmith could create extra sockets on gloves to put in more gems. A tailor could add something to their capes for extra stats. Enchanters could enchant their rings.

 

Everyone had something unique to them, but it was all balanced.

 

I'd rather see that then everyone just have profession X make Y item the second they hit 50 and never have to worry about upgrading.

[Balrizangor]

So, you (the OP) think that, once players hit 50th and if they want the best gear available to them, they should become slaves to the mercy of crafters and whatever prices they set for gear on the auction house?

 

And, if that is the case, why would we need to raid? Just to get credits to pay for the gear that crafters make on the auction house? So the game would become something like a shopping site, or a Star Wars E-Bay (just with credits instead of real cash).

 

Go raid to get credits to give to crafters to get better gear to go raid to get credits to give to crafters to get better gear (and so on) until we have the best gear credits can buy and all sit around in the auction house waiting for a crafter to get a new schematic?

 

Also, if I am on the Flashpoint/Ops mission when that crafter gets that pattern, will I always get a discount on that item if I buy it from him? I mean, that crafter would not have that pattern if not for the people that were in the group that also contributed to him/her getting it. Better yet, do I get a share of the profits when he makes the best in slot items in the game and sells them?

 

 

 

 

Now, if you are saying that crafters should make the BiS items AND they are bind-on-pickup so he can only make them for himself, well then, ok, maybe ....

[Truga]

So, you (the OP) think that, once players hit 50th and if they want the best gear available to them, they should become slaves to the mercy of crafters and whatever prices they set for gear on the auction house?

 

And, if that is the case, why would we need to raid?

You need to raid to get the materials for your gear, if you don't want to pay someone else for your gear. Crafting is just another source of gear, it doesn't invalidate raiding.

Everyone had something unique to them, but it was all balanced.

 

I'd rather see that then everyone just have profession X make Y item the second they hit 50 and never have to worry about upgrading.

Except, crafting will obviously use components out of new content, and new content will bring new components/mats and better gear.

 

It's just like saying "I'd rather see that than everyone just have completed raid X and get Y item the second they hit 50 and never have to worry about upgrading." It's simply not true, upgrades happen when new content/gear is released, whether the gear is crafted or gotten from raids.

[Gleneagle]

...Bioware needs people to be interested in endgame and to stay subscribed longer to do it all...

...if SWTOR is going to be WoW then Bioware needs people to be interested in endgame.

 

OTOH if SWTOR is going to be SWTOR, then maybe Bioware needs to continue building SWTOR according to Bioware's vision and relegate the needs of rabid WoW fans farther down the list of priorities, or even into the round file.

[inseeisyou]

Crafted gear *is* the best gear in the game guy...

 

Crit crafted Rakata Belt... BOOM, best waist slot in the game... and crafted...

 

etc, etc, etc... hopefully you get my point.

[Gleneagle]

... Crafted gear should never be the best ingame. Raidgear has to be the best, period...

 

This will be found true where the only player objective is operations/raids.

 

There are other players than those who have that as sole objective.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Gleneagle

[Kourage]

If the best gear came from crafting, then all you'd have to do is buy credits with cash, or manipulate the market as some do, and you could buy the best gear in game. A friend who's been playing a long time could just buy the best armor in game for a friend who just started. Example, SWG where a player would have a full suit of 35s in the best quality armor before they even reached the level cap. If all you want to do is PvP, you probably like that system.

 

I feel you should have to actually do difficult things to earn the best gear. Make people PvP for the best PvP gear. Crafting has it's place where some items are better than or equal to drops, but certainly not all of them. There are schematics only available from raiding. That's an incentive for crafters to raid, but still, all it takes it credits to buy the item from the crafter.

 

Now if there was a crafted item that could only be activated and used if the user reached a certain point in a raid, that'd be a kinda cool. Unfortunately, guild would just sell a spot to people needing to activate their peace. There's something wrong with every option. There really just is no pleasing everyone.

 

 

But no. I'm highly against making all best in slot available from crafting, requiring nothing more than credits.