Did BW ever play the greatest crafting game ever?

[fungihoujo]

 

If you wanted to craft high-end stuff for any level, you actually had to wait for the ideal components to be available, and you had to hire people to go out and harvest these for you ( I literally milked cows for a week because it was awesome milk week ).

 

 

... are we playing Star Wars or Harvest Moon here?

 

Honestly, any time one of you SWG fanbois tries to talk up the crafting there, you make it sound excessively awful.

[tloops]

SWG did NOT have even decent space combat, niether does Eve. want good space combat?

 

give it real space/flight mechanics, and give us a flight stick to play (sorry i tried SWG space, it sucked dog*****)

 

i disagree SWG space combat was the best of any MMO...what were you playing?

[Greyshadow]

Personally, I always enjoyed the crafting, but then again I didn't do half of what folks are complaining about. I had interplanetary servey droids to find the good spawns, and droids to play the upkeep. I know I had to place the harvesters and pick them up when they were dry, but I don't recall offhand if I had a droid to collect from the bins or not.

 

That being said. It's a ROLE PLAYING GAME. If someone's role is crafting, then that's their business, just like folks in this game love to do FP's and OP's to get ridiculous looking gear that people on the street would likely laugh at you for wearing (most Sith come to mind).

 

The truth is, SWG DID have a diverse and complex crafting system, unfortunately it's probably too complex for today's keymashers.

 

In SWG I could craft a suit of armor in any color under the rainbow, with JUST the stats people wanted. Yeah on any given day that suit might not be as good as one I made last week because the metal is a different grade now, but that was what made it interesting. Then there was experimentation that could affect the balance as well, not to mention the resists to one thing or another.

 

On any given day in TOR if I craft an armor jacket 99% of the time it will always be the same jacket, maybe on occassion I get an augment slot. Not to mention that that jacket is always going to LOOK like that jacket. SWG gave you the chance to make the jacket look different, to offer different protection, to have only the stats you wanted, and it offered a chance to be different.

 

 

That is the thing that made it good. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, don't knock it if you thought it was too complex (You should have tried EQ2's original crafting system) and don't knock it if you thought it was too time consuming (cause we all know, 3 hours on an Op or a HM to get 1 piece of gear that makes you look like an evil cicrus clown isn't time consuming), because obviously you never gave it a chance.

 

I've heard all of the other opinions, this one is mine.

[Grayseven]

 

That is the thing that made it good. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, don't knock it if you thought it was too complex (You should have tried EQ2's original crafting system) and don't knock it if you thought it was too time consuming (cause we all know, 3 hours on an Op or a HM to get 1 piece of gear that makes you look like an evil cicrus clown isn't time consuming), because obviously you never gave it a chance.

 

I've heard all of the other opinions, this one is mine.

 

I did try it. For 2 years of Beta and 4 years of regular game play I tried it.

 

I played EQ2. The crafting system was no where near as complex as SWG simply because resources didn't have stats I had to compute in order to figure out the final quality of what I was making. If it didn't require a spread sheet it was less complex than SWG.

 

It could take 6 months of effort to be able to start crafting an excellent suit of armor in SWG. I remember spending 3 hours surveying and dropping harvesters just to get one resource to make one component for a suit of armor, or slaying Krayt after Krayt looking for scales, or grinding endless Nightsisters for their armor drops.

 

I gave it a chance and then some and still find in wanting. I already work one blue collar factory job running machine tooling cells without playing a game that has me doing just about the same exact thing...only taking up more time.

[Lincaserus]

I agree

 

I don't see why everyone is complaining about it, it was amazing.

 

Instead every other mmo is "Oh look! I get the SAME *********** piece of gear everyone else has! Just a little variety means so much

 

 

All the counter arguments here remind me of the people complaining how much time they have to put into mmos in general to be good at anything.

[Grayseven]

I agree

 

I don't see why everyone is complaining about it, it was amazing.

 

Instead every other mmo is "Oh look! I get the SAME *********** piece of gear everyone else has! Just a little variety means so much

 

 

All the counter arguments here remind me of the people complaining how much time they have to put into mmos in general to be good at anything.

 

Yeah, because I want to spend more time doing boring garbage in my hobby than I do in my real life job... /sarcasm.

 

There is putting in time, then there is doing time. SWG's crafting system felt like a prison where you had no choice but to spend the vast majority of your game time performing menial tasks for nebulous rewards since most people were unwilling to pay the real value of the time and effort you put in.

