NOT enjoying the crafting changes!

[Hluill]

I agree that clicking for influence is not the best system in the world. Clicking while watching TV is not what I want to be doing either. But it is the best way to increase influence quickly.

 

However, I disagree with your assessment that crafting taking time is wrong. The advantage of having companions doing crew skills is that you can play while they are working. Now if you are waiting for something to get crafted so you can use it, whose fault is it really that you did not plan ahead and have that crafted stuff waiting for you?

 

It's Bioware's fault for changing the crafting system to be that way and calling it an improvement. I've been pretty good at loading up on components that one of my characters may need in a level or two. My point is that this is an extra step, that it's an unnecessary step in an already mindless crafting system.

 

Crafting can be a fun part of an MMO. Bioware has designed it to be bothersome background noise to be managed while doing other things.

[Hluill]

The crafting isn't the mindless clicking, it's feeding gifts to companions.

 

~laughs~ The action of feeding gifts to companions IS mindless clicking, though it IS more quickly rewarding than the mindless clicking of making components...

[eartharioch]

~laughs~ The action of feeding gifts to companions IS mindless clicking, though it IS more quickly rewarding than the mindless clicking of making components...

 

I don't think you understand what psandak (and I) were discussing...

 

Clicking a few buttons to send companions crafting and then doing it again 10-15 minutes later isn't the same thing as minimizing the game window and right-clicking on a stack of companion gifts every 3.0 seconds (adjusted for alacrity) for hours.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Pretty sure you don't have to mindlessly give gifts to your companions ... you don't HAVE to have maximum influence etc. You could just play the game and get influence that way.

 

Basically ... no one is forcing you to do anything, influence is effectively optional.

 

As to crafting - whilst the crafting isn't really player invested in terms of time and "hands on" 'ness ( making up words, why not heh ) as other games I feel it's more or less perfect for casual and full time players. Not that I like the extra changes they've made in the respect of mats and an extra crafting step but some other crafting games that have what could be deemed a more interactive or "fun" crafting process come across as rather elitist and really don't seem to offer an even playing field for all players unless they want to heavily invest themselves in the crafting "arts" etc.

 

For example I always hear about SWG and basically you could dedicate your entire game time to being a crafter or something and that's what you would do? Maybe I'm wrong and that's not how it was but it sounds boring.

I prefer the casual background model we have now ( even if they did make it more annoying than before ) over something I have to invest too much effort into.

 

My 2 cents anyway.

[AlrikFassbauer]

~laughs~ The action of feeding gifts to companions IS mindless clicking, though it IS more quickly rewarding than the mindless clicking of making components...

 

Here comes in the Role-Player in me (and that's why I'm on an RP Server anyway ) :

 

I just don't do that : "Mindlessly clicking". The role-player in me treats my Companions as if they were living, breathing beings (apart from droids, maybe ).

 

That's why I find the usage of the word "pet" for Companions so much abhorrant [ word spelling ? ]. I'd NEVER call my RL friends "pets" !!

 

So, I just don't buy myself a stack or batch of presents., Good friends need to be catered so much more carefully - or they'll recognize that my presents are only there to bind them to me !

I just wish the AI would react like that. Again, the role-player in me wishes this, mostly.

 

Therefore, my way to get the "influence" ( Friends can get "influenced ? Looks to me more like Gangsta Influence, lol ) is so much slower than the influence process of those who influence their companions only so much that they become nothing else but neat slaves.

 

You see, my view on that differs drastically from your views. And that's why we're not compatible.

[Meraxos]

As to crafting - whilst the crafting isn't really player invested in terms of time and "hands on" 'ness ( making up words, why not heh ) as other games I feel it's more or less perfect for casual and full time players. Not that I like the extra changes they've made in the respect of mats and an extra crafting step but some other crafting games that have what could be deemed a more interactive or "fun" crafting process come across as rather elitist and really don't seem to offer an even playing field for all players unless they want to heavily invest themselves in the crafting "arts" etc.

I think that used to be true. But isn't after 4.0.

