Treasure Hunting STEALTH nerf!

[Rolodome]

Same here.

And if everyone does it, the market will be flooded and there goes your profit.

 

Not only that, but doing so goes against the design intent of gathering and mission skills.

So a skill called "treasure hunting" wasn't intended to potentially get you a little profit? Come on man, their given reason was to "bring it in line with other crew skills," but that's just a reason given after the fact.

 

My guess is, people were adding too much unintended money to the game because it had become such a prominent complaint due to that monster thread (e.g. the complaints were drawing more attention to the skill, thus more were using it). This doesn't mean, however, that lockboxes weren't intended to make you a little money back. What's likely is that people were never intended to make so much profit from it so fast. The idea that they 'accidentally' let people make a little profit (as opposed to giving them back a little, but not enough to profit) doesn't make sense, considering how heavy-handed the nerf was.

 

But nerfs usually go too far, so that part of it is not surprising. I think the way they did it was bringing in a two-ton brick to kill an ant, but it may have been a matter of "we're going to nerf this so hard that there's no way they'll find a way to make it an issue again."

 

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the skill revisited far in the future, with a tiny little tweak or two to give it back some of its former life. Just not enough to let it ever be an issue. Sometimes it's considered more important to drop the hammer now to stop the stampede and pick up the pieces later, when there's time to look at it more keenly.

[AlrikFassbauer]

I wonder what goes on in the minds of those who call Treasure Huinting "the mot useless crew skill" now, after that nerf. I mean, is it really everything about the money, nothing but ?

 

Is this typical capitalist transforming of something initially innocent into something that gets exploited for the greatest amnount of money ? Do we really HAVE TO trtansform EVERYTHING into something that generates money ? Is this the course of the world ? Where does it end ? There are rumors of the bodies of dead prisoners getting sold for money. There still does exist Slavery in some countries. In brothels, people sell their bodies. Because every human's body contains materials which are valuable for other people. Where does this "transforming everything into something that can generate money" end ? In the U.S. , thoughts can already be sold. Yes, they are merely called "intellectual property", but in fact they are thoughts. So, now, thoughts have become mere wares as well. What comes next ?

 

And, calling Treasure Hunting "the most useless skill" is a very much utilitarian approach. Fun must not exist.

[psandak]

And if everyone does it, the market will be flooded and there goes your profit.

Not really, because there are so many artifice items to craft that I do not even involve myself in half of them. I would simply adapt to the market...like I always have and continue to profit.

 

So a skill called "treasure hunting" wasn't intended to potentially get you a little profit? Come on man, their given reason was to "bring it in line with other crew skills," but that's just a reason given after the fact.

"treasure hunting" can mean a LOT of things. You do realize that the materials missions generate "gemstones" right? You can get those "gemstones" and then sell them on the GTN...like how all other "pure gatherers" do with what they get from gathering and mission skills.

 

A part of me hopes that one day they eliminate slicing and TH lockboxes altogether. Fact is that the TH lockbox loot is crap anyway and is vendored 99% of the time. Slicing lockboxes are a little dicier because they do generate discovered missions which are important (although if they went away too I do not think it would be catastrophic). Maybe a fix would be akin to gift missions - add tiers of discovered missions:

 

• green = bountiful crit results (i.e. 8 green of one type of gathered material or 5 blue 2 purple of mission material), blue = rich crit results (i.e. 10 green of one type of gathered material or 7 blue 3 purple of mission material),
  
• purple = wealthy as they are now (16 of both gathered materials or 10 blue and 4 purple, plus a grade 5 gift).
  

 

So you run a slicing "lockbox" mission and you get a random discovered mission, but the quality of that mission varies.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the skill revisited far in the future, with a tiny little tweak or two to give it back some of its former life. Just not enough to let it ever be an issue. Sometimes it's considered more important to drop the hammer now to stop the stampede and pick up the pieces later, when there's time to look at it more keenly.