 

Again, if you think Accounting is an exciting profession and if you feel giddy excitement when you put the finishing touches on your newest spread sheet then SWG's crafting system was for you.

 

The other 90% of the population will continue to enjoy a crafting system designed to be a minor mini-game that doesn't take up 90% of our play time.

[Softwalker]

Yeah, because I want to spend more time doing boring garbage in my hobby than I do in my real life job... /sarcasm.

 

That was being in a raiding guild in WOW. complete with Boss and review board. guessing its the same in this game.

 

Used to run Rufius Mining Services on the Radiant server Had 60 Heavies I could have anywhere the money was good. Did work for Elitros and CT and many other high end crafters. Til SOE messed it up.

 

Most games now days have gone with the Lowest common denominator rule. Follow the arrow on map find mob a, kill mob a, get item a, then follow the arrow for your cheese.

 

The character selection is non existent 8 choices and they are all almost the same. You don't have choices or freedom. SWG was complex as he** but you weren't just another sage or whichever template.

[Spymaster]

It really feels like they based this game from only two sources.... KOTOR and WoW. Other than those two games, I don't see much being used from anywhere else.

 

Which is a shame really, because SWG is only one MMO that they missed the boat with.

 

Great ideas can come from many sources. They really should have looked into games like SWG, EQ2, LOTRO, EVE, and DAoC just to name a few.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Spymaster

[Swijr]

SWG crafting didn't need to take up 90% of your time, only if you wanted it to.

 

This game's crafting takes up 2 mins of my time. I mean, I don't even have to look for nodes, they took that easy crap out so where you literally don't have to do anything but click on levels, choose mission and send out your companions. Even in SWG you had to find the right spot to drop harvesters on....

 

 

Swijr

[LizardSF]

SWG crafting didn't need to take up 90% of your time, only if you wanted it to.

 

This game's crafting takes up 2 mins of my time. I mean, I don't even have to look for nodes, they took that easy crap out so where you literally don't have to do anything but click on levels, choose mission and send out your companions. Even in SWG you had to find the right spot to drop harvesters on....

 

 

Swijr

 

Of course, if you use missions to get baseline (green) components, you're a moron; you'll never be able to undercut the crafters who gather greens, and you'll be paying a fortune to get enough to both level and RE to get blue recipes.

 

And so, once again, we see a "critic" of SWTOR who clearly hasn't actually played the game.

 

You probably buy flux from the crafting trade vendor, too.

[Grayseven]

That was being in a raiding guild in WOW. complete with Boss and review board. guessing its the same in this game.

 

Used to run Rufius Mining Services on the Radiant server Had 60 Heavies I could have anywhere the money was good. Did work for Elitros and CT and many other high end crafters. Til SOE messed it up.

 

Most games now days have gone with the Lowest common denominator rule. Follow the arrow on map find mob a, kill mob a, get item a, then follow the arrow for your cheese.

 

The character selection is non existent 8 choices and they are all almost the same. You don't have choices or freedom. SWG was complex as he** but you weren't just another sage or whichever template.

 

I had a great business on Starsider, so much so that I had to start "investing" in items of value to get rid of some of the credits I had. Even after tiring of the Armorcrafting (and later my Starship component business that mostly relied on grinding endless mobs for space loot) and going totally to the supply side of the economy, I made credits in the crafting game.

 

The huge difference between SWG and SWTOR crafting is that SWG was designed from the beginning for crafting to be a major game play style, whereas SWTOR used crafting as a minor secondary mini-game. You are comparing apples to rocks since SWG's design was completely different from SWTOR's.

 

As for character selection (and I'm not sure why this is brought up in a post about crafting) you are once again comparing two different styles of game design. And while SWG initially had a very unique character customization system and flexible class system...that is pretty much ALL it had. And it was so difficult to balance the profession system that the CU and NGE happened in an effort to fix it. So much time was spent on customization and emotes that the game launched without mounts or vehicles and a number of classes (Droid Engineer comes immediately to mind) that were incomplete or just plain broken.

 

While I will always have fond memories of SWG, Starsider and IO, I will also have memories of a game that tried to be everything from the very beginning and ended up sorely lacking in most aspects because too much emphasis was placed on the wrong things. What I see from SWTOR is a game that launched more playable than any new MMO title I've ever experienced and with growth possibilities that are endless if only people learn some patience and stop expecting it to be like an 8 year old game within a few months of that launch.

