New social gears : Dead on Arrival?

[Ashyel]

There have been some good points raised though in the thread. Like, perhaps crafters wouldn't be too fond of social vendors giving out augmented orange gear. I understand that and it's probably the only relevant objection in this thread. So far I can think of two ideas, one which has been raised. And I think they would work well together.

 

1) Have augmented equivalants of social gear all unlock at around Social X or so. All cost about 100k each and only available to level 50s.

 

2) Crafted Social Gear:

Suppose you want augments on your Sand People armour...

 

Step 1: Reach Social III.

* Step 2: Buy the armour from Tatooine cantina (perhaps increase the price of the armour from the vendor to make up for the fact you don't have to wait for it to be crafted before you can Reverse Engineer it).

* Step 3: Reverse Engineer your Sand People armour with the relevant crafting profession to obtain the Crit Recipe.

Step 4: The recipe may require a Biometric Crystal Alloy or other rare material to make up for the ease of reverse engineering. So go get it.

Step 5: Craft it.

 

Personally, I would be happy to have both systems simultaneously, so long as Crafting is the quickest route. It would encourage crafting, but still give non-crafters a chance of getting the same gear with some determination and a bloated wallet.

 

*Note: Step 2 and 3 could also be condensed into a single step: "Buy Mastercraft Sand People Armour Armourmech recipe from Tatooine's social vendor".

 

Edit: Also, one issue that could arrise from making crafting compulsory for *true* end-game viable orange gear, or making the threshold for reaching Augmented Social gear too high, is that it would demoralise or discourage grouping. People may think "It takes too long to do so I won't bother". It would perhaps make it all the more satisfying for those who put the effort in however. Personally I see a big conflict between Bioware's plans for social points and Bioware's plans for crafted orange gear. They don't go well together and I think perhaps augments on orange gear should have been a last resort to kickstart crafting. If they could have boosted crafting by other means, the social points system wouldn't have been hurt in the process.

 

However, all of this depends on how easily attainable crit-orange gear is. If they're so difficult and require 400 Armourmech or whatever then it's a problem for the social system. However, if you could buy crit-orange gear on the GTN for about 50k, you wouldn't really need to make crit social gear hard to get, you could probably get away with making them require the same rank, but much more expensive compared to crafted gear(creating a nice credit sink in the process). So who knows?

Edited February 27, 2012 by Ashyel

[face_hindu]

There have been some good points raised though in the thread. Like, perhaps crafters wouldn't be too fond of social vendors giving out augmented orange gear. I understand that and it's probably the only relevant objection in this thread. So far I can think of two ideas, one which has been raised. And I think they would work well together.

 

1) Have augmented equivalants of social gear all unlock at around Social X or so. All cost about 100k each and only available to level 50s.

 

2) Crafted Social Gear:

Suppose you want augments on your Sand People armour...

 

Step 1: Reach Social III.

* Step 2: Buy the armour from Tatooine cantina (perhaps increase the price of the armour from the vendor to make up for the fact you don't have to wait for it to be crafted before you can Reverse Engineer it).

* Step 3: Reverse Engineer your Sand People armour with the relevant crafting profession to obtain the Crit Recipe.

Step 4: The recipe may require a Biometric Crystal Alloy or other rare material to make up for the ease of reverse engineering. So go get it.

Step 5: Craft it.

 

Personally, I would be happy to have both systems simultaneously, so long as Crafting is the quickest route. It would encourage crafting, but still give non-crafters a chance of getting the same gear with some determination and a bloated wallet.

 

*Note: Step 2 and 3 could also be condensed into a single step: "Buy Mastercraft Sand People Armour recipe from social vendor".

 

 

Good ideas, a bit misinformed... no such thing as a "Crit Recipe".

 

Non-crafters can still get the same gear... they just have to pay for it.

 

The most elegant solution - to which you alluded - is to make social gear recipes available as very rare world drops.

