Crafting Profession Changes in patch 1.1.2

[Ashes_Arizona]

Major changes are currently on schedule for the next major content patch, such as extractable basemods (armoring, barrel, etc.) from purple items, critical crafting successes on orange outfits, more bind-on-equip schematic drops for artifice and other professions, increased relevance of augments, better reverse engineering chance, and other improvements. We want to create significant incentive for players to engage in the crafting economy – as provider of goods or supplier - without requiring players to take up a specific profession as a ticket into endgame.

 

Georg,

 

If I could just point out one thing here in regards to the quoted part of your post that I've highlighted in bold.

 

You cannot create a significant incentive for players to engage in the crafting economy when the crafting system as it stands is spends so much time getting in the crafting players way of enjoying the rest of the game.

 

First problem is the resource table while efficient for creating the available schematics is extremely problematic, you can only ever really gather just enough resources to level up your crafting skill to a certain point, from there its a case of spending money...and I don't really care what anyone says the largest portion of your player base probably has less than 150,000 credits at any given time in their game unless they're simply not buying anything and only using quest/drop greens in their game play.

 

See once I'm off Dromund Kaas, and say I'm on Nar Shaddaa, but I need stuff that I'd be picking up on DK...I have to spend money to send my companions to go get it...okay thats fine but the problem is the yields they return for the money spent is almost not worth it in 90% of cases except in the case of a Rich Yield mission when you get lucky and someone that has a critical or efficiency for that skill actually wins their crit/eff roll on the mission.

 

So crafting is an incredible money sink, such a sink as to be almost impractical for anyone that doesn't have a lot of extra money lying around and with training costs being what they are, speeder training costs, keeping up with your gear to ensure you're performing the best you can for your level, theres just not a lot of surplus money to be had in this game til post 50.

 

And even post 50, if you're raiding a lot, you're probably paying a lot in repair costs as well. So even then theres a lot of money going out and not as much coming in, not for all players in this game.

 

Whats more you all pretty much advertised this crafting system as being a system where it would not detract from a players overall enjoyment of the rest of the game. This is patently not true, crafting takes a lot of time out of my game even if I don't personally have to do it because I'm constantly having to tell people to do stuff, spend money to have them go get stuff and consistently have to receive stuff from them when they return.

 

Theres no way to tell a companion to make X item until out of materials, they can make 5, thats it, and pretty much that makes offline crafting a moot point at best. Because at best your companions will continue to work for you for up to about 4 hours after you log off but after that nothing is going on.

 

I hate to bring up SWG but the beauty of SWG was that the resource system was a system of finding the best resources you needed, then keeping up with the shifting tables but other than that, and this still cost money to do, the resource part of the equation took care of itself.

 

When I am playing the game, I have, on my level 50 characters, 5 companions sitting around doing nothing half the time. I should be able to issue instructions that they're to gather X resource til told to stop, or make X item til told to stop or they run out of supplies....and they should not at ANY point interrupt me in the middle of what I'm doing to ask for further instructions or to annoyingly shut down my GTN trading window cause they decided to return when I was 20 pages deep in the GTN looking for something, only to lose my place because my companion decided to tell me how proud of themselves they were that they returned from a mission with two freaking pieces of a resource that MIGHT help to make one item if I have the other pieces I need.

 

This crafting system is like built in nag-ware that costs you money to even use it.

 

If you want an active crafting economy you need crafting to be less in the way of the player's enjoyment of the rest of the game. Its great that we can craft AND play whatever class we want and craft whatever we want but the entire operational system that makes the crafting system work is just stilted and annoying and frustrating.

 

And this isn't even touching on the ridiculous amount of wasted resources, time and effort that goes into REing schematics, or trying to find schematics that you can't learn from a trainer and all that.

 

This is just the base system and how frustrating and not fun it is.

 

There are a lot of things about crafting that could be better but you can't really hope to make things better by ignoring the base systems inconvenience and lack of fun to deal with.

 

In short, the entire base crafting system is about a quarter of what it was advertised to be. Yes your companions do everything for you so you don't have to sit there and craft but, its so limited that you might as well be doing it yourself anyways because it literally requires your input constantly, on a level that is near to disruptive.

