Slicing post-nerf, please look at the numbers BW

[Kuuraien]

Slicing makes the economy go around, im not talking about personal gain, you see credits are spent on repairs, the rest goes to supplies and GTM trades, but GTM trades mean it goes to another person so that money isnt really spent, so slicing is the backbone of the game's economy, patching the hole that is repairing and keeping the gears greased, loots etc dont give near enough cash to pay off for repairs, and crafting money comes from people who buy crafted goods with slicing money, WHO IN FACT LOOSE MONEY, people who craft make more money off slicers than slicers make with slicing.

 

Slicing isnt a way to make as many credits as possible, its a way to make fast credits without having to resort into crafting, its an alternative for people who dont like crafting, and they in turn help the economy go around. Unless you understand such an easy concept BW you are dooming us all, beta and launch was fine, why do you have to keep nerfing slicing? are the people who are nerfing slicing not the same who designed it??? if so please next time before you nerf something ask and get informed why it was released as is and not nerfed or done differently, before you turn into nerfing, nerfing is serious bussiness, it hurts the play-ability of games when you dont know what you are doing.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Kuuraien

[wildknight]

My question is: Should I still send my guys out to slice in my downtime? If I'm throwing money away, then whats he point?

 

right now, on my server at least, if you have underworld trading, you will be making lots more money than slicing (even pre nerf) could make.

 

now this will probably change here soon now that people are dropping slicing for ut, but we will see.

[Kryptorchid]

The biggest issue is BioWare designed a "gathering" skill, that behaved more like a mission skill, that yielded credits instead of a resource, and was set up to make a direct profit, when all the other gathering/mission skills are setup to make indirect profit via the in-game market.

 

Nerfing Slicing should never have happened--it should have been completely reworked to be a true gathering profession. Given the situation we are in, this is my suggestion:

 

1. Slicing no longer yields credits from world lockboxes--now it yields random Bioanalysis, Scavenging, and Archaeology crafting materials. Credits only come from gathering crits.

2. Slicing missions no longer yield credits from lockboxes--now they yield UWT, Diplomacy, Treasure Hunting, and Investigation materials. The Slicer cannot choose what material the lockboxes yield, it is random within the lockbox missions.

3. Lockbox mission crits return a blue/orange schematic for the profession the material is for (TH mat = Artifice schematic) or Crew Mission.

4. All world gathering nodes have a chance of critting and supplying the gatherer with credits. This credit yield should be similar to current slicing world node yields on

5. Make PvP areas have high-yield, high-crit chance nodes for all gathering skills.

6. Link all GTN locations across each faction. Possibly even introduce cross-faction GTN locations on the Fleet Stations.

7. Lower all Mission Skill costs by 40%.

[Arconon]

A lot of people are mentioning losses. I am literally not seeing any. I'm not getting AS MUCH credits, but I'm not losing any. Do people even know what they're doing? Choose the right missions. It's not that hard.

 

I was just like you earlier today:

tiny profits but profits nevertheless....

until

I got one mission after the other with losses (same missions of course) - bad luck? maybe.

But at that point I stopped sending my companions on slicing missions. I mean what's the point?

 

Also, I haven't received a single mission/crafting schematic since this patch has been out (in over 30 rich yield missions) bad luck? maybe......

[covu]

Please look at the numbers now Bioware.

I am not jumping up and down saying "PUT IT BACK". I am saying, however, that now it loses money.

 

Why should I pay 1400 credits on a C6 lockbox search for a box that returns 1000 credits?

Why should I pay 1900 credits for a high reward C5 lockbox that returns 1400 credits?

Remember your design goals BW, slicing is a mission skill for non-crafters. It is a way for them to utilize the crew skills to make money or get gear without entering the crafting world. This skill is no longer profitable as a mission skill.

 

Please consider adjusting it so the profit margin is smaller, not a complete loss now.

 

Please give BW some constructive forum posts on this topic, thank you.

 

Yes I agree the nerf is overkill

 

Okay, I think a 50% reduction was way to much... 20-25% would be reasonable but this is way to much... Not only do you lose money sending your companion out but you still have the chance to fail so then that money is entirely lost. Guess slicing is now a money pit, almost makes sense!

 

This^

A nerf was needed, just not as hard as Bioware just did

[Kashaan]

Because vendoring resources proves profitable? We are talking about obtaining very small amounts of materials vs hundreds of credits. When clicking a node for a material, the average yield is 2-3 materials. When sending a companion out, the average yield is 8-10. For the amount of time it takes them, and the little return, that in itself is a loss. Then to say you could vendor it for money? Even on the GTN, materials are selling for 15-22ish credits a unit on my server.