 

The Augmentation system is a beast, and not well implemented or thought out. Personally, I think they should just remove the aug slot and be done with it, remove social armour entirely, and give some "fluffier" rewards for social rank. Grinding social points is probably the easiest thing to do in this game... there shouldn't be great rewards for doing it.

[Ashyel]

Good ideas, a bit misinformed... no such thing as a "Crit Recipe".

What I meant was similar to taking say a blue item, reverse engineering it and getting the recipe for a purple item.

 

That's what I meant by crit. Not [superior], [Exceptional] or [Mastercraft]. Sorry for confusion there. I edited my post to add some extra mumbling thoughts. And if crit crafted orange gear is fairly easy to obtain, all the social vendors would need is a price hike for the crit social gear.

 

 

Grinding social points is probably the easiest thing to do in this game... there shouldn't be great rewards for doing it.

Social Points aren't so much about the rewards, or the difficulty, but rather, it's Bioware's attempt to encouraging grouping. They want people to go into conversations as a group rather than a solo player, and that's why the social points system is there.

 

It is perhaps laziness on their part that Black Talon and Esseles is the easiest way to obtain social points, and the ease of doing that discourages normal grouping. Like you may fall into thinking "Well I could quest with this guy... but I won't get many social points... and I can just grind Black Talon later which is faster". Perhaps they could fix it by FIXING HARD MODE so you can get social/DS/LS points in them, and then having diminishing returns on flashpoints or quests you've done a million times already.

[Oteefo]

Social gear is not , should not, and will not be for those people who "care about stats". It's social gear.

 

Social gear is modable, and if they are gonna make that viable for end game...then there you go....

 

Social is about the only items I like the appearance of in game....

[genesiser]

The problem isn't with social gear, crafted gear, planet commendation gear, flash point gear, operation gear, or pvp gear. The problem comes with the whole augment SLOT feature in this game. By allowing orange gear with augments in them they have effectively made social, planet commendation, pvp, flash point, operation, and tier gear obsolete. Not the mods, but the actual armor. The whole point of being able to swap mods in and out of armor is to be able to look how you want. But when one set of customizable gear has an extra slot for augments, if you want to have the best stats you are FORCED to wear that type of armor thus removing the ability to look however you want.

 

An easy fix to this whole debacle is either add a social tab like AoC, WoW, or any other game with one, or just allow augments to be used on every piece of gear regardless of if it has an augment slot or not. Because until that happens, the crit crafted orange gear will literally be the best gear in the game, if you want the best stats you will be forced to wear it, and finally everyone will be looking the same, just a variation of 3-5 sets of looks.

[ChicksDigHarleys]

Crafted gear *should* be better than crap you buy from a NPC vendor for a couple hundred credits. It boggles the mind that people disagree with the concept that crafted should be better than armor you buy from a NPC vendor.

[face_hindu]

The problem comes with the whole augment SLOT feature in this game... when one set of customizable gear has an extra slot for augments, if you want to have the best stats you are FORCED to wear that type of armor thus removing the ability to look however you want.

 

That is the problem. Your solution is a good one, same with just removing Augs entirely.

 

I understand that TOR has social points to encourage grouping - what I don't get is why the entry level flashpoint yields 100+ social points while most others are more like 12+. What they have "encouraged" is Ess/BT spacebar runs.

 

There's actually something decidedly anti-social about this. Especially for the poor level 11 who started the group in the first place, never having done the FP and wondering why these 20s and 30s are joining up. He'll find out soon when they start raging at him for not skipping the cutscenes, and making fun of him for not having sprint.

[illgot]

Crafted gear *should* be better than crap you buy from a NPC vendor for a couple hundred credits. It boggles the mind that people disagree with the concept that crafted should be better than armor you buy from a NPC vendor.

 

to a point.

 

What should be better, level 10 orange crafted gear that is cheap to make, low creation timer, and easily farmed mats, or rank 10 social gear?

 

When you can crit that orange crafted gear and mass sell it, really, what's the point of social gear except looks.

