QuiQuaeQuod Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 (edited) You can't just pretend that the problem is that commendations and quest rewards are too good, either. Many servers don't have the populations to support a proper market even if crafters and buyers were being savvy; removing the availability of mid-level (because the blue-quality gear from commendation vendors really aren't that amazing) gear rewarded by quests will effectively just make it inaccessible for many who don't have a higher level alt to craft it for them. When there are so few people around, the effect on the economy isn't proportional; the reduction in supply is even greater than the reduction in demand due to the lack of profits to be made, the pain using the GTN and the general anaemia of the server, and this is extremely unhealthy because it has a detrimental effect on new players who would otherwise be adding to the server population and economy - not only is there little for them on the GTN, but they also sink into the same habits and attitude towards crafting and the GTN because of the status quo. The end-game economy is particularly non-existent except trade in certain rare commodities for e.g. speeders, special colour crystals (of which there are nowhere near enough for lvl 400 artificers, let me say with disappointment) et cetera - it's always easier just to get dragged through (or with some gear already, participate in fully) Ops and HMs just to pick up all the equipment which is always superior to crafted items which tend to follow pathetic 2-step upgrade lines instead of multiple steps and even trees. The range of reward-based end-game equipment is very low, generally is far superior to anything craft-able and by-the-way the BLOODY PAULDRONS LOOK AWFUL... I'm not a warlock or whatever you play in WoW, my Jedi shouldn't have pauldrons twice the size of his head hanging on his robes. Back to the point; there's very little reason to craft any end-game level gear whatsoever... So nobody does. I agree that both crafting and the GTN need widespread expansion and enhancement, but it really isn't as simple as just making xyz quest items rarer, harder to get or weaker; and server population has a large effect on it - especially on European servers which rarely ever get beyond 'light' populations. Edited May 9, 2012 by QuiQuaeQuod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewhat Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 The only way around this would be to make something necessarily consumable for every crafting class, but even then, there needs to be something elastic and interchangeable for each crafting class. I ultimately think that we need to see semi-permanent decreases in durability that requires then buying new gear with better durability, or having repaired by a gearmech/tech/weaver. There will be this other phase, that, since so many people may be on the server raising their legacy alts, that price levels on the GTN for <50 gear will be determined by rich level 50s rather than normal <50 consumption, which could affect retention for that server in the long run. I think the GTN Hutt Buyout will go a long way to spur supply and demand though so I am optimistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksjacksonjr Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 (edited) This is going to get me flamed but WTH here I go anyway. The problem with our economy is the ORANGE GEAR. I understand its purpose, but for any toon below 50 it should not exist. Why would any crafter want to take the time to invest in any trade where you can buy 1 item at leve 15 and use it till end game? there is no reason to craft because of this. Get rid of oragnge gear for all levels below 50 then all the other crafted gear becomes viable. At the very least crafted gear should be WAY better than the orange gear. If you want to keep it make crafted gear that much better than orange gear then it will become usable again. The other problem I have with the crafting system is that it is not on par with the leveling system. By the time I gather the resources and craft the items to break down by the time i get most blue recipies you have outleveled what you are trying to make. In what other game can you do the first to areas and by doing so have already outleveled the next two areas? You level up way to fast in this game. I can take a toon from creation to level 50 in a week without really trying too hard.When you have planets set at a certain level range then by the time you finish the quests on said planet you shoud be in that level range. For example my friend and I play together and have done all the quests on all the planets up till Nar Shada, We are not even done with Nar and we are mid 30's the next planet is Tattooine and we have already outleveled the level cap for Tat which is level 28 I do believe. These things are what has hurt crafting the most, the bad interface is just a hinderance, this is not the first bad one I have seen. It looks like crafting was added as an after thought just so the devs can say "Yup we have crafting." These are just my opinions developed from the many different games I have played. I want SWTOR to succeed I love the story lines, but right now that is all this game offers to keep people around. Edited May 9, 2012 by ksjacksonjr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helgarm Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 The only way around this would be to make