Slicing post-nerf, please look at the numbers BW

[EvanSnowWolf]

Yes. Yes I do because that's how it should be. Players need to go through that period of being completely broke if they're expected to compete in the end game.

 

Uh... what? Why should it be that way? Because YOU say so? Why do I NEED to be broke, and what does that have to do with end game?

[imabeasto]

Yes. Yes I do because that's how it should be. Players need to go through that period of being completely broke if they're expected to compete in the end game.

 

that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

[Superstawarsfan]

What I like is that Bioware decided that they would do something nice and put that in the patch notes after they go live. They didn't put that in the recent patch notes that I saw when the servers went down. Yes I knew there was probably going to be a nerf. Now Bioware is decides to just put stuff in the patch notes that no body is told about until its live. Thanks for lying to us Bioware. Great game though aside from that.

[mrmaska]

This is not a game changing nerf. It effected a non-crafting crew skill, which is as far from being game changing as you can be. Get over it; besides, I make plenty of credits running TH missions, slicing is not the only gathering profession that netted lockboxes.

 

says you, you must not know everyone has a different temperment level:/

Edited December 28, 2011 by mrmaska

[Zennshi]

Yes. Yes I do because that's how it should be. Players need to go through that period of being completely broke if they're expected to compete in the end game.

 

/facepalm

I really wish the faux elitist nerds would shut up about "the end game".

 

Its a game. You play for fun. If you like being broke, and to be screwed early on and drive people off with the stupid credit curve, then you need to make your own game where the 10 of you can suffer and wallow by yourselves.

[Kwyn]

Done with slicing. I didn't even make a lot, but it at least gave me something to do with my companions. Now it's just a money sink that doesn't yield gear or useful items.

 

For all those who complained that slicing was a way to make credits for doing nothing, now the reverse is true. It's essentially a crewskill that deducts credits from your wallet as soon as you click the button but your companion never returns with anything worthwhilel. You are spending credits with *zero* return. Might as well be a vendor who sells you a "ball of lint" for 400 credits each time you click on him.

 

It also negatively impacts the functionality of companions

 

Don't use companions for flashpoints

Don't use companions for operations

Don't use companions in warzones

Don't use companions for slicing

Don't like to slave over the GTN, so companions for other crew skills is pointless

 

Looks like there's not much to do with companions once you're done leveling and now, for many of us, there's nothing to do with your crew skill tab.

 

What started as a mildly innovative attempt to lure non-crafters into using the craft system ended up in abject failure. Nice goin'.

[Contumelious]

Was wondering if I wanted to keep slicing or not... I never really took any notice of how much I was making with it...with the nerf I thought I would quickly check how much I do actually make.

This is a rough calculation of what I made...

Location Taris, level 37, population 25 people in zone and my slicing is at 400.

I started by sending Mako on A test of intelligence (wealthy 320) a wealthy mission. While she was on this mission I sent out out the other 2 companions doing slicing missions.. didn't take not of time but roughly 1 3/4 hrs. playtime. During this time I did 4 missions and 2 bonus missions.. not skipping any movies. Playing how I would normally play.. if I saw a resource scavenging and slicing on my radar I would head towards it kill any mobs around and collect...

here's the figures I came back with.

Missions:

The Fly on the Wall (Rich class 5) x2 returns = +418, +256 = 674 credits

Data Race (abundant class 6) x2 returns= + 654, -36 = 618 credits

Taking Back Control (Rich class 5) x2 returns = -48, +1900, +1 scavenging mission (320), 1852 credits

 

Boxes picked up during while travelling to missions and during bonuses.. didn't pick any up in instance but the instances where short.

 

Class 3 boxes x8 = +473,+595,+588,+676,+436,+698,+457,+875 = 4798 credits

Class 4 boxes x12 = +685,+765,+746,+1125,+1109,+1127,+736,+949,+552,+809,+908,+1192 = 11611 credits

When Mako came back after elite mission she made 32 credits and a Advance redoubt +22 aim.