 

For a player that has no desire to either craft or gather materials to sell to others, slicing is still the most profitable choice. They can forgo sending companions out on missions and click nodes in game for extra money as they run across them. Should a person wish to play around with making/selling, then they can start to look into augments and mission quests.

 

 

I really wish pro-nerfers would stop with this nonsense.

 

Yes, Slicing gets you quick credits early on. However, pre-nuke(nerf) they were capped on how much could be made per minute once you got to max skill. Actually, once you got L5 boxes, that was the best profit.

 

Crafting, on the other hand, while being a time sink early on, has the potential to net MUCH MORE profit than Slicing. Once your crafting skill is maxed, you can sell goods for much more than Slicers could have made.

 

Also very important: Crafting is a TIME sink, not a money sink. You don't have a spend a dime to get your crafting to max level. Those of you who are are "doing it wrong" as they say.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Kashaan

[Hidalgo]

Also very important: Crafting is a TIME sink, not a money sink. You don't have a spend a dime to get your crafting to max level. Those of you who are are "doing it wrong" as they say.

 

this this this this this

 

people never seem to understand this.

[Kuuraien]

Krypto you know you are nuts dont you?

 

Where do you think the money you use for repairs comes from?

 

crafting right? but where do people get the money to buy your crafting items, either from selling their own crafting items or from slicing, but behind those who buy your craft items with craft money, i will guarantee 100% that the people buying from them are slicers, so even the people who craft and buy your crafts, are being financed by slicers.

 

Loot money is poor, you could get a billion grey/white items and they would still only yield 5K after a full day of farming, all the money that flows tru the GTM is a by-product of slicing, if you kill slicing you are killing the market, prices will go down and people wont have enough money to repair when everyone is 50 and starts going spelunking and killing everyone they find in pvp servers.

 

The ONLY positive part of nerfing slicing is that people will get more punished now when you PK them, which is why so many people defend the freaking nerf, because it gives much more power to PKers.

[Iamaborat]

Also, I haven't received a single mission/crafting schematic since this patch has been out (in over 30 rich yield missions) bad luck? maybe......

 

If it's bad luck then I have it to. I actually didn't notice until you mentioned that. I haven't got one schematic!

[ZeckR]

Mission Level Type Cost Yield Profit Companion Special Item

48 AB 1075 1686 611 C2N2 N

50 AB 1485 1740 255 Bowdar N

48 Rich 2025 3168 1143 C2N2 N

50 AB 1485 1731 246 Bowdar N

48 Rich 1930 2588 658 Corso N

48 Rich 2025 2138 113 Bowdar N

48 Rich 1930 2353 423 C2N2 N

50 AB 1485 1844 359 Corso N

48 AB 1075 1398 323 Bowdar N

48 Rich 1930 2058 128 C2N2 N

48 Rich 1930 3154 1224 Bowdar N

48 AB 1075 1210 135 C2N2 N N

50 AB 1485 2076 591 C2N2 N N

50 Mod 1415 1435 20 Bowdar N

48 Rich 1930 2897 967 Bowdar N

50 AB 1485 2959 1474 C2N2 Y

 

Tables don't seem to post well but here is a rundown of 17 missions I ran tonight. The columns should be easy enough to follow. Slicing skill 400, none of my companions have a significant amount of love for me either. If the AH item I sells, a Treasure Hunting Mission Discovery, at full price I will have made a profit of 12342 credits in one evening, plus any additional world boxes I slice for free credits.

 

This may look decent, but 1-2 failures in the mix could put a serious dent in profits.

 

If my numbers are any indicator tho, slicing still pays out. Not nearly as good mind you, but not once did I lose money. If anything, I'd like to see the chance at the extras bumped a little. If those can still sell well, slicing would still be a decent, just not crazy, source of profit.

[Kryptorchid]

Krypto you know you are nuts dont you?

 

Where do you think the money you use for repairs comes from?

 

crafting right? but where do people get the money to buy your crafting items, either from selling their own crafting items or from slicing, but behind those who buy your craft items with craft money, i will guarantee 100% that the people buying from them are slicers, so even the people who craft and buy your crafts, are being financed by slicers.

 

Loot money is poor, you could get a billion grey/white items and they would still only yield 5K after a full day of farming, all the money that flows tru the GTM is a by-product of slicing, if you kill slicing you are killing the market, prices will go down and people wont have enough money to repair when everyone is 50 and starts going spelunking and killing everyone they find in pvp servers.

 

The ONLY positive part of nerfing slicing is that people will get more punished now when you PK them, which is why so many people defend the freaking nerf, because it gives much more power to PKers.

 

I agree that the money Slicing introduced into the economy was good; however, having Slicing be the sole way that money was introduced is bad. It just makes it a required skill. Instead, my suggestion spreads that money around to all professions. So instead of one gathering profession (25%) supplying 100% of the accessory credits, 100% of the gathering professions supply 100% of the accessory credits.

