Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2

[Jenovan]

I'm still a little unclear on reverse-engineering random, non-orange dropped items.

 

Players with the appropriate professions are now able to reverse engineer random loot items and acquire materials from them - including Operations materials from end game items.

 

So as a Cybertech, for example, would I be able to research a new schematic from a random blue earpiece, or is that capability limited to armor and weapons? I suppose the same question applies to Biochems and implants.

 

Being able to RE these random drops, and then develop them up to Artifact grade, would be a great "uniqueness" thing for individual crafters, IMO.

Edited March 20, 2012 by Jenovan

[dnoisette]

Great news over here ! I was really looking forward being able to RE all orange items in order to get the schematics and I'm glad that Bioware listened to the community and made it real ! Thank you.

[venomlash]

Do these have a 100% RE rate? A lot of orange gear is only obtainable once through leveling quests.

 

Seconded. Can we get a definitive answer on this? (Please let such things have a 100% RE rate.)

[underclocker]

Ehm... so Armortech can reverse-engineer all stuff for empty shells and synthweaving cannot? Even if we can get augment-slots on currently existing oranges, this is sad

As with Armormech, a critical success crafting custom (orange) outfits will add an additional augment slot to the resulting item.

 

We have also added a number of additional light armor schematics and tweaked the material requirements for some custom (orange) outfits for better balance.

[Nyhm]

Wait. We just heard a day or two ago that White Crystals are being removed from the vendors, and no way to get them after. and that they MAY come back, but devs havent made up their mind yet.

 

Never is such a harsh word.

 

There will be no way to obtain white color crystals in Game Update 1.2 or any of the 1.2 series of patches. As for further into the future, it is fair to say that we have not yet made up our minds.

 

However, should a white color crystal be made available at a later time, you can be certain that the mode of acquiring it will be significantly more involved than going to a vendor. That's a one-time opportunity during patch 1.1.5 that will likely not return for a long, long time.

 

 

Now in the article I read this:

 

We want players to be able to choose their weapon color without having to worry about stats. To this end, we are introducing top-end crystals for all available colors to the game."

 

So... are white crystals staying in game or not?

[Blondesolid]

If one can reverse from Orange Gear now, PLEASE please expand the rewarded loot from Heroic Quests. Please allow us to pick the loot from any class, since that is where a lot of the Orange Gear "drops" and it is bound.

 

Otherwise, it will be impossible to get a lot of the schematics. If it will be confusing too for players (they can choose stuff that they can't use), then only activate this once a player reaches 50 or have it be activatable from the options screen.

 

Another possibility would be to make Orange quest rewards bound to account, so we can mail it to our armorcrafter, but this has a lot of additional implications that may be unwanted.

 

This pretty much, otherwise the only way to get your pick updated is to drop whatever you have and start up a armormech'n

[Tarka]

My response to the article: Meh.

 

I was hoping for changes that actually promoted the sale of "finished" goods by crafters. Where sub-assemblies are married together by crafters. But tnstead, 1.2 seems to be nothing more than further emphasising a "mod crafting" system that relies solely on the sale of modifications and empty moddable gear.

• What happened to the "crafters will be sought out and be able to make niches for themselves" philosophy that you were pushing pre-launch?
  .
  
• Where's the "supply and demand" situation in the crew skills that are now becoming even MORE reliant on moddable gear?
  

When everyone can RE everything they need, or just modify anything they own "on the fly", then there really are no "niches". Just churning out of mods into a market which eventually will become ultimately saturated by worthless items.

 

In short, this isn't a crafting system for crafters. It's a crafting system for non-crafters.

 

Very dissappointing. By allowing everyone to customise anything whenever they like, you are creating a worthless economy and itemisation synergy that comprises of nothing more than lots of same empty moddable items, that look the same, and little variance. All waiting for players to buy them and customise them both in stats and colour.

 

Very dull indeed.

 

When everyone is a "hero", then no one is.

Likewise, when everyone can craft the same thing, then there are no "niches".

Edited March 20, 2012 by Tarka

[Drewhat]

Do we know what happens if you crit on an augment? Can you augment an augment?

[Drewhat]

or can armormech RE unassembled columni/tionese gear?

[kodimynatt]

I think the overall lack of discussion on this post really shows how bioware and EA have completely shunned their core players forcing them to play other games

[Rouncer]

Some minor changes include producing an additional implant on a crafting critical

 

From the Biochem section, guessing that should say additional adrenal/stim and not implant or are crafted implants no longer eligible for augment slots?

[TheTbone]

Can orange gear schematics only be obtained from FULLY MODIFIABLE gear or can you get it from any PARTIALLY MODIFIABLE gear as well?

