Is crafting even worth the time??

[kiddeth]

New to the game and I decided to look into the crafting to add to the fun.... I am not real familiar with it but, it seems I get better gear etc. from drops compared to what can be made so far.

 

Haven't seen much on crafting...so my question is this... Is it worth the time??

 

 

oh yea its worth it. if you smart about it and dont waste all your money on sending your guys out to do it all the time, you can make some pretty good cash.

 

for all the people saying you can't make a profit from crafting while lvl'ing, yourd doing it wrong. Slicing is a major source of income, as well as Bio so you dont spend cash on stims and med packs.

 

I play 4 toons with different crafting skills and all around lvl 25 right now and have more credits than I can spend.....I have enough to pay for all my skills for all for toons ATM. over 300k.

Edited February 3, 2012 by kiddeth

[Scritty]

I've not crafted a single item that I would swap for stuff I bought on GT or got as part of mob drop.

I guess if you don't run Flashpoints or Heroics you might need the odd crafted item as the best loot drops here, but generally, crafting idoes not provide anything worthwhile.

 

Not only that - as part of the game it is very dull and adds pretty much nothing.

 

• I hear Qzen Fess mumble something - so I assume he's back.
  
• I press "N" then "1" and he goes away again
  
• Every so often I see what he can make that would best level my manufacturing skill and press whatever number that is 5x
  

 

I look at what he's made from time to time, or what he could make, and think

"Nothing there worth striving for or going out of my way to get"

So I return to pressing "N" and then a number every 20 minutes

As an enjoyable game mechanic, it ranks alongside logging in or forgetting your password.

It gives me no sense of aspiration, no sense of achievement..no sense of anything much really other than a lighter pocket credits wise.

 

For the first couple of weeks I thought I was missing something, and resolved to go online and check out the intricacies of it.

Then I checked, and there are none.

It's as shallow and unrewarding as a spit puddle. More shallow even than WoW's vaneer thin set-up - and that's really saying something.

 

And that's crafting.

Unless I'm missing something?

[DarthMarisa]

I do like how some of the earlier postings state in one sentence that crafting is either pointless or a waste and that you should gather send sell mats (that part's not bad, I'll buy them if I need them ) and then go on to say that you should hope someone else is "dumb" enough to craft and put things on the gtn for you to buy.

 

Strictly my opinion, crafting is not useless or pointless. From launch I went Biochem (for implants first actually rather than stims etc) and my husband went Armormech. What he can make for me (usually blues though of course purples) is better than any quest or loot drop we get. (Barring any Heroics we attempt that are above our lvl) I find myself taking commendations as rewards because he's already made me better gear at my lvl than the quest rewards at my lvl. I've got a few orange pieces that I upgrade mods for because I like the look (mostly chest piece and legs) and everything else is crafted. Our slicing alts give us the augments we need to boost our crafted gear even further with slots.

 

If you're willing to spend time and resources on it, crafting is very worth it. If you're not that into crafting or this sounds more like "work" to you, then no it's not worth it. I apologize if the next statement sounds snarky but... I run a crafting based guild (It's not the only thing we do, it's just that we recruit enthusiasts) so I hear a *lot* of discussion on the subject and I haven't found a single crewskill that I didn't think was *very* useful or worth it.

 

I go to our Artifices for color crystals for my guns, my husband for armor, myself for implants, stims and medpacks, our Cybertechs for ship upgrades and mods, etc, etc. Granted, our guild doesn't have enough 50s yet to do guild only raiding but any content we do tackle thus far has been a blast.

 

If you are like me (and I know I'm unusual) crafting CAN be a huge sink. I'm frequently low on credits because I send as many companions as possible on missions. I obsessively RE stuff to get purple recipes. This was made even worse when I discovered that you can get more than one type of purple recipe from a blue. I used to just stop RE blues when I got a purple, now I feel compelled to continue the process to see what else I might get. My Crewskills are at 400 and I only just hit 42.

 

 

However, if you aren't concerned with lower lvl purples, you can still craft useful items without hurting the bank much. The best answer to the question OP is how much self control you have.

 

TL;DR

 

Post is mostly pro crafting with some admission of negatives and ways to counteract that.

[ChicksDigHarleys]

Meh it's OK for leveling. It generally takes me about 5 RE'd greens to get a blue, and my blues are way better than 90% of the crap quest rewards, which also allows me to take comms as rewards to buy mods or newer blues instead of having to rely those crap greens as upgrades.