Honestly, me either.

[Vercundus]

Even though TH missions are primarily intended to get gemstones, I found myself in a situation that most of my purple mats, not just gemstones, come from wealthy missions generated by slicing.

[Tsetso]

I'm slightly surprised that BioWare don't simply remove lockboxes from TH / Slicing altogether, either that or have those lockboxes only produce materials and gathering missions in varying quantity / quality depending on the skill in question (and the occasional orange / purple armour shell)

 

Zero credits on both.

 

I wouldn't take issue with it, there are other gathering missions if your intent is to get companion gifts. The gathering missions shouldn't be a source of primary income within the game, unless you are straight out selling purple materials on the GTN and not using them for crafting (in which case it wouldn't break the economy, and if set right would make crafted items cheaper to buy).

 

As for the comment above about going for credit sellers? BioWare clearly have, it's down to players to run the gathering missions as they were intended to be run, not generate credits in the same manner as the credit sellers.

 

Could work but in order to stop bots they need to remove the credit gain from all materials. If only slicing is nerfed bots will gather whatever nodes they find and just vendor the materials. So the vendor price on all materials should be 0.

[easyandrew]

well,,how else are we supposed to get what we want without spending real money this issue alone ticked me off I stopped coming for a month and let my sub go

Andrew

[psandak]

well,,how else are we supposed to get what we want without spending real money this issue alone ticked me off I stopped coming for a month and let my sub go

Andrew

 

Let me get this straight...

 

You believe the ONLY way to make credits to "get what you want" was to run TH missions?

 

/shudder

 

THAT'S why it was nerfed. You are exhibit A. TH was never intended to be a credits spigot

[Vercundus]

well,,how else are we supposed to get what we want without spending real money this issue alone ticked me off I stopped coming for a month and let my sub go

Andrew

 

How about to play the game and earn from rewards? Sure, it's slow, takes time and patience, but guess what, this game is designed to be long.

 

I'm just curious, how is spending real money guarantee that you'll get what you want in game?

[PlagaNerezza]

Then you ain't crafting right

 

Not going to give away secrets but you really need to look again at EVERY crafting skill.

 

FYI 99% of what I craft for profit (across all crafting skills) is trained, or trained and RE, or a rep vendor schematic (no need to run ops ever). While I do have a significant number of ops level schematics, I do not bother to craft them for profit because on those you are right...it is cheaper to buy them off the GTN than to craft them. I have TWO color crystal schematics from ops I got before 4.0 (which btw you cannot get the schematics anymore), that I craft regularly but guess what, a lot of the time, they ain't any more valuable on the GTN than the color crystals I craft from trained schematics.

 

That being said, I am firm believer in quantity over quality. I would rather sell a hundred items that cost me 10k to 20k to make at 30k to 50k each, then try to sell 1 one million+ credit item that cost me 950k to make.

 

So about 2 million grosses you between 1 and 4 million or you double you money. I understand.

 

I think what the poster was saying is what I tend to feel. The materials I find sell for more than the items when appropriately done. So you can get a 50% margin on some crafted items. More depending, but I have a lot more stability and margin on materials. I find the return rate to be much higher then 50% for materials. The cost to harvest/acquire them is probably 10% of the sales price, leaving you with 90% margin. If I turn those mats into a product I have lost that margin.

 

A rich yield mission on a high level companion while yield about 100 mats easily without botting. You are looking at something like 1-3 million on the mats if done appropriately. Cost to acquire those mats is maybe 100k.

 

I take a little bit of issue with your math to a small extent in that you aren't really disclosing some time/costs in crafting. For the average player I recommend simply running UT and Slicing and selling the purple mats and missions. You'll come out ahead.

 

I'm doing pretty good on the high end these days. Packs and Some rares are generating a big margin. I am not at your 500+ million mark, but I'll be getting closer to you soon enough.