 

You have to fix the basics, before going in and adding a bunch of sparkle and glitz to try to make the basics, which aren't fun, more fun.

 

1.) I should be able to assign companions to gather class X resources til I tell them to stop, when I tell them to stop the amount of time they've been out should have the overall determining factor on how much they bring back.

 

2.) Companions should be more self intuitive about what they could be doing with their time since almost all of them are sitting on your ship doing nothing almost all the time.

 

3.) Mission costs need to come way down, cause its not like we're getting a lot of yield in return as it is and only the top 1% of this game has more credits than they know what to do with. I have two level 50 characters that I still haven't bought ALL my crafting schematics and class skills for cause I simply have not generated enough money on either of them to be able to get them all yet.

 

4.) Offline crafting should continue til the resource requirements are exhausted. A limitation of 5 items doesn't add much to the whole "offline" crafting scenario cause all work ceases within 4 hours of you logging off, thats not offline crafting, thats limited continuation of crafting while offline.

[Death_Exile]

Why are u lowering the pvp gear? I got Battle master befor you made ilum a valor farm so anyone can get battle master in no time, when it took me forever to get doing war zones. and now your gonna make is so the gear isnt going to make you as good in pvp? so that anyone with high end pve gear can just come in and do as much damage as someone with pvp gear. So basically all the time i put into getting my gear and getting valor was for nothing. Enough people cry about how its to hard and you just forget about the people not crying and putting in the time as you intended it to be. Every mmo is like this just frustrating.

[Soulcheg]

uh, you dont profit off of the lockboxes...you profit off of the missions you get as drops from slicing. Something tells me you dont actually have the slicing skill.

 

I did not sell them, i have alt chars with every craft, so i send all my missions to them

[Hadanta]

Epic fail again bw

[BlackMink]

Consumables should not be rakata is the problem. Rakata should be the implants and earpieces that biochem and cybertech make. I don't get why they insist on making this hard on themselves, as you can't balance an apple and an orange.

 

There are two flaws with that line of thinking.

 

Firstly, Biochem, like all other crafts, needs something worthwhile to craft with those bio crystals we get in end-game.

 

Second, that CANT be implants/earpieces, because the Rakata implants and earpieces are the easiest Rakata items to obtain in the game, and yes, like any proper Rakata item, they are by far the best you can get. There are implant recepies that drop from hards and raids which require bio crystals, but as I just explained, these are completely pointless recepies because the Rakata versions being so easy to get.

 

This leaves only consumables. There has to be consumables that use the bio crystals, and because bio crystals have such a very limited availability, these consumables have to be both reusable and better than the rest. As I explained earlier in this topic, there isn't even a point to the Rakata medpack anymore, because there are easier ones to craft that do the same thing. The blue ultimate medpack is actually the best in the game now because it heals the most. The fact that it isn't reusable is a minor inconveniance at best, but the Rakata just isn't even worth crafting anymore.

[Lexster]

There are two flaws with that line of thinking.

 

Firstly, Biochem, like all other crafts, needs something worthwhile to craft with those bio crystals we get in end-game.

 

Second, that CANT be implants/earpieces, because the Rakata implants and earpieces are the easiest Rakata items to obtain in the game, and yes, like any proper Rakata item, they are by far the best you can get. There are implant recepies that drop from hards and raids which require bio crystals, but as I just explained, these are completely pointless recepies because the Rakata versions being so easy to get.

 

This leaves only consumables. There has to be consumables that use the bio crystals, and because bio crystals have such a very limited availability, these consumables have to be both reusable and better than the rest. As I explained earlier in this topic, there isn't even a point to the Rakata medpack anymore, because there are easier ones to craft that do the same thing. The blue ultimate medpack is actually the best in the game now because it heals the most. The fact that it isn't reusable is a minor inconveniance at best, but the Rakata just isn't even worth crafting anymore.