 

As for crafting...it is what it is. It isn't a system designed to be a play style in its own right like SWG's was but is a system intended to be one of the many things you do during the course of game play.

[Swijr]

Of course, if you use missions to get baseline (green) components, you're a moron; you'll never be able to undercut the crafters who gather greens, and you'll be paying a fortune to get enough to both level and RE to get blue recipes.

 

And so, once again, we see a "critic" of SWTOR who clearly hasn't actually played the game.

 

You probably buy flux from the crafting trade vendor, too.

 

Awe, that's cute. You saw a few words and just started typing away. Next time READ and COMPREHEND.

 

I said "I don't have to look for nodes" not that "I don't look for nodes". The fact that "HAVE" is there means that there is a choice.

 

And with that choice comes the fact that I make plenty of money PVP'ing to afford 5 companions out running missions which funds my well established crafting business on my server.

 

Now, to my point which was INTENDED to mean: This game ALLOWS PEOPLE to not leave the fleet save for a few dailes and ops and send out their comps. to gather and craft. It's Elementary school stuff.

 

I buy lvl 340 missions, craft some augmented lvl tech blades, sell, repeat. No one cares, I don't care, it's easy money. That's why the crafting sucks.

 

Sure, I RE'd 100+ blue lvl 50 blades to get the most desirable one...but after that...no effort is needed....none. <--this is why I don't need to worry about undercutting...when you're the only supplier)

 

 

Swijr

[Darzil]

As for crafting...it is what it is. It isn't a system designed to be a play style in its own right like SWG's was but is a system intended to be one of the many things you do during the course of game play.

 

I also think it has the potential to be quite good for at least semi-professional crafters, given some tweaking to make things worthwhile at top level, and to adjust the RE rate (feels to me pretty balanced until the high 40's, based on RE'ing as I level up on 3 characters).

 

It avoids some of the classic pitfalls of many other crafting systems (eg. low level market gluts from crafters skilling up -> fixed by RE mechanic, high levels farming low level areas -> More cost effective to send companions on missions and do high level content), and whilst levelling to 400 is trivially easy, it's actually developing a worthwhile portfolio of schematics which is the real crafting game, and unusually in a modern MMO, no one crafter will have them all (or will have bankrupted themselves spreading themselves too thin).

 

My favourite crafting as a business was DAoC, where I had a well stocked merchant and made harder (read masterpiece) stuff to order for silly money. I think my ideal in itemisation in an MMO, though, is a balance between content types, crafted, raid, pvp, quest, rare drops etc. If one place (raids in too many recent MMOs) is best for all slots, then the game becomes a one-dimensional grind. Crafting is always a tricky balance, as it typically requires only money from the customer, but a lot of time and effort from the maker.

[LizardSF]

Awe, that's cute. You saw a few words and just started typing away. Next time READ and COMPREHEND.

 

I said "I don't have to look for nodes" not that "I don't look for nodes". The fact that "HAVE" is there means that there is a choice.

 

And in SWG, I could buy the best materials off the market terminals instead of hunting for them and harvesting. It was the same choice -- a stupid one if you wanted to make money, and one no competent crafter would make. (A lot of incompetent crafters did buy my minerals, of course...)

 

I buy lvl 340 missions, craft some augmented lvl tech blades, sell, repeat. No one cares, I don't care, it's easy money. That's why the crafting sucks.

 

"It's not a full time job... so it's a bad game!"

 

Remind me not to attend your game design classes. Basically, you're complaining that something designed and intended to be a sideline to primary gameplay... is a sideline to primary gameplay. You're complaining that the design goals have been met. This does not inspire me to take your critique seriously. (Complaining that they're the wrong design goals in the first place is pointless; it's like complaining that there's not enough hand-eye coordination in chess, or that Advanced Squad Leader has too many rules. SWTOR never set out to be SWG, and anyone that critiques it on the grounds that it isn't is being an idiot. You have to criticize something on how well it meets its intended goals, not on how well it meets the goals you want it to meet, or you're not much of a critic.)