 

So after 2 and a bit play time slicing made me:-

money from missions = 3,173 credits

Money from boxes in world = 16377 credits

Total from slicing = 19550 credits

1 scavenging mission and a

Advance redoubt +22 aim

 

Conclusion money from missions is next to nothing.. having 25 people in zone was a boon as no one was competing for credit boxes, I think I will stick with Slicing.

 

I doubt any of the whiners here will listen.

 

I have played dota-like(original dota, LoL and SotIS) games at high level. Every time something was nerfed, everyone would stop using it, as it was no longer "viable", you know?

Just like whenever something was buffed, everyone would start using it.

 

This is a classic example.

 

All of these people "main" slicing, and they just saw it got a "nerf" but fail to see the bigger picture.

 

Hell, if your numbers are accurate, then slicing is still insanely overpowered in the regard that it gives you tons of credits while all other crewskills are huge credits sinks.

[TapVallian]

Just stopped by to call you a retard.

 

The money you get for selling mats and mission skills comes from Slicers.

 

The mats, mission skills, gear, consumables, etc etc ETC that Slicers spend the money you're earning comes from... who again?

 

Anyone who objects to Slicing is a moron.

 

This

 

 

Without the income from slicing, those mats aren't going to be flying off the GTN

 

Neither will your crafted items you worked so hard and spent so much to be able to make.

 

Neither will your loot items you try to sell on the GTN.

 

 

People have to have money to spend money. Sure things will still sell, but at a much lower and slower rate. People can level up with quest reward and loot drop gear so they don't need to spend their money on your crafted gear and loot. They'll now need it for the NPC money sinks like speeders and speeder training and the ever increasing cost of training skills.

 

Slicing seemed like a lot of income at low levels, but it makes the same at 50 as it did at 15-20, only everything else has gone up exponentially at 50.

 

I'm surprised Bioware didn't just let it ride until more people reach end game so the whiners could see for themselves that its not great then.

[Dubhsidhe]

Yes. Yes I do because that's how it should be. Players need to go through that period of being completely broke if they're expected to compete in the end game.

 

 

So the hell with the casual player, who can't do big raids as they work too much or have a family? After all the game should be approached like a JOB? Too many of the people demanding the elimination of slicing are doing a great job of recreating WOW here. If that's your goal just quit now. As in my previous post there are a LARGE part of the community who do NOT want to repeat the trainwreck of an experience that WOW became.

[Elear]

Killed elite mob blocking me from accesing slicing node.

Got more credits from him than from lockbox.

Nice.

[evilwondertwin]

They over nerfed slicing - it's practically useless now. 90% of every attempt at rich lockbox yields a loss of money. Example: Rich level/grade 2 lockbox that cost roughly 535 credits now provdes anywhere from 300-500 credits. So with a loss of money in the end, and augments for slicing are very underwhelming in general - slicing is now a worthless skill.

[Ikox]

Game economics actually follow economic theory fairly accurately. To put it into perspective, slicing was raw income without producing anything of value other than capital (with rare exceptions when it would drop a schematic or mission discovery). In developed economies this is known as capital gains. The reason for the nerf was that we saw inflation go through the roof (which is what happens when capital out values goods produced). The effect of the nerf (after things settle down) will be that inflation will decrease (people will think twice before dropping 10K on something, but will purchase the same item for 1K for example) so the amount of capital in the economy will go down.

 

This is not a bad thing in itself but economics is complicated. There is another factor, which will cause some problems. If the fixed cost of production (the amount of money it costs for gathering missions of components for blue and purple items) remains the same, plus the taxes (the cost to train skills / buy things from game vendors) also remain the same, people will be less inclined to invest in crafting (they will need their money for important things like training skills or maybe the occasional purchase of a speeder), which will cause what basically is a recession and a lower GINI Coefficient (value of income distribution – more poor people and less wealthy ones but the wealthy will be much wealthier).

 

Economic theory predicts that we will see more people willing to accept wearing slightly worse gear they get from quests, versus purchasing the blue enhancement just about every level, which will drive the production of the blue enhancements even further down, which will lower income for those crafters, make the few items produced by those who can afford to manufacture them more expensive, and so on.

