RIP craft / economy

[chosonman]

I think the game went off the rails with 12xexp

The game seemed much healthier over the summer but these heavy handed moves have, seemingly, gutted the leveling economy, gutted leveling group finders, and gutted the barriers keeping players from getting in too deep (ie- having a max level toon with no real knowledge how to gear or provide for itself)

 

The endgame is now the new beginning- level 60 is the new level one- maybe this is some radical new game style where there are no more levels and Bio is really pushing the envelope but I don't think so

 

It really seems as though this slot machine is a passive/aggressive way of dealing with the ops exploit- "some people exploited the game to get access too the stash so let's just flood the market with grade 11 purples- that will fix things"

 

I really only logged into the game to sell items, run crew missions, and pvp

I also know that my playstyle is not "mainstream" but I did pay a monthly sub and with all these recent changes I'm kinda losing steam here

The best thing I liked about 3.0 was solo fp's- in a MMO ffs- serenity now

 

Long story short- crew skills/economy is really the only thing that I end up enjoying in a mmo but I'm afraid swtor has officially jumped the shark in 3.0

 

Im in complete agreememt. The game seemed much healthier prior to 12x. Ive said it before and I'll say it again. 12x was a huge mistake. It gutted the steam of leveling players that creatrd a gap between new players and 12x ers. Group finder is dead so is low level FPs and they even managed to kill lowbie pvp somehow. The constant pandering to pay 2 winners is causing an irreparable slide in the quality of the game and has caused me to consider quitting for good once my sub is up.

Edited January 17, 2015 by chosonman

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Please explain, oh enlightened one. Explain how people that invested [an established amount of] time and credits into being able to gather certain materials are not harmed by a sudden change to the system that allows people who invest less time and credits (near zero and less than zero, actually) to instantly compete on equal footing.

 

Do you suffer ******ophrenia or something? Sometimes you come across as mellow and cool and then wham all of a sudden this ******e attitude pops up out of nowhere.

 

Firstly the time and cost of gathering materials hasn't changed at all in terms of running missions. Yes people can no go and get materials via slots but so can you whilst still running your missions.

 

If you bought your materials from the GTN to supply your crafting well that's your bad luck. Everyone knows supply and demand can change all the time and just because a material is 50K today doesn't mean it will be tomorrow. Sure they've take a larger than normal dive here but market trends will always affect those that solely rely on "purchase power" to fund their crafting. It's a gamble and a risk where as gathering is not ( yet unless it actually does go under that mission cost threshold ).

 

I see that as no different to me queuing up 5 white/blue dyes seeing they were, at last check, selling for 100K, they are now between 40-50K ( yet not all dyes are, there are still a few around 90K ). The material cost I budgeted my profit on was 60K so I would ideally be making a loss except luckily for me in this case the material cost has dropped too so I don't make a loss.

Actually I never would have made a loss, I gathered the mats at a much lower cost than 40K anyway. I guess the proper term would be making less profit than had I sold the mats.

 

And dyes were fluctuating a lot before this slot machine also in case someone wants to point at this being the case for the price drop. One day things are at 40K, the next 100K. Had this slot machine not been there I would have made less profit - solid.

 

Point - if you buy mats you run the risk of losing money all the time depending on market forces. If you gather you will almost always make A profit.

 

So where as before your profit might have been 100K and it's now 10K ... you're not being hurt. You aren't losing anything, you are still making credits. Likewise as the cost of mats comes down the cost crafted items will come down and as people make less money and the money sink absorbs more money the cost of CM items will ideally come down too ( and anything else people may buy ).

 

So rather than explain how I think you are not hurt as I am not you - how about you explain how you are hurt? You're the one implying you've been hurt with you rather hostile post. Perhaps if instead of acting like an *** you did this in the first place I could have replied "good point, never thought of that" or countered with something you may not have thought of. That is how discussions and debates work my friend.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Im in complete agreememt. The game seemed much healthier prior to 12x. Ive said it before and I'll say it again. 12x was a huge mistake. It gutted the steam of leveling players that creatrd a gap between new players and 12x ers. Group finder is dead so is low level FPs and they even managed to kill lowbie pvp somehow. The constant pandering to pay 2 winners is causing an irreparable slide in the quality of the game and has caused me to consider quitting for good once my sub is up.