[psandak]

I take a little bit of issue with your math to a small extent in that you aren't really disclosing some time/costs in crafting. For the average player I recommend simply running UT and Slicing and selling the purple mats and missions. You'll come out ahead.

 

OK. Here's an example:

 

Artifice Advanced Blue <insert type here> color crystal requires:

• 2 rubat artifice bonded attachments which require (like all "components") 2 of each gathering material for the grade.
  
• I have the amorphous blue crystal deco so it takes me 15 seconds to get the power crystals and artifact fragments (a combination of 10 or 11: 4/6, 5/5/ 6/4, 5/6, 6/5) the vendor material costs 10 credits off the vendor so I do not run the mission.
  
• It takes about 90 seconds to craft two bonded attachments
  
• I now need 8 blue amorphous color crystals which I got 6 of from the 15 seconds of gathering from the deco, so I need 2. I buy them off the GTN. Last time I bought them they cost me 500 credits each.
  
• So far I have spent 1040 credits
  
• I now need 1 TH purple gemstone and 4 TH blue gemstones (the names escape me). I run four grade 1 TH missions at 95 credits each with four rank 20+ companions. on average I get one crit which nets at least 2 if not 3 purple materials. These missions take about 2 minutes.
  
• So I have now spent 1420 credits to acquire the materials I need
  
• Since color crystals no longer generate extras on a crit (since 4.0) I craft them on a rank 10 companion. So it takes about 20 minutes to craft the Advanced Blue <type> color crystal
  
• GTN value at the low end is 30k...and average 50k
  

so for roughly 30 minutes of missions and crafting (a lot of which is done simultaneously) and roughly 1500 credits...I make 28200. That's a 1880% margin at the low end.

 

How about a more "normal" one:

• rating 200 lethal mod 40
  
• Again two components which take 2 of each metals, compounds, and vendor mat (in this case I DO run the vendor mat mission with a high influence rank companion but even with a non-crit, the cost is less than half that of buying the materials off the vendor). The cost to acquire these materials from missions is roughly 450 each. 450*12=5400.
  
• I also need 4 UWT blue materials, the missions for these cost the same but generate fewer materials (but on a crit generate materials I would sell. But just for argument's sake call it 450 each as well: which brings the total to 7200.
  
• I sell them for 35k so BEFORE crits its a 486% margin.
  

 

I can get you more specific math for the above later.

 

However in more general terms: I have 12 characters I use for crew skills: 6 crafters (1 of each) and 6 "gatherers" (gathering and mission skills). When I was working crew skills more regularly (I have slowed down in the last few months) I would spend 20 - 25 minutes working crew skills 10 times a week. "working crew skills" involved the following:

 

1. logging into a character
   
2. checking mail (collecting credits for sales and items that expired)
   
3. dropping components and materials into legacy vault
   
4. sending companions on missions or crafting
   
5. posting what expired and what I crafted last pass to the GTN
   
6. log out
   

rinse and repeat 12 times

Gatherers take less time because the most time consuming step - posting to the GTN - is not done (usually about a minute)

My two most time consuming crafters are biochem (because I sell stims in stacks of one and it takes time to break up the stack and post 20+ of a given type to the GTN) and artifice (because I have so many distinct items)

 

All-in-all I would spend 3.5 to 4 hours a week "working crew skills" and each week I would average net 10 million credits across my legacy. Currently I spend about half that time, and make about half as much: 1.75 to 2 hours a week to make 5 million credits. Name me another aspect of this game that can net 44,444 credits per minute.

[PlagaNerezza]

Universal mk-2 and mk-3's. Pretty close math by my internal.

 

Thank you for the details. I could always tell you do your homework on crafting.

 

I run Rich Yield UT and Rich Yield Slicing. I can do an easy 1-2 million on materials and missions. Selling in small batches is my most lucrative method. Lots of 10 do well since people either cannot access a lot of credits or don't like to spend a lot if say they want to craft 1 Universal mk-2 and don't want to bother leveling archeology or investigation.