 

A leveling player can now get basically the same gear from running heroics while leveling as he can get from crafting. This is true all the way up level 56 when you can either craft 178 gear or get the same 178 gear from running a few of the easier heroics.

 

After level 56 there is essentially nothing for you to craft except at level 64 when everything requires drops from Heroic Flashpoints which is the casual player is not likely to ever do. So crafting tops at level 56 for the average player.

[Hluill]

I don't think you understand what psandak (and I) were discussing...

 

Clicking a few buttons to send companions crafting and then doing it again 10-15 minutes later isn't the same thing as minimizing the game window and right-clicking on a stack of companion gifts every 3.0 seconds (adjusted for alacrity) for hours.

 

The only difference I see between those two actions is how long the progress bar takes to fill.

 

Sure, I could be something else in game while my companion is crafting, but then that's not crafting.... And, if I am trying to make thirty components... ~sighs~

[Hluill]

Pretty sure you don't have to mindlessly give gifts to your companions ... you don't HAVE to have maximum influence etc. You could just play the game and get influence that way.

 

Basically ... no one is forcing you to do anything, influence is effectively optional.

 

As to crafting - whilst the crafting isn't really player invested in terms of time and "hands on" 'ness ( making up words, why not heh ) as other games I feel it's more or less perfect for casual and full time players. Not that I like the extra changes they've made in the respect of mats and an extra crafting step but some other crafting games that have what could be deemed a more interactive or "fun" crafting process come across as rather elitist and really don't seem to offer an even playing field for all players unless they want to heavily invest themselves in the crafting "arts" etc.

 

For example I always hear about SWG and basically you could dedicate your entire game time to being a crafter or something and that's what you would do? Maybe I'm wrong and that's not how it was but it sounds boring.

I prefer the casual background model we have now ( even if they did make it more annoying than before ) over something I have to invest too much effort into.

 

My 2 cents anyway.

 

Never played SWG, but I see your point about "elitest" crafters. They're almost as bad as the "elitest" endgamers! ~laughs~

 

In EQ2, crafting is almost as dynamic as combat, and as easy to level. I have found it pretty easy to have crafters leveled enough to gear my characters, maybe even easier.

 

In Vanguard, I found crafting to be more challenging than combat. I had a hard time trying to make good gear for my characters. And it involved a lot of grinding... But, I still enjoyed it and spent a great deal of time crafting.

 

This is why the "improvement" of 4.0 frustrates me. Bioware decided to make crafting more involved. No longer am just tracking amounts of materials, but now I have to track amounts and types of components every time I want to gear up a character. They added a step that doesn't add any meaning to the process.

[eartharioch]

This is why the "improvement" of 4.0 frustrates me. Bioware decided to make crafting more involved. No longer am just tracking amounts of materials, but now I have to track amounts and types of components every time I want to gear up a character. They added a step that doesn't add any meaning to the process.

 

Just because you don't know what it means doesn't mean that it doesn't have a meaning. BW did a pretty bad job of explaining it, but when you consider their stated goal of making it easier to start crafting, it makes sense.

[Jedi_riches]

I find the changes strange, I tried levelling a cybertech and I went from level 1 - 101 within half an hour just creating the desh cyber component which takes like 20 seconds each.

[eartharioch]

I find the changes strange, I tried levelling a cybertech and I went from level 1 - 101 within half an hour just creating the desh cyber component which takes like 20 seconds each.

 

You can get all the way to 500 just by crafting components (Desh ones will eventually stop granting skill points, so you'll have to buy the schematics for the higher grades and start crafting them, but it is very cheap and fast compared to pre-4.0).

[Jorgee]

I'm not entirely sold on it either. They took enhancements away from one of my characters and I had to buy all new schematics for enhancements on another. It kind of feels like I'm paying for them all over again, not too mention buying the skills to combine components. I'm sure they're better schematics and that there are archived schems present as well, but I'm still out quite a bit of credits trying to play "catch-up" with the changes.

[Hluill]

Just because you don't know what it means doesn't mean that it doesn't have a meaning. BW did a pretty bad job of explaining it, but when you consider their stated goal of making it easier to start crafting, it makes sense.

