So has anyone else noticed how we have no real economy and crafting is worthless?

[FormlessOne]

why cant i setup a moisture farming operation on one of the desert planets?why cant i take goods from one planet,and sell them at another for a surplus due to the rareness at the destination planet?why cant i harvest fuel from a planet or an asteroid and sell it to a fuel hungry planet?

 

we must ask these sorts of questions more and more

 

Because Smedley destroyed SWG, that's why, and so many of us who remember SWG came here hoping for at least a pale shadow of that game. This isn't SWG. The sad part is that this isn't an MMO, either - it's a single-player game with a big lobby and a co-op mode, styled as an "MMO."

 

This game is about combat, and little else. Story? Sure, until you hit 50 and finish up your storyline. The storyline was there to suck in the roleplayers, the moderates, the casuals. Then, it's "log on, grind your dailies, run an operation or flashpoint, log off." Little real opportunity for roleplaying, no real guild support - heck, the whole point of the Legacy system, apparently, is to simply make it easier for you to run another character to level 50.

 

No, there's no need for complex economic simulations, or stable, self-governing populations, or really anything outside of "log in, grind dailies, run an operation or flashpoint, log off." Crafted gear, other than consumables, is simply unnecessary before 50. Crafted gear once you hit 50 is largely pointless - it's entry-level stuff, to get you into the "log on, grind your dailies, run an operation or flashopint, log off" mode.

 

This game will have an audience, but it won't be a large one or a happy one - on the bright side, we now have common ground with Trekkies who "played" Star Trek Online.

[Diktat]

Because Smedley destroyed SWG, that's why, and so many of us who remember SWG came here hoping for at least a pale shadow of that game. This isn't SWG. The sad part is that this isn't an MMO, either - it's a single-player game with a big lobby and a co-op mode, styled as an "MMO."

+1000

I couldn't say it better.

[Deyjarl]

Planetside didn't have grind.

 

Yes it did. The Command comm grind, the giant screwed up walker grind, the base hump grind for 20, and the new version will be even more grindy. What planetside game were you playing?

 

Guild Wars 2 doesn't have grind.

 

Yes it does. Have no idea what the last one you mentioned is.

[Liquidacid]

Yes it did. The Command comm grind, the giant screwed up walker grind, the base hump grind for 20, and the new version will be even more grindy. What planetside game were you playing?

 

 

 

Yes it does. Have no idea what the last one you mentioned is.

 

lol I can't think of a single video game that ISN"T a grind... whether it's grinding mobs to get to the next level, money to buy the next gear, collecting something to advance... every single game that has progression of any kind is a grind... even real life is a grind... work so you can get money to work some more

Edited June 30, 2012 by Liquidacid

[Tsillah]

When you've played games like Aion, you know that this game isn't that bad. In that game they set a limit to how much money you could make because it was so easy to make money there. Also in SWTOR on our GTN the high prices are about 1-3 million. That is nothing compared to the millions you had to spend in Aion.

 

Just saying, there's a lot worse out there.

 

And then the crafting. Crafting isn't useless.....but wait, oh I get it.

 

The OP is one of those people who can only think in terms of economy and playing the market.

 

Well, I have a lot of alts so crafting is useful. Biochem is still very useful on one of my tanks and making my own augments and armoring mods, etc is useful. Hilts and barrels...well you won't find half the levels on the GTN either and more often than not the comm vendors have the wrong types.

 

I have made a few hundred thousand credits since 1.3 just selling stuff like crystals, hilts, level 49 waist wraps and I wasn't even really trying that much. So it seems to me that there is money to be made. It does take a bit of figuring out what to make, but it is possible.

 

Maybe if you wanna make 5 million a week you'll struggle.

 

But I do agree with people who say there is a lack of customisation still. Definitely not enough skins, no dye system etc. There is a lot still that could improve things.

[mattgyver]

There are a lot of fundamendal differences between swtor and reality/other mmos.

 

First of all to highlight this things we should split tor into 3 nice sections and see the evolution of markets, section division obviusly is 1.0-.1.1.5 1.2-1.3 and post 1.3

 

1.0-.1.1.5

Biochem and extreme repair costs, possibly 50% of the characters participate in endgame activity was a biochem that made access to consumables detrimental for 50% of the player base and the rest would just ignore it (pvpers would use stims and pvers wouldnt ever buy a 5k+ worth medpack when the vendor sold a 1.5k with very nearly associated power levels plus the fact that you needed multiple per encounter. In addition most guilds offered stims to their members from a bank and every1 was buying stims over a market with supply vastly overpowering demand.

 

1.1.5-1.2

Still biochem reigns supreme but slowly the repair costs fall and players can spend less time farming to cover them, thus every1 who participated in the crafting game did it to increase his wealth rather than buy items. For many players this means that they can just do the pvp daily+weekly. Meanwhile pvprs without costs would only bleed money from trying to win big by selling to the oversupplied market.

 

1.2-1.3

The population starts to dwindle in multiple servers, most of them have no real economy to speak off, however at this point augment materials are changed and slicing becomes the primary demand. However at this point in the game the ppl who participate in the only actual ingame activities that are crafting demanding are what is so called hardcore, most of these ppl have 1+ 50 lvl alt with a maxed profession making nearly 90% of them biochems and a lot of them with 1+ with craftings alts of about 20-30 lvl with 400 on 3 skills thus the only ppl that have demand for items are ppl who can easily craft instead of trading.