 

That's what I was trying to get across, but for some reason I think you stopped reading when you were halfway done with bullet #1.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Kryptorchid

[HalcyonSunset]

Little background.

 

I'm lvl 33, I hit 370 slicing at lvl 31, (been churning UWT since) have all but one inventory row unlocked, the second bank bay, decked in blues and purps, my companions have numerous blues and it all came from slicing. I have to say, it was a bit OP, but now it's simply useless as a mission skill.

 

Really, as others have said, it shouldn't even have been implemented into the game. A skill who's sole purpose is to acquire straight injected income is counter intuitive to an MMO. I grabbed it as FOTM skill but the whole time it just felt out of place in a game designed around crafting, credit sinks and trading.

 

They should just change the mechanic to a jack of all trades mission skill, where it randomly gives out mats, schematics and items from all crew skills. Make it crit slightly higher than the others and bam, we have our income skill, but with the added benefit of injecting usable stuff into the GTN or your guild..

 

That's my two cents..

[KalenDarkmoon]

I'm REALLY hoping VioletZero is a troll at this point. I refuse to believe that one person can still be this monumentally stupid and still be allowed by society and the government to procreate.

 

Only those that lack the intelligence and wit to argue effectively resort to name calling and ad-hominem attacks. Congratulations, you have proven yourself worthy of that which you proscribed others.

 

Please keep the flames and personal attacks out of this. It contributes nothing but anger and hatred to an already enflamed user base. Keep the Sith behavior in-game please.

[Ichimi]

When i run a grey rich mission and the companion returns and says your gonna like this and I LOOSE money on the mission cost versus the reward, its definately been nerfed too hard.

[MrColdFury]

After looking at the data available, and weighing the options that are possible right now, I went ahead and dropped 400 level slicing on my main (and only) toon. I took slicing because a gathering profession that combined lock picking and computer hacking sounded fun and in character for an Imperial Agent. I wasn't going to get all the crafting mats I needed for Cybertech, but I could use the funds I got from Slicing to buy the Underworld mats I needed.

 

Or so I thought. Mats have been expensive and hard to come by. But still, I was making enough credits to get by on training and save up some for when the mats would be more plentiful, which I assumed would happen as the server economy progressed.

 

Mission's don't sell for much, and Augments are not worth selling at the moment as demand just isn't there. With Slicing hit by a nerf in the range of 70% according to the data I saw, it was in no way a viable option for me to level Cybertech any longer.

 

So today I dropped my 400 level slicing, and picked up Underworld Trading. I had 160k credits, not even enough to buy the level 40 mount training, when I made the switch.

 

I feel somewhat slighted here, as I picked it for in game reasons and it seemed like a smart choice at the time. But because of an over-reactionary nerf, I've had to accommodate reality. Even if Slicing gets buffed back up to a reasonable level, I found that this crazy train was too harsh to ride any longer. I'm upset over dropping a max level skill a week into the game's official release, but what can you do?

[sneakymousetrap]

I think what's missing from this discussion is a statement out of BW. I'm most interested in what levels they were trying to bring Slicing to, and it's hard to read these comments without immediately assigning a pro- or anti-slicing bias to the commenters.

 

Basically, where does BW think slicing should be? Should it be break even, then you profit on schematics? Should it be making money outright? Was it nerfed because the average slicer was making too much, or because the 8 character guys were making too much?

 

These are important questions because they inform the reasonable solutions. I tend to believe that a goal in games like this is to maintain balanced counts in all crafting professions - make sure that everything has (maybe very) roughly the same appeal and expected value. I tend not to believe that the patch was a knee jerk reaction to complaints - that's not really a way to do design, and I think that BW knows that. Besides, there are reasonable ways to do these things.

 

I do wish that Bioware would take a page out of Riot's playbook and do YouTube videos explaining patch notes. Some notion of why a very good profession has suddenly become below average (which I think is a reasonable assertion) would be helpful. Additionally, it would be nice if the target expected value was published in the patch notes - what should slicers expect from "Rewards from Slicing have been reduced to bring them into balance with other skills"?

[Pansophist]

I think what's missing from this discussion is a statement out of BW. I'm most interested in what levels they were trying to bring Slicing to, and it's hard to read these comments without immediately assigning a pro- or anti-slicing bias to the commenters.

 

Basically, where does BW think slicing should be? Should it be break even, then you profit on schematics? Should it be making money outright? Was it nerfed because the average slicer was making too much, or because the 8 character guys were making too much?