 

Huh? No, it still doesn't make sense to me...

 

Should I pretend I am in Literature class again, so we can discuss meaning?

 

What's easier? Components are faster to make, sure. So, instead of grinding out wrist armor, grind out components...

 

Me, I want to make something I can equip and use and improve my gameplay. I think it's harder for lower levels with one companion. Instead of telling them to make something arguably useful and logging, I have to make the components first, then tell them to make something arguably useful and log.

[eartharioch]

Huh? No, it still doesn't make sense to me...

 

Should I pretend I am in Literature class again, so we can discuss meaning?

 

What's easier? Components are faster to make, sure. So, instead of grinding out wrist armor, grind out components...

 

Me, I want to make something I can equip and use and improve my gameplay. I think it's harder for lower levels with one companion. Instead of telling them to make something arguably useful and logging, I have to make the components first, then tell them to make something arguably useful and log.

 

I've explained much of it in previous threads, but to address your specific concerns:

 

o Component schematics improve skill much longer than ptr-KotFe items. The dot color next to an item tells you how many skill points you will get for an item: 2 for orange, 1-2 for yellow, and 0 for gray (I don't remember if green is always 1 or 0-1).

 

Pre-KotFE, many of these items were unpredictable and only gave skill points over a small skill point range, meaning more frequent trips to the to trainer to get new schematics. Furthermore, skills weren't consistent. Some skills required you to craft blue items (Re'd or from non-trainer schematic drops) to advance the skills at some point. In KotFE, you *can* go from 1-500 just using 7 or eight schematics, which is much less than before.

 

o Removal (and easing) of RNG effects. Yes, BW could have just made items give skill points for larger ranges, but (pre-KotFE), the materials themselves were harder to collect (the vast majority of the time requiring more waiting time and logins than the component system). If you [character leveled] too fast, you had to choose between going to planets where you could get XP or planets where you could the mats to [make items to] get Skill Points.

 

Or, you could run missions, but you faced RNG in which missions you could run (in KotFE all missions are always available) and results (pre-KotFE, some mat grades had multiple return types, so you wouldn't necessarily get what you needed for the schematic you wanted to craft. This frustrated a *lot* of people (and removing the RNG from the available missions was probably THE most requested improvement to the system for the last few years).

 

So, yes, components add *some* complexity to the system, but (IMO) nowhere near as much as was removed. The current system (as a whole) allows crafters to get to skill cap (500) much faster and much more consistently than before. Mission running times are much lower then before, companion bonuses (to crit and speed) are no longer dependent on class and crew skill selected (and with the new influence system are easier and cheaper to get to pre-KotFE levels.

 

And finally: items start at blue (better than vendor and world drop greens) and RE directly into the appropriate purple (with a 60% chance) as opposed to starting from green with a 20% chance. This alone makes the component system faster and more reliable. Pre-KotFE many types of items had three possible blues, and each blue had three to five possible purples (at 20%, remember), which means that (even at the original lower leveling speed) it was very difficult for a leveling character to craft the best items for that character.

 

Considering the component system as the price we paid for all of the other improvements, I know of one person who would trade all of them to get rid of the component system.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Considering the component system as the price we paid for all of the other improvements, I know of one person who would trade all of them to get rid of the component system.

 

Probably me but then I wouldn't because I prefer things this way for the ease in which slicing credits can be made now.

 

They made crafting far too tedious to manage for me compared to how it was and the other changes have hit profits hard ( yes you can make profits and decent ones too but you've got to watch the market a lot more and the nicely profitable items are much less than before ) so I prefer to not waste the time and effort and enjoy the profit that increased slicing mats gives.

 

It would be interesting to see a time vs profit analysis done some time but I'm yet to see one. That is to say time spent of a dedicated crafter and how many toons they use to generate X profit vs say someone using purely slicing for rich/bountiful missions using the same amount of time spent over the same amount of toons.

By time I mean the amount of physical time it takes you to setup all your processes each day in the act of crafting ( including buying mats, gathering mats, consolidating mats, secondary crafting processes, etc. etc. ) vs the maount of physical time it takes me to login to my toons and send them out on slicing missions.