 

1.3+

Slicing demand skyrockets since the crafters cant handle the demand for 14+ items per endgame character needing a ton of materials, however for the first time pvpers need to enter the crafting frey since they must gain the maximum off avaible stats due to rated pvp. The situation will soon subside and a healthy support will arise in the market for slicing materials and augmentation kits.

 

 

 

Now that we have a nice understanding of the evolution of market in swtor we can point out why this things happen:

 

1.Server populations and community upheaval have played a big role to the game, but will soon subside making the demand/supply situation more balanced.

 

2.There are virtual no actuall costs thus credits enter the market en mass and are only removed via 'fluff' making a highly inflative economy.

 

3.Buyers market, you dont need to buy anything in this game, either cause its easy to just make it yourself or cause you just dont need anything at all. (This isnt as prevalent in other mmos because crafting alts arent viable, gathering has to be actually done in the game-world and not simply via menu clicks and well examples like EvE were crafting, gathering and war are done by different ppl at least 90%)

 

4.The reasons to participate in trade are way to minimal and most have opted for self-sufficiency long ago anyway (i know that this is covered but i think it deservers to be said again)

 

 

Sadly i have nothing to offer in terms of rectifying this issues since i cant see simplistic aproaches solving all the issues and i cant see any evolution to the system that would resolve them.

 

The steps beeing slowly done seem to prefer a trade have system and through content releases and improvements, along with possibly a nerf to the crafting alts (example, you can only gather/craft content of your character level) i can see a market that will not be gratifing but will slowly switch to an actual one.

 

 

Sorry for the long post

 

Great post. I don't think you should apologize for explaining it in detail.

[DiabloDoom]

Augment kits are more than 3 days economy thing. Like with any product, people that were smart enough, popped on PTS days (perhaps weeks) before live patch, checked what is going on, made some research then popped back on their servers, prepared mats and items for RE and after patch went live, boom... quick crafts, high prices, big income. After a while, prices started dropping rapidly due to big supply. At the moment prices are slowly stabilizing but after a while I would predict that prices would fluctuate depending on supply-demand. And that is player driven economy, nothing preset, unless crafters make some "cartel desicions" but considering the mentality of MMO community, that ain't going to happen. Another booming bussiness at the moment are augments of course due to higher demand. Smart crafters crafted most popular augments prior to the patch and took advantage of the large amount of new augment slots after the patch.

 

And this is only one situation. Similar was with craftable orange gear, etc. If you miss the opportunity, don't blame the game.

I see that you still don't understand, seems like my other post was deleted though. One item, augments can't dictate whether an economy is dynamic or not, that takes all items, but no you are wrong, augments are not player driven either, the price has a minimum controlled by the mechanics of the game which the Dev's decided. The cost of slicing times the number of attempts it takes to get advanced neural augmentors will forever control the price of augments, that my friend is static. What you seem to be confusing yourself over is rise and fall of prices, this also doesn't dictate whether or not an economy is dynamic, all economies are subject to this. This is not a player driven economy, if it were, all items would be crafted by the player, items would hold appreciation and depreciation resell value, and all items would be traded via a single currency, not bartered with commendations that are bound to the individual = static. Edited June 30, 2012 by DiabloDoom

[Lucyfer_Infinity]

I really liked Vanguard Saga of Heroes craft system. You had set of tools, set of skills, amount of points you can use for actions, aswell as random events happening during crafting. Item quality depended on how well you choose your actions and reacted to random events. Was really fun to craft there.

[TinyTC]

yeah i thought it was hard to make cash, but i started to collect mats that people wanted, put some in the guild bank and sell the rest supply and demand.

[Bloodstealer]

I highlighted the above to prove a point. Did you honestly just say "Many" others agree? Really? Cause in this thread alone its about 50/50 in my favor, but if you believe as I do then you know what you hear on the forums doesn't really mean much.

 

I CAN however look at past games, and tell pretty much unequivocal truth, that the majority of folks believe that those other games I listed had great crafting systems. Funny thing is, Its pretty hard to find any review or article "praising" SWTORs crafting.

 

Why? Because of the following,

 

1) Crafted items are unneeded 99% of the time. I could go through the whole game off drops, or gear tokens.

 

2) Its A+B=C crafting. That has been and will always be the cheap cop-out system for crafting. Cant think of a good crafting system? How about we just have the player combine 2 items and they get a lightsaber! Even augments are not unique anymore, making a watered down NOT-unique market even more bland.

 

-Other MMOs that had great crafting systems had variance in item quality that effected stats on the item.

 

Apologies been playing taxi for 24hrs to my kids so not had time to come back with a repsonse...

Much of what you have said throughout the thread I actually agree with.. what my response did not agree with you on was basing your opinion of a game mechanic and then using that to call out someone elses MMO experience simply because he or she did not agree with you.

 

Yes there are better crafting systems out there as there are also much better group finder tools... heck imo there are better MMO's full stop.. that's my opinion, but I don't use that to base someone elses MMO experience because they might disagree with me.....

Fact is the crafting system is what it is (at least for now) so you either need to try and use it to our advantage or or go back to one of the other MMO's where you enjoy the crafting more.... there is of course a thrd option and that is to not bother with crafting in SWTOR.. its afterall not forced upon you to do anything with it.

What you highlighted in red from my original response was merely tongue in cheak to demonstrate how silly your response was to another poster.. and it seems it got the desired response from you...

Edited June 30, 2012 by Bloodstealer