 

One way to avoid that will be for Bioware (which is the government entity in this context) to either lower taxes or to come up with some sort of a subsidy (which is what Franklin D. Roosevelt had to do following the Great Depression) to allow those with little capital to survive. This is actually very similar with what we are dealing with in the real world, where we saw a “booming” economy of capital gains and double digit inflation of the 1980s, followed by policies in the 1990s in an effort to correct that, and the global recession which has hit all of us in the late 2000s. While people might not like this and flame on it - economics is economics, whether you are dealing in Dollars, Euros, Yen or virtual currency. While I am not sure that we will see direct welfare (something like every player sitting below 20K in their bank receiving a game email with 10K credits) we have seen subsidies in other games through various dynamics (increase in legendary item drop rates in LOTRO and world node frequencies; grind obtainable purple gear in WOW; etc.).

 

I am sure we will see either game wide subsidies in SWTOR to offset the economic effect of this nerf if it becomes needed, or even some subsidies for slicers like an increase in world slicing nodes. Unfortunately subsidies cause other problems (especially the displeasure of the rich, which could have obtained those things without the welfare), so it becomes a rather interesting balancing act. There is an old joke. What is the difference between an economist and a used car sales man? The used car sales man knows when he is lying.

 

While I don’t think I will ever hear a response from the devs on this somewhat philosophical topic, I would love to find out if there was some internal meeting or discussion at Bioware, where someone pulled out their old college economics text book when considering how to address the issue of slicing (like I had to do when thinking about this) and what effect this will have on the game. I actually love this stuff so while I did lose some of my income I look forward to figuring out how to make what we have work. More of concern to me is the mechanics behind the nerf and how they will affect other gathering skills.

 

For all gathering professions, the yield was an important factor on the quality and quantity of the return. This seems to now be broken at least for slicing. I am not sure about other skills at this point but am concerned about them. What I am seeing consistently is that the Yield (Moderate, Abundant, Bountiful, Rich, Prosperous and Wealthy), is no longer appears correlated to the return in either the amount of credits you receive from the box, nor the schematic / mission discovery. I have started doing some economic modeling and it looks like the amount of yield is no longer reflected by what type of mission you run. I could be wrong but I am not quite seeing the algorithm behind the returns for slicing, which are very apparent for other crafting professions. Basically - right now my modeling is based on a very small sample (34 missions from 3 toons) and there could be some variance based on the difference in companions, the level of the experience from the mission (some are grey, green, yellow, orange), the actual level of the skill (varied from 400 to 150) and maybe some other X factor (that I am failing to consider) but here is how it is shaking out so far. Overall PROFIT 5.69% (1,575 credits); which breaks up:

 

(a) Rich Missions LOSS 1.34% (-185 credits)

(b) Abundant Missions PROFIT 8.78% (934 credits)

© Moderate Missions PROFIT 25.45%(826 credits).

 

By the way, the Rich and Abundant Missions produced NO schematics or mission discoveries, while the Moderate Class 2 missions cited above produced two.

 

Over the next couple of weeks I will continue modeling this with additional data providing clarity as far as the some of the variances that I described, but I would be curious to hear from the devs if in their opinion the yield mechanics are performing as designed or if there seems to be some flaw in game logic.

 

Good read, apparently you know alot more about business economy than anyone at bioware will ever know.

 

+1

[Xhino]

You know what I'm actually wondering.. For the people who say we would need to get off our lazy asses and explore the world for nodes, but then why in the hell has Bioware given me the option to send my companions in search for lockboxes? I'm only about 80 in slicing and with have sent my companion about 8 times away now, only to once gain a profit of 29 credits. I mean, it's called Crew Skills, so when I also saw the trailer, I was personally thinking about making my companions slaves and let them work for me all day while I continue to sit on my lazy ***.

[Twilightedge]

You aren't quoting true profit, are you? Are you deducting what each mission costs you before you total up?

Mission return - cost of mission. did each calulation seperate.

i.e.