 

Bioware needs to add an appearance tab. Mod gear is great for 1 thing, modifying the stats. It is not a replacement for an appearance tab unless ALL gear is modable and craftable with the possibility of crits and augment slots.

 

If you crafters ever get the ability to craft every piece of armor in game and then they add in an orange equivalent to every piece of armor in game... I feel bad. What is your crafting list going to look like?

[drollzito]

Social gear is not supposed to be end game stat amazing stuff...

But if the patch if not good enough... ppl will start leaving the game...

 

There is a nice discussion here about this

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=323308

[Aloro]

Orange gear comes from a variety of sources, including crafting, quest rewards, random drops, and social gear. Players can hunt down unique appearances with a bit of effort, and can customize their looks to suit their desires. Orange gear is entirely dependent on the idem modifications you put into it; thus any piece of orange gear can in theory work from when you get it all the way through endgame. That's not bad, as early appearance systems go, though obviously more control would be desirable.

 

However, with crafted crits, there's a serious problem; orange gear from all other sources doesn't compare, because the crafted stuff can have an augment slot. Nobody who cares about stats wants to wear inferior gear, so this means players are forced to choose between the gear with better stats, and the gear they like the look of. This undermines the whole point of the orange gear system, which is meant to allow us to customize our appearances using gear that grows with us.

 

The most elegant solution I can see is fairly simple. Add a crafted (synthweaving/armormech maybe) slot expander, which can be used to add an augment slot. Something like this existed in early beta. To avoid an "augment slot race" there'd need to be a max of one augment slot per item, else people would just add the expanders to crit crafted items, and we'd be back in the same situation. Make the expanders bind on use, so there's a continuing market for them; that way players with "normal" orange items would want one expander for each orange item they used.

 

Result: all orange gear remains equally viable at endgame; crafted orange crits are slightly better (because no expansion is needed); there's great variety in appearances.

[chton]

And come 1.2 we can remove our set bonuses and put it into whatever we want, ie social gear. I'm already running around in the Slave Girl Top since I had a Rakata armoring + 2 Rakata mods from BM gear + 4 piece set bonus without the top.

 

Social gear should have an augment slot, I agree. If you've done so much grouping that you have Social rank x or y, then you deserve a damn augment slot in my opinion.

 

This patch will be useless in regards to customization and originality if you're forced to wear a specific armor anyway because it has an augment slot. I am NOT wearing Bounty Hunter armor ever again.

 

Then no augment slot for you I guess. Or make all social have it and we're back to no reason to craft anything.

[Caelrie]

I think you've just got some skewed idea on that all crafters are out to get you.

Call it experience. Crafters in general are happiest when they have a stranglehold on everything, just like the merchant class in any society, real or virtual.

 

Then no augment slot for you I guess. Or make all social have it and we're back to no reason to craft anything.

Because everyone wants to wear one of the social sets, right? Come on, quit being ridiculous.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Caelrie

[chton]

Call it experience. Crafters in general are happiest when they have a stranglehold on everything, just like the merchant class in any society, real or virtual.

 

 

Because everyone wants to wear one of the social sets, right? Come on, quit being ridiculous.

 

If it's easy to get people who care about stats will. Who's the one being ridiculous?

[Astridd]

And you, you really don't get it at all. I will try to answer your questions.

 

Q: I repeat: what makes you think empty social gear with just some open slots that powerful?

A: Social Gear with Augment Slots would be on par with the most powerful crafted gear in the game. Yes, you'd need the mods. But you wouldn't need the recipes OR the crit-crafts from those recipes, so Synthweaving and Armormech become almost useless. Ruin 2 crafting skills so you can get your gear for almost zero time invested? No.

 

Q: And why jumping around GTN spamming crews until crit is such stellar effort?

A: You're obviously not a crafter

 

The amount of effort it takes to gear yourself with BIS gear is astounding, almost monumental. I've been playing since December 13th. My "main alt" has over 300 hours /played @ level 43. He is a Synthweaver (but using the Muse set, bought with commendations, with Voidmaster gloves).