 

Whilst i can see your point on this and it is probably correct ( more people made toons and leveled them and thus they won't now ) could you not counter that by saying the end game marketing etc. has increased? I mean less lower levels means more upper levels right?

 

I've seen your point on crafting and it's wrong, sorry, to say "crafting is dead/broken". I agree some crew skills have been heavily affected by not crafting on the whole. It's always swings and round abouts in this game. I remember my tried and true crew skills Artifice/Treasure Hunting and Archaeology used to be thought as rather wasteful by many ( no idea why, they've always worked awesome for me ) yet now they are FoTM.

 

Who knows what is around the corner for your crew skills also ... maybe some major changge where you will be the laughing all the way to the bank.

 

Add to this it only takes you a few days to chance a crew skill too at a casual pace. Nothing is forcing you to keep the ones you think are flawed. Some times you have to adapt or be left behind ... or quit if that's your choice but I wouldn't quite solely based on how your crew skills are ... look at your own logic, lower levels dead thus higher levels aren't ... what can you do instead that will make you good coin from the higher levels?

 

Quiting should be the last resort when you think the game as a whole is no fun anymore, if you haven't branched out and tried something different you can't really blame the game/bioware.

[eartharioch]

nothing

 

So you got nothing? That's what I thought.

[Ryvirath]

Speaking as a disinterested credit billionaire (close to 3 billion and counting), I could give a damn about the change. It doesn't affect me in any meaningful way. Speaking as a player of this game, I'm of two minds:

 

1. I believe the slot machine will effectively crush gold sellers, who can no longer bot around planets to make any sort of meaningful profit. Sure, they can macro slot machines like everyone else, but 'like everyone else' being the operative words there. This will clear up the obnoxious fleet/mailbox spam.

2. It trivializes most existing content. Conquest rewards are now virtually meaningless. Mats from packs are meaningless. Mats in general are on the way to becoming meaningless and trivial. Dailies will again become a principal source of income.

3. The loss of interaction to a slot machine is not desirable. This was not a good way to go about this and can't be healthy for the game. When the acolyte's pack is out of circulation how will new players even think about competing in the post slot machine economy?

[znihilist]

Speaking as a disinterested credit billionaire (close to 3 billion and counting), I could give a damn about the change. It doesn't affect me in any meaningful way. Speaking as a player of this game, I'm of two minds:

 

1. I believe the slot machine will effectively crush gold sellers, who can no longer bot around planets to make any sort of meaningful profit. Sure, they can macro slot machines like everyone else, but 'like everyone else' being the operative words there. This will clear up the obnoxious fleet/mailbox spam.

2. It trivializes most existing content. Conquest rewards are now virtually meaningless. Mats from packs are meaningless. Mats in general are on the way to becoming meaningless and trivial. Dailies will again become a principal source of income.

3. The loss of interaction to a slot machine is not desirable. This was not a good way to go about this and can't be healthy for the game. When the acolyte's pack is out of circulation how will new players even think about competing in the post slot machine economy?

 

For 3) considering that this machine only gives reputation for one CM faction, you can reasonably expect that other machines based on the different reputations will be introduced (with the same general mechanic).

Edited January 17, 2015 by znihilist

[MeNaCe-NZ]

So you got nothing? That's what I thought.

 

Pfft, child.

 

1. I believe the slot machine will effectively crush gold sellers, who can no longer bot around planets to make any sort of meaningful profit. Sure, they can macro slot machines like everyone else, but 'like everyone else' being the operative words there. This will clear up the obnoxious fleet/mailbox spam.

 

Well they if they can macro/bot the slots they will do so until it stops being profitable to do so.

I would assume macro runs, collects tons of jawja junk, human goes back to screen every few hours, sell trophies, lists mats, possibly waste time using up the cart certs and listing the result.