 

Why is it fair to have rakata belts/bracers that have the bonus of augments if crafted and rakata crafted ears/implants with augments shouldnt be? Why should a consumable item be 1) better than the rest and 2) infinite use, which means under no circumstance would it not be available and for a forever consumable it has a negligible price to create. That is the problem we are having here. The items that the crafts make are vastly different on all levels. If this isn't corrected, you can be assured that rakata consumables will be nerfed again

Edited February 3, 2012 by Lexster

[Studybreak]

The game is **** already - full of bugs, lack of end-game content, only 3 pvp maps (75% huttball), now they want new 50s to kill BMs that have ground out their gear for weeks. Nerfing biochem because smart players knew pots/medpacks are the way to go in every pvp mmo, bottom line. I, for one, do not plan to re-sub after my game time card runs out. They didn't take the effort to figure this stuff out before launch, so now they resort to 'nerfing' - been there, done that, already beat this game and ready to move on. Can't wait for GW2 and Diablo 3, this game is getting worse with each patch.

 

Oh, and now half of us have 500+ ms latency after last night's patch and the game is completely unplayable - only reason I'm even looking at these forums, let alone taking the time to comment. I love how the forum whiners and trolls force BW to implement nerfs, while the good players were actually pvping and beating the game.

 

SWTOR is not worth a monthly fee.

[Darken-Rahl]

HOW is Biochem useless now?

 

You guys will be able to make a FORTUNE by selling all the stuff that is no longer only usable by you. AND you get to keep using the stuff too!

 

They single-handedly made Biochems rich with this patch, why oh why are you complaining? Because you lost your unfair advantage? Augment slots do not compare to having an infinite health potion, an infinite buff potion and an infinite third relic potion.

 

who cares about the money ??? i think everybody has at least 2 millons as credits if not get farm on. How can you make BIG money from this when ~50% from the sever has biochem????

 

The reason i'm complaining about is this i was artifice and rerolled on biochem cuz the boost you gain from the stims are enormous. to think that they gonna nerf it so the best thing about this crafting skill is a total waste. As mentioned the rakata stim as they are now going to be at the same lvl of engerized stims is such a joke. See it this way if you are artifice and build a rakata relic which ist the best you can optain. the power rakata relic give you a 380 power boost. if they would nerf it why the **** would anyone do artifice. no one

[Lexster]

who cares about the money ??? i think everybody has at least 2 millons as credits if not get farm on. How can you make BIG money from this when ~50% from the sever has biochem????

 

The reason i'm complaining about is this i was artifice and rerolled on biochem cuz the boost you gain from the stims are enormous. to think that they gonna nerf it so the best thing about this crafting skill is a total waste. As mentioned the rakata stim as they are now going to be at the same lvl of engerized stims is such a joke. See it this way if you are artifice and build a rakata relic which ist the best you can optain. the power rakata relic give you a 380 power boost. if they would nerf it why the **** would anyone do artifice. no one

 

Those relics will likely be nerfed soon as well. What is the difference in the crafted relic vs raid obtained relic though? If its only an augment slot odds are it wont be nerfed.

[Astridd]

Hi,

 

Additionally, we've reduced the effectiveness of the BioChem exclusive Rakata Stimpacks to be equal to Energized stimpacks. Their intended benefit is the cost savings they provide over time, not an increase in power.

 

Regards

Georg

 

It's your game, feel free to nerf anything you want. Additionally you can offer a respec of crewskill this time and be a fair and truthful game designer.

[gameshack]

Nerfing biochem because smart players knew pots/medpacks are the way to go in every pvp mmo, bottom line.

 

"Smart players" knew that Biochem was fotm and was going to get nerfed. It was TOO good. "Smart players" know that, following the upcoming changes, they no longer have to have Biochem on their main AND all their alts.

 

The real disgrace with Biochem is that BW even allowed the craft to go live if their design brief was better quality of life rather than significantly better performance. eg not consumed versus bigger effects. It was clear to anyone looking at the skill just how good it was. How on earth BW didn't realise that beforehand (or worse, they did know but went ahead anyway)...well, I'm sure they certainly realised the scale of the problem when they saw the number of people taking it.

 

The other craft skills need a serious look to make them more attractive. Picking a replacement for Biochem on my alts right now is not clear cut, if only because everything else is still so lacklustre. And given the upcoming nerfs, that is certainly saying something.