 

These are important questions because they inform the reasonable solutions. I tend to believe that a goal in games like this is to maintain balanced counts in all crafting professions - make sure that everything has (maybe very) roughly the same appeal and expected value. I tend not to believe that the patch was a knee jerk reaction to complaints - that's not really a way to do design, and I think that BW knows that. Besides, there are reasonable ways to do these things.

 

I do wish that Bioware would take a page out of Riot's playbook and do YouTube videos explaining patch notes. Some notion of why a very good profession has suddenly become below average (which I think is a reasonable assertion) would be helpful. Additionally, it would be nice if the target expected value was published in the patch notes - what should slicers expect from "Rewards from Slicing have been reduced to bring them into balance with other skills"?

 

Yes, they keep closing other threads to point them here.

 

My hope is they are actually thinking about the decision this time around to 'balance it.'

[Shimlock]

At this point I say they just completely remove slicing to much controversy and tbh it just doesnt do anything that makes it unique you get credits for clicking a button not a very good set up. Also augments are already crafted by Artfices so making slicing have that draws from that crafting skill. They could just pay everyone who has slicing a set amount per level like 100 creds per level or some thing like that OR Better yet let them switch to one gather or mission skill of there choice although that sounds a bit harder to do then just un nerf it a bit. Edited December 28, 2011 by Shimlock

[Diaselos]

They nerfed slicing so all the Chinese credit farmers can destroy the game!

[vavaud]

First the level of the Nerf was to much, a 25-30% would have been okay... but the level that i have been seeing... it just makes no scene to take on a crew skill (since we only get three...) that will not help you earn money for have lack of a gathering/trade/mission.

 

Remove the Nerf and change it to some like 25% less than before the patch.

 

 

 

because now with the gathering i have been doing i could sell it at a low cost... but now i need to raise my price by 100% to keep my level of income going.

[swtorxpand]

picture this-

 

everyone is rich, nobody's poor. everyone can buy ANYTHING they want.

from repair bills to epic gears sold in GTN.

credits so abundant, we can actually just own anything as long as people have the supply to sell.

 

everyone is so rich, that companies trying to sell credits are merely pointless attempt. thus no credits selling websites spamming the General chat every 1 min.

 

everyone is so rich that we can simply go to GTN and buy anything we want, thus, credits spent are credits received to another player and thus making everyone richer.

 

face the facts. when u have a nice steady flow of income at our fingertips of pressing a button. the game becomes more interesting and fun. we play longer. because the rewards are achievable. not the other way around where we need to kill 20,000 boars to buy an epic that's gonna be replaced in a few weeks times from another new patch.

 

gold sink time sink, whatever u wanna call it. there's nothing wrong with players with too much credits. when everyone reaches a credit cap, or just insanely rich.. nobody wants to buy credits from those chinese farmers ...

when everyone is full of credits, quality of life becomes much better.

 

imagine this:

 

you are a millionaire and u can buy anything u want for your life . is it bad for the country (game)?

u're still paying taxes (repair bills), u're buying stuff from people who sells them (GTN), thus making them richer. u're rich.. why are u still borrowing money from the banks (SUSANLOL XPRESS), therefore they won't survive long.

 

just my 2 cents..

[Xersis]

Well that is kind a disappointing when they nerf a profession... omg please don't turn this game into a SUPER NERF fest seriously stop it. I left the last game because of the many nerfing they did to it!! Ugh! Edited December 28, 2011 by Xersis

[swtorxpand]

because now with the gathering i have been doing i could sell it at a low cost... but now i need to raise my price by 100% to keep my level of income going.

 

^ is what i mean...people now are selling at a higher to keep his level of income going...

 

but now that everyone is poor... who's gonna buy? probably they rather find themselves by gathering.. people sees this prices are outrageous, therefore they rather farm themselves, then suddenly GTN have alot of these items and then the undercutting begins..

is this how u think a healthy economy is?

 

sigh...

[Thanatosx]

...u're still paying taxes (repair bills), u're buying stuff from people who sells them (GTN), thus making them richer. u're rich.. why are u still borrowing money from the banks (SUSANLOL XPRESS), therefore they won't survive long.

 

just my 2 cents..

 

Now the gold farmers have their "IN" and just like with every other game people who have more cash then time to grind for credits will buy from them.

[Verlaine_]

Slicing IMOP is just too hard to balance. The main point behind slicing was to offset the cost of a gathering profession, so that instead of gathering the mats, you would purchase them on the AH.

 

The only problem is that since the game is new the economy hasn't stabilized. No one has any clue on what to post items for... that and the crappy AH interface. Slicing's ROI was too great for the current economy and this was allowing players with that skill the ability to amass great wealth, compared to players who did not take slicing.

 

Do I think the nerf went a little too far? Yes I do, but BW was doing the correct thing by taking it down some. They just went a little overboard, I think a 30% reduction would have helped stabilize the numbers a little better.