something necessarily consumable for every crafting class, but even then, there needs to be something elastic and interchangeable for each crafting class. I ultimately think that we need to see semi-permanent decreases in durability that requires then buying new gear with better durability, or having repaired by a gearmech/tech/weaver. I like the idea of durability, always have. Though it comes with a variety of pitfalls. In a game like SWG (pre CU/NGE), where pretty much everything worth having/using was player crafted, it worked pretty well. Your armour/weapons would wear out and, whilst they could be repaired by relevant crafters, they would eventually need to be replaced. Thus the market was preserved. However, with the implementation of non crafted elite armour/weapons, such as those gained through extensive PvE/PvP participation, it can become problematic. People are going to get pretty bent when the set that cost them a small fortune, not to say a significant chunk of their time rerunning ops/wzs, just breaks. Granted, some of this gear can also be crafted, and the decision to allow this was a good one in my opinion, but the cost implications would remain prevalent. Both the cost of gaining the schematic, and that of the ensuing crafted gear. Repair kits are viable. Let's say that using a droid would only repair an item to 80%, whilst a kit would restore it to full durability. But then crafters are reduced to just making kits. We could introduce a diminishing return, so any kind of repair would never be perfect and would delay, but not prevent, item decay. But we're back again to the problem of the elite gear. Exempt elite gear? And we open up another can of worms. In a relatively closed system such as an MMO, things will always tend to spiral towards stagnation. And I'm sorry to say that I'm devoid of a decent solution to this manifestation of entropy. It's been said before, and I provided a somewhat asinine response, but this does appear to be the tendency for possibly all MMO economies/crafting systems. H. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endymionsama Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 I am going to go with no one is buying in the lower level range. I tried the first few weeks to sell stuff, blues and purples, nothing sold even when relisted. I said screw this I am just going to make stuff for myself since no one is buying. I might give it a shot on another server but I do not see anything changing. One thing I do see is how they over price mats to be more than 10 times what the mission costs would be for that amount of mats. Not sure what kind of funky star wars mathz they are using but they need to be realistic here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuiQuaeQuod Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 This is going to get me flamed but WTH here I go anyway. The problem with our economy is the ORANGE GEAR. I understand its purpose, but for any toon below 50 it should not exist. Why would any crafter want to take the time to invest in any trade where you can buy 1 item at leve 15 and use it till end game? there is no reason to craft because of this. Get rid of oragnge gear for all levels below 50 then all the other crafted gear becomes viable. At the very least crafted gear should be WAY better than the orange gear. If you want to keep it make crafted gear that much better than orange gear then it will become usable again. The other problem I have with the crafting system is that it is not on par with the leveling system. By the time I gather the resources and craft the items to break down by the time i get most blue recipies you have outleveled what you are trying to make. In what other game can you do the first to areas and by doing so have already outleveled the next two areas? You level up way to fast in this game. I can take a toon from creation to level 50 in a week without really trying too hard.When you have planets set at a certain level range then by the time you finish the quests on said planet you shoud be in that level range. For example my friend and I play together and have done all the quests on all the planets up till Nar Shada, We are not even done with Nar and we are mid 30's the next planet is Tattooine and we have already outleveled the level cap for Tat which is level 28 I do believe. These things are what has hurt crafting the most, the bad interface is just a hinderance, this is not the first bad one I have seen. It looks like crafting was added as an after thought just so the devs can say "Yup we have crafting." These are just my opinions developed from the many different games I have played. I want SWTOR to succeed I love the story lines, but right now that is all this game offers to keep people around. What a great idea, make all mods, crystals, enhancements, hilts, barrels et cetera useless until level 50. /sarcasm This is not the problem at all. If anything, this would just scrunch up a whole load more stuff up at level 50 where people will still just be getting the super-rated Ops gear anyway, and leave most of the game without proper trade and under-powered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSgtSeuss Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 I am going to go with no one is buying in the lower level range. I tried the first few weeks to sell stuff, blues and purples, nothing sold even when relisted. I said screw this I am just going to make stuff for myself since no one is