 

Right now, the only point to Synthweave is for belts and bracers. Every 2 levels, I spend a number of days just crafting Mods for him. It can take a whole week just to craft 1 enhancement. Not to mention the other enhancement, mod, armouring, hilt, crystal, focus, belt, bracers, earpiece, and implants. What's the last single thing you did in-game that took a week of effort?

 

Anyway, if you're suggesting social gear gets an aug slot, you understand very little about crafting. By the way, you can crit-craft certain orange weapons - why aren't you clamouring for social weapons with augs?

 

By giving us the ability to crit-craft orange armour, BW is saving Synthweaving and Armormech from irrelevance. What you are suggesting would do the exact opposite. That's why you're wrong.

 

I don't need to label you ignorant to make my point, so let me explain it plainly.

 

In Bioware building there are a team for social gears, and a team for crafting, both working hard to revamp stuff as their producer envisioned. This is reality, they both won't be scrapped anytime soon, and I don't want to see another feature dead on arrival. One way is to make both good enough to choose from, obviously.

 

As I already stated in previous post, what if social gear designs completely assimilated into crafting schematics, empowering diversity? Fine by me. It's all about more options anyway. But what I clearly see is cold hard facts about ongoing two gear systems inside bioware, unlike certain crafting extremists' view.

 

p.s

From droid engineer to shipwright have I crafted millions of stuff both pre and post CU, with bazillions of resources via extractors and loots.

Well, crafting in SWTOR has failed to gain my respect so far. You are right about labeling me a non-crafter.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Astridd

[iceperson]

I have no information or whatsoever about this 'dramatic' change...

 

how about we wait until we see how it works then?

Edited February 27, 2012 by iceperson

[Giondi]

Dude get over yourself and realize the MMO experiance is for EVERYONE not the select elite few. I'm talking to all three of you elitist groups here, PvPers, Raiders, and Crafters. Will the three of you shut the hell up about your petty squables and realize NONE of you are entitled to jack squat. They could have easily made vendor gear better than EVERYTHING else in the game if they wanted to. But instead they are going to great lengths to do what every MMO should have in the first place, and making all equal.

 

And there it finally is: the "Playing the game is elitist" argument. If you aren't PVPing, running endgame PVE content (both HM FPs and Ops would count here), or crafting things to sell to other people, what exactly is left? The only thing remaining is that you are trying to play a single player RPG and then crying that you picked a game in the wrong genre. No, doing things does not entitle you to gear, you have it the wrong way around, the gear comes from doing things, not entitlements. The only people who are acting "entitled" are the people who want to get gear without playing the game.

 

It would be a huge slap in the face to crafters if they added augment slots to social items. Basically, they would be saying "We're making crafting worth the effort by giving you something that is not currently available at a cost that is significantly lower than you can sell things for, but you know those vendors you've been ************ about since launch? We're gonna give vendors that are even easier to access the exact same thing we gave you to try and make you competitive. Eat a dick."

 

It's the accent. She has a cute accent.

 

QFT. The only line I don't spacebar anymore is "Yes but I-I understand my lord." I know it's in response to me telling her to pick up a blaster and fight Republic scum, but I like to pretend I told her to pick up something else and not be quite so violent.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Giondi

[Darth_Gao_Gao]

yeah, let's let people with social 1 have augment slots on all their pieces.

 

that makes so much sense so let's do it!

 

sorry but no.

[Phantomlimbs]

I'm not sure what social gears are, but if they are dead on arrival it makes sense to just order a new set of these gears.

[MaximusRex]

If social gear comes with augment slots in it from the vendor, that gets in the way of crafters having a market for crit orange items, because its faster and cheaper to get social gear.

 

The best way around it would be to add schematics for the social gear to the vendors of the same level, and have the crafted version of the gear still have the social rank restriction. This would allow social gear to stay on par with crafted gear.

 

They will probably have to do something similar for PvP and PvE gear so that you can keep those looks.

[Muskaan]

This is why we need an appearance tab - so that we can slap on our favorite social gear on top of the crappy looking crafting or raid gear.