 

Which I find crazy since level crafting skills now is a joke, but they still pay pretty good. I'll do 100 lots on the purples sometimes. I sell the blues in 1000 lots for a low price but at 1000 its like 500k at 500 per unit.

 

I use the green dia... for my crafting harvesting of greens. I also will do a 100-500 run on green mats occassionally if I need them. Usually doing the heroics on like Voss or the dailies on Yavin get you bonus of credits and materials you need.

 

You can make a mint harvesting on Odessen. Turn them into the green required and GTN those. They sell at a hefty margin compared to the materials costs. I find at least those sell good.

[UmbralSpirit]

Secondly, I agree with the nerf.

 

In other words, you are supporting credit sellers....very interesting.

[psandak]

In other words, you are supporting credit sellers....very interesting.

NO!!!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT UNEQUIVOCALLY NOT!!!!

 

read the rest of my posts here. TH was making credits the WRONG WAY. Now it makes credits the RIGHT WAY.

 

WRONG WAY = spend credits to run a mission, in return get more credits than what you put in.

RIGHT WAY = spend credits to run a mission, in return get STUFF that you can sell for more than what it cost to run the mission. You know, LIKE EVERY OTHER GATHERING AND MISSION CREW SKILL

Edited September 15, 2016 by psandak

[therecanonlybeon]

or they could just buff other things to the point both would take same effort to get same amount of profit... but nah, nerf hammer is better

[UmbralSpirit]

NO!!!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT UNEQUIVOCALLY NOT!!!!

 

But that is what you are doing when you support the constant credit nerfs even if you are unaware of it, the truth is the credit sellers WANT everything to be nerfed as it increases the demand for credits and drives more people into their arms.

 

 

WRONG WAY = spend credits to run a mission, in return get more credits than what you put in.

RIGHT WAY = spend credits to run a mission, in return get STUFF that you can sell for more than what it cost to run the mission. You know, LIKE EVERY OTHER GATHERING AND MISSION CREW SKILL

 

There isn't really a wrong or right way you claimed that the purpose of TH is solely to provide mats for artifice yet 66% of all TH missions have nothing to do with gems, if the only thing of enough value left to make up for the mission costs are the mats then the market for mats becomes supersaturated which helps noone.

 

Let's be fair, people would probably complain less about the credit nerf if the devs wouldn't constantly interfere with the economy, in the past you could actually sell at least the prototype and modable gear from TH the introduction of free level'd gear pretty much ruined that, even companion gifts got you a nice profit, now you get them for pretty much free on odessen.

[psandak]

But that is what you are doing when you support the constant credit nerfs even if you are unaware of it, the truth is the credit sellers WANT everything to be nerfed as it increases the demand for credits and drives more people into their arms.

 

So what you are saying is because I am for a nerf that was done to take a method of botting AWAY from credit spammers...I am supporting credit spammers? HUH?!?!?

 

There isn't really a wrong or right way you claimed that the purpose of TH is solely to provide mats for artifice yet 66% of all TH missions have nothing to do with gems, if the only thing of enough value left to make up for the mission costs are the mats then the market for mats becomes supersaturated which helps noone.

 

Only two missions per grade are lockbox missions, how do you get 66%?....OH you are not including the moderate and abundant missions that you feel are completely worthless because they do not provide PURPLE materials. Well, sorry to disappoint but blue TH materials are in fact quite valuable on the GTN. I run the abundant missions quite often because I do not want to pay GTN prices

 

Let's be fair, people would probably complain less about the credit nerf if the devs wouldn't constantly interfere with the economy, in the past you could actually sell at least the prototype and modable gear from TH the introduction of free level'd gear pretty much ruined that, even companion gifts got you a nice profit, now you get them for pretty much free on odessen.

 

so 30 common data crystals EACH (for gifts) is now free huh? /sarcasm: Where do you get your hundreds of common data crystals a day to say that?