buying. I might give it a shot on another server but I do not see anything changing. One thing I do see is how they over price mats to be more than 10 times what the mission costs would be for that amount of mats. Not sure what kind of funky star wars mathz they are using but they need to be realistic here. I don't see this at all on my server... Even before I rerolled off a (nearly) "dead" server, I was able to scrape together a living by selling low level blues... Granted, I did seem to have a limited and specialized audience (Sold a lot of Might Armoring/Mods/Earpieces, and -rarely- sold any Cunning ones). I think the problem is that people are either overpricing their stuff, or the majority of your server has temporarily quit searching the GTN because there's "never anything on it anyway, why bother." If you were the ONLY person selling L15-30 blues, and you were selling them at REASONABLE prices, they SHOULD sell... You won't be making cash hand over fist, but it's a living... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleet_Xia Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 The single biggest problem in the game that prevents the GTN from developing a functional economy is the daily mission rewards. At level 50 it is possible to gather up over 100k in currency & 100k worth of dropped gear, in a few hours of play. The in game currency is essentially worthless. And this makes the profits from making lowbie gear so insubstantial that there is no reason to even bother with the time it takes to list 50 items for sale. If I've got 50 dropped items to sell that are going to bring in thousands of credits per item, that I didn't have to pay for, I'm certainly not going to bother listing an item that is only going to clear a profit of a few hundred credits. While leveling, blue quality lowbie gear is great way to keep a toon supplied with cash, for ability upgrades & gear. But if you want to make a million for a legacy unlock ~ the only efficient way to do that is by grinding on the dailies. And at 50, there is no need to do the dailies to finance raiding, because the Hm and OP drops will more than cover the repair bills. And the only reason people actually do the dailies is for the daily commendations. By the time a player gathers up the 240 coms for a pair of rakata implants, they're sitting on well over a million credits. BW has intentionally destroyed the value of the in game currency to keep credit sellers out of the game, but the economy will never function with a worthless currency. Commendations are the only currencies that are actually valuable in the game, and can only be traded to NPC's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSgtSeuss Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Very true, the inflation rate of credits is insane... I was thinking about that the other day while I was watching the original trilogy... Luke: "10,000?!? We can almost buy... one ship mod for that..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pfomo Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Problem easily solved make the GTN and auction min price with a buy out economy fixed both buyer and supplier happy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuiQuaeQuod Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Very true, the inflation rate of credits is insane... I was thinking about that the other day while I was watching the original trilogy... Luke: "10,000?!? We can almost buy... one ship mod for that..." They keep jacking up the price of the content - take all the Legacy abilities having ridiculously huge pricetags - I suspect sadly it's an attempt to keep people grinding towards what is largely just decorative unlocks, and to drain money from the market. It's just... a nuisance. Using high prices as an incentive for people to stay and grind is not fun and does not work; there's only so many days one can trawl one's dailies in a row without feeling suicidal. The actual worth of money seems perversely skewed at different points in the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovia Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Well as long as you cant stack items and ppl cant buy certain amounts different than the full stack it will be an issue, i mean who would bother to post armorings for a margin of gain around to 500 credits ONE AT A TIME when he is level 50? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delvianseek Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I wonder how many players have several high level characters each with levelled professions? The game certainly encourages alt creation and I suppose as time goes on more and more players will be essentially self sufficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swijr Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I'm almost there.... 400 in armstech, scavenging, investigation, biochem, bioanalysis, diplomacy, slicing Leveling up: Cybertech, Underworld trading (x 2) and another slicer It's too easy to level up and get there. Swijr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSgtSeuss Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 On a side note, I recently abandoned my toons and rerolled on to a higher population server in an effort to enjoy the game a little more... At level 22, I just reached a $250K credits... Something seems so very wrong with that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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