[Alxandria]

If social gear comes with augment slots in it from the vendor, that gets in the way of crafters having a market for crit orange items, because its faster and cheaper to get social gear.

 

The best way around it would be to add schematics for the social gear to the vendors of the same level, and have the crafted version of the gear still have the social rank restriction. This would allow social gear to stay on par with crafted gear.

 

They will probably have to do something similar for PvP and PvE gear so that you can keep those looks.

 

I basically agree with this.

 

I like that crafter's are needed to create the best of any tier of gear. Most MMOs, crafted gear gets you to either third, or second best, but never the best, that's always been reserved for the raiding group. It's like they added a half step to the standard MMO gear tiers.

 

Top Teir.5 - Op Mods+Crit Craft Orange

Top Tier - Op Mods

Second Tier.5 - HM Mods+Crit Craft Orange

Second Tier - HM Mods

Third Tier.5 - Solo Content Mods+Crit Craft Orange

Third Tier - Solo Content Mods

 

I'm not sure where the crafted Mods or crafted Non-Moddable gear fall in that set-up, anyone know?

 

As for PvP, they usually have their own track, with the top end raw stats being almost as good as Raid stuff, but they are best for PvP because of the PvP only stat.

 

I don't know how PvP gear compares since I also don't PvP.

 

I'm almost always a Third Tier player 1/some Second Tier stuff. As long as it's good enough for MY content, I'm happy.

 

 

TL-DR It's just nice to see the Best Crafted Gear be useful to ALL players, and not be something you just 'out-level' or 'out-stat'.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Alxandria

[Benfynyn]

I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but there was something else in the patch notes about crafting. I'll highlight the section I'm talking about.

 

Georg Zoeller: Absolutely. With the upcoming Game Update 1.2, we are adding endgame crafting for all professions. This includes augment crafting, the ability to crit-craft custom (orange) gear with augment slots, new endgame schematics, new color crystals, expanded and improved research and reverse engineering and much more (we're up to 4 pages of crew skill related patch notes in 1.2. alone)

 

Now, reverse engineering we all know about but this is the first time I've seen them use the word research with regard to crafting. It may be that they are talking about learning a brand new schematic from an existing orange item. If you could learn to make the social items then you could create a critical success version of one (with the same social level requirements).

[Alxandria]

Oh, one more thing. I think the Social Gear Recipes (if they exist) should have the same social restrictions to even use the. That will reward the crafters who went through the trouble of being crafters, and raising their social score. (even if you consider it easy to raise up, you should still be rewarded for it.)

[Alconos]

1. you dont seem to understand that just sticking a rakata mod into slave girl top does not make it equal to the high end stuff. its still LIGHT armor with a lower armor rating than if you had modded out a piece of heavy

 

2. social gear is stupid easy in this game to achieve. your ability to run black talon on normal mode every 5 minutes for 150 social points should not unlock the highest quality armor in the game

 

what you just asked for is raid quality items to be available for doing about 1 hours worth of work (a few black talon runs to achieve social 2 and you unlock social armors)

 

social gear is for role playing and goofing around, its easy to get and represents no effort at all

 

the only way i could ever see justifying having raid quality with social appearance is if they let you skin, than it would mean something to have best stats and look a certain way, youd have to achive the stat quality item AND the social quality item you wanted and than combine them

 

It's not raid quality armor until you get the raid quality mods taken out of raid quality gear which is hard as hell to get.

[MaximusRex]

I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but there was something else in the patch notes about crafting. I'll highlight the section I'm talking about.

 

 

 

Now, reverse engineering we all know about but this is the first time I've seen them use the word research with regard to crafting. It may be that they are talking about learning a brand new schematic from an existing orange item. If you could learn to make the social items then you could create a critical success version of one (with the same social level requirements).

 

Being able to "research" an item you like the looks of to learn how to make an orange version, including dropped orange gear would also be a way to solve the issue of getting the look you want without having vendor gear make crafting obsolete.