 

One would also assume they would do that in addition to whatever auto operations they run now.

 

Either way more gold to sell = more fleet spam.

 

2. It trivializes most existing content. Conquest rewards are now virtually meaningless. Mats from packs are meaningless. Mats in general are on the way to becoming meaningless and trivial. Dailies will again become a principal source of income.

 

Conquest has always been that way since it's craft to win, it's not just cheaper and more accessible to everyone. It used to be the richest guilds win now it may be the most active willing to click the slots

 

Mats can't become meaningless, crafting still needs to occur. Just because everything loses it's value from the current norm ( previous ) doesn't mean it's meaningless. It in fact will never be meaningless unless for some reason crafting becomes so.

 

Dailies as always are one of the few sources of pure new income to the game. The slots are still a money sink so for sales to continue there needs to be income introduced to the game ( vendoring things, dailies and everything else that gives you credits for doing game activity ).

 

3. The loss of interaction to a slot machine is not desirable. This was not a good way to go about this and can't be healthy for the game. When the acolyte's pack is out of circulation how will new players even think about competing in the post slot machine economy?

 

If you read Eric's post you see they intended it as a more fun, whimsical thing. I think whoever actually put it in somehow got through any sort of economy QC and we have what we have. It will change.

 

Also some have speculated there will be further slot machines for each of the CM reputation types. I tend to think the same.

[oked]

So I guess the devs were inspired by the drop in gas prices to make purple level crafting items super easy to obtain

 

If you dont know what I mean basically with the jawa scrap now giving crafting level 11 purples combined with the new slot machines that spit them out like tickets at chuckey cheese higher tier items like augments, saber hilts and so on have become extremely easy to craft and so on the gtn has gone through a plumit

 

an example: overkill augs, the most popular, went from about 120k on the bastion server last week to 49k today, that is over a 50% drop

 

combine that with the extreme ease of stim crafting and the elimination of its profitability one could ask if the devs are wanting to kill the player market so that the only things that sell for a profit are the furniture items from the cartel, just a theory but honestly there is no evidence to the contrary

 

I personally make most of my credits through crafting, I had 12 55s at 3.0 and networking their trading skills for credits is one of the best ways to make it in star wars. And thats how it should be, I put the time in to get those characters up and Ive been playing since launch so I and every player who has put in the time and money investment into this game deserve to make alot of credits through the gtn....but its broke

 

I love this expansion so far but one of the hallmark pillars of the mmo experience is player economy, players crafting buying and selling items to stimulate a virtual market place. In all honesty I think they just added afew things and didnt think much of it but the fact remains if this kindof drop off in prices happened in the real world most of us would be in our crazy uncles bunker waiting for NUKULAR WURFAR to take place lol.

 

so Im guessing that the devs

 

A)didnt think this through

B)are trying to bring the economy down to get players to use dollars instead of credits

C)want to make prices more affordable for noobies so they can gear out with a weeks worth of dailies

 

Again I love star wars but Devs you need to repair this aspect of the game and fast

 

thanks for reading

Oked@the bastion

[eartharioch]

Pfft, child.

 

Dat logic.

[psandak]

Nothing new to see here. four other threads on the first page cover this:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=790232

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=789662

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=780931

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=789627

Edited January 17, 2015 by psandak

[asbalana]

So I guess the devs were inspired by the drop in gas prices to make purple level crafting items super easy to obtain

 

If you dont know what I mean basically with the jawa scrap now giving crafting level 11 purples combined with the new slot machines that spit them out like tickets at chuckey cheese higher tier items like augments, saber hilts and so on have become extremely easy to craft and so on the gtn has gone through a plumit

 

an example: overkill augs, the most popular, went from about 120k on the bastion server last week to 49k today, that is over a 50% drop

 

combine that with the extreme ease of stim crafting and the elimination of its profitability one could ask if the devs are wanting to kill the player market so that the only things that sell for a profit are the furniture items from the cartel, just a theory but honestly there is no evidence to the contrary