 

So if you spent say 1 hour a day to do 1 round of crafting over X toons then to compare I might be able to do 5 rounds of slicing missions ( physical time, not the mission/crafting time ).

 

It's a bit of comparing apples to oranges as ideally at some point you need to take into consideration play style, how often a person logs in and then from there start to include the amount of time in crafting/missions outside of the physical act of doing the actions but I think the results would be rather interesting.

[eartharioch]

Probably me but then I wouldn't because I prefer things this way for the ease in which slicing credits can be made now.

Yeah, I was referring to you

 

They made crafting far too tedious to manage for me compared to how it was and the other changes have hit profits hard ( yes you can make profits and decent ones too but you've got to watch the market a lot more and the nicely profitable items are much less than before ) so I prefer to not waste the time and effort and enjoy the profit that increased slicing mats gives.

Slicing mats do very well While I barely notice the component system, I do agree that some of the other changes (slicing mats for everything and no craftable 208 modifications or relics) have seriously dampened the market in general. Hopefully some of these changes will turn out to be oversights (some have been), but I brought up all of these points in their original blog post, so I'm not too hopeful.

 

That said, Artifice was (despite what you think) is still going strong, and I don't monitor the market (I assume you are referring to having to constantly relist augments and kits due to undercutting -- I just don't play that game).

 

It would be interesting to see a time vs profit analysis done some time but I'm yet to see one. That is to say time spent of a dedicated crafter and how many toons they use to generate X profit vs say someone using purely slicing for rich/bountiful missions using the same amount of time spent over the same amount of toons.

By time I mean the amount of physical time it takes you to setup all your processes each day in the act of crafting ( including buying mats, gathering mats, consolidating mats, secondary crafting processes, etc. etc. ) vs the maount of physical time it takes me to login to my toons and send them out on slicing missions.

 

So if you spent say 1 hour a day to do 1 round of crafting over X toons then to compare I might be able to do 5 rounds of slicing missions ( physical time, not the mission/crafting time ).

 

It's a bit of comparing apples to oranges as ideally at some point you need to take into consideration play style, how often a person logs in and then from there start to include the amount of time in crafting/missions outside of the physical act of doing the actions but I think the results would be rather interesting.

 

I do about 3 logins/day on my primary artificer, 1/day on my secondary artificer, and 1 every other day on my CT...other than that it's pretty random (i.e., much less than that, and based on what mats I need, and then if they have a crafting skill, I might even use it).

 

I usually use 1-2 crafters on my main artificer (or CT), the rest are components or Slicing missions (usually 3-4).

 

I make well over 1M /day with this setup.

 

Edit: That's "crafting" logins -- I do other things with my chars depending on guild run needs and whatever solo content I feel like, and I don't craft on every login.

Edited November 24, 2015 by eartharioch

[MeNaCe-NZ]

That said, Artifice was (despite what you think) is still going strong, and I don't monitor the market (I assume you are referring to having to constantly relist augments and kits due to undercutting -- I just don't play that game).

 

So it should still be with the positive dye material change ( no purples ), still able to RE schems you don't have for crystals ( based on feedback in another thread ) and the now much cheaper prefab and war supply crafting it's a fairly nice cash earner I'm sure.

 

I've never really bothered with augments and the likes, always found Artifice more profitable over all despite what others would tout to the contrary ( a flooded market really tends to reduce profitability and once 4.0's new augments die down it will be back to how it was I'm sure ).

 

I do about 3 logins/day on my primary artificer, 1/day on my secondary artificer, and 1 every other day on my CT...other than that it's pretty random (i.e., much less than that, and based on what mats I need, and then if they have a crafting skill, I might even use it).

 

I usually use 1-2 crafters on my main artificer (or CT), the rest are components or Slicing missions (usually 3-4).

 

I make well over 1M /day with this setup.

 

Edit: That's "crafting" logins -- I do other things with my chars depending on guild run needs and whatever solo content I feel like, and I don't craft on every login.

