Is anyone else annoyed. . .

[Transcendent]

Also, Bioware could easily just raise the sell price of the parts so that way people get a full refund if they so choose.

 

Considering we're not meant to be losing anything by the changes (livestream - their words not mine), I hope they do consider this option.

 

A fair few of my ship droids have these sensors. I can live with losing the 1m for the unlock or whatever that was, but the 100k per sensor on top of that is a little bit of a slap in the face.

[Nyla]

I'm not annoyed at all (despite having bought sensors for ship droids, etc..).

 

Imo, it was a stupid design like quite a few things in crafting mini-game. Forcing some class/crew skills combinations to get better results is bad design, it's like bad balance between specs.

 

There's still many ways to make that part of crafting more interesting without forcing specific combinations:

- generic bonuses (like -3% gathering mission time, +3% crit Advanced component mission result....) for each companion that could be linked to affection level

- specific bonuses for the 3 crew skills you chose linked to the amount of missions/items created that companion has done, for example, Corso gets 0.01% crit afer the first slicing mission, 0.02% cfrit after the second... capped to something like 3 or 5 percent

- create rare schematics that enable each crafting crew skills to create components for gathering/mission/crafting tools, there's a different tool for each crew and you give it to the companion you want, each tool gives bonus for the skill it was created for

 

It's Sunday morning, I just woke up, I'm not a game designer and imo thoses 3 ideas are still better than stupid and forced class/crew skill combinations...

Edited September 13, 2015 by Nyla

[branmakmuffin]

Seriously WHY did they have to F up with this??? If it ain't broken, don't fix it!

 

Then I've wasted 2 million credits - 1,000,000 on the ship droid, 1,000,000 on droid sensors x10!!!

 

I've levelled additional smugglers, warriors, agents, knights etc for the sake of the special bonuses! Countless hours wasted!

So you didn't enjoy playing the game during that time?

 

Because I enjoyed min maxing my companions to tinker with them and find out what the right distribution was on my own.

 

I DO NOT read up on fan sites suggested builds or anything like that

I ENJOY learning it all myself

 

Now that is gone

 

Sorry if you dont understand thinking/planing/adjusting to fit ones style and requirement

 

Use to be mandatory in MMORPG genre regarding gear of all kind

 

Instead of cheering stupidity becoming the norm

How about we demand more thought, more skill, more design!

If you like the bad old days of EQ, think it's still around. If not, realize that you are living in the MMO past and deal with it.

Edited September 13, 2015 by branmakmuffin

[Zharik]

Instead of removing the crit, why not just give the +crit bonus to every companion as a baseline?

 

That, by definition, is NOT a bonus anymore then.

[Falensawino]

The end of an era.

 

I've been using Copperhamster's NPC Crafting Information guide to plan my alts since I started playing this game, September 2012.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=416764

Direct link to his spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GpdO-UNEEpeVunfyJbKpcr7_7RUB0YzfIQzo17xjpcI/edit?pli=1#gid=0

 

RIP ( 2012 - 2015)

+5 crit Biochem Knight (Doc)

+5 crit Synthweaving Warrior (x2 with ship droid sensor) (Jaesa Willsaam, Ship Droid)

+5 crit Armormech Trooper (Tanno Vik)

+5 crit Armstech Smuggler (Corso Riggs)

 

We don't know what bioware austin has planned for crafting yet, nothing's been announced, but I'm going to miss +5 crit crafting companions if it's taken away.

 

 

WHAT??? :eek: Where did you see that??! :mad:

Seriously WHY did they have to F up with this??? If it ain't broken, don't fix it!

 

Then I've wasted 2 million credits - 1,000,000 on the ship droid, 1,000,000 on droid sensors x10!!!

 

I've levelled additional smugglers, warriors, agents, knights etc for the sake of the special bonuses! Countless hours wasted!

Not to mention I've paid insane sums to buy additional character slots!

 

Just so everybody is on the same page as this guy,

you had to pay 1,000,000 credits for a Ship Repair Droid Legacy unlock, to be able to purchase

100,000 ship droid sensors. Sensors that you can equip on your ship droid to augment their crafting bonuses.

 

Ship Droid Crafting Sensors

 

SensorName	   SensorBonus1		 SensorBonus2
Engineering	+5 Scavenging		+5 Cybertech Crit
Exploration	+5 Archeology		+5 Synthweaving Crit
Hunter		+10 Investigation		+2 Armstech Crit
Medical		+10 Biochem		+2 Diplomacy Crit
Scout		+10 Artifice			+2 Treasure Hunting Crit
Security		+10 Armormech		+2 Underworld Trading Crit[

notice the +5 cybertech crit, +5 synthweaving crit

 

 

Basically as BiowareAustin originally designed the crafting system,

if you wanted to craft, your class was already picked for you.

If your class selection deviated from the crafting bonuses, you harmed potential output.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Falensawino

[Neglience]

The change is just bad. Goes the same way as all the other dumbing down coming with 4.0. This game is already pretentious like a barbie & ken game, no need to go down even further. Edited September 13, 2015 by Neglience

[Tsillah]

BW basically made a companion system that didn't make sense at all and now we get a bit of a clean up. What do I mean by that?

 

Well, look at it.

 

Does every class get companions at the same levels? No.

Does every class get companions that fit their class and spec at early level? No.

Does every class get all their companions early enough so they can choose which one they prefer and do the story with them? No.

Is there anything to do at max level with companions, except running dailies? No, not really.