 

I personally make most of my credits through crafting, I had 12 55s at 3.0 and networking their trading skills for credits is one of the best ways to make it in star wars. And thats how it should be, I put the time in to get those characters up and Ive been playing since launch so I and every player who has put in the time and money investment into this game deserve to make alot of credits through the gtn....but its broke

 

I love this expansion so far but one of the hallmark pillars of the mmo experience is player economy, players crafting buying and selling items to stimulate a virtual market place. In all honesty I think they just added afew things and didnt think much of it but the fact remains if this kindof drop off in prices happened in the real world most of us would be in our crazy uncles bunker waiting for NUKULAR WURFAR to take place lol.

 

so Im guessing that the devs

 

A)didnt think this through

B)are trying to bring the economy down to get players to use dollars instead of credits

C)want to make prices more affordable for noobies so they can gear out with a weeks worth of dailies

 

Again I love star wars but Devs you need to repair this aspect of the game and fast

 

thanks for reading

Oked@the bastion

 

Yes for truth.

 

Since it has been posted by an BW rep that they purposely put in the slots (thought they would be fun) but will look at the returns, I am not sure that your choice A is correct. The changes in crafting / economy are pretty much as intended. We may get some action, but not soon because BW is making a ton of real money selling the slot machine packs. So the reasons for the changes likely are more in the camp of choices B and C and more probably B than C.

 

Right now I am multitasking and am also on Shadowlands opening a large number of not sold return messages. The items were much in demand and listed two days ago at a few thousand under the lowest price. The price now is less than 1/2 of my original listing price. So I will not be crafting that and similar items any longer.

 

To psandak I would say that there is something new here. That is another voice heard from and another voice making quality points. Yes there are other threads, so what? Actually your comment added nothing.

[iDraxter]

this is less then a week in! It`s only gonna get worse.

[asbalana]

I'm surprised to see you ask this question -- you've been around long enough to see that the top level stats on crystals have not changed in 3 years.

 

The +41 stat crystals are rating 136. Available at a time when Rakata (rating 140) was the top tier in the game.

 

Since that time, we've had the following tiers of gear added:

 

146

150

156 - Added with patch 2.0

162

168

174

180

186

192 - Added with patch 3.0

198

 

At no time have the stats on the color crystals been increased from +41, what they were at launch.

 

I am not clear on why you are surprised at my question. Is your comment predicated on the concept that CM crystal stats have not changed in 3 years and so there is no expectation that it will change now? Or is your comment based on the observation that my question is obvious, because it is a change that would be timely now and would generate CM sales (real money) for BW.

 

I don't know if new crystals with higher stats will be introduced, but if I was BW I would be thinking in that direction. How many packs could they sell and how much money could they make (with zero effort) by introducing higher stat crystals? A bunch I bet, and BW would find that yummy.

[psandak]

I just (and I mean JUST) finished going through my characters this morning and I actively looked at a LOT of items on the GTN and there is NOTHING out of the ordinary on The Harbinger.

 

• Farium 405
  
• Molytex 1,100
  
• Trimantium 999
  
• Doonium 10k
  
• Biocell Memory core 368
  
• Autoimmune Reg 17500
  
• Adaptive circ 22500
  
• Midlithe 7k
  
• fragments 960
  
• power cr 840
  

 

Farium and Doonium were the ONLY crafting materials I found at what I would consider to be low value, but even Doonium is not TERRIBLE

I actually expected the Blue slicing mat and blue UWT mat to be lower.

Purple gemstones. OK they were 50k each, but if you expected that to remain in tact...it was just not gonna happen.

purple sliced mats, again (based on the doom and gloom here) I expected MUCH lower

 

 

• ALL blue augments are running in the 12k to 20k range. 12k is low but not unheard of. 15k to 20k is normal 30k is exceedingly high.
  
• ALL purple augments are running in the 55k to 80k range. are they the 125k they were? No, but if you expected that to remain you were deluding yourself.
  