 

PS:Vanguard crafting blew SWG out of the water -- you had to make constant risk/reward choices throughout the crafting process, not just dump the best materials you could find in the hopper and wait for the ideal item to come out the other end. You had to invest in crafting/harvesting gear -- you had an entire secondary set of clothes and equipment you used for harvesting, with different bonuses and abilities than the ones you used for combat (and a third set for diplomacy!). SWG crafting was primarily luck+grinding; if you got lucky, you'd hit a large supply of some resource with the right stats, set up a zillion harvesters, and stockpile it against the next resource shift. You could grind on cheap resources while waiting for the shuttles (I played pre-JTL, so I guess shuttle waits were gone by then). (The resources were distributed ridiculously, too -- I found the best water ever on Tattooine, and never got any good spawns near my house on Naboo, right on a lake. And we won't even talk how milk wouldn't spawn at all for the first 6 months, except on some one in a zillion drops when you killed a cow-like-thing, and it was selling for a million credits a unit because no one could make half the cooking recipes without it.)

Edited March 12, 2012 by LizardSF

[Swijr]

Every aspect of an MMO should be some kind of time sink. That's how you keep players in game. The QUALITY of the time sink makes it a winning design or not.

 

In this game...I have no idea why I'm playing. I guess because it's there and paid for and I'm hopeful for 1.2.

 

But I've master my prof. I make good money from it, I'm a Battlemaster in PVP and I'm just grinding the valor to the next rank.

 

While crafting doesn't NEED to be a grind, the option should be there at some level...just to make the game interesting.

 

Having the same stuff as everyone else...what's the point?

 

 

btw - relax on the name calling. You're not proving your point already, no point in adding name calling.

 

 

Swijr

Edited March 12, 2012 by Swijr

[Ashmodee]

I'm talking about SW:G...........again.

 

My Lord it was so phenomenal compared to this craptastic iteration of RNG.

 

If you wanted to craft high-end stuff for any level, you actually had to wait for the ideal components to be available, and you had to hire people to go out and harvest these for you ( I literally milked cows for a week because it was awesome milk week ).

 

I do like the "send my crew out" system, but it is so redundant - is bountiful available? no. is rich available? no. it's only companion gift missions. BLOW ME.

 

Grinding 982 Avian Meat on Naboo for a $17MM contract with a deadline was immersive. Sending five people out that come back with less than one person's yield after failed REs is not.

 

Please make crafting awesome again.

 

Actually, did YOU play the greatest crafting game ever ? (aka EQ2)

I played SWG for some time, and it's imo ages away from EQ2 crafting, the only viable active crafting I've seen

[Marlaine]

And in SWG, I could buy the best materials off the market terminals instead of hunting for them and harvesting. It was the same choice -- a stupid one if you wanted to make money, and one no competent crafter would make. (A lot of incompetent crafters did buy my minerals, of course...)

 

 

That's not always true. For example, I paid for two accounts and despite all max harvestors running at all times I would barely scratch the surface of my material needs for architecture. In fact, most times I wouldn't even mine the low quality bulk ores because it was far more profitable to mine the higher value stuff and buy the lower value stuff.

[Seaturkey]

I can easily sit with my friends and drink beer and chat it up in a flashpoint....an op...dinking around on the fleet or doing pvp while sending my lackeys out to handle crafting. I suspect more people would be interested in doing these things while being able to craft rather than having to devote everything to being a crafter.

 

 

This is not SWG2, it will never be SWG2, not everyone found the crafting system in that game to be the be all end all of crafting systems.

 

I support and agree with this post 100%. Grinding is NOT fun in any way, shape, or form. The fact that this mmo DOESNT feel like a grindfest is it's best, most refreshing quality.

[Marlaine]

I support and agree with this post 100%. Grinding is NOT fun in any way, shape, or form. The fact that this mmo DOESNT feel like a grindfest is it's best, most refreshing quality.

 

Yet a mmo is nothing more than grinding. The whole darn thing. You grind to each level, you grind through quests, you grind through your professions, you grind through raids. Every...single...thing....in a mmo is a grind.

 

The fact that the grind is hidden doesn't make it any less of a grind.

[Swijr]

Grind or time sink, w/e you want to call it. I just remember wasting a ton of time in my house in SWG moving poles around to make aquariums and stuff. Talk about time sink.

 

Running from planet to planet to collect my millions of units of resources from harvesters, killing some stuff along the way.

 

I don't know, I enjoyed this kind of "grind". Once I had the best mats out there for the most used foods/drinks (master chef) I made hundreds of millions of credits and could buy any kind of crap I wanted. I even outsourced meat/hide/milk collection to anyone that wanted to harvest it. Just paid them on my vendor.