[Tarka]

Can orange gear schematics only be obtained from FULLY MODIFIABLE gear or can you get it from any PARTIALLY MODIFIABLE gear as well?

 

Iirc, the only partially modifiable gear in the game is the current Tionese, Columni and Rakata sets. And they are becoming fully modifiable again as of 1.2.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=363056

 

Players can now remove Armoring modifications from items with set bonuses and transfer those set bonuses to Custom (orange) items. These modifications can only be transferred to an item that is equipped in the same slot.

Edited March 20, 2012 by Tarka

[wyrmac]

It seems to say that armormech can learn the shell schematics from orange gear, but I am unclear if synthweavers can as well, I have a synthweaver who has the voss mystic social set, I want to keep the look, will he be able to RE a social set, and learn its pattern?

[GeorgZoeller]

Wait. We just heard a day or two ago that White Crystals are being removed from the vendors, and no way to get them after. and that they MAY come back, but devs havent made up their mind yet.

 

Now in the article I read this:

 

So... are white crystals staying in game or not?

The key word is 'available'. White crystals are not available in Game Update 1.2.

[tkslfhkdksls]

I'm glad they are trying to fix the crafting system. But let's be honest here. The commendation reward system and orange gear rewards trump anything you can get from crafting early on. And everyone gets commendations and orange gear from quest rewards.

 

In fact most of us get commendations for all our orange gear and to fully mod up at least one of our companions.

 

And in end game, the crafting system seems pointless as your pvp and raid gear should trump anything that is craftable.

 

Adding orange gear is nice. But the social/flight gear and DS/LS gear already give light gear users full sets of orange gear. If your a Consular/Inquisitor and you have grouped, you should have a full set of orange gear by level 10.

 

So it is only medium/heavy users that need to buy other pieces of gear. But Social/flight gear should give it to all armor types not just light.

 

But even then, if you farm DS/LS points you get pieces light/medium/heavy from the DS/LS vendors. Although at later levels. So you can still get almost all orange gear easy enough.

 

In the end, it's SWTOR's commendation, social/flight/ds/ls gear and orange gear rewards that make the crafting system almost pointless. And thus makes the galatic market almost pointless. And those systems massively favor those wearing light armor. But help all avoid needing most crafted stuff.

 

So as you level you really only need to buy earpieces, implants, and relics if you farm one faction (your totally good or evil). It's rare to find the extra medium/heavy orange gear, that isn't a quest reward out there.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm glad about most of the changes. And it would be really nice to have so much orange gear, that I can actually choose a look for my guy, that I like. But this change should of been made before launch. Not 4 months after.

 

But the thing I really have to queston on the changes is... Why give slicers another huge economic boost? I mean slicers made huge money for the first couple of months. Were talking exploit type money. Then Bioware finally "adjusted it". Only to finally address the other crafting systems. With "vanity" orange gear. And then turn around and give slicers a cornered market on crafting again. As the other crafters will have to buy parts from slicers to make their improved gear? Thus making slicing the "must have" exploit skill once again.

[Charlimit]

It seems to say that armormech can learn the shell schematics from orange gear, but I am unclear if synthweavers can as well, I have a synthweaver who has the voss mystic social set, I want to keep the look, will he be able to RE a social set, and learn its pattern?

 

From what I understand, Armormech learns shell schematics only from gear that has Aim/Cunning on it. Any Strength/Willpower items will only be able to be RE'd from Synthweavers. Not sure about whether social sets can be RE'd.

[Tarka]

In the end, it's SWTOR's commendation, social/flight/ds/ls gear and orange gear rewards that make the crafting system almost pointless. And thus makes the galatic market almost pointless. And those systems massively favor those wearing light armor. But help all avoid needing most crafted stuff.

 

99% agree. Although I don't agree with the notion that the game favours one armour type user over another.

 

The prevalence and availability of moddable gear and mods that allow non-crafters to fully upgrade their armour "on the fly", goes against everything that a crafting system strives to acheive: the creation and sale of variable goods to suit a variety of different needs and requirements.

 

Crafters are just expected to churn out exactly the same armour sets and mods as every other crafter. Meanwhile the users are the ones who decide how to put them together and what colour they should be.

 

And the fact that gear and mods never actually "expire", means that once a player has purchased a moddable item, they never need to ever replace it again. Thus destroying any chance of creating a harmonised, player driven, "supply and demand" economy. All they need is to buy mods and slot them into their gear. Hey presto. No need for a crafter.

 

And if you want to make the best items, you have to be a raider.