[HillbiliesRule]

Why does everyone have to always bring up PvP when he is clearly talking about End Game PvE. Whats wrong with you PvP obsessed people? Also if what you are talking about were to happen would that make every pvper automatically pick whatever craft was capable of doing that so that they wouldn't be forced to be slaved to the market? Only way that works is if mutiple crafting professions had access to this ability and if that is what you wanted to say you left it out of your post.

 

What is wrong with you PvE obsessed people?

[Varder]

That's an extremely bad idea and it would be equivalent to making pvp and raiding less desirable than being a crafter. In fact, it would make it completely useless, since a crafter will get you all the best gear and then... you could go raid for worse gear?

 

To be clear, im not for the idea of purple mods only comming from crafters (that was someone elses suggestions not mine). Obviously raid and rare drops of purple still make sense. What does not make sense is farming blue commondations so easily when an entire crewskill is designed to make them. Green commondations from vendors would allow the solo anti social player and crafter co-exist.

[HillbiliesRule]

Okay, but.

 

How are you going to address the fact that after these changes, crafted gear will be more optimal than raiding gear OR pvp gear? There will be ZERO point in using raid or pvp gear if you can obtain crafted gear with augment slots in it, which will provide a very, very significant stat increase if all your gear has slots in it.

 

In other words, you're going to be replacing one problem with another.

 

There should be a way to add augment slots to raid gear as well. What about using commendations earned in operations to buy the slots on your gear, once you're fully up to par? Or extra pvp commendations, even?

 

That way people don't HAVE to default to crafted gear to be optimal, which is what the new system will encourage heavily.

 

 

Crafted gear being better is NOT a problem. The problem here is that most of you obviously don't actually enjoy raiding and only do it for the stuff that drops. People need to take a serious look at their motivations and be honest with themselves because if gear drops are the only thing that keep you doing the PvE content in any game then you are nothing more than an addict and playing for fun left the building long ago.

 

For all the people that claim to enjoy raids the fact remains that 90% of the current MMO player base would NEVER do it with out the fancy little gear drop at the end which ultimately only provides you with something that helps you get yet another piece of gear.

If you aren't playing it for the fun you have just completing then you are not really playing a game anymore...you are addicted to an activity.

[SteppeMerc]

I do not yet have a level 50 character, but the planned changes sound like they make sense, particularly strengthening the GTN. Unfortunately, as someone new to MMOs, I foolishly created my characters on separate servers, fearing that while one or the other would be subject to the long line to log in.

 

Now I am of course regretting it, since I created my character in a server that is apparently a perpetual ghost town, and the GTN is always understocked. And I can't trade between my characters to help make up the deficiency. I have to assume this will only become more problematic as time goes on.

 

Is there any chance that this could be rectified? Or perhaps, allow players to switch characters between servers?

[Roks]

Here is a few ways to fix the pvp gear problem.

 

a) Remove expertise.

b) remove the commendations, and gear should be rewarded by valor rank. and valor rank is according to your level. Put it like at 20 your valor rank cant accede 21. So at 49 your valor rank is 50.

[rzrknight]

love how now they completely ****ED UP biochem i wasted my time lvling.

 

And how i being a PvP player also got ****ed by the fact my gear will be udebuffed.

 

Oh please someone make a MMO worth playing.

[HalifaxAg]

my turn on the soapbox...

 

with regarding to the constant nerfing of biochem, the devs have made other crafting professions more powerful than biochem.

 

1. The nerf of the rakata medpac - it's no better than any other medpac and the add'l health buff is the single most stupid thing I've ever heard of. When I need to ude a medpac, i'm nowhere near full health so what is the purpose of it, PLEASE, put a HoT back on the Rakata Medpac and take away that STUPID 15% health boost.

 

2. the coming nerf of stims - now you are basically making our rakata stim available to all other classes. And we will have no advantage over other crafters in this regard, yet they will have the advantage of access to relics, belts, etc that are crafted bop rakata level and will create an unfair advantage for them. as a biochem I will never have access to that gear, BUT, they will have access to my perk. At least make the other classes crafted rakata's boe. This will open up access to gear and add value to other crafting professions.