• Purple Ruusan relics are still at 125k each
  
• Purple Implants...even the ****** Willpower tank implants are posted at 75k each.
  
• Blue quality ear pieces are implants are in the 20k to 25k range. unchanged.
  
• Dye modules Some are in the tank, but they are the ones that are not as popular anyway. the popular ones are still 65k+ again not the 100k they were fetching but those prices were already coming down before the patch.
  
• purple hilts - just posted one of each hilt type and the only one that was valued below 60k was might. Again not the 80k+ that they were fetching but still well within the "these are worth making to sell' range.
  
• purple barrels - they were in the tank long ago but they are still profitable at the 21k they are getting.
  

 

Maybe I am just more accepting than others.

[asbalana]

Speaking as a disinterested credit billionaire (close to 3 billion and counting), I could give a damn about the change. It doesn't affect me in any meaningful way. Speaking as a player of this game, I'm of two minds:

 

1. I believe the slot machine will effectively crush gold sellers, who can no longer bot around planets to make any sort of meaningful profit. Sure, they can macro slot machines like everyone else, but 'like everyone else' being the operative words there. This will clear up the obnoxious fleet/mailbox spam.

2. It trivializes most existing content. Conquest rewards are now virtually meaningless. Mats from packs are meaningless. Mats in general are on the way to becoming meaningless and trivial. Dailies will again become a principal source of income.

3. The loss of interaction to a slot machine is not desirable. This was not a good way to go about this and can't be healthy for the game. When the acolyte's pack is out of circulation how will new players even think about competing in the post slot machine economy?

 

I am not sure that your point 1. is correct. I've seen more gold seller spam in the last few days then ever before. For example, if I want a slot machine, I can buy one on the GTN for between 3M and 4M now (saw one for 2.2M yesterday) or buy packs and play the RNG game to get one. I have not worked out the math, but is it cheaper to spend $ 15.00 for credits with a gold seller and then purchase the slot machine or to buy packs and hope I get one. I don't know, but buying the gold is clean and fast and has no RNG involved. If I am not able to make profits to the degree needed, perhaps the gold sellers are an attractive alternative. I used slot machines as an example, but any CM (only items in game any longer with any real value) item that can be listed on the GTN will do. And don't fool yourself, the gold sellers will accumulate sufficient stock. The changes will not effect them as it will the average honest player.

 

I agree with your points 2 and 3.

[comestbest]

I just (and I mean JUST) finished going through my characters this morning and I actively looked at a LOT of items on the GTN and there is NOTHING out of the ordinary on The Harbinger.

 

• 
   
  
• Midlithe 7k
   
  

 

 

 

 

• 
   
  
• Purple Ruusan relics are still at 125k each
   
  

 

.

 

 

troubling times like this really separate the high iq people from the average iq people. i used to think you knew something about crafting but times like this shows you know very little of which you speak.

 

midlithe crystals were 40k to 80k and are now 8k or less

 

purple ruusan relics were 280k and are now 40k or less

 

this is a total joke, they destroy crafting more and more with each passing hour. soon everyone will have all the resources and items they ever need and crafting will be worthless.

 

 

resources are no longer time gated, gathering and missions skills are worthless. you don't even need skills to get resources.

Edited January 17, 2015 by comestbest

[psandak]

troubling times like this really separate the high iq people from the average iq people. i used to think you knew something about crafting but times like this shows you know very little of which you speak.

 

midlithe crystals were 40k to 80k and are now 8k or less

 

purple ruusan relics were 280k and are now 40k or less

 

this is a total joke, they destroy crafting more and more with each passing hour. soon everyone will have all the resources and items they ever need and crafting will be worthless.

 

resources are no longer time gated, gathering and missions skills are worthless. you don't even need skills to get resources.

 

Different servers have different dynamics I can only profess to what I have seen on The Harbinger...

 

I never saw the relics for that much. And even if they were that high, did you REALLY think they would stay there forever?

Edited January 17, 2015 by psandak

[comestbest]

I never saw the relics for that much. And even if they were that high, did you REALLY think they would stay there forever?