 

Basically put, TOR's crafting system favours non-crafters and buyers of items, not crafters who may not be raiders.

 

/golfclap Bioware.

Edited March 20, 2012 by Tarka

[DesonEQ]

Good stuff Georg. May I make a suggestion? I know last night you were considering ways to make current orange gear augmentable. Some people were saying that you should have crafters make items that would grant augment slots and what not.

 

I have another idea after reading this. Why not just make the reverse engineering schematic chance on orange items 100%? This way, people would actually have an incentive to RE this gear. As it is now, I'm not going to touch my valuable orange items to reverse engineer them knowing I may get nothing and lose access to that appearance forever. But if you guaranteed that I would learn the schematic for the item (and thus I could get it back), it would be entirely worth it. And this too solves your augment problem. If people want their current orange gear to be augmentable, they can RE it and craft it. OR wait for someone else to do so, and get it off the GTN.

 

I think this would result in a very diverse amount of orange gear appearances - not just the schematics you guys added, but all the stuff that's currently in the game that people have been using and holding onto and don't want to lose. Just some food for thought. I really appreciate the way you guys have been listening to the community!

 

Great idea. Hopefully they add it and some form of augment slot device. The augment device would still be necessary because there are story items, especially for the Sith Inquisitor, that would be hard to part with and make no sense to be craftable.

 

In regard to the color crystal. I'm hoping this is just an intermediate move until development can separate the color crystal from the power. Speaking as an artificer, it's a royal pain in it dealing with so many recipes that are essentially redundant and it'd be easier on the player end to not have to worry about keeping up with the recipes just for the color. Between enhancements and color crystals, being on either side of the artificer is just an aggravation that can stand to be cleaned up.

[jmarFTL]

99% agree. Although I don't agree with the notion that the game favours one armour type user over another.

 

The prevalence and availability of moddable gear and mods that allow non-crafters to fully upgrade their armour "on the fly", goes against everything that a crafting system strives to acheive: the creation and sale of variable goods to suit a variety of different needs and requirements.

 

Crafters are just expected to churn out exactly the same armour sets and mods as every other crafter. Meanwhile the users are the ones who decide how to put them together and what colour they should be.

 

And the fact that gear and mods never actually "expire", means that once a player has purchased a moddable item, they never need to ever replace it again. Thus destroying any chance of creating a harmonised, player driven, "supply and demand" economy. All they need is to buy mods and slot them into their gear. Hey presto. No need for a crafter.

 

And if you want to make the best items, you have to be a raider.

 

Basically put, TOR's crafting system favours non-crafters and buyers of items, not crafters who may not be raiders.

 

/golfclap Bioware.

 

/facepalm That's the whole point of what this update is changing. Yes you can get orange gear with 3 sockets from commendations, quests, etc. They're giving crafters the ability to make orange gear with 4 sockets (on a crit, it adds an augment slot). That's the whole point.

 

You either have to craft or buy from a crafter to get BIS gear in the new update. That's it. That's the only way. It doesn't favor non-crafters. And you don't even have to raid to make these items. Crit on any orange gear and you get an augment slot. There's orange schematics sprinkled through all the levels or armormech/synth/artifice/armstech.

 

Again, now that you can pull mods out of raid items, these will be the items that everyone goes for, because it's the only way to get an augment slot. And the fact that you can RE orange items that are already in the game to learn that schematic makes things even better for crafters. Want a crit-crafter orange chestpiece from the lvl 35 heroic? You either have to RE it yourself and be a crafter OR you have to find a crafter that's gone through the trouble of learning that schematic and building it till it crits. That's carving out a niche. You could literally be one of the few people on the server that knows schematics for certain appearances. Oh, and if you want to fill those new augment slots you'll be buying from crafters as well.

 

You're either misunderstanding what they're doing or not thinking it through clearly enough. This update is giving tons of power to the armor and weapon crafters. They're going to be able to exclusively make you gear that is better than the stuff you get from quests/comms.

[Chef_BoyRUdead]

The commendation reward system and orange gear rewards trump anything you can get from crafting early on. And everyone gets commendations and orange gear from quest rewards.

 

By early on I'm assuming 50 with yoru daily rewards?

Because anything earlier than that and you are dead wrong.

 

Plus, with the ability for cyber to RE and learn high level armor inserts and mods, it gives the consumer the choice to do dailies daily or just contact their favorite cybertech and have all their needs fullfilled in a couple hours, for a price.

 

I think the changes are great, the only thing I didn't see was will I finally be able to find Orange weapons for Tano Vik and Qyzen?