 

For endgame, I'll defer to everyone that says Biochem is the only way to go, even with the incoming nerf, although Cybertech with grenades probably isn't a bad choice either, now that Biochem purps are no longer going to be BoP or require 400 Biochem skill to use.

[Xerda]

New to the game and I decided to look into the crafting to add to the fun.... I am not real familiar with it but, it seems I get better gear etc. from drops compared to what can be made so far.

 

Haven't seen much on crafting...so my question is this... Is it worth the time??

 

Having made the mistake of taking up crafting on my main and spending my entire levelling experience broke I avoided the mistake on alts and just take up slicing as it's a constant money spinner and diplomacy to give me extra dark side points and companion gifts which can be sold or used.

[DarthKhaos]

Know what's funny? They are giving (or gave not sure which) crafters the chance to crit on crafting orange gear to give an augment slot and people are complaining that now they're not going to have an augment slot in social, pvp & pve gear.

 

You just can't please everyone. They want crafting to be more viable but they are upset when crafters get a boon.

 

Crafted gear don't get set bonuses. And you're getting social gear for looks so you're not THAT concerned about looks. Hell I'm yet to find heavy and medium social gear sets.

[Bamajawn]

I'm an armormech with UT and scavenging skills. Overall, the crafting doesn't do me much good, but I'm also not working it too hard. At 43, my skills are at about 350. I've managed to sell enough gear to pay for all my UT missions and then some, so my crafting has actually made me some credits. I'm pretty casual about it, I scavenge as I play and let my unused companions work while I play and when I'm logged out. I am always very cautious in approaching crafting in a game that's new to me. I don't want to invest a bunch of money/gold/credits in a useless skill.

 

I haven't spent much time REing gear, and that's a VERY significant factor in keeping my costs down. I'm hoping that, in the future, crafting will be worth doing and my skills will be there when it happens. If not, I haven't invested a great deal of game time or credits in it. I can certainly understand why hardcore crafters would be upset with the present state of affairs.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Bamajawn

[Race_Starraker]

I like to craft in the MMOs I play.

 

The crafting in SWTOR is very basic, boring, and produces 'meh' items.

 

In other words, crafting is like 70 percent of the game - not innovative at all and essentially a step backwards in MMO development.

 

The game functionality is about circa 2004.

[daemian]

...for all the people saying you can't make a profit from crafting while lvl'ing, yourd doing it wrong..

 

My feelings exactly.

[ferroz]

In synthweaving its worth it if you got the time and resources to reverse engineer purple recipes from the ground up for you and your alts.

 

But at some point it's going to take a long time (not to mention gazillion credz) to get the purple recipe you actually want due to the fact that higher level gear and mats take longer to gather and make.

I found that blues, especially for wrist and waist, were more than worth it while leveling.

[Larkie]

The cost to produce sellable goods with crafting is enormous. Most of what you produce, you have to consume in reverse engineering to get the better recipes then consume them to get even better recipes which require ingredients you can ONLY get by either buying them off the market or paying for your companions to run gathering missions. The purpose of selling stuff is to make a profit, I would say that no one could possibly turn a profit while they are leveling crafting.

 

There is no overhead with gathering. You pick stuff up off the ground while you're out killing rats and sell it.

 

Which one is the smarter option?

 

Right. I made credits just fine.

[ThiborF]

Re-engineered purples, and many of the blues, surpass most quest rewards such that you can opt for commendations the majority of the time to use for things you can't craft or companion gear.

 

From my experience, keeping most/all of your gear slots populated with level appropriate stuff just reduces the downtime while leveling. You take less damage and kill things a little quicker.

 

And I've found it works better when several alts compliment each others crew skills. Being more self sufficient for gather and not relying on the GTN makes it a bit cheaper.

[Siltyn]

for all the people saying you can't make a profit from crafting while lvl'ing, yourd doing it wrong.

 

 

 

Shhhhhh!!! Let those people continue to think there is no profit in crafting while leveling...I enjoy having control of certain parts of my GTN and raking in the credits daily!

[Majestic-]

No! No! No!

[Calsetes]

My "making a profit while leveling" is the fact that I can make anything any of my characters needs - at any time.

[Jerid]

New to the game and I decided to look into the crafting to add to the fun.... I am not real familiar with it but, it seems I get better gear etc. from drops compared to what can be made so far.

 

Haven't seen much on crafting...so my question is this... Is it worth the time??

 

What profesion are you doing?