 

3. Please remove the rakata implants and earpieces from daily tokens, this hurts biochem & cybertechs, or buff our RE'd schematics to make them more appealing. Why should the Rakata implants be boe from daily turn ins? This completely hurts biochem being able to sell our wares. Or make more relics, offhands, belts, bracers available for purchase through tokens.

 

4. Lastly, how about some Dessler speeder access for the grinders, 1000 tokens nets you the best looking speeder in the game?

[Celeitia]

Crafted gear being better is NOT a problem. The problem here is that most of you obviously don't actually enjoy raiding and only do it for the stuff that drops. People need to take a serious look at their motivations and be honest with themselves because if gear drops are the only thing that keep you doing the PvE content in any game then you are nothing more than an addict and playing for fun left the building long ago.

 

For all the people that claim to enjoy raids the fact remains that 90% of the current MMO player base would NEVER do it with out the fancy little gear drop at the end which ultimately only provides you with something that helps you get yet another piece of gear.

If you aren't playing it for the fun you have just completing then you are not really playing a game anymore...you are addicted to an activity.

For MOST people, and this is something that has been the subject of MANY papers and thesises (thesi? thesis? theses?) by social science groups, MMORPGs are ABOUT the rewards. In fact, they proved that if you incorporate MMORPG elements to the daily work routine of people, they work better and have a higher morale.

 

MMORPGs are about filling bars and getting new abilities, they're about getting better gear and obtaining not just the satisfaction of doing something, but a trophy for it too.

 

This is because, in the real world, there are no rewards for grinding your daily life for the common folk. You go to school, or work, or whatever, you do your thing, you get the money to pay your bills, and maybe once in a while you buy a new game or five. You don't get to watch your exp bar go up, you don't get better clothes to show off how much you grinded at work, you just... conform. You're like everyone else.

 

If this is not the case with you, congratulations, you are a better human being than the average population of a MMORPG. I, and most other players, will be over here in the corner of those who play these games because reality is not rewarding enough, and we want our new purple-quality chestpiece to show off we did something.

 

It is vain, and technically fruitless, but it is rewarding and gives you a feeling of accomplishment.

[MaxDeeps]

I'm fine with the nerf to Biochem. Having the stim-packs be infinite use is still amazing. I would only say that if that's going to happen the Biochem 400 requirement from them should be removed so people can drop Biochem and still use them.

 

Even with the nerf to Biochem it's still going to be the preferred endgame profession. Infinite use stim-packs and adrenals is just too attractive. Despite it's many flaws what I did like about the SWTOR crafting system was that you could make the BoP stuff you wanted from one profession then drop it for another. It allowed you to be proactive that way.

 

I started as Cybertech but when I found out it was bad for endgame (I thought it would be like JCing in WoW and I would be making Mods/Armoring for people at endgame) I went to Armortech long enough to make Rakata bracers and belt before going to Biochem. I wouldn't mind going back to Cybertech because it's nice for helping alts or going back to Armortech and try to proc on the belt and bracers (6 times each and no crits) but as it is I'm stuck on Biochem and I don't plan on dropping it.

[ps_i_rush_you]

We have no intention of forcing PvP players to do Operations and vice versa.

 

 

Then how is a PvP player supposed to get Biometric Crystal Alloy's and such for crafting? Or is crafting only for PvE players and us PvPers aren't allowed?

[DrCereal]

Hi Georg,

 

Thank you very much for the update. You are being purposely overly cryptic, and I understand why, but I think here is a time when you may need to get into specifics. I mean, this particular phrase:

 

Hi,

 

increased relevance of augments,

 

 

This can mean only one thing: you are planning to introduce a method to add augment slots to gear post hoc. Moreso, this method has to come from a vendor, possibly in addition to crafting.

 

I say this, because doing anything else will seriously hurt the game.

 

Now, if you do introduce this method, like a gear enchantment, what happens:

 

1. Orange crit gear are still useful and worthwhile. Just how worthwhile? Exactly the cost of adding the augment slot after the fact. This cost you can set to make crits a valuable bonus, but not a necessary one. Perhaps 100k?
    