Edited March 20, 2012 by Chef_BoyRUdead

[Darzil]

So, as I understand it, the best end game PvE armour/weapons will be (a few months in when people have got the schematics), critical crafted orange armour/weapons with operation armouring/enhancements, mods from operations or cybertechs, and crafted, reverse engineered Augments from Synth, Armor, Arms or Artiface.

 

Looks good to me, I always think the ideal PvE armour shouldn't all come from one source, and that's a good percentage of crafted items for top level by the standards of 'modern' MMOs/

[grownmcgavin]

I'm glad they are trying to fix the crafting system. But let's be honest here. The commendation reward system and orange gear rewards trump anything you can get from crafting early on. And everyone gets commendations and orange gear from quest rewards.

 

In fact most of us get commendations for all our orange gear and to fully mod up at least one of our companions.

 

And in end game, the crafting system seems pointless as your pvp and raid gear should trump anything that is craftable.

 

Adding orange gear is nice. But the social/flight gear and DS/LS gear already give light gear users full sets of orange gear. If your a Consular/Inquisitor and you have grouped, you should have a full set of orange gear by level 10.

 

So it is only medium/heavy users that need to buy other pieces of gear. But Social/flight gear should give it to all armor types not just light.

 

But even then, if you farm DS/LS points you get pieces light/medium/heavy from the DS/LS vendors. Although at later levels. So you can still get almost all orange gear easy enough.

 

In the end, it's SWTOR's commendation, social/flight/ds/ls gear and orange gear rewards that make the crafting system almost pointless. And thus makes the galatic market almost pointless. And those systems massively favor those wearing light armor. But help all avoid needing most crafted stuff.

 

So as you level you really only need to buy earpieces, implants, and relics if you farm one faction (your totally good or evil). It's rare to find the extra medium/heavy orange gear, that isn't a quest reward out there.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm glad about most of the changes. And it would be really nice to have so much orange gear, that I can actually choose a look for my guy, that I like. But this change should of been made before launch. Not 4 months after.

 

But the thing I really have to queston on the changes is... Why give slicers another huge economic boost? I mean slicers made huge money for the first couple of months. Were talking exploit type money. Then Bioware finally "adjusted it". Only to finally address the other crafting systems. With "vanity" orange gear. And then turn around and give slicers a cornered market on crafting again. As the other crafters will have to buy parts from slicers to make their improved gear? Thus making slicing the "must have" exploit skill once again.

 

I think you missed the biggest part of the orange gear section of the coming update. Once crafters can get schematics for orange gear, they then have a chance to CRIT when crafting orange gear. This results in orange gear with extra augment slots. Then you can take out all mods from the highest gear in PvE and PVP and put them in your orange gear, AND augment them. This orange critted gear will be better than the non crit gear end game items.

[Lhaim]

"Armormech crafters may now reverse engineer almost any modifiable outfit into an empty custom (orange) shell of the same name and appearance, which may now gain an augment slot when crafted with critical success."

 

What does this mean?

 

- Its not a schematic or is it?

- So i have 1 chance on an augumented item?

- Can i sell that shell or is it bop?

- Can i re it again and again ^^ ?

- Can i re the pvp sets to get bis pvp-look items?

 

I think you missed the biggest part of the orange gear section of the coming update. Once crafters can get schematics for orange gear, they then have a chance to CRIT when crafting orange gear. This results in orange gear with extra augment slots. Then you can take out all mods from the highest gear in PvE and PVP and put them in your orange gear, AND augment them. This orange critted gear will be better than the non crit gear end game items.

 

Where do we get those schematics, beyond those already available?

Edited March 20, 2012 by Lhaim

[AOD_rywo]

99% agree. Although I don't agree with the notion that the game favours one armour type user over another.

 

The prevalence and availability of moddable gear and mods that allow non-crafters to fully upgrade their armour "on the fly", goes against everything that a crafting system strives to acheive: the creation and sale of variable goods to suit a variety of different needs and requirements.

 

Crafters are just expected to churn out exactly the same armour sets and mods as every other crafter. Meanwhile the users are the ones who decide how to put them together and what colour they should be.

 

And the fact that gear and mods never actually "expire", means that once a player has purchased a moddable item, they never need to ever replace it again. Thus destroying any chance of creating a harmonised, player driven, "supply and demand" economy. All they need is to buy mods and slot them into their gear. Hey presto. No need for a crafter.

 

And if you want to make the best items, you have to be a raider.

 

Basically put, TOR's crafting system favours non-crafters and buyers of items, not crafters who may not be raiders.

 

/golfclap Bioware.

 

^^This