 

 

/sigh... miss that game.

 

 

Swijr

[LizardSF]

Grind or time sink, w/e you want to call it. I just remember wasting a ton of time in my house in SWG moving poles around to make aquariums and stuff. Talk about time sink.

 

Running from planet to planet to collect my millions of units of resources from harvesters, killing some stuff along the way.

 

I don't know, I enjoyed this kind of "grind". Once I had the best mats out there for the most used foods/drinks (master chef) I made hundreds of millions of credits and could buy any kind of crap I wanted. I even outsourced meat/hide/milk collection to anyone that wanted to harvest it. Just paid them on my vendor.

 

 

/sigh... miss that game.

 

 

Swijr

 

If this is the gameplay you enjoy, try EVE. Seriously. No sarcasm. It's got an even more robust economic model than SWG.

 

Don't spend time complaining that SWTOR isn't SWG. It was never intended to be, and that was clear from the get-go.

[Swijr]

I didn't start this thread, just added my $.02 about the crafting. I'm still playing it.

 

But yeah, a buddy of mine was telling me about EVE.

 

 

Swijr

[Marlaine]

If this is the gameplay you enjoy, try EVE. Seriously. No sarcasm. It's got an even more robust economic model than SWG.

 

Don't spend time complaining that SWTOR isn't SWG. It was never intended to be, and that was clear from the get-go.

 

Eve is in a class all its own and draws a very specific kind of gamer. It's also not star wars. "more robust" is opinion only, as eve's non-differentiated itemization economy leaves much to be desired for those who want to differentiate their goods from other crafters.

 

There's no reason why crafting shouldn't cater to....wait for it.....crafters! If you don't like crafting then don't craft. If you DO like crafting, then you should be all for a robust crafting system. The whole try to please people who aren't into crafting with a marginalized crafting system is doomed to fail because NO ONE AT ALL is pleased with the result. Non-crafters only deal with the system because they have to, and real crafters are disgusted with minimal functionality.

[LizardSF]

Eve is in a class all its own and draws a very specific kind of gamer. It's also not star wars. "more robust" is opinion only, as eve's non-differentiated itemization economy leaves much to be desired for those who want to differentiate their goods from other crafters.

 

There's no reason why crafting shouldn't cater to....wait for it.....crafters! If you don't like crafting then don't craft. If you DO like crafting, then you should be all for a robust crafting system. The whole try to please people who aren't into crafting with a marginalized crafting system is doomed to fail because NO ONE AT ALL is pleased with the result. Non-crafters only deal with the system because they have to, and real crafters are disgusted with minimal functionality.

 

However, a game cannot be equally appealing to all player types. Developer resources are finite and must be focused on the game's target audience, with occasional bones tossed to those not in the mainstream. Originally, SWTOR was not going to have crafting, then it was wedged in at the last minute. Having seen that players enjoy it, they are allocating more resources to it for the 1.2 expansion, and going forward. However, SWTOR was never planned to be a crafting focused game or have a fully player-driven economy, and it's foolish to expect that to change dramatically. It especially will not become anything like SWG; could you imagine trying to quest with the entire planet covered with harvesters and factories?

 

Offline/mission based crafting is very likely to remain the framework for the rest of the game's life; it may be better balanced and offer more choices and options, but it's probably not going to change in basic structure. Just as if you want a FFA full loot PVP game, this is not the game for you, so if you want a primarily crafting focused game, this is not the game for you.

[JoyProtocol]

At page 6, I felt the conversation got repetitive.

 

So instead, how about the best of both worlds? Keep the current system, but have a way to be more "involved" in crafting? Like oh, I don't know... Go to a workbench, and bring a green rifle (or any quality). Bring a handful of mods (let's say... 2 different barrels, 3 different mods and 3 different enhancements) and put ALL of them in, allowing you to cancel specific stats in and out. The end result? A non-moddable rifle that combines the specifications of the stuff you just put into it.

 

The green rifle, and the mods, still come from commendations and players. But if you're willing to put the time into it, you can do it manually to customize it as you will.

 

Hell, attach it to a mini game. Have a 4 hour cooldown on the crafting license (that you need to buy/earn from a quest). Have it require a consumable for each use. Maybe even let it crit for an augment slot - or let you craft it with one, and crit (5%) for two.

 

Maybe I should put this into Suggestions box or something...