1. Taking back Control Class 5 30 min cost 2,000 returned 1952 = -48

2. Taking back Control Class 5 36 min cost 2025 returned 3925 = +1900

[Anzel]

Really? With all of the bugs in this game you felt that the first order of business was to produce a NERF? There weren't more pressing matters? That was on the top of your list?

 

You couldn't find a way to INCREASE other aspects of the game? You felt that the only way to "balance" the game was by taking something away? There was no other way?

 

Furthermore, there was no explanation at all. You just simply NERFED the game without quantifying anything... with out explaining anything. First reaction was NERF.

 

The ONE YEAR PLUS testing cycle with multiple concurrent testing groups that spanned thousands and thousands and thousands of players wasn't enough to figure this out?

 

Figure out a better way to "balance" the game without the NERF bat or suffer the same fate as all of those other games that thought it was a good idea. I suffered through the "Combat Upgrade" and the "New Game Enhancements" once. If this is how you manage the game then expect the vast majority of your players to migrate to the next nameless MMO.

[OklahomaSooner]

Slicing is absolutely useless right now. I feared this the moment I picked up slicing and noticed how many credits I was getting proportional to the amount of effort I used in getting said currency.

 

I have been running slicing missions all day, well over a dozen of max level 50 ones (My character is level 26, I have around 345 slicing) and I have lost money. Half the time you lose money just in general, others your mission just outright fails, and then sometimes you get a profit of not very much unless you get a critical proc.

 

I realized that it needed a nerf, but not as drastic as this.

 

Cut the reduction that was implemented in this patch in half, and I think it will be fine. I've seen 50% thrown around, which seems somewhat accurate, so a 25% or 20% reduction would be a good place to start.

[Zennshi]

This is not a game changing nerf. It effected a non-crafting crew skill, which is as far from being game changing as you can be. Get over it; besides, I make plenty of credits running TH missions, slicing is not the only gathering profession that netted lockboxes./

 

You are right, because the crafting skills don't do anything at all anyway.

 

Hey I have a THer too, and guess what those lockboxes don't have in them? Credits.

 

It isn't the same skill, stop making up lies to justify this nerf.

[Slurmez]

this was a monumentally stupid change, I get that its obvious way to make credits but the theory is sound, slicers are not self sufficient with crafting so have to buy mats which filters through the economy.

 

They gaining too much and need to be slowed down, thats cool, but to leave the cost of the boxes where they were and slash the returns to nothingness? Its rendered slicing irrelevent

[VioletZero]

Are you serious? Everything you have said in this post is rationalizing.

 

"Well I like to be broke, so you should like it too"

 

So because you feel that is how it should be, that is how it should be? Aren't you a bit full of yourself?

 

Because I didn't think people just wanted handouts.

 

Because that's pretty much what lockbox missions were. It was just the game giving them money for doing absolutely nothing.

[Contumelious]

Slicing is absolutely useless right now. I feared this the moment I picked up slicing and noticed how many credits I was getting proportional to the amount of effort I used in getting said currency.

 

I have been running slicing missions all day, well over a dozen of max level 50 ones (My character is level 26, I have around 345 slicing) and I have lost money. Half the time you lose money just in general, others your mission just outright fails, and then sometimes you get a profit of not very much unless you get a critical proc.

 

I realized that it needed a nerf, but not as drastic as this.

 

Cut the reduction that was implemented in this patch in half, and I think it will be fine. I've seen 50% thrown around, which seems somewhat accurate, so a 25% or 20% reduction would be a good place to start.

 

Are you insane?

 

Running level 50 missions as level 26 character.

 

Do you not see the innate problem?

 

Nobody else can(could) power-level their skill for no cost and/or profit.

 

In fact...

 

Everyone else lose much, much, much more than you, sending their companions away on missions.

[EvanSnowWolf]

Because I didn't think people just wanted handouts.

 

Because that's pretty much what lockbox missions were. It was just the game giving them money for doing absolutely nothing.