 

 

then you don't check the gtn much and your second statement doesn't even make sense. of course nothing stays the same forever but it doesn't drop by a factor of 10 in a few days either.

Edited January 17, 2015 by comestbest

[psandak]

then you don't check the gtn much and your second statement doesn't even make sense. of course nothing stays the same forever but it doesn't drop by a factor of 10 in a few days either.

 

And when all the crazies who are dumping their stock because "the sky is falling" are done, supplies will fall, demand will remain the same and prices will rise.

[psandak]

To psandak I would say that there is something new here. That is another voice heard from and another voice making quality points. Yes there are other threads, so what? Actually your comment added nothing.

 

My point was that he could have added to any of those four threads and did not need to create another

[comestbest]

And when all the crazies who are dumping their stock because "the sky is falling" are done, supplies will fall, demand will remain the same and prices will rise.

 

they will never be done dumping their stock because there is an unlimited supply of mats super cheap and super fast

[psandak]

they will never be done dumping their stock because there is an unlimited supply of mats super cheap and super fast

 

I disagree. My reasons are unimportant anymore because I am done debating this whole thing. No one can convince me that this is the end of the crafting in SWTOR, nor can I convince anyone who thinks as such that it is not the case.

 

I have seen for myself, on THE HARBINGER, that things are not as bad as some claim. Will it get worse or better? No one knows because no one can see the future. We can guess, speculate, hypothesize all we want.

 

I am going to simply keep on doing what I have been doing for as long as I have played MMOs and their crafting systems which is first and foremost being patient and not panicking. What will be will be. I will adjust to whatever "new normal" happens and continue to make millions of credits.

 

Adieu.

[asbalana]

Different servers have different dynamics I can only profess to what I have seen on The Harbinger...

 

I never saw the relics for that much. And even if they were that high, did you REALLY think they would stay there forever?

 

I have a significant crafting presence on Harbinger (my first server), Shadowlands, and Begeren and a number of characters on Ebon Hawk.

 

Indeed the different servers have differnent dynamics. It has often surprised me that the same item can go for different prices on the different servers. But they do stay within an reasonable expected range. LOL, when buying a "Collections" item I can look at the prices on each of the servers and buy at the lowest price. This has saved me millions of credits.

 

In any case, the issues described such as rapid drop in prices (1/2 or more), over supply of mats, and pages upon pages of once dear crafted items has occurred on each of the servers mentioned. What is happening (can't speak of the other three servers) is not a server blip (for the four mentioned) but is a game wide truth.

 

As far as high prices eventually dropping, that is indeed true over time after any launch and such prices fall to a level that reflects supply and demand which is the natural result of the dynamic between willing buyers and crafters / gatherers. The drops in this case has come over the period of less than a week. That is unnatural and unexpected and is obviously only attributable to BWs actions.

 

The overall result on the economy and crafting (dead or dying?) and the game and it's population as a whole will be seen over time.

[comestbest]

We can guess, speculate, hypothesize all we want.

 

 

 

i am using basic reasoning. if you can get unlimited amounts of resources for less than 2k each with almost no effort and in massive amounts and completely bypassing the need to train and use all the gathering and mission skills then crafting will be worthless.

 

 

it's not speculation. it's basic reasoning.

 

 

i saw posts on other forums where the credit spammers are already macroing this 24/7 on 3 to 4 machines each. so get ready for more spam from them.

[MSchuyler]

midlithe crystals were 40k to 80k and are now 8k or less

 

purple ruusan relics were 280k and are now 40k or less

 

You say that like it's a bad thing. Why should ANY crystal cost 80K apiece? All that has happened here is that senior crafters who anticipated gouging the market with high priced stuff and making tons of credits have been shot down by the new kid in town. It may have "destroyed the economy" for the high-end monopolists, but it hasn't "destroyed the economy" for me. Now I can actually afford a midlithe crystal to make some dyes and enjoy a reasonable profit.

 

This is a win/win situation. Low end crafters get to participate and the consumer will enjoy lower prices.