   
2. People can use purple gear they like, instead of HAVING TO remove all mods and put them into their critted orange gear.
    
   
3. People can continue to use the orange gear they've collected throughout the game. Including gear that comes from quests, rare drops, etc.
   

 

 

Suppose you do not. Then:

 

1. Orange craftable gear goes from being a vanity, purely cosmetic, and optional choice, to being necessary for competitive PVE and PVP. If it is possible to have augments slots in all your gear, then it becomes necessary. This is the nature of competitive gaming.
    
   
2. Gear visual progression becomes meaningless, as everyone is forced to remove the mods from their operation/pvp gear to put into their critted orange gear.
    
   
3. All gear, orange and otherwise, already collected by players will become obsolete.
    
   
4. Synthweavers and Armormechs will become insanely rich, and everyone will cry for nerfs.
   

 

 

It is clear you have no choice but to add in an augment-slot "enchantment" or gear-modifier. And I have little doubts that you will. You should announce it too, soon. That will help stabilize markets, allay people's fear that their favourite orange gear will become obsolete, or that they won't be able to go for certain looks because the gear (ops/pvp) is not craft able.

Edited February 3, 2012 by DrCereal

[aleiro]

Please if you are serious about your original thread, think about stopping nerfs, the reason people don't go into other crafts is not ONLY because biochem will give them an edge in battle. It is because the other crafts do not have unique items they can use at endgame or pvp. Why would you not think of adding new recipes to these below average crafts that would make people choose them over a consumable that can be purchased from another person.

 

I think it is great that you have made rakata stims and adrenals tradeable, HOWEVER, I think that you should NOT tone them down. Especially since now everybody can have one. Plus what is stopping me now from dropping biochem once I have all my necessary stims and adrenals and going into cybertech to get all the grenades i want, and that's about it...the rest of the professions don't offer anything in terms of unique items. MAybe you should think about boosting those instead of nerfing biochem again.

 

You nerf something continuously and make it utterly boring.

[Erudite-]

Hi, I'm almost rank 70, alot bm pieces etc, i got skills sure 2.9bracket in wow competed on a proffesional level etc.

 

 

As to the change in PVP GEAR - what i understand from you'r post Mr. Admin, is that u will nerf the pvp gear so bad in power - that will be facerolling pve gear in the END to use in pvp " like somone else said, thread carefully here, i will say the same thing

 

Do please Thread carefully, i mean the gear is alrdy **** compared to PVE gear Battlemaster gear - is on par with columi eccept the expertise differences, as a caster, i kite all the time, trying to take as less hit as possible, and if it comes to a power/rawstat nerf, Rakata will be more efficient in PvP 12% more dm VS 300willpower/power or however ur gonna make out the differences i do not know, But i am quite skeptical about it, all that hard work, and u wana silverspoonfeed rerollers and newly dinged people? where is the equation that goes in everything in life, > you reap what you sow < U DONT need a certain rating in this game to get the leet stuff, "everyone and their mother can roll BM gear? so whats problem ???

[aleiro]

Hi, I'm almost rank 70, alot bm pieces etc, i got skills sure 2.9bracket in wow competed on a proffesional level etc.

 

 

As to the change in PVP GEAR - what i understand from you'r post Mr. Admin, is that u will nerf the pvp gear so bad in power - that will be facerolling pve gear in the END to use in pvp " like somone else said, thread carefully here, i will say the same thing

 

Do please Thread carefully, i mean the gear is alrdy **** compared to PVE gear Battlemaster gear - is on par with columi eccept the expertise differences, as a caster, i kite all the time, trying to take as less hit as possible, and if it comes to a power/rawstat nerf, Rakata will be more efficient in PvP 12% more dm VS 300willpower/power or however ur gonna make out the differences i do not know, But i am quite skeptical about it, all that hard work, and u wana silverspoonfeed rerollers and newly dinged people? where is the equation that goes in everything in life, > you reap what you sow < U DONT need a certain rating in this game to get the leet stuff, "everyone and their mother can roll BM gear? so whats problem ???

 

I agree, PVP gear sucks balls compared to pve gear. In this regard they should not touch pvp gear.