On my Armorcrafters/Synthweavers, any blue items they make with an equipable level equal to their level is better then any drops/quest items they get from equal level quests.

[Bluejayoo]

If you add the following:

 

- The cost of crew skill missions

 

- The cost of training schematics

 

- The amount of money you are loosing by using mats to grind level and schematics instead of selling the mats on the AH

 

- The time is takes to gather mats that you could spend doing other things

 

 

And compare that to the amount you can make from sales and money saved by making your equipment, I think you will find that no trade skill except maybe biochem and the pure profit skills like slicing are even remotely worth it.

 

This game has the least profitable trade skills of any MMO i have played over the last 13 years. That is not to say you can't do it for fun, but if you are doing it for profit don't waste your time.

[schwiz]

No Bioware doesn't want people crafting in this game. Case and point. People complained that biochem was the only viable profession, so they nerfed it twice in a row to make it 'as fun' as the other professions. If you like crafting then this is not the game for you.

[daemian]

Shhhhhh!!! Let those people continue to think there is no profit in crafting while leveling...I enjoy having control of certain parts of my GTN and raking in the credits daily!

 

Hmm, good point.

[The_Duck]

cybertech can make you a lot of money.

once you learn the blue schematics for ANY level of armor mods or mods then you can pretty much infinitely sell these items on the GTN.

 

I don't list them for crazy amounts. just enough for profit (3-7k depending on level of item).

At a certain point you have a crazy amount of mats so it is almost free to make all the mods

you want.

 

heck any class that is leveling wants better mods and armor mods in their gear.

they will pay for them if they see them on the GTN.

[Daekarus]

I've been enjoying using Armormech while leveling. I almost never bother trying to get purple gear, because it doesn't seem to be cost-effective, but it's great because I can equip my entire trooper squad (aside from Fourex) in the same armor. Not only are they effective, they are pretty! So I make myself a tank set, and everybody else gets the general dps set of the same level. Makes me stand out as the leader most of the time, but it's a good solution. Not sure what I'll do at end-game... think I'll gear up everybody in crafted purples or orange, depending on what patch 1.2 changes.

 

I'm almost to 400 on armormech, and I'm not dropping it unless they render it useless for gearing alts.

[ZRated]

Thanks for the tips, etc.

 

I decided to take 2 of the gathering (salvaging and slicing) and cybertech. Since I am playing a Bounty hunter and got Mako... I decided to just get the skills she shows. The gathering missions are decent... I have a crapload of mods picked up from those. The salvaging is where I seem to be making decent for me.

 

I crafted some low level mods to help with heals....but so far I seem to be leveling faster than the crafting is worth.

 

Love the game.... I played the old PC KOTR games and this MMO is great. I played City of Heroes/Villains for 7yrs and the crafting etc. i that game had the same drawbacks.... You out-level your recipies and enhancements faster than you can make them... The only good thing is that anything you make in that game...the numbers are static regardless of your level as long as it is "slotted". So a lvl 35 enhancement with 25% resist will still be 25% resist at lvl 50...

 

Not comparing games in the sense of what is better.... Just comparing from what I have been playing and used to in order to get this one. As far as crafting for my alts as they level up........ I have noticed and read that it seems to be very expensive and time consuming for one's self... I guess it would be a sub-game or something else to do for extra money (like on CoH...they have a black market where you can sell what you get/make). The game seems to have it's own economy which is something I will mess with another time.

 

Long reply......haha... but thanks for the tips and input.

[Metalmac]

Server population can make Crew Skills just worthless to the player.

 

Low population means insane prices for easy to farm supplies.

 

By the time you can afford the supplies quest items are twice as good and quality.

 

At level 50 Crew Skill are almost worthless compared to drops and quest items or PVP gear.

 

All in all Crew Skills are cool, but implemented wrong and not worth the effort.

[Larkie]

Server population can make Crew Skills just worthless to the player.

 

Low population means insane prices for easy to farm supplies.

 

By the time you can afford the supplies quest items are twice as good and quality.

 

At level 50 Crew Skill are almost worthless compared to drops and quest items or PVP gear.

 

All in all Crew Skills are cool, but implemented wrong and not worth the effort.

 

I'm sorry, why do you need to be able to "afford" supplies? You can get all the supplies you need yourself.

[Rafkin]

Its not worth it unless you enjoy it. A guildmate who took slicing and 2 gathering skills complained the other day that repairs have pushed her below 3 million credits.....i didn't feel sorry for her.