Do the current crafting bonuses make sense for your all the classes? No.

 

I'm sure there's more but you get the gist.

 

The droid upgrades were there to give people a choice that fit what they wanted to do. Now it's being fixed completely in that sense. It still doesn't take away that it takes too long in the original story to get all your companions so you can pick the one you like to level with. I feel for those who like Xalek for example, who comes very late into the story.

 

So yeh the droid upgrade system might be useless now...but wait, do we really know that? I don't remember reading what would happen with the droid bonus system...

[JamieKirby]

Well, in a way, its changing the crafting bonuses from specific stats for specific crafting skills, to all crew skills......so its more better, i mean i didn't even use those bonuses when sending my companions out on missions, since i tend to only pick up underworld trading, so this change will not affect me in a negative way, infact it will help me, since i care more about speedy completion over crit, now if the affection levels affects crit chance as well as mission speed, then all the better.

[TravelersWay]

I can't say I am annoyed. To be perfectly honest, it makes sense in terms of the potential new playerbase that may be coming into the game. I have friends who, when they started the game, where unaware of how those bonuses worked (when they realized they existed at all), so when it came time to pick crew skills, they often picked ones that didn't match up well with the companions their class had. Changing those crew skills to optimal ones would be problematic, especially as one leveled as it would force them to go back to the early level planets and just farm, instead of actually playing the game, in order to get those skills leveled up to be able to hit the nodes and such on the planet they were currently playing.

 

It sucks for those who focused on min/maxing this part of the game for their characters and such, but ultimately, it's a change for the better. Now people can pick the crew skills that work best for their character's class instead of having an optimal choice forced on them by non-optimal companion configuration (much like the companion affection system forces certain choices for the character if you want to gain affection, regardless of what that character would actually choose to do).

 

This isn't really dumbing down of anything, but actually fixing a system that was poorly thought out and implemented to begin with.

Edited September 13, 2015 by TravelersWay

[Falensawino]

I can't say I am annoyed. To be perfectly honest, it makes sense in terms of the potential new playerbase that may be coming into the game.

 

It sucks for those who focused on min/maxing this part of the game for their characters and such, but ultimately, it's a change for the better. Now people can pick the crew skills that work best for their character's class instead of having an optimal choice forced on them by non-optimal companion configuration (much like the companion affection system forces certain choices for the character if you want to gain affection, regardless of what that character would actually choose to do).

 

This isn't really dumbing down of anything, but actually fixing a system that was poorly thought out and implemented to begin with.

I've come full circle since I entered this thread, the changes might be a good thing but my opinion is still a mixed reaction about losing a high yield bonus. I made my class choices based on the spreadsheet not the freedom of picking my own class.

 

The way Eric Musco worded the unannounced crafting changes certainly seem like they're conquest friendly, it's probably why the devs decided to restrict crafting related conquest points.

 

 

Will companion bonuses still affect crafting?

No they will not. Now all Companions will simply just be better at Crew Skills the higher their Influence is.

Hey folks,

 

In Fallen Empire we will be making changes to Conquests so I wanted to let you know about what is being adjusted. One thing that we noticed in looking at Conquests is that not as many players as we would hope are completing their personal targets. We feel this may be because the targets are too high, requiring more time to complete than many players may have available. Because of this we are adjusting the target points for rewards in some Conquests:

• All Conquests which previously required 35,000 target points have had that target number reduced to 20,000.
  
• Titans of Industry will remain at 25,000 target points.
  
• Total Galactic War will remain at 50,000 target points.
  
• Trade Emporium will remain at 25,000 target points.
  

Note that Guilds will still compete, as normal, for the top 10 on each Planet once these targets have been reached.

 

In looking at our data and in seeing playing feedback, one thing we have noticed is that many Guilds are primarily using the repeatable Crafting objective to gain points for Conquests. Although we want to include Crafting as an essential part of the Conquest effort, we don’t want that objective to be the “only best answer” to Conquests. Due to this we are making the following changes:

• The Objective “Conquest: War Supplies” is no longer repeatable and is set to reward 2,000 Conquest Points for any Conquest that included that objective.
  

These changes will be reflected in Knights of the Fallen Empire when it launches. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

Quality (crits) vs. Quantity (conquest points)

The game moved away from the focus on Quality (criticals returned high yield for the same resources, you literally got a free item without using more materials) to a focus on Quantity. ((1) Generating enough conquest points, (2) regardless of how many resources you use, (3) in the shortest amount of time possible)

 

Efficiency matters now more than ever, thanks to conquest. The old system favored Criticals, getting a free duplicate item with no added resource cost.

 

Also, The old crafting system was designed around Not having a legacy cargo hold and was implemented with a promise of a mobile app.

Developer around launch said something about crew skill over a phone app but it never happen. I am not sure but I know I would love to see it.

There's a suggestion box topic asking for that promised mobile crafting app: CT-09 Phone App Edited September 13, 2015 by Falensawino

[Stryges]

That's part of the downside -- the ship droid won't be a customizable crafter anymore, and any credits spent on the special sensor unit to do so will have been wasted.

 

Imagine the players who don't read the forums, who go out and spend credits on that sensor over the next month or so...

 

I can't believe virtual currency has no actual value...

 

 

said no one ever.

[Icestar]

That the companion bonuses are being taken away?

 

No, not at all. I have spent so much credits maxing out my tradeskills on my characters but I do not mind, it is a change for the better.