 

Violetzero you need to just stop talking. Seriously. I try and take your words as just an opinion that is different from mine... but at this point you are borderline trolling and showing just how badly you are the elitist folk we fled WoW from when we came here.

 

Go away, and take your earning of credits in the snow, uphill, both ways, with you.

[Mannic]

Are you insane?

 

Running level 50 missions as level 26 character.

 

Do you not see the innate problem?

 

Nobody else can(could) power-level their skill for no cost and/or profit.

 

In fact...

 

Everyone else lose much, much, much more than you, sending their companions away on missions.

 

This is why I'm laughing at all the tears on this thread. These slicers obviously have no CLUE how difficult it is to even break even with any real crafting profession.

 

If it's so easy, then why don't they all just take up a crafting profession and they can make millions.

 

Wait... the answer is, they know it's not that easy, and now that the golden goose has been killed they are shedding rivers of tears because they no longer have the unfair advantage they had before. People always complain the most bitterly when their overpowered abilities get nerfed back into balance. It's just like when rogues lost their ability to stun-lock everyone to death every time they fought in WoW... you should have seen the tearful armageddon. But most of us who were rogues knew we were getting over on the game, that it was too easy, and the system was flawed.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Mannic

[Zennshi]

I doubt any of the whiners here will listen.

 

I have played dota-like(original dota, LoL and SotIS) games at high level. Every time something was nerfed, everyone would stop using it, as it was no longer "viable", you know?

Just like whenever something was buffed, everyone would start using it.

 

This is a classic example.

 

All of these people "main" slicing, and they just saw it got a "nerf" but fail to see the bigger picture.

 

Hell, if your numbers are accurate, then slicing is still insanely overpowered in the regard that it gives you tons of credits while all other crewskills are huge credits sinks.

 

 

Okay, let me throw this out there for everyone now...

 

 

STOP CALLING THE OTHER

GATHERING PROFESSIONS

CREDIT SINKS

 

 

You have the ability to sell it and it is YOUR fault if you don't. So in the words of many anti-slicers. STOP BEING LAZY AND WORK FOR YOUR CREDITS.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Zennshi

[aClue]

Because I didn't think people just wanted handouts.

 

Because that's pretty much what lockbox missions were. It was just the game giving them money for doing absolutely nothing.

 

Let me ask you a question... What is the purpose of money? It isn't to hoard it just to claim that I have the most money around. It's there to BUY things. Now obviously you like being broke and you like doing the normal crafting. That's fine and dandy.

 

But since I work about 10-11 hrs/day, 6 days a week...I slice. So that way I can have expendable income to BUY the blue, purple, and orange crap you ARE or WILL BE peddling on GTN and keep pace with the rest of the game. Sure there will be some moneygrubbing bastards out there, but who cares?? It all increases the overall liquidity of the economy and if people have more money, everyone is buying and selling and crafting and moving and shaking!

 

Your logic is absolutely dumbfounding. I want to smash my face into the monitor by reading what you type.

 

And the fact that others are calling the other crafting professions money sinks is ludicrous.

 

Credits are worth credits; 1 to 1.

An item is worth EXPONENTIALLY more based on the rarity, usefulness, etc. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. You can sell it, you can use it, you can wipe your *** with it. It doesn't matter what you do with it. But HOW DARE YOU say that it's a credit sink!

 

Craft item A, see what item A's overall cost to produce was, see what market value of item A is, and either match market value or price lower than competitors while still marginalizing a profit aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand: YOU WIN! YOU MAKE MONEY! CONGRATS! THAT'S A BUSINESS!

 

Christ, if a skill like Slicing was implemented in Ultima Online back when I was playing like a screensucking nerd, the game would have been SO much more fun. The more money there is in existence in a game-world like this, the better the play and overall experience is.

 

It's not a real-world reflection of economics because, unlike the real world, we have a direct-line to God (i.e. the devs) and they will make changes to the game as they see fit to make it enjoyable. Except in this case. By destroying slicing.

 

Put it back.

Edited December 28, 2011 by aClue

[Tholena]

Just want to throw this thread in here. A group is trying to get real data on slicing:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=72970