 

How long per login though compared to if you were only sending them out on slicing missions for example? That includes any legacy storage juggling etc.

Also listing non stackable items is a hindrance over stackable items in terms of time as well. i.e. one stack of AC's is 1 highly profitable item to monitor ( or just let expire if it doesn't sell ) vs a heck of a lot of auctions to monitor and/or let fail and relist if you get undercut to get the same profit - yet another factor to consider.

Of course prefabs and war supplies stack ( or the deocs you buy with prefabs ) so that's a bonus.

 

It never ceases to amaze me that I can buy a deco with a 30K prefab and sell it for 70K the same day even to this day. Heck I can stack them in lots of 5 and they still sell.

You can of course do that without using crew skills but it's more profitable with Biochem/Artifice making the prefabs yourself ... made me wonder if this was the money4nothing area you were alluding to with CT as I don't have one and I've not really used those industrial prefabs before ( assuming that's what they make from memory ).

 

What is even more amazing is I've mentioned this a few times now on the sly over the past year or so and still no one has seemed to pick up on it or at least gone "wow that's amazing, easiest profit in the game from crew skills".

 

Oh well, easy money for anyone paying attention and a very unflooded market.

 

To anyone wondering why I don't personally do it all the time - I only have 300 auction slots and I've got over 2000 CM items that never really reduces as I keep replenishing stock and I make a much grander fortune playing that market but that's not for everyone to do and can get a bit tedious and you really need to know what sell for what ( by gaining experience doing it over time ).

[higginsjf]

One big thing I am not happy with is the armor making crew skills both weaving and armor mech. Back before the stat chances they both had dps/tank and now all I see is light and tank for juggs and on the other med armor is more agent and bh but tank gear. And by time your done farming the mats to make the mods your out leveled them where you could make the blue/plum set and be good for time. Now that the vendor com mods are green there lower stats then the blue gear but its tank and no dps if your class is a Marr all you can make id the light or jugg set.Think some one missed the dps gear. Worst is if your doing this on a new toon its all you got to go with

[Hluill]

So, yes, components add *some* complexity to the system, but (IMO) nowhere near as much as was removed. .

 

So it's an all or nothing trade? Is leveling faster really an improvement? Is changing a static value on the research die-roll?

 

I think many of the changes they made they needed to make: straightening out the different materials on the different tiers, labeling those tiers and materials properly, opening up crew-mission availabilities and reducing timers... I see those changes as correcting mistakes.

 

As a click-and-wait system, it was crappy. Thing was, I could click and log out so all those timers and RNGs were meaningless. Now I have to make components, all those timers suck, even if they are shorter. I am smart enough to stockpile components, really, I am. But that's another inventory space and it's still another click-and-wait in a click-and-wait system. I don't see why people keep debating me on that point...

 

Some of the other "improvements" I could debate. I kinda shrug at them myself. Bioware basically nerfed my max-affection companions, threw away half my researched blue and purple schematics, asked me to buy over a hundred-thousand-credits worth of new schematics, made all the droid and companion gear I crafted junk, confused mod stats even further. As icing on the cake, they add an additional step to their crafting system so the one thing that made it tolerable: click and log out, is now gone.

 

yeah, keep selling these improvements.

[Hluill]

One big thing I am not happy with is the armor making crew skills both weaving and armor mech. Back before the stat chances they both had dps/tank and now all I see is light and tank for juggs and on the other med armor is more agent and bh but tank gear. And by time your done farming the mats to make the mods your out leveled them where you could make the blue/plum set and be good for time. Now that the vendor com mods are green there lower stats then the blue gear but its tank and no dps if your class is a Marr all you can make id the light or jugg set.Think some one missed the dps gear. Worst is if your doing this on a new toon its all you got to go with

 

It is definitely frustrating.

 

I have not spent a lot of time on it, but the stat distribution among the mods has changed drastically. And some set ups are no longer available. And in some cases, it is not a simplification. I've always been a fan of hybrid builds, and now that seems more complicated. But a lot of games punish hybrids, so i am used to it.

 

I find it disconcerting that you